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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:26:15 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5823-h.zip b/5823-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..60f51ba --- /dev/null +++ b/5823-h.zip diff --git a/5823-h/5823-h.htm b/5823-h/5823-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6a1bf1 --- /dev/null +++ b/5823-h/5823-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3098 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>THE GILDED AGE, By Twain and Warner, Part 6</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>THE GILDED AGE, Part 6</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 6. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gilded Age, Part 6. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5823] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 6. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<br><hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + +<center><h1>THE GILDED AGE</h1> +</center> +<center><h3>A Tale of Today</h3> +</center> +<center><h2>by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner</h2> +</center> +<center><h3>1873</h3> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center><h3>Part 6.</h3></center> + +<br><br> + + +<center><a name="Bookcover"></a><img alt="Bookcover.jpg (118K)" src="images/Bookcover.jpg" height="1028" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<a name="Frontpiece"></a><center><img alt="Frontpiece.jpg (96K)" src="images/Frontpiece.jpg" height="863" width="571"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<center><a name="Titlepage"></a><img alt="Titlepage.jpg (38K)" src="images/Titlepage.jpg" height="993" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<center><h2>CONTENTS</h2> +</center> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> + +<a href="#ch46">CHAPTER XLVI</a><br> +Disappearance of Laura, and Murder of Col. Selby in New York +<br><br> +<a href="#ch47">CHAPTER XLVII</a> <br> +Laura in the Tombs and Her Visitors +<br><br> +<a href="#ch48">CHAPTER XLVIII</a> <br> +Mr Bolton Says Yes Again—Philip Returns to the Mines +<br><br> +<a href="#ch49">CHAPTER XLIX</a> <br> +The Coal Vein Found and Lost Again—Philip and the Boltons—Elated and +Then Cruelly Disappointed 443 +<br><br> +<a href="#ch50">CHAPTER L</a><br> +Philip Visits Fallkill and Proposes Studying Law With Mr Montague—The +Squire Invests in the Mine—Ruth Declares Her Love for Philip +<br><br> +<a href="#ch51">CHAPTER LI</a><br> +Col Sellers Enlightens Washington Hawkins on the Customs of Congress +<br><br> +<a href="#ch52">CHAPTER LII</a><br> +How Senator Dilworthy Advanced Washington's Interests +<br><br> +<a href="#ch53">CHAPTER LIII</a><br> +Senator Dilworthy Goes West to See About His Re—election—He Becomes +a Shining Light +<br><br> +<a href="#ch54">CHAPTER LIV</a><br> +The Trial of Laura for Murder + +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br><br> + + + + +<center><h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</center> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + +155. <a href="#p417">SENATOR DILWORTHY TRANQUIL</a> <br> +156. <a href="#p418">"SHE AIN'T DAH, SAR"</a><br> +157. <a href="#p422">AS THE WITNESSES DESCRIBED IT</a> <br> +158. <a href="#p423">THE LEARNED DOCTORS</a> <br> +159. <a href="#p424">IMPORTANT BUSINESS</a> <br> +160. <a href="#p428">COL. SELLERS AND WASHINGTON IN LAURA'S CELL</a> <br> +161. <a href="#p429">PROMISED PATRONAGE</a> <br> +162. <a href="#p432">NO LOVE LIKE A MOTHER'S</a> <br> +163. <a href="#p435">CLEANED OUT BUT NOT CRUSHED</a> <br> +164. <a href="#p441">THE LANDLORD TAKING LESSONS</a> <br> +165. <a href="#p442">TAILPIECE</a> <br> +166. <a href="#p444">"WE'VE STRUCK IT"</a> <br> +167. <a href="#p448">THE MINE AT ILIUM</a> <br> +168. <a href="#p451">THE HERMIT</a> <br> +169. <a href="#p452">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +110. <a href="#p455">ONE CHANCE OPEN</a> <br> +171. <a href="#p456">WHAT HE EXPECTED TO BE</a> <br> +172. <a href="#p459">ALAS! POOR ALICE</a> <br> +173. <a href="#p460">HOW HE WAS DRAWN IN</a> <br> +174. <a href="#p463">EVERYTHING</a> <br> +175. <a href="#p464">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +176. <a href="#p470">"COME NOW, LETS CHEER UP"</a><br> +177. <a href="#p474">A SHINING EXAMPLE</a><br> +178. <a href="#p478">THE SEWING SOCIETY DODGE</a> <br> +179. <a href="#p480">DILWORTHY ADDRESSES A SUNDAY SCHOOL</a> <br> +180. <a href="#p483">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +181. <a href="#p487">THE JUDGE</a> <br> +182. <a href="#p488">LAURA ON TRIAL</a> <br> +183. <a href="#p489">MICHAEL LANIGAN</a> <br> +184. <a href="#p490">PATRICK COUGHLIN</a> <br> +185. <a href="#p491">ETHAN DOBB</a> <br> +186. <a href="#p492">MR HICKS</a> <br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch46"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Philip left the capitol and walked up Pennsylvania Avenue in company with +Senator Dilworthy. It was a bright spring morning, the air was soft and +inspiring; in the deepening wayside green, the pink flush of the +blossoming peach trees, the soft suffusion on the heights of Arlington, +and the breath of the warm south wind was apparent, the annual miracle of +the resurrection of the earth.</p> + +<p>The Senator took off his hat and seemed to open his soul to the sweet +influences of the morning. After the heat and noise of the chamber, +under its dull gas-illuminated glass canopy, and the all night struggle +of passion and feverish excitement there, the open, tranquil world seemed +like Heaven. The Senator was not in an exultant mood, but rather in a +condition of holy joy, befitting a Christian statesman whose benevolent +plans Providence has made its own and stamped with approval. The great +battle had been fought, but the measure had still to encounter the +scrutiny of the Senate, and Providence sometimes acts differently in the +two Houses. Still the Senator was tranquil, for he knew that there is an +esprit de corps in the Senate which does not exist in the House, the +effect of which is to make the members complaisant towards the projects +of each other, and to extend a mutual aid which in a more vulgar body +would be called "log-rolling."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p417"></a><img alt="p417.jpg (26K)" src="images/p417.jpg" height="317" width="437"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"It is, under Providence, a good night's work, Mr. Sterling. The +government has founded an institution which will remove half the +difficulty from the southern problem. And it is a good thing for the +Hawkins heirs, a very good thing. Laura will be almost a millionaire."</p> + +<p>"Do you think, Mr. Dilworthy, that the Hawkinses will get much of the +money?" asked Philip innocently, remembering the fate of the Columbus +River appropriation.</p> + +<p>The Senator looked at his companion scrutinizingly for a moment to see if +he meant any thing personal, and then replied,</p> + +<p>"Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. I have had their interests greatly at heart. +There will of course be a few expenses, but the widow and orphans will +realize all that Mr. Hawkins, dreamed of for them."</p> + +<p>The birds were singing as they crossed the Presidential Square, now +bright with its green turf and tender foliage. After the two had gained +the steps of the Senator's house they stood a moment, looking upon the +lovely prospect:</p> + +<p>"It is like the peace of God," said the Senator devoutly.</p> + +<p>Entering the house, the Senator called a servant and said, "Tell Miss +Laura that we are waiting to see her. I ought to have sent a messenger +on horseback half an hour ago," he added to Philip, "she will be +transported with our victory. You must stop to breakfast, and see the +excitement." The servant soon came back, with a wondering look and +reported,</p> + +<p>"Miss Laura ain't dah, sah. I reckon she hain't been dah all night!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p418"></a><img alt="p418.jpg (24K)" src="images/p418.jpg" height="467" width="285"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The Senator and Philip both started up. In Laura's room there were the +marks of a confused and hasty departure, drawers half open, little +articles strewn on the floor. The bed had not been disturbed. Upon +inquiry it appeared that Laura had not been at dinner, excusing herself +to Mrs. Dilworthy on the plea of a violent headache; that she made a +request to the servants that she might not be disturbed.</p> + +<p>The Senator was astounded. Philip thought at once of Col. Selby. Could +Laura have run away with him? The Senator thought not. In fact it could +not be. Gen. Leffenwell, the member from New Orleans, had casually told +him at the house last night that Selby and his family went to New York +yesterday morning and were to sail for Europe to-day.</p> + +<p>Philip had another idea which, he did not mention. He seized his hat, +and saying that he would go and see what he could learn, ran to the +lodgings of Harry; whom he had not seen since yesterday afternoon, when +he left him to go to the House.</p> + +<p>Harry was not in. He had gone out with a hand-bag before six o'clock +yesterday, saying that he had to go to New York, but should return next +day. In Harry's-room on the table Philip found this note:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + "Dear Mr. Brierly:—Can you meet me at the six o'clock train, + and be my escort to New York? I have to go about this + University bill, the vote of an absent member we must have + here, Senator Dilworthy cannot go. +<br><br> Yours, L. H." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>"Confound it," said Phillip, "the noodle has fallen into her trap. And +she promised she would let him alone."</p> + +<p>He only stopped to send a note to Senator Dilworthy, telling him what he +had found, and that he should go at once to New York, and then hastened +to the railway station. He had to wait an hour for a train, and when it +did start it seemed to go at a snail's pace.</p> + +<p>Philip was devoured with anxiety. Where could they, have gone? What was +Laura's object in taking Harry? Had the flight anything to do with +Selby? Would Harry be such a fool as to be dragged into some public +scandal?</p> + +<p>It seemed as if the train would never reach Baltimore. Then there was a +long delay at Havre de Grace. A hot box had to be cooled at Wilmington. +Would it never get on? Only in passing around the city of Philadelphia +did the train not seem to go slow. Philip stood upon the platform and +watched for the Boltons' house, fancied he could distinguish its roof +among the trees, and wondered how Ruth would feel if she knew he was so +near her.</p> + +<p>Then came Jersey, everlasting Jersey, stupid irritating Jersey, where the +passengers are always asking which line they are on, and where they are +to come out, and whether they have yet reached Elizabeth. Launched into +Jersey, one has a vague notion that he is on many lines and no one in +particular, and that he is liable at any moment to come to Elizabeth. +He has no notion what Elizabeth is, and always resolves that the next +time he goes that way, he will look out of the window and see what it is +like; but he never does. Or if he does, he probably finds that it is +Princeton or something of that sort. He gets annoyed, and never can see +the use of having different names for stations in Jersey. By and by. +there is Newark, three or four Newarks apparently; then marshes; then +long rock cuttings devoted to the advertisements of 'patent medicines and +ready-made, clothing, and New York tonics for Jersey agues, and Jersey +City is reached.</p> + +<p>On the ferry-boat Philip bought an evening paper from a boy crying +"'Ere's the Evening Gram, all about the murder," and with breathless +haste—ran his eyes over the following:</p> +<br><br> + <center> <h2>SHOCKING MURDER!!!</h2></center> + + <center><h3>TRAGEDY IN HIGH LIFE!! <br><br> A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN SHOOTS A DISTINGUISHED<br> + CONFEDERATE SOLDIER AT THE SOUTHERN HOTEL!!! <br><br> JEALOUSY THE CAUSE!!!</h3></center> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<br> + This morning occurred another of those shocking murders which have + become the almost daily food of the newspapers, the direct result of + the socialistic doctrines and woman's rights agitations, which have + made every woman the avenger of her own wrongs, and all society the + hunting ground for her victims. +<br><br> + About nine o'clock a lady deliberately shot a man dead in the public + parlor of the Southern Hotel, coolly remarking, as she threw down + her revolver and permitted herself to be taken into custody, "He + brought it on himself." Our reporters were immediately dispatched + to the scene of the tragedy, and gathered the following particulars. +<br><br> + Yesterday afternoon arrived at the hotel from Washington, Col. + George Selby and family, who had taken passage and were to sail at + noon to-day in the steamer Scotia for England. The Colonel was a + handsome man about forty, a gentleman Of wealth and high social + position, a resident of New Orleans. He served with distinction in + the confederate army, and received a wound in the leg from which he + has never entirely recovered, being obliged to use a cane in + locomotion. +<br><br> + This morning at about nine o'clock, a lady, accompanied by a + gentleman, called at the office Of the hotel and asked for Col. + Selby. The Colonel was at breakfast. Would the clerk tell him that + a lady and gentleman wished to see him for a moment in the parlor? + The clerk says that the gentleman asked her, "What do you want to + see him for?" and that she replied, "He is going to Europe, and I + ought to just say good by." +<br><br> + Col. Selby was informed; and the lady and gentleman were shown to + the parlor, in which were at the time three or four other persons. + Five minutes after two shots were fired in quick succession, and + there was a rush to the parlor from which the reports came. +<br><br> + Col. Selby was found lying on the floor, bleeding, but not dead. + Two gentlemen, who had just come in, had seized the lady, who made + no resistance, and she was at once given in charge of a police + officer who arrived. The persons who were in the parlor agree + substantially as to what occurred. They had happened to be looking + towards the door when the man—Col. Selby—entered with his cane, + and they looked at him, because he stopped as if surprised and + frightened, and made a backward movement. At the same moment the + lady in the bonnet advanced towards him and said something like, + "George, will you go with me?" He replied, throwing up his hand and + retreating, "My God I can't, don't fire," and the next instants two + shots were heard and he fell. The lady appeared to be beside + herself with rage or excitement, and trembled very much when the + gentlemen took hold of her; it was to them she said, "He brought it + on himself." +<br><br> + Col. Selby was carried at once to his room and Dr. Puffer, the + eminent surgeon was sent for. It was found that he was shot through + the breast and through the abdomen. Other aid was summoned, but the + wounds were mortal, and Col Selby expired in an hour, in pain, but + his mind was clear to the last and he made a full deposition. The + substance of it was that his murderess is a Miss Laura Hawkins, whom + he had known at Washington as a lobbyist and had some business with + her. She had followed him with her attentions and solicitations, + and had endeavored to make him desert his wife and go to Europe with + her. When he resisted and avoided her she had threatened him. Only + the day before he left Washington she had declared that he should + never go out of the city alive without her. +<br><br> + It seems to have been a deliberate and premeditated murder, the + woman following him to Washington on purpose to commit it. +<br><br> + We learn that the, murderess, who is a woman of dazzling and + transcendent beauty and about twenty six or seven, is a niece of + Senator Dilworthy at whose house she has been spending the winter. + She belongs to a high Southern family, and has the reputation of + being an heiress. Like some other great beauties and belles in + Washington however there have been whispers that she had something + to do with the lobby. If we mistake not we have heard her name + mentioned in connection with the sale of the Tennessee Lands to the + Knobs University, the bill for which passed the House last night. +<br><br> + Her companion is Mr. Harry Brierly, a New York dandy, who has been + in Washington. His connection with her and with this tragedy is not + known, but he was also taken into custody, and will be detained at + least as a witness. +<br><br> + P. S. One of the persons present in the parlor says that after + Laura Hawkins had fired twice, she turned the pistol towards + herself, but that Brierly sprung and caught it from her hand, and + that it was he who threw it on the floor. +<br><br> + Further particulars with full biographies of all the parties in our + next edition. +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Philip hastened at once to the Southern Hotel, where he found still a +great state of excitement, and a thousand different and exaggerated +stories passing from mouth to mouth. The witnesses of the event had told +it over so many time that they had worked it up into a most dramatic +scene, and embellished it with whatever could heighten its awfulness. +Outsiders had taken up invention also. The Colonel's wife had gone +insane, they said. The children had rushed into the parlor and rolled +themselves in their father's blood. The hotel clerk said that he noticed +there was murder in the woman's eye when he saw her. A person who had +met the woman on the stairs felt a creeping sensation. Some thought +Brierly was an accomplice, and that he had set the woman on to kill his +rival. Some said the woman showed the calmness and indifference of +insanity.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p422"></a><img alt="p422.jpg (38K)" src="images/p422.jpg" height="465" width="535"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Philip learned that Harry and Laura had both been taken to the city +prison, and he went there; but he was not admitted. Not being a +newspaper reporter, he could not see either of them that night; but the +officer questioned him suspiciously and asked him who he was. He might +perhaps see Brierly in the morning.</p> + +<p>The latest editions of the evening papers had the result of the inquest. +It was a plain enough case for the jury, but they sat over it a long +time, listening to the wrangling of the physicians. Dr. Puffer insisted +that the man died from the effects of the wound in the chest. Dr. Dobb +as strongly insisted that the wound in the abdomen caused death. Dr. +Golightly suggested that in his opinion death ensued from a complication +of the two wounds and perhaps other causes. He examined the table +waiter, as to whether Col. Selby ate any breakfast, and what he ate, and +if he had any appetite.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p423"></a><img alt="p423.jpg (30K)" src="images/p423.jpg" height="321" width="579"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The jury finally threw themselves back upon the indisputable fact that +Selby was dead, that either wound would have killed him (admitted by the +doctors), and rendered a verdict that he died from pistol-shot wounds +inflicted by a pistol in the hands of Laura Hawkins.</p> + +<p>The morning papers blazed with big type, and overflowed with details of +the murder. The accounts in the evening papers were only the premonitory +drops to this mighty shower. The scene was dramatically worked up in +column after column. There were sketches, biographical and historical. +There were long "specials" from Washington, giving a full history of +Laura's career there, with the names of men with whom she was said to be +intimate, a description of Senator Dilworthy's residence and of his +family, and of Laura's room in his house, and a sketch of the Senator's +appearance and what he said. There was a great deal about her beauty, +her accomplishments and her brilliant position in society, and her +doubtful position in society. There was also an interview with Col. +Sellers and another with Washington Hawkins, the brother of the +murderess. One journal had a long dispatch from Hawkeye, reporting the +excitement in that quiet village and the reception of the awful +intelligence.</p> + +<p>All the parties had been "interviewed." There were reports of +conversations with the clerk at the hotel; with the call-boy; with the +waiter at table with all the witnesses, with the policeman, with the +landlord (who wanted it understood that nothing of that sort had ever +happened in his house before, although it had always been frequented by +the best Southern society,) and with Mrs. Col. Selby. There were +diagrams illustrating the scene of the shooting, and views of the hotel +and street, and portraits of the parties.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p424"></a><img alt="p424.jpg (30K)" src="images/p424.jpg" height="479" width="485"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>There were three minute and +different statements from the doctors about the wounds, so technically +worded that nobody could understand them. Harry and Laura had also been +"interviewed" and there was a statement from Philip himself, which a +reporter had knocked him up out of bed at midnight to give, though how he +found him, Philip never could conjecture.</p> + +<p>What some of the journals lacked in suitable length for the occasion, +they made up in encyclopaedic information about other similar murders and +shootings.</p> + +<p>The statement from Laura was not full, in fact it was fragmentary, and +consisted of nine parts of, the reporter's valuable observations to one +of Laura's, and it was, as the reporter significantly remarked, +"incoherent", but it appeared that Laura claimed to be Selby's wife, +or to have been his wife, that he had deserted her and betrayed her, and +that she was going to follow him to Europe. When the reporter asked:</p> + +<p>"What made you shoot him Miss. Hawkins?"</p> + +<p>Laura's only reply was, very simply,</p> + +<p>"Did I shoot him? Do they say I shot him?". And she would say no more.</p> + +<p>The news of the murder was made the excitement of the day. Talk of it +filled the town. The facts reported were scrutinized, the standing of +the parties was discussed, the dozen different theories of the motive, +broached in the newspapers, were disputed over.</p> + +<p>During the night subtle electricity had carried the tale over all the +wires of the continent and under the sea; and in all villages and towns +of the Union, from the. Atlantic to the territories, and away up and +down the Pacific slope, and as far as London and Paris and Berlin, that +morning the name of Laura Hawkins was spoken by millions and millions of +people, while the owner of it—the sweet child of years ago, the +beautiful queen of Washington drawing rooms—sat shivering on her cot-bed +in the darkness of a damp cell in the Tombs.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch47"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Philip's first effort was to get Harry out of the Tombs. He gained +permission to see him, in the presence of an officer, during the day, +and he found that hero very much cast down.</p> + +<p>"I never intended to come to such a place as this, old fellow," he said +to Philip; "it's no place for a gentleman, they've no idea how to treat a +gentleman. Look at that provender," pointing to his uneaten prison +ration. "They tell me I am detained as a witness, and I passed the night +among a lot of cut-throats and dirty rascals—a pretty witness I'd be in +a month spent in such company."</p> + +<p>"But what under heavens," asked Philip, "induced you to come to New York +with Laura! What was it for?"</p> + +<p>"What for? Why, she wanted me to come. I didn't know anything about +that cursed Selby. She said it was lobby business for the University. +I'd no idea what she was dragging me into that confounded hotel for. +I suppose she knew that the Southerners all go there, and thought she'd +find her man. Oh! Lord, I wish I'd taken your advice. You might as +well murder somebody and have the credit of it, as get into the +newspapers the way I have. She's pure devil, that girl. You ought to +have seen how sweet she was on me; what an ass I am."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not going to dispute a poor, prisoner. But the first thing is +to get you out of this. I've brought the note Laura wrote you, for one +thing, and I've seen your uncle, and explained the truth of the case to +him. He will be here soon."</p> + +<p>Harry's uncle came, with; other friends, and in the course of the day +made such a showing to the authorities that Harry was released, on giving +bonds to appear as a witness when wanted. His spirits rose with their +usual elasticity as soon as he was out of Centre Street, and he insisted +on giving Philip and his friends a royal supper at Delmonico's, an excess +which was perhaps excusable in the rebound of his feelings, and which was +committed with his usual reckless generosity. Harry ordered, the supper, +and it is perhaps needless to say, that Philip paid the bill.</p> + +<p>Neither of the young men felt like attempting to see Laura that day, +and she saw no company except the newspaper reporters, until the arrival +of Col. Sellers and Washington Hawkins, who had hastened to New York +with all speed.</p> + +<p>They found Laura in a cell in the upper tier of the women's department. +The cell was somewhat larger than those in the men's department, and +might be eight feet by ten square, perhaps a little longer. It was of +stone, floor and all, and tile roof was oven shaped. A narrow slit in +the roof admitted sufficient light, and was the only means of +ventilation; when the window was opened there was nothing to prevent the +rain coming in. The only means of heating being from the corridor, when +the door was ajar, the cell was chilly and at this time damp. It was +whitewashed and clean, but it had a slight jail odor; its only furniture +was a narrow iron bedstead, with a tick of straw and some blankets, not +too clean.</p> + +<p>When Col. Sellers was conducted to this cell by the matron and looked +in, his emotions quite overcame him, the tears rolled down his cheeks and +his voice trembled so that he could hardly speak. Washington was unable +to say anything; he looked from Laura to the miserable creatures who were +walking in the corridor with unutterable disgust. Laura was alone calm +and self-contained, though she was not unmoved by the sight of the grief +of her friends.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p428"></a><img alt="p428.jpg (95K)" src="images/p428.jpg" height="859" width="563"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Are you comfortable, Laura?" was the first word the Colonel could get +out.</p> + +<p>"You see," she replied. "I can't say it's exactly comfortable."</p> + +<p>"Are you cold?"</p> + +<p>"It is pretty chilly. The stone floor is like ice. It chills me through +to step on it. I have to sit on the bed."</p> + +<p>"Poor thing, poor thing. And can you eat any thing?"</p> + +<p>"No, I am not hungry. I don't know that I could eat any thing, I can't +eat that."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear," continued the Colonel, "it's dreadful. But cheer up, dear, +cheer up;" and the Colonel broke down entirely.</p> + +<p>"But," he went on, "we'll stand by you. We'll do everything for you. +I know you couldn't have meant to do it, it must have been insanity, you +know, or something of that sort. You never did anything of the sort +before."</p> + +<p>Laura smiled very faintly and said,</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was something of that sort. It's all a whirl. He was a +villain; you don't know."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather have killed him myself, in a duel you know, all fair. I wish +I had. But don't you be down. We'll get you the best counsel, the +lawyers in New York can do anything; I've read of cases. But you must be +comfortable now. We've brought some of your clothes, at the hotel. What +else, can we get for you?"</p> + +<p>Laura suggested that she would like some sheets for her bed, a piece of +carpet to step on, and her meals sent in; and some books and writing +materials if it was allowed. The Colonel and Washington promised to +procure all these things, and then took their sorrowful leave, a great +deal more affected than the criminal was, apparently, by her situation.</p> + +<p>The colonel told the matron as he went away that if she would look to +Laura's comfort a little it shouldn't be the worse for her; and to the +turnkey who let them out he patronizingly said,</p> + +<p>"You've got a big establishment here, a credit to the city. I've got a +friend in there—I shall see you again, sir."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p429"></a><img alt="p429.jpg (26K)" src="images/p429.jpg" height="465" width="385"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>By the next day something more of Laura's own story began to appear in +the newspapers, colored and heightened by reporters' rhetoric. Some of +them cast a lurid light upon the Colonel's career, and represented his +victim as a beautiful avenger of her murdered innocence; and others +pictured her as his willing paramour and pitiless slayer. Her +communications to the reporters were stopped by her lawyers as soon as +they were retained and visited her, but this fact did not prevent—it may +have facilitated—the appearance of casual paragraphs here and there +which were likely to beget popular sympathy for the poor girl.</p> + +<p>The occasion did not pass without "improvement" by the leading journals; +and Philip preserved the editorial comments of three or four of them +which pleased him most. These he used to read aloud to his friends +afterwards and ask them to guess from which journal each of them had been +cut. One began in this simple manner:—</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> + History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of + the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken + fragments of antique legends. Washington is not Corinth, and Lais, + the beautiful daughter of Timandra, might not have been the + prototype of the ravishing Laura, daughter of the plebeian house of + Hawkins; but the orators add statesmen who were the purchasers of + the favors of the one, may have been as incorruptible as the + Republican statesmen who learned how to love and how to vote from + the sweet lips of the Washington lobbyist; and perhaps the modern + Lais would never have departed from the national Capital if there + had been there even one republican Xenocrates who resisted her + blandishments. But here the parallel: fails. Lais, wandering away + with the youth Rippostratus, is slain by the women who are jealous + of her charms. Laura, straying into her Thessaly with the youth + Brierly, slays her other lover and becomes the champion of the + wrongs of her sex. +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Another journal began its editorial with less lyrical beauty, but with +equal force. It closed as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> + With Laura Hawkins, fair, fascinating and fatal, and with the + dissolute Colonel of a lost cause, who has reaped the harvest he + sowed, we have nothing to do. But as the curtain rises on this + awful tragedy, we catch a glimpse of the society at the capital + under this Administration, which we cannot contemplate without alarm + for the fate of the Republic. +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>A third newspaper took up the subject in a different tone. It said:—</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> + Our repeated predictions are verified. The pernicious doctrines + which we have announced as prevailing in American society have been + again illustrated. The name of the city is becoming a reproach. + We may have done something in averting its ruin in our resolute + exposure of the Great Frauds; we shall not be deterred from + insisting that the outraged laws for the protection of human life + shall be vindicated now, so that a person can walk the streets or + enter the public houses, at least in the day-time, without the risk + of a bullet through his brain. +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>A fourth journal began its remarks as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> + The fullness with which we present our readers this morning the + details of the Selby-Hawkins homicide is a miracle of modern + journalism. Subsequent investigation can do little to fill out the + picture. It is the old story. A beautiful woman shoots her + absconding lover in cold-blood; and we shall doubtless learn in due + time that if she was not as mad as a hare in this month of March, + she was at least laboring under what is termed "momentary insanity." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>It would not be too much to say that upon the first publication of the +facts of the tragedy, there was an almost universal feeling of rage +against the murderess in the Tombs, and that reports of her beauty only +heightened the indignation. It was as if she presumed upon that and upon +her sex, to defy the law; and there was a fervent, hope that the law +would take its plain course.</p> + +<p>Yet Laura was not without friends, and some of them very influential too. +She had in keeping a great many secrets and a great many reputations, +perhaps. Who shall set himself up to judge human motives. Why, indeed, +might we not feel pity for a woman whose brilliant career had been so +suddenly extinguished in misfortune and crime? Those who had known her +so well in Washington might find it impossible to believe that the +fascinating woman could have had murder in her heart, and would readily +give ear to the current sentimentality about the temporary aberration of +mind under the stress of personal calamity.</p> + +<p>Senator Dilworthy, was greatly shocked, of course, but he was full of +charity for the erring.</p> + +<p>"We shall all need mercy," he said. "Laura as an inmate of my family was +a most exemplary female, amiable, affectionate and truthful, perhaps too +fond of gaiety, and neglectful of the externals of religion, but a woman +of principle. She may have had experiences of which I am ignorant, but +she could not have gone to this extremity if she had been in her own +right mind."</p> + +<p>To the Senator's credit be it said, he was willing to help Laura and her +family in this dreadful trial. She, herself, was not without money, for +the Washington lobbyist is not seldom more fortunate than the Washington +claimant, and she was able to procure a good many luxuries to mitigate +the severity of her prison life. It enabled her also to have her own +family near her, and to see some of them daily. The tender solicitude of +her mother, her childlike grief, and her firm belief in the real +guiltlessness of her daughter, touched even the custodians of the Tombs +who are enured to scenes of pathos.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hawkins had hastened to her daughter as soon as she received money +for the journey. She had no reproaches, she had only tenderness and +pity. She could not shut out the dreadful facts of the case, but it had +been enough for her that Laura had said, in their first interview, +"mother, I did not know what I was doing." She obtained lodgings near, +the prison and devoted her life to her daughter, as if she had been +really her own child. She would have remained in the prison day and +night if it had been permitted. She was aged and feeble, but this great +necessity seemed to give her new life.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p432"></a><img alt="p432.jpg (36K)" src="images/p432.jpg" height="489" width="485"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The pathetic story of the old lady's ministrations, and her simplicity +and faith, also got into the newspapers in time, and probably added to +the pathos of this wrecked woman's fate, which was beginning to be felt +by the public. It was certain that she had champions who thought that +her wrongs ought to be placed against her crime, and expressions of this +feeling came to her in various ways. Visitors came to see her, and gifts +of fruit and flowers were sent, which brought some cheer into her hard +and gloomy cell.</p> + +<p>Laura had declined to see either Philip or Harry, somewhat to the +former's relief, who had a notion that she would necessarily feel +humiliated by seeing him after breaking faith with him, but to the +discomfiture of Harry, who still felt her fascination, and thought her +refusal heartless. He told Philip that of course he had got through with +such a woman, but he wanted to see her.</p> + +<p>Philip, to keep him from some new foolishness, persuaded him to go with +him to Philadelphia; and, give his valuable services in the mining +operations at Ilium.</p> + +<p>The law took its course with Laura. She was indicted for murder in the +first degree and held for trial at the summer term. The two most +distinguished criminal lawyers in the city had been retained for her +defence, and to that the resolute woman devoted her days with a courage +that rose as she consulted with her counsel and understood the methods of +criminal procedure in New York.</p> + +<p>She was greatly depressed, however, by the news from Washington. +Congress adjourned and her bill had failed to pass the Senate. It must +wait for the next session.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch48"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>It had been a bad winter, somehow, for the firm of Pennybacker, Bigler +and Small. These celebrated contractors usually made more money during +the session of the legislature at Harrisburg than upon all their summer +work, and this winter had been unfruitful. It was unaccountable to +Bigler.</p> + +<p>"You see, Mr. Bolton," he said, and Philip was present at the +conversation, "it puts us all out. It looks as if politics was played +out. We'd counted on the year of Simon's re-election. And, now, he's +reelected, and I've yet to see the first man who's the better for it."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say," asked Philip, "that he went in without paying +anything?"</p> + +<p>"Not a cent, not a dash cent, as I can hear," repeated Mr. Bigler, +indignantly. "I call it a swindle on the state. How it was done gets +me. I never saw such a tight time for money in Harrisburg."</p> + +<p>"Were there no combinations, no railroad jobs, no mining schemes put +through in connection with the election?</p> + +<p>"Not that I knew," said Bigler, shaking his head in disgust. "In fact it +was openly said, that there was no money in the election. It's perfectly +unheard of."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," suggested Philip, "it was effected on what the insurance +companies call the 'endowment,' or the 'paid up' plan, by which a policy +is secured after a certain time without further payment."</p> + +<p>"You think then," said Mr. Bolton smiling, "that a liberal and sagacious +politician might own a legislature after a time, and not be bothered with +keeping up his payments?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever it is," interrupted Mr. Bigler, "it's devilish ingenious and +goes ahead of my calculations; it's cleaned me out, when I thought we had +a dead sure thing. I tell you what it is, gentlemen, I shall go in for +reform. Things have got pretty mixed when a legislature will give away a +United States senatorship."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p435"></a><img alt="p435.jpg (16K)" src="images/p435.jpg" height="315" width="347"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It was melancholy, but Mr. Bigler was not a man to be crushed by one +misfortune, or to lose his confidence in human nature, on one exhibition +of apparent honesty. He was already on his feet again, or would be if +Mr. Bolton could tide him over shoal water for ninety days.</p> + +<p>"We've got something with money in it," he explained to Mr. Bolton, +"got hold of it by good luck. We've got the entire contract for Dobson's +Patent Pavement for the city of Mobile. See here."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bigler made some figures; contract so; much, cost of work and +materials so much, profits so much. At the end of three months the city +would owe the company three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars-two +hundred thousand of that would be profits. The whole job was worth at +least a million to the company—it might be more. There could be no +mistake in these figures; here was the contract, Mr. Bolton knew what +materials were worth and what the labor would cost.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bolton knew perfectly well from sore experience that there was always +a mistake in figures when Bigler or Small made them, and he knew that he +ought to send the fellow about his business. Instead of that, he let him +talk.</p> + +<p>They only wanted to raise fifty thousand dollars to carry on the +contract—that expended they would have city bonds. Mr. Bolton said he +hadn't the money. But Bigler could raise it on his name. Mr. Bolton +said he had no right to put his family to that risk. But the entire +contract could be assigned to him—the security was ample—it was a +fortune to him if it was forfeited. Besides Mr. Bigler had been +unfortunate, he didn't know where to look for the necessaries of life for +his family. If he could only have one more chance, he was sure he could +right himself. He begged for it.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Bolton yielded. He could never refuse such appeals. If he had +befriended a man once and been cheated by him, that man appeared to have +a claim upon him forever. He shrank, however, from telling his wife what +he had done on this occasion, for he knew that if any person was more +odious than Small to his family it was Bigler.</p> + +<p>"Philip tells me," Mrs. Bolton said that evening, "that the man Bigler +has been with thee again to-day. I hope thee will have nothing more to +do with him."</p> + +<p>"He has been very unfortunate," replied Mr. Bolton, uneasily.</p> + +<p>"He is always unfortunate, and he is always getting thee into trouble. +But thee didn't listen to him again?"</p> + +<p>"Well, mother, his family is in want, and I lent him my name—but I took +ample security. The worst that can happen will be a little +inconvenience."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bolton looked grave and anxious, but she did not complain or +remonstrate; she knew what a "little inconvenience" meant, but she knew +there was no help for it. If Mr. Bolton had been on his way to market to +buy a dinner for his family with the only dollar he had in the world in +his pocket, he would have given it to a chance beggar who asked him for +it. Mrs. Bolton only asked (and the question showed that she was no mere +provident than her husband where her heart was interested),</p> + +<p>"But has thee provided money for Philip to use in opening the coal mine?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have set apart as much as it ought to cost to open the mine, +as much as we can afford to lose if no coal is found. Philip has the +control of it, as equal partner in the venture, deducting the capital +invested. He has great confidence in his success, and I hope for his +sake he won't be disappointed."</p> + +<p>Philip could not but feel that he was treated very much like one of the +Bolton-family—by all except Ruth. His mother, when he went home after +his recovery from his accident, had affected to be very jealous of Mrs. +Bolton, about whom and Ruth she asked a thousand +questions—an affectation of jealousy which no doubt concealed a real heartache, +which comes to every mother when her son goes out into the world and +forms new ties. And to Mrs. Sterling; a widow, living on a small income +in a remote Massachusetts village, Philadelphia was a city of many +splendors. All its inhabitants seemed highly favored, dwelling in ease +and surrounded by superior advantages. Some of her neighbors had +relations living in Philadelphia, and it seemed to them somehow a +guarantee of respectability to have relations in Philadelphia. +Mrs. Sterling was not sorry to have Philip make his way among such +well-to-do people, and she was sure that no good fortune could be too good for +his deserts.</p> + +<p>"So, sir," said Ruth, when Philip came from New York, "you have been +assisting in a pretty tragedy. I saw your name in the papers. Is this +woman a specimen of your western friends?"</p> + +<p>"My only assistance," replied Philip, a little annoyed, was in trying to +keep Harry out of a bad scrape, and I failed after all. He walked into +her trap, and he has been punished for it. I'm going to take him up to +Ilium to see if he won't work steadily at one thing, and quit his +nonsense."</p> + +<p>"Is she as beautiful as the newspapers say she is?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, she has a kind of beauty—she is not like—'</p> + +<p>"Not like Alice?"</p> + +<p>"Well, she is brilliant; she was called the handsomest woman in +Washington—dashing, you know, and sarcastic and witty. Ruth, do you +believe a woman ever becomes a devil?"</p> + +<p>"Men do, and I don't know why women shouldn't. But I never saw one."</p> + +<p>"Well, Laura Hawkins comes very near it. But it is dreadful to think of +her fate."</p> + +<p>"Why, do you suppose they will hang a woman? Do you suppose they will be +so barbarous as that?"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't thinking of that—it's doubtful if a New York jury would find a +woman guilty of any such crime. But to think of her life if she is +acquitted."</p> + +<p>"It is dreadful," said Ruth, thoughtfully, "but the worst of it is that +you men do not want women educated to do anything, to be able to earn an +honest living by their own exertions. They are educated as if they were +always to be petted and supported, and there was never to be any such +thing as misfortune. I suppose, now, that you would all choose to have +me stay idly at home, and give up my profession."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," said Philip, earnestly, "I respect your resolution. But, +Ruth, do you think you would be happier or do more good in following your +profession than in having a home of your own?"</p> + +<p>"What is to hinder having a home of my, own?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, perhaps, only you never would be in it—you would be away day +and night, if you had any practice; and what sort of a home would that +make for your husband?"</p> + +<p>"What sort of a home is it for the wife whose husband is always away +riding about in his doctor's gig?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, you know that is not fair. The woman makes the home."</p> + +<p>Philip and Ruth often had this sort of discussion, to which Philip was +always trying to give a personal turn. He was now about to go to Ilium +for the season, and he did not like to go without some assurance from +Ruth that she might perhaps love him some day; when he was worthy of it, +and when he could offer her something better than a partnership in his +poverty.</p> + +<p>"I should work with a great deal better heart, Ruth," he said the morning +he was taking leave, "if I knew you cared for me a little."</p> + +<p>Ruth was looking down; the color came faintly to her cheeks, and she +hesitated. She needn't be looking down, he thought, for she was ever so +much shorter than tall Philip.</p> + +<p>"It's not much of a place, Ilium," Philip went on, as if a little +geographical remark would fit in here as well as anything else, "and I +shall have plenty of time to think over the responsibility I have taken, +and—" his observation did not seem to be coming out any where.</p> + +<p>But Ruth looked up, and there was a light in her eyes that quickened +Phil's pulse. She took his hand, and said with serious sweetness:</p> + +<p>"Thee mustn't lose heart, Philip." And then she added, in another mood, +"Thee knows I graduate in the summer and shall have my diploma. And if +any thing happens—mines explode sometimes—thee can send for me. +Farewell."</p> + +<p>The opening of the Ilium coal mine was begun with energy, but without +many omens of success. Philip was running a tunnel into the breast of +the mountain, in faith that the coal stratum ran there as it ought to. +How far he must go in he believed he knew, but no one could tell exactly. +Some of the miners said that they should probably go through the +mountain, and that the hole could be used for a railway tunnel. The +mining camp was a busy place at any rate. Quite a settlement of board +and log shanties had gone up, with a blacksmith shop, a small machine +shop, and a temporary store for supplying the wants of the workmen. +Philip and Harry pitched a commodious tent, and lived in the full +enjoyment of the free life.</p> + +<p>There is no difficulty in digging a bole in the ground, if you have money +enough to pay for the digging, but those who try this sort of work are +always surprised at the large amount of money necessary to make a small +hole. The earth is never willing to yield one product, hidden in her +bosom, without an equivalent for it. And when a person asks of her coal, +she is quite apt to require gold in exchange.</p> + +<p>It was exciting work for all concerned in it. As the tunnel advanced +into the rock every day promised to be the golden day. This very blast +might disclose the treasure.</p> + +<p>The work went on week after week, and at length during the night as well +as the daytime. Gangs relieved each other, and the tunnel was every +hour, inch by inch and foot by foot, crawling into the mountain. Philip +was on the stretch of hope and excitement. Every pay day he saw his +funds melting away, and still there was only the faintest show of what +the miners call "signs."</p> + +<p>The life suited Harry, whose buoyant hopefulness was never disturbed. +He made endless calculations, which nobody could understand, of the +probable position of the vein. He stood about among the workmen with the +busiest air. When he was down at Ilium he called himself the engineer of +the works, and he used to spend hours smoking his pipe with the Dutch +landlord on the hotel porch, and astonishing the idlers there with the +stories of his railroad operations in Missouri. He talked with the +landlord, too, about enlarging his hotel, and about buying some village +lots, in the prospect of a rise, when the mine was opened. He taught the +Dutchman how to mix a great many cooling drinks for the summer time, and +had a bill at the hotel, the growing length of which Mr. Dusenheimer +contemplated with pleasant anticipations. Mr. Brierly was a very useful +and cheering person wherever he went.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p441"></a><img alt="p441.jpg (31K)" src="images/p441.jpg" height="469" width="437"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Midsummer arrived: Philip could report to Mr. Bolton only progress, and +this was not a cheerful message for him to send to Philadelphia in reply +to inquiries that he thought became more and more anxious. Philip +himself was a prey to the constant fear that the money would give out +before the coal was struck.</p> + +<p>At this time Harry was summoned to New York, to attend the trial of Laura +Hawkins. It was possible that Philip would have to go also, her lawyer +wrote, but they hoped for a postponement. There was important evidence +that they could not yet obtain, and he hoped the judge would not force +them to a trial unprepared. There were many reasons for a delay, reasons +which of course are never mentioned, but which it would seem that a New +York judge sometimes must understand, when he grants a postponement upon +a motion that seems to the public altogether inadequate.</p> + +<p>Harry went, but he soon came back. The trial was put off. Every week we +can gain, said the learned counsel, Braham, improves our chances. The +popular rage never lasts long.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p442"></a><img alt="p442.jpg (21K)" src="images/p442.jpg" height="475" width="319"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch49"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>"We've struck it!"</p> + +<p>This was the announcement at the tent door that woke Philip out of a +sound sleep at dead of night, and shook all the sleepiness out of him in +a trice.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p444"></a><img alt="p444.jpg (29K)" src="images/p444.jpg" height="461" width="421"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"What! Where is it? When? Coal? Let me see it. What quality is it?" +were some of the rapid questions that Philip poured out as he hurriedly +dressed. "Harry, wake up, my boy, the coal train is coming. Struck it, +eh? Let's see?"</p> + +<p>The foreman put down his lantern, and handed Philip a black lump. There +was no mistake about it, it was the hard, shining anthracite, and its +freshly fractured surface, glistened in the light like polished steel. +Diamond never shone with such lustre in the eyes of Philip.</p> + +<p>Harry was exuberant, but Philip's natural caution found expression in his +next remark.</p> + +<p>"Now, Roberts, you are sure about this?"</p> + +<p>"What—sure that it's coal?"</p> + +<p>"O, no, sure that it's the main vein."</p> + +<p>"Well, yes. We took it to be that"</p> + +<p>"Did you from the first?"</p> + +<p>"I can't say we did at first. No, we didn't. Most of the indications +were there, but not all of them, not all of them. So we thought we'd +prospect a bit."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"It was tolerable thick, and looked as if it might be the vein—looked as +if it ought to be the vein. Then we went down on it a little. Looked +better all the time."</p> + +<p>"When did you strike it?"</p> + +<p>"About ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Then you've been prospecting about four hours."</p> + +<p>"Yes, been sinking on it something over four hours."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you couldn't go down very far in four hours—could you?"</p> + +<p>"O yes—it's a good deal broke up, nothing but picking and gadding +stuff."</p> + +<p>"Well, it does look encouraging, sure enough—but then the lacking +indications—"</p> + +<p>"I'd rather we had them, Mr. Sterling, but I've seen more than one good +permanent mine struck without 'em in my time."</p> + +<p>"Well, that is encouraging too."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there was the Union, the Alabama and the Black Mohawk—all good, +sound mines, you know—all just exactly like this one when we first +struck them."</p> + +<p>"Well, I begin to feel a good deal more easy. I guess we've really got +it. I remember hearing them tell about the Black Mohawk."</p> + +<p>"I'm free to say that I believe it, and the men all think so too. They +are all old hands at this business."</p> + +<p>"Come Harry, let's go up and look at it, just for the comfort of it," +said Philip. They came back in the course of an hour, satisfied and +happy.</p> + +<p>There was no more sleep for them that night. They lit their pipes, put a +specimen of the coal on the table, and made it a kind of loadstone of +thought and conversation.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Harry, "there will have to be a branch track built, and +a 'switch-back' up the hill."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there will be no trouble about getting the money for that now. We +could sell-out tomorrow for a handsome sum. That sort of coal doesn't go +begging within a mile of a rail-road. I wonder if Mr. Bolton' would +rather sell out or work it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, work it," says Harry, "probably the whole mountain is coal now +you've got to it."</p> + +<p>"Possibly it might not be much of a vein after all," suggested Philip.</p> + +<p>"Possibly it is; I'll bet it's forty feet thick. I told you. I knew the +sort of thing as soon as I put my eyes on it."</p> + +<p>Philip's next thought was to write to his friends and announce their good +fortune. To Mr. Bolton he wrote a short, business letter, as calm as he +could make it. They had found coal of excellent quality, but they could +not yet tell with absolute certainty what the vein was. The prospecting +was still going on. Philip also wrote to Ruth; but though this letter +may have glowed, it was not with the heat of burning anthracite. He +needed no artificial heat to warm his pen and kindle his ardor when he +sat down to write to Ruth. But it must be confessed that the words never +flowed so easily before, and he ran on for an hour disporting in all the +extravagance of his imagination. When Ruth read it, she doubted if the +fellow had not gone out of his senses. And it was not until she reached +the postscript that she discovered the cause of the exhilaration. +"P. S.—We have found coal."</p> + +<p>The news couldn't have come to Mr. Bolton in better time. He had never +been so sorely pressed. A dozen schemes which he had in hand, any one +of which might turn up a fortune, all languished, and each needed just +a little more, money to save that which had been invested. He hadn't +a piece of real estate that was not covered with mortgages, even to the +wild tract which Philip was experimenting on, and which had, no +marketable value above the incumbrance on it.</p> + +<p>He had come home that day early, unusually dejected.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," he said to his wife, "that we shall have to give up our +house. I don't care for myself, but for thee and the children."</p> + +<p>"That will be the least of misfortunes," said Mrs. Bolton, cheerfully, +"if thee can clear thyself from debt and anxiety, which is wearing thee +out, we can live any where. Thee knows we were never happier than when +we were in a much humbler home."</p> + +<p>"The truth is, Margaret, that affair of Bigler and Small's has come on me +just when I couldn't stand another ounce. They have made another failure +of it. I might have known they would; and the sharpers, or fools, I +don't know which, have contrived to involve me for three times as much as +the first obligation. The security is in my hands, but it is good for +nothing to me. I have not the money to do anything with the contract."</p> + +<p>Ruth heard this dismal news without great surprise. She had long felt +that they were living on a volcano, that might go in to active operation +at any hour. Inheriting from her father an active brain and the courage +to undertake new things, she had little of his sanguine temperament which +blinds one to difficulties and possible failures. She had little +confidence in the many schemes which had been about to lift her father +out of all his embarrassments and into great wealth, ever since she was +a child; as she grew older, she rather wondered that they were as +prosperous as they seemed to be, and that they did not all go to smash +amid so many brilliant projects. She was nothing but a woman, and did +not know how much of the business prosperity of the world is only a, +bubble of credit and speculation, one scheme helping to float another +which is no better than it, and the whole liable to come to naught and +confusion as soon as the busy brain that conceived them ceases its power +to devise, or when some accident produces a sudden panic.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, I shall be the stay of the family, yet," said Ruth, with an +approach to gaiety; "When we move into a little house in town, will thee +let me put a little sign on the door: DR. RUTH BOLTON? +Mrs. Dr. Longstreet, thee knows, has a great income."</p> + +<p>"Who will pay for the sign, Ruth?" asked Mr. Bolton.</p> + +<p>A servant entered with the afternoon mail from the office. Mr. Bolton +took his letters listlessly, dreading to open them. He knew well what +they contained, new difficulties, more urgent demands fox money.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here is one from Philip. Poor fellow. I shall feel his +disappointment as much as my own bad luck. It is hard to bear when one +is young."</p> + +<p>He opened the letter and read. As he read his face lightened, and he +fetched such a sigh of relief, that Mrs. Bolton and Ruth both exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Read that," he cried, "Philip has found coal!"</p> + +<p>The world was changed in a moment. One little sentence had done it. +There was no more trouble. Philip had found coal. That meant relief. +That meant fortune. A great weight was taken off, and the spirits of the +whole household rose magically. Good Money! beautiful demon of Money, +what an enchanter thou art! Ruth felt that she was of less consequence +in the household, now that Philip had found Coal, and perhaps she was not +sorry to feel so.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bolton was ten years younger the next morning. He went into the +city, and showed his letter on change. It was the sort of news his +friends were quite willing to listen to. They took a new interest in +him. If it was confirmed, Bolton would come right up again. There would +be no difficulty about his getting all the money he wanted. The money +market did not seem to be half so tight as it was the day before. +Mr. Bolton spent a very pleasant day in his office, and went home +revolving some new plans, and the execution of some projects he had long +been prevented from entering upon by the lack of money.</p> + +<p>The day had been spent by Philip in no less excitement. By daylight, +with Philip's letters to the mail, word had gone down to Ilium that coal +had been found, and very early a crowd of eager spectators had come up to +see for themselves.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p448"></a><img alt="p448.jpg (51K)" src="images/p448.jpg" height="449" width="525"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The "prospecting" continued day and night for upwards of a week, and +during the first four or five days the indications grew more and more +promising, and the telegrams and letters kept Mr. Bolton duly posted. +But at last a change came, and the promises began to fail with alarming +rapidity. In the end it was demonstrated without the possibility of a +doubt that the great "find" was nothing but a worthless seam.</p> + +<p>Philip was cast down, all the more so because he had been so foolish as +to send the news to Philadelphia before he knew what he was writing +about. And now he must contradict it. "It turns out to be only a mere +seam," he wrote, "but we look upon it as an indication of better further +in."</p> + +<p>Alas! Mr. Bolton's affairs could not wait for "indications." The future +might have a great deal in store, but the present was black and hopeless. +It was doubtful if any sacrifice could save him from ruin. Yet sacrifice +he must make, and that instantly, in the hope of saving something from +the wreck of his fortune.</p> + +<p>His lovely country home must go. That would bring the most ready money. +The house that he had built with loving thought for each one of his +family, as he planned its luxurious apartments and adorned it; the +grounds that he had laid out, with so much delight in following the +tastes of his wife, with whom the country, the cultivation of rare trees +and flowers, the care of garden and lawn and conservatories were a +passion almost; this home, which he had hoped his children would enjoy +long after he had done with it, must go.</p> + +<p>The family bore the sacrifice better than he did. They declared in +fact—women are such hypocrites—that they quite enjoyed the city (it was in +August) after living so long in the country, that it was a thousand tunes +more convenient in every respect; Mrs. Bolton said it was a relief from +the worry of a large establishment, and Ruth reminded her father that she +should have had to come to town anyway before long.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bolton was relieved, exactly as a water-logged ship is lightened by +throwing overboard the most valuable portion of the cargo—but the leak +was not stopped. Indeed his credit was injured instead of helped by the +prudent step be had taken. It was regarded as a sure evidence of his +embarrassment, and it was much more difficult for him to obtain help than +if he had, instead of retrenching, launched into some new speculation.</p> + +<p>Philip was greatly troubled, and exaggerated his own share in the +bringing about of the calamity.</p> + +<p>"You must not look at it so!" Mr. Bolton wrote him. "You have neither +helped nor hindered—but you know you may help by and by. It would have +all happened just so, if we had never begun to dig that hole. That is +only a drop. Work away. I still have hope that something will occur to +relieve me. At any rate we must not give up the mine, so long as we have +any show."</p> + +<p>Alas! the relief did not come. New misfortunes came instead. When the +extent of the Bigler swindle was disclosed there was no more hope that +Mr. Bolton could extricate himself, and he had, as an honest man, no +resource except to surrender all his property for the benefit of his +creditors.</p> + +<p>The Autumn came and found Philip working with diminished force but still +with hope. He had again and again been encouraged by good "indications," +but he had again and again been disappointed. He could not go on much +longer, and almost everybody except himself had thought it was useless to +go on as long as he had been doing.</p> + +<p>When the news came of Mr. Bolton's failure, of course the work stopped. +The men were discharged, the tools were housed, the hopeful noise of +pickman and driver ceased, and the mining camp had that desolate and +mournful aspect which always hovers over a frustrated enterprise.</p> + +<p>Philip sat down amid the ruins, and almost wished he were buried in them. +How distant Ruth was now from him, now, when she might need him most. +How changed was all the Philadelphia world, which had hitherto stood for +the exemplification of happiness and prosperity.</p> + +<p>He still had faith that there was coal in that mountain. He made +a picture of himself living there a hermit in a shanty by the tunnel, +digging away with solitary pick and wheelbarrow, day after day and year +after year, until he grew gray and aged, and was known in all that region +as the old man of the mountain. Perhaps some day—he felt it must be so +some day—he should strike coal. But what if he did? Who would be alive +to care for it then? What would he care for it then? No, a man wants +riches in his youth, when the world is fresh to him. He wondered why +Providence could not have reversed the usual process, and let the +majority of men begin with wealth and gradually spend it, and die poor +when they no longer needed it.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p451"></a><img alt="p451.jpg (15K)" src="images/p451.jpg" height="335" width="335"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Harry went back to the city. It was evident that his services were no +longer needed. Indeed, he had letters from his uncle, which he did not +read to Philip, desiring him to go to San Francisco to look after some +government contracts in the harbor there.</p> + +<p>Philip had to look about him for something to do; he was like Adam; +the world was all before him whereto choose. He made, before he went +elsewhere, a somewhat painful visit to Philadelphia, painful but yet not +without its sweetnesses. The family had never shown him so much +affection before; they all seemed to think his disappointment of more +importance than their own misfortune. And there was that in Ruth's +manner—in what she gave him and what she withheld—that would have made +a hero of a very much less promising character than Philip Sterling.</p> + +<p>Among the assets of the Bolton property, the Ilium tract was sold, and +Philip bought it in at the vendue, for a song, for no one cared to even +undertake the mortgage on it except himself. He went away the owner of +it, and had ample time before he reached home in November, to calculate +how much poorer he was by possessing it.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p452"></a><img alt="p452.jpg (26K)" src="images/p452.jpg" height="483" width="329"> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch50"></a>CHAPTER L.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>It is impossible for the historian, with even the best intentions, +to control events or compel the persons of his narrative to act wisely +or to be successful. It is easy to see how things might have been better +managed; a very little change here and there would have made a very, +different history of this one now in hand.</p> + +<p>If Philip had adopted some regular profession, even some trade, he might +now be a prosperous editor or a conscientious plumber, or an honest +lawyer, and have borrowed money at the saving's bank and built a cottage, +and be now furnishing it for the occupancy of Ruth and himself. Instead +of this, with only a smattering of civil engineering, he is at his +mother's house, fretting and fuming over his ill-luck, and the hardness +and, dishonesty of men, and thinking of nothing but how to get the coal +out of the Ilium hills.</p> + +<p>If Senator Dilworthy had not made that visit to Hawkeye, the Hawkins +family and Col. Sellers would not now be dancing attendance upon +Congress, and endeavoring to tempt that immaculate body into one of those +appropriations, for the benefit of its members, which the members find it +so difficult to explain to their constituents; and Laura would not be +lying in the Tombs, awaiting her trial for murder, and doing her best, +by the help of able counsel, to corrupt the pure fountain of criminal +procedure in New York.</p> + +<p>If Henry Brierly had been blown up on the first Mississippi steamboat he +set foot on, as the chances were that he would be, he and Col. Sellers +never would have gone into the Columbus Navigation scheme, and probably +never into the East Tennessee Land scheme, and he would not now be +detained in New York from very important business operations on the +Pacific coast, for the sole purpose of giving evidence to convict of +murder the only woman he ever loved half as much as he loves himself. +If Mr. Bolton had said the little word "no" to Mr. Bigler, Alice Montague +might now be spending the winter in Philadelphia, and Philip also +(waiting to resume his mining operations in the spring); and Ruth would +not be an assistant in a Philadelphia hospital, taxing her strength with +arduous routine duties, day by day, in order to lighten a little the +burdens that weigh upon her unfortunate family.</p> + +<p>It is altogether a bad business. An honest historian, who had progressed +thus far, and traced everything to such a condition of disaster and +suspension, might well be justified in ending his narrative and +writing—"after this the deluge." His only consolation would be in the reflection +that he was not responsible for either characters or events.</p> + +<p>And the most annoying thought is that a little money, judiciously +applied, would relieve the burdens and anxieties of most of these people; +but affairs seem to be so arranged that money is most difficult to get +when people need it most.</p> + +<p>A little of what Mr. Bolton has weakly given to unworthy people would now +establish his family in a sort of comfort, and relieve Ruth of the +excessive toil for which she inherited no adequate physical vigor. +A little money would make a prince of Col. Sellers; and a little more +would calm the anxiety of Washington Hawkins about Laura, for however the +trial ended, he could feel sure of extricating her in the end. And if +Philip had a little money he could unlock the stone door in the mountain +whence would issue a stream of shining riches. It needs a golden wand to +strike that rock. If the Knobs University bill could only go through, +what a change would be wrought in the condition of most of the persons in +this history. Even Philip himself would feel the good effects of it; +for Harry would have something and Col. Sellers would have something; +and have not both these cautious people expressed a determination to take +an interest in the Ilium mine when they catch their larks?</p> + +<p>Philip could not resist the inclination to pay a visit to Fallkill. He +had not been at the Montague's since the time he saw Ruth there, and he +wanted to consult the Squire about an occupation. He was determined now +to waste no more time in waiting on Providence, but to go to work at +something, if it were nothing better, than teaching in the Fallkill +Seminary, or digging clams on Hingham beach. Perhaps he could read law +in Squire Montague's office while earning his bread as a teacher in the +Seminary.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p455"></a><img alt="p455.jpg (13K)" src="images/p455.jpg" height="315" width="325"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It was not altogether Philip's fault, let us own, that he was in this +position. There are many young men like him in American society, of his +age, opportunities, education and abilities, who have really been +educated for nothing and have let themselves drift, in the hope that they +will find somehow, and by some sudden turn of good luck, the golden road +to fortune. He was not idle or lazy, he had energy and a disposition to +carve his own way. But he was born into a time when all young men of his +age caught the fever of speculation, and expected to get on in the world +by the omission of some of the regular processes which have been +appointed from of old.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p456"></a><img alt="p456.jpg (17K)" src="images/p456.jpg" height="339" width="339"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And examples were not wanting to encourage him. +He saw people, all around him, poor yesterday, rich to-day, who had come +into sudden opulence by some means which they could not have classified +among any of the regular occupations of life. A war would give such a +fellow a career and very likely fame. He might have been a "railroad +man," or a politician, or a land speculator, or one of those mysterious +people who travel free on all rail-roads and steamboats, and are +continually crossing and recrossing the Atlantic, driven day and night +about nobody knows what, and make a great deal of money by so doing. +Probably, at last, he sometimes thought with a whimsical smile, he should +end by being an insurance agent, and asking people to insure their lives +for his benefit.</p> + +<p>Possibly Philip did not think how much the attractions of Fallkill were +increased by the presence of Alice there. He had known her so long, she +had somehow grown into his life by habit, that he would expect the +pleasure of her society without thinking mach about it. Latterly he +never thought of her without thinking of Ruth, and if he gave the subject +any attention, it was probably in an undefined consciousness that, he had +her sympathy in his love, and that she was always willing to hear him +talk about it. If he ever wondered that Alice herself was not in love +and never spoke of the possibility of her own marriage, it was a +transient thought for love did not seem necessary, exactly, to one so +calm and evenly balanced and with so many resources in her herself.</p> + +<p>Whatever her thoughts may have been they were unknown to Philip, as they +are to these historians; if she was seeming to be what she was not, and +carrying a burden heavier than any one else carried, because she had to +bear it alone, she was only doing what thousands of women do, with a +self-renunciation and heroism, of which men, impatient and complaining, +have no conception. Have not these big babies with beards filled all +literature with their outcries, their griefs and their lamentations? It +is always the gentle sex which is hard and cruel and fickle and +implacable.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you would be contented to live in Fallkill, and attend the +county Court?" asked Alice, when Philip had opened the budget of his new +programme.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not always," said Philip, "I might go and practice in Boston +maybe, or go to Chicago."</p> + +<p>"Or you might get elected to Congress."</p> + +<p>Philip looked at Alice to see if she was in earnest and not chaffing him. +Her face was quite sober. Alice was one of those patriotic women in the +rural districts, who think men are still selected for Congress on account +of qualifications for the office.</p> + +<p>"No," said Philip, "the chances are that a man cannot get into congress +now without resorting to arts and means that should render hint unfit to +go there; of course there are exceptions; but do you know that I could +not go into politics if I were a lawyer, without losing standing somewhat +in my profession, and without raising at least a suspicion of my +intentions and unselfishness? Why, it is telegraphed all over the +country and commented on as something wonderful if a congressman votes +honestly and unselfishly and refuses to take advantage of his position to +steal from the government."</p> + +<p>"But," insisted Alice, "I should think it a noble ambition to go to +congress, if it is so bad, and help reform it. I don't believe it is as +corrupt as the English parliament used to be, if there is any truth in +the novels, and I suppose that is reformed."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know where the reform is to begin. I've seen a +perfectly capable, honest man, time and again, run against an illiterate +trickster, and get beaten. I suppose if the people wanted decent members +of congress they would elect them. Perhaps," continued Philip with a +smile, "the women will have to vote."</p> + +<p>"Well, I should be willing to, if it were a necessity, just as I would go +to war and do what I could, if the country couldn't be saved otherwise," +said Alice, with a spirit that surprised Philip, well as he thought he +knew her. "If I were a young gentleman in these times—"</p> + +<p>Philip laughed outright. "It's just what Ruth used to say, 'if she were +a man.' I wonder if all the young ladies are contemplating a change of +sex."</p> + +<p>"No, only a changed sex," retorted Alice; "we contemplate for the most +part young men who don't care for anything they ought to care for."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Philip, looking humble, "I care for some things, you and +Ruth for instance; perhaps I ought not to. Perhaps I ought to care for +Congress and that sort of thing."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a goose, Philip. I heard from Ruth yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Can I see her letter?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed. But I am afraid her hard work is telling on her, together +with her anxiety about her father."</p> + +<p>"Do you think, Alice," asked Philip with one of those selfish thoughts +that are not seldom mixed with real love, "that Ruth prefers her +profession to—to marriage?"</p> + +<p>"Philip," exclaimed Alice, rising to quit the room, and speaking +hurriedly as if the words were forced from her, "you are as blind as a +bat; Ruth would cut off her right hand for you this minute."</p> + +<p>Philip never noticed that Alice's face was flushed and that her voice was +unsteady; he only thought of the delicious words he had heard. And the +poor girl, loyal to Ruth, loyal to Philip, went straight to her room, +locked the door, threw herself on the bed and sobbed as if her heart +world break. And then she prayed that her Father in Heaven would give +her strength. And after a time she was calm again, and went to her +bureau drawer and took from a hiding place a little piece of paper, +yellow with age. Upon it was pinned a four-leaved clover, dry and yellow +also. She looked long at this foolish memento. Under the clover leaf +was written in a school-girl's hand—"Philip, June, 186-."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p459"></a><img alt="p459.jpg (32K)" src="images/p459.jpg" height="477" width="433"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Squire Montague thought very well of Philip's proposal. It would have +been better if he had begun the study of the law as soon as he left +college, but it was not too late now, and besides he had gathered some +knowledge of the world.</p> + +<p>"But," asked the Squire, "do you mean to abandon your land in +Pennsylvania?" This track of land seemed an immense possible fortune to +this New England lawyer-farmer. Hasn't it good timber, and doesn't the +railroad almost touch it?"</p> + +<p>"I can't do anything with it now. Perhaps I can sometime."</p> + +<p>"What is your reason for supposing that there is coal there?"</p> + +<p>"The opinion of the best geologist I could consult, my own observation +of the country, and the little veins of it we found. I feel certain it +is there. I shall find it some day. I know it. If I can only keep the +land till I make money enough to try again."</p> + +<p>Philip took from his pocket a map of the anthracite coal region, and +pointed out the position of the Ilium mountain which he had begun to +tunnel.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it look like it?"</p> + +<p>"It certainly does," said the Squire, very much interested. It is not +unusual for a quiet country gentleman to be more taken with such a +venture than a speculator who, has had more experience in its +uncertainty. It was astonishing how many New England clergymen, in the +time of the petroleum excitement, took chances in oil. The Wall street +brokers are said to do a good deal of small business for country +clergymen, who are moved no doubt with the laudable desire of purifying +the New York stock board.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p460"></a><img alt="p460.jpg (48K)" src="images/p460.jpg" height="487" width="557"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"I don't see that there is much risk," said the Squire, at length. +"The timber is worth more than the mortgage; and if that coal seam does +run there, it's a magnificent fortune. Would you like to try it again in +the spring, Phil?"</p> + +<p>Like to try it! If he could have a little help, he would work himself, +with pick and barrow, and live on a crust. Only give him one more +chance.</p> + +<p>And this is how it came about that the cautious old Squire Montague was +drawn into this young fellow's speculation, and began to have his serene +old age disturbed by anxieties and by the hope of a great stroke of luck.</p> + +<p>"To be sure, I only care about it for the boy," he said. The Squire was +like everybody else; sooner or later he must "take a chance."</p> + +<p>It is probably on account of the lack of enterprise in women that they +are not so fond of stock speculations and mine ventures as men. It is +only when woman becomes demoralized that she takes to any sort of +gambling. Neither Alice nor Ruth were much elated with the prospect of +Philip's renewal of his mining enterprise.</p> + +<p>But Philip was exultant. He wrote to Ruth as if his fortune were already +made, and as if the clouds that lowered over the house of Bolton were +already in the deep bosom of a coal mine buried. Towards spring he went +to Philadelphia with his plans all matured for a new campaign. His +enthusiasm was irresistible.</p> + +<p>"Philip has come, Philip has come," cried the children, as if some great +good had again come into the household; and the refrain even sang itself +over in Ruth's heart as she went the weary hospital rounds. Mr. Bolton +felt more courage than he had had in months, at the sight of his manly +face and the sound of his cheery voice.</p> + +<p>Ruth's course was vindicated now, and it certainly did not become Philip, +who had nothing to offer but a future chance against the visible result +of her determination and industry, to open an argument with her. Ruth +was never more certain that she was right and that she was sufficient +unto herself. She, may be, did not much heed the still small voice that +sang in her maiden heart as she went about her work, and which lightened +it and made it easy, "Philip has come."</p> + +<p>"I am glad for father's sake," she said to Philip, "that thee has come. +I can see that he depends greatly upon what thee can do. He thinks women +won't hold out long," added Ruth with the smile that Philip never exactly +understood.</p> + +<p>"And aren't you tired sometimes of the struggle?"</p> + +<p>"Tired? Yes, everybody is tired I suppose. But it is a glorious +profession. And would you want me to be dependent, Philip?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, a little," said Philip, feeling his way towards what he +wanted to say.</p> + +<p>"On what, for instance, just now?" asked Ruth, a little maliciously +Philip thought.</p> + +<p>"Why, on—" he couldn't quite say it, for it occurred to him that he was +a poor stick for any body to lean on in the present state of his fortune, +and that the woman before him was at least as independent as he was.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean depend," he began again. "But I love you, that's all. Am +I nothing—to you?" And Philip looked a little defiant, and as if he had +said something that ought to brush away all the sophistries of obligation +on either side, between man and woman.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Ruth saw this. Perhaps she saw that her own theories of a +certain equality of power, which ought to precede a union of two hearts, +might be pushed too far. Perhaps she had felt sometimes her own weakness +and the need after all of so dear a sympathy and so tender an interest +confessed, as that which Philip could give. Whatever moved her—the +riddle is as old as creation—she simply looked up to Philip and said in +a low voice, "Everything."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p463"></a><img alt="p463.jpg (30K)" src="images/p463.jpg" height="473" width="489"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And Philip clasping both her hands in his, and looking down into her +eyes, which drank in all his tenderness with the thirst of a true woman's +nature—</p> + +<p>"Oh! Philip, come out here," shouted young Eli, throwing the door wide +open.</p> + +<p>And Ruth escaped away to her room, her heart singing again, and now as if +it would burst for joy, "Philip has come."</p> + +<p>That night Philip received a dispatch from Harry—"The trial begins +tomorrow."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p464"></a><img alt="p464.jpg (43K)" src="images/p464.jpg" height="435" width="569"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch51"></a>CHAPTER LI.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>December 18—, found Washington Hawkins and Col. Sellers once more at the +capitol of the nation, standing guard over the University bill. The +former gentleman was despondent, the latter hopeful. Washington's +distress of mind was chiefly on Laura's account. The court would soon +sit to try her, case, he said, and consequently a great deal of ready +money would be needed in the engineering of it. The University bill was +sure to pass this, time, and that would make money plenty, but might not +the, help come too late? Congress had only just assembled, and delays +were to be feared.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Colonel, "I don't know but you are more or less right, +there. Now let's figure up a little on, the preliminaries. I think +Congress always tries to do as near right as it can, according to its +lights. A man can't ask any fairer, than that. The first preliminary it +always starts out on, is, to clean itself, so to speak. It will arraign +two or three dozen of its members, or maybe four or five dozen, for +taking bribes to vote for this and that and the other bill last winter."</p> + +<p>"It goes up into the dozens, does it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes; in a free country likes ours, where any man can run for +Congress and anybody can vote for him, you can't expect immortal purity +all the time—it ain't in nature. Sixty or eighty or a hundred and fifty +people are bound to get in who are not angels in disguise, as young Hicks +the correspondent says; but still it is a very good average; very good +indeed. As long as it averages as well as that, I think we can feel very +well satisfied. Even in these days, when people growl so much and the +newspapers are so out of patience, there is still a very respectable +minority of honest men in Congress."</p> + +<p>"Why a respectable minority of honest men can't do any good, Colonel."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes it can, too"</p> + +<p>"Why, how?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, in many ways, many ways."</p> + +<p>"But what are the ways?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I don't know—it is a question that requires time; a body can't +answer every question right off-hand. But it does do good. I am +satisfied of that."</p> + +<p>"All right, then; grant that it does good; go on with the preliminaries."</p> + +<p>"That is what I am coming to. First, as I said, they will try a lot of +members for taking money for votes. That will take four weeks."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's like last year; and it is a sheer waste of the time for +which the nation pays those men to work—that is what that is. And it +pinches when a body's got a bill waiting."</p> + +<p>"A waste of time, to purify the fountain of public law? Well, I never +heard anybody express an idea like that before. But if it were, it would +still be the fault of the minority, for the majority don't institute +these proceedings. There is where that minority becomes an +obstruction—but still one can't say it is on the wrong side.—Well, after they have +finished the bribery cases, they will take up cases of members who have +bought their seats with money. That will take another four weeks."</p> + +<p>"Very good; go on. You have accounted for two-thirds of the session."</p> + +<p>"Next they will try each other for various smaller irregularities, like +the sale of appointments to West Point cadetships, and that sort of +thing—mere trifling pocket-money enterprises that might better, be +passed over in silence, perhaps, but then one of our Congresses can never +rest easy till it has thoroughly purified itself of all blemishes—and +that is a thing to be applauded."</p> + +<p>"How long does it take to disinfect itself of these minor impurities?"</p> + +<p>"Well, about two weeks, generally."</p> + +<p>"So Congress always lies helpless in quarantine ten weeks of a session. +That's encouraging. Colonel, poor Laura will never get any benefit from +our bill. Her trial will be over before Congress has half purified +itself.—And doesn't it occur to you that by the time it has expelled all +its impure members there, may not be enough members left to do business +legally?"</p> + +<p>"Why I did not say Congress would expel anybody."</p> + +<p>"Well won't it expel anybody?"</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily. Did it last year? It never does. That would not be +regular."</p> + +<p>"Then why waste all the session in that tomfoolery of trying members?"</p> + +<p>"It is usual; it is customary; the country requires it."</p> + +<p>"Then the country is a fool, I think."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. The country thinks somebody is going to be expelled."</p> + +<p>"Well, when nobody is expelled, what does the country think then?"</p> + +<p>"By that time, the thing has strung out so long that the country is sick +and tired of it and glad to have a change on any terms. But all that +inquiry is not lost. It has a good moral effect."</p> + +<p>"Who does it have a good moral effect on?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I don't know. On foreign countries, I think. We have always been +under the gaze of foreign countries. There is no country in the world, +sir, that pursues corruption as inveterately as we do. There is no +country in the world whose representatives try each other as much as ours +do, or stick to it as long on a stretch. I think there is something +great in being a model for the whole civilized world, Washington"</p> + +<p>"You don't mean a model; you mean an example."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's all the same; it's just the same thing. It shows that a man +can't be corrupt in this country without sweating for it, I can tell you +that."</p> + +<p>"Hang it, Colonel, you just said we never punish anybody for villainous +practices."</p> + +<p>"But good God we try them, don't we! Is it nothing to show a disposition +to sift things and bring people to a strict account? I tell you it has +its effect."</p> + +<p>"Oh, bother the effect!—What is it they do do? How do they proceed? +You know perfectly well—and it is all bosh, too. Come, now, how do they +proceed?"</p> + +<p>"Why they proceed right and regular—and it ain't bosh, Washington, it +ain't bosh. They appoint a committee to investigate, and that committee +hears evidence three weeks, and all the witnesses on one side swear that +the accused took money or stock or something for his vote. Then the +accused stands up and testifies that he may have done it, but he was +receiving and handling a good deal of money at the time and he doesn't +remember this particular circumstance—at least with sufficient +distinctness to enable him to grasp it tangibly. So of course the thing +is not proven—and that is what they say in the verdict. They don't +acquit, they don't condemn. They just say, 'Charge not proven.' It +leaves the accused is a kind of a shaky condition before the country, +it purifies Congress, it satisfies everybody, and it doesn't seriously +hurt anybody. It has taken a long time to perfect our system, but it is +the most admirable in the world, now."</p> + +<p>"So one of those long stupid investigations always turns out in that lame +silly way. Yes, you are correct. I thought maybe you viewed the matter +differently from other people. Do you think a Congress of ours could +convict the devil of anything if he were a member?"</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, don't let these damaging delays prejudice you against +Congress. Don't use such strong language; you talk like a newspaper. +Congress has inflicted frightful punishments on its members—now you know +that. When they tried Mr. Fairoaks, and a cloud of witnesses proved him +to be—well, you know what they proved him to be—and his own testimony +and his own confessions gave him the same character, what did Congress do +then?—come!"</p> + +<p>"Well, what did Congress do?"</p> + +<p>"You know what Congress did, Washington. Congress intimated plainly +enough, that they considered him almost a stain upon their body; and +without waiting ten days, hardly, to think the thing over, the rose up +and hurled at him a resolution declaring that they disapproved of his +conduct! Now you know that, Washington."</p> + +<p>"It was a terrific thing—there is no denying that. If he had been +proven guilty of theft, arson, licentiousness, infanticide, and defiling +graves, I believe they would have suspended him for two days."</p> + +<p>"You can depend on it, Washington. Congress is vindictive, Congress is +savage, sir, when it gets waked up once. It will go to any length to +vindicate its honor at such a time."</p> + +<p>"Ah well, we have talked the morning through, just as usual in these +tiresome days of waiting, and we have reached the same old result; that +is to say, we are no better off than when we began. The land bill is +just as far away as ever, and the trial is closer at hand. Let's give up +everything and die."</p> + +<p>"Die and leave the Duchess to fight it out all alone? Oh, no, that won't +do. Come, now, don't talk so. It is all going to come out right. Now +you'll see."</p> + +<p>"It never will, Colonel, never in the world. Something tells me that. +I get more tired and more despondent every day. I don't see any hope; +life is only just a trouble. I am so miserable, these days!"</p> + +<p>The Colonel made Washington get up and walk the floor with him, arm in +arm. The good old speculator wanted to comfort him, but he hardly knew +how to go about it. He made many attempts, but they were lame; they +lacked spirit; the words were encouraging; but they were only words—he +could not get any heart into them. He could not always warm up, now, +with the old Hawkeye fervor. By and by his lips trembled and his voice +got unsteady. He said:</p> + +<p>"Don't give up the ship, my boy—don't do it. The wind's bound to fetch +around and set in our favor. I know it."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p470"></a><img alt="p470.jpg (24K)" src="images/p470.jpg" height="405" width="407"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And the prospect was so cheerful that he wept. Then he blew a +trumpet-blast that started the meshes of his handkerchief, and said in almost his +breezy old-time way:</p> + +<p>"Lord bless us, this is all nonsense! Night doesn't last always; day has +got to break some time or other. Every silver lining has a cloud behind +it, as the poet says; and that remark has always cheered me; +though—I never could see any meaning to it. Everybody uses it, though, and +everybody gets comfort out of it. I wish they would start something +fresh. Come, now, let's cheer up; there's been as good fish in the sea +as there are now. It shall never be said that Beriah +Sellers— Come in?"</p> + +<p>It was the telegraph boy. The Colonel reached for the message and +devoured its contents:</p> + +<p>"I said it! Never give up the ship! The trial's, postponed till +February, and we'll save the child yet. Bless my life, what lawyers +they, have in New-York! Give them money to fight with; and the ghost of +an excuse, and they: would manage to postpone anything in this world, +unless it might be the millennium or something like that. Now for work +again my boy. The trial will last to the middle of March, sure; Congress +ends the fourth of March. Within three days of the end of the session +they will be done putting through the preliminaries then they will be +ready for national business: Our bill will go through in forty-eight +hours, then, and we'll telegraph a million dollar's to the jury—to the +lawyers, I mean—and the verdict of the jury will be 'Accidental murder +resulting from justifiable insanity'—or something to, that effect, +something to that effect.—Everything is dead sure, now. Come, what is +the matter? What are you wilting down like that, for? You mustn't be a +girl, you know."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Colonel, I am become so used to troubles, so used to failures, +disappointments, hard luck of all kinds, that a little good news breaks +me right down. Everything has been so hopeless that now I can't stand +good news at all. It is too good to be true, anyway. Don't you see how +our bad luck has worked on me? My hair is getting gray, and many nights +I don't sleep at all. I wish it was all over and we could rest. I wish +we could lie, down and just forget everything, and let it all be just a +dream that is done and can't come back to trouble us any more. I am so +tired."</p> + +<p>"Ah, poor child, don't talk like that-cheer up—there's daylight ahead. +Don't give, up. You'll have Laura again, and—Louise, and your mother, +and oceans and oceans of money—and then you can go away, ever so far +away somewhere, if you want to, and forget all about this infernal place. +And by George I'll go with you! I'll go with you—now there's my word on +it. Cheer up. I'll run out and tell the friends the news."</p> + +<p>And he wrung Washington's hand and was about to hurry away when his +companion, in a burst of grateful admiration said:</p> + +<p>"I think you are the best soul and the noblest I ever knew, Colonel +Sellers! and if the people only knew you as I do, you would not be +tagging around here a nameless man—you would be in Congress."</p> + +<p>The gladness died out of the Colonel's face, and he laid his hand upon +Washington's shoulder and said gravely:</p> + +<p>"I have always been a friend of your family, Washington, and I think I +have always tried to do right as between man and man, according to my +lights. Now I don't think there has ever been anything in my conduct +that should make you feel Justified in saying a thing like that."</p> + +<p>He turned, then, and walked slowly out, leaving Washington abashed and +somewhat bewildered. When Washington had presently got his thoughts into +line again, he said to himself, "Why, honestly, I only meant to +compliment him—indeed I would not have hurt him for the world."</p> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch52"></a>CHAPTER LII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>The weeks drifted by monotonously enough, now. The "preliminaries" +continued to drag along in Congress, and life was a dull suspense to +Sellers and Washington, a weary waiting which might have broken their +hearts, maybe, but for the relieving change which they got out of am +occasional visit to New York to see Laura. Standing guard in Washington +or anywhere else is not an exciting business in time of peace, but +standing guard was all that the two friends had to do; all that was +needed of them was that they should be on hand and ready for any +emergency that might come up. There was no work to do; that was all +finished; this was but the second session of the last winter's Congress, +and its action on the bill could have but one result—its passage. The +house must do its work over again, of course, but the same membership was +there to see that it did it.—The Senate was secure—Senator Dilworthy +was able to put all doubts to rest on that head. Indeed it was no secret +in Washington that a two-thirds vote in the Senate was ready and waiting +to be cast for the University bill as soon as it should come before that +body.</p> + +<p>Washington did not take part in the gaieties of "the season," as he had +done the previous winter. He had lost his interest in such things; he +was oppressed with cares, now. Senator Dilworthy said to Washington that +an humble deportment, under punishment, was best, and that there was but +one way in which the troubled heart might find perfect repose and peace. +The suggestion found a response in Washington's breast, and the Senator +saw the sign of it in his face.</p> + +<p>From that moment one could find the youth with the Senator even oftener +than with Col. Sellers. When the statesman presided at great temperance +meetings, he placed Washington in the front rank of impressive +dignitaries that gave tone to the occasion and pomp to the platform. +His bald headed surroundings made the youth the more conspicuous.</p> + +<p>When the statesman made remarks in these meetings, he not infrequently +alluded with effect to the encouraging spectacle of one of the wealthiest +and most brilliant young favorites of society forsaking the light +vanities of that butterfly existence to nobly and self-sacrificingly +devote his talents and his riches to the cause of saving his hapless +fellow creatures from shame and misery here and eternal regret hereafter.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p474"></a><img alt="p474.jpg (50K)" src="images/p474.jpg" height="461" width="545"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>At the prayer meetings the Senator always brought Washington up the aisle +on his arm and seated him prominently; in his prayers he referred to him +in the cant terms which the Senator employed, perhaps unconsciously, and +mistook, maybe, for religion, and in other ways brought him into notice. +He had him out at gatherings for the benefit of the negro, gatherings for +the benefit of the Indian, gatherings for the benefit of the heathen in +distant lands. He had him out time and again, before Sunday Schools, +as an example for emulation. Upon all these occasions the Senator made +casual references to many benevolent enterprises which his ardent young +friend was planning against the day when the passage of the University +bill should make his means available for the amelioration of the +condition of the unfortunate among his fellow men of all nations and all. +climes. Thus as the weeks rolled on Washington grew up, into an imposing +lion once more, but a lion that roamed the peaceful fields of religion +and temperance, and revisited the glittering domain of fashion no more. +A great moral influence was thus brought, to bear in favor of the bill; +the weightiest of friends flocked to its standard; its most energetic +enemies said it was useless to fight longer; they had tacitly surrendered +while as yet the day of battle was not come.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch53"></a>CHAPTER LIII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>The session was drawing toward its close. Senator Dilworthy thought he +would run out west and shake hands with his constituents and let them +look at him. The legislature whose duty it would be to re-elect him to +the United States Senate, was already in session. Mr. Dilworthy +considered his re-election certain, but he was a careful, painstaking +man, and if, by visiting his State he could find the opportunity to +persuade a few more legislators to vote for him, he held the journey to +be well worth taking. The University bill was safe, now; he could leave +it without fear; it needed his presence and his watching no longer. +But there was a person in his State legislature who did need +watching—a person who, Senator Dilworthy said, was a narrow, grumbling, +uncomfortable malcontent—a person who was stolidly opposed to reform, +and progress and him,—a person who, he feared, had been bought with +money to combat him, and through him the commonwealth's welfare and its +politics' purity.</p> + +<p>"If this person Noble," said Mr. Dilworthy, in a little speech at a +dinner party given him by some of his admirers, "merely desired to +sacrifice me.—I would willingly offer up my political life on the altar +of my dear State's weal, I would be glad and grateful to do it; but when +he makes of me but a cloak to hide his deeper designs, when he proposes +to strike through me at the heart of my beloved State, all the lion in me +is roused—and I say here I stand, solitary and alone, but unflinching, +unquailing, thrice armed with my sacred trust; and whoso passes, to do +evil to this fair domain that looks to me for protection, must do so over +my dead body."</p> + +<p>He further said that if this Noble were a pure man, and merely misguided, +he could bear it, but that he should succeed in his wicked designs +through, a base use of money would leave a blot upon his State which +would work untold evil to the morals of the people, and that he would not +suffer; the public morals must not be contaminated. He would seek this +man Noble; he would argue, he would persuade, he would appeal to his +honor.</p> + +<p>When he arrived on the ground he found his friends unterrified; they were +standing firmly by him and were full of courage. Noble was working hard, +too, but matters were against him, he was not making much progress. +Mr. Dilworthy took an early opportunity to send for Mr. Noble; he had a +midnight interview with him, and urged him to forsake his evil ways; he +begged him to come again and again, which he did. He finally sent the +man away at 3 o'clock one morning; and when he was gone, Mr. Dilworthy +said to himself,</p> + +<p>"I feel a good deal relieved, now, a great deal relieved."</p> + +<p>The Senator now turned his attention to matters touching the souls of his +people. He appeared in church; he took a leading part in prayer +meetings; he met and encouraged the temperance societies; he graced the +sewing circles of the ladies with his presence, and even took a needle +now and then and made a stitch or two upon a calico shirt for some poor +Bibleless pagan of the South Seas, and this act enchanted the ladies, +who regarded the garments thus honored as in a manner sanctified. +The Senator wrought in Bible classes, and nothing could keep him away +from the Sunday Schools—neither sickness nor storms nor weariness. +He even traveled a tedious thirty miles in a poor little rickety +stagecoach to comply with the desire of the miserable hamlet of +Cattleville that he would let its Sunday School look upon him.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p478"></a><img alt="p478.jpg (41K)" src="images/p478.jpg" height="481" width="523"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>All the town was assembled at the stage office when he arrived, +two bonfires were burning, and a battery of anvils was popping exultant +broadsides; for a United States Senator was a sort of god in the +understanding of these people who never had seen any creature mightier +than a county judge. To them a United States Senator was a vast, vague +colossus, an awe inspiring unreality.</p> + +<p>Next day everybody was at the village church a full half hour before time +for Sunday School to open; ranchmen and farmers had come with their +families from five miles around, all eager to get a glimpse of the great +man—the man who had been to Washington; the man who had seen the +President of the United States, and had even talked with him; the man who +had seen the actual Washington Monument—perhaps touched it with his +hands.</p> + +<p>When the Senator arrived the Church was crowded, the windows were full, +the aisles were packed, so was the vestibule, and so indeed was the yard +in front of the building. As he worked his way through to the pulpit on +the arm of the minister and followed by the envied officials of the +village, every neck was stretched and, every eye twisted around +intervening obstructions to get a glimpse. Elderly people directed each +other's attention and, said, "There! that's him, with the grand, noble +forehead!" Boys nudged each other and said, "Hi, Johnny, here he is, +there, that's him, with the peeled head!"</p> + +<p>The Senator took his seat in the pulpit, with the minister' on one side +of him and the Superintendent of the Sunday School on the other. +The town dignitaries sat in an impressive row within the altar railings +below. The Sunday School children occupied ten of the front benches. +dressed in their best and most uncomfortable clothes, and with hair +combed and faces too clean to feel natural. So awed were they by the +presence of a living United States Senator, that during three minutes not +a "spit ball" was thrown. After that they began to come to themselves by +degrees, and presently the spell was wholly gone and they were reciting +verses and pulling hair.</p> + +<p>The usual Sunday School exercises were hurried through, and then the +minister, got up and bored the house with a speech built on the customary +Sunday School plan; then the Superintendent put in his oar; then the town +dignitaries had their say. They all made complimentary reference to +"their friend the, Senator," and told what a great and illustrious man he +was and what he had done for his country and for religion and temperance, +and exhorted the little boys to be good and diligent and try to become +like him some day. The speakers won the deathless hatred of the house by +these delays, but at last there was an end and hope revived; inspiration +was about to find utterance.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p480"></a><img alt="p480.jpg (110K)" src="images/p480.jpg" height="865" width="575"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Senator Dilworthy rose and beamed upon the assemblage for a full minute +in silence. Then he smiled with an access of sweetness upon the children +and began:</p> + +<p>"My little friends—for I hope that all these bright-faced little people +are my friends and will let me be their friend—my little friends, I have +traveled much, I have been in many cities and many States, everywhere in +our great and noble country, and by the blessing of Providence I have +been permitted to see many gatherings like this—but I am proud, I am +truly proud to say that I never have looked upon so much intelligence, +so much grace, such sweetness of disposition as I see in the charming +young countenances I see before me at this moment. I have been asking +myself as I sat here, Where am I? Am I in some far-off monarchy, looking +upon little princes and princesses? No. Am I in some populous centre of +my own country, where the choicest children of the land have been +selected and brought together as at a fair for a prize? No. Am I in +some strange foreign clime where the children are marvels that we know +not of? No. Then where am I? Yes—where am I? I am in a simple, +remote, unpretending settlement of my own dear State, and these are the +children of the noble and virtuous men who have made me what I am! +My soul is lost in wonder at the thought! And I humbly thank Him to whom +we are but as worms of the dust, that he has been pleased to call me to +serve such men! Earth has no higher, no grander position for me. Let +kings and emperors keep their tinsel crowns, I want them not; my heart is +here!</p> + +<p>"Again I thought, Is this a theatre? No. Is it a concert or a gilded +opera? No. Is it some other vain, brilliant, beautiful temple of +soul-staining amusement and hilarity? No. Then what is it? What did my +consciousness reply? I ask you, my little friends, What did my +consciousness reply? It replied, It is the temple of the Lord! Ah, +think of that, now. I could hardly beep the tears back, I was so +grateful. Oh, how beautiful it is to see these ranks of sunny little +faces assembled here to learn the way of life; to learn to be good; to +learn to be useful; to learn to be pious; to learn to be great and +glorious men and women; to learn to be props and pillars of the State and +shining lights in the councils and the households of the nation; to be +bearers of the banner and soldiers of the cross in the rude campaigns of +life, and raptured souls in the happy fields of Paradise hereafter.</p> + +<p>"Children, honor your parents and be grateful to them for providing for +you the precious privileges of a Sunday School.</p> + +<p>"Now my dear little friends, sit up straight and pretty—there, that's +it—and give me your attention and let me tell you about a poor little +Sunday School scholar I once knew.—He lived in the far west, and his +parents were poor. They could not give him a costly education; but they +were good and wise and they sent him to the Sunday School. He loved the +Sunday School. I hope you love your Sunday School—ah, I see by your +faces that you do! That is right!</p> + +<p>"Well, this poor little boy was always in his place when the bell rang, +and he always knew his lesson; for his teachers wanted him to learn and +he loved his teachers dearly. Always love your teachers, my children, +for they love you more than you can know, now. He would not let bad boys +persuade him to go to play on Sunday. There was one little bad boy who +was always trying to persuade him, but he never could.</p> + +<p>"So this poor little boy grew up to be a man, and had to go out in the +world, far from home and friends to earn his living. Temptations lay all +about him, and sometimes he was about to yield, but he would think of +some precious lesson he learned in his Sunday School a long time ago, and +that would save him. By and by he was elected to the legislature—Then +he did everything he could for Sunday Schools. He got laws passed for +them; he got Sunday Schools established wherever he could.</p> + +<p>"And by and by the people made him governor—and he said it was all owing +to the Sunday School.</p> + +<p>"After a while the people elected him a Representative to the Congress of +the United States, and he grew very famous.—Now temptations assailed him +on every hand. People tried to get him to drink wine; to dance, to go to +theatres; they even tried to buy his vote; but no, the memory of his +Sunday School saved him from all harm; he remembered the fate of the bad +little boy who used to try to get him to play on Sunday, and who grew up +and became a drunkard and was hanged. He remembered that, and was glad +he never yielded and played on Sunday.</p> + +<p>"Well, at last, what do you think happened? Why the people gave him a +towering, illustrious position, a grand, imposing position. And what do +you think it was? What should you say it was, children? It was Senator +of the United States! That poor little boy that loved his Sunday School +became that man. That man stands before you! All that he is, he owes to +the Sunday School.</p> + +<p>"My precious children, love your parents, love your teachers, love your +Sunday School, be pious, be obedient, be honest, be diligent, and then +you will succeed in life and be honored of all men. Above all things, +my children, be honest. Above all things be pure-minded as the snow. +Let us join in prayer."</p> + +<p>When Senator Dilworthy departed from Cattleville, he left three dozen +boys behind him arranging a campaign of life whose objective point was +the United States Senate.</p> + +<p>When be arrived at the State capital at midnight Mr. Noble came and held +a three-hours' conference with him, and then as he was about leaving +said:</p> + +<p>"I've worked hard, and I've got them at last. Six of them haven't got +quite back-bone enough to slew around and come right out for you on the +first ballot to-morrow; but they're going to vote against you on the +first for the sake of appearances, and then come out for you all in a +body on the second—I've fixed all that! By supper time to-morrow you'll +be re-elected. You can go to bed and sleep easy on that."</p> + +<p>After Mr. Noble was gone, the Senator said:</p> + +<p>"Well, to bring about a complexion of things like this was worth coming +West for."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p483"></a><img alt="p483.jpg (9K)" src="images/p483.jpg" height="339" width="289"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch54"></a>CHAPTER LIV.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>The case of the State of New York against Laura Hawkins was finally set +down for trial on the 15th day of February, less than a year after the +shooting of George Selby.</p> + +<p>If the public had almost forgotten the existence of Laura and her crime, +they were reminded of all the details of the murder by the newspapers, +which for some days had been announcing the approaching trial. But they +had not forgotten. The sex, the age, the beauty of the prisoner; her +high social position in Washington, the unparalled calmness with which +the crime was committed had all conspired to fix the event in the public +mind, although nearly three hundred and sixty-five subsequent murders had +occurred to vary the monotony of metropolitan life.</p> + +<p>No, the public read from time to time of the lovely prisoner, languishing +in the city prison, the tortured victim of the law's delay; and as the +months went by it was natural that the horror of her crime should become +a little indistinct in memory, while the heroine of it should be invested +with a sort of sentimental interest. Perhaps her counsel had calculated +on this. Perhaps it was by their advice that Laura had interested +herself in the unfortunate criminals who shared her prison confinement, +and had done not a little to relieve, from her own purse, the necessities +of some of the poor creatures. That she had done this, the public read +in the journals of the day, and the simple announcement cast a softening +light upon her character.</p> + +<p>The court room was crowded at an early hour, before the arrival of +judges, lawyers and prisoner. There is no enjoyment so keen to certain +minds as that of looking upon the slow torture of a human being on trial +for life, except it be an execution; there is no display of human +ingenuity, wit and power so fascinating as that made by trained lawyers +in the trial of an important case, nowhere else is exhibited such +subtlety, acumen, address, eloquence.</p> + +<p>All the conditions of intense excitement meet in a murder trial. The +awful issue at stake gives significance to the lightest word or look. +How the quick eyes of the spectators rove from the stolid jury to the +keen lawyers, the impassive judge, the anxious prisoner. Nothing is +lost of the sharp wrangle of the counsel on points of law, the measured +decision's of the bench; the duels between the attorneys and the +witnesses. The crowd sways with the rise and fall of the shifting, +testimony, in sympathetic interest, and hangs upon the dicta of the +judge in breathless silence. It speedily takes sides for or against +the accused, and recognizes as quickly its favorites among the lawyers. +Nothing delights it more than the sharp retort of a witness and the +discomfiture of an obnoxious attorney. A joke, even if it be a lame, +one, is no where so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder +trial.</p> + +<p>Within the bar the young lawyers and the privileged hangers-on filled all +the chairs except those reserved at the table for those engaged in the +case. Without, the throng occupied all the seats, the window ledges and +the standing room. The atmosphere was already something horrible. +It was the peculiar odor of a criminal court, as if it were tainted by +the presence, in different persons, of all the crimes that men and women +can commit.</p> + +<p>There was a little stir when the Prosecuting Attorney, with two +assistants, made his way in, seated himself at the table, and spread his +papers before him. There was more stir when the counsel of the defense +appeared. They were Mr. Braham, the senior, and Mr. Quiggle and Mr. +O'Keefe, the juniors.</p> + +<p>Everybody in the court room knew Mr. Braham, the great criminal lawyer, +and he was not unaware that he was the object of all eyes as he moved to +his place, bowing to his friends in the bar. A large but rather spare +man, with broad shoulders and a massive head, covered with chestnut curls +which fell down upon his coat collar and which he had a habit of shaking +as a lion is supposed to shake his mane. His face was clean shaven, +and he had a wide mouth and rather small dark eyes, set quite too near +together: Mr. Braham wore a brown frock coat buttoned across his breast, +with a rose-bud in the upper buttonhole, and light pantaloons. +A diamond stud was seen to flash from his bosom; and as he seated himself +and drew off his gloves a heavy seal ring was displayed upon his white +left hand. Mr. Braham having seated himself, deliberately surveyed the +entire house, made a remark to one of his assistants, and then taking an +ivory-handled knife from his pocket began to pare his finger nails, +rocking his chair backwards and forwards slowly.</p> + +<p>A moment later Judge O'Shaunnessy entered at the rear door and took his +seat in one of the chairs behind the bench; a gentleman in black +broadcloth, with sandy hair, inclined to curl, a round; reddish and +rather jovial face, sharp rather than intellectual, and with a +self-sufficient air. His career had nothing remarkable in it. He was +descended from a long line of Irish Kings, and he was the first one of +them who had ever come into his kingdom—the kingdom of such being the +city of New York. He had, in fact, descended so far and so low that he +found himself, when a boy, a sort of street Arab in that city; but he had +ambition and native shrewdness, and he speedily took to boot-polishing, +and newspaper hawking, became the office and errand boy of a law firm, +picked up knowledge enough to get some employment in police courts, was +admitted to the bar, became a rising young politician, went to the +legislature, and was finally elected to the bench which he now honored. +In this democratic country he was obliged to conceal his royalty under +a plebeian aspect. Judge O'Shaunnessy never had a lucrative practice nor +a large salary but he had prudently laid away money-believing that +a dependant judge can never be impartial—and he had lands and houses +to the value of three or four hundred thousand dollars. Had he not +helped to build and furnish this very Court House? Did he not know that +the very "spittoon" which his judgeship used cost the city the sum of one +thousand dollars?</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p487"></a><img alt="p487.jpg (13K)" src="images/p487.jpg" height="335" width="273"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>As soon as the judge was seated, the court was opened, with the "oi yis, +oi yis" of the officer in his native language, the case called, and the +sheriff was directed to bring in the prisoner. In the midst of a +profound hush Laura entered, leaning on the arm of the officer, and was +conducted to a seat by her counsel. She was followed by her mother and +by Washington Hawkins, who were given seats near her.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p488"></a><img alt="p488.jpg (49K)" src="images/p488.jpg" height="583" width="545"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Laura was very pale, but this pallor heightened the lustre of her large +eyes and gave a touching sadness to her expressive face. She was dressed +in simple black, with exquisite taste, and without an ornament. The thin +lace vail which partially covered her face did not so much conceal as +heighten her beauty. She would not have entered a drawing room with more +self-poise, nor a church with more haughty humility. There was in her +manner or face neither shame nor boldness, and when she took her seat in +fall view of half the spectators, her eyes were downcast. A murmur of +admiration ran through the room. The newspaper reporters made their +pencils fly. Mr. Braham again swept his eyes over the house as if in +approval. When Laura at length raised her eyes a little, she saw Philip +and Harry within the bar, but she gave no token of recognition.</p> + +<p>The clerk then read the indictment, which was in the usual form. It +charged Laura Hawkins, in effect, with the premeditated murder of George +Selby, by shooting him with a pistol, with a revolver, shotgun, rifle, +repeater, breech-loader, cannon, six-shooter, with a gun, or some other, +weapon; with killing him with a slung-shot, a bludgeon, carving knife, +bowie knife, pen knife, rolling pin, car, hook, dagger, hair pin, with a +hammer, with a screw-driver; with a nail, and with all other weapons and +utensils whatsoever, at the Southern hotel and in all other hotels and +places wheresoever, on the thirteenth day of March and all other days of +the Christian era wheresoever.</p> + +<p>Laura stood while the long indictment was read; and at the end, in +response to the inquiry, of the judge, she said in a clear, low voice; +"Not guilty." She sat down and the court proceeded to impanel a jury.</p> + +<p>The first man called was Michael Lanigan, saloon keeper.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p489"></a><img alt="p489.jpg (16K)" src="images/p489.jpg" height="339" width="325"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Have you formed or expressed any opinion on this case, and do you know +any of the parties?"</p> + +<p>"Not any," said Mr. Lanigan.</p> + +<p>"Have you any conscientious objections to capital punishment?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, not to my knowledge."</p> + +<p>"Have you read anything about this case?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure, I read the papers, y'r Honor."</p> + +<p>Objected to by Mr. Braham, for cause, and discharged.</p> + +<p>Patrick Coughlin.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p490"></a><img alt="p490.jpg (19K)" src="images/p490.jpg" height="353" width="307"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"What is your business?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I haven't got any particular business."</p> + +<p>"Haven't any particular business, eh? Well, what's your general +business? What do you do for a living?"</p> + +<p>"I own some terriers, sir."</p> + +<p>"Own some terriers, eh? Keep a rat pit?"</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen comes there to have a little sport. I never fit 'em, sir."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see—you are probably the amusement committee of the city council. +Have you ever heard of this case?"</p> + +<p>"Not till this morning, sir."</p> + +<p>"Can you read?"</p> + +<p>"Not fine print, y'r Honor."</p> + +<p>The man was about to be sworn, when Mr. Braham asked,</p> + +<p>"Could your father read?"</p> + +<p>"The old gentleman was mighty handy at that, sir."</p> + +<p>Mr. Braham submitted that the man was disqualified Judge thought not. +Point argued. Challenged peremptorily, and set aside.</p> + +<p>Ethan Dobb, cart-driver.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p491"></a><img alt="p491.jpg (17K)" src="images/p491.jpg" height="329" width="335"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Can you read?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but haven't a habit of it."</p> + +<p>"Have you heard of this case?"</p> + +<p>"I think so—but it might be another. I have no opinion about it."</p> + +<p>Dist. A. "Tha—tha—there! Hold on a bit? Did anybody tell you to say +you had no opinion about it?"</p> + +<p>"N—n—o, sir."</p> + +<p>Take care now, take care. Then what suggested it to you to volunteer +that remark?"</p> + +<p>"They've always asked that, when I was on juries."</p> + +<p>All right, then. Have you any conscientious scruples about capital +punishment?"</p> + +<p>"Any which?"</p> + +<p>"Would you object to finding a person guilty—of murder on evidence?"</p> + +<p>"I might, sir, if I thought he wan't guilty."</p> + +<p>The district attorney thought he saw a point.</p> + +<p>"Would this feeling rather incline you against a capital conviction?"</p> + +<p>The juror said he hadn't any feeling, and didn't know any of the parties. +Accepted and sworn.</p> + +<p>Dennis Lafin, laborer. Have neither formed nor expressed an opinion. +Never had heard of the case. Believed in hangin' for them that deserved +it. Could read if it was necessary.</p> + +<p>Mr. Braham objected. The man was evidently bloody minded. Challenged +peremptorily.</p> + +<p>Larry O'Toole, contractor. A showily dressed man of the style known as +"vulgar genteel," had a sharp eye and a ready tongue. Had read the +newspaper reports of the case, but they made no impression on him. +Should be governed by the evidence. Knew no reason why he could not be +an impartial juror.</p> + +<p>Question by District Attorney.</p> + +<p>"How is it that the reports made no impression on you?"</p> + +<p>"Never believe anything I see in the newspapers."</p> + +<p>(Laughter from the crowd, approving smiles from his Honor and Mr. +Braham.) Juror sworn in. Mr. Braham whispered to O'Keefe, "that's the +man."</p> + +<p>Avery Hicks, pea-nut peddler. Did he ever hear of this case? The man +shook his head.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p492"></a><img alt="p492.jpg (16K)" src="images/p492.jpg" height="349" width="313"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Can you read?"</p> + +<p>"No." "Any scruples about capital punishment?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>He was about to be sworn, when the district attorney turning to him +carelessly, remarked,</p> + +<p>"Understand the nature of an oath?"</p> + +<p>"Outside," said the man, pointing to the door.</p> + +<p>"I say, do you know what an oath is?"</p> + +<p>"Five cents," explained the man.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to insult me?" roared the prosecuting officer. "Are you an +idiot?"</p> + +<p>"Fresh baked. I'm deefe. I don't hear a word you say."</p> + +<p>The man was discharged. "He wouldn't have made a bad juror, though," +whispered Braham. "I saw him looking at the prisoner sympathizingly. +That's a point you want to watch for."</p> + +<p>The result of the whole day's work was the selection of only two jurors. +These however were satisfactory to Mr. Braham. He had kept off all those +he did not know. No one knew better than this great criminal lawyer that +the battle was fought on the selection of the jury. The subsequent +examination of witnesses, the eloquence expended on the jury are all for +effect outside. At least that is the theory of Mr. Braham. But human +nature is a queer thing, he admits; sometimes jurors are unaccountably +swayed, be as careful as you can in choosing them.</p> + +<p>It was four weary days before this jury was made up, but when it was +finally complete, it did great credit to the counsel for the defence. +So far as Mr. Braham knew, only two could read, one of whom was the +foreman, Mr. Braham's friend, the showy contractor. Low foreheads and +heavy faces they all had; some had a look of animal cunning, while the +most were only stupid. The entire panel formed that boasted heritage +commonly described as the "bulwark of our liberties."</p> + +<p>The District Attorney, Mr. McFlinn, opened the case for the state. He +spoke with only the slightest accent, one that had been inherited but not +cultivated. He contented himself with a brief statement of the case. +The state would prove that Laura Hawkins, the prisoner at the bar, a +fiend in the form of a beautiful woman, shot dead George Selby, a +Southern gentleman, at the, time and place described. That the murder +was in cold blood, deliberate and without provocation; that it had been +long premeditated and threatened; that she had followed the deceased-from +Washington to commit it. All this would be proved by unimpeachable +witnesses. The attorney added that the duty of the jury, however painful +it might be, would be plain and simple. They were citizens, husbands, +perhaps fathers. They knew how insecure life had become in the +metropolis. Tomorrow our own wives might be widows, their own children +orphans, like the bereaved family in yonder hotel, deprived of husband +and father by the jealous hand of some murderous female. The attorney +sat down, and the clerk called?"</p> + +<p>"Henry Brierly."</p> + + + +<br><br> +<hr> +<br><br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 6. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 6. *** + +***** This file should be named 5823-h.htm or 5823-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/2/5823/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gilded Age, Part 6. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5823] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 6. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE GILDED AGE + +A Tale of Today + +by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner + +1873 + + +Part 6. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +Philip left the capitol and walked up Pennsylvania Avenue in company with +Senator Dilworthy. It was a bright spring morning, the air was soft and +inspiring; in the deepening wayside green, the pink flush of the +blossoming peach trees, the soft suffusion on the heights of Arlington, +and the breath of the warm south wind was apparent, the annual miracle of +the resurrection of the earth. + +The Senator took off his hat and seemed to open his soul to the sweet +influences of the morning. After the heat and noise of the chamber, +under its dull gas-illuminated glass canopy, and the all night struggle +of passion and feverish excitement there, the open, tranquil world seemed +like Heaven. The Senator was not in an exultant mood, but rather in a +condition of holy joy, befitting a Christian statesman whose benevolent +plans Providence has made its own and stamped with approval. The great +battle had been fought, but the measure had still to encounter the +scrutiny of the Senate, and Providence sometimes acts differently in the +two Houses. Still the Senator was tranquil, for he knew that there is an +esprit de corps in the Senate which does not exist in the House, the +effect of which is to make the members complaisant towards the projects +of each other, and to extend a mutual aid which in a more vulgar body +would be called "log-rolling." + +"It is, under Providence, a good night's work, Mr. Sterling. The +government has founded an institution which will remove half the +difficulty from the southern problem. And it is a good thing for the +Hawkins heirs, a very good thing. Laura will be almost a millionaire." + +"Do you think, Mr. Dilworthy, that the Hawkinses will get much of the +money?" asked Philip innocently, remembering the fate of the Columbus +River appropriation. + +The Senator looked at his companion scrutinizingly for a moment to see if +he meant any thing personal, and then replied, + +"Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. I have had their interests greatly at heart. +There will of course be a few expenses, but the widow and orphans will +realize all that Mr. Hawkins, dreamed of for them." + +The birds were singing as they crossed the Presidential Square, now +bright with its green turf and tender foliage. After the two had gained +the steps of the Senator's house they stood a moment, looking upon the +lovely prospect: + +"It is like the peace of God," said the Senator devoutly. + +Entering the house, the Senator called a servant and said, "Tell Miss +Laura that we are waiting to see her. I ought to have sent a messenger +on horseback half an hour ago," he added to Philip, "she will be +transported with our victory. You must stop to breakfast, and see the +excitement." The servant soon came back, with a wondering look and +reported, + +"Miss Laura ain't dah, sah. I reckon she hain't been dah all night!" + +The Senator and Philip both started up. In Laura's room there were the +marks of a confused and hasty departure, drawers half open, little +articles strewn on the floor. The bed had not been disturbed. Upon +inquiry it appeared that Laura had not been at dinner, excusing herself +to Mrs. Dilworthy on the plea of a violent headache; that she made a +request to the servants that she might not be disturbed. + +The Senator was astounded. Philip thought at once of Col. Selby. Could +Laura have run away with him? The Senator thought not. In fact it could +not be. Gen. Leffenwell, the member from New Orleans, had casually told +him at the house last night that Selby and his family went to New York +yesterday morning and were to sail for Europe to-day. + +Philip had another idea which, he did not mention. He seized his hat, +and saying that he would go and see what he could learn, ran to the +lodgings of Harry; whom he had not seen since yesterday afternoon, when +he left him to go to the House. + +Harry was not in. He had gone out with a hand-bag before six o'clock +yesterday, saying that he had to go to New York, but should return next +day. In Harry's-room on the table Philip found this note: + + "Dear Mr. Brierly:--Can you meet me at the six o'clock train, + and be my escort to New York? I have to go about this + University bill, the vote of an absent member we must have + here, Senator Dilworthy cannot go. + Yours, L. H." + +"Confound it," said Phillip, "the noodle has fallen into her trap. And +she promised she would let him alone." + +He only stopped to send a note to Senator Dilworthy, telling him what he +had found, and that he should go at once to New York, and then hastened +to the railway station. He had to wait an hour for a train, and when it +did start it seemed to go at a snail's pace. + +Philip was devoured with anxiety. Where could they, have gone? What was +Laura's object in taking Harry? Had the flight anything to do with +Selby? Would Harry be such a fool as to be dragged into some public +scandal? + +It seemed as if the train would never reach Baltimore. Then there was a +long delay at Havre de Grace. A hot box had to be cooled at Wilmington. +Would it never get on? Only in passing around the city of Philadelphia +did the train not seem to go slow. Philip stood upon the platform and +watched for the Boltons' house, fancied he could distinguish its roof +among the trees, and wondered how Ruth would feel if she knew he was so +near her. + +Then came Jersey, everlasting Jersey, stupid irritating Jersey, where the +passengers are always asking which line they are on, and where they are +to come out, and whether they have yet reached Elizabeth. Launched into +Jersey, one has a vague notion that he is on many lines and no one in +particular, and that he is liable at any moment to come to Elizabeth. +He has no notion what Elizabeth is, and always resolves that the next +time he goes that way, he will look out of the window and see what it is +like; but he never does. Or if he does, he probably finds that it is +Princeton or something of that sort. He gets annoyed, and never can see +the use of having different names for stations in Jersey. By and by. +there is Newark, three or four Newarks apparently; then marshes; then +long rock cuttings devoted to the advertisements of 'patent medicines and +ready-made, clothing, and New York tonics for Jersey agues, and Jersey +City is reached. + +On the ferry-boat Philip bought an evening paper from a boy crying +"'Ere's the Evening Gram, all about the murder," and with breathless +haste--ran his eyes over the following: + + SHOCKING MURDER!!! + + TRAGEDY IN HIGH LIFE!! A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN SHOOTS A DISTINGUISHED + CONFEDERATE SOLDIER AT THE SOUTHERN HOTEL!!! JEALOUSY THE CAUSE!!! + + This morning occurred another of those shocking murders which have + become the almost daily food of the newspapers, the direct result of + the socialistic doctrines and woman's rights agitations, which have + made every woman the avenger of her own wrongs, and all society the + hunting ground for her victims. + + About nine o'clock a lady deliberately shot a man dead in the public + parlor of the Southern Hotel, coolly remarking, as she threw down + her revolver and permitted herself to be taken into custody, "He + brought it on himself." Our reporters were immediately dispatched + to the scene of the tragedy, and gathered the following particulars. + + Yesterday afternoon arrived at the hotel from Washington, Col. + George Selby and family, who had taken passage and were to sail at + noon to-day in the steamer Scotia for England. The Colonel was a + handsome man about forty, a gentleman Of wealth and high social + position, a resident of New Orleans. He served with distinction in + the confederate army, and received a wound in the leg from which he + has never entirely recovered, being obliged to use a cane in + locomotion. + + This morning at about nine o'clock, a lady, accompanied by a + gentleman, called at the office Of the hotel and asked for Col. + Selby. The Colonel was at breakfast. Would the clerk tell him that + a lady and gentleman wished to see him for a moment in the parlor? + The clerk says that the gentleman asked her, "What do you want to + see him for?" and that she replied, "He is going to Europe, and I + ought to just say good by." + + Col. Selby was informed; and the lady and gentleman were shown to + the parlor, in which were at the time three or four other persons. + Five minutes after two shots were fired in quick succession, and + there was a rush to the parlor from which the reports came. + + Col. Selby was found lying on the floor, bleeding, but not dead. + Two gentlemen, who had just come in, had seized the lady, who made + no resistance, and she was at once given in charge of a police + officer who arrived. The persons who were in the parlor agree + substantially as to what occurred. They had happened to be looking + towards the door when the man--Col. Selby--entered with his cane, + and they looked at him, because he stopped as if surprised and + frightened, and made a backward movement. At the same moment the + lady in the bonnet advanced towards him and said something like, + "George, will you go with me?" He replied, throwing up his hand and + retreating, "My God I can't, don't fire," and the next instants two + shots were heard and he fell. The lady appeared to be beside + herself with rage or excitement, and trembled very much when the + gentlemen took hold of her; it was to them she said, "He brought it + on himself." + + Col. Selby was carried at once to his room and Dr. Puffer, the + eminent surgeon was sent for. It was found that he was shot through + the breast and through the abdomen. Other aid was summoned, but the + wounds were mortal, and Col Selby expired in an hour, in pain, but + his mind was clear to the last and he made a full deposition. The + substance of it was that his murderess is a Miss Laura Hawkins, whom + he had known at Washington as a lobbyist and had some business with + her. She had followed him with her attentions and solicitations, + and had endeavored to make him desert his wife and go to Europe with + her. When he resisted and avoided her she had threatened him. Only + the day before he left Washington she had declared that he should + never go out of the city alive without her. + + It seems to have been a deliberate and premeditated murder, the + woman following him to Washington on purpose to commit it. + + We learn that the, murderess, who is a woman of dazzling and + transcendent beauty and about twenty six or seven, is a niece of + Senator Dilworthy at whose house she has been spending the winter. + She belongs to a high Southern family, and has the reputation of + being an heiress. Like some other great beauties and belles in + Washington however there have been whispers that she had something + to do with the lobby. If we mistake not we have heard her name + mentioned in connection with the sale of the Tennessee Lands to the + Knobs University, the bill for which passed the House last night. + + Her companion is Mr. Harry Brierly, a New York dandy, who has been + in Washington. His connection with her and with this tragedy is not + known, but he was also taken into custody, and will be detained at + least as a witness. + + P. S. One of the persons present in the parlor says that after + Laura Hawkins had fired twice, she turned the pistol towards + herself, but that Brierly sprung and caught it from her hand, and + that it was he who threw it on the floor. + + Further particulars with full biographies of all the parties in our + next edition. + +Philip hastened at once to the Southern Hotel, where he found still a +great state of excitement, and a thousand different and exaggerated +stories passing from mouth to mouth. The witnesses of the event had told +it over so many time that they had worked it up into a most dramatic +scene, and embellished it with whatever could heighten its awfulness. +Outsiders had taken up invention also. The Colonel's wife had gone +insane, they said. The children had rushed into the parlor and rolled +themselves in their father's blood. The hotel clerk said that he noticed +there was murder in the woman's eye when he saw her. A person who had +met the woman on the stairs felt a creeping sensation. Some thought +Brierly was an accomplice, and that he had set the woman on to kill his +rival. Some said the woman showed the calmness and indifference of +insanity. + +Philip learned that Harry and Laura had both been taken to the city +prison, and he went there; but he was not admitted. Not being a +newspaper reporter, he could not see either of them that night; but the +officer questioned him suspiciously and asked him who he was. He might +perhaps see Brierly in the morning. + +The latest editions of the evening papers had the result of the inquest. +It was a plain enough case for the jury, but they sat over it a long +time, listening to the wrangling of the physicians. Dr. Puffer insisted +that the man died from the effects of the wound in the chest. Dr. Dobb +as strongly insisted that the wound in the abdomen caused death. Dr. +Golightly suggested that in his opinion death ensued from a complication +of the two wounds and perhaps other causes. He examined the table +waiter, as to whether Col. Selby ate any breakfast, and what he ate, and +if he had any appetite. + +The jury finally threw themselves back upon the indisputable fact that +Selby was dead, that either wound would have killed him (admitted by the +doctors), and rendered a verdict that he died from pistol-shot wounds +inflicted by a pistol in the hands of Laura Hawkins. + +The morning papers blazed with big type, and overflowed with details of +the murder. The accounts in the evening papers were only the premonitory +drops to this mighty shower. The scene was dramatically worked up in +column after column. There were sketches, biographical and historical. +There were long "specials" from Washington, giving a full history of +Laura's career there, with the names of men with whom she was said to be +intimate, a description of Senator Dilworthy's residence and of his +family, and of Laura's room in his house, and a sketch of the Senator's +appearance and what he said. There was a great deal about her beauty, +her accomplishments and her brilliant position in society, and her +doubtful position in society. There was also an interview with Col. +Sellers and another with Washington Hawkins, the brother of the +murderess. One journal had a long dispatch from Hawkeye, reporting the +excitement in that quiet village and the reception of the awful +intelligence. + +All the parties had been "interviewed." There were reports of +conversations with the clerk at the hotel; with the call-boy; with the +waiter at table with all the witnesses, with the policeman, with the +landlord (who wanted it understood that nothing of that sort had ever +happened in his house before, although it had always been frequented by +the best Southern society,) and with Mrs. Col. Selby. There were +diagrams illustrating the scene of the shooting, and views of the hotel +and street, and portraits of the parties. There were three minute and +different statements from the doctors about the wounds, so technically +worded that nobody could understand them. Harry and Laura had also been +"interviewed" and there was a statement from Philip himself, which a +reporter had knocked him up out of bed at midnight to give, though how he +found him, Philip never could conjecture. + +What some of the journals lacked in suitable length for the occasion, +they made up in encyclopaedic information about other similar murders and +shootings. + +The statement from Laura was not full, in fact it was fragmentary, and +consisted of nine parts of, the reporter's valuable observations to one +of Laura's, and it was, as the reporter significantly remarked, +"incoherent", but it appeared that Laura claimed to be Selby's wife, +or to have been his wife, that he had deserted her and betrayed her, and +that she was going to follow him to Europe. When the reporter asked: + +"What made you shoot him Miss. Hawkins?" + +Laura's only reply was, very simply, + +"Did I shoot him? Do they say I shot him?". And she would say no more. + +The news of the murder was made the excitement of the day. Talk of it +filled the town. The facts reported were scrutinized, the standing of +the parties was discussed, the dozen different theories of the motive, +broached in the newspapers, were disputed over. + +During the night subtle electricity had carried the tale over all the +wires of the continent and under the sea; and in all villages and towns +of the Union, from the. Atlantic to the territories, and away up and +down the Pacific slope, and as far as London and Paris and Berlin, that +morning the name of Laura Hawkins was spoken by millions and millions of +people, while the owner of it--the sweet child of years ago, the +beautiful queen of Washington drawing rooms--sat shivering on her cot-bed +in the darkness of a damp cell in the Tombs. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +Philip's first effort was to get Harry out of the Tombs. He gained +permission to see him, in the presence of an officer, during the day, +and he found that hero very much cast down. + +"I never intended to come to such a place as this, old fellow," he said +to Philip; "it's no place for a gentleman, they've no idea how to treat a +gentleman. Look at that provender," pointing to his uneaten prison +ration. "They tell me I am detained as a witness, and I passed the night +among a lot of cut-throats and dirty rascals--a pretty witness I'd be in +a month spent in such company." + +"But what under heavens," asked Philip, "induced you to come to New York +with Laura! What was it for?" + +"What for? Why, she wanted me to come. I didn't know anything about +that cursed Selby. She said it was lobby business for the University. +I'd no idea what she was dragging me into that confounded hotel for. +I suppose she knew that the Southerners all go there, and thought she'd +find her man. Oh! Lord, I wish I'd taken your advice. You might as +well murder somebody and have the credit of it, as get into the +newspapers the way I have. She's pure devil, that girl. You ought to +have seen how sweet she was on me; what an ass I am." + +"Well, I'm not going to dispute a poor, prisoner. But the first thing is +to get you out of this. I've brought the note Laura wrote you, for one +thing, and I've seen your uncle, and explained the truth of the case to +him. He will be here soon." + +Harry's uncle came, with; other friends, and in the course of the day +made such a showing to the authorities that Harry was released, on giving +bonds to appear as a witness when wanted. His spirits rose with their +usual elasticity as soon as he was out of Centre Street, and he insisted +on giving Philip and his friends a royal supper at Delmonico's, an excess +which was perhaps excusable in the rebound of his feelings, and which was +committed with his usual reckless generosity. Harry ordered, the supper, +and it is perhaps needless to say, that Philip paid the bill. + +Neither of the young men felt like attempting to see Laura that day, +and she saw no company except the newspaper reporters, until the arrival +of Col. Sellers and Washington Hawkins, who had hastened to New York +with all speed. + +They found Laura in a cell in the upper tier of the women's department. +The cell was somewhat larger than those in the men's department, and +might be eight feet by ten square, perhaps a little longer. It was of +stone, floor and all, and tile roof was oven shaped. A narrow slit in +the roof admitted sufficient light, and was the only means of +ventilation; when the window was opened there was nothing to prevent the +rain coming in. The only means of heating being from the corridor, when +the door was ajar, the cell was chilly and at this time damp. It was +whitewashed and clean, but it had a slight jail odor; its only furniture +was a narrow iron bedstead, with a tick of straw and some blankets, not +too clean. + +When Col. Sellers was conducted to this cell by the matron and looked +in, his emotions quite overcame him, the tears rolled down his cheeks and +his voice trembled so that he could hardly speak. Washington was unable +to say anything; he looked from Laura to the miserable creatures who were +walking in the corridor with unutterable disgust. Laura was alone calm +and self-contained, though she was not unmoved by the sight of the grief +of her friends. + +"Are you comfortable, Laura?" was the first word the Colonel could get +out. + +"You see," she replied. "I can't say it's exactly comfortable." + +"Are you cold?" + +"It is pretty chilly. The stone floor is like ice. It chills me through +to step on it. I have to sit on the bed." + +"Poor thing, poor thing. And can you eat any thing?" + +"No, I am not hungry. I don't know that I could eat any thing, I can't +eat that." + +"Oh dear," continued the Colonel, "it's dreadful. But cheer up, dear, +cheer up;" and the Colonel broke down entirely. + +"But," he went on, "we'll stand by you. We'll do everything for you. +I know you couldn't have meant to do it, it must have been insanity, you +know, or something of that sort. You never did anything of the sort +before." + +Laura smiled very faintly and said, + +"Yes, it was something of that sort. It's all a whirl. He was a +villain; you don't know." + +"I'd rather have killed him myself, in a duel you know, all fair. I wish +I had. But don't you be down. We'll get you the best counsel, the +lawyers in New York can do anything; I've read of cases. But you must be +comfortable now. We've brought some of your clothes, at the hotel. What +else, can we get for you?" + +Laura suggested that she would like some sheets for her bed, a piece of +carpet to step on, and her meals sent in; and some books and writing +materials if it was allowed. The Colonel and Washington promised to +procure all these things, and then took their sorrowful leave, a great +deal more affected than the criminal was, apparently, by her situation. + +The colonel told the matron as he went away that if she would look to +Laura's comfort a little it shouldn't be the worse for her; and to the +turnkey who let them out he patronizingly said, + +"You've got a big establishment here, a credit to the city. I've got a +friend in there--I shall see you again, sir." + +By the next day something more of Laura's own story began to appear in +the newspapers, colored and heightened by reporters' rhetoric. Some of +them cast a lurid light upon the Colonel's career, and represented his +victim as a beautiful avenger of her murdered innocence; and others +pictured her as his willing paramour and pitiless slayer. Her +communications to the reporters were stopped by her lawyers as soon as +they were retained and visited her, but this fact did not prevent--it may +have facilitated--the appearance of casual paragraphs here and there +which were likely to beget popular sympathy for the poor girl. + +The occasion did not pass without "improvement" by the leading journals; +and Philip preserved the editorial comments of three or four of them +which pleased him most. These he used to read aloud to his friends +afterwards and ask them to guess from which journal each of them had been +cut. One began in this simple manner:-- + + History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of + the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken + fragments of antique legends. Washington is not Corinth, and Lais, + the beautiful daughter of Timandra, might not have been the + prototype of the ravishing Laura, daughter of the plebeian house of + Hawkins; but the orators add statesmen who were the purchasers of + the favors of the one, may have been as incorruptible as the + Republican statesmen who learned how to love and how to vote from + the sweet lips of the Washington lobbyist; and perhaps the modern + Lais would never have departed from the national Capital if there + had been there even one republican Xenocrates who resisted her + blandishments. But here the parallel: fails. Lais, wandering away + with the youth Rippostratus, is slain by the women who are jealous + of her charms. Laura, straying into her Thessaly with the youth + Brierly, slays her other lover and becomes the champion of the + wrongs of her sex. + +Another journal began its editorial with less lyrical beauty, but with +equal force. It closed as follows:-- + + With Laura Hawkins, fair, fascinating and fatal, and with the + dissolute Colonel of a lost cause, who has reaped the harvest he + sowed, we have nothing to do. But as the curtain rises on this + awful tragedy, we catch a glimpse of the society at the capital + under this Administration, which we cannot contemplate without alarm + for the fate of the Republic. + +A third newspaper took up the subject in a different tone. It said:-- + + Our repeated predictions are verified. The pernicious doctrines + which we have announced as prevailing in American society have been + again illustrated. The name of the city is becoming a reproach. + We may have done something in averting its ruin in our resolute + exposure of the Great Frauds; we shall not be deterred from + insisting that the outraged laws for the protection of human life + shall be vindicated now, so that a person can walk the streets or + enter the public houses, at least in the day-time, without the risk + of a bullet through his brain. + +A fourth journal began its remarks as follows:-- + + The fullness with which we present our readers this morning the + details of the Selby-Hawkins homicide is a miracle of modern + journalism. Subsequent investigation can do little to fill out the + picture. It is the old story. A beautiful woman shoots her + absconding lover in cold-blood; and we shall doubtless learn in due + time that if she was not as mad as a hare in this month of March, + she was at least laboring under what is termed "momentary insanity." + +It would not be too much to say that upon the first publication of the +facts of the tragedy, there was an almost universal feeling of rage +against the murderess in the Tombs, and that reports of her beauty only +heightened the indignation. It was as if she presumed upon that and upon +her sex, to defy the law; and there was a fervent, hope that the law +would take its plain course. + +Yet Laura was not without friends, and some of them very influential too. +She had in keeping a great many secrets and a great many reputations, +perhaps. Who shall set himself up to judge human motives. Why, indeed, +might we not feel pity for a woman whose brilliant career had been so +suddenly extinguished in misfortune and crime? Those who had known her +so well in Washington might find it impossible to believe that the +fascinating woman could have had murder in her heart, and would readily +give ear to the current sentimentality about the temporary aberration of +mind under the stress of personal calamity. + +Senator Dilworthy, was greatly shocked, of course, but he was full of +charity for the erring. + +"We shall all need mercy," he said. "Laura as an inmate of my family was +a most exemplary female, amiable, affectionate and truthful, perhaps too +fond of gaiety, and neglectful of the externals of religion, but a woman +of principle. She may have had experiences of which I am ignorant, but +she could not have gone to this extremity if she had been in her own +right mind." + +To the Senator's credit be it said, he was willing to help Laura and her +family in this dreadful trial. She, herself, was not without money, for +the Washington lobbyist is not seldom more fortunate than the Washington +claimant, and she was able to procure a good many luxuries to mitigate +the severity of her prison life. It enabled her also to have her own +family near her, and to see some of them daily. The tender solicitude of +her mother, her childlike grief, and her firm belief in the real +guiltlessness of her daughter, touched even the custodians of the Tombs +who are enured to scenes of pathos. + +Mrs. Hawkins had hastened to her daughter as soon as she received money +for the journey. She had no reproaches, she had only tenderness and +pity. She could not shut out the dreadful facts of the case, but it had +been enough for her that Laura had said, in their first interview, +"mother, I did not know what I was doing." She obtained lodgings near, +the prison and devoted her life to her daughter, as if she had been +really her own child. She would have remained in the prison day and +night if it had been permitted. She was aged and feeble, but this great +necessity seemed to give her new life. + +The pathetic story of the old lady's ministrations, and her simplicity +and faith, also got into the newspapers in time, and probably added to +the pathos of this wrecked woman's fate, which was beginning to be felt +by the public. It was certain that she had champions who thought that +her wrongs ought to be placed against her crime, and expressions of this +feeling came to her in various ways. Visitors came to see her, and gifts +of fruit and flowers were sent, which brought some cheer into her hard +and gloomy cell. + +Laura had declined to see either Philip or Harry, somewhat to the +former's relief, who had a notion that she would necessarily feel +humiliated by seeing him after breaking faith with him, but to the +discomfiture of Harry, who still felt her fascination, and thought her +refusal heartless. He told Philip that of course he had got through with +such a woman, but he wanted to see her. + +Philip, to keep him from some new foolishness, persuaded him to go with +him to Philadelphia; and, give his valuable services in the mining +operations at Ilium. + +The law took its course with Laura. She was indicted for murder in the +first degree and held for trial at the summer term. The two most +distinguished criminal lawyers in the city had been retained for her +defence, and to that the resolute woman devoted her days with a courage +that rose as she consulted with her counsel and understood the methods of +criminal procedure in New York. + +She was greatly depressed, however, by the news from Washington. +Congress adjourned and her bill had failed to pass the Senate. It must +wait for the next session. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +It had been a bad winter, somehow, for the firm of Pennybacker, Bigler +and Small. These celebrated contractors usually made more money during +the session of the legislature at Harrisburg than upon all their summer +work, and this winter had been unfruitful. It was unaccountable to +Bigler. + +"You see, Mr. Bolton," he said, and Philip was present at the +conversation, "it puts us all out. It looks as if politics was played +out. We'd counted on the year of Simon's re-election. And, now, he's +reelected, and I've yet to see the first man who's the better for it." + +"You don't mean to say," asked Philip, "that he went in without paying +anything?" + +"Not a cent, not a dash cent, as I can hear," repeated Mr. Bigler, +indignantly. "I call it a swindle on the state. How it was done gets +me. I never saw such a tight time for money in Harrisburg." + +"Were there no combinations, no railroad jobs, no mining schemes put +through in connection with the election? + +"Not that I knew," said Bigler, shaking his head in disgust. "In fact it +was openly said, that there was no money in the election. It's perfectly +unheard of." + +"Perhaps," suggested Philip, "it was effected on what the insurance +companies call the 'endowment,' or the 'paid up' plan, by which a policy +is secured after a certain time without further payment." + +"You think then," said Mr. Bolton smiling, "that a liberal and sagacious +politician might own a legislature after a time, and not be bothered with +keeping up his payments?" + +"Whatever it is," interrupted Mr. Bigler, "it's devilish ingenious and +goes ahead of my calculations; it's cleaned me out, when I thought we had +a dead sure thing. I tell you what it is, gentlemen, I shall go in for +reform. Things have got pretty mixed when a legislature will give away a +United States senatorship." + +It was melancholy, but Mr. Bigler was not a man to be crushed by one +misfortune, or to lose his confidence in human nature, on one exhibition +of apparent honesty. He was already on his feet again, or would be if +Mr. Bolton could tide him over shoal water for ninety days. + +"We've got something with money in it," he explained to Mr. Bolton, +"got hold of it by good luck. We've got the entire contract for Dobson's +Patent Pavement for the city of Mobile. See here." + +Mr. Bigler made some figures; contract so; much, cost of work and +materials so much, profits so much. At the end of three months the city +would owe the company three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars-two +hundred thousand of that would be profits. The whole job was worth at +least a million to the company--it might be more. There could be no +mistake in these figures; here was the contract, Mr. Bolton knew what +materials were worth and what the labor would cost. + +Mr. Bolton knew perfectly well from sore experience that there was always +a mistake in figures when Bigler or Small made them, and he knew that he +ought to send the fellow about his business. Instead of that, he let him +talk. + +They only wanted to raise fifty thousand dollars to carry on the +contract--that expended they would have city bonds. Mr. Bolton said he +hadn't the money. But Bigler could raise it on his name. Mr. Bolton +said he had no right to put his family to that risk. But the entire +contract could be assigned to him--the security was ample--it was a +fortune to him if it was forfeited. Besides Mr. Bigler had been +unfortunate, he didn't know where to look for the necessaries of life for +his family. If he could only have one more chance, he was sure he could +right himself. He begged for it. + +And Mr. Bolton yielded. He could never refuse such appeals. If he had +befriended a man once and been cheated by him, that man appeared to have +a claim upon him forever. He shrank, however, from telling his wife what +he had done on this occasion, for he knew that if any person was more +odious than Small to his family it was Bigler. + +"Philip tells me," Mrs. Bolton said that evening, "that the man Bigler +has been with thee again to-day. I hope thee will have nothing more to +do with him." + +"He has been very unfortunate," replied Mr. Bolton, uneasily. + +"He is always unfortunate, and he is always getting thee into trouble. +But thee didn't listen to him again?" + +"Well, mother, his family is in want, and I lent him my name--but I took +ample security. The worst that can happen will be a little +inconvenience." + +Mrs. Bolton looked grave and anxious, but she did not complain or +remonstrate; she knew what a "little inconvenience" meant, but she knew +there was no help for it. If Mr. Bolton had been on his way to market to +buy a dinner for his family with the only dollar he had in the world in +his pocket, he would have given it to a chance beggar who asked him for +it. Mrs. Bolton only asked (and the question showed that she was no mere +provident than her husband where her heart was interested), + +"But has thee provided money for Philip to use in opening the coal mine?" + +"Yes, I have set apart as much as it ought to cost to open the mine, +as much as we can afford to lose if no coal is found. Philip has the +control of it, as equal partner in the venture, deducting the capital +invested. He has great confidence in his success, and I hope for his +sake he won't be disappointed." + +Philip could not but feel that he was treated very much like one of the +Bolton-family--by all except Ruth. His mother, when he went home after +his recovery from his accident, had affected to be very jealous of Mrs. +Bolton, about whom and Ruth she asked a thousand questions +--an affectation of jealousy which no doubt concealed a real heartache, +which comes to every mother when her son goes out into the world and +forms new ties. And to Mrs. Sterling; a widow, living on a small income +in a remote Massachusetts village, Philadelphia was a city of many +splendors. All its inhabitants seemed highly favored, dwelling in ease +and surrounded by superior advantages. Some of her neighbors had +relations living in Philadelphia, and it seemed to them somehow a +guarantee of respectability to have relations in Philadelphia. +Mrs. Sterling was not sorry to have Philip make his way among such +well-to-do people, and she was sure that no good fortune could be too +good for his deserts. + +"So, sir," said Ruth, when Philip came from New York, "you have been +assisting in a pretty tragedy. I saw your name in the papers. Is this +woman a specimen of your western friends?" + +"My only assistance," replied Philip, a little annoyed, was in trying to +keep Harry out of a bad scrape, and I failed after all. He walked into +her trap, and he has been punished for it. I'm going to take him up to +Ilium to see if he won't work steadily at one thing, and quit his +nonsense." + +"Is she as beautiful as the newspapers say she is?" + +"I don't know, she has a kind of beauty--she is not like--' + +"Not like Alice?" + +"Well, she is brilliant; she was called the handsomest woman in +Washington--dashing, you know, and sarcastic and witty. Ruth, do you +believe a woman ever becomes a devil?" + +"Men do, and I don't know why women shouldn't. But I never saw one." + +"Well, Laura Hawkins comes very near it. But it is dreadful to think of +her fate." + +"Why, do you suppose they will hang a woman? Do you suppose they will be +so barbarous as that?" + +"I wasn't thinking of that--it's doubtful if a New York jury would find a +woman guilty of any such crime. But to think of her life if she is +acquitted." + +"It is dreadful," said Ruth, thoughtfully, "but the worst of it is that +you men do not want women educated to do anything, to be able to earn an +honest living by their own exertions. They are educated as if they were +always to be petted and supported, and there was never to be any such +thing as misfortune. I suppose, now, that you would all choose to have +me stay idly at home, and give up my profession." + +"Oh, no," said Philip, earnestly, "I respect your resolution. But, +Ruth, do you think you would be happier or do more good in following your +profession than in having a home of your own?" + +"What is to hinder having a home of my, own?" + +"Nothing, perhaps, only you never would be in it--you would be away day +and night, if you had any practice; and what sort of a home would that +make for your husband?" + +"What sort of a home is it for the wife whose husband is always away +riding about in his doctor's gig?" + +"Ah, you know that is not fair. The woman makes the home." + +Philip and Ruth often had this sort of discussion, to which Philip was +always trying to give a personal turn. He was now about to go to Ilium +for the season, and he did not like to go without some assurance from +Ruth that she might perhaps love him some day; when he was worthy of it, +and when he could offer her something better than a partnership in his +poverty. + +"I should work with a great deal better heart, Ruth," he said the morning +he was taking leave, "if I knew you cared for me a little." + +Ruth was looking down; the color came faintly to her cheeks, and she +hesitated. She needn't be looking down, he thought, for she was ever so +much shorter than tall Philip. + +"It's not much of a place, Ilium," Philip went on, as if a little +geographical remark would fit in here as well as anything else, "and I +shall have plenty of time to think over the responsibility I have taken, +and--" his observation did not seem to be coming out any where. + +But Ruth looked up, and there was a light in her eyes that quickened +Phil's pulse. She took his hand, and said with serious sweetness: + +"Thee mustn't lose heart, Philip." And then she added, in another mood, +"Thee knows I graduate in the summer and shall have my diploma. And if +any thing happens--mines explode sometimes--thee can send for me. +Farewell." + +The opening of the Ilium coal mine was begun with energy, but without +many omens of success. Philip was running a tunnel into the breast of +the mountain, in faith that the coal stratum ran there as it ought to. +How far he must go in he believed he knew, but no one could tell exactly. +Some of the miners said that they should probably go through the +mountain, and that the hole could be used for a railway tunnel. The +mining camp was a busy place at any rate. Quite a settlement of board +and log shanties had gone up, with a blacksmith shop, a small machine +shop, and a temporary store for supplying the wants of the workmen. +Philip and Harry pitched a commodious tent, and lived in the full +enjoyment of the free life. + +There is no difficulty in digging a bole in the ground, if you have money +enough to pay for the digging, but those who try this sort of work are +always surprised at the large amount of money necessary to make a small +hole. The earth is never willing to yield one product, hidden in her +bosom, without an equivalent for it. And when a person asks of her coal, +she is quite apt to require gold in exchange. + +It was exciting work for all concerned in it. As the tunnel advanced +into the rock every day promised to be the golden day. This very blast +might disclose the treasure. + +The work went on week after week, and at length during the night as well +as the daytime. Gangs relieved each other, and the tunnel was every +hour, inch by inch and foot by foot, crawling into the mountain. Philip +was on the stretch of hope and excitement. Every pay day he saw his +funds melting away, and still there was only the faintest show of what +the miners call "signs." + +The life suited Harry, whose buoyant hopefulness was never disturbed. +He made endless calculations, which nobody could understand, of the +probable position of the vein. He stood about among the workmen with the +busiest air. When he was down at Ilium he called himself the engineer of +the works, and he used to spend hours smoking his pipe with the Dutch +landlord on the hotel porch, and astonishing the idlers there with the +stories of his railroad operations in Missouri. He talked with the +landlord, too, about enlarging his hotel, and about buying some village +lots, in the prospect of a rise, when the mine was opened. He taught the +Dutchman how to mix a great many cooling drinks for the summer time, and +had a bill at the hotel, the growing length of which Mr. Dusenheimer +contemplated with pleasant anticipations. Mr. Brierly was a very useful +and cheering person wherever he went. + +Midsummer arrived: Philip could report to Mr. Bolton only progress, and +this was not a cheerful message for him to send to Philadelphia in reply +to inquiries that he thought became more and more anxious. Philip +himself was a prey to the constant fear that the money would give out +before the coal was struck. + +At this time Harry was summoned to New York, to attend the trial of Laura +Hawkins. It was possible that Philip would have to go also, her lawyer +wrote, but they hoped for a postponement. There was important evidence +that they could not yet obtain, and he hoped the judge would not force +them to a trial unprepared. There were many reasons for a delay, reasons +which of course are never mentioned, but which it would seem that a New +York judge sometimes must understand, when he grants a postponement upon +a motion that seems to the public altogether inadequate. + +Harry went, but he soon came back. The trial was put off. Every week we +can gain, said the learned counsel, Braham, improves our chances. The +popular rage never lasts long. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +"We've struck it!" + +This was the announcement at the tent door that woke Philip out of a +sound sleep at dead of night, and shook all the sleepiness out of him in +a trice. + +"What! Where is it? When? Coal? Let me see it. What quality is it?" +were some of the rapid questions that Philip poured out as he hurriedly +dressed. "Harry, wake up, my boy, the coal train is coming. Struck it, +eh? Let's see?" + +The foreman put down his lantern, and handed Philip a black lump. There +was no mistake about it, it was the hard, shining anthracite, and its +freshly fractured surface, glistened in the light like polished steel. +Diamond never shone with such lustre in the eyes of Philip. + +Harry was exuberant, but Philip's natural caution found expression in his +next remark. + +"Now, Roberts, you are sure about this?" + +"What--sure that it's coal?" + +"O, no, sure that it's the main vein." + +"Well, yes. We took it to be that" + +"Did you from the first?" + +"I can't say we did at first. No, we didn't. Most of the indications +were there, but not all of them, not all of them. So we thought we'd +prospect a bit." + +"Well?" + +"It was tolerable thick, and looked as if it might be the vein--looked as +if it ought to be the vein. Then we went down on it a little. Looked +better all the time." + +"When did you strike it?" + +"About ten o'clock." + +"Then you've been prospecting about four hours." + +"Yes, been sinking on it something over four hours." + +"I'm afraid you couldn't go down very far in four hours--could you?" + +"O yes--it's a good deal broke up, nothing but picking and gadding +stuff." + +"Well, it does look encouraging, sure enough--but then the lacking +indications--" + +"I'd rather we had them, Mr. Sterling, but I've seen more than one good +permanent mine struck without 'em in my time." + +"Well, that is encouraging too." + +"Yes, there was the Union, the Alabama and the Black Mohawk--all good, +sound mines, you know--all just exactly like this one when we first +struck them." + +"Well, I begin to feel a good deal more easy. I guess we've really got +it. I remember hearing them tell about the Black Mohawk." + +"I'm free to say that I believe it, and the men all think so too. They +are all old hands at this business." + +"Come Harry, let's go up and look at it, just for the comfort of it," +said Philip. They came back in the course of an hour, satisfied and +happy. + +There was no more sleep for them that night. They lit their pipes, put a +specimen of the coal on the table, and made it a kind of loadstone of +thought and conversation. + +"Of course," said Harry, "there will have to be a branch track built, and +a 'switch-back' up the hill." + +"Yes, there will be no trouble about getting the money for that now. We +could sell-out tomorrow for a handsome sum. That sort of coal doesn't go +begging within a mile of a rail-road. I wonder if Mr. Bolton' would +rather sell out or work it?" + +"Oh, work it," says Harry, "probably the whole mountain is coal now +you've got to it." + +"Possibly it might not be much of a vein after all," suggested Philip. + +"Possibly it is; I'll bet it's forty feet thick. I told you. I knew the +sort of thing as soon as I put my eyes on it." + +Philip's next thought was to write to his friends and announce their good +fortune. To Mr. Bolton he wrote a short, business letter, as calm as he +could make it. They had found coal of excellent quality, but they could +not yet tell with absolute certainty what the vein was. The prospecting +was still going on. Philip also wrote to Ruth; but though this letter +may have glowed, it was not with the heat of burning anthracite. He +needed no artificial heat to warm his pen and kindle his ardor when he +sat down to write to Ruth. But it must be confessed that the words never +flowed so easily before, and he ran on for an hour disporting in all the +extravagance of his imagination. When Ruth read it, she doubted if the +fellow had not gone out of his senses. And it was not until she reached +the postscript that she discovered the cause of the exhilaration. +"P. S.--We have found coal." + +The news couldn't have come to Mr. Bolton in better time. He had never +been so sorely pressed. A dozen schemes which he had in hand, any one +of which might turn up a fortune, all languished, and each needed just +a little more, money to save that which had been invested. He hadn't +a piece of real estate that was not covered with mortgages, even to the +wild tract which Philip was experimenting on, and which had, no +marketable value above the incumbrance on it. + +He had come home that day early, unusually dejected. + +"I am afraid," he said to his wife, "that we shall have to give up our +house. I don't care for myself, but for thee and the children." + +"That will be the least of misfortunes," said Mrs. Bolton, cheerfully, +"if thee can clear thyself from debt and anxiety, which is wearing thee +out, we can live any where. Thee knows we were never happier than when +we were in a much humbler home." + +"The truth is, Margaret, that affair of Bigler and Small's has come on me +just when I couldn't stand another ounce. They have made another failure +of it. I might have known they would; and the sharpers, or fools, I +don't know which, have contrived to involve me for three times as much as +the first obligation. The security is in my hands, but it is good for +nothing to me. I have not the money to do anything with the contract." + +Ruth heard this dismal news without great surprise. She had long felt +that they were living on a volcano, that might go in to active operation +at any hour. Inheriting from her father an active brain and the courage +to undertake new things, she had little of his sanguine temperament which +blinds one to difficulties and possible failures. She had little +confidence in the many schemes which had been about to lift her father +out of all his embarrassments and into great wealth, ever since she was +a child; as she grew older, she rather wondered that they were as +prosperous as they seemed to be, and that they did not all go to smash +amid so many brilliant projects. She was nothing but a woman, and did +not know how much of the business prosperity of the world is only a, +bubble of credit and speculation, one scheme helping to float another +which is no better than it, and the whole liable to come to naught and +confusion as soon as the busy brain that conceived them ceases its power +to devise, or when some accident produces a sudden panic. + +"Perhaps, I shall be the stay of the family, yet," said Ruth, with an +approach to gaiety; "When we move into a little house in town, will thee +let me put a little sign on the door: DR. RUTH BOLTON?" + +"Mrs. Dr. Longstreet, thee knows, has a great income." + +"Who will pay for the sign, Ruth?" asked Mr. Bolton. + +A servant entered with the afternoon mail from the office. Mr. Bolton +took his letters listlessly, dreading to open them. He knew well what +they contained, new difficulties, more urgent demands fox money. + +"Oh, here is one from Philip. Poor fellow. I shall feel his +disappointment as much as my own bad luck. It is hard to bear when one +is young." + +He opened the letter and read. As he read his face lightened, and he +fetched such a sigh of relief, that Mrs. Bolton and Ruth both exclaimed. + +"Read that," he cried, "Philip has found coal!" + +The world was changed in a moment. One little sentence had done it. +There was no more trouble. Philip had found coal. That meant relief. +That meant fortune. A great weight was taken off, and the spirits of the +whole household rose magically. Good Money! beautiful demon of Money, +what an enchanter thou art! Ruth felt that she was of less consequence +in the household, now that Philip had found Coal, and perhaps she was not +sorry to feel so. + +Mr. Bolton was ten years younger the next morning. He went into the +city, and showed his letter on change. It was the sort of news his +friends were quite willing to listen to. They took a new interest in +him. If it was confirmed, Bolton would come right up again. There would +be no difficulty about his getting all the money he wanted. The money +market did not seem to be half so tight as it was the day before. +Mr. Bolton spent a very pleasant day in his office, and went home +revolving some new plans, and the execution of some projects he had long +been prevented from entering upon by the lack of money. + +The day had been spent by Philip in no less excitement. By daylight, +with Philip's letters to the mail, word had gone down to Ilium that coal +had been found, and very early a crowd of eager spectators had come up to +see for themselves. + +The "prospecting" continued day and night for upwards of a week, and +during the first four or five days the indications grew more and more +promising, and the telegrams and letters kept Mr. Bolton duly posted. +But at last a change came, and the promises began to fail with alarming +rapidity. In the end it was demonstrated without the possibility of a +doubt that the great "find" was nothing but a worthless seam. + +Philip was cast down, all the more so because he had been so foolish as +to send the news to Philadelphia before he knew what he was writing +about. And now he must contradict it. "It turns out to be only a mere +seam," he wrote, "but we look upon it as an indication of better further +in." + +Alas! Mr. Bolton's affairs could not wait for "indications." The future +might have a great deal in store, but the present was black and hopeless. +It was doubtful if any sacrifice could save him from ruin. Yet sacrifice +he must make, and that instantly, in the hope of saving something from +the wreck of his fortune. + +His lovely country home must go. That would bring the most ready money. +The house that he had built with loving thought for each one of his +family, as he planned its luxurious apartments and adorned it; the +grounds that he had laid out, with so much delight in following the +tastes of his wife, with whom the country, the cultivation of rare trees +and flowers, the care of garden and lawn and conservatories were a +passion almost; this home, which he had hoped his children would enjoy +long after he had done with it, must go. + +The family bore the sacrifice better than he did. They declared in fact +--women are such hypocrites--that they quite enjoyed the city (it was in +August) after living so long in the country, that it was a thousand tunes +more convenient in every respect; Mrs. Bolton said it was a relief from +the worry of a large establishment, and Ruth reminded her father that she +should have had to come to town anyway before long. + +Mr. Bolton was relieved, exactly as a water-logged ship is lightened by +throwing overboard the most valuable portion of the cargo--but the leak +was not stopped. Indeed his credit was injured instead of helped by the +prudent step be had taken. It was regarded as a sure evidence of his +embarrassment, and it was much more difficult for him to obtain help than +if he had, instead of retrenching, launched into some new speculation. + +Philip was greatly troubled, and exaggerated his own share in the +bringing about of the calamity. + +"You must not look at it so!" Mr. Bolton wrote him. "You have neither +helped nor hindered--but you know you may help by and by. It would have +all happened just so, if we had never begun to dig that hole. That is +only a drop. Work away. I still have hope that something will occur to +relieve me. At any rate we must not give up the mine, so long as we have +any show." + +Alas! the relief did not come. New misfortunes came instead. When the +extent of the Bigler swindle was disclosed there was no more hope that +Mr. Bolton could extricate himself, and he had, as an honest man, no +resource except to surrender all his property for the benefit of his +creditors. + +The Autumn came and found Philip working with diminished force but still +with hope. He had again and again been encouraged by good "indications," +but he had again and again been disappointed. He could not go on much +longer, and almost everybody except himself had thought it was useless to +go on as long as he had been doing. + +When the news came of Mr. Bolton's failure, of course the work stopped. +The men were discharged, the tools were housed, the hopeful noise of +pickman and driver ceased, and the mining camp had that desolate and +mournful aspect which always hovers over a frustrated enterprise. + +Philip sat down amid the ruins, and almost wished he were buried in them. +How distant Ruth was now from him, now, when she might need him most. +How changed was all the Philadelphia world, which had hitherto stood for +the exemplification of happiness and prosperity. + +He still had faith that there was coal in that mountain. He made +a picture of himself living there a hermit in a shanty by the tunnel, +digging away with solitary pick and wheelbarrow, day after day and year +after year, until he grew gray and aged, and was known in all that region +as the old man of the mountain. Perhaps some day--he felt it must be so +some day--he should strike coal. But what if he did? Who would be alive +to care for it then? What would he care for it then? No, a man wants +riches in his youth, when the world is fresh to him. He wondered why +Providence could not have reversed the usual process, and let the +majority of men begin with wealth and gradually spend it, and die poor +when they no longer needed it. + +Harry went back to the city. It was evident that his services were no +longer needed. Indeed, he had letters from his uncle, which he did not +read to Philip, desiring him to go to San Francisco to look after some +government contracts in the harbor there. + +Philip had to look about him for something to do; he was like Adam; +the world was all before him whereto choose. He made, before he went +elsewhere, a somewhat painful visit to Philadelphia, painful but yet not +without its sweetnesses. The family had never shown him so much +affection before; they all seemed to think his disappointment of more +importance than their own misfortune. And there was that in Ruth's +manner--in what she gave him and what she withheld--that would have made +a hero of a very much less promising character than Philip Sterling. + +Among the assets of the Bolton property, the Ilium tract was sold, and +Philip bought it in at the vendue, for a song, for no one cared to even +undertake the mortgage on it except himself. He went away the owner of +it, and had ample time before he reached home in November, to calculate +how much poorer he was by possessing it. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + +It is impossible for the historian, with even the best intentions, +to control events or compel the persons of his narrative to act wisely +or to be successful. It is easy to see how things might have been better +managed; a very little change here and there would have made a very, +different history of this one now in hand. + +If Philip had adopted some regular profession, even some trade, he might +now be a prosperous editor or a conscientious plumber, or an honest +lawyer, and have borrowed money at the saving's bank and built a cottage, +and be now furnishing it for the occupancy of Ruth and himself. Instead +of this, with only a smattering of civil engineering, he is at his +mother's house, fretting and fuming over his ill-luck, and the hardness +and, dishonesty of men, and thinking of nothing but how to get the coal +out of the Ilium hills. + +If Senator Dilworthy had not made that visit to Hawkeye, the Hawkins +family and Col. Sellers would not now be dancing attendance upon +Congress, and endeavoring to tempt that immaculate body into one of those +appropriations, for the benefit of its members, which the members find it +so difficult to explain to their constituents; and Laura would not be +lying in the Tombs, awaiting her trial for murder, and doing her best, +by the help of able counsel, to corrupt the pure fountain of criminal +procedure in New York. + +If Henry Brierly had been blown up on the first Mississippi steamboat he +set foot on, as the chances were that he would be, he and Col. Sellers +never would have gone into the Columbus Navigation scheme, and probably +never into the East Tennessee Land scheme, and he would not now be +detained in New York from very important business operations on the +Pacific coast, for the sole purpose of giving evidence to convict of +murder the only woman he ever loved half as much as he loves himself. +If Mr. Bolton had said the little word "no" to Mr. Bigler, Alice Montague +might now be spending the winter in Philadelphia, and Philip also +(waiting to resume his mining operations in the spring); and Ruth would +not be an assistant in a Philadelphia hospital, taxing her strength with +arduous routine duties, day by day, in order to lighten a little the +burdens that weigh upon her unfortunate family. + +It is altogether a bad business. An honest historian, who had progressed +thus far, and traced everything to such a condition of disaster and +suspension, might well be justified in ending his narrative and writing +--"after this the deluge." His only consolation would be in the reflection +that he was not responsible for either characters or events. + +And the most annoying thought is that a little money, judiciously +applied, would relieve the burdens and anxieties of most of these people; +but affairs seem to be so arranged that money is most difficult to get +when people need it most. + +A little of what Mr. Bolton has weakly given to unworthy people would now +establish his family in a sort of comfort, and relieve Ruth of the +excessive toil for which she inherited no adequate physical vigor. +A little money would make a prince of Col. Sellers; and a little more +would calm the anxiety of Washington Hawkins about Laura, for however the +trial ended, he could feel sure of extricating her in the end. And if +Philip had a little money he could unlock the stone door in the mountain +whence would issue a stream of shining riches. It needs a golden wand to +strike that rock. If the Knobs University bill could only go through, +what a change would be wrought in the condition of most of the persons in +this history. Even Philip himself would feel the good effects of it; +for Harry would have something and Col. Sellers would have something; +and have not both these cautious people expressed a determination to take +an interest in the Ilium mine when they catch their larks? + +Philip could not resist the inclination to pay a visit to Fallkill. He +had not been at the Montague's since the time he saw Ruth there, and he +wanted to consult the Squire about an occupation. He was determined now +to waste no more time in waiting on Providence, but to go to work at +something, if it were nothing better, than teaching in the Fallkill +Seminary, or digging clams on Hingham beach. Perhaps he could read law +in Squire Montague's office while earning his bread as a teacher in the +Seminary. + +It was not altogether Philip's fault, let us own, that he was in this +position. There are many young men like him in American society, of his +age, opportunities, education and abilities, who have really been +educated for nothing and have let themselves drift, in the hope that they +will find somehow, and by some sudden turn of good luck, the golden road +to fortune. He was not idle or lazy, he had energy and a disposition to +carve his own way. But he was born into a time when all young men of his +age caught the fever of speculation, and expected to get on in the world +by the omission of some of the regular processes which have been +appointed from of old. And examples were not wanting to encourage him. +He saw people, all around him, poor yesterday, rich to-day, who had come +into sudden opulence by some means which they could not have classified +among any of the regular occupations of life. A war would give such a +fellow a career and very likely fame. He might have been a "railroad +man," or a politician, or a land speculator, or one of those mysterious +people who travel free on all rail-roads and steamboats, and are +continually crossing and recrossing the Atlantic, driven day and night +about nobody knows what, and make a great deal of money by so doing. +Probably, at last, he sometimes thought with a whimsical smile, he should +end by being an insurance agent, and asking people to insure their lives +for his benefit. + +Possibly Philip did not think how much the attractions of Fallkill were +increased by the presence of Alice there. He had known her so long, she +had somehow grown into his life by habit, that he would expect the +pleasure of her society without thinking mach about it. Latterly he +never thought of her without thinking of Ruth, and if he gave the subject +any attention, it was probably in an undefined consciousness that, he had +her sympathy in his love, and that she was always willing to hear him +talk about it. If he ever wondered that Alice herself was not in love +and never spoke of the possibility of her own marriage, it was a +transient thought for love did not seem necessary, exactly, to one so +calm and evenly balanced and with so many resources in her herself. + +Whatever her thoughts may have been they were unknown to Philip, as they +are to these historians; if she was seeming to be what she was not, and +carrying a burden heavier than any one else carried, because she had to +bear it alone, she was only doing what thousands of women do, with a +self-renunciation and heroism, of which men, impatient and complaining, +have no conception. Have not these big babies with beards filled all +literature with their outcries, their griefs and their lamentations? It +is always the gentle sex which is hard and cruel and fickle and +implacable. + +"Do you think you would be contented to live in Fallkill, and attend the +county Court?" asked Alice, when Philip had opened the budget of his new +programme. + +"Perhaps not always," said Philip, "I might go and practice in Boston +maybe, or go to Chicago." + +"Or you might get elected to Congress." + +Philip looked at Alice to see if she was in earnest and not chaffing him. +Her face was quite sober. Alice was one of those patriotic women in the +rural districts, who think men are still selected for Congress on account +of qualifications for the office. + +"No," said Philip, "the chances are that a man cannot get into congress +now without resorting to arts and means that should render hint unfit to +go there; of course there are exceptions; but do you know that I could +not go into politics if I were a lawyer, without losing standing somewhat +in my profession, and without raising at least a suspicion of my +intentions and unselfishness? Why, it is telegraphed all over the +country and commented on as something wonderful if a congressman votes +honestly and unselfishly and refuses to take advantage of his position to +steal from the government." + +"But," insisted Alice, "I should think it a noble ambition to go to +congress, if it is so bad, and help reform it. I don't believe it is as +corrupt as the English parliament used to be, if there is any truth in +the novels, and I suppose that is reformed." + +"I'm sure I don't know where the reform is to begin. I've seen a +perfectly capable, honest man, time and again, run against an illiterate +trickster, and get beaten. I suppose if the people wanted decent members +of congress they would elect them. Perhaps," continued Philip with a +smile, "the women will have to vote." + +"Well, I should be willing to, if it were a necessity, just as I would go +to war and do what I could, if the country couldn't be saved otherwise," +said Alice, with a spirit that surprised Philip, well as he thought he +knew her. "If I were a young gentleman in these times--" + +Philip laughed outright. "It's just what Ruth used to say, 'if she were +a man.' I wonder if all the young ladies are contemplating a change of +sex." + +"No, only a changed sex," retorted Alice; "we contemplate for the most +part young men who don't care for anything they ought to care for." + +"Well," said Philip, looking humble, "I care for some things, you and +Ruth for instance; perhaps I ought not to. Perhaps I ought to care for +Congress and that sort of thing." + +"Don't be a goose, Philip. I heard from Ruth yesterday." + +"Can I see her letter?" + +"No, indeed. But I am afraid her hard work is telling on her, together +with her anxiety about her father." + +"Do you think, Alice," asked Philip with one of those selfish thoughts +that are not seldom mixed with real love, "that Ruth prefers her +profession to--to marriage?" + +"Philip," exclaimed Alice, rising to quit the room, and speaking +hurriedly as if the words were forced from her, "you are as blind as a +bat; Ruth would cut off her right hand for you this minute." + +Philip never noticed that Alice's face was flushed and that her voice was +unsteady; he only thought of the delicious words he had heard. And the +poor girl, loyal to Ruth, loyal to Philip, went straight to her room, +locked the door, threw herself on the bed and sobbed as if her heart +world break. And then she prayed that her Father in Heaven would give +her strength. And after a time she was calm again, and went to her +bureau drawer and took from a hiding place a little piece of paper, +yellow with age. Upon it was pinned a four-leaved clover, dry and yellow +also. She looked long at this foolish memento. Under the clover leaf +was written in a school-girl's hand--"Philip, June, 186-." + +Squire Montague thought very well of Philip's proposal. It would have +been better if he had begun the study of the law as soon as he left +college, but it was not too late now, and besides he had gathered some +knowledge of the world. + +"But," asked the Squire, "do you mean to abandon your land in +Pennsylvania?" This track of land seemed an immense possible fortune to +this New England lawyer-farmer. Hasn't it good timber, and doesn't the +railroad almost touch it?" + +"I can't do anything with it now. Perhaps I can sometime." + +"What is your reason for supposing that there is coal there?" + +"The opinion of the best geologist I could consult, my own observation +of the country, and the little veins of it we found. I feel certain it +is there. I shall find it some day. I know it. If I can only keep the +land till I make money enough to try again." + +Philip took from his pocket a map of the anthracite coal region, and +pointed out the position of the Ilium mountain which he had begun to +tunnel. + +"Doesn't it look like it?" + +"It certainly does," said the Squire, very much interested. It is not +unusual for a quiet country gentleman to be more taken with such a +venture than a speculator who, has had more experience in its +uncertainty. It was astonishing how many New England clergymen, in the +time of the petroleum excitement, took chances in oil. The Wall street +brokers are said to do a good deal of small business for country +clergymen, who are moved no doubt with the laudable desire of purifying +the New York stock board. + +"I don't see that there is much risk," said the Squire, at length. +"The timber is worth more than the mortgage; and if that coal seam does +run there, it's a magnificent fortune. Would you like to try it again in +the spring, Phil?" + +Like to try it! If he could have a little help, he would work himself, +with pick and barrow, and live on a crust. Only give him one more +chance. + +And this is how it came about that the cautious old Squire Montague was +drawn into this young fellow's speculation, and began to have his serene +old age disturbed by anxieties and by the hope of a great stroke of luck. + +"To be sure, I only care about it for the boy," he said. The Squire was +like everybody else; sooner or later he must "take a chance." + +It is probably on account of the lack of enterprise in women that they +are not so fond of stock speculations and mine ventures as men. It is +only when woman becomes demoralized that she takes to any sort of +gambling. Neither Alice nor Ruth were much elated with the prospect of +Philip's renewal of his mining enterprise. + +But Philip was exultant. He wrote to Ruth as if his fortune were already +made, and as if the clouds that lowered over the house of Bolton were +already in the deep bosom of a coal mine buried. Towards spring he went +to Philadelphia with his plans all matured for a new campaign. His +enthusiasm was irresistible. + +"Philip has come, Philip has come," cried the children, as if some great +good had again come into the household; and the refrain even sang itself +over in Ruth's heart as she went the weary hospital rounds. Mr. Bolton +felt more courage than he had had in months, at the sight of his manly +face and the sound of his cheery voice. + +Ruth's course was vindicated now, and it certainly did not become Philip, +who had nothing to offer but a future chance against the visible result +of her determination and industry, to open an argument with her. Ruth +was never more certain that she was right and that she was sufficient +unto herself. She, may be, did not much heed the still small voice that +sang in her maiden heart as she went about her work, and which lightened +it and made it easy, "Philip has come." + +"I am glad for father's sake," she said to Philip, that thee has come. +"I can see that he depends greatly upon what thee can do. He thinks women +won't hold out long," added Ruth with the smile that Philip never exactly +understood. + +"And aren't you tired sometimes of the struggle?" + +"Tired? Yes, everybody is tired I suppose. But it is a glorious +profession. And would you want me to be dependent, Philip?" + +"Well, yes, a little," said Philip, feeling his way towards what he +wanted to say. + +"On what, for instance, just now?" asked Ruth, a little maliciously +Philip thought. + +"Why, on----" he couldn't quite say it, for it occurred to him that he was +a poor stick for any body to lean on in the present state of his fortune, +and that the woman before him was at least as independent as he was. + +"I don't mean depend," he began again. "But I love you, that's all. Am +I nothing--to you?" And Philip looked a little defiant, and as if he had +said something that ought to brush away all the sophistries of obligation +on either side, between man and woman. + +Perhaps Ruth saw this. Perhaps she saw that her own theories of a +certain equality of power, which ought to precede a union of two hearts, +might be pushed too far. Perhaps she had felt sometimes her own weakness +and the need after all of so dear a sympathy and so tender an interest +confessed, as that which Philip could give. Whatever moved her--the +riddle is as old as creation--she simply looked up to Philip and said in +a low voice, "Everything." + +And Philip clasping both her hands in his, and looking down into her +eyes, which drank in all his tenderness with the thirst of a true woman's +nature-- + +"Oh! Philip, come out here," shouted young Eli, throwing the door wide +open. + +And Ruth escaped away to her room, her heart singing again, and now as if +it would burst for joy, "Philip has come." + +That night Philip received a dispatch from Harry--"The trial begins +tomorrow." + + + + +CHAPTER, LI + +December 18--, found Washington Hawkins and Col. Sellers once more at the +capitol of the nation, standing guard over the University bill. The +former gentleman was despondent, the latter hopeful. Washington's +distress of mind was chiefly on Laura's account. The court would soon +sit to try her, case, he said, and consequently a great deal of ready +money would be needed in the engineering of it. The University bill was +sure to pass this, time, and that would make money plenty, but might not +the, help come too late? Congress had only just assembled, and delays +were to be feared. + +"Well," said the Colonel, "I don't know but you are more or less right, +there. Now let's figure up a little on, the preliminaries. I think +Congress always tries to do as near right as it can, according to its +lights. A man can't ask any fairer, than that. The first preliminary it +always starts out on, is, to clean itself, so to speak. It will arraign +two or three dozen of its members, or maybe four or five dozen, for +taking bribes to vote for this and that and the other bill last winter." + +"It goes up into the dozens, does it?" + +"Well, yes; in a free country likes ours, where any man can run for +Congress and anybody can vote for him, you can't expect immortal purity +all the time--it ain't in nature. Sixty or eighty or a hundred and fifty +people are bound to get in who are not angels in disguise, as young Hicks +the correspondent says; but still it is a very good average; very good +indeed. As long as it averages as well as that, I think we can feel very +well satisfied. Even in these days, when people growl so much and the +newspapers are so out of patience, there is still a very respectable +minority of honest men in Congress." + +"Why a respectable minority of honest men can't do any good, Colonel." + +"Oh, yes it can, too" + +"Why, how?" + +"Oh, in many ways, many ways." + +"But what are the ways?" + +"Well--I don't know--it is a question that requires time; a body can't +answer every question right off-hand. But it does do good. I am +satisfied of that." + +"All right, then; grant that it does good; go on with the preliminaries." + +"That is what I am coming to. First, as I said, they will try a lot of +members for taking money for votes. That will take four weeks." + +"Yes, that's like last year; and it is a sheer waste of the time for +which the nation pays those men to work--that is what that is. And it +pinches when a body's got a bill waiting." + +"A waste of time, to purify the fountain of public law? Well, I never +heard anybody express an idea like that before. But if it were, it would +still be the fault of the minority, for the majority don't institute +these proceedings. There is where that minority becomes an obstruction +--but still one can't say it is on the wrong side.--Well, after they have +finished the bribery cases, they will take up cases of members who have +bought their seats with money. That will take another four weeks." + +"Very good; go on. You have accounted for two-thirds of the session." + +"Next they will try each other for various smaller irregularities, like +the sale of appointments to West Point cadetships, and that sort of +thing--mere trifling pocket-money enterprises that might better, be +passed over in silence, perhaps, but then one of our Congresses can never +rest easy till it has thoroughly purified itself of all blemishes--and +that is a thing to be applauded." + +"How long does it take to disinfect itself of these minor impurities?" + +"Well, about two weeks, generally." + +"So Congress always lies helpless in quarantine ten weeks of a session. +That's encouraging. Colonel, poor Laura will never get any benefit from +our bill. Her trial will be over before Congress has half purified +itself.--And doesn't it occur to you that by the time it has expelled all +its impure members there, may not be enough members left to do business +legally?" + +"Why I did not say Congress would expel anybody." + +"Well won't it expel anybody?" + +"Not necessarily. Did it last year? It never does. That would not be +regular." + +"Then why waste all the session in that tomfoolery of trying members?" + +"It is usual; it is customary; the country requires it." + +"Then the country is a fool, I think." + +"Oh, no. The country thinks somebody is going to be expelled." + +"Well, when nobody is expelled, what does the country think then?" + +"By that time, the thing has strung out so long that the country is sick +and tired of it and glad to have a change on any terms. But all that +inquiry is not lost. It has a good moral effect." + +"Who does it have a good moral effect on?" + +"Well--I don't know. On foreign countries, I think. We have always been +under the gaze of foreign countries. There is no country in the world, +sir, that pursues corruption as inveterately as we do. There is no +country in the world whose representatives try each other as much as ours +do, or stick to it as long on a stretch. I think there is something +great in being a model for the whole civilized world, Washington" + +"You don't mean a model; you mean an example." + +"Well, it's all the same; it's just the same thing. It shows that a man +can't be corrupt in this country without sweating for it, I can tell you +that." + +"Hang it, Colonel, you just said we never punish anybody for villainous +practices." + +"But good God we try them, don't we! Is it nothing to show a disposition +to sift things and bring people to a strict account? I tell you it has +its effect." + +"Oh, bother the effect!--What is it they do do? How do they proceed? +You know perfectly well--and it is all bosh, too. Come, now, how do they +proceed?" + +"Why they proceed right and regular--and it ain't bosh, Washington, it +ain't bosh. They appoint a committee to investigate, and that committee +hears evidence three weeks, and all the witnesses on one side swear that +the accused took money or stock or something for his vote. Then the +accused stands up and testifies that he may have done it, but he was +receiving and handling a good deal of money at the time and he doesn't +remember this particular circumstance--at least with sufficient +distinctness to enable him to grasp it tangibly. So of course the thing +is not proven--and that is what they say in the verdict. They don't +acquit, they don't condemn. They just say, 'Charge not proven.' It +leaves the accused is a kind of a shaky condition before the country, +it purifies Congress, it satisfies everybody, and it doesn't seriously +hurt anybody. It has taken a long time to perfect our system, but it is +the most admirable in the world, now." + +"So one of those long stupid investigations always turns out in that lame +silly way. Yes, you are correct. I thought maybe you viewed the matter +differently from other people. Do you think a Congress of ours could +convict the devil of anything if he were a member?" + +"My dear boy, don't let these damaging delays prejudice you against +Congress. Don't use such strong language; you talk like a newspaper. +Congress has inflicted frightful punishments on its members--now you know +that. When they tried Mr. Fairoaks, and a cloud of witnesses proved him +to be--well, you know what they proved him to be--and his own testimony +and his own confessions gave him the same character, what did Congress do +then?--come!" + +"Well, what did Congress do?" + +"You know what Congress did, Washington. Congress intimated plainly +enough, that they considered him almost a stain upon their body; and +without waiting ten days, hardly, to think the thing over, the rose up +and hurled at him a resolution declaring that they disapproved of his +conduct! Now you know that, Washington." + +"It was a terrific thing--there is no denying that. If he had been +proven guilty of theft, arson, licentiousness, infanticide, and defiling +graves, I believe they would have suspended him for two days." + +"You can depend on it, Washington. Congress is vindictive, Congress is +savage, sir, when it gets waked up once. It will go to any length to +vindicate its honor at such a time." + +"Ah well, we have talked the morning through, just as usual in these +tiresome days of waiting, and we have reached the same old result; that +is to say, we are no better off than when we began. The land bill is +just as far away as ever, and the trial is closer at hand. Let's give up +everything and die." + +"Die and leave the Duchess to fight it out all alone? Oh, no, that won't +do. Come, now, don't talk so. It is all going to come out right. Now +you'll see." + +"It never will, Colonel, never in the world. Something tells me that. +I get more tired and more despondent every day. I don't see any hope; +life is only just a trouble. I am so miserable, these days!" + +The Colonel made Washington get up and walk the floor with him, arm in +arm. The good old speculator wanted to comfort him, but he hardly knew +how to go about it. He made many attempts, but they were lame; they +lacked spirit; the words were encouraging; but they were only words--he +could not get any heart into them. He could not always warm up, now, +with the old Hawkeye fervor. By and by his lips trembled and his voice +got unsteady. He said: + +"Don't give up the ship, my boy--don't do it. The wind's bound to fetch +around and set in our favor. I know it." + +And the prospect was so cheerful that he wept. Then he blew a +trumpet-blast that started the meshes of his handkerchief, and said in +almost his breezy old-time way: + +"Lord bless us, this is all nonsense! Night doesn't last always; day has +got to break some time or other. Every silver lining has a cloud behind +it, as the poet says; and that remark has always cheered me; though +--I never could see any meaning to it. Everybody uses it, though, and +everybody gets comfort out of it. I wish they would start something +fresh. Come, now, let's cheer up; there's been as good fish in the sea +as there are now. It shall never be said that Beriah Sellers +--Come in?" + +It was the telegraph boy. The Colonel reached for the message and +devoured its contents: + +"I said it! Never give up the ship! The trial's, postponed till +February, and we'll save the child yet. Bless my life, what lawyers +they, have in New-York! Give them money to fight with; and the ghost of +an excuse, and they: would manage to postpone anything in this world, +unless it might be the millennium or something like that. Now for work +again my boy. The trial will last to the middle of March, sure; Congress +ends the fourth of March. Within three days of the end of the session +they will be done putting through the preliminaries then they will be +ready for national business: Our bill will go through in forty-eight +hours, then, and we'll telegraph a million dollar's to the jury--to the +lawyers, I mean--and the verdict of the jury will be 'Accidental murder +resulting from justifiable insanity'--or something to, that effect, +something to that effect.--Everything is dead sure, now. Come, what is +the matter? What are you wilting down like that, for? You mustn't be a +girl, you know." + +"Oh, Colonel, I am become so used to troubles, so used to failures, +disappointments, hard luck of all kinds, that a little good news breaks +me right down. Everything has been so hopeless that now I can't stand +good news at all. It is too good to be true, anyway. Don't you see how +our bad luck has worked on me? My hair is getting gray, and many nights +I don't sleep at all. I wish it was all over and we could rest. I wish +we could lie, down and just forget everything, and let it all be just a +dream that is done and can't come back to trouble us any more. I am so +tired." + +"Ah, poor child, don't talk like that-cheer up--there's daylight ahead. +Don't give, up. You'll have Laura again, and--Louise, and your mother, +and oceans and oceans of money--and then you can go away, ever so far +away somewhere, if you want to, and forget all about this infernal place. +And by George I'll go with you! I'll go with you--now there's my word on +it. Cheer up. I'll run out and tell the friends the news." + +And he wrung Washington's hand and was about to hurry away when his +companion, in a burst of grateful admiration said: + +"I think you are the best soul and the noblest I ever knew, Colonel +Sellers! and if the people only knew you as I do, you would not be +tagging around here a nameless man--you would be in Congress." + +The gladness died out of the Colonel's face, and he laid his hand upon +Washington's shoulder and said gravely: + +"I have always been a friend of your family, Washington, and I think I +have always tried to do right as between man and man, according to my +lights. Now I don't think there has ever been anything in my conduct +that should make you feel Justified in saying a thing like that." + +He turned, then, and walked slowly out, leaving Washington abashed and +somewhat bewildered. When Washington had presently got his thoughts into +line again, he said to himself, "Why, honestly, I only meant to +compliment him--indeed I would not have hurt him for the world." + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + +The weeks drifted by monotonously enough, now. The "preliminaries" +continued to drag along in Congress, and life was a dull suspense to +Sellers and Washington, a weary waiting which might have broken their +hearts, maybe, but for the relieving change which they got out of am +occasional visit to New York to see Laura. Standing guard in Washington +or anywhere else is not an exciting business in time of peace, but +standing guard was all that the two friends had to do; all that was +needed of them was that they should be on hand and ready for any +emergency that might come up. There was no work to do; that was all +finished; this was but the second session of the last winter's Congress, +and its action on the bill could have but one result--its passage. The +house must do its work over again, of course, but the same membership was +there to see that it did it.--The Senate was secure--Senator Dilworthy +was able to put all doubts to rest on that head. Indeed it was no secret +in Washington that a two-thirds vote in the Senate was ready and waiting +to be cast for the University bill as soon as it should come before that +body. + +Washington did not take part in the gaieties of "the season," as he had +done the previous winter. He had lost his interest in such things; he +was oppressed with cares, now. Senator Dilworthy said to Washington that +an humble deportment, under punishment, was best, and that there was but +one way in which the troubled heart might find perfect repose and peace. +The suggestion found a response in Washington's breast, and the Senator +saw the sign of it in his face. + +From that moment one could find the youth with the Senator even oftener +than with Col. Sellers. When the statesman presided at great temperance +meetings, he placed Washington in the front rank of impressive +dignitaries that gave tone to the occasion and pomp to the platform. +His bald headed surroundings made the youth the more conspicuous. + +When the statesman made remarks in these meetings, he not infrequently +alluded with effect to the encouraging spectacle of one of the wealthiest +and most brilliant young favorites of society forsaking the light +vanities of that butterfly existence to nobly and self-sacrificingly +devote his talents and his riches to the cause of saving his hapless +fellow creatures from shame and misery here and eternal regret hereafter. +At the prayer meetings the Senator always brought Washington up the aisle +on his arm and seated him prominently; in his prayers he referred to him +in the cant terms which the Senator employed, perhaps unconsciously, and +mistook, maybe, for religion, and in other ways brought him into notice. +He had him out at gatherings for the benefit of the negro, gatherings for +the benefit of the Indian, gatherings for the benefit of the heathen in +distant lands. He had him out time and again, before Sunday Schools, +as an example for emulation. Upon all these occasions the Senator made +casual references to many benevolent enterprises which his ardent young +friend was planning against the day when the passage of the University +bill should make his means available for the amelioration of the +condition of the unfortunate among his fellow men of all nations and all. +climes. Thus as the weeks rolled on Washington grew up, into an imposing +lion once more, but a lion that roamed the peaceful fields of religion +and temperance, and revisited the glittering domain of fashion no more. +A great moral influence was thus brought, to bear in favor of the bill; +the weightiest of friends flocked to its standard; its most energetic +enemies said it was useless to fight longer; they had tacitly surrendered +while as yet the day of battle was not come. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + +The session was drawing toward its close. Senator Dilworthy thought he +would run out west and shake hands with his constituents and let them +look at him. The legislature whose duty it would be to re-elect him to +the United States Senate, was already in session. Mr. Dilworthy +considered his re-election certain, but he was a careful, painstaking +man, and if, by visiting his State he could find the opportunity to +persuade a few more legislators to vote for him, he held the journey to +be well worth taking. The University bill was safe, now; he could leave +it without fear; it needed his presence and his watching no longer. +But there was a person in his State legislature who did need watching +--a person who, Senator Dilworthy said, was a narrow, grumbling, +uncomfortable malcontent--a person who was stolidly opposed to reform, +and progress and him,--a person who, he feared, had been bought with +money to combat him, and through him the commonwealth's welfare and its +politics' purity. + +"If this person Noble," said Mr. Dilworthy, in a little speech at a +dinner party given him by some of his admirers, "merely desired to +sacrifice me.--I would willingly offer up my political life on the altar +of my dear State's weal, I would be glad and grateful to do it; but when +he makes of me but a cloak to hide his deeper designs, when he proposes +to strike through me at the heart of my beloved State, all the lion in me +is roused--and I say here I stand, solitary and alone, but unflinching, +unquailing, thrice armed with my sacred trust; and whoso passes, to do +evil to this fair domain that looks to me for protection, must do so over +my dead body." + +He further said that if this Noble were a pure man, and merely misguided, +he could bear it, but that he should succeed in his wicked designs +through, a base use of money would leave a blot upon his State which +would work untold evil to the morals of the people, and that he would not +suffer; the public morals must not be contaminated. He would seek this +man Noble; he would argue, he would persuade, he would appeal to his +honor. + +When he arrived on the ground he found his friends unterrified; they were +standing firmly by him and were full of courage. Noble was working hard, +too, but matters were against him, he was not making much progress. +Mr. Dilworthy took an early opportunity to send for Mr. Noble; he had a +midnight interview with him, and urged him to forsake his evil ways; he +begged him to come again and again, which he did. He finally sent the +man away at 3 o'clock one morning; and when he was gone, Mr. Dilworthy +said to himself, + +"I feel a good deal relieved, now, a great deal relieved." + +The Senator now turned his attention to matters touching the souls of his +people. He appeared in church; he took a leading part in prayer +meetings; he met and encouraged the temperance societies; he graced the +sewing circles of the ladies with his presence, and even took a needle +now and then and made a stitch or two upon a calico shirt for some poor +Bibleless pagan of the South Seas, and this act enchanted the ladies, +who regarded the garments thus honored as in a manner sanctified. +The Senator wrought in Bible classes, and nothing could keep him away +from the Sunday Schools--neither sickness nor storms nor weariness. +He even traveled a tedious thirty miles in a poor little rickety +stagecoach to comply with the desire of the miserable hamlet of +Cattleville that he would let its Sunday School look upon him. + +All the town was assembled at the stage office when he arrived, +two bonfires were burning, and a battery of anvils was popping exultant +broadsides; for a United States Senator was a sort of god in the +understanding of these people who never had seen any creature mightier +than a county judge. To them a United States Senator was a vast, vague +colossus, an awe inspiring unreality. + +Next day everybody was at the village church a full half hour before time +for Sunday School to open; ranchmen and farmers had come with their +families from five miles around, all eager to get a glimpse of the great +man--the man who had been to Washington; the man who had seen the +President of the United States, and had even talked with him; the man who +had seen the actual Washington Monument--perhaps touched it with his +hands. + +When the Senator arrived the Church was crowded, the windows were full, +the aisles were packed, so was the vestibule, and so indeed was the yard +in front of the building. As he worked his way through to the pulpit on +the arm of the minister and followed by the envied officials of the +village, every neck was stretched and, every eye twisted around +intervening obstructions to get a glimpse. Elderly people directed each +other's attention and, said, "There! that's him, with the grand, noble +forehead!" Boys nudged each other and said, "Hi, Johnny, here he is, +there, that's him, with the peeled head!" + +The Senator took his seat in the pulpit, with the minister' on one side +of him and the Superintendent of the Sunday School on the other. +The town dignitaries sat in an impressive row within the altar railings +below. The Sunday School children occupied ten of the front benches. +dressed in their best and most uncomfortable clothes, and with hair +combed and faces too clean to feel natural. So awed were they by the +presence of a living United States Senator, that during three minutes not +a "spit ball" was thrown. After that they began to come to themselves by +degrees, and presently the spell was wholly gone and they were reciting +verses and pulling hair. + +The usual Sunday School exercises were hurried through, and then the +minister, got up and bored the house with a speech built on the customary +Sunday School plan; then the Superintendent put in his oar; then the town +dignitaries had their say. They all made complimentary reference to +"their friend the, Senator," and told what a great and illustrious man he +was and what he had done for his country and for religion and temperance, +and exhorted the little boys to be good and diligent and try to become +like him some day. The speakers won the deathless hatred of the house by +these delays, but at last there was an end and hope revived; inspiration +was about to find utterance. + +Senator Dilworthy rose and beamed upon the assemblage for a full minute +in silence. Then he smiled with an access of sweetness upon the children +and began: + +"My little friends--for I hope that all these bright-faced little people +are my friends and will let me be their friend--my little friends, I have +traveled much, I have been in many cities and many States, everywhere in +our great and noble country, and by the blessing of Providence I have +been permitted to see many gatherings like this--but I am proud, I am +truly proud to say that I never have looked upon so much intelligence, +so much grace, such sweetness of disposition as I see in the charming +young countenances I see before me at this moment. I have been asking +myself as I sat here, Where am I? Am I in some far-off monarchy, looking +upon little princes and princesses? No. Am I in some populous centre of +my own country, where the choicest children of the land have been +selected and brought together as at a fair for a prize? No. Am I in +some strange foreign clime where the children are marvels that we know +not of? No. Then where am I? Yes--where am I? I am in a simple, +remote, unpretending settlement of my own dear State, and these are the +children of the noble and virtuous men who have made me what I am! +My soul is lost in wonder at the thought! And I humbly thank Him to whom +we are but as worms of the dust, that he has been pleased to call me to +serve such men! Earth has no higher, no grander position for me. Let +kings and emperors keep their tinsel crowns, I want them not; my heart is +here! + +"Again I thought, Is this a theatre? No. Is it a concert or a gilded +opera? No. Is it some other vain, brilliant, beautiful temple of +soul-staining amusement and hilarity? No. Then what is it? What did +my consciousness reply? I ask you, my little friends, What did my +consciousness reply? It replied, It is the temple of the Lord! Ah, +think of that, now. I could hardly keep the tears back, I was so +grateful. Oh, how beautiful it is to see these ranks of sunny little +faces assembled here to learn the way of life; to learn to be good; to +learn to be useful; to learn to be pious; to learn to be great and +glorious men and women; to learn to be props and pillars of the State and +shining lights in the councils and the households of the nation; to be +bearers of the banner and soldiers of the cross in the rude campaigns of +life, and raptured souls in the happy fields of Paradise hereafter. + +"Children, honor your parents and be grateful to them for providing for +you the precious privileges of a Sunday School. + +"Now my dear little friends, sit up straight and pretty--there, that's +it--and give me your attention and let me tell you about a poor little +Sunday School scholar I once knew.--He lived in the far west, and his +parents were poor. They could not give him a costly education; but they +were good and wise and they sent him to the Sunday School. He loved the +Sunday School. I hope you love your Sunday School--ah, I see by your +faces that you do! That is right! + +"Well, this poor little boy was always in his place when the bell rang, +and he always knew his lesson; for his teachers wanted him to learn and +he loved his teachers dearly. Always love your teachers, my children, +for they love you more than you can know, now. He would not let bad boys +persuade him to go to play on Sunday. There was one little bad boy who +was always trying to persuade him, but he never could. + +"So this poor little boy grew up to be a man, and had to go out in the +world, far from home and friends to earn his living. Temptations lay all +about him, and sometimes he was about to yield, but he would think of +some precious lesson he learned in his Sunday School a long time ago, and +that would save him. By and by he was elected to the legislature--Then +he did everything he could for Sunday Schools. He got laws passed for +them; he got Sunday Schools established wherever he could. + +"And by and by the people made him governor--and he said it was all owing +to the Sunday School. + +"After a while the people elected him a Representative to the Congress of +the United States, and he grew very famous.--Now temptations assailed him +on every hand. People tried to get him to drink wine; to dance, to go to +theatres; they even tried to buy his vote; but no, the memory of his +Sunday School saved him from all harm; he remembered the fate of the bad +little boy who used to try to get him to play on Sunday, and who grew up +and became a drunkard and was hanged. He remembered that, and was glad +he never yielded and played on Sunday. + +"Well, at last, what do you think happened? Why the people gave him a +towering, illustrious position, a grand, imposing position. And what do +you think it was? What should you say it was, children? It was Senator +of the United States! That poor little boy that loved his Sunday School +became that man. That man stands before you! All that he is, he owes to +the Sunday School. + +"My precious children, love your parents, love your teachers, love your +Sunday School, be pious, be obedient, be honest, be diligent, and then +you will succeed in life and be honored of all men. Above all things, +my children, be honest. Above all things be pure-minded as the snow. +Let us join in prayer." + +When Senator Dilworthy departed from Cattleville, he left three dozen +boys behind him arranging a campaign of life whose objective point was +the United States Senate. + +When be arrived at the State capital at midnight Mr. Noble came and held +a three-hours' conference with him, and then as he was about leaving +said: + +"I've worked hard, and I've got them at last. Six of them haven't got +quite back-bone enough to slew around and come right out for you on the +first ballot to-morrow; but they're going to vote against you on the +first for the sake of appearances, and then come out for you all in a +body on the second--I've fixed all that! By supper time to-morrow you'll +be re-elected. You can go to bed and sleep easy on that." + +After Mr. Noble was gone, the Senator said: + +"Well, to bring about a complexion of things like this was worth coming +West for." + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + +The case of the State of New York against Laura Hawkins was finally set +down for trial on the 15th day of February, less than a year after the +shooting of George Selby. + +If the public had almost forgotten the existence of Laura and her crime, +they were reminded of all the details of the murder by the newspapers, +which for some days had been announcing the approaching trial. But they +had not forgotten. The sex, the age, the beauty of the prisoner; her +high social position in Washington, the unparalleled calmness with which +the crime was committed had all conspired to fix the event in the public +mind, although nearly three hundred and sixty-five subsequent murders had +occurred to vary the monotony of metropolitan life. + +No, the public read from time to time of the lovely prisoner, languishing +in the city prison, the tortured victim of the law's delay; and as the +months went by it was natural that the horror of her crime should become +a little indistinct in memory, while the heroine of it should be invested +with a sort of sentimental interest. Perhaps her counsel had calculated +on this. Perhaps it was by their advice that Laura had interested +herself in the unfortunate criminals who shared her prison confinement, +and had done not a little to relieve, from her own purse, the necessities +of some of the poor creatures. That she had done this, the public read +in the journals of the day, and the simple announcement cast a softening +light upon her character. + +The court room was crowded at an early hour, before the arrival of +judges, lawyers and prisoner. There is no enjoyment so keen to certain +minds as that of looking upon the slow torture of a human being on trial +for life, except it be an execution; there is no display of human +ingenuity, wit and power so fascinating as that made by trained lawyers +in the trial of an important case, nowhere else is exhibited such +subtlety, acumen, address, eloquence. + +All the conditions of intense excitement meet in a murder trial. The +awful issue at stake gives significance to the lightest word or look. +How the quick eyes of the spectators rove from the stolid jury to the +keen lawyers, the impassive judge, the anxious prisoner. Nothing is +lost of the sharp wrangle of the counsel on points of law, the measured +decision's of the bench; the duels between the attorneys and the +witnesses. The crowd sways with the rise and fall of the shifting, +testimony, in sympathetic interest, and hangs upon the dicta of the +judge in breathless silence. It speedily takes sides for or against +the accused, and recognizes as quickly its favorites among the lawyers. +Nothing delights it more than the sharp retort of a witness and the +discomfiture of an obnoxious attorney. A joke, even if it be a lame, +one, is no where so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder +trial. + +Within the bar the young lawyers and the privileged hangers-on filled all +the chairs except those reserved at the table for those engaged in the +case. Without, the throng occupied all the seats, the window ledges and +the standing room. The atmosphere was already something horrible. +It was the peculiar odor of a criminal court, as if it were tainted by +the presence, in different persons, of all the crimes that men and women +can commit. + +There was a little stir when the Prosecuting Attorney, with two +assistants, made his way in, seated himself at the table, and spread his +papers before him. There was more stir when the counsel of the defense +appeared. They were Mr. Braham, the senior, and Mr. Quiggle and Mr. +O'Keefe, the juniors. + +Everybody in the court room knew Mr. Braham, the great criminal lawyer, +and he was not unaware that he was the object of all eyes as he moved to +his place, bowing to his friends in the bar. A large but rather spare +man, with broad shoulders and a massive head, covered with chestnut curls +which fell down upon his coat collar and which he had a habit of shaking +as a lion is supposed to shake his mane. His face was clean shaven, +and he had a wide mouth and rather small dark eyes, set quite too near +together: Mr. Braham wore a brown frock coat buttoned across his breast, +with a rose-bud in the upper buttonhole, and light pantaloons. +A diamond stud was seen to flash from his bosom; and as he seated himself +and drew off his gloves a heavy seal ring was displayed upon his white +left hand. Mr. Braham having seated himself, deliberately surveyed the +entire house, made a remark to one of his assistants, and then taking an +ivory-handled knife from his pocket began to pare his finger nails, +rocking his chair backwards and forwards slowly. + +A moment later Judge O'Shaunnessy entered at the rear door and took his +seat in one of the chairs behind the bench; a gentleman in black +broadcloth, with sandy hair, inclined to curl, a round; reddish and +rather jovial face, sharp rather than intellectual, and with a +self-sufficient air. His career had nothing remarkable in it. He was +descended from a long line of Irish Kings, and he was the first one of +them who had ever come into his kingdom--the kingdom of such being the +city of New York. He had, in fact, descended so far and so low that he +found himself, when a boy, a sort of street Arab in that city; but he had +ambition and native shrewdness, and he speedily took to boot-polishing, +and newspaper hawking, became the office and errand boy of a law firm, +picked up knowledge enough to get some employment in police courts, was +admitted to the bar, became a rising young politician, went to the +legislature, and was finally elected to the bench which he now honored. +In this democratic country he was obliged to conceal his royalty under +a plebeian aspect. Judge O'Shaunnessy never had a lucrative practice nor +a large salary but he had prudently laid away money-believing that +a dependant judge can never be impartial--and he had lands and houses +to the value of three or four hundred thousand dollars. Had he not +helped to build and furnish this very Court House? Did he not know that +the very "spittoon" which his judgeship used cost the city the sum of one +thousand dollars? + +As soon as the judge was seated, the court was opened, with the "oi yis, +oi yis" of the officer in his native language, the case called, and the +sheriff was directed to bring in the prisoner. In the midst of a +profound hush Laura entered, leaning on the arm of the officer, and was +conducted to a seat by her counsel. She was followed by her mother and +by Washington Hawkins, who were given seats near her. + +Laura was very pale, but this pallor heightened the lustre of her large +eyes and gave a touching sadness to her expressive face. She was dressed +in simple black, with exquisite taste, and without an ornament. The thin +lace vail which partially covered her face did not so much conceal as +heighten her beauty. She would not have entered a drawing room with more +self-poise, nor a church with more haughty humility. There was in her +manner or face neither shame nor boldness, and when she took her seat in +fall view of half the spectators, her eyes were downcast. A murmur of +admiration ran through the room. The newspaper reporters made their +pencils fly. Mr. Braham again swept his eyes over the house as if in +approval. When Laura at length raised her eyes a little, she saw Philip +and Harry within the bar, but she gave no token of recognition. + +The clerk then read the indictment, which was in the usual form. It +charged Laura Hawkins, in effect, with the premeditated murder of George +Selby, by shooting him with a pistol, with a revolver, shotgun, rifle, +repeater, breech-loader, cannon, six-shooter, with a gun, or some other, +weapon; with killing him with a slung-shot, a bludgeon, carving knife, +bowie knife, pen knife, rolling pin, car, hook, dagger, hair pin, with a +hammer, with a screw-driver; with a nail, and with all other weapons and +utensils whatsoever, at the Southern hotel and in all other hotels and +places wheresoever, on the thirteenth day of March and all other days of +the Christian era wheresoever. + +Laura stood while the long indictment was read; and at the end, in +response to the inquiry, of the judge, she said in a clear, low voice; +"Not guilty." She sat down and the court proceeded to impanel a jury. + +The first man called was Michael Lanigan, saloon keeper. + +"Have you formed or expressed any opinion on this case, and do you know +any of the parties?" + +"Not any," said Mr. Lanigan. + +"Have you any conscientious objections to capital punishment?" + +"No, sir, not to my knowledge." + +"Have you read anything about this case?" + +"To be sure, I read the papers, y'r Honor." + +Objected to by Mr. Braham, for cause, and discharged. + +Patrick Coughlin. + +"What is your business?" + +"Well--I haven't got any particular business." + +"Haven't any particular business, eh? Well, what's your general +business? What do you do for a living?" + +"I own some terriers, sir." + +"Own some terriers, eh? Keep a rat pit?" + +"Gentlemen comes there to have a little sport. I never fit 'em, sir." + +"Oh, I see--you are probably the amusement committee of the city council. +Have you ever heard of this case?" + +"Not till this morning, sir." + +"Can you read?" + +"Not fine print, y'r Honor." + +The man was about to be sworn, when Mr. Braham asked, + +"Could your father read?" + +"The old gentleman was mighty handy at that, sir." + +Mr. Braham submitted that the man was disqualified Judge thought not. +Point argued. Challenged peremptorily, and set aside. + +Ethan Dobb, cart-driver. + +"Can you read?" + +"Yes, but haven't a habit of it." + +"Have you heard of this case?" + +"I think so--but it might be another. I have no opinion about it." + +Dist. A. "Tha--tha--there! Hold on a bit? Did anybody tell you to say +you had no opinion about it?" + +"N--n--o, sir." + +Take care now, take care. Then what suggested it to you to volunteer +that remark?" + +"They've always asked that, when I was on juries." + +All right, then. Have you any conscientious scruples about capital +punishment?" + +"Any which?" + +"Would you object to finding a person guilty--of murder on evidence?" + +"I might, sir, if I thought he wan't guilty." + +The district attorney thought he saw a point. + +"Would this feeling rather incline you against a capital conviction?" + +The juror said he hadn't any feeling, and didn't know any of the parties. +Accepted and sworn. + +Dennis Lafin, laborer. Have neither formed nor expressed an opinion. +Never had heard of the case. Believed in hangin' for them that deserved +it. Could read if it was necessary. + +Mr. Braham objected. The man was evidently bloody minded. Challenged +peremptorily. + +Larry O'Toole, contractor. A showily dressed man of the style known as +"vulgar genteel," had a sharp eye and a ready tongue. Had read the +newspaper reports of the case, but they made no impression on him. +Should be governed by the evidence. Knew no reason why he could not be +an impartial juror. + +Question by District Attorney. + +"How is it that the reports made no impression on you?" + +"Never believe anything I see in the newspapers." + +(Laughter from the crowd, approving smiles from his Honor and Mr. +Braham.) Juror sworn in. Mr. Braham whispered to O'Keefe, "that's the +man." + +Avery Hicks, pea-nut peddler. Did he ever hear of this case? The man +shook his head. + +"Can you read?" + +"No." "Any scruples about capital punishment?" + +"No." + +He was about to be sworn, when the district attorney turning to him +carelessly, remarked, + +"Understand the nature of an oath?" + +"Outside," said the man, pointing to the door. + +"I say, do you know what an oath is?" + +"Five cents," explained the man. + +"Do you mean to insult me?" roared the prosecuting officer. "Are you an +idiot?" + +"Fresh baked. I'm deefe. I don't hear a word you say." + +The man was discharged. "He wouldn't have made a bad juror, though," +whispered Braham. "I saw him looking at the prisoner sympathizingly. +That's a point you want to watch for." + +The result of the whole day's work was the selection of only two jurors. +These however were satisfactory to Mr. Braham. He had kept off all those +he did not know. No one knew better than this great criminal lawyer that +the battle was fought on the selection of the jury. The subsequent +examination of witnesses, the eloquence expended on the jury are all for +effect outside. At least that is the theory of Mr. Braham. But human +nature is a queer thing, he admits; sometimes jurors are unaccountably +swayed, be as careful as you can in choosing them. + +It was four weary days before this jury was made up, but when it was +finally complete, it did great credit to the counsel for the defence. +So far as Mr. Braham knew, only two could read, one of whom was the +foreman, Mr. Braham's friend, the showy contractor. Low foreheads and +heavy faces they all had; some had a look of animal cunning, while the +most were only stupid. The entire panel formed that boasted heritage +commonly described as the "bulwark of our liberties." + +The District Attorney, Mr. McFlinn, opened the case for the state. He +spoke with only the slightest accent, one that had been inherited but not +cultivated. He contented himself with a brief statement of the case. +The state would prove that Laura Hawkins, the prisoner at the bar, a +fiend in the form of a beautiful woman, shot dead George Selby, a +Southern gentleman, at the, time and place described. That the murder +was in cold blood, deliberate and without provocation; that it had been +long premeditated and threatened; that she had followed the deceased-from +Washington to commit it. All this would be proved by unimpeachable +witnesses. The attorney added that the duty of the jury, however painful +it might be, would be plain and simple. They were citizens, husbands, +perhaps fathers. They knew how insecure life had become in the +metropolis. Tomorrow our own wives might be widows, their own children +orphans, like the bereaved family in yonder hotel, deprived of husband +and father by the jealous hand of some murderous female. The attorney +sat down, and the clerk called?" + +"Henry Brierly." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 6. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 6. *** + +***** This file should be named 5823.txt or 5823.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/2/5823/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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