University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
MRS. WHITEFLOCK SEES HERSELF AS OTHERS SEE HER.

WHEN the company, who had set out in search of
Mr. Lightwait, arrived at the house of Mrs.
Whiteflock, all was found to be dark and still,
and it was not until repeated blows and thumps
had been dealt upon doors and shutters, that
any sign of life was evoked. At last, however, a sign did
appear, in the shape of a woman's night-cap, at an upper
window, — an apparition followed by the inquiry, “Who
is there?” and this again by “What do you want this time
o' night?” in a voice so irritable and angry that some dispute
arose as to whether it were Mrs. Whiteflock whose
night-cap had been visible.

“It wan't her!” said the cooper. “I'll bet a load o'
hoop-poles onto that; why, she's as big as one o' my
hogsheads. Anyhow, she looks so when she comes into
meetin'!”

“You're right,” says the tailor; “I see the figer of her
movin' about now; it's one o' the daughters, and no more
the shape o' Mrs. Whiteflock than a taller candle is the
shape of a lantern.”

“Much you fellers know about how a woman looks this
time o' night!” says the butcher; “you're nuther of you
married men, the more shame to you!”

“If Peter's life is a fair example o' you married folks,”
says the cooper, “I don't know but what the tother side
has the advantage.”

The laugh was rather against the butcher, and became
decidedly so when the tailor added: “Do your wives generally
have their Larkys, ha! Mr. Butcher?”

“No insinuations, if you please, gentlemen!” says Mr.
Stake, the butcher, and then he says, joining in the general

chuckle, “that there is no accounting for tastes. Some
folks,” says he, “prefers pork to lamb, and some prefers
old birds to fresh uns, you know; but for my part, barrin'
Peter's foolery about sperits, he's twice the man that ever
Lute Larky was, or is like to be!”

“There! there she is now; that's Miss Whiteflock herself!”
exclaims the cooper; she's something like for size;
t'other one could 'a' been put into one o' my cags!”

“T'other one!” sneers the butcher; “this and t'other is
all one; you hang twenty yards or so o' stiff stuff around
most any figer and it'll look big! Matty Whitelock, now,
if you had the bare skeleton of her, wouldn't be no bigger
than what my wife is!” Now Mrs. Whiteflock was a
power in the neighborhood, and nobody thought of speaking
of her as Martha Whiteflock, let alone Matty, nor would
the butcher have thought of it, but for the insinuations he
had pretended to reprove, — they had somehow put her
upon a lower level.

It would have been thought a bold move in him at any
other time, to compare his wife to Mrs. Whiteflock in any
way, even though he was a thriving man, wore broadcloth
every day, and kept his hair saturated with highly-scented
marrowfat, but now, what with the general excitement, and
what with the bold jesting, it was not only accepted, but
received with murmurs of applause. When the cooper had
exclaimed: “There she is now!” a light had been struck
in Mrs. Whiteflock's chamber, and from that time she had
been observed hurrying to and fro, and up and down, in a
confused and agitated way, quite unlike herself. She had
heard every word the men had spoken, the window being
open, and the curtain thin. Her face was burning like
fire, and her heart beating as it had never beaten till
then. Shame, fright, pride, and humiliation were all aroused
and making wild contention in her hitherto placid bosom.
She could not find her comb; she could not find her slippers,
nor her shawl, nor anything, and remained in demitoilet,
and out of speaking distance so long, that the men
in waiting grew impatient.

“If you're on such good terms with madam, such wery
good terms,” says the cooper, jogging the elbow of the
butcher, “s'pose you just tip her the wink to weil herself a
little, and come to the winder.”

“I didn't say nothing about good or bad terms! I know
her when I see her; I know a sheep whether it's got the
wool onto its back or whether it's sheared, I reckon!” The
favor with which he of the scented marrow had been regarded
already, became more pronounced now, and he was
requested to act as foreman.

“Hello there!” he calls, making a trumpet of his double
hand; “s'pose, mem, you just send your man, Luther,
down here.” It was not, perhaps, so much the words as
the tone, that made the blood tingle in the woman's finger-ends.
Her first impulse was to fling back an open insult;
but alas for the woman that feels herself in the power of an
inferior! She did no such thing; she dared not.

“Do you mean Mr. Larky?” she says, speaking so low
and so soft that her voice might have been mistaken for
that of a turtle, cooing to its mate. She had come to the
window, but the folds of the divided curtain were so closely
held together that only the tip of her nose was visible.

“Yes 'em, exactly; Mr. Larky, Mr. Luther Larky, your
man. I beg your pardon if I offended you by calling him
Luther,” answers the butcher.

He had said too much now, and the face burned as if it
would set the curtain on fire, and the voice almost trembled
that replied, “No offence, brother Stake, none in the world;
what is it to me, to be sure, whether you say Luther or Mr.
Larky! I didn't quite understand, that was all.”

The butcher was flattered; she had called him brother
Stake, and they had all heard it, though he was not fairly
entitled to the appellation, not being a member of the
church, and he straightway put his request in a less objectionable
shape: “If you please, mem,” says he, “will you
send Mr. Larky down to us?”

“I don't know, indeed, whether he is in,” says Mrs.
Whiteflock, and she adds, quite unnecessarily, “you might
almost as well ask for him at the other end of the town, I
know so little of his whereabouts.” She laughed a little
laugh that was foolish and feigned, and then she said, quite
naturally, that she would send Samuel Dale to them.

A burst of merriment followed this offer, which not being
in the least understood by Mrs. Whiteflock, still further
disconcerted her.

“And you don't know whether Mr. Larky is at home?”
persists the butcher.

“Well, no, brother Stake, that is, if you call this his
home! We never think of calling our house the home of
anybody but ourselves, — my husband and me.”

“Then, mem, is Peter at home?” says the butcher.

“O yes, my husband is always at home of nights;” and
she looks around as if toward the bed, and then adds, “he
is sleeping, poor dear, I don't like to call him.” And then
she asks if she can't stand in his stead for this once; she
can't do it very well, she feels, but she is willing to do her
best, for she really can't find it in her heart to wake her
tired husband.

“What we want to know is this,” says the butcher.

“You ought to werify her,” interposes the cooper, “that
every word she adwances'll be reperduced into court.”

“Mercy on me!” cries Mrs. Whiteflock, with a little
scream, and even the tip of her nose disappears within the
curtain.

“You ought to swear her onto the Book,” continues the
cooper; “testimony won't awail into the court if it ain't
took werbatim, and took with due form!”

“Due thunder!” answers the butcher; “that wouldn't
be no sense.” He had the “brother” to presume upon
now, as well as the marrowfat.

“Do you pertend you understand the dead languages?”
says the cooper. “Well, if you don't, my adwice is that
the further examination of the witness now in the box be
procrastinated to a more conwenient season.”

“Lord 'a' mercy!” cries Mrs. Whiteflock, her nose just
appearing again through the curtain; “what have I to
answer for? I never meant to harm anybody, I can say
that; and you can swear me to it if you want to!”

“Dear Mrs. Whiteflock,” says the butcher, “pray don't
be alarmed; we are all friends, and there is no harm coming
to you; this blundering fellow ought to be punished for
giving you such a fright.”

“I only said,” pleaded the cooper, “that her evidence
ought to be took werbatim while she was into the box. I
don't see no scare about that!”

“Box!” says the butcher; “what do you mean?”

“I mean, your honor, the witness aforesaid, into the box
aforesaid, and now onto the stand aforesaid!”

“Good gracious! What's the fellow up to?” cries some
one in the crowd.

“Up to!” echoes the cooper; “I'm up to being on the
safe side; that's what I'm up to. Blood has been spilt to-night;
the peaceful grass has been incarsadined; our homes
and our hearths have been wiolated, and our women and
children have been torn from their unhallowed beds at the
dead of midnight hour, to answer at the bar of justice and
on their woracity, as to the whereabouts of the unhappy
dead; and it's wisionary, gentlemen, to suppose, for a single
moment, that our percedings here will be walid unless
done according to the adwice of some client learned in the
law! I move, therefore, and second the motion, and put it
to wote, whether the witness now pending in the box shan't
be sworn before her evidence be took, lest our percedings
shall be rendered woid, and not only so, but in wiolation
of the common principles of liberty, for which our fathers
wentered their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors!”

This unexpected burst produced a marked impression on
the crowd, and a few discontents drew off, but the butcher
won the rest more completely by remarking that the meaning
was the thing of import, and not the word at all; “for
instance,” says he, “it's all one whether I call the cooper
an ass or a man!”

“He's used to knockin' on the head,” muttered some one
who took sides with the cooper; but before any very bitter
partisan feeling had been engendered, the common attention
was diverted by the opening of the entry door, and the
appearance of Mrs. Whiteflock herself, radiant with excitement,
and imposing with her accustomed amplitude of
dimensions. “Do tell me all about the dreadful affair, gentlemen,”
she says, leading the way into the best room. She
had caught the idea that blood had been spilt, from the
fierce declamation of the cooper, and from that moment a
great weight had been lifted from her soul; murder seemed
a trivial thing just then.

“What!” cry two or three at once, “is it possible you
don't know about Mr. Lightwait's being shot, — shot by
Sam Dale?”

This news was indeed shocking, but she did not scream,
nor throw up her hands, but on the contrary, suppressed all

signs of sudden emotion, and answered, naturally, that she
was ignorant of the dreadful particulars.

“But Peter knows all about it; he was sent for?”

“Yes, to be sure, but I wouldn't allow him to talk about
it; you know his extreme sensitiveness, and peculiarly unfortunate
liabilities under any over-excitement.”

Then she put her handkerchief to her eyes, and having
recovered herself a little, went on in a faltering voice —
“Of course I try to guard and protect him all I can, and
to tell the truth, I diverted his mind from the horrid tragedy
as soon as possible, and under the influence of my foolish
prattle, which was all against my feelings, the dear knows,
he fell asleep directly.”

“O Mrs. Whiteflock,” cried two or three voices, “your
conversation, foolish to be sure, — what an idea!” She
laughed deprecatingly, and brought forth a bottle of old
peach brandy, — “Some that I have always kept since our
wedding day,” she says; “do taste it, gentlemen, one and
all, the night air and the excitement will bring on ague fits
else; and didn't my poor dear husband almost die of them?
La mercy! the way I've tended him night and day, month
in and month out, for them nasty chills! why, it makes me
shudder to think of it, — pass the bottle round! a body's
wedding day doesn't come twice, you know, gentlemen,
and you won't be likely to taste such brandy again, if I do
say it myself; I declare the peach flavor is quite perfect;
it's my husband's favorite tipple, if I may use such a vulgar
word!” She laughed, and poured a little more of the
brandy into her glass; and all the company laughed and
took a little more too; she was so sociable and genial, they
were all delighted, and quite forgetting the errand that had
brought them. “It does me good to see you drink,” she
says; “I've always had such a terror of that dreadful ague
ever since my poor, dear husband; would you believe,
brethren, he took no end of quinine, but the doctor always
would have it it was the nursing that did it! La me, he
used to say to me almost every day, the doctor did, `Mrs.
Whiteflock, I shouldn't mind to be sick myself, if I could
only have such a nurse as you are,' but, dear me, when a
husband comes to be sick, a wife feels that there is nothing
that she couldn't do, — I know it was so with me, anyhow;
but I suppose I've got the best man in the world, — always

excepting present company, you know!” She smiled and
nodded all round, and every man present felt as if he was
personally complimented, and gave hearty laughter in
return for her smile, and sipped his brandy with an added
degree of gusto.

Men are easily imposed upon by the artifices of woman;
(they do not deceive one another so readily,) and not a man
who sipped the brandy but was ready to swear directly that
Mrs. Whiteflock was not only the best woman, but also the
kindest and most affectionate wife in the world.

By little and little she drew the story all out without betraying
her ignorance, for all were eager to tell it, eager to
do anything that would oblige so charming a woman, and
the clearest-sighted of them all did not suspect that he was
being led by one wholly blind. Such was the case nevertheless.
As it happened Mrs. Whiteflock had gone to bed
at an unusually early hour that night, and consequently
knew nothing of what had chanced, till the midnight calling
beneath her window had aroused her, but what she heard
while dressing, startled her, not out of her propriety, but
into it, and caused her to hold and to keep fast to Peter, as
she had never done before. She had incidentally learned
that he knew all about the affair, hence the necessity of
seeming to know, on her part.

“Do you happen to know, Mrs. Whiteflock,” says the
butcher, “whether the unfortunate man was in — was down
— was at — do you happen to know — that is, can you tell
whether the ufortunate man was any time during the past
evening in — a-t' — he stammered, coughed, and broke down.
He had undertaken to ask, simply, whether Mr. Lightwait
had been in Peter's cellar any time during the past evening,
but somehow, he did not feel free to say Peter and cellar, as
he had always done before.

Here Mrs. Whiteflock came in with a long story about a
dispute she had had lately with her husband, (“the dear man
has such strange, old-fashioned notions, you know,” she
says,) all concerning the color of a new coat she was persuading
him to buy; and she made it appear that it had been
quite a playful love-quarrel, made up with kisses, belike,
and when she had finished the story, she said she would like
to take the vote of her good friends as to the most becoming
color for the proposed garment! “I am fully determined,

whether we agree on one color or not,” she says, “that the
dear man shall never be seen again in that horrid thing he
wears!” And then she says her husband is much less
worldly-minded than she, much better than she, every way;
she wishes she were only half as good!

“O Mrs. Whiteflock!” cry all her friends in a breath,
and then they fall to praising her Christian virtues, and then
she says they think too well of her, she only wishes she deserved
their good opinions, and in this way she convinces
them that she is not only very good, but sweetly and beautifully
meek, withal.

When all this had been interpolated, and the butcher got
back again to the question upon which he had broken down,
he went through without a hitch, the wheels of his mental
machinery being by this time, what with brandy, and what
with Mrs. Whiteflock's open and insinuated flatteries,
scarcely less oily than his hair. “Do you happen to know,
Sister Whiteflock,” he said, (he had never ventured to address
her as sister before,) “do you happen to know whether
the unfortunate man,” he had heard the doctor say that,
“was at your husband's office any time during the
last evening?”

Mrs. Whiteflock said she thought not, and then she said
she thought he was, and then she said she didn't know, her
husband had not mentioned it, but then he might not have
thought of it; so, conveying the impression that the bishop's
son was an intimate and frequent visitor in the office, and
thereby adding considerably to the consideration of poor
Peter, whose brain, if he could have heard it, must have
been more pitifully confused than ever.

After the butcher's example, everybody, in addressing
Mrs. Whiteflock said, your husband, and Mr. Whiteflock,
and she almost blushed to hear him thus honorably mentioned,
and just the smallest tendril of the affection she had
pretended to cherish for him took root in her heart.

Another strange thing happened during the stay of these
visitors; a root that had struck in her girl's fancy, and held
its own for years, was loosened somewhat; the consideration
given to Peter took just so much from Luther, and when
the men began to say Mr. Whiteflock, and your husband,
they also began to say Luther, and Larky, and even Lute
Larky! All this went to the conscience of the woman, and

there gathered over her a weight of responsibility that she
could in no wise get away from. She kept up a pretty prattle
of delightful nothings, together with a comfortable pressure
of hospitality till the company departed, giving to each
guest as he shook hands with her, the assurance that she felt
herself specially obliged to him for disturbing her sleep, and
drinking her brandy; not in so many words was this assurance
conveyed; not by anything that can be repeated, perhaps;
nevertheless, it was said as plainly as words could have
said it, and the cordial expressions of good-will, and every
“God bless you,” given back, assured her that her reputation,
for the time being, at least, was washed clean of all suspicion.

She did not exult in this success. She had never been at
heart a bad woman. She had been thoughtless, careless,
selfish, and wilful, and she had been petted and humored and
encouraged in her natural complacency by those who surrounded
her, for her table glittered with silver; her house
was big, and in the splendor of her personal adornment she
outshone the lily of the field, that she also rivaled in another
respect; she toiled not, neither did she spin. She was ambitious
in many ways, ambitious of being rich; hence she
had married Peter Whiteflock; the world had forgiven her
long ago. She had carried it with so high a hand, had so
completely monopolized the money, and so positively ignored
the man, that the thing had come to be looked upon with
almost a sort of admiration. She was ambitious of social
distinction, and the travelling preachers “put up” with her,
and all distinguished visitors to the neighborhood dined and
supped with her, tasted her brandy, and her grapes and
strawberries. The young ladies got their holiday and bridal
flowers in her garden, got their new patterns for corsets and
capes of her, and their receipts for custards and cakes. She
was ambitious of religious distinction, and love-feasts and
sewing circles and missionary meetings were often held at her
house; but underlying all her ambition, there was an affluence
of nature that would have won friends to her, even
without the powerful accessories possessed by her.

The world had forgiven her marriage, but she had never
forgiven herself, or rather, she had never forgiven Peter for
marrying her, and perhaps it was as much to defy and override
him, as anything else, that she took his old rival into
her employment, and under her roof.

She had certainly never seen the affair in the light in which
she might have seen it, if she had not been in the habit of
arrogating to herself extraordinary privileges, and of having
them accorded without question or hesitation. She had
once been what girls in their teens call in love, with Luther
Larky, and though she had long been aware of his moral
deficiences, she had continued to cherish him with that blind
perversity which so inheres in the heart of woman. The
inquiry for him at her chamber window at midnight, had
jostled her out of the socket in which she had been indolently
sunken for years, and when the door closed upon her
visitors, and she turned back into her house, the fictitious
vivacity forsook her, and as she sunk down, all of a heap,
the turbulent wave she had been holding back, swept quite
over her. It was some comfort, to be sure, that the gross
jests she had heard from the window were not likely to be
repeated, but at what cost of self-respect had she warded off
this calamity! She had ignored the bitter facts, and come
down from her accustomed place in society, as well as down
from her chamber; opened her house, even her best room,
and admitted, at midnight, a set of coarse fellows, some of
whom she scarcely knew, on terms of social equality, and to
a freedom of intercourse, only hitherto accorded to her old
and esteemed friends. She had even bandied jests and drank
brandy with them, with the implied understanding that she
felt herself privileged! She scorned herself, and writhing
under the memory of such low tricks, the thought of him
who had caused them made her almost loathe him too.

It was as if the glass through which she had been used
to see him darkly, was broken up, and she beheld him face
to face, in all his lowness and unworthiness. The clock
struck one, and two; the candle on the table burned dim,
and still she sat, her face buried in her arms, and her hair
falling about her eyes and making the darkness double, when
a little sound, like the rustle of a soft garment near her,
startled and caused her to look up. The tears stopped just
where they were, and the heart stopped too. At the further
side of the room, making it light all round her with a radiance
that seemed to flow from herself, stood a woman, beautiful
beyond the power of fancy to paint. By her side, and
with her veil floating across his shoulder and caressing him,
as it were, stood Peter, beautified, spiritualized, transfigured
from earthiness to glory.

She could hardly have said they were there till they were
gone, floating as lightly away as the thistle down, and vanishing
like the shapes of a dream, yet leaving a picture,
distinct, and ineffaceable, upon her mind.

As she saw the vision departing, she rose to her feet, crying,
with outstretched arms, “My husband.” And this
was the first time that word had ever been prompted by her
heart. He smiled, as in benediction, sorrowfully, waved
his hand in farewell, and with the heavenly veil shimmering
between his face and hers, vanished out of sight.

Her empty, aching heart felt itself mocked and baffled, and
a pang of jealousy shot through it, such as she had never
experienced before in all her life; a feeling that grew upon
her rather than decreased, afterward, and for this reason in
part: when the hand that seemed Peter's had been waved in
farewell, she had noticed something bright fall from it to the
ground, and had afterwards found on the spot where it had
seemed to strike, her own wedding ring, which she had given
back to Peter the day after her marriage.

She found this, searching about with the dim candle;
then she trimmed the light, and having slipped the ring on
her finger, and being impelled by a motive, strange, and
solemn, and irresistible, descended to the cellar where Peter,
with his boy in his arms, lay fast asleep. The ring, always
there before, was gone from his hand, and there was on his
face, or she fancied there was, something of the radiance
that had glorified the vision. She would gladly have put
the hair away from his forehead and kissed him, but she
feared to wake him, and, besides, something seemed to withhold
her, and so, having silently invoked a blessing, she
stole softly away. She had not realized till now how dismal
and forbidding the cellar was; the rats had scampered
away at her entrance, and she had afterwards seen them
looking at her from the dim corners of the room — scen
their white teeth glistening or their black, hairless tails
wriggling out of their holes, and the impression left on her
mind, softened as it was, just then, was like an impression
cast in wax.

The candle had long burned out on her table and the
latest of the golden candles along the sky was growing pale
in the gray light of the morning, when with a restless and
perturbed spirit in her bosom she reascended the stairs to

her chamber, changed from her former self, as one sometimes
is changed all at once, by some great calamity, or by
sickness, unto death, or by powerful spiritual excitement.
She had, in truth, got a new heart. At the upper landing
she encountered Luther Larky, frowzy, frowning, and half
dressed. “You up so early, Marther!” he exclaimed,
with some displeasure mingled with the reproof of his tone,
carelessly or purposely digging his elbows in her as he
tossed his jacket over his head.

“I hope I have a right to get up in my own house, without
asking leave of anybody, at whatever hour I please.”
And Mrs. Whiteflock would have passed on, but he detained
her by a grab upon the arm, meant to be familiar and
fond. She flung off the hand with such violence as made
him stare. “What's up!” he demanded; “Peter hain't
kicked out o' the traces nor nothin', I reckon!” And then
taking a coaxing tone and pulling at her sleeve, he added, —
“Come, spell it out, whatever it is. I've got a right for to
know it. Say, Marther!”

Whatever he might have done at another time, it was
certainly not just then that he could talk about rights. He
had always called her Marther, to be sure, but somehow it
grated upon her ear with a terrible unpleasantness just now,
and she answered with freezing coldness, that she would
like to know where he got the rights he boasted of.

“I'll just remind you, then,” he said, “bein' as your
mem'ry seems to fail ye, that I got 'em o' Marther Hansom.
She give me the right to her hand and her heart, and
though she took one away, she never took the tother, so
far as I've understood, nor so far as has been understood by
people generally. Are all these years to go for nothing?
Actions speaks louder'n words, Marther.”

“What has been generally understood, isn't here nor
there!” retorted Mrs. Whiteflock, feeling all the while that
it was both here and there, “and if my actions have spoken
contrary to my words, I don't know it!”

This, it must be admitted, was a little stretch of the
honest truth, but perhaps Mrs. Whiteflock was not at the
moment conscious of it, and indeed, it is difficult for any
of us to give the justest evidence against ourselves. We
must needs make good our case, first of all.

“You're in one of your tantrums,” says Luther; “all

women has 'em; you'll git over it and be all right agin.
I can afford to wait, I reckon — only I'd just like to know
what's up with you!”

He had a long snaky body, and while he was speaking,
stooped, with his back toward her, to tie his shoe, and as
he concluded his remarks, thus stooping, grinned at her,
looking upward from between his legs.

She almost hated him at that moment. She made a quick
angry gesture with all her body, then drew herself up and
said haughtily, “Whatever you have understood, Mr.
Larky, I give you to understand now, plainly and once for
all, that you are no more to me than any of my other hired
servants! And now, sir, I hope you are in no doubt.”

“Whew!” whistled Luther. “Golly! how my lady's
a-comin' out!” And then he said, as she stood flushing
and dilating with indignation, “true, I'll be dog-on Marther,
if you ever looked half so handsome!”

“Call me Mrs. Whiteflock, if you please, sir, when you
have occasion to speak to me after this!”

“Certing! anything you likes, my little dear; you pays
your money, and you has your choice; I'll even say Mrs.
Peter Whiteflock, if you like the sound of it, or Mother
Whiteflock; that last 'ill be singularly appropriate, as betwixt
you and me!”

“More appropriate than you can understand, for a reason
that is not altogether your fault, for if ever I cared for you
with any other feeling than such as the mother gives to her
deformed child, it has certainly not been for years and
years!”

“Ain't you pilin' it up a leetle steep, Marther? you better
just hold on, mind I tell ye! You won't find another Peter
in me, not by a long shot! I've been master about these
diggins a leetle too long for to be talked to that way all of
a suddent!” And bowing with mock courtesy, and the
exclamation, “Your most obedient!” he backed himself
off the landing.

Mrs. Whiteflock's eyes followed him down the stairs with
a look of slow, settled scorn, that was more to be feared
than all her angry words.

She entered her chamber with a quiet step, closed the
door softly, and with folded arms and downcast eyes, stood
a good while leaning against it; then she turned the key,

and having opened one of the drawers of her bureau in
which were kept certain mementoes of her girlhood, selected
from among them two or three trinkets given her by
Luther in the days of their courtship, together with several
crumpled love-letters, in faded ink and yellow paper. She
turned and overturned the contents of the drawer again
and again, as if to assure herself positively that nothing
was left, and then placing the selected articles in a little
heap on the hearth-stone, set fire to them, and as they slowly
consumed, watch the smoke of their burning with a sort of
grim satisfaction. When the feeble blue blaze flickered
out and nothing was left but a handful of flaky ashes, she
brushed them away, with a deep sigh of relief, and having
filled a china basin from a pitcher of rain-water that stood
on the toilet table she proceeded to wash her hands, rubbing
them hard, and plunging them deep in the water, time
after time, and though they were white almost as the toilet
cloth, she examined them repeatedly with a questioning,
dissatisfied look, not unlike that which one may suppose
Lady Macbeth to have worn when she said, “What, will
these hands never be clean?” and “Out damned spot!”

She dressed her hair without once looking in the glass,
and, as the rising sun illumined her windows, fell upon her
knees and prayed long and fervently. It was not the
formula of words that she had been used to say; her heart
and all that was within her was crying and calling as they
never had done before, and whatever the words she used,
the substance was, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Alas for those who have no faith to pray, who when they
lose hope in themselves, lose hope in everything. The
Divine blessing came down to her, as it always will come to
those who devoutly seek, but she wisely forebore to trust
alone to contrition and tears, and courageously resolved not
to return again and again in morbid brooding to the things
that could not be helped, but the rather to put her hand
resolutely to good works — works that should be meet for
repentance.

Her first duty was to visit Samuel Dale, and before she
had broken fast she set out; he was accused, forsaken,
perhaps guilty. She must not desert him. She had no need
to inquire where he was; a stream of men, boys, women
and children pouring in one direction assured her that she

should find him directly by joining the procession, nor was she
mistaken. The tide turned from the main street presently,
and gathering strength as it advanced, poured and rolled
and tumbled through cross-streets and by-ways and alleys,
and finally on the middle of a bare common stopped, and
lay surging and heaving like a troubled water, about a long,
low wooden shed where the butcher's shambles were. The
residents of no private dwelling house in the village were
willing to admit the criminal within its walls, and he had
therefore been placed in the loft of the butcher's shed,
among the starving calves and sheep. From the open windows
of this loft, or from such of them as were not filled
with human beings, the dull, leaden eyes of these famishing
creatures looked out, and all the air was filled with their
cries and moans. It was enough to touch the hardest heart
to see and to hear, one would have thought, but so far from
this being the case, it seemed rather to stir up the more
base and devilish feelings in the surrounding mob. Boys
amused themselves by throwing stones at the drooping and
helpless beasts thus exposed, and men talked of cutting
throats and knocking on the head, of imprisonments and
hangings and tortures, with a delectation that was alike
disgusting and shocking to the new comer, who found herself
obliged to listen, the stairway leading to the loft being
already blackened and literally overflowing with human
beings.

“Here's good eatin' for you,” says one, poking his horny
fingers into the haunch of a fat bullock that stood, tied by
the neck to a strong post, against which a bloody axe was
leaned, chewing the cud and waiting his turn in happy unconsciousness.

“When they goin' to kill him? how? where?” cried a
dozen eager voices, as a shock-headed, bare-armed fellow
appeared, with a butcher-knife stuck in his belt, and
trowsers bedabbled with red spots, and, tossing the axe
over his shoulder, untied the bullock and led him away.
Then the air was rent with wild huzzas, hats went up, and
sharp elbows dug their way along, and long legs flew, and
short legs waddled, so that nearly half the crowd was
drawn off after the doomed animal that was to make them
a holiday before he made them a feast.

Dogs were set upon one another, and if an ear happened

to be munched or slitted, a tooth knocked out, or a joint
dislocated, the enjoyment of the spectators knew no bounds;
and several cats were caught and ducked in the stagnant,
reddish-looking pools that stood here and there, in order
to render expression more completely adequate.

Ropes were tossed up to the windows, with cries of “We
want to see these ere stretched! we do! Give us a sight
of him, anyhow! Hope he slep' good las' night! Ask
him how he liked his bed-fellows! Has he got irons onto
him? say, tell us that! Has he had his bread and water
yet? Come now, 'tain't fair to us chaps that can't see.
Some o' you that have been lookin' at him for half an hour
might stick your face out and tell a body!”

“If any man here has any authority,” says Mrs. Whiteflock,
“I should like to find him!”

“I have!” says Luther Larky, stepping up to her,
“and let me just tell you this is no place for you; you'd
better go home!”

She looked at him with a degree of indignant scorn that
no words could have expressed. Such assumption before
such a rabble was insupportable, and caused the last scales,
if indeed any yet remained, to fall from her eyes.

“You had better return yourself,” she said, “and set
about the work you are hired to do, else your discharge
may come when you least expect it!”

“Indeed!” replied Luther, the tone and manner implying
that to be turned off by her, was not in the least a
catastrophe to be apprehended. That short word probably
sealed his doom.