University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
SAMUEL IN THE BUTCHER'S LOFT.

A SHARP, quickly-stifled bellow, followed by a
wild shout, caused another diversion in the mob;
some of the men and boys that crowded the
stair, tumbling down almost headlong, and by
this means Mrs. Whiteflock was enabled to gain
admission to the prisoner's room. She found him lying on
a bundle of straw, surrounded by idle and gaping strangers,
his feet tied so that he could not stand, and his hands chained
a little apart, so that with some inconvenience he could partially
use them.

“Ha, sir! look up here!” cried the constable, kicking
the hat, that concealed his eyes and part of his face, aside
with his foot; “ha, sir! A lady, sir! And she does you
more honor than you deserve! Gentlemen, stand back!”
Then he warned Mrs. Whiteflock that no private conversation
with the prisoner could be allowed, and so, with an
uplifted bludgeon in his hand, and making a footstool of a
lamb that lay tied, neck and heels, at his feet, he planted
himself between the prostrate man and his visitor.

“I have nothing to say that you cannot all hear if you
choose,” Mrs. Whiteflock said, dropping on her knees and
taking the hands of Samuel up in hers. The clanking of
the chain, as she took the hands, seemed to smite upon the
fountain of her tears, and they fell fast and bright till all
the uplifted face and tangled beard glistened with them.

“O, my friend!” Samuel said at last, sitting up on the
straw, his lip trembling, and his eyes with difficulty keeping
themselves dry. The unexpected show of sympathy
almost overcame him.

“It is not true! this dreadful deed that they accuse you

of?” Mrs. Whiteflock asked, dropping her eyes, for she
feared to look in his.

Samuel drew his hands away from her tender caressing,
and with a strong effort gathered himself up, as it were,
and then with a steady voice answered that it was true, and
that he had only done what he would do again.

“No, no! this is not, cannot, must not be true! You
with whom I have eaten and drunken; you with whom I
have prayed and fasted, tell me, O, tell me, that it is all a
horrid dream; a dreadful delusion!” She had seized his hand
again, and turning it from one side to the other, gazed on it,
and in it, as though she expected to detect the guilty spot,
if it were there.

Samuel shook his head and smiled mournfully. “You
will not find it there, the spot is in my soul.”

“O, don't Samuel; don't say so. I will defend you even
against yourself; there is some dreadful delusion; your
brain is turned; some one call the doctor!”

“Look at me,” Samuel said; “I am not mad. I know
what I say. I shot him through the heart, as I hope, and
that was merciful compared to what he had done to me;
he had already stabbed me through the heart, and murdered
all my peace. Let them do what they will with me, it is no
matter; I have no wish to live.” Then he told her that
she had better go away, that she could do him no good, and
would only bring harm upon herself, by giving him sympathy,
or even pity.

“If all be true as you say, which I do not yet believe,”
Mrs. Whiteflock answered, “I will not even then forsake
you. Who shall say but that, admitting the worst, more guilt
may be stretched along unsuspected lives, than you have
crowded into one rash moment! Only He who made us can
judge us righteously, and still you are my brother.”

“What! in ignominy! in chains! in prison!” cried
Samuel, hiding his face in his shackled hands, and shaking
from head to foot with a storm of passion. Then he said,
returning the pressure of her hand, “I wish I could tell
you just how it all was, but no matter, it would do no good,
they are all too much against me, it is not as it seems, that
is all, but you could better afford to call me brother if you
knew.”

“I can afford it as it is,” she answered; “Yes, my

brother still — on the gallows if you go there.” And she
lifted the toil-worn and chain-chafed hands to her lips and
kissed them.

Perhaps she was thinking of Peter, and of her life-long
neglect of him.

Murmurs of dissent and disapprobation ran through the
crowd. Some said she was the worse of the two; some
that she knew more about it than she pretended; and one
and all, that they would not have believed such a thing of
Mrs. Whiteflock, if they had not seen it with their own eyes.
Her glossy silk, however, shed off a great deal of the
obloquy, and the murmur bore much less heavily against her
than it would have done if her shawl had been less elegant.

These were advantages, however, upon which it is not
likely that she calculated just then, and let us not undervalue,
on account of them, her womanly courage and constancy;
there had not been equality in their positions at
any time, much less was there now. She was the rich mistress,
he the poor hireling, at the best of times; but now
there was the length and breadth of the world between her
smooth brow and shining hair, and his furrowed forehead
and matted locks stuck full of broken straws; between
her fine boots with their silken laces and knots of ribbon,
and his clumsy shoes reeking from the ominous pools
through which they had trodden; between her cuff of exquisite
lace, and his coarse shirt-sleeve; the soft, bright
ribbon at her throat, and his rumpled and buttonless collar;
her dainty hands, and his hard ones, with their broken
and bruised nails.

Ay, it was a long way from the summit of her respectable
prosperity to the dark, low place of shame and humiliation
into which he was come, where only the light of mercy and
pity could follow him.

The little murmur of dissent and disapprobation was still
running up and down, when all at once the noise without
became tumultuous, with exclamations of consternation,
doubt, surprise, incredulity, — wonder and terror rising
over all.

“God bless us! The Lord help us! Where did you
come from? Are you alive? and wasn't you shot, after
all? Stand back! Make way! Well I never! 'Tain't
him! Yes, 'tis! No, 'tain't!” were a few of the exclamations.

Then the surging waves parted, and smiling,
sleek, flushed, to be sure, to the faintest rose-leaf shade,
but all composed and elegant, John Hamlyn Lightwait,
leaving the gaping crowd behind him, ascended the rickety
stairs, entered the cattle loft, and shaking out his scented
pocket-handkerchief wiped his brow.

A silence like the silence of the grave followed the first
noisy tumult, many, no doubt, really believing they had
seen a ghost, and not a man, and the general feeling among
those who were not deceived, it must be owned, being one
of disappointment. Sam wasn't a murderer, then, after all,
and the hanging they had hoped to witness would never
come to pass! Those who had coils of rope in their hands,
hid them under their coat-skirts, and sneaked away, and
the late loud exhilaration took a low, bitter and brooding
turn.

“Is it possible, Sister Whiteflock, is it possible I find
you here at this unconscionably early hour? Why, it has
been as much as I could accomplish.” And Mr. Lightwait
took out his gold repeater and looked at it indolently, and
then he lifted his sleepy eyes, and smiled and nodded to the
by-standers.

The tone of his remark had not pleased Mrs. Whiteflock;
it had seemed to imply some impropriety on her part, and
she was peculiarly sensitive just then. Her reply, therefore,
was quite devoid of her accustomed graciousness of
manner, insomuch that everybody who heard, stared upon
her with wonder and surprise.

“Where should I be, but here?” she said, still retaining
the hand of Samuel; and then with great intrepidity,
“One would suppose that you, being unscathed as it seems
you are, might have found your way here before this time,
and so have relieved my friend from the false charges under
which he has suffered quite too long, in my opinion; so you
see Brother Lightwait, that you have surprised me, no less
than I you!”

She smiled as she concluded, and most of those who
heard it, smiled too, feeling that she had the best of it, but
the day past she would no more have spoken thus to her
preacher, and he a bishop's son, withal, than she would
have cut off her right hand. New experiences had brought
out new traits — traits that she had never herself suspected.

It was Mr. Lightwait's turn now to be gracious, and he
lost no time; he had only feared, he said, that she had overtaxed
herself, for, alas! the weakness of the flesh must
needs fall short of the willingness of the spirit, when the
spirit was so zealous of good works, in season and out of
season, as was hers. He wished they had a few more Sister
Whiteflocks in Bloomington! not that he could complain of
anybody, far from it; indeed the church was especially
blessed in the excellence and efficacy of its female members.

Mrs. Whiteflock thanked him with quite a worldly air and
manner, that seemed to say she did not estimate his compliment
at more than the worth of a compliment, and then she
went on to say she need hardly ask if he had himself suffered
from all the unhappy confusion, as his fresh appearance and
equable mood forbade any such inquiry.

“By George, she's a trump!” whispered one on the outside
of the circle, to his neighbor, and a little stir and murmur
of delight ran through the crowd; it was as if the lion
had been bearded in his den, or some other daring feat
performed, and as daring, no matter of what nature, always
wins admiration, Mrs. Whiteflock began to find herself the
pointed object of proud and favoring regard. What her
glossy silk and fine laces and soft ribbons had left undone,
her spirited contest with the bishop's son was perfecting,
and through her influence a strong tide was setting in Samuel's
favor; one stout fellow had even got out his jack-knife
and was about to cut the rope that was twisted around the
legs of the prisoner, and tied with knot upon knot.

“Not so hasty, my good friend!” said Mr. Lightwait,
almost tumbling the fellow over with a little wave of his
white hand; and then turning to Mrs. Whiteflock he said,
“I should certainly deserve your implied rebuke, my dear
sister, if I had had the knowledge of this unfortunate business
which you seem to attribute to me, but it so happened
that my movements last evening precluded me from learning
what it seems everybody else knew, and indeed I remained
in total and blind ignorance until within this half hour; I
trust, therefore, you will take from me the ban of your displeasure.”
He then said he hoped the derangement of mind
under which their poor friend was laboring, would prove to
be of a transient and remediable character. He touched Samuel
caressingly on the shoulder as he spoke, and asked him
in considerate and soothing tones if he knew him!

Samuel, who had been glowering upon him from under
scowling eyebrows, replied haughtily that he did know him
very well.

Mrs. Whiteflock smiled and nodded all around, as much
as to say; “I told you so, he's all right, don't you see!

“Ontie him! Knock off his chains! it's all devilish nonsense,
and I said so from the first!” cried a voice from the
crowd.

“So did I, so did I!” chimed in two or three others.

Another little wave of the white hand, and the crowd
swayed and staggered back as though a battering-ram had
been brought to bear upon them. “Insanity is a strange
disease, my friends,” said Mr. Lightwait, “and has the
trick of seeming quite sane sometimes.” Then he related
some curious instances illustrative of that theory, and showing
how dangerous it was to trust to the lucid intervals, and
then turning to Samuel as if to point his moral, he addressed
him in accents as soft and persuasive as one might use in
speaking to a wild beast he sought to tame.

“So you think you know me, do you, my good Brother
Dale?” he said.

Probably his object was to provoke Samuel into the saying
of some outrageous thing, or the doing of some dreadful
deed of which he might take advantage, but the devil always
knows his own, and helps them in ways beyond all mortal
cunning to contrive; such unexpected help came to the
bishop's son at this juncture, Samuel being condemned out
of his own mouth. “Know you?” he cried, in a perfect
frenzy of madness, “God-a-mercy, I know you better than
you think! You're Bishop John! and your mother's name
was Betsey Honeywell! You see, sir, I know your tribe, both
in the body and out o' the body! I'm only sorry my aim
wasn't surer; as it is, I suppose the communication will be
lost upon you, and the butterfly will not long be left among
the flowers!”

Mr. Lightwait shook his head and smiled pitifully as
though he would say, “You all see how it is with him!
Just such another case as I was telling you of!” Then he
asked if some one would not fetch Dr. Allprice. “Poor fellow!”
he soliloquized: “we must do what we can for him,
but I fear, I greatly fear.” He tapped his fingers lightly on
his forehead, and turned away, quite overcome, as it
appeared.

The folds of Mrs. Whiteflock's elegant shawl shook a little
over her left arm, and the fellow who had got out the jack-knife
split it slyly into his pocket and got himself out of
sight.

“Crazy as a bedbug! I know'd it! I said so all the
time,” cried a dozen voices at once. Mr. Lightwait leaned
against a post, and continued from time to time mournfully
to shake his head. The color in his cheek had not changed
one tint when Samuel had called him Bishop John, nor yet
when he had spoken the maiden name of his mother, for
though by the pronouncing of these two names he had been
given to understand the whole nature and animus of the case,
he was too adroit to make any outward sign; for he comprehended,
too, on the instant, how easily and naturally
this to him strong proof of sanity on the part of Samuel could
be turned to his most serious damage, no one but himself
comprehending it in the least; and, as will readily be seen,
it showed on the face but as the gabble of a crazy man or
a fool.

Samuel might, if he entered into further conversation with
him, explain himself, and annual all that had been gained;
Mr. Lightwait therefore not only refrained from conversing
further with him, but at the same time discouraged all attempts
to do so on the part of others. He looked out
anxiously for Doctor Allprice, and professed great faith in
his scientific knowledge and skill. Besides, he had a strong
inkling of what the judgment of the little-great man would
be; more especially with his leading.

Meantime, rumors of Samuel's absolute wildness began to
circulate, and his enigmatical talk with Mr. Lightwait was
reported with serious exaggerations and additions. “What
was it he called the preacher? what was it? did anybody
hear? let the feller slop out, that knows! dog-on, tain't
fair to keep us outsiders in suspense! make him say it ag'in,
somebody!” were a few of the comments, exclamations and
inquiries that ran up and down.

At last, some one whose curiosity was irrepressible, pulled
Mr. Lightwait by the sleeve with the interrogation, “What
was it he called you, sir, if I mought be so bold? “He
called me Bishop Wrenn, or some such name, I believe,” he
replied quietly.

Samuel, who had thrown himself back on his sorry bed,

and covered his eyes with his arm, roused up on his elbow
at this, his chains clanking as he did so, and shaking one finger
at the clergyman, exclaimed with terrible earnestness,
“You lie, sir, in your throat and in your heart, and you
know it, and God knows it! I called you Bishop John, as
you well understood, and your own guilty conscience has
made you substitute another name, though nobody here except
yourself would or could see the difference. I dare you,
sir, to lift up your hand and say that you either believe me
crazy or that you have not perfectly understood every word
I have spoke! I didn't mean to be understood by everybody;
I meant to show you some mercy; but, by the Lord,
I shan't hold back much longer if you go on in this way.
Why, I fairly begin to think there's no truth in you.”

He fell back again, the sweat standing in drops along his
forehead, and his lips trembling and colorless.

“A fit, I fear,” whispered Mr. Lightwait to his nearest
neighbor, and then he said something about the unfortunate
delay of Dr. Allprice, and hastily despatched a messenger
after the messenger, and then descending he mingled with
the crowd below, and talked in low, compassionate tones;
the case exceeded his first apprehensions; had his mind
been thus distracted through the night, and if not, at what
time did the fatal symptoms make their appearance? And
as the buzz rose, and the inquries as to what the crazy
man had said now became importunate, he waved off the
eager throng, and then uplifting his hand, solemnly besought
them to go peaceably away. “This tumult,” he said, “excites
and enrages the poor fellow so much that there is no
foreseeing what may be the end of it; he is apparently in a
fit already, and quiet is the best medicine we can administer
till the doctor comes. I beg, therefore, as a personal favor
to myself, that you will go away.” The crowd began immediately
to withdraw, convinced alike of the insanity of the
one man, and of the Christian benevolence and beautiful
moral charity of the other.

There were some low-voiced inquiries for the tavern-keeper,
but it was the general conclusion that he had either been
taking a drop too much himself, or that he had meant to play
them all a trick, and that the best way to be even with him
was to pay him no attention whatever.

Seeing, or rather feeling, how the case stood, Samuel

dragged himself to one of the windows of the shed, and
thrusting out his head over that of a calf, which, slowly
bleeding to death, had instinctively found an airhole, began
to address the dissolving multitude: “I ain't crazy, good
neighbors!” he cried; “I ain't no more crazy than you
are. I'm in my right mind and the full possession of all my
sense; I understood what I said perfectly, and your
preacher here understood too, but he wants to persuade you
that I am out o' my head, so that he can get me out o' the
way, for purposes of his own. I mustn't say what, because
I should have to call names that I've got no business to
mention in such a place.”

“How ingenious!” whispered Mr. Lightwait, sighing
and shaking his head.

“What does he say?” demanded Samuel, “that I talk
nonsense? If he says so, he knows better; and if he says
I'm crazy, he lies, preacher though he is, and Bishop's son
though he is. If I had but his shoulders in my grip, I'd
shake the truth out of him, or into him, for I doubt if it ever
was in him! What does he go a-sneakin' into Peter's cellar,
of nights, for? Ask him that, won't you, some of you? I can
tell you what it's for; it's to put himself in league with the
devil agin me. He may succeed for a time, but if there's any
justice in heaven, his bright hair will have to come to the
ashes yet; there's an eye that can foller him, even through
the darkness o' midnight; and the judgment day'll come!”

Here Mr. Lightwait, who remained calm and self-possessed,
again besought his friends and brethren to disperse
themselves quietly, and no longer encourage the pitiable
vagaries of a madman.

Samuel caught the last word: “look at me,” he cried,
“you that have hearts in your bosoms, and tell me if I look
like a madman!”

Hoots and cries and roars of derisive laughter interrupted
him; he had made a point against himself; looks were
certainly not just then in his favor. He had been under a
heavy pressure of excitement for the last twenty-four
hours; had parted for good and all, as he believed, with the
object of the strongest and most concentrated love of his
life, and whoever knows such a parting, knows that it is like
dividing the marrow from the bones, and the heart from the
life blood; he had spent the night sleeplessly, among bleeding

and moaning calves and sheep, guarded as a felon; and
the fierce strife in his bosom, had dug lines along his brow,
hollowed his eyes, and pinched his cheeks. There were
straws sticking in his beard and hair, his voice was strained
and unnatural, and if anything had been wanting to complete
the picture of a maniac, the violent gesticulations of
his chained hands, and his position, staring and glowering
from the loft of the butchery, must have done it.

There was great eagerness to catch what he said, and
those who stood nearest acted as reporters, but while one
thing was being distributed, another was being enunciated,
so that, what with distortions and what with lost portions,
the speech as reported among the by-standers had little
coherency and less sense. Every minute, therefore, that
Samuel hung balanced thus upon the window seat, made as
a dead weight against him. He felt this, and in the effort
to retrieve himself, made matters worse.

“That man is to blame for it all!” he said, shaking his
tangled locks, and pointing his long fore-finger at Mr.
Lightwait, who stood a dozen yards away with folded arms
and sadly downcast eyes; “that man is to blame for it all;
I don't blame you, my friends; things look agin me just
now.” Cries of “that's so!” and “you're right there, old
feller!” and he went on: “I know that as well as you do,
my friends, and I know he's got the upper hand o' me, and
I'm bound to go under.” “That ere's so! you hit it there,
if you are crazy!” “I'm bound to go under for the time,
but in the long run o' things, the right rules, and I'm just
as certain to come up; these chains are only on my hands,
but he's got 'em on his soul, and they'll grow heavier and
heavier, and tighter and tighter, till by and by he'll be glad
to be in my shoes!”

“Don't you wish that ere time was come, though, ha,
Sam? Mr. Lightwait glad for to be into your shoes! Golly,
that's rich!”

“You may laugh, but”—

“Glad you 'low us such a high privilege — ho, ho, ho!
he, he, he! haw, haw, haw!” Don't ye feel cheap now,
say?”

“God-a-mercy!” Samuel began, but his voice was
drowned by the interrogation — “How'll ye trade yourself
off, ha, Sam? I've got a dog, I have, that I'll swap for ye,
and then whoever likes the fun of it, may shoot the dog!”

This speech was provocative of immense cheering and
laughter.

“Shoot me, if you like,” says Samuel, “only take sure
aim, that's all I ask; my life isn't worth anything to me.”

“Golly! Shouldn't think it would be!”

“It ain't, and I don't make no pretence that it is — that
man, that good man, as he would have you think him, has
robbed me of all that made life dear.”

“Heavenly Moses! just hear him! he says the preacher's
stole his money! Hoorah! go it Sam! you're a buster, you
are! You'll have it next that the preacher's murdered you,
won't ye, ha?”

“That will be his next accusation, I dare say,” responded
Mr. Lightwait, and then he said, turning one of his pockets
playfully inside out, “that perhaps the honorable gentleman
would like to have him searched!”

By this sort of by-play and side talk Mr. Lightwait managed
to create and stimulate the very impressions most
prejudicial to Samuel, while he appeared to be seeking his
best interests. He kept himself conspicuously before him
with the design probably to aggravate him to the utmost,
as he did; so that finally, when he said he must insist on the
dispersion of the assembly, lest the lunatic might become
suddenly enraged and harm some person or persons, Samuel
fairly leapt from the window.

“By G—d,” he cried, “I would make you words come
true if I could get at your throat!”

“What does the madman say? did any body hear? tell
him to sing it out again!” and such like cries followed
thick and fast.

Then it was reported that Samuel had threatened the life
of the preacher — then that he had broken his bonds, and
armed with a butcher's knife and axe was cutting his way
through all obstacles, and that probably fifteen or twenty
persons, the clergyman among them, would be murdered
outright.

A dozen strong men were immediately selected, arms put
into their hands, and a protecting circle formed about the
Bishop's son, who was of course the object of most special
care and interest.

Samuel's head sunk down lower and lower; “it's no
use,” he said, “you believe in him, and your all agin me,

though he has stabbed me through the heart, and I am
slowly bleeding to death. Well, God have mercy on me!”

“I thought it would come to that!” says Mr. Lightwait,
“he says that I have stabbed him, and he is bleeding to
death! Really there is no end of the fantastic absurdities
of such a madman.”

“God-a-mercy!” cried Samuel again, his face all buried
in his beard, and his head broken down, as it were, upon
his bosom.

“He is getting to be blasphemous,” called out some one
from the crowd, and two or three strong men took hold of
him from within, and, dragging him back from the window,
chained him more securely to the wall.

A circle of armed men surrounded the shed, and Mr.
Lightwait, protected by a squad before and behind, was
just moving off when a voice called to him to stop for one
moment. It was Mrs. Whiteflock, her face all eloquent
with tenderness and tears. “Brother Lightwait,” she said,
“I can't think Samuel is crazy, and I beg you will use your
influence in his favor!”

Mr. Lightwait slowly and sadly moved his head from side
to side. “I have already done what I could, my good
sister,” he said, “as our friends here can testify.”

“Friends, indeed! A crazy mob; twice as crazy as the
man they accuse!” And then she said, “I don't believe he
is insane, and I don't see how you can believe it! He is
just as rational as I am!”

“That may easily be!” sneered a well-known voice, and
turning quickly, her eyes fell upon Luther Larky, who had
constituted himself one of the squad to escort Mr. Lightwait
to his home.

She lowered her eyes haughtily as soon as they fell upon
him, and without further notice went on with her plea.

“He is not insane,” she said, “I am quite satisfied, let
the tavern-keeper be called, and let us see what his testimony
will be; but whatever else may be said, here you are
alive and well, and Samuel imprisoned and in disgrace, and
I do hope you will be to him a friend in his hour of need.”

“Yes, you'd have him a shootin' at you next, I reckon;
what you s'pose he shot at, las' night? his shadder!” interposed
Luther Larky.

“Very likely it was a shadow,” answered Mrs. Whiteflock;

“and under the influence of temporary excitement, which
you can perhaps explain, Brother Lightwait, he is acting and
talking a little wildly just now, but you and all men are
safe from any danger.”

“Really, Sister Whiteflock, you attribute more knowledge
to me than I am possessed of. I don't see what explanation
I can make, I am sure.”

“I do, then, at least in part,” she answered, “and I
hope in the name of all that is right, you will not hold
back.”

The color did deepen a little in the cheek of the young
“bishop,” but he was not for a single moment at a loss.
Bending almost to her ear he said in a low, earnest voice,
“You are bringing suspicion upon yourself by this over anxiety
on account of a stranger, and an evident adventurer, to
say the least.” He had transferred the redness now, and a
good deal of confusion with it, and turning to Luther he
said “You had better take Sister Whiteflock home; all this
excitement is too much for her.”

Luther was delighted and revenged, both at once. “Come,
Martha,” he said, taking her hand and slipping it through
his arm, as one who had a right.

She drew away from him with more anger than dignity,
and sinking on the frame-work of an old sled standing by the
road side, and all covered and surrounded with swines' bristles,
gave herself up to that final resource, expedient,
weakness and strength of woman — tears. She could not
help herself; the events of the last few hours were too much
for her; sure enough. She was an object of special interest
only for a moment, however. Four boys came dancing and
skipping forward, bearing between them on a trestle, constructed
of hoop-poles, the hide of the bullock just slaughtered,
wet and dripping, and so folded together as to leave
the two horns standing squarely out in front, and the tail
trailing behind. A whole troop of ragamuffins followed,
hallooing, screaming, and bellowing with might and main,
and fiercely contending for the place of honor in the procession,
which was, of course, the immediate neighborhood of
the trestle, special consideration accruing to those who were
near enough to catch hold of the tail.

The glossy skirt of Mrs. Whiteflock had some mud thrown
upon it, and some dry bristles whirled against it, as the retinue

swept by, drawing all eyes after it. So the world goes,
and so it will go, as it seems likely to the end.

It was toward the sunset of the day, and the long shadows
stretching weird and solemn up the eastern hillsides, when
Margaret, pale, and sick in head and heart, stole out of the
house and seated herself on the doorsteps — the steps of
which she had been so proud — to breathe the fresh air and
listen to the twittering lullabies of the birds, as they chose
their green lodgings and settled themselves for the night.
Her faithful Wolf sat upright beside her, beating the stone
with his tail now and then, snapping his black jaws at the
flies, or making little yawns, all of which was make believe,
and artfully, so to speak, designed to engage the attention
of his young mistress. She did so far notice him at length,
as to lay her little hand on his great head, but she did not
speak, her thoughts being all otherwhere, far otherwhere.

As she sat thus, conflicting hopes and fears crushing upon
her like a great weight, her attention was arrested by the
jolting of a heavy wagon along the turnpike road, and an
accompanying clamor of voices. Wolf sprang to the ground
with a fierce, belligerent growl, and looking up, her eyes
rested upon Samuel Dale, but how changed from the previous
night, when he had dropped on his knee before her, among
the meadow flowers, and under the moonlight, radiant with
the fervor of a sweetly sincere and honest passion. The
whole man was transformed; all the dash and fire was gone;
the hands tied; the attitude drooping; the spirit that looked
out of the eyes broken, but forgivingly reproachful. She
was on her feet and reaching out her arms involuntarily.
A smile so kind and yet so sad it almost broke her heart
with the vast love and pity it awakened, greeted her for an
instant, and then, as he turned his face backward for one
last farewell, some fellow of his guard, ruder than the rest,
knocked his hat over his eyes, and thus loaded with double
ignominy he vanished out of her sight.

They were taking him to a mad-house.

When Margaret sank back to her stony seat, a moan that
was like the moan of one dying, broke on her lip, and then,
casting herself down, she buried her face in her arms, and
lay silent and shut within herself, till the sun went down and
the moon coming up touched her hair lightly with its trembling
and tender beams.