University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

“Don't you know that even granite millstones
finally grind themselves into impalpable
powder? You give yourself no rest, Aubrey,
and human machinery wears rapidly.”

“But if the powder ground be golden?”

“The dust is but dust still, despite its glitter,
and fills men's eyes and dims their vision like
any other dust; ending often in a moral ophthalmia
past cure.

“I should really dislike to think that you
had become a confirmed, inveterate chrysologist.
Take time, Aubrey! take time; you
are over-worked, and make months press upon
your brow more heavily than years on most
men's. After all, my dear fellow, as Emerson
says, `Politics is a deleterious profession, like
some poisonous handicrafts.' I sometimes feel
like drawing a long breath for you; it wearies
me to look at you—you are such a concentrated
extract of work! work! Simply for this
reason, I sent for you to come and take a cup
of tea with me.”

“I have been too much engaged of late to
spare an evening to merely social claims. A
man whose life rests at his feet, to be lifted to
some fitting pedestal, has little leisure for the
luxury of friendly visiting.”

The two were in Eric Mitchell's pleasant
library. Russell sat in an arm-chair, and the
master of the house reclined on a lounge
drawn near the hearth. The mellow glow of
the lamp, the flash and crackle of the fire, the
careless, lazy posture of the invalid, all betokened
quiet comfort, save the dark fixed
face, and erect restless figure of the guest.

“But, Aubrey, a man who has already
achieved so much should be content to rest a
while, and move more slowly.”

“That depends altogether on the nature and
distance of his goal.”

“And that goal is—what?”

“Men call it by a variety of names, hoping
to escape Lucifer's fate by adroitly cloaking
Lucifer's infirmity.”

“Yes; and whenever I look at you toiling
so ceaselessly, climbing so surely to eminence,
I am forcibly reminded of Macaulay's fine passage
on the hollowness of political life: `A
pursuit from which, at most, they can only expect,
by relinquishing liberal studies and
social pleasures, by passing nights without
sleep and summers without one glimpse of
the beauty of nature, they may attain that laborious,
that invidious, that closely-watched
slavery which is mocked with the name of
power.' You have not asked my opinion of
your speech.”

“I was not aware that you heard it.”

“Of course not, but I read it; and, let me
tell you, it was a great speech, a masterly argument,
that will make a lasting impression
upon the people. It has greatly changed the
vote of this county already.”

“You mistake appearances; the seed fell in

good soil, but party spirit came, as fowls of the
air, and devoured them.”

“At any rate, it produced a profound impression
on public opinion, and startled some
of our political patriarchs.”

“No, a mere transitory effect; they have
folded their arms and gone to sleep again. I
am, of course, gratified by your favorable appreciation
of my effort, but I differ with you
as to its result. The plough-share of naked
truth must thoroughly sub-soil the mind of the
Southern states before the future of the country
is realized in any degree; as yet, the
surface has been but slightly grazed. The
hydra-headed foe of democracy is slowly but
certainly coiling around our American eagle,
and will crush it, if not seared promptly. But,
Mr. Mitchell, the `flaming brands' are not
ready.”

“To what hydra do you allude?”

“Demagogism, of course. Cleon was the
prototype of a numerous class; the school is
flourishing vigorously at the North, and no
longer a stranger here. The people must root
it out speedily, or the days of our national
existence are numbered.”

“History proves it an invariable concomitant
of democracy; rather a rank off-shoot
from than antagonistic to it.”

“You confound the use and abuse of a systom.
Civilization is, indisputably, a blessing to
our race, yet an abuse of the very improvements
and discoveries that constitute its glory,
entails incalculable sorrow, and swells criminal
statistics. The march of medical science has
induced the administering of deadly poisons
with the happiest results, when skilfully directed;
yet it sometimes happens that fatal
effects follow an over-dose. Powerful political
levers should be handled judiciously—not
thrown into the clutches of ignorant empirics.”

“Universal suffrage is not your hobby,
then?”

“On the contrary, I hold, with one of the
most brilliant statesmen this country ever produced,
that `it is the Greek horse introduced
into the citadel of American liberties and sovereignty.'”

“On my honor, I am astounded at hearing
you quote and endorse a dictum of Hamilton.
The millennium can't be far off, when Democrats
seek illustration from Federalism!”

“Bigotry in politics is as indefensible as in
religion or science. Truth is a sworn foe to
monopolists; is the exclusive right of no one
organization or party that ever waxed and
waned. I am a democrat; I believe in liberal,
enlarged, but not universal suffrage; it is a
precious boon, and should be hedged about
with cautious restrictions. The creation of
the ephori was a sort of compromise measure,
a concession to appease the people of Sparta,
and, as an extension of the elective franchise,
was most deplorable in its results. Universal
suffrage always recalls to my mind the pithy
criticism of Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher,
on the Solonian code, which lodged too
much power in the hands of the people:
`Wise men debate, but fools decide.' Mr.
Mitchell, it matters little whether we have
one or one hundred million tyrants, if our
rights are trampled; it is a mere question of
taste whether you call the despot Czar, Dictator,
or Ballot-box. The masses are electrical,
and valuable principles of government
should be kept beyond the reach of explosion.”

“And, except in a powerful centralization,
where could you place them for safety?”

“They are already deposited in the constitution.
I would, in order to secure them, extend
our naturalization laws so as to restrict
the foreign vote, limit the right of suffrage by
affixing a property qualification, make the tenure
of our judiciary offices for life or good
behavior, and lengthen the term of administration
of our chief magistrate, thereby diminishing
the frequency of popular elections,
which, in offering premiums for demagogism,
has been a prolific cause of mischief. In examining
the statistics of the Northern and
Western states recently, and noting the dangerous
results of the crude foreign vote, I was
forcibly reminded of a passage in Burke's
`Reflections on the French Revolution:'
`Those who attempt to level, never equalize.
In all societies, consisting of various descriptions
of citizens, some description must be
uppermost. The levellers, therefore, only
change and pervert the natural order of
things; they load the edifice of society by setting
up in the air what the solidity of the
structure requires to be on the ground.' The
day is not far distant, I fear, when European
paupers, utterly ignorant of our institutions,
will determine who shall sit in the presidential
chair, and how far the constitution shall
be observed. These are grave truths, which
the enlightened body of the American people
should ponder well; but, instead, they are
made mere catch-words for party purposes,
and serve only to induce a new scramble for
office. It requires no extraordinary prescience
to predict that the great fundamental principles
of this government will soon become a
simple question of arithmetic—will lie at the
mercy of an unscrupulous majority. The
surging waves of Northern faction and fanaticism
already break ominously against our time-honored
constitutional dykes, and if the South
would strengthen her bulwarks there is no
time to be slept or wrangled away.”

As he spoke, Russell's eyes fell upon a large
oval vase on the mantle-piece filled with rare
exotics, whose graceful tendrils were tastefully
disposed into a perfumed fringe. Rising, he
looked carefully at the brilliant hues, and said,
as he bent to inhale their fragrance:

“Where do you grow such flowers at this
season?”

“Irene brings them almost every day from
the green-house on the hill. She takes a peculiar
pleasure in arranging them in my vases.
I think she stood a half-hour yesterday twining
and bending those stems the way she
wanted them to hang. They are so brittle
that I snap the blossoms off, but in her hands
they seem pliable enough.”

Russell withdrew the fingers which had
wandered caressingly amid the delicate leaves,
and, reseating himself, took a book from his
pocket.

“Mr. Mitchell, I dare say you recollect a
discussion which we had, some months ago, regarding
the Homeric unity question? Since
that time I have been looking into Payne
Knight's views on the subject, and am more
than ever convinced that the German theory
is incorrect. I will read a portion of his argument,
and leave the book for you to examine
at your leisure.”

“By all means! But I thought your red-tape
gyves kept you from archæologic researches?”

“It is true they do bind me tighter than I
sometimes relish; but we are all in bondage,
more or less, and, since one must submit to
tyranny, I prefer a stern master.” He drew
his chair nearer the lamp, and began to read
aloud. Nearly a half-hour passed thus, when
the library door was opened hastily, and Irene
came in, dressed magnificently in party costume.
She stood a moment, irresolute and
surprised, with her eyes fixed on Russell's,
then both bowed silently, and she came to the
fire.

“How are you, uncle Eric? You look
flushed, feverish.” She laid her cold pearly
hand on his forehead, and stood at his side.

“Tolerably comfortable, thanks to Mr. Aubrey,
who has made me almost forget my
headache. You will be fashionably late at the
party to-night.”

“Yes! as usual; but for a better reason than
because I wish to be fashionable. I wanted
to know how you were, and, as father was not
quite ready, I came in advance, and sent the
carriage back for him and Hugh. I was not
aware that you were in Mr. Aubrey's hands
for the evening. You were reading, I believe;
pardon my intrusion, and do not let me interrupt
you.”

“Sit down, Irene; here, child, where I can
look at you. We can both bear such an interruption.”

Russell closed the volume, but kept his
finger in the leaves, and his fascinated eyes
went back to the face and form of the heiress.
The dress was of heavy blue silk, with an
over-skirt and bertha of rich white lace, looped
with bunches of violets and geranium leaves.
The rippling hair was drawn smoothly over
the pure brow, and coiled at the back of the
head under a blue and silver netting, from
which fuchsias of turquoise and pearl hung
low on the polished neck. The arms and
shoulders gleamed like ivory as the lamp-light
glowed over her; and, save the firm, delicate
crimson lips, there was no stain of color in the
cold but superbly beautiful face. It was the
first time they had met since that evening at
the cemetery, many months before. Lifting
her splendid violet eyes, she met his gaze an
instant, and, tapping the book, Russell asked,
with quiet nonchalance:

“Where do you stand, Miss Huntingdon, in
this vexed Wolfian controversy concerning
the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey?”

“I would render unto Cæsar the things
that are Cæsar's.”

“Equivocal, of course!—a woman's answer,”
laughed her uncle.

“Explicitly, then, I believe that, as Scott
absorbed the crude minstrelsy of Scotland, and
reproduced national songs and legends under
a fairer, sweeter form, so Homer, grand old
blind eclectic, gathered the fragmentary
myths of heroic ages, and, clothing them with
the melody of wandering Greek rhapsodists,
gave to the world his wonderful epic—the first
and last specimen of composite poetic architecture.”

“You ascribe the Odyssey, then, to a different
author and a later period?” asked Mr.
Mitchell.

“I am too little versed in philology to determine
so grave a question. My acquaintance
with Greek is limited, and I am not competent
to the task of considering all the evidence
in favor of the identity of authorship.”

She put on her white cashmere cloak, and
stood still a moment, listening.

“Good-night, uncle Eric; the carriage is
coming. I believe I should know the tramp
of those horses amid a regiment of cavalry.”

“Why need you hurry off? Let your father
come in.”

“I will spare him that trouble. Good-night,
Mr. Aubrey.”

She turned to leave the room, but, in gathering
her cloak around her, dropped her fan.
Russell stooped to pick it up, and, as he restored
it, there hands met. His brow flushed,
but not even the pale pearly glow of a seashell
crept to her cheek. Again she raised
her eyes to his, and a haughty, dazzling smile
flashed over her face as she inclined her head.

“Thank you, sir.”

There was a brief silence, broken by Eric,
when the sound of the carriage had died
away.

“Irene is the only perfectly beautiful woman
I ever saw; and yet, Aubrey, it makes me
sad to watch her countenance.”

“Whenever I see her I can not avoid
recalling an old Scandinavian myth, she
realizes so fully my ideal Iduna, standing at
the portals of Valhalla, offering apples of immortality.”

He returned at once to his book and read

several pages, occasionally pausing to call
attention to some special passage; finally he
rose, and took his hat.

“It is early yet, Aubrey; don't go.”

“Thank you; I must fulfill another engagement.”

“A word before you leave; will you be a
candidate for the legislature?”

“Yes; I was waited upon by a committee
to-day, and my name will be announced to-morrow.
Good-night.”

Slowly he walked back to town, and, once
upon the main street, took a new pair of gloves
from his pocket, fitted them carefully, and
directed his steps to the elegant residence,
whose approach was well nigh blocked up
with carriages. This was the second time
that he had been invited by the Hendersons,
and he had almost determined to decline as
formerly, but something in Irene's chill manner
changed his resolution. He knew, from
various circumstances, that the social edict
against him was being revoked in fashionable
circles; that because he had risen without its
permission, aid, or countenance, and in defiance
of its sneers, the world was beginning to court
him. A gloomy scowl sat on his stern lips as
he mounted the steps of the mansion from
which his meek and suffering mother had
borne bundles of plain work, or delicate masses
of embroidery, for the mother and daughter
who passed her in the street with a supercilious
stare. Beau-monde suddenly awoke to the
recollection that, “after all, Mrs. Aubrey belonged
to one of the wealthiest and first
families in the state.” At first Russell had
proudly repelled all overtures, but gradually
he was possessed by a desire to rule in the
very circle which had so long excluded his
family. Most fully he appreciated his position
and the motives which actuated the social
autocrats of W—; he was no longer the
poor disgraced clerk, but the talented young
lawyer, and prospective heir of Mr. Campbell's
wealth. Bitterly, bitterly came memories of
early trial, and now the haughtiness of Irene's
manner stung him as nothing else could possibly
have done. He was at a loss to comprehend
this change in one who had dared so
much in order to assist his family, and proud
defiance arose in his heart. It was ten o'clock;
the fete was at its height; the sound of music,
the shimmer of jewels, and rustle of costly
silks mingled with the hum of conversation
and the tread of dancing feet as Russell deposited
hat and over-coat in the dressing-room
and entered the blazing parlors. The quadrille
had just ended, and gay groups chattered
in the centre of the room; among these, Maria
Henderson, leaning on Hugh's arm, and Grace
Harris, who had been dancing with Louis
Henderson. As Russell crossed the floor to
speak to the host and hostess all eyes turned
upon him, and a sudden hush fell on the merry
dancers.

“Coaxed at last within the pale of civilization!
how did you contrive it, Louis?” asked
Maria.

“Oh! he declined when I invited him; but
I believe father saw him afterward and renewed
the request. Do observe him talking to mother;
he is as polished as if he had spent his life
at court.”

“He is a man whom I never fancied; but
that two hours speech of his was certainly the
finest effort I ever listened to. Cæsar's ambition
was moderate in comparison with
Aubrey's; and, somehow, even against my
will, I can't help admiring him, he is so coolly
independent,” said Hugh, eyeing him curiously.

“I heard father say that the Democrats intend
to send him to the legislature next term,
and the opposition are bothered to match him
fully. By the way, they speak of Mr. Huntingdon
for their candidate. But here comes
your hero, Miss Maria.” As he spoke, Charlie
Harris drew back a few steps, and suffered
Russell to speak to the young lady of the
house. Irene stood not far off, talking to the
Governor of the state, who chanced to be on
a brief visit to W—, and quite near her
Judge Harris and her father were in earnest
conversation. Astonished at the sudden apparition,
her eyes followed him as he bowed
to the members of the central group; and, as
she heard the deep rich voice above the buzz of
small talk, she waited to see if he would notice
her. Soon Governor G— gave her his arm
for a promenade, and she found herself, ere
long, very near Maria, who was approaching
with Russell. He was saying something, at
which she laughed delightedly; just then his
eye fell on Irene; there was no token of recognition
on the part of either; but the Governor,
in passing, put out his hand to shake
Russell's, and asked for Mr. Campbell. Again
and again they met during the ensuing hour,
but no greeting was exchanged; then he disappeared.
As Irene leaned against the window-frame
in the crowded supper-room she
heard Charlie Harris gaily bantering Maria on
the events of the evening.

“What have you done with Aubrey? I
will challenge him before to-morrow morning
for cutting me out of my schottische with his,
prosy chat.”

“Oh! he left a half-hour ago; excused
himself to mother, on the plea of starting off to
court at daybreak. He is perfectly fascinating;
don't you think so, Grace? Such eyes
and lips! and such a forehead!”

“Don't appeal to me for corroboration, I
beg of you, Maria, for you really gave nobody
else an opportunity of judging. Take a
friendly hint, and do not betray your admiration
so publicly,” answered the friend, pouting
her pretty childish lip.

“I see clearly that the remainder of us may
as well go hang ourselves at once for any future

favor we can expect, since My Lord
Aubrey condescends to enter the lists. Miss
Irene, I have not heard you rhapsodizing yet
about the new sensation.”

“I rarely rhapsodize about anything, sir.”

“To whom does he allude,” asked Governor
G—, good-humoredly.”

“To Mr. Aubrey, who is no stranger to you,
I believe.”

“Ah! Campbell's partner. I have had
some correspondence with him recently, and
when I met him at his office yesterday I was
no longer surprised at the tone of his letters.
His intellect is one of the keenest in the state;
his logical and analytical powers are of the
rarest order. I shall watch his career with
great interest. Campbell may justly be proud
of him.”

If she had felt any inclination to reply, the
expression of her father's face discouraged her.
He had joined them in time to hear the Governor's
eulogium, and she saw a sneer distort
his features as he listened. During the drive
homeward, Mr. Huntingdon suddenly interrupted
a strain of Hugh's nonsense by exclaiming:

“People have certainly lost common-sense!
Their memory is not as long as my little
finger.”

“What is the matter, sir? With what recent
proof of imbecility have they favored
you?”

“The idea of that upstart wheedling this
community is utterly preposterous. His impudence
is absolutely astounding. I am astonished
that Henderson should give him
countenance!”

“The world has strange criteria to determine
its verdicts. His father was sentenced
to be hung for committing murder; and my
uncle, Clement Huntingdon, who deliberately
shot a man dead in a duel, was received in
social circles as cordially as if his hands were
not blood-stained. There was more of palliation
in the first case (one of man-slaughter),
for it was the hasty, accidental work of a
moment of passion; in the last a cool, premeditated
taking of human life. But the
sensitive, fastidious world called one brutal
and disgraceful, and the other `honorable
satisfaction,' in which gentlemen could indulge
with impunity by crossing state lines. O tempora!
O mores!”

As Irene uttered these words, she involuntarily
crushed her bouquet and threw it
from her, while Hugh expected an explosion
of wrath on the part of his uncle. He merely
muttered an oath, however, and smoked his
cigar in sullen silence, leaving the cousins to
discuss the events of the party during the remainder
of the ride.

Once more in his own room, at the quiet
boarding-house, Russell lighted the gas-burner
over a small desk, and sat down to a mass of
papers. The apartment was cold; the fire had
long since died out; the hearth looked ashy and
desolate. There was nothing home-like or cosy
in the aspect of the room; the man lived at
his office, and this was but a place to pass the
brief unconscious hours of sleep. He had no
home-life, no social existence; was fast becoming
callous, impervious to the gentler emotions
and kindly sympathies which domestic ties
foster and develop. No womanly touch left
pleasant traces here, as in Eric's home; no
graceful, luxurious trifles met the eye; all
things were cold and prim and formal. He
had no kindred and few friends, but unbounded
aspiration stood in lieu of both. Fortunately
for him, his great physical strength
enabled him to pursue a course of study which
men of feebler constitution could never have
endured. On the desk lay several volumes,
carefully annotated for future reference—
Ricardo, Malthus, Say, and Smith. To these
he turned, and busied himself in transferring
such excerpts as suited his purpose to an unfinished
MS. designed for future legislative
service. The brilliant smile which lighted his
face an hour before, imparting an irresistible
charm, had wholly faded, leaving the features
to their wonted grave immobility—the accustomed
non-committalism of the business man of
the world. The measured tones of the watchman
on the town-tower recalled him, finally,
from the cold realm of political economy; he
closed the books, took off his watch, and
wound it up. It wanted but three hours to
dawn; but he heeded it not; the sight of the
massive old watch brought vividly back the
boyish days of sorrow, and he sat thinking of
that morning of shame, when Irene came close
to him, nestling her soft little hand in his, and
from some long-silent, dark, chill chamber of
memory leaped sweet, silvery, childish echoes:

“Oh, Russell! if I could only help you!”

With an involuntary sigh he arose, and,
walking to the chimney, leaned his elbow on
the mantle. But it would not answer; the
faint, delicious perfume of violets seemed to
steal up from the gray ashes on the hearth,
and the passionless, peerless face of a queenly
woman followed him from the haunts of fashion.
The golden-haired dream of his early
youth had lost none of her former witchery;
she only shared the mastery of his heart
with stern, unrelaxing ambition, and the gulf
which divided them only enhanced the depth,
the holiness of his love for her. Since his
return from Europe he had accustomed himself
to think of her as Hugh's wife; but he
found it daily more difficult to realize that
she could willingly give her hand to her heedless,
self-indulgent cousin; and now the alteration
in her manner toward him perplexed
and grieved him. Did she suspect the truth,
and fear that he might presume on her charity,
in by-gone years? To his proud spirit this
was a suggestion singularly insulting, and he
had resolved to show her in future that he

claimed not even a nod of recognition. Instead
of avoiding her as formerly, he would
seek occasions to exhibit an indifference which
he little thought that her womanly heart would
rightly interpret. He had found it more difficult
than he supposed, to keep his attention
chained to Maria's and Grace's gay nonsense;
to prevent his eyes from wandering to the face
whose image was enshrined in his lonely heart;
and now, with complex feelings of tenderness
and angry defiance, he sought his pillow for a
short respite before the journey that waited
but for daylight.

For a few weeks all W— was astir with
interest in the impending election; newspaper
columns teemed with caustic articles, and
Huntingdon and Aubrey clubs vilified each
other with the usual acrimony of such occasions.
Mr. Campbell's influence was extensive,
but the Huntingdon supporters were powerful,
and the result seemed doubtful until the
week previous to the election, when Russell,
who had as yet taken no active part, accepted
the challenge of his opponent to a public discussion.
The meeting was held in front of
the court-house, the massive stone steps serving
as a temporary rostrum. The night was
dark and cloudy, but huge bonfires, blazing
barrels of pitch, threw a lurid glare over the
broad street, now converted into a surging sea
of human heads.

Surrounded by a committee of select friends,
Mr. Huntingdon sat, confident of success; and
when the hiss of rockets ceased, he came forward
and addressed the assembly in an hour's
speech. As a warm and rather prominent
politician, he was habituated to the task, and
bursts of applause from his own party frequently
attested the effect of his easy, graceful
style, and pungent irony. Blinded by
personal hate, and hurried on by the excitement
of the hour, he neglected the cautious
policy which had hitherto been observed, and
finally launched into a fierce philippic against
his antagonist—holding up for derision the
melancholy fate of his father, and sneeringly
denouncing the “audacious pretensions of a
political neophyte.”

Groans and hisses greeted this unexpected
peroration, and many of his own friends bit
their lips, and bent their brows in angry surprise,
as he took his seat amid an uproar
which would have been respectable even in
the days of the builders of Babel. Russell
was sitting on the upper step, with his head
leaning on his hand, and his eyes fixed on the
mass of up-turned, eager faces, listening patiently
to the lengthy address, expecting just
what he was destined to hear. At the mention
of his family misfortunes he lifted his
head, rose, and, advancing a few steps, took off
his hat, and stood confronting the speaker in
full view of the excited crowd. And there
the red light, flaring over his features, showed
a calm, stern, self-reliant man, who felt that
he had nothing to blush for in the past or to
dread in future. When the tirade ended,
when the tumult ceased and silence fell upon
the audience, he turned and fixed his deep,
glowing eyes full on the face of his opponent
for one moment, smiling haughtily; then, as
Mr. Huntingdon quailed before his withering
gaze, he crossed his arms over his chest, and
addressed the meeting.

He came, he said, to discuss questions of
grave import to the state, not the pedigree or
antecedents of his antagonist, with which, he
supposed, the public had no concern. He
could not condescend to the level of the gentleman;
was not a proficient, not his equal in
slang phrases, or gross, vulgar vituperation,
and scorned to farther insult the good taste of
his hearers by acquainting them with the contemptible
motives of individual hatred which
had induced his opponent to forget what the
rules of good breeding and etiquette imperatively
demanded. He would not continue to
disgrace the occasion by any refutation of the
exceedingly irrelevant portion of the preceding
harangue, which related to purely personal
matters, and was unworthy of notice, but
asked the attention of his hearers, for a few
moments, while he analyzed the platform of
his party. Briefly he stated the issues dividing
the people of the state; warned the opposition
of the probable results of their policy,
if triumphant; and, with resistless eloquence,
pleaded for a firm maintenance of the principles
of his own party. He was, he averred,
no alarmist, but he proclaimed that the people
slept upon the thin heaving crust of a volcano,
which would inevitably soon burst forth; and
the period was rapidly approaching when the
Southern states, unless united and on the
alert, would lie bound at the feet of an insolent
and rapacious Northern faction. He demanded
that, through the legislatures, the
states should appeal to Congress for certain
restrictions and guarantees, which, if denied,
would justify extreme measures on the part of
the people. The man's marvellous magnetism
was never more triumphantly attested; the
mass, who had listened in profound silence to
every syllable which passed his lips, now vented
their enthusiasm in prolonged and vociferous
applause, and vehement cries of “Go on!
go on!” The entire absence of stereotyped
rhodomontade rendered his words peculiarly
impressive, as he gave them utterance with no
visible token of enthusiasm. He did not lash
the passions of the populace into a passing
phrensy, but effectually stirred the great deep
of sober feeling and sound sense. With his
elegant, graceful delivery, and polished, sparkling
diction, he stood, as it were, on some lofty
cool pedestal, and pointed unerringly to coming
events, whose shadows had not yet reached
them, of which they had not dreamed before,

and it was not wonderful that the handsome
young speaker became an idol to be worshipped
afar off.

As he descended the steps and disappeared
amid the shouts of the crowd, Judge Harris
turned to Mr. Huntingdon and said, with ill-concealed
annoyance:

“You have lost your election by your confounded
imprudence.”

“That remains to be seen, sir,” was the
petulant rejoinder.

“It is a foregone conclusion,” muttered Dr.
Arnold, buttoning his over-coat, and looking
around for his cane.

“I have sworn a solemn oath that I will
trample the upstart out of existence, at least
politically!”

“As well try to trample on the stars yonder!
Your speech ruined you, I am afraid!”

The judge walked off, pondering a heavy
bet which he had relative to the result.

By sunrise on the day of the election the
roads leading to town were crowded with voters
making their way to the polls. The
drinking-saloons were full to overflowing; the
side-walks thronged with reeling groups as
the day advanced. Because the Huntingdon
side bribed freely, the Aubrey partisans felt
that they must, from necessity, follow the disgraceful
precedent. Not a lady showed her
face upon the street; drinking, wrangling,
fighting was the order of the day. Windows
were smashed, buggies overturned, and the
police exercised to the utmost. Accompanied
by a few friends, Mr. Huntingdon rode from
poll to poll, encouraging his supporters, and
drawing heavily upon his purse, while Russell
remained quietly in his office, well assured of
the result. At five o'clock, when the town
polls closed, Russell's votes showed a majority
of two hundred and forty-four. Couriers
came in constantly from country precincts,
with equally favorable accounts, and at ten
o'clock it was ascertained, beyond doubt, that
he was elected. Irene and her uncle rode
down to learn the truth, and, not knowing
where to find Mr. Huntingdon, stopped the
carriage at the corner of the main street, and
waited a few moments. Very soon a rocket
whizzed through the air, a band of music
struck up before Russell's office, and a number
of his adherents insisted that he should show
himself on the balcony. A crowd immediately
collected opposite, cheering the successful candidate,
and calling for a speech. He came
out, and, in a few happy, dignified words,
thanked them for the honor conferred, and
pledged himself to guard most faithfully the
interests committed to his keeping. After the
noisy constituents had retired, he stood talking
to some friends, when he chanced to recognize
the fiery horses across the street. The carriage-top
was thrown back, and by the neighboring
gas-light he saw Irene's white face
turned toward him, then the horses sprang
off. Mr. Campbell noticed, without understanding,
the sudden start, and bitter though
triumphant smile that crossed his face in the
midst of pleasant gratulations.

“Go home, Andrew. I know now what I
came to learn.”

Irene sank back and folded her mantle
closer around her.

“Is master elected?”

“No.”

“Your father's speech, last week, was most
unfortunate in every respect,” said her uncle,
who felt indignant and mortified at the course
pursued by his brother-in-law.

“We will not discuss it, if you please, uncle
Eric, as it is entirely useless now.”

“Don't you think that Aubrey deserves to
succeed?”

“Yes.”

Her dreary tone disconcerted him, and he
offered no farther comment, little suspecting
that her hands were pressed hard against her
heart, and that her voiceless sorrow was:
“Henceforth we must be still more estranged;
a wider gulf, from this night, divides us.”

The din, the tumult of the day, had hushed
itself, and deep silence brooded over the sleeping
town, when, by the light of the newly-risen
moon, Russell leaned upon the little gate and
gazed on the neglected cottage, overgrown
with vines and crumbling to ruin. A sweet,
resigned face smiled at him once more from
the clustering tendrils that festooned the
broken window, where, in other years, his
mother had been wont to sit at work, watching
for his return; and, in this hour of his first
triumph, as he sought the hallowed spot, and
thought of her long martyrdom, recollection
rolled its troubled waves over his throbbing,
exultant heart, until the proud head drooped
on the folded arms, and tears fell upon the
mouldering gate.

“Oh, mother! mother! if you could have
lived to see this day—to share my victory!”