University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
CONGRATULATIONS.

There was no preparation for Christmas cheer in the
Rawle cottage. There were associations with the season
that, for five years past, had palsied the hands and hearts
of the inmates, and forbidden them a share in the annual
festivity, even if they had possessed the means of self-indulgence.
This year Van Hausen's customary donation
was wanting, and the larder was literally empty.

But George's return had ushered in a new era. Henceforth
the day, which is the harbinger of joy to the whole
earth, was to them a commemorative festival of thanksgiving
and praise. The Christmas sun had scarcely
risen, the household had scarcely met, had certainly had
no opportunity to exchange morning salutations and good
wishes, when the tide of neighborly congratulation began
to pour in. The news of George's return, and of
the discovery of his uncle's murderer, had got wind, and
with a concert of action, which proved the sympathetic
qualities of the people at Stein's Plains, and attested to the
popularity of their former favorite, every body flocked

to bid him welcome, and to exhaust themselves with
hand-shakings, exclamations, and inquiries, to say nothing
of those quieter demonstrations which took the form
of mute wonder, secret heart throbs, and tears that would
not be repressed.

Nor were more substantial proofs of the sympathy and
good will of the neighborhood wanting. Nobody came
empty handed. George, the great feature of the day,
and destined to be the subject of unbounded discussion
and enjoyment in every homestead of the township, could
only be figuratively distributed among them; but every
family instinctively vied with every other in the ambition
to add something to the entertainment, which should do
honor to him in his own home. So, while he was the
centre of an enthusiastic circle, Angie, somewhere in the
outskirts, was continually beckoned aside, plucked by the
gown, or by certain signs and innuendoes, given to understand
that the contents of various boxes, bags, and parcels,
mysteriously smuggled into the house, were intended
as contributions to Mrs. Rawle's Christmas dinner, and
were recommended to Angie's care. Even old Stein, who
was among the earliest guests, dragged from his pocket
a half-starved fowl, which had the appearance of having
been frozen and thawed several times since it was hung
up in his cellar-way. This attention was qualified, however,
by the fact that Stein had come with the intention
of staying to dinner, indeed of quartering himself in the
cottage for the rest of the day.

“They might as well have said breakfast,” growled

Hannah, who, having strayed discontentedly into the
pantry, about the middle of the morning, and there found
Angie preparing a fat goose for roasting, had learned from
her its origin and destiny. “Haven't one of us had a
thing to eat to-day, except by snatches, what, with their
comin', an' goin', an' huddlin' 'round the fire, so that I
haven't had a chance to thaw out my finger-ends yet,
much less get the kittle on a-bilin' an' have a cup o' tea.
I think they might let us have him to ourselves one day,
at least.”

This was not very gracious in Hannah, certainly; but
then it must be remembered what a secluded life she
had led for years, both on the mountain-top and in the
cross-road cottage; how obnoxious she would naturally
feel any intrusion upon her habits or her premises, and
how distasteful obligations of every sort must be to a
woman of her mettle.

The neighbors, with a few exceptions, had the grace,
it must be acknowledged, not to linger long. Perhaps the
day had its domestic duties and claims upon them, perhaps,
having gleaned an outline of the news, they were
eager to disseminate it abroad or talk it over at home. It
was the circumstance of their alternating throughout the
morning, according to the distance at which they lived,
and returning, many of them, later in the day, to confirm
all they had seen and heard in a second interview, which
caused the cottage, from morning till night, to be more
or less thronged with visitors.

And of course George's story must be recapitulated to

every new comer. To say that it was anywise exhausted
would be to anticipate the event of a couple of scores of
years at least. It was destined to furnish a store of narrative
and entertainment which a lifetime could scarcely
exhaust, much less a single day. But its essential character,
its main features, were detailed so many times, that
even Angie, her attention called off continually, and her
services claimed at every turn, gleaned enough, at last,
to have a vague comprehension of those points in the
story which gave rise to the exclamations of surprise,
and the murmurs of gratitude that, as she went about
her tasks, echoed the swellings of her own heart.

Margery, meanwhile, indifferent to all this coming and
going, this buzz of human voices, this unwonted preparation
of Christmas cheer, remained all day wrapped in
that trance of joy, that blissful delirium, which seemed to
lift her into a sort of cloud-land, and gave a dreamy expression
to her face, on which rested the smile of a perfect
content. She asked no questions, not even on points
of her son's experience, of which she was wholly ignorant;
she entered into no communication with any body; when
the neighbors addressed her, as they all did, in tones of
earnest congratulation, she suffered this smile of hers to
wander to them for an instant, but it immediately returned
to its fond allegiance; it was enough for her
silently to gaze on her son, instinctively to know that she
was blest. What tender maternity there was in that
gaze! But for the wrinkles that time had left on her
face, I am confident she must have looked just so once,

— once only, — some thirty years ago, on the morning
after George was born.

How radiant with life, and strength, and new-born
hope the young man was! With what natural cordiality
and grateful warmth he greeted each old friend, and
responded to each word of welcome? How worthy he
was to be the centre of a wondering, admiring group,
— the tall, handsome, manly fellow, — the village pride
always, in view of what Nature had done for him; the
village hero now, in view of what he had done for himself!

Not that he boasted of his own achievements. It was
his upright countenance, his independent bearing, the
facts of his career, which spoke so undeniably in his
favor. As to what it rested with him to communicate,
never was story more simply told. A wide experience
of men and things might destine him to become the
future oracle of this and one or two succeeding generations,
on topics and events of universal interest; but
neither now, nor afterwards, did he claim for himself,
or his own exploits, other than a subordinate part.

Self-exaltation, indeed, was a trait little likely to become
ingrafted on George's character. Knowledge of
the world, a life of action, a crueler discipline than often
falls to human lot, had taught him justly to estimate
his own manhood, and promptly to assert his independence,
while his every look and movement gave evidence
of the force, the vigor, the decision of purpose which he
had acquired in the school of a stern experience. But it

was genuine growth, not paltry egotism; it was worth,
not vanity. The youth, who was always ready to bear
more than his share of the world's blame, and reap the
smallest fraction of its rewards, might rise in the scale of
manhood by learning a lesson of self-respect; but he
was not likely to sink into the contemptible poltroonery
of blowing his own trumpet.

Something of the simple candor, the honest self-depreciation,
which still forbade him to accept unearned praise,
manifested itself continually in the earnestness with
which George protested against the encomiums, and
qualified even the congratulations of the neighborhood.

“Don't say too much about that,” he again and
again exclaimed, in response to the frequently expressed
approbation of his spirited conduct in breaking
away from the narrow sphere of home, his perseverance
under difficulties, his enterprising career,
and the responsible position he had achieved. “You
speak of what I have accomplished, but you forget
all the duties left undone during those long years,
the blessings, the opportunities, even the good name
that I despised and abandoned for the sake of adventure
and change. When I think of my poor old mother,
so shamefully deserted, of uncle Baultie's terrible
death coming so soon after, of the old folks' loneliness
and poverty, and what I might have been to them, I feel
almost glad of all I suffered in Algiers, for I deserved it.
Remember that, Johnny,” — and he laid his hand on
the head of a youthful listener, who had accompanied his

parents, the good blacksmith and his wife, on their visit
of welcome, — “remember, if ever you get discontented
and rebellious, and tempted to run away, that though some
folks may say, as in my case, `all's well that ends well,'
I tell you that hard work, and starving, and chains, and
all the bitterness of slavery, won't seem to you too hard
a punishment for your ingratitude and disobedience.

“I didn't mean to leave them so suddenly, and without
a word of good-by,” he continued, turning to the blacksmith,
and making haste to explain what seemed the
darkest and most unnatural part of his conduct. “I was
as far as possible from intending to leave behind me the
bad name of a runaway, worse still, of a suicide; but I
hadn't time or heart to write. I left my messages (and
here again I was to blame; I had no business to keep
such company) with a man named Bly, — a bad fellow,
who had been about the town for some time. You have
heard about him? You know —.”

The blacksmith nodded intelligently — he knew all
about him; the evidence given yesterday in court in reference
to the Baultie Rawle case was town talk already.

“I didn't suspect then that he was such a hardened
fellow, or that he was in league with men worse than
himself. It's plain enough now how my messages miscarried.
He fled the country, no doubt, almost as soon
as I did.”

“And your letter to? —” the questioner hesitated,
for Stein sat listening, and the considerate blacksmith
did not care to introduce Peter's name in this connection.

“The letter, you know, that made us so sartain
sure you'd made away with yerself, Geordie — that
went straight?”

“O, yes, the letter — that was a different thing; it's
easy enough to send or deliver a letter you know;” and
to evade further inquiry on this point, George changed
the subject. He did not think it necessary to mention
that he had intrusted the letter, as well as the message,
to Bly. He was careful to avoid an acknowledgment
which might implicate Peter Stein, by proving when and
through whom he must have received this communication.
Nor, for the same reason, when the conversation
turned upon the strange coincidence which had led to the
recovery and identification (as had been so long believed)
of his own body, did George attempt to throw any light
upon the subject, though he had yesterday declared in
confidence to Van Hausen, his perfect recollection of having
left the coat which, with its contents, had led to the
supposed recognition of the corpse, in his cousin Peter's
attic chamber, on occasion of his last visit to the tavern.
“I was excited and feverish,” he had said, in explanation
of this circumstance. “The coat was heavy and oppressive.
I tossed it off there just before I went out on the
race-course with Nancy. I expected to go back and get
it that night; but you know how it was — how I was
threatened, and driven from the house. I wouldn't have
crossed the door-way again for my right hand. God
forgive me, uncle Dick,” the tender-hearted young man
had exclaimed, with trembling voice, as recollections

thronged thick upon him at this crisis of his story; “it
lies like a dead weight on my conscience to-day, but I
was mortally angry with uncle Baultie that night; I
had wicked thoughts of him, and of my uncle Stein too,
not murderous ones — Heaven forbid that such an infernal
idea as that should ever have crossed my mind, —
but bitter, revengeful thoughts burned in me like a fire,
and I sinned against that old man in my heart.”

“Not a bit on't, not a bit on't,” had been Dick's cheery
reply. “I only wish I'd been there, my boy, to back
you up. Stein, the double-faced rascal, told me what
happened that night, an' I knew purty well what had
gone afore. But that your uncle Baultie's mind had been
pizened, and he was in his grave, — a bloody one, — and
that the Lord's hand was an' is heavy on Diedrich Stein,
I'd ha' spoke my mind 'fore now, so that it should ha'
rung through the Jarseys. They driv you desp'rate
atween 'em, that's what they did. But I'm glad you
didn't make way with yerself, Geordie, as we all believed
yer had. I stood up fur yer, my boy (slapping him on
the back); yes, an' I believe I would ha' stood up fur
yer at the judgment, but I couldn't bear to think yer'd
done it. I never could quite get it out o' my head that
it might go harder with yer to all etarnity.”

Van Hausen and George, harassed by the many yet
inexplicable circumstances connected with the tragedy of
Baultie's death, and bearing upon the mystery that hung
round George's disappearance, had made an effort, during
the interval of their absence from the “Pipe and Bowl,”

immediately after the trial in court, to obtain an interview
with Bly, and had gone together to the jail for that
purpose. But Bly was exhausted, literally torpid and
insensible with the drain already made upon his strength.
The jailer had wisely discouraged any further attempt to
see or converse with him that night, and while awaiting
the developments and revelations which might yet be
anticipated from this source, Van Hausen and George
mutually agreed to avoid as much as possible any discussion
of the murder or its agents; and, warned by the
hint which had dropped from Bly in open court, they
were especially careful to avoid any confession which
might involve Peter Stein in the affair, or implicate the
old landlord himself.

This urgent motive for reticence on their part, as well
as the restraint imposed upon every tongue by the presence
of the widow of the murdered man, so restricted the
curiosity of the neighbors on one vital subject of interest, as
to concentrate it all the more intently upon the only other
topic of comparable importance; and George's history
and experience, from the moment of his leaving Stein's
Plains to that of his return, was demanded in so many
forms and by such ingenious queries, that, in spite of his
native modesty, he could not refuse to gratify the truly
hearty interest of the neighborhood by detailing for their
benefit the chief events of his story.

With that delicacy, which is an instinct of the heart,
not an acquirement of polite circles, these country folks
forbore questioning him on the cause and motive of his

sudden self-exile. They spared him any reference to his
last interview with his uncle Baultie, to the tempest of
rage, torment, and indecision which succeeded, to the
night of vagrancy and exposure spent in the companionship
of Bly — a companionship not only suffered, but
sought and welcomed by the youth, in his extremity of
banishment and degradation. They never knew, George
never knew himself, until he recalled and weighed it in
the light of recent developments, the nature and extent
of the temptation to which he was exposed in that bitterest
hour of his life. Innocence, even comparative innocence,
is sometimes its own protector. George had
comprehended the sophistry with which Bly reasoned
upon his wrongs, the scheme darkly hinted at by which
he might seek compensation. He knew the character of
his associate well enough to suspect that he lived by a
low system of swindling, and that he would not object
to sharing ill-gotten gains; but he hardly believed him in
earnest in the proposition to purloin his uncle's savings;
indeed, he was so preoccupied in the contemplation of the
truths forced home to him by Bly's analysis of his situation
and prospects, as to be in some degree insensible to
the base insinuations which accompanied them. His
own degraded position, the danger of sinking lower yet,
to which his present associations and companionships
exposed him, the door of hope and relief which change
and emigration afforded, these were the suggestions on
the part of Bly which absorbed his mind so utterly as
to exclude any realizing sense of the pitfall of crime to
which Bly was thus paving the way. It was these which
inspired him with the sudden resolution to seek Angie,
learn his standing and fate, and act upon that knowledge.
And when, scorned by her, and branded with disgrace
by both his uncles, he was wrought almost to frenzy,
even his frenzy took its character from the generosity
and harmlessness of a nature which had never wronged
or injured aught in the world but itself. Blind indignation,
impotent anger, possessed him for a while, but its
only fruit was self-contempt, indifference to fate and fortune,
or at most a desperate determination to rid the
world — his little world of home and neighborhood — of
what his uncle had branded as a public nuisance, to
accept the chances of a new destiny, and, following Nick
Bly's advice, to put sea and land between himself and
every thing he had known and been in the past.

In vain Bly, taking advantage of his condition and
necessities, strove to ingraft upon this state of mind
the covetous desires, the implacable hate, the readiness
for some overt act of revenge, which might aid his dark
schemes and those of his instructor and employer, Bullet.
George was either deaf to his temptations and hints, or
but dimly aware of their atrocious significance. Once
or twice, indeed, as during their dialogue in the stable,
startled and shocked by epithets and threats against his
uncle, which even the most vulgar and exaggerated
sympathy with his own wrongs could not warrant, or
disgusted with hints at which his honest soul revolted,
George had turned upon Bly with a sudden curse upon

his depravity in believing him capable of coveting the
old man's gold, or wishing him any harm. He little
dreamed that what seemed to him but the rank weeds of
a night's growth had a rooted purpose in a heart deeper
and harder than that of Bly; that snares set unsuccessfully
for him would ever be laid elsewhere; or his
uncle's money and life prove the bait and the price.

And Bly, perceiving with surprise that the simplicity
and uprightness of George's mind were unperverted by
injustice, and despairing of finding in him a convert and
accomplice to crime, checked his confidences at the point
where they verged on a betrayal of the wicked plot, and
adroitly contrived to dispel the shadow of suspicion he
had excited. Partly to aid this latter purpose, partly,
perhaps, from a natural disposition to oblige an old comrade,
he had received, and undertaken to transmit to
George's mother, after allowing him a reasonable time
in which to quit the country, a message of farewell, and
a promise to write whenever he had any thing satisfactory
to communicate.

The disposition to oblige could have extended no further
than a willingness to set George's mind at rest, for
Bly had no expectation of fulfilling this filial injunction;
he foresaw, too well, an event which would, within
twenty-four hours, render him a refugee and an outlaw.
It was with a more faithful purpose that he took charge
of the letter to Peter Stein, for which he even furnished
the writing materials. It will be remembered that Bly
had that very evening probed George on the subject of

forging his uncle's name; probably he had taken the
precaution to have the means at hand for the execution
of such an instrument; at all events he was as well prepared
as a private secretary, and on George's explaining
the purport of his intended communication, drew from
his pocket a crumpled sheet of paper, a little vial of ink,
and a stump of a pen, and, seated under the shelter of a
shed, in which the midnight vagrants had sought refuge,
he lit and held his lantern for George's use, while he,
honorable to the last, penned the document which should
make over to Peter the ownership of the forfeited mare.

Probably Bly had an interest in this transaction, as he
had lately had in most of Peter's fraudulent gains. At
all events he faithfully delivered the letter, for which, as
will be seen, a convenient opportunity was not wanting.

It was for the fulfilment of these simple and innocent
obligations, and for the sake of some sympathy, some
companionship, though it might be the worst, that
George had accepted in the first instance, and finally
claimed Bly's offer of help in case of sudden emergency.
And, suspicious as their intercouse might seem, that was
all. Fallen as George was, the moral gulf between him
and Bly was too wide to be bridged over by misery on
the one side and temptation on the other, and they parted
with that sort of amity which is based on a mutual sense
of the world's unkindness, but strangers to each other's
future.

The following daybreak, which found Bly at a secret
rendezvous of himself and his accomplices, saw George

plodding on foot towards New York, bent on obtaining a
berth in some vessel, bound somewhere, and that immediately;
any vessel, any port, he cared not what, so that
it took him as far as possible from the scenes of his disgrace,—as
far as might be from his former self.

It was at this point in his history that the friendly
circle gathered about him felt privileged to institute
inquiries, and this was the crisis which served as the
commencement of his oft-repeated narrative. He was
fortunate enough, so he told them (or unfortunate
enough, he would sometimes add, “seeing all that came
of it,”), to ship before the mast, with a promise of clearing
at once for sea. The ship's officers barely allowed him
time to go back and visit home and friends once more,—
an impulse he could not resist. He had walked all the
way to the city, and returned the same day by a circuitous
route, sometimes across the fields, for he was resolved
to avoid all acquaintances, all interrogation; and
an hour or two before midnight had packed his little
bundle, taken a last look of his mother (he omitted all
mention of that other leave-taking at the Cousin farmhouse),
and was again on his way to New York.
Early the next morning his vessel set sail with a fine
breeze, and he was soon far enough away to satisfy the
bitter cravings of his heart.

It was probable that George took easily and naturally
to the sea, as he always had taken to every mode of life
that called for courage, muscular power, activity of all
the senses; and this conclusion seemed warranted by the

rapid promotion he had recently achieved. But, according
to his own description, the voyage was an ordinary
voyage, and he himself an ordinary seaman merely,
until the occurrence of that event in which most of his
later experience was involved, namely, the capture of the
vessel and her crew by Algerine corsairs. Here began
that portion of George's narrative which was made up
of violence, tyranny, and suffering in the actual endurance,
but which in the recapitulation possessed features
of such novelty, mystery, and horror as invested it with
all the charm of a romance. To describe the people
and the country in which his captivity was passed, and
relate in detail all the distinguishing traits of Moorish
barbarism which had come under his observation, was
George's especial province; the misery and torture
endured by the wretched captives of these Barbary
corsairs is the province of history, and I have no
design of intruding upon either. But there was one
circumstance of George's individual experience which
had too striking an effect upon his character and prospects
to be omitted, more especially as George himself
was never known to furnish more than a one-sided representation
of it. And this was the union, more vital than
any that chains could impose, between him and his
youthful fellow-captive, a mere boy, delicately nurtured,
and seeking recreation and invigorated health in a voyage
from South America to New York, and thence to the
Mediterranean. During three years spent together in
slavery, George and this youth were never separated,
dragging a common chain and a common lot. Of the
love George bore this boy, of the motive with which this
love inspired him, of the wealth of knowledge which he
had gained from his well-stored brain (for what did
one know that the other did not acquire?) George was
never slow to speak in the most grateful terms, blessing
God for the one alleviation to his miseries which the
society of his companion afforded. But it remained for
after years, and the eloquent tongue of the youth himself,
to tell of the days of labor in which George often performed
both their tasks, the nights of watching, when the
stronger soothed the weaker's pain, of the brave heart
that never faltered, the cheerful word that was never
wanting, the smile of hope which outlived hope itself,
and all the unselfish, heroic efforts by which courage,
reason, and life were preserved in the frail form which,
but for its benefactor, friend, and more than brother,
must have died daily.

Nor when at last this pair of suffering, half-starved
wretches, were, by the prowess of our infant navy, released
from their hopeless bondage; when one too feeble
to rise could only crawl to the feet of their deliverers,
and the other hollow-eyed and wasted to a skeleton, was
scarcely less a subject for compassion, did George dream
of freeing himself from the charge with which he had so
long been shackled, or of handing the sick youth over to
other guardianship than his own. During the voyage to
Syracuse, to which port they were conveyed in a gunboat
attached to the American squadron, George's strength

was partially recuperated, and though his companion still
continued in an invalid condition, George did not hesitate
to decline for both any further assistance from the American
government, his independent spirit assuring him that
he could thenceforth provide for his own and his friend's
wants. He at once secured for himself a place as seaman
in a vessel bound to Liverpool, engaging, at the same
time, as the price of his earnings on the voyage, a passenger's
berth for his companion. The latter had faith
that on arriving in England the credit his father's mercantile
house possessed abroad would enable him to obtain
funds; but he was disappointed in this. The house
in Surinam had within a few years made a change in
their foreign agencies, and when at last the youth discovered
his father's present correspondents in England, they
had never even heard of his existence, and refused to
trust his story, fraught, as it seemed to them, with improbability.

But George was more fortunate. He had already, on
the voyage from Syracuse, been promoted to the duties
and pay of the second mate, who was disabled by sickness.
At the recommendation of his captain he now
obtained in Liverpool the position of first officer in a vessel
about to sail for the Bermudas, with the stipulation,
as before, of a passage for his friend; and this voyage
safely completed, the young man found no difficulty in
shipping for Surinam, to which point George had made
it his first duty to accompany his invalid companion.
The restoration of the youth to home and friends, who

had long since given him up for lost, involves points of
interest sufficiently obvious, but too manifold to be even
touched upon here. The unbounded gratitude of his
parents to the man who had in so many senses been the
preserver of his life, may also be fairly presumed. Nor
is the deduction any less certain, drawn from what we
know of George's character, that he disclaimed any title
to gratitude or praise; that his great heart revolted at the
thought that friendship could be any thing less than its
own reward, or that the reciprocal service affection renders
ever could be weighed. But although the independent
spirit he thus evinced prohibited the head of a
prosperous mercantile house from offering to the penniless
sailor any compensation for past devotion to his invalid
son and heir, though it was with reluctance that George
even permitted the price of his friend's passage from port
to port to be refunded, his own nature was so truly generous,
so free from either servility or false pride, that he
did not hesitate to accept, with the same candor with
which it was offered, that countenance, aid, and advancement
of his interests which grew naturally out of his
friendly and sympathetic relations with the family of the
Surinam merchant.

That the latter should urge upon him the captaincy of
the “Antelope,” a fine little bark then in port, was, no
doubt, the prompting of an almost paternal instinct in his
welfare and success; but it was none the less a promotion
in George's legitimate profession, for which he had
fitted himself by diligence and devotion to his calling.

It was on the shipowner's assurance of faith in his ability,
and not on the grounds of a blind partiality, that George
accepted the post; a post for which he had resolved to
prove his worthiness before ever returning to his country,
or reporting himself to the friends who must long since
have mentally numbered him among the dead. And
who, moreover, as the event proved, could have received
so cordially, and executed so promptly, the commission intrusted
to him against those scourges of the sea at whose
hands the merchant had suffered only less than the
father? On the whole, I may safely assert, that although
George could now boast the title and dignity of
an experienced shipmaster, and could flatter himself that
his recent voyage had proved in all respects a successful
and profitable one to himself and his owners, these
triumphs were not the result of favoritism but of his
own deserts.

And I may safely assert that this was the conclusion
arrived at by the rustic crowd that flocked around him
on this Christmas morning, claiming his notice and recognition,
and vying with each other in demonstrations
of cordiality and good will. Nor, though I claim for
George the credit of a modest and unpretending bearing
in his new character of a village hero, can I deny that
his fellow-townsmen were not a little inflated at the distinction
which had befallen the neighborhood, and that
ever after, in rehearsing his adventures and exploits for
the benefit of strangers, they would emphasize, with no
little complacency, the fact that the subject of them all
was born and brought up at Stein's Plains.

But of all the visitors at the cottage that day there was
none whose demeanor was so striking and so inexplicable
as that of Diedrich Stein, — old Stein, as he was universally
called now. One would have thought that there
might be recollections in Stein's breast that would
embarrass him, and keep him away. But, on the contrary,
he came early and staid late. It was reasonable
to suspect that he would be on the alert to catch every
breath of rumor and weigh every word that might implicate
his son, his tavern, or himself in the mysteries
and crimes now being unravelled and brought to light.
But though he sat in one seat, almost in one posture, all
day, listened intently, and pricked up his ears more
sharply than ever at any allusion that struck home, he
did not seem to be there as a spy, still less as an enemy.

The expression of his face was that of unmitigated awe
and wonder, as if a miracle had been performed in his
presence. He surveyed, followed, watched George with
an admiring, almost a deferential gaze. He seemed positively
grateful to his nephew for the cordial greeting,
which betrayed no remembrance of past injuries, and for
the hospitality which endured his presence in the cottage,
and even summoned him to the table when dinner was
ready; a sanction for which latter act it required all
George's tact and coaxing to wring from his aunt Hannah.
It could not be the Christmas fare for which Stein
thus lingered; for though Angie, suspicious that he meant
to stay, näively took care to roast his one fowl for him,
he ate little of that or any thing else, but sat close at

George's elbow, watching him carve and eat, as he might
have watched a king at his repast.

Could it be that this withered, lonely old miser had
for five years been a prey to remorse? Could it be that,
overawed and humbled at George's reappearance, he
dwelt upon him with greedy incredulity? Could it be that,
disappointed and degraded by the children for whom he
had sold his soul to Mammon, he bowed and bent in admiring
homage before the success of the youth whom he
had systematically wronged. It looked like it; but Hannah
Rawle gave him credit for no such uncharacteristic
traits.

“Don't go without taking him 'long with yer,” she
signified by a sign to her brother Dick, who had modestly
delayed his visit until nightfall, and who, at a late hour
in the evening, despairing of a chance to outstay Stein,
or get a private word with George, at length rose to go.

And when they had gone, — for Van Hausen took the
hint, and without mincing matters gave Stein warning
that the household were tired and it was time he went
home, — Hannah shook her fist at him before he was well
out of the door, and muttered audibly, “You old rogue,
you! what new dodge is this yer up ter? But we'll be
equal with yer — yer game 's played out, I reckon.”