University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
RICHARD AT THE MILL.

It was an extreme night, and the mercury fell to a
great depth before morning. One man, who raised the
largest cucumbers, and had the most satisfactory children,
and drove the prettiest carryall, said his thermometer, at
thirty-eight minutes after seven, stood at five and three-quarters
below zero. At any rate, it was cold enough; and
Richard felt it, when he left the house, after supper. Its
first onset was suffocating, like a simoom; then it began to
cut, and sting, and flay, as if it would not only entrap but
torture its victim. A delicate, thin, violet vapor, coming
from we know not where, had clearly mistaken the time of
the year, like birds arriving too early from a sunnier clime;
benumbed and bewildered by the cold, it lay on the western
hills, still, calm, hard, and dry. The sky was very clear,
as if the cold had driven out of it all those soft clouds, and
gentle zephyrs, and spiritual mists, on which our better feelings
float through the universe, and by which our souls are
indefinitely expanded, and our sympathies connected with
unseen orders of beings, and left it the impersonation of
intellect, — sheer, naked intellect, — intellect without love,
without tenderness; awful, dismal intellect, in which the
stars were so many iron, piercing, excruciating eyes — eyes
which one did not wish to look at, but ducked his head, and
hurried on. Or, if one could stand it, — if his fancy would
have its way, in spite of the cold, — he would see the windows
of heaven covered with frost, and the stars so many little

crystalline sparkling points; and if he looked closely at
Sirius, he would inevitably conclude it had been snowing
there all winter; and the icy, glittering radiance of that star
he would attribute to the reflection of interminable hollows,
and mountains of snow.

There were no loafers about the mill to-night; and no boys
skating on the river, with their cheerful fires, and the bell-like
ringing of their merry voices. The great doors on the
sides of the mill, that open on horizontal hinges, and are
hoisted by ropes, were dropped. The wind drifted freely
through the building; and the large, cylindrical, red-hot
stoves, seemed to be an invitation to it to come in. Nor was
it ceremonious, or hardly civil; it crowded about the stoves,
and seemed determined that nobody else should have a
place; and with a selfishness which nothing human ever
paralleled, as soon as one windy troop got warm, it made
way for another, and so left no chance at all for the workmen.
Green Mill was a large one, — two hundred feet long,
and fifty wide; and all the saws were running; not that
they always ran in winter, but these were pressing times.
It was one immense hall, where the saws were, mounting to
the ridge-pole, and broken only by the tie-beams, and the
frames in which the saws moved; and all the men might be
seen, and their varied operations inspected, at a glance. It
was a noisy, busy scene. Lamps hung on the fender-posts
— lamps shaped like a coffee-pot, with a heavy coil of wicking
in the spout, and producing so large a flame the wind
could not blow it out; and the more it was attempted to be
put down, the brighter it burned. But the lamp was provoking;
it affected great nonchalance; it made feints of
being beaten; it fell over from side to side; it treated the
wind as a rope-dancer might treat his worst enemy, by capering
on a slack wire, and jingling a tambourine in his face;

it was as insulting as a runaway monkey, that makes
grimaces at his master from a chimney-top.

On one bed the men were butting; on another, hauling
up the slip; on a third, dividing the logs by cross-cut saws;
the creak of files, and the clink of iron bars, could be heard.
The up-and-down saws sweltered, trembled, gnashed, hissed,
as they made their way through the huge trunks before
them. There was the piteous shriek of the cutting-off saw,
and the unearthly rumbling of the wheels in the pit below.
The rag-wheels patiently ticked, as it were time-keepers
of the whole concern. The entire building, ponderous as
were its beams and firm its foundation, seemed to throb and
reel.

Richard was in a strange place, and among strange men,
though he was at home in the business. There was not
much talking, nor a very good opportunity for making
acquaintance. The men were silent in the midst of the
powerful agencies of nature and art; they were the silent
Mind that wrought through these agencies.

Of the persons with whom Richard was associated, one,
Mr. Gouch, the boss of the gang, was a middle-aged, middle-sized
man, with a heavy face and a dull eye. He wore a
white fur hat, of a very old fashion, — so old, indeed, it would
be difficult to say when it was in fashion, — and which looked
as if it had come down through all the fashions, and each
of them had had a kick at it. He had on an antique surtout,
with a very high waist, and an immense collar, riding
the waist, as if it were the porter of a woollen factory.
The lips of Mr. Gouch were large and rough, and kept up
a constant twitching, as if affected with the shaking palsy.
Not that he was a great talker; only his lips stirred, somewhat
vacantly, somewhat timorously. Before he spoke, his
lips moved, as it were getting ready for that effort; after he

had spoken, his lips moved, as if the momentum of the effort
did not immediately subside. Along with setting the gauge
and minding the carry-back, another thing occupied a deal
of his attention. This was the orders the mill had received,
and which were nailed to the fender-post. Why did he
dodge so around the corner of this post, and look at the
schedule so often? Why did he point at it with his crowbar?
Why did his lips wag at such a rate, and all to himself?
Why did he, from running the crow-bar over the list, like
an overgrown lubber of a schoolboy, who uses his finger to
fescue his eye from line to line, — why did he then jerk it
towards his fellow-laborer, whose back was turned? Richard
saw this farce, and was curious about it.

This other man seemed wholly indifferent to what was
passing; he looked, indeed, more like a beast, who could
not be affected by human interests, than anything else. He
was short, and thick, and dark. His small cap, matted to
his head, with its few filaments of fur, and its larger bare
spots, did not look like a cap, but made him look as if he
had a scrubby, stinted growth of hair. Running your eye
down his person, you would imagine that his hair, deserting
his scalp, had reappeared under his chin, and around his
neck; for here it grew thick, bushy, luxuriant. He had no
neck, apparently, but only a bed of hair, in which his head
lay. He was not deformed, but he seemed to have grown,
or been socketed, into himself; his hair grew into his head,
his head into his neck, his neck into his shoulders, and his
shoulders into his trunk. He wore a short frock, the ends
of which were tied in a large knot on his back, as if it had
something to do in keeping in place this singular structure
that he was. His mouth, except in a strong light, was
invisible; and then it opened and shut spasmodically, like a
toad's; and then no teeth were seen, but a slight vacuum,

filled with indistinguishable shapes; as one gets a glimpse
through the fence at the charred stumps of new-burnt
ground. Smoking was not allowed in the mill; but this
man had a pipe in his mouth, whether he smoked or not.
He would sometimes smoke of a winter night. This pipe,
like the rest of him, had grown in, till there was nothing
but the black bowl left. Ever in his mouth, it seemed to be
a part of his organism; and he dipped his finger into the
bowl as frequently when it was empty as when it was full.
The name of this man was Silver.

Mr. Gouch, we have said, looked at Silver; but Silver did
not mind it. Then Mr. Gouch read again the orders:
“White, 4, hemlock 16, 7X9. Smith, 6, gray birch, 10,
3X12, Clover 9, plates, hemlock, 22, 6X8. Clover, joist,
Clover, sills, Clover, furring.” These things, from silently
transcribing with his lips, he went on to articulating more
distinctly, and finally spoke out quite loud. As he did so,
he turned his face to Silver; and then, as it were, having
caught the words on the end of his bar, he held that out for
Silver to read; but Silver neither heard nor read.

During an interval when Silver was taking away the
boards on one side of the carriage, and Mr. Gouch and
Richard were at work with a cross-cut saw on the other,
Mr. Gouch said, “He'll get it! he'll sweat!—he's gone!”

“Who'll get it?” asked Richard.

“He,” replied Mr. Gouch, and thrust his head backwards
towards Silver.

“Get what?”

“I tell you, Clover'll build!” As he said this, he pushed
the saw forwards, and leaned forwards himself, as if he
were earnest that the communication should reach Richard.
“Don't start so!” he said; “you are not concerned; you
have just come; you need n't be frightened.” Now, Richard

could not conveniently help starting, since he held one end
of the saw, and must needs retreat as the other advanced.
Still Mr. Gouch kept operating the instrument, and endeavoring
to impress certain truths on Richard. The first he
did mechanically and skilfully; as to the last, he was in
an absent state of mind, and continually blundered in the
attempt to reconcile the ideal with the actual. “Don't be
frightened,” he said, as he again inclined towards Richard,
who was again obliged to fall back. “I tell you, Clover'll
build; and he'll get it,” writhing towards Silver, “and we
shall all get it! Plates, joist, sills and furring, — yes,
furring, — that settles it, that does the business. You are
not alarmed, I hope?”

“Why should I be?” replied Richard, laughing. “More
work, more to do.”

“Yes, more work; but how he will feel! how he will
feel!”

“Capt. Creamer told me Clover was sick.”

“Clover sick! The Captain done for, too! The Captain
slabbed off, thrown among the reffige, flung into the river,
like so much edging. And all through Clover. Clover
sick! He is too strong to be sick. He would die before he
would be sick.”

“He may be sick, and die too,” observed Richard.

“He can't die,” returned Mr. Gouch; “you can't kill
him. You might as well smite that saw with your fist;
you might as well put a trig under the dam and stop it,
as to practise on him.”

They went to the stove for their lunch; and as they went,
Mr. Gouch still muttered, “The furring fixes it; it will be a
house. He'll get it; Clover'll build.”

Silver said nothing, and Mr. Gouch said more, as if he
would teaze Silver. In an instant, Silver seized the cantdog,

and aimed at the head-stock man. Richard sprang
between them, and Mr. Gouch fell backward over a log.
Mr. Gouch laughed, and Silver snapped his lips together in
a way that was intended to imply humor; and Richard,
seeing that the demonstration was only a merry one, very
quietly went to wooding up the stove. Mr. Gouch touched
his fingers on the stove, to see how hot it was; then he
applied them again, to see the hissing and crackling;
and he at last got up a little cannonade, which he let off
against Silver. Silver was not harmed, or cowarded. He
knocked the ashes from his pipe, sliced a new charge of
tobacco, ground it in the hollow of his hand, filled his pipe,
and stooped to light it at the mouth of the stove. Mr. Gouch
suffered quite a drop of water to explode close to Silver's
ear, saying, “Have n't you got it? Won't Clover build?”
Silver drew back, and groaned. He sat on the floor, and
groaned. He made a few empty passes at the coals with
his pipe, and thrust it, unlighted, into his lips, and groaned.

“He has got it!” said Mr. Gouch. “Did'nt I tell you
he would get it? Such quantities of furring! O, what a
nice little house, and what a nice little bed-room, and what
nice fixings!”

Silver took a pine stick and whittled it, sharpening and
smoothing it. He then tried the point of it on the palm of
his hand; then he pricked his cheek with it; then he made
as if he would stab the stove and the saw.

“There will be family ways and family doings,” continued
Mr. Gouch, addressing Richard, who was quietly consuming
his midnight meal; “and fires kindled where it is
now bleak cold, and tables set for people that never ate
together, and doors opening on new scenes and new operations.
There will be another stopping-place along the street,
and another yard to set flowers in; and by and by there

will be children, and little ones will climb on their father's
knee, and that father will be Clover; and little ones for the
mother to put to sleep, and that mother will be —”

Silver shrieked not out, but inside, and only a smothered
explosion was heard. He thrust his stick wildly into the
air.

“Don't do that!” said Mr. Gouch; “don't hurt Clover;
don't attempt Clover; don't do anything to him!”

“It is not that,” rejoined Silver; “it's myself.”

He again tried to light his pipe, and now he was successful;
and he sucked and whiffed, as if he would evaporate
his sorrows, thoughts, and whole being, in the smoke.

“Clover'll build, and it is your treat,” said the headstock
man; “and you need not take it so hardly; a couple
of dimes will hardly be missed.”

Silver blew the smoke from him, as much as to say,
“That is nothing; I do not care for that.” He sprang up
with an air which seemed to add, “Bring on the boys! I
am ready to treat.”

The two men from the other saw came towards the stove.
One of them advanced in a jaunty, tambourine sort of way,
appearing to be playing on an invisible instrument of that
kind with his elbow and knuckles, and shuffling to the tune
with his feet. A red handkerchief was tied flauntingly on
his head, and his waist was buttoned with a leathern strap.
He was lively and talkative, and his name was Philemon
Sweetly. “Pleasantly cold, Mr. Gouch,” said he; “just
enough to make a stove, ordinarily so dull, a very agreeable
companion.”

“An Indian could n't stand it,” replied Mr. Gouch, rather
solemnly; “a frog would freeze, a barn would be out of its
element.”

“I hope,” rejoined Philemon, “the cold will bear kind of

strong on the Captain; just hold him down softly, freeze
him gently, so he will not feel it, and let Helskill out. It is
a precious night for Helskill; he deserves such a night, now
and then.”

“How is Clover, to-day?” asked Ezra Bess, the fourth
man.

“Better,” replied Mr. Gouch; “and Silver will be generous,
— all gold, perhaps.”

“That for Clover,” added Philemon, heaving the handspike
across the mill-bed; “Helskill is wanted just now.”

At this instant, a man was seen entering the mill, and
making his way stealthily through the shadows, as if he
were afraid he might tread on them. And when a roistering
lamp flared in his face, he started, like a very polite man
who had intruded too suddenly upon the light. He had on
his arm a basket, over which he exercised incessant watchfulness,
like a mother bringing her daughter into company.
He had a broad, dark face, and eyebrows to match, and
black eyes; but a timid look, — a remarkably timid, and
almost slippery look; and a stooping gait, like one who has
the misfortune to be continually seeing obstacles in his path.
He signalized his progress, also, by a cough, — a small, hacking
cough, — as a modest token of admonition to any one
against whom he might come in the dark.

The approach of this man was regarded with interest by
the gang.

“The Friend of the People is assiduous and devoted as
ever,” said Philemon, affecting a bow to the new-comer.
“Shall I have the honor of introducing to you, Richard, Mr.
Helskill, the Friend of the People?”

“I am the Friend of the People,” replied the other, evidently
brightening up and re-collecting his courage, in the
cordiality with which he was received; “I look after the

public good: I vote for it at the polls; I canvass for it
before election; I harness my horse, and go in pursuit of it;
I bleed for it, — yes, I do, — my purse bleeds, and my heart
bleeds, to see how it is abused; I attend to it, in my own
little way, at Quiet Arbor;” — he was still timid, and cast
his eyes from side to side, but he waxed bolder as he went
on: — “I am an advocate of the people: I defend their
rights; I teach them their independence; I stand between
them and monopoly; I take the brunt of oppression; I believe
that men are to be trusted, — that they have discretion.”

“Desput cold!” said Philemon, who, using the liberty
which the timid man scattered broadcast around him, lifted
the cover of the basket, and took from it a brace of bottles
and glasses; — “but you are the chap for it. You must
have been born in a bog, and nussed on cucumber juice.
That was economical. When you was eight years old, your
father sent you out barefoot in winter to catch titmice for
poor people's breakfast. So you learned benevolence. A
thermometer would have no effect on you; the mercury
might plump down into the bottom and freeze, — you would n't
mind it; you would buzz around your little Arbor, as chirk
and bobbish as a fly in spring-time. And how, when it
grew late, and your friends became tired and sleepy, and
wanted to lie down, you would put them out of doors, using
a little force, just to teach them self-denial! Why, you are
equal to Captain Creamer, — you are the Captain! Has n't
your wife a receipt for cold weather? You might send it
South, and they could get up a little ice for their juleps, and
kill off the yellow fever, now and then. You would n't do
for a Methodist church, just now. You might answer for
some other in town; they could set you up cheap, and you
could do so much good! You love to do good, don't you?”

Men from all parts of the mill, having a respite from

their work, collected around Mr. Helskill, who seemed to be
quite a centre of attraction.

“I knew he would come,” said Mr. Merlew, head-stock
man of saw No. 5, a burly, hulchy looking man; “he
sticks to his word like a bail-dog to a log. He does n't mind
the coldest night, any more than No. 5 does the knots of
white hemlock.”

“No. 5, No. 5,” said Philemon, who was head-stock man
of No. 2, “will want a little oiling; will be very thankful to
the Friend of the People for a little help; will rejoice in the
opportune kindness of that man, or I am mistaken.”

The Friend of the People coughed, blushed, and looked
down. So embarrassed was he by these compliments, he
did not perceive that his glasses had escaped, and his bottles
were being emptied, while the men were secretly trying
the quality of his wares.

Mr. Gouch, meanwhile, with a medley of playfulness and
timorousness, simplicity and cunning, slid to the door of
the mill and looked out; hopped over the lumbered floor
back again, and slapped the stove with his wet fingers, chattering
to himself, “The Captain won't come; he can't come
to-night. Clover will build; Silver'll treat; he won't be
happy, if he does n't.” Silver muddled with his pipe among
the ashes. Richard leisurely hacked the end of a log.

“The honor is Silver's to-night,” said Philemon to
Richard, holding a glass in his hand. “It is his to give
merit an opportunity to distinguish itself, and to open to the
Friend of the People a sphere of action. This ordinarily
falls to the new comer; it should have been yours, as you
are in that capacity; but it is Silver's to-night.”

“I am truly obliged to you, Silver,” said Mr. Helskill,
making an effort to show his teeth, as if there resided in
them a particularly pleasing and grateful expression, which

he was anxious to communicate; “you must be a happy
man.”

Silver hurled a chip at the timid man's head, which he
dodged, but manifested no indignation thereat. “Don't
grin at me!” Silver added, very groutily.

“I must have declined the honor,” replied Richard to
Philemon; “and I think Silver has no satisfaction in doing
it.”

“But you will drink?” returned Philemon, tendering
him a glass.

“I think I will not,” said Richard.

“Drink!” growled Silver, with a quick, deep intonation.

“The laws of the mill forbid drinking, and the law of
conscience forbids it,” added Richard.

“Clover'll build!” Mr. Gouch's lips began muttering.
This was a magical word; it worked Silver to a frenzy;
though Mr. Gouch certainly had no ill intents on his brother
stock-man.

“You shall drink! you shall all drink!” screamed Silver,
starting up.

“I am not afraid of Clover, and Clover shall not hurt
you,” said Richard.

Silver grew more quiet, and sat down to his pipe, saying,
“Drink, Richard, only drink!”

“There is mischief here,” said Richard, “and I do not
understand it. And there is more mischief here, and I do
understand it: and it is there; it is that man,” — pointing to
Mr. Helskill.

“I hope the young fellow don't accuse me of mischief,”
replied Mr. Helskill, picking up his bottles.

“You need n't hope anything about it,” said Richard.
“You may know; you may be assured.”

“Well, accuse me of mischief!”

“I did n't accuse you of anything, and I do not. I said
you were mischief; and you are! You are deviltry incarnate,
and your stuff is the same incarnadined!”

“Not so fast,” interposed Philemon.

“There is no time to be slower,” answered Richard.
“Our lunch is out; and we are here to work, not play.”

“They would put on the screws,” said Mr. Merlew;
“they would make nigger-wheels of us, if they could, and
keep us always at it; they would like to see us saw-dust
under their feet!”

“There is no harm in fun,” said Philemon. “Must
spree it, these tremendous nights.”

“Not a drop, friends, not a drop,” replied Richard.

“He is no Friend of the People,” observed Mr. Helskill;
“he is a flinty and tyrannical character. I have seen such
before. I have repelled their malicious attempts; I have
defeated their mean operations; I have sacrificed a good
deal to put them down.”

“You are a very direct and unequivocal scamp!” said
Richard.

“Drink, for my sake!” said Silver.

“I cannot drink,” answered Richard.

“He is an unfeeling brute,” observed Mr. Helskill. “I
left my warm Arbor; I exposed myself to the weather. I
knew I had comfort for you; I knew you needed it; I knew
Silver wanted me to come. I defied the infamous statute; I
ran the risk of falling into the hands of some skulking informer,
and I have fallen into his hands, — I have fallen.”

“I am no skulker,” said Richard; “I am open-placed,
and open-tongued. I will not inform against you elsewhere;
I will tell you to your face what you are, and what
you do. You bring in mischief here; you bring in fightings,
ill-will, neglect of work; you bring in sickness and disease;

you come a good ways to do it; you brave the coldest night
of the year to do it; you are desperate in the business; you
would send these men drunk from the mill; you would drive
them into a snow-bank to die; you would pitch them,
reeling and staggering, into their own homes! Off with
you, — off!”

“Presently, presently,” said Mr. Helskill. “Alvin shall
have his glass. Alvin shall have the ague taken out of his
fingers.” He inclined the bottle towards the person whose
name he called.

“Alvin shall not drink!” replied Richard. “Alvin is a
boy. He is too young to like it, and too old to be spoilt.”

Mr. Helskill persisted. Richard, quite aroused, with a
handspike, dashed the bottle to atoms. Carried forward
by the impulse, he descended upon the other bottle, and
treated it to the same end; and then, seizing the basket in
which these things had been borne, he hurled it towards the
door.

The confusion of this scene was heightened by what
immediately followed. The basket, in its rapid transit,
alighted in the face of a person entering the mill. It was
Captain Creamer. Already agitated by what he overheard
as he approached the building, he was exceedingly inflamed
by this latter piece of impertinence. He blustered amongst
the men in a way that boded no good to any of them.

“Don't say you did n't drink!” whispered earnestly Silver
to Richard, as he saw the Captain approaching; “for my
sake, don't say you did n't!”

The hands belonging to the other saws fled to their
respective posts. The Friend of the People, already disheartened
by the manner in which his intentions were
received, had made an early exit. The Captain's own
gang stood alone before him.

Captain Creamer could not find words to express his
astonishment, his grief, his anger; and he was silent. At
length, composing himself sufficiently to speak, he charged
the men with violating the rules of Green Mill — their own
promises, and duty. He enlarged upon the danger to
which they were exposing themselves, and particularly on
the risk to which the mill was subjected. “Mr. Gouch,”
he said, “my head-stock man, my trusty servant, I had not
expected this.”

“Clover'll build —” began Mr. Gouch.

“Don't name Clover to me!” retorted the Captain. “I
am not afraid of Clover; Clover does n't rule here. Who
threw that basket at me?”

“I threw it,” answered Richard; “but I did not intend to
hit any one; I did not see you.”

“Drinking! In liquor! Did not know what you were
about! Could not discern an object of my size! I made no
impression on you!”

“I cannot explain,” said Richard. “I can say nothing
about it.”

“I presume you cannot,” answered the Captain.

“Hoist the gate, Mr. Gouch! You will work an hour
longer for this. In justice, I could demand more; I shall
accept of that. I have suspected all was not right; I have
had intimations of your doings. The mill is jeopardized,
the whole corporation is jeopardized, by your conduct.
Frightful as is the cold, I left my bed to look after you.”

The men resumed their duties; the Captain, reädjusting
himself in his bear-skin coat, strutted to and fro across the
gangway.

Not many minutes after, approaching the door, he called
to Richard, and pointing to an angle of the road in front of

the mill, he said, “I see something stirring yonder. Be
spry and easy; catch it, — do not let it escape!”

Richard, approaching the mysterious object, found it to
be a man filling a basket with waste bits of wood. He trod
catlike, and seized the man firmly by the collar. The latter
dropped a stick he had in his hand, and fell back passively
on Richard's knees. The Captain leaped forward, saying,
“Hold on!” and also fastened himself to the culprit, who in
a low voice replied,

“I did n't succeed, did I? Don't hurt me!”

“He is shamming,” rejoined the Captain. “Let him not
give us the slip.”

They dragged him to the mill. The light revealed the
face of an old man, thin and gray. He was shaking with
the cold.

“Shut down,” said the Captain to Mr. Gouch; “there
are other matters to attend to. We have missed things
from the mill; an entire pile of stuff has been carried off;—
odd ends, to be sure, but such as there is market for, and
without which the mill could not live, — nay, it could n't
stand a day. I think we have got the knave.”

“It is an old man,” said Mr. Gouch.

“Old, is he?” asked the Captain, who had not noticed
this feature of the case. “Too old to be stealing; too old to
be in such bad business as this; too old to set such an
example.”

“Who would do it but me?” answered the ancient; “who
but Grandfather? Who would get a pitch-knot in the cold,
and the dark, that they might see the blaze, — that the young
folks might be gladdened? I am not old, and they will see
I am not.” This was said with a sort of doting chuckle.

“What shall we do with him?” inquired the Captain.

“I would let him go,” said Richard.

“Do you mean to insult me again, young man?” asked
the Captain. “Has neither your own conduct nor my forbearance
taught you decency?”

“I think the chips would do the man more good than he
can do us harm,” observed Philemon; “and I would not proceed
against him.”

“Who asked what you would do, Mr. Sweetly?” responded
the Captain.

“You did, sir,” answered Philemon.

“I asked what we should do with this criminal. I did
not ask after your private sentiments. The world is full
of them; we have enough of them. I have not been at all
this pains to find them out.”

“I replied to your question, sir, the best way I knew
how.”

“Call you that doing with the man?—to let him go—to take
no notice of what he has done, — to set this villany at large?”

“Suppose we duck him in the canal,” said Ezra, “then
hang him on the jack-pole to dry.”

“Don't do that,” said the old man. “I could n't live
through it. I have n't long to live; but I want to see the
children in a better way before I die.”

“If I could shake him, I would,” said the Captain, and
endeavored to suit the action to the word, but the garment
on which he seized parted in his hand; — “but I do not
like to take the law into my own hands; I should prefer
bringing him before a justice. I shall enter a complaint, in
the morning.”

“He may abscond, in the mean time,” suggested Ezra.

“Some one must stay with him,” observed the Captain,
directing an inquiring eye to his men.

“I will not,” said Philemon.

“Nor I,” added Ezra.

Silver was brooding over the fire, munching his pipe, and
would not answer.

“It is no part of a head-stock man's duty,” evasively
replied Mr. Gouch.

“You will do it, Richard,” said the Captain, “and I may
think better of you.”

“I will,” replied Richard.

“Watch him close,” enjoined the Captain, hooking Richard's
arm in that of the old man. “He will be called for
about ten o'clock in the morning.”

Having given a right direction to the affairs of justice, he
turned to the business of the mill.

The cold had increased. Midnight seemed to be gathering
itself up for a final plunge upon the morning. The old
man shook on Richard's arm.

“You are cold,” said Richard.

“They are,” replied the other.

“They need the wood?” continued Richard.

“I thought they did,” rejoined the old man. “They
seemed to. It may have been fancy; perhaps it was a
dream. I get confused in my head, I have so much to do;
and it seems sometimes as if I was all a dream.”

“They shall have it,” said Richard, with emphasis.

“It is too late now. It is over. I never thought I
should do that. I never thought we should come to that;
but a little blaze is so pretty. God's will be done!”

“I will pay for it,” said Richard. “There shall be no
trouble on that score.” He went to the spot where the
basket lay, which he filled; and giving the old man one
handle, and taking the other himself, he suffered his attendant
to lead the way whither he would go. This was in the
direction of the Factory Boarding Houses. Richard inquired
after the necessity of the fuel he was so unseasonably

supplying, as a clue to the crime over which he was so
strangely made sentry. He gathered from the old man
that two girls, his grandchildren, had come to work in the
Factories, and he had accompanied them; that one of them
was sick, and the other lay exhausted at the bedside; that
their means were short, and while the girls slept, he had
slipped away for the wood.

As they reached the steps of the house, the voice of Captain
Creamer was heard close behind.

“What does this mean?” he asked, angrily. “Have I
set a thief to watch a thief? Through your means, young
man, is the very thing consummated which I have wasted a
whole night to prevent?”

Richard explained; — the Captain was not propitiated.
Richard offered to deduct the value of the wood from his
wages. How little did he understand Captain Creamer!

“The value of the wood! A basket of chips!” The
Captain spurned the thought. “It was the wrong that affected
him,” he said; “the bad beginning of a young man.”
However, he could not easily reverse the course of events,
and these accomplices in crime were permitted to enter the
house with their ill-boding freight.

Richard followed his guide up stairs to a chamber under
the roof, in the third story. A lamp in an angle of the
chimney cast a shadow over the room, and faintly revealed
the forms of the two girls on the bed. Weariness had folded
the well one, and an opiate the sick one, in deep slumber;
and they were not aroused at the entrance of Richard and
his guide.

“We had better not try to make a fire,” said Richard;
“the room is not very cold, and the hearth is warm.”

“A few shavings,” whispered the old man; “just a
little blaze. Junia loves to see a blaze. It is a comfort

to her. And when t' other is gone, and I am gone, — and
that will be soon, — there will only be a little blaze, and the
memory of it, in all this cold world, for her to look upon.”
Richard drew some shavings from the basket, and soon had
them lighted. In the flickering glare which they cast over
the room, the old man looked and acted a little strangely,
betraying a singular medley of imbecility, pathos and joy.
He leaned over the bed with a deep and passionate interest.
Then turning to Richard, with a playful, but sad infatuation,
he pointed to the sleepers, and whispered, “That one,
the sick one, the one with morning hair, — her child's hair, —
is Violet. The other, with the evening hair, — she was born
in the evening, and there are stars in her soul, — is Junia.
Who called her Violet? I remember, her mother did, because
she was born in spring, when violets blow. And
she will die in the spring; it was then her mother died; she
will die when the birds begin to come, and the weather is
soft. If she could live then! But she had better not die
now. God's will be done! I know it was spring, for I was
sitting on the bank with the other when the nurse came.
We called the other Junia, because she was born in June;
and there is more summer in her; she is riper, and stronger,
and can bear up better; and she is full of warmth and pretty
life; her hair is darker, — they said it was then, and it is
now,—and she was always amongst us like the smooth meadow,
and her eye came into your heart like noon under
the shady trees. I remember it; I have a strong memory,
— a very strong memory. I remember a great many more
things than I used to when I was a young man. This one
was more tender, more frail, as the wind-flowers; she never
seemed to get stronger, and we made a lamb of her. She
hung like dew upon all of us, and all our feelings, — so her
mother said, — only we knew she must go soon; and when
the buds begin to burst, she will die. God's will be done!”

There was too much tenderness in the old man, too many
cherished though bitter and confused reminiscences, too
much vague but corroding sorrow, for Richard not to be
touched. He was silent and reflective; and his whole spirit
was concentrated on the beauty and the sadness that slumbered
before him, and the unwearied, tottering affection that
stood by the side of it.

Junia awoke, and, somewhat startled, said, “What is it,
Grandfather? Has the doctor come?”

“Nothing has happened, dear,” replied the Grandfather.

“I have no business here,” said Richard.

“Yes, you have, — you know you have,” answered the old
man. “You cannot go.”

“Let me make more fire,” rejoined Richard.

“Where did the wood come from?” asked Junia, approaching
the hearth.

“He brought it,” replied her Grandfather, pointing to
Richard.

“We are obliged to you,” Junia said; “but so cold, —
so late in the night —”.

There was a mystery about the wood, which neither of
them was ready to explain.

“Have you suffered much?” asked Richard.

“Yes,” replied Junia, “we do, for Grandfather's sake.”

“Have you suffered from cold?”

“Not much, — not long. Violet feels it sometimes.”

“What is her sickness?”

“She was always slender, and after our father and mother
died, she went to keeping school; but this was too much
for her, and she had an attack of bleeding. One of our
neighbors told us how strong her girls had become in the

Factories; and we must earn something — and we came
here. She was better for a while; but she is worse now, —
very bad, indeed. We are troubled that Grandfather should
exert himself so much.”

“They do not know me,” said the old man, a good deal
agitated; “they do not know how able I am, — how much I
can endure. They do not mean I shall know how weak
they are; they would keep it from me; they think it worries
me. But they cannot hide it, and I know she will die when
the season changes; — her mother did. I could have got
wood alone.”

“Did you go out for the wood, Grandfather?” asked
Junia, with surprise.

“I helped him,” said Richard, who wished to change that
subject. “We will have a nice fire;” and he put on more
chips and butts. He felt that his presence must be embarrassing;
he knew that the matter of the wood was so; and
he said, rising from his chair, “If there is anything I can
do for you, I shall be glad to do it.” “We are under
obligations to you,” Junia replied; “but we are not in need
of anything.” Richard advanced towards the door; but the
old man laid hands upon him, led him to his chair, adding
that he must stay.

“If Grandfather wishes it, — if it will make him happier,
— we shall be glad to have you stay,” said Junia.

Richard was bound to Capt. Creamer, and to the law, and
to his own promise, to stay; and since he could not explain
the real cause of his coming and staying, he said nothing.

“All for Grandfather!” The old man leaned forward,
with both elbows on his spread knees, rubbing his hands
before the fire, and repeated, with a dry laugh, “All for
Grandfather! They do not know it was all for them, and
that it has come to this all for them; God's will be done!”

“Tell me what has happened,” said Junia, with an anxious
tone.

“Nothing,” said Richard, “nothing to speak of now.
Your Grandfather was afraid you might suffer; and you will
suffer if you do not keep quiet. Your sister is waking.”

“Will God take care of us?” she asked.

“He will,” answered Richard, solemnly; “and to God let
us trust all things.”

Richard's manner was so kind, and his words so soothing,
that Junia, even if her heart had begun to work with some
inexplicable evil, regained her composure, and said “I will,”
and went to the bedside. She raised her sister, and laid
pillows under her head. The golden hair of the invalid,
beneath her white cap, and above her pale, delicate face, was
like a glowing cloud in the clear sky, and her blue eye
beamed deep and far, like the sea, beneath. “That is
Grandfather's friend,” said Junia to her. “Yes, my friend,
dear, my friend,” echoed the old man. “His name is
Richard.”

Violet nodded, and smiled a faint recognition to the
stranger.

“Have you none to help you?” asked Richard. “Are
there none in the house to take turns with you nights?”

“There is a number of girls,” replied Junia, “but there
has been a good deal of sickness this winter, and they have
been called out often, and broken of their rest. Those that
have strength and leisure are devoting it to Miss Eyre,
getting her ready to be married. She is to be married to
Clover, — you may know him; a Mr. Clover, who works at
the Saw-mills, — and they say Clover will build, and that he
expects to put up a fine house, and to live in style; and the
girls are exerting themselves for Plumy Alicia. She is a
fascinating girl, and has many friends; but I think she never

liked us very well, and I suppose we get less attention, at
this time, on that account. But so long as I have any force
left, I can do without their assistance.”

Richard felt another singular, strong twinge. The name
that haunted the Green Mill had got into this sick chamber;
that man, whom he had never seen, and never until to-day
heard of, seemed to be chasing him like an evil or a mocking
genius.

“We have had wood until to-night,” continued Junia.

The mention of the wood troubled Richard, as he knew it
did the Grandfather. He would have rushed out doors; but
that would not help matters within. He struggled with
himself, arresting the natural train of association, and repressing
all sense of the strange complexity that surrounded
him, and became calm.

The invalid, wasting under a seated pulmonary attack,
coughed at intervals, breathed heavily, nor could she help
disclosing the pains that invaded her frame.

“When the weather changes,” the old man maundered,
— “when the warm days come, when the violets sprout —”

Junia, tranquil as was her manner, lightly as she discharged
the offices of the sick room, inured as she had
become to the mournful chant of her Grandfather, and to
the still sadder presages of her own mind, could not resist
the perpetual sorrow that as a storm beat against her breast,
and she wept.

“Have you no friends in the city?” asked Richard.
“None,” she said. “Has no clergyman been to see you?”
“Not any.” “Have no prayers been made here?” “Many,
many,” she said. “We have all prayed.”

“Do you ever pray?” inquired the old man.

“Yes,” replied Richard.

“Young men do not pray as they used to,” rejoined the

elder. "In my day, they prayed. God was all about us,
and our spirits were lively and growing; and the angels took
prayers from us, as the bees and humming-birds draw
honey from the flowers. The young men are getting old,
very old, and dry, and blasted. I am young,—ha, ha!"

"I should like to have him pray," said the sick one.

Richard read the twenty-third Psalm, in its motion so
full of spiritual and halcyon-like wafture, in its feeling so
fervid, trustful and joyous;—and prayed. He collected
into one earnest, sympathetic utterance, before God, the
hopes and the fears, the anguish and the aspirations, of the
hour.

The night waned. The Mill bells rang early, sharp, and
clear; all parts of the house resounded with the clatter of
the rising and the departing, of Work resuming its sandals,
and going forth to its pilgrim's progress for the day.
Some of the girls looked into the chamber, to inquire after
the patient, and hasted away.

The landlady entered with a tray, furnished with such
articles of food or nourishment as the invalid might require.
She wore glasses, and had a gingham handkerchief thrown
over her head, under which any quantity of grizzly hair
struggled into view. She cast her eyes over her glasses
twice at Richard,—once as she passed him towards the bed,
and next when she had reached the bed. Addressing Junia
and the old man, she said, "Breakfast is waiting." Did
she intend, thought Richard, they should take their meal
from the tray? She did not mean that, and they did not
understand her to mean that. She meant that their breakfast
was ready below. "Strangers are to be reported," she
added ; "that is the rule of the large boarding-houses,—f
ront stairs carpeted, and Ladies' Parlor,—as one might see
when they came up, and not act here as Charley Walter

did. Perhaps he did n't know 't was Whichcomb's, — seeing
he come in the night, — and thought it was Cain's,
where they don't keep any hours; if they did, they would
stop, some time or other, boiling their knucks. Velzora Ann
Felty would cry when I spoke about it, and the things no
more touched on her plate than if she had been at Cain's.”

Both Junia and the old man said they did not wish for
breakfast; and certainly that was the last thing Richard
thought of. Junia took charge of what had been brought
for Violet, and the landlady remained in the room only long
enough to reconnoitre the person and purpose of Richard.
“A cousin, Miss Junia?” “No,” replied Junia. “Came
in the night? — an old friend?” “A friend,” answered
Richard. “Been here all night — but I shall not be hard
with you; the girls have their wills and ways, — I shall not
provoke them.” She retreated through the door.

Presently Mrs. Whichcomb returned for the tray, and to
recover such portion of its contents as were not otherwise
disposed of. Richard, who wished to communicate with
the head of the house touching his rather equivocal and
very unexpected entry into it, followed as she left the room.

He found her descending the stairs, and combining with
each step a nod of the head, and an ejaculation of the
numerals, as if the three things timed each other. “One,
two, great plate, little plate; three, four, five, six, knife,
fork, tea-spoon, and little jelly-spoon. Six, six! little jelly-spoon;
gone!” She stopped, and looked back up the stairs,
to see if she had miscounted a step. She beheld Richard
watching her from above.

“O!” said she, “I was just thinking of you. No relation,
— only a friend. Do you know your friends? — do you
know them?” Richard replied that he had never seen
them before that night. “I dare say,” answered the woman.

“It is so in all the first-class houses, which Charley Walter
knew all about it, for he pigged a month at Cain's, where
they are all in a muss. And Velzora Ann Felty could n't
have known it, for she was sick. Sickness is a bad thing in
a house. I had rather have ten well persons than one sick,
at any time.” Richard observed it was not strange she
should. “There is a great deal of viciousness in sickness;
— vice brings it on.” Richard said there was truth in that
remark. “The eating and drinking is nothing, — they are
welcome to the sugar, and jelly, and cream, — but when it
comes to the things themselves that one depends on to get
along at all, and purloining and putting out of the way,
which our extra time does not deserve, it is too much.
Many people are sick to gratify their wicked propensities.
You may not know it and would not say so.” Richard was
silent. He did not know it, and he could not say so.
“They take to their beds for the sake of being waited on;
they linger along, that they may have more opportunities
for imposing on the house; and they go to their graves with
silver spoons in their hands!” This climax was awful, and
the landlady felt it to be so; she staggered under the load
of her conceptions, and would have fallen if the balustrade
had not been a strong one.

It would have helped Richard to be put in possession of
certain particulars relating to this woman. A catastrophe
once came off in her house, from which she never entirely
recovered. It was known as the Charley Walter affair, or
the Velzora Ann Felty affair. This tinged her mind. She
referred to it when she was speaking of other things, — she
thought of it even when she was thinking of other things.
It was a rock in the current of her being, around which her
feelings perpetually eddied. In addition, she hated Cain's,
a contiguous boarding-house. And, what was most remote

from Richard's thoughts at the moment, she was anxious
about her property.

But Richard, who was simply solicitous to be disencumbered
of his confused feelings, and to unfold to the landlady
the nature of his position, and why he was in the house,
disgusted at her manner, returned to the chamber.

The officers would soon be there; the secret would be
forthcoming, do what he might. The more he saw of
Junia, the more he was assured of her true womanliness,
and her capability of encountering evil; he stifled his
repugnance to giving her pain, and resolved to acquaint her
with the simple state of the case. Taking her one side, he
related what had befallen in the night; how her grandfather
was detected in theft, and he was appointed to watch
him. He doubted if the old man would be convicted,
though he did not know what Captain Creamer might be
able to do.

In the mean time, he would take an instant and run to his
brother's, that they might not be alarmed at his long absence.
Returning forthwith, he encountered on the stairs
the Captain, the City Constable, who was knocking at the
door of the sick room, the landlady, and several others,
women and girls, whom he did not know. “Out,” said the
Captain to him; “but is the old man in?” He said this
with a violent glance at Richard, which he meant to be
ungracious and stinging, and which should sever the young
man in twain. Richard made no reply. The door did not
open, and the Constable rapped again. He wished to be
civil. He held his ear against it, to hear if it manifested
any signs of relenting. He then looked hard at the door,
as much as to say, “I give you a minute; and if you do not
open, I shall break in.”

The lips of this functionary were tightly compressed, and

his eye was vacant and dreamy; he did not notice the
crowd that was about him; he did not feel the boys that, in
their eagerness to be in with the foremost, trod on his heels.
Klumpp was a man of one idea, and exactly suited to a
painful or disagreeable duty. Nothing would prevent his
arriving at his main object; nothing extraneous could divert
his mind or mislead his steps. He had recently been elected
to office; he felt his inexperience, but he wished to be faithful;
he had often heard of the tap on the shoulder, and the
look in the eye, and the whispered “Come with me;” he
had seen the thing done, when he was a boy, and he had
heard the old constable describe how he treated desperate
offenders to it, and there was something magical in that tap,
and that look, and that whisper; and he was now the magician
himself, and he wished to conjure not only with success,
but with dignity. Hence the uneasy, abstract way he
had. The mercury, even now, stood nearly at zero, but he
did not notice it; and when Mrs. Whichcomb spurted out
her innuendoes, he did not notice her.

The mistress of the house had exchanged the gingham
handkerchief for a black-bordered cap. She wiped her face
with her apron, and leered at Richard. Her long, scant
fore teeth, that looked like wheel-cogs, seconded the endeavor
of her lips, and conveyed an expression of very vulgar
satisfaction. Her manner betokened great intimacy
with Richard, great understanding of his humor, great
insight into what she knew would be his feelings on the
occasion. “The world always turns out just about as we
calculate,” she said; “the world cannot deceive us long.
He would not believe it, when I told him. But 't is worse,
now. Was there any stealing, then? — ha! ha!” She
laughed, — she giggled. “Miss Eyre, this is the young
man that can tell about it. Have you examined your trunks

and drawers, girls? I have heard Plumy Alicia say, says
she, `It was so,' says she. Ha! ha!”

A young lady in the crowd, whom this last observation
seemed to arouse, and to whom it was directed, raised her
hand, and shook her head, as if she would hush Mrs.
Whichcomb, at the same time suffusing her face with
blushes, that might have aroused the attention of anybody
else.

This must be Miss Plumy Alicia Eyre, thought Richard;
and he turned to look at her; and having looked once, he
looked again. She was worth looking at, and she seemed
even to exact an involuntary regard. She blushed, but in
such a way as to make you blush, and then to set you to
looking at her to see why she made you blush. So Richard
found himself looking at her.

She was of good proportions, and of a suggestive and
energetic countenance. Her hair was elaborated into streaming
ringlets and flowing plaits. There were showy hoops
in her ears, and glancing rings on her fingers. She had
what are termed speaking eyes, — eyes full of animation,
and brightness, and deliciousness, — and a pair of splendid
dimples. Plumy Alicia, — we call her by the only species
of titular abridgment she tolerated, — Plumy Alicia had no
previous designs on Richard; but when he looked so earnestly
at her, when he seemed so deeply interested in her,
when she saw his handsome figure, and his intelligent face,
some design took root in her. We do her no injustice in
saying this, for it was evident to all who saw her; and her
own conscience, if it were questioned, would have confessed
it. But she had no time to pursue her arts, for the attention
and person of Richard were called to other things.

Klumpp got into the room; but he did not see that it was
a sick room, nor that one lay emaciated on the bed and

another sobbing near her; nor that the old man sat bending
over both of them, with their arms about his neck. He
only saw the old man, and the white arms — the arms lying
between him and the magical tap — interfering with Justice
and Crime. Klumpp undid the arms, and executed the tap,
and then drew back to see the effect. The old man did
not stir. Klumpp then approached, and whispered the
cabalistic words in his ear, “Come with me!” Still the old
man moved not. He then raised him up, and looked in his
eye. The eye did it. The old man went; and it was soon
rumored, in all taverns and stables, and all lairs of boys and
boyish men, what an eye Klumpp had; and everybody began
to be afraid of Klumpp's eye.

The old man went to his trial. Richard, a leading witness,
must of course go too. He fell in with the crowd
that dogged the steps of Justice. The seat of judgment was
the office of Benjamin Dennington, Esq., the Governor's
son, — or Squire Benjamin, as he was called, — before whom
the complaint was brought.

Captain Creamer testified to such facts as are in possession
of the reader. It was a plain case, and the prisoner
might as well have confessed his guilt; which in effect,
though not in words, he did do. But what coloring would
the facts bear? This was the important question, and the
judge felt it to be so. Squire Benjamin reverenced justice,
and he loved mercy. Richard spoke of some things that
the Captain did not know. He alluded to the imbecility of
the old man, to his affection for his grandchildren, to the
straitened circumstances of the family, to the sick one, to
the devoted Junia. Squire Benjamin had sisters, and his
sympathies, — dangerous things in a judge! — were stirred.
The Captain saw the danger to his cause, and exploded on
the necessity of justice, strict justice, and of quelling the

dangerous temper of the times. Richard was again questioned.
He not only answered what was put to him; he
enlarged on the subject; he glowed in depicting the extenuating
circumstances; he was even eloquent in his enumeration
of the several points of interest. The prisoner was
acquitted with a reprimand.