University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BISHOP'S SON.

IF tormenting fancies came to Margaret, when she
missed Samuel at church, with what an accession
of tormenting power did they come when
she lay on her own bed, tossing to and fro, night
after night. She could not speak of him, and
her mother would not; she, simple soul, being completely
submerged by the civilities of the bishop's son.

What could they do to show their gratitude for such
condescension! She had nothing in her poor house worthy
his acceptance; more was the pity; Margaret was provokingly
insensible of the honor that had been done her.
Couldn't she distinguish a gentleman from a clodhopper?

Every stab like this set Margaret's heart bleeding, but
she said nothing; she only kept apart, and moped and
mourned, and fed her fears till they grew strong and began
to suck the life out of her. In the middle of the night she
would get up and put the ring on her finger, and live over
in memory the moment when, with its first shining on her
hand, it delighted all her being; she would take down from
the wall the bird's wing of scarlet, and rock it on her bosom,
and smooth its ruffled down, and prattle to it, and kiss it,
and so at last quiet her burning brain by the sweet insanity
of her heart.

Perhaps the ecstasy of love is never far away from madness,
and Margaret was in love, wildly, passionately in love.

The time came when she could not quiet her brain with
any device. We do not always know how much our friend
is to us, our senses lulled, if not dulled by custom and familiarity,
and the certainty of possession; but let some
calamity threaten, let death come, and we know whose
hands have held our heart-strings.

All her tasks were performed, as usual, even more
promptly by poor Margaret, but with mechanical rather
than intelligent zeal; her thoughts were otherwhere. She
did not see the flowers she tended at the door, nor the
birds that wrangled for seeds on the same stalk, nor the
long reaches of dusty gold stretching up the lane at sunset.
She did not know the words she read; she did not hunger
nor thirst, except with the hunger of the heart, and the
thirst of the soul. She could look but one way, and at last
the time came when she could go but one way.

One evening, being in the meadow to fetch home the
cows, she turned directly from the hillside where she saw
them feeding, turned without premeditation, without any
thought at all, and walking rapidly, running almost, came
to the door of the house where Samuel lived, and eager, pale,
trembling, knocked for admission. She would know, once
for all, whether Samuel were gone or not, whether he were
dead or alive, and whether, being alive, he loved or hated;
she must know this or die.

Mrs. Whiteflock came herself to the door, and her face
filled with a great wonder when she saw Margaret standing
there; it was something exigent that brought her at milking
time.

“What in the world has happened?” she cries; “nothing
bad, I hope.”

“O no, nothing bad!” and Margaret's white cheek grew
scarlet. The enthusiasm that had brought her began to give
way. She heard merry voices and the clatter of dishes
inside, with all the stir of excitement which hungry men
make over their suppers, and Mrs. Whiteflock had evidently
just risen from the table, for she held in one hand the half
of a biscuit sopped in honey, and waited as one anxious to
resume a pleasing occupation. Margaret hesitated, trying
to invent some excuse; her courage would not bear her
through; that piece of biscuit disenchanted her of her fears,
saying very plainly, all here is well, and Samuel into the
bargain!

She was stammering out some pretence, when the mistress
of ceremonies threw wide the door, and completed her discomfiture
by exclaiming, “Do come in child, and recover
yourself; you seem to be all of a tremble.” Whether she

had trembled previously or not, she trembled now, and quite
fell against the door-case.

“Mercy! is any body dead?” says Mrs. Whiteflock.

“No, ma'm,” answered Margaret, in a little, low voice
that seemed afraid of itself. “I want to know if Samuel is
here.”

“Samuel? bless your soul, yes, here he is, if that's all
you want.”

She pushed Margaret forward as she spoke, and there
before her frightened face sat Samuel, not as fancy had pictured
him, pale, despondent, pining for her, but red,
rolicking, his shirt collar open, and a pocket handkerchief
girded about his waist, eating supper with half a dozen
sheep-shearers.

Her face burned like fire when she saw the sly winks of the
shearers, a rude set of fellows, and other coarse indications
of a perception of the real nature of her errand. Doubtless
the whiskey bottle had been in liberal use, and the natural
animal buoyancy of strong health, thus stimulated to the
dangerous edge of decency. Their ragged boots kicked at
Samuel's legs under the table, and their well laden knives
balanced midway between mouth and plate, when, at last,
their roars of laughter subsided. “Eh, old feller, we begin
to understand about that ere lamb you was a'talkin of to-day.
You don't pull the wool over our eyes. No, sir!”

No doubt Samuel was glad in his heart to see Margaret,
and be assured, as he was by her thus seeking him, of her
deep and tender interest; nevertheless, false pride or shame-facedness,
or both, kept him from advancing and receiving
her with any show of gladness. So that her confusion
almost overcame her as she said, “Mother wishes to see
you, Samuel.”

“If Mrs. Fairfax wants to see me, she knows where to
find me, I reckon, at home, and hard at work, where a poor
fellow should be.” And Samuel, who had partly risen,
seated himself again as though he had nothing more to say.
He seated himself, but ate no more, and if he had not partaken
of something stronger than tea that afternoon, it is
not likely he would have spoken thus. As it was he had
wronged himself as much as he had wronged his poor little
sweet-heart, drooping like a down-trodden wild flower before
him. Every word had tortured him as he said it, but he

had pre-determined to meet her thus coldly, in vindication
of his wounded pride, of his manhood, and of the slight
which had seemed to be put upon him; and the sly winks,
the rude laughter, and the nudges of the ragged boots under
the table had helped him to execute his bad resolve. He
would have unsaid all the next moment, if he could, and
when he beheld the abashed face, and the little trembles
about the mouth so preciously dear to him, he could hardly
refrain from going forward and kissing her before them all.
He did no such thing, however; he put down his heart, and
bore it through, saying only in a rough, indifferent way,
“As I'm sent for, I reckon I'll go after my work is done;
you may tell your mother so if you have a mind to.”

Margaret could not know how deeply he had felt himself
injured. She could not know how cruelly she had seemed
to slight him, nor could she appreciate the conflict of despairing
love and stubborn pride that was within him,
rending and tearing and making him almost irresponsible
for himself. She did not as yet suspect his bitterest grievance,
and every separate word struck into her heart like a
sharp stab. His cold, distrustful glance benumbed her like
death; she felt the blood running chill in her veins, a whirling
sensation in her brain, saw a darkness closing about her,
and with just strength enough left to stand, turned away,
scarcely for a time knowing whither she went. It was all
like some dreadful dream, only she knew that it was not a
dream; it was not a dream, it was not reality, it was not
anything that she could by any possibility have conceived
of; she staggered as she walked, and was half way home,
— for she turned home by instinct — before she began to
comprehend the nature of her situation.

She stood still, and lifted her eyes to heaven; the moon
was coming up with her old, familiar look of gentleness and
peace; she turned to the earth; the dew was lying gray
along the grass, and, save the silver tinkling of the distant
bells, a soft silence was gathering everything to itself.

Down the slope before her, nestled among its sheltering
apple-trees, was her home; the small window of her chamber
glittered in the moonlight, and the evening candle glimmered
through the open door; it all looked strange and
sad, as though she were seeing it from some new point of

observation, or as though it had undergone some sudden
and melancholy change.

Across the fields, and half way up the ridge behind her,
its pretty garden smiling in front, and sheltered and in part
overarched by a clump of knotty oaks, stood the quiet parsonage,
all its quaint gables and long porches and carved
porticos distinctly outlined in the clear light. She thought
of her mother sewing by the candle light, thought of the
preacher reading in his study, of his smile and his beautiful
hair, and then she thought of Samuel, red and greasy from
sheep shearing; thought of his open collar and his hard words,
and doubt and distrust, both of herself and him, stole like a
thief to her bosom, and added a yet sharper pain to her pains.

She sunk down, utterly overpowered, and laid her face to
the ground as to the face of a sister, took the long grass in
her hands and covered her eyes with it, and moaned and
sobbed as one utterly forlorn.

The dews and the night air chilled her at length, and in
this way were the means of bringing her back to herself;
she was still in the world of men, not in the world of demons;
the sky was above her, the ground beneath; she
was alive and must bear herself some way toward her
friends and toward Samuel, but how?

She knew that she was absorbed by Samuel, completely
absorbed, but what place he was finally to occupy in her
regard she could not tell. In vain she tried to adjust herself
to the new aspect in which he had presented himself.
She could not but condemn his conduct; but somehow,
after all, she did not condemn him. It was the whiskey; it
was the sheep-shearers, with whom by necessity he had
been thrown. He was poor and could not choose his occupation
nor his friends. If it had not been for this, if it had
not been for that; if she herself had not been so foolishly,
so wickedly at fault, Samuel might have been blameless.
He was the same as blameless.

Only that evening, within an hour, she had spoken a lie,
as all who heard it knew; moreover, it must presently come
to the ears of her mother. Samuel would fulfil his promise,
and in the fulfilment of it would convict her! What should
she say? She would have been glad just then if the hills
had slid together and left her beneath them. But this
would not happen; whatever was done she must do herself.

She had not, as we have said, condemned Samuel utterly,
out of all hope; nevertheless, she had no desire to see him,
or believed she had none. She would have been glad, or at
least thought she would have been glad, if the meeting
about to take place between them could have been avoided.
All she desired just then was to gain time; for what purpose
she did not know; she did not even try to think.
Another day, another hour, perhaps, she would see her
way more clearly. But the time pressed, and there could
be no delay; at all hazards, she must prevent her mother
from knowing what she had done; her mother, who had no
sympathy with her, who utterly discarded the fact that
caused her to require sympathy. The mother must not
know the child had been seeking the man she despised.
She knew the path Samuel would take; she would walk
there, and, intercepting him, own the truth that she had
sought him on her own and not on her mother's account.
What further she should say she did not determine; probably
she would never see him more.

A long hour she had been on the path, walking to and
fro, listening and looking, when at last she recognized the
well-known step. He was coming, but not from the point
she had expected; he had already been to see her mother,
having taken the highroad instead of the by-path, and was
now returning home.

He had seen her mother, — had told her all, no doubt;
she was too late, — all too late. Anger and scorn came to
her support in her humiliation; such bad supporters do we
sometimes get when we have nothing else to help us. She
flew at him madly, for what is so mad as an enraged
woman! She accused him of wilfully, wickedly misinterpreting
her; he knew she had come to see him, and for
nothing else; he knew how much she had suffered; he
must have seen it all, and if he had been a man, if he had
been any part of the man she had always supposed him to
be, he would have come to the door, have come outside the
door, and learned definitely what she wanted, instead of
hanging back, and laughing with the sheep-shearers as he
had done. Shame! shame! She was not only ashamed
of him; she was ashamed of herself that she had ever
cared for so base a fellow!

Thus attacked, Samuel defended himself very earnestly,
but with more wit than honesty, it must be owned.

He had understood her well enough; to be sure he had;
he had understood her to say, and she certainly did say, her
mother wished to see him. “Your lady mother,” he
worded it. He had always supposed her to be a young
woman who spoke the truth and only the truth; and how
should he suspect she meant what she did not say. She
had no trouble to express herself plainly; that was clear;
he understood her now, he thought, if he had failed to do
so before; still, if she had any explanation to make, he was
ready to hear it, — ready to do her justice if he had not
done so.

He was singularly, provokingly self-possessed in all this,
seeming to be master of himself and of the occasion, much
more than was usual with him. The stimulant of which he
had partaken had spurred up the whole man. He had not
come in his sheep-shearer's dress, neither; he understood
the value which women attach to externals, and was all
shining in his Sunday best; even the daisy in his button-hole
was not wanting, and the handsome beard had been
cared for with special fondness. His hat was a little one
side, and he played with the daisy as he waited for her
answer.

Of course Margaret said she had no explanation to make;
what could she say, indeed, that she would say, and what
would she say that she could?

“I haven't any explanation to make, and I haven't any
wrongs to right; anyhow, none that you can right, Mr.
Dale!” she said, haughtily, and this was all the answer she
would give.

“Mr. Dale! and this from you, Margaret!”

Samuel stopped playing with his daisy, and his chin
buried itself deep in his beard. He had spoken with so
tender, so sad a reproachfulness, that Margaret's heart
almost misgave her, and when she answered, it was with
some slight tremor of voice. “If you had come to the
door,” she said, “all this would not have happened.”

“All what, my darlin'? it isn't too late! I didn't tell
your mother.” He had come close and put his arm about
her, for he needed but a soft word.

She drew away, flinging off the arm as though it were
contamination. “But you didn't come,” she said, “and
there's an end!”

“How could I s'pose, Margaret,” (he was not yet
quite sincere,) “that you had anything to say to me that
you couldn't say before my friends and equals? I'm but a
dull fellow, you know. His reverence yonder,” (he pointed
to the personage) “might a-knowed what you meant; I
daresay he would.”

“I don't know what his reverence would have known,
but I know what you knew: it may suit you just now to
call yourself dull. O Samuel? how could you? how can
you?”

He drew nearer by two or three steps. “What had you
to say if I had gone to the door — would to God I had —
that you can't say now?”

Margaret saw her power, and abused it, as women have
done, and probably will do to the end. She moved farther
from him as she answered: “Whether or not I had anything
to say, I haven't anything to say now, except this:
It will be a good while before I trouble you with another
visit!”

“You never did trouble me, Margaret; I was to blame,
I was a good deal to blame, but I wasn't all to blame.
Dear Margaret, don't let's throw away what may be, just
because we've throwed away what might 'a' been!” He
drew still nearer, and held out his hand.

She would not take his hand, nor suffer him to take hers.
“I haven't thrown away anything,” she said, “that I
know of; nothing that I wouldn't throw away again, for
certain.”

“You've throwed away the happiness of your whole
life; that's what you've throwed away!” Samuel answered,
standing erect. “And I reckon you'll be sorry for
it sometime. Sorry when it's too late, maybe.”

Margaret laughed in derision, and he went on:

“You may think a ribbon at your throat, or a jewel hung
in your ear, is everything, but I can tell you there are
better things! and if you don't believe it, more's the pity.
I have seen women that could make their poverty an ornament,
and through their spiritual purity and heavenly-mindedness,
shine with a splendor that shamed your purple
and fine linen! Talk about the ermine of kings even, let
alone the poor trifles that have turned your head; and
what is it to the saintly robes that have been trimmed with

fire! There are things to live for in this world beside the
idle fashion that passeth away; there's marvels and mysteries
in the cloud and the whirlwind; the sunset and the
star; the grass at your feet and the flower of the grass;
the dewdrop, the wild bird's song; everything that God
has made and give to us to enjoy and to be a cloud of witnesses
of himself. O Margaret, Margaret, I feel sometimes
strong enough to go right forward alone, leaving everything,
even you, if you falter and fail, and prefer a white
hand to a strong soul, and a soft voice to the love that is
too tender and too true to be told by poor common words.”

“A pretty excuse for silence, to be sure!” interposed
Margaret, abruptly.

“Well, there was another reason,” Samuel said; I
didn't dare to speak.”

“Didn't dare to speak!” echoed Margaret.

“No, didn't dare, both because I felt you was so much
better than what I was, and because” — (he hesitated and
went on) — “because I'd promised not to. I don't care, I'll
say it all out now! A bad promise is better broke than kept.
I give my word I wouldn't speak to you about love; but
cuss the promise, and cuss the hour I made it! I will
speak, and I do speak, and I swear I love you, — swear it
by the mother of our Lord!”

Margaret drew back, startled this time by his bold impetuosity.

“You know it!” he cried, “you know it!” striding up
and almost clutching her by the shoulder. “You know
you're treading on my heart at every step; but what do
you care for that! you're all took up with somebody else!”
He let go of her now; his voice changed; his whole manner
changed. “You may find men enough that know more
than I do,” he said; “and men that are more set off by
outside tinsel and show; but you'll never find a man that's
yours all through and through as I am.”

He was silent now, for his emotions would not allow him
to go on.

“I am glad you know there's other men in the world,”
said Margaret; “some, too, that know a'most as much as
you do.”

“You're crueller than you need be, seems to me,” Samuel
answered. “I know my shortcomin's all too well,

Miss Margaret. I know how fur, in pint of accomplishments,
I fall below the bishop's son, for instance; and more than
this, I know how your head has been turned by his sleek
ways; how I hate him, — God forgive me!”

“My head turned by Mr. Lightwait, indeed! I should
like to know when?”

“Why in the meetin'-house, Sunday, for once! So much
turned, that you couldn't, or wouldn't see me, anyhow.”

“You wasn't at meeting, Sunday?” Margaret was
betrayed by her surprise into more earnestness than she
designed.

“Maybe I wasn't! and maybe I didn't see the fine gentleman
bowin' so low, and speakin' so sweet! and maybe
you didn't drop your handkerchief in your scornful turnin'
from me, and maybe you wasn't too proud to take it from
my hand!”

“I didn't see you, Samuel, as true as I stand here, I
didn't!”

“You didn't want to see me, Miss Margaret; you always
seen me before; it was all of the bishop's son.”

Then Margaret told with simple sincerity that she did
want to see him, that she looked for him everywhere, that
she was faint and sick with disappointment. “Do you
think if I had not wanted to see you, I would have gone to
seek you to-night, as I did?” she said in conclusion. Samuel
was silent, and she continued, for she had got upon the
sore point now, “Oh! Samuel, if your enemy had told me
you would ever treat me as you did, I would have called
him a liar to his face! I thought there was no man in the
world like you! I thought you were the only man in the
world, for you were all the world to me. “Oh, Samuel!
Samuel!”

“And you don't think so now, darlin'?”

“No! I don't think so now.”

“Well, my Daisy, my little Daisy, purer than snow, I
won't ask you to think so now, not just now; but if you
ever thought it, or anything like it;” he was on his knees
before her, and both her hands in his; but what protestation
or proposal he might have made, or what concession or
acceptance she, it is quite impossible to say. All at once,
without premonition of sight or sound, a man passed them,
so close, that his shadow darkened all the face of Samuel.

It was Mr. Lightwait; both recognized him on the instant.

“Let me go,” said Margaret, withdrawing her hands;
her whole manner changed and chilled and freezing. “I have
stayed too long already; what will he think of me, with
you, in such a place, at such a time? I wish I had not
gone to see you; I wish I had never seen you!”

Perhaps she did not design it; perhaps it was mere
chance, but the emphasis fell on the words with you in a way
that was injuriously significant.

“With me!” cried Samuel, on his feet before the words
were out. “God 'a' mercy! Am I a man that it's a disgrace
to be seen with? I don't ask you to stay any longer, Miss
Margaret, this time o' night, to be sure! why the sunset is
hardly done shinin', and as for the place, it's a'most under
your mother's windows! Cuss the thing! I wish I had
struck it down; it's haunted me before to-night!”

“Hush, hush!” said Margaret, her finger on her lip.

There he was again, not a dozen yards from them, his fair
face aglow with a smile of triumph. The moonlight fell full
upon him, and he remained confronting them still as a
statue, while the village clock struck nine. Both Margaret
and Samuel noted it, and counted the strokes, as they had
occasion to remember. It was strange, though they did not
think of it at the time, that they should have counted the
strokes, inasmuch as both were in a state of preternatural
excitement. The “hush” of Margaret had done anything
but hush her wild lover; he had started as in act to spring,
when she caught his arm, and, by main strength, held him
back. She felt his untrammeled hand fumbling under hers
for a moment, saw something shining in the moonlight, heard
a little click, and then the sharp report of a pistol shot.

“My God! my God!” This was all she said. Whether
Samuel had torn himself from her arm, or whether she had
let go of him, she could not tell. She had fled down the
meadow, and the candle light from the open door had run
out to meet her before she knew anything. She did not
then pause to take thought, but rushing in, in all her wild
disorder, fell to the ground, as it happened, between her
mother and an evening visitor, who had entered the previous
minute; fell, fluttering, crying, like some poor bird, stricken
in its flight.

“My child, my sweet child!” That voice was not her

mother's, and the breast to which she was being drawn with
such tender solicitude was not that of her mother either.
She sat up; the crying stilled, the fluttering gone, and, with
her hand pressed to her forehead, gazed in and through
the face bending over her with a look of amazement amounting
almost to terror. It was Mr. Lightwait who was thus
soothing and supporting her.

A moment this perplexed look grew into his brows, and
then she sprang away, laughing, weeping, making phrenzied
exclamations, all at once.

Mrs. Fairfax was white with anger; rage were the better
word. Alone with the bishop's son, and all things so softly
concurring, who knew what might have come of it, but for
the untimely interruption of the little minx, her daughter?
She did not ask what had happened; she did not care. She
only said, `I am ashamed of you, child! Pray, brother
Lightwait, take no notice of her; she is subject to these
foolish fits, if she but hear an owl hoot in the dark.” Then
she told Margaret peremptorily to go to bed. Here Mr.
Lightwait interposed. It was not safe to send the child to
bed in her condition. Sister Fairfax was, for once, in the
wrong; it was quite natural, perhaps, that she should be a
little impatient, but, for his part, he was curious to inquire
into the affair. Then, addressing himself to Margaret, he
called himself Father Lightwait, and approached her with
such consummate carefulness and kindness, that she was
nestled beside him, her head against his shoulder, all unaware.
He could not, however, with all his arts, draw from
her any intelligent account of what had befallen. She had
seen a ghost, and she would give no further explanation.

“A ghost, to be sure! And did it take the shape of a
man, my dear?”

“No, why should it?” Margaret did not mean to tell a
lie, nor did she feel in the least guilty; the words seemed
to have spoken themselves.

“O, I don't know; I think the visions young ladies see,
usually take that shape!”

Margaret drew away.

“Do you know, my dear,” he went on, softly putting her
hair from her forehead, “that I am a little superstitious myself?”
and in answer to her look of pleased inquiry, continued,
whispering the words in her ear, and brushing his

cheek against hers as he did so, “I think I will trust my
little saint not to betray my weakness.”

“If it's a secret, don't tell me,” exclaimed Margaret
earnestly; “I can't keep a secret.”

“I will trust you against your own testimony. I would
(he whispered again, very softly this time,) trust you against
the world!”

Mrs. Fairfax, a little miffed at being over-ruled in the matter
of sending Margaret to bed, had taken up her work. She
was crocheting a pair of slippers for her visitor, and sat
turned from, rather than toward him.

Margaret had put the confiding pastor a little back, with
a motion of her hand, as he whispered this, but he was not
disconcerted thereby; he took the fingers as though they
had been given him, and having held them fast, not indeed
letting them go until he had kissed them more than once.

“Mother, do you hear what Mr. Lightwait says? he has
got a story for us!” cries Margaret, with that artfulness
which is a part of the armor of women. Mrs. Fairfax faced
about.

“I was telling your little daughter here, or rather I was
about to tell her of an adventure I had to-night. I don't
know as it's worth your hearing, but it interests me a good
deal.”

“Certainly.” Mrs. Fairfax desired of all things to hear
it. She said this stiffly, but Mr. Lightwait received it as
the most gracious assent, and began: “In the first place, I
designed to call upon you at an earlier hour, but somehow,
one trifle after another prevented; and when I set out, at
last, it was with the determination to take the path across
the fields which, as you know, led me through Sister Whiteflock's
garden; I was coming down the middle path between
the currant-bushes, when all at once I became aware
of some one behind me, and looking back, saw Brother
Peter, with that strange look in his face that he sometimes
has, you know, and handing me a piece of folded paper, he
said: `The spirit of a woman that seemed to be your
mother, come to me just now, and made me write this —
read it; I don't know what it is, but I know you are to
read it right away.'

“I could not see to read the writing, — it is in pencil;
and, putting the paper in my pocket, would have gone on,

but Brother Peter almost dragged me back. `You must
read it,' he urged; `the woman said so.'

“Thus appealed to, I returned with him, and when he
had lighted the candle, I opened the paper and read, what
I will now read to you.

“This was the writing: `I entreat that Bishop John
walk by the high road to-night. From his mother, Bethy
Honeywell.'

“This is all, and the strangeness of the thing is, that my
mother (heaven rest her soul) was in the habit, during my
boyhood, of calling me Bishop John; it was her pet name,
indeed, expressing both her pride and affection at once;
but it is years since I have thought of my boyish title, and
certainly Brother Peter never heard of it. And yet another
thing curious, to say the least, the maiden name of my
mother was Honeywell — Elizabeth Honeywell, and my
father, in familiar household talk, often called her Bethy,
but she always wrote her name Elizabeth Lightwait, and
that is the way I think she would write it now if she wrote
it at all.”

“But mayn't she have taken these very means to convince
you of her presence?” suggested Margaret, all alive
with interest.

“So! Have I made a proselyte before I am convinced
myself?” The young man laughed that low, musical
laugh that was never hearty, never sympathetic, and said,
lightly, “If my mother could come to Brother Peter, why
couldn't she come to me?”

“I don't know,” said Margaret; “there's a good many
things I don't know.”

“What! is our little one so wise in her ignorance? and
so sharp, withal!”

Margaret had not thought of being wise, or sharp, and
she blushed all over, and certainly looked very charming in
her bright, bashful surprise.

The eyes of the young preacher met those of the girl,
just for an instant, and withdrew themselves, so that he
seemed to be staring into vacancy, as he half whispered,
half chanted: —

“And did you come by the meadow-path, after all?”
Margaret asked, as though she did not already know that
such could not have been the case.

“Ah, I was going to tell you. I persisted in my first
intention, and was about leaving Brother Peter and his conspirators,
when he was seized with involuntary shudderings,
and besought me with so much earnestness to pledge
myself to turn back and walk by the high road, in case I
should meet three geese flying toward me — one directly
over the other two, that I gave the promise; but so little
importance did I attach to it, that the whole affair was gone
quite from my mind, when, as I struck into your fields, the
whiz of wings caused me to look up, and there were the
three geese directly before me — the one above the others!
I then turned back, and came by the open road; but I
daresay nothing would have come of it if I had kept right
on.”

“I daresay not,” answered Margaret, looking upon the
ground.

“And now, I think, we have a right to ask for your
story, but you are bound to secrecy, you know, about
mine?”

O, yes, Margaret was bound; but as to herself, she had
no story; she was not sure that she had seen anything.

The conversation between them was diverted at this
point by the dog, Wolf, who walked deliberately in, and,
lying at the feet of his young mistress, fixed his eyes attentively
upon the stranger, growling and snapping his teeth,
if he but so much as offered to touch her. Margaret was
grateful to her shaggy friend, and set her little foot on his
head, by way of restraining him from violence, but more in
caressing than reproof.

The truth is, Margaret would hardly have been capable
of self-assertion if this man had chosen to carry her off
bodily, much less did she know how to parry his aggressive
fondness. He was, in the first place, almost twenty years
older than she, and in the next, he had all the policy,
learning, and address of a Jesuit, mingled with the sadness
of sincerity and the sweetness of love. Then his conventional
ways and habits, — the very tie of his white neck-cloth,
so consummately clerical and worldly at once; the
great seal ring on his little finger was a terror to her. She

feared to move, — feared to speak in his presence; she
thought perhaps such fine people had rules for everything,
and that, being ignorant of rules, she must, of necessity,
be ignorant of everything that constitutes good behavior.
Perhaps it was the fashion for clergymen, and more especially
for bishops' sons, to kiss the fingers of little girls in
fashionable parishes; how should she know? Maybe her
shy ways were not only rustic but rude. If she could but
know. If she but had some guide, some formula!

She was very uncomfortable in his presence, as it was;
that she had nestled to his side in the paroxysm of her first
fear, does not prove the contrary; she trusted him as the
weak naturally trusts the strong; relied upon him as ignorance
relies upon knowledge; but in her trust she distrusted,
and her reliance was dependence rather than confidence.
In some sort, the simple girl was fascinated by the
accomplished man. Like a wild bird taken by the snarer,
— one moment pecking food from the hand that holds it,
and the next, crying and fluttering to be away, — so was it
with Margaret.

So there they sat, the mother in her miff, intent, for the
most part, on her bright wool thread; Margaret, pale and
flushed by turns, her hands unconsciously getting themselves
hidden in her apron; her stout guardian, with his
speckled nose on the ground, and his watchful eyes upturned,
his feet gathered under him, and his tail beating to
the tune of tearing his man; and the preacher, serene with
himself and with all about him; sorrowfully cheerful, graciously
glad, benign, beautiful; one white hand buried in
his golden locks, and partly supporting the cheek that
turned toward Margaret, and all his handsome person disposed
to a mien of the comeliest manliness.

All at once, Wolf dragged himself forward a little, lifted
up his head, and snuffed the air. Then a buzz of eager
voices was heard, and men bearing lanterns were seen moving
about the adjoining field.

The flush and the blush went out of Margaret's cheek
now, once for all; she did not move nor speak; she seemed
not to breathe.

“They are searching for your ghost, perhaps,” Mr.
Lightwait said. She did not smile; she did not lift her
eyes; her fingers twitched a little, that was all.

“They are coming this way!” cries Mrs. Fairfax, throwing
down her worsted work; “that was the garden-gate.”

She was at the door; she was down the path; she had
met the men. “Have you heard the news, Mrs. Fairfax?”

“No! What has happened?”

“Why, Sam Dale has murdered our preacher! Shot him
to-night, right in your meadow here! The tavern-keeper
seen him do it, and took him on the spot.”

“What! the Bishop's son? Great God! Impossible!”

Mrs. Fairfax was so overcome by the thought of the
murder of a bishop's son, it was so much worse than the
murder of a common man, that all her senses were muddled,
and her personal knowledge for the moment went for nothing.

“The bishop's son murdered? and by Sam Dale? Shot
dead, you say!”

“Yes'em; shot with a pistol! Sam's give himself up!
We all seen the pistol!” “I had it in my hand!” said
one. “So did I!” said another. “They've got Sam's
hands tied behind him,” cried another. “Miss Hangerman
cut her bed-cord and brought it for the purpose!”

Then some one said he wouldn't be in Sam Dale's shoes
for a good deal; and was answered by the suggestion that
perhaps there wasn't any such person as Samuel Dale!
The fellow that called himself so might be named anything
else for all anybody knew. He was a gallus bird, likely.

Mrs. Fairfax was beginning to come to herself by this
time. “Have you found the body?” she asked.

“No, ma'am! We s'pose it's furder down the holler
than what Sam represented. Of course he'll lie!” Then
they all said, of course Sam would lie; and most of them,
that they never liked him from the first. He looked like a
highwayman — like a thief — like an assassin!

“Just follow me!” cries Mrs. Fairfax, quite come to
herself now, “and I'll show you where the body is! Sam
has mistaken his man, thank the Lord!”

When Mrs. Fairfax, overcome by curiosity, left the house,
she had seized Wolf by the collar and dragged him with
her; and the bishop's son, taking advantage of this and of
Margaret's stupor, immediately rose, caught her in his
arms, pressed her to his bosom, kissed her forehead, her

cheeks, her mouth, again and again, and with a God bless
you, my child! was gone; his interest in what was passing
without, if he had any, sacrificed to a dearer interest.

There was, therefore, no one except pale, stupefied Margaret
to be seen when the eager faces pressed in at the
door.

“Where is the body? You said you had it! Fetch us
to the sight of it!”

Such were the mingled demands and exclamations, as the
wild crowd went from one dark corner to another, fumbling
and feeling the way, or holding their lanterns before them,
preternaturally anxious for a sight of the bloody corpse.

Margaret caught the word “murder” joined to that of
Samuel, and with one long, heart-breaking moan, fell insensible
to the ground.

When the tumult subsided, they found her lying as one
dead; her faithful Wolf beside her, licking her hands, her
feet, and making at her ear a little numbling chatter of
sound, as though he would say, “Come back, little mistress,
come back to life; it is not so bad as it seems.”

“Here to-night, the bishop's son! ten minutes since?
You are mistaken, madam, that is all, or else you have seen
his ghost. Samuel Dale has acknowledged the murder and
given himself up! He says, moreover, that your daughter
was with him when he did the foul deed, and will confirm
his statement. I am just come from Mr. Lightwait's house,
and he is not there, nor has he been there since a quarter
before nine; and agreeably to the testimony of the unfortunate
prisoner, the murder was committed at or near nine
o'clock, just about leaving time for the murdered man to
have reached the spot where the terrible tragedy is said to
have been enacted.”

The person thus delivering himself had but that moment
made his way through the group to the elbow of Mrs.
Fairfax; he was the village doctor, — by name, Prosper
Allprice. He was a short man, with a round bald head,
black, small eyes, set close together, a high nose, and little
dimpled chin. His ears were big and white as gristle, his
fingers short, stumpy, and shining with rings, and his feet
so short and so wide as to resemble club feet. Add to this,
wiry red whiskers, sheep teeth, and the stomach of a fullfed
cock, and you have some approximate notion of the

external presence of Doctor Allprice. His waistcoat on
this occasion was crimson, dashed with black; his trowsers
white duck; he held a yellow kid glove in one hand, and a
superfluous eye-glass dangled from his button-hole. His
conversation was full of professional wisdom set off with
Latin. A single wave of his hand awed back the eager
crowd of workmen and mechanics, peeping over one another's
shoulders for a glimpse of the girl in her fit of languor,
or whatever it were; and, dropping on one knee
beside her, he produced a medicine case, and essayed to
administer some sort of restorative, but her teeth were
found to be fast locked; nothing could move them.

“It ain't no common faintin' fit,” says the grocer. “My
daughter, Addely Maud, she had one, somethin' like this to
all appearance, and no doctor-stuff could git her out of it
nuther; at last someby tole that Miss Whiteflock's man, he
could bring her to; so, everything else failin', we sent for
the critter, and, dog on, if he didn't do it!”

“How? how?” cried one or two, but there were more
sneers than questions.

“How? why, ding me if I can tell you! he just put his
hands onto her, and said over a kind of a prayer, like, or
somethin' that sounded religious, anyhow; and, dog on!
she opened her eyes and sot up — Addely Maud did!”

Then it was whispered about that some one had better
fetch Peter Whiteflock, but Mrs. Fairfax would not hear of
it; and Dr. Prosper Allwise was so professionally outraged
that the very top of his shining head grew scarlet.

“Nothing serious, my dear madam, nothing at all!” he
said to Mrs. Fairfax; “a slight derangement of the stomachus,
or rather of the musculo-membraneous reservoir connecting
with the æsophagus and duodenum. There is a fine
sympathy, madam, between the upper orificium of this
membraneous reservoir and the seat of sensation and reflection
lodged in the brain-pan, cranium, or skull. These
instances of depression are somewhat rare, but by no means
unknown to the practice; a little phlebotomy, or venesection
will, no doubt, have the desired effect.” And Dr.
Allprice whipped out his lancet, and punctured a small vein
in the left arm, without ceremony. No blood. Another
puncture, deeper, wider still — not a drop. “My dear
madam!” the fingers of the doctor flew from wrist to temple,

and from temple to wrist, and the sweat-drops stood on
his forehead; “my dear madam! the pulse is quite gone!
In short, madam, life is extinct.”

“O my child! My sweet, sweet child! O my God,
have mercy!”

Here, for once, was a reality for the frivolous mother, and
she forgot her affectations, as she dragged the rigid form
across her lap, and held the bright young head against her
bosom; but, perhaps after all it was more an instinctive
clutching after what was her own, that impelled the cries
and caresses, more the rebellious struggle against a personal
wrong, than the genuine passion of a bereaved and breaking
heart.

A nature like this woman's is incapable of the sublime,
even in suffering.

After the first wild burst of madness, the doctor, with
such tender and soothing words, as are customary, led the
distracted woman away.

“She bein't dead! not accordin' to my notion,” says the
grocer, pressing up. “She looks just like Addely Maud
over again, anyhow. I'll bet a quarter of a dollar Peter
could fetch her to.”

“O, my good friend, run and fetch him,” cries the mother,
and then she falls sobbing again; and the doctor chafes her
hands, and produces smelling-salts, and nods to the grocer
to fetch Peter. “It will pacify her,” he says in a whisper,
“and do no harm.”

The body had been straightened, and a sheet spread over
it from head to feet; there was no need to compose the
features, they were singularly placid, though icy cold and
rigid, and the measure for the coffin was about to be taken,
when Peter Whiteflock, in his shirt sleeves, and champing at
a green apple, was led in.

He pushed the sheet from the face with the toe of his shoe,
champing at the apple all the time, and when he had gnawed
all round the core, clean and close, he tossed it away, aiming
at a cat that sat peaceably upright in the door-way;
and this feat accomplished, he wiped his hands on his
trowsers-legs, and proceeded to remove the shroud, manifesting,
as he did so, a mixture of haste, irreverence and
anger. He had no sooner touched the hand, however, than
a change which was almost a transformation came over him.

His face grew radiant, his voice low and softly modulated,
the whole man seemed not to be Peter any more, but quite
a different sort of person.

“She is not dead!” he said, and then stooping, he spoke
in her ear some words in an unknown tongue. After this,
he made a pass or two with his hand, from the forehead
downward, and immediately she smiled, and answered him
in a strange tongue, the same, apparently, in which he had
addressed her. They conversed a few minutes thus together,
the girl making signs the while as though she were acceding
to some instruction; and presently Peter reversed the
passes, and she opened her eyes, and sat up, all her senses
restored, calm, collected; more mistress of herself than she
had ever been in her life. She evinced neither alarm nor
surprise at the questioning and cross-questioning of Dr.
Allprice. Yes, she had seen Samuel Dale that evening;
she had happened to meet him as she was fetching home the
cows, and had conversed with him for a short time; he
appeared to be in a state of excitement, but she saw nothing
to indicate insanity. She distinctly remembered the time at
which she separated from him. She had heard the striking
of the village clock, and counted the strokes; it was nine
o'clock. She did not see Mr. Lightwait, and he could not
subsequently have been there, inasmuch as she found him
at her mother's house on reaching it; he remained with them
the entire evening, and was, in fact, but just gone when the
men entered who were in search of his body.

This statement produced the greatest excitement and
confusion. That the murder had been committed, was past
doubt. The tavern keeper had himself witnessed the act,
and taken Samuel, who confessed to the accusation, immediately
to the magistrates. Mrs. Fairfax and Margaret, if
they had seen anything, must have seen a ghost. Women
didn't know what they saw at the best of times, but now in
their excitement, there was no use in paying any attention to
what they said! One or two even ventured the remark that
both Sam and the tavern keeper were crazy, but Dr. Allprice
gave it as his opinion that Samuel was of as sound
mind as he himself, and that he entertained a high estimate
of his own soundness every body knew.

Meanwhile news continued to be brought in, a good deal
of it “turning of no turning at all,” and the gist being that

Samuel had quietly given himself up, but that as to the cause
of the murder, he refused to explain, saying that he was
ready to give his life for the one he had taken, and what
further had men to do with it!

At midnight, Mr. Lightwait had not returned to his house,
nor had his body been found.

Could it be possible that Margaret was in complicity with
the murderer! Such whispers began to run, and she and
her lover were spoken of as the girl, Margaret, and the man,
calling himself Samuel.

Dr. Allprice gave it as his opinion that the man, calling
himself Dale, had, for some unknown cause, committed murder
on the person of John Hamlyn Lightwait, and subsequently,
or previously, it might be, for some unknown cause,
administered poison, in some subtle shape, to Margaret
Fairfax, minor, and daughter of the well known and highly
esteemed Mrs. Margaret Fairfax, in, and of the premises.

“Where's Peter Whiteflock?” inquired the grocer.
Peter was gone home, long ago. What was wanted of him.

“Well, nothing particular, as I know of,” said the
grocer; “but he hesitated to open the door for me, when I
went after him to-night, and when he did open it but a leetle
crack, he stood into that as tho' he was afeared I'd see
inside, but I did see for all of his care, and I could almost
swear that what I see was Mr. Lightwait, hisself, a settin'
into Peter's cellar, alive and hearty. I wouldn't swear it,
but dog on! if I don't believe it.”

At one o'clock, the party had divided; about half the
number, including Dr. Allprice, who took special charge of
the ladies, remaining in and about the house of Mrs. Fairfax,
while the other half dashed off in search of Peter Whiteflock,
and his visitor; the greatest excitement prevailing everywhere.