University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
ARTHUR'S DREAMS, AND HUCKLEBURY RUN AND ITS PROPRIETOR,
COME TO DISSOLUTION.

With a start of forty-eight hours, it will readily be
seen that Dan Buck had all the advantage over his pursuer
that he could desire. Familiar with travel, and
familiar not only with New York, but with its blindest
retreats, he had abundant time to dispose of his money
and of himself before Mr. Ruggles drove away from his
own door. It is therefore needless to give the particulars
of the pursuit. Mr. Ruggles found traces of the
guilty pair, who had registered themselves by assumed
names as man and wife, at different points along the
route. He even learned of their passage on the same
boat which bore him from Hartford. After arriving in
New York, however, every track appeared to be covered.
He secured the offices of the police, but they
could not aid him. None of Dan's old friends had seen
him. His former haunts were visited in vain. The
most probable theory was that the villain had arrived
in the night, and immediately taken some one of the
outgoing lines of travel, and sought for other and more

distant hiding-places. This supposition rose into a
strong probability, when it was learned that a pair
closely corresponding with their description had crossed
to Jersey City, and taken passage in the Philadelphia
coach.

Still the fugitives were forty-eight hours ahead of
their pursuer—nay, more; for considerable time had
been wasted in New York. Mr. Ruggles knew too
much to be deceived with regard to the relations that
existed between his daughter and the man who had enticed
her from home; and in the hours of quiet into
which his weakness compelled him, the whole subject
was measured in all its bearings. Doubtless, at that
moment, all Crampton was talking about the flight of
his daughter, and the robbery committed by her paramour.
The proprietor asked himself what Leonora
could ever be to him, even should he secure her return.
Could he have pride in her again? Would not the
presence of the tainted and ruined girl be a perpetual
curse to him? Would it be any satisfaction to have a
daughter of whom he would be ashamed—a daughter to
hide from all pure eyes?

It could not be expected of a man like Mr. Ruggles,
that he should be actuated by any higher views than
these. He had for her no love that prompted him, for
her sake, to save her from a life of infamy. When he
saw that in Crampton, where all his interests lay—
where his active life had been and would continue to be
—she could never again be what she had been—could
never again be the object of his pride and the source of
his pleasure—his zeal for the pursuit of the guilty pair
was extinguished. It is true that he thought how desolate

his home would be without her, and how little
there was left for him to live and labor for; but as there
were comfort and consolation for him in no direction,
there was but little choice.

Poor lord of Hucklebury Run! Hundreds had had
hard fare at his hands, but few of them all would have
withheld their pity from him, could they have looked
into his heart during those sad hours.

Immediately on the departure of Mr. Ruggles from
home, Arthur, by coming more into contact with the
operatives than he had done for several months, found
an element of insubordination and mischief among them,
to which the mill, under the direct rule of the proprietor,
had been always a stranger. He knew that
Dan Buck had insulted many of the men and women,
especially the older and more sedate; but it was not
with these that the disorder seemed to lie. It was with
half a dozen young fellows, who had been intense admirers
of the fast New Yorker, who had aped him in
his dress, learned and practiced his slang, grown profane
by his example, laughed at his vulgar drollery, and
been participants in those carousals which he had delighted
to call “conference meetings.”

They took particular delight in abusing Arthur.
They gathered in the mill, and had long conversations.
It was not difficult to see that they sympathized thoroughly
with the robber, and that they were anxious that
he should escape from the clutches of the old man.
Openly they would not justify him in the robbery of his
employer, but they professed themselves to be quite
satisfied with the fact that the latter had been “bled” a
little. They admired the boldness of the fellow in

stealing the proprietor's daughter from under his nose,
and hoped he would get off with her. The moment factory
hours were over, they either went away from the
mill, to confer with other cronies of the robber, or went
to some private room to consult with one another. In
what direction all this was tending, Arthur could not
judge. He had not been accustomed to regard the set
as a very brave or dangerous one. It was one that
Dan Buck could lead into any mischief, but not one, he
thought, that would be apt to act very boldly on its
own account. Cheek delighted in being Arthur's right-hand
man, and brought to him reports of such movements
of these young fellows as he became acquainted
with. Cheek was very much their superior in natural
shrewdness, and they had few meetings that he did not
know of. In fact, by conversations with them separately,
he had learned that if Dan Buck should be
brought back a prisoner, they should “rescue him, or
die.”

Arthur and Cheek had, of course, a good laugh over
this. It was a harmless kind of braggardism, that would
do nobody harm, and would help to amuse the valiant
young men who indulged in it. They, on the other
hand, evidently attached great importance to it. They
were mysterious. They conversed with each other by
signs. Had the destinies of the world been upon their
shoulders, they could not have felt the responsibility
more keenly than they did that of being the champions
of the honor, and defenders of the person, of their old
leader, Mr. Dan Buck.

Cheek had seen and heard so much of this, that, at
the end of a week after Mr. Ruggles left the Run for

New York, he determined to play a joke upon the
doughty young gentlemen. Arthur had sent him to a
neighboring village on an errand, and returning in the
evening, just as the hands were dismissed from the mill,
he came driving down the hill at a furious rate, and
pulled up before the door of the boarding-house. Calling
Arthur to him, he mysteriously whispered, sufficiently
loud for all around to hear, “He's got him.” At
the same time, he gave Arthur a wink, which the company
did not see, or seeing, did not understand. Arthur
understood it perfectly, and walked off to his room at
the house of Big Joslyn.

The moment Arthur disappeared, Cheek was taken
bodily by half a dozen fellows, and led to the trunk-room
of the lodging-hall, and after the key was turned,
was told to reveal all he knew of the matter, or they
would “get it out of his hide,”—an alternative which
the set kept constantly on hand for all occasions. Cheek
did not dare to tell them—they would do something, he
was afraid, that they would be sorry for. After receiving
from them a very comprehensive variety of threats,
curses, and promises, he, with great apparent reluctance,
divulged the rumor that he had heard, viz., that the old
man had been seen at the stage-house, with Dan Buck
in irons, and Leonora in tears, and that all hands would
be at the Run that night.

The group of conspirators was evidently very much
excited by this intelligence; and though the idea of bringing
Dan Buck back to Hucklebury Run in irons was ridiculous
enough to make them suspicious of the character of
the rumor, they were in no mood to reason on the subject.
It seemed very probable to them that old Ruggles,

whom every one believed to be capable of any thing
when roused, would not only succeed in arresting the
robber, but would delight in showing him up among his
old acquaintances. The great wonder was that Dan
Buck should have allowed himself to be taken alive.
They questioned and cross-questioned their saucy informant,
who found himself obliged to invent more
lies than he had originally calculated for, but he was
equal to the occasion. They at last dismissed him,
threatening vengeance if he should ever report the interview.

Cheek was glad to be released. His joke somehow
looked serious to him. He did not like the appearance
of the fellows at all. A bottle was passed around in his
presence, and he noticed that they drank deeply; and,
even before he left them, betrayed the first effects of
their potation. Cheek did not know but they might
give Arthur trouble, so he sought for him, and related
to him the events of the trunk-room. Arthur was not
alarmed, and retired to bed.

Cheek did not dream that Mr. Ruggles was really
at the stage-house, as he had said; but that was the fact.
He had given up his pursuit of the fugitives after two
or three days spent in New York, and feeling very ill
and miserable, had committed the matter to the police,
and started on his way home. Arriving at the stage-house,
where he had left his horse, he lay down a few
hours for rest, preferring to reach his home in the evening.
He could not bear to meet the inquiring gaze and
words of neighbors. He shrank from the hundred eyes
that would peer out upon him from his mill, and witness
his disgrace and defeat. The light distressed him.

Darkness alone accorded with his depression—his helpless
degradation.

As the sun went down, he called for his horse, and
started for the Run. The animal was fresh with his
week of rest and careful grooming, and went off briskly
on his way home. The old man, haunted by his great
trial, and feebly cursing his hard fate, wished that he
were a horse—any thing but the man he was. He was
going back, he knew not why. The charm of life was
gone. In his weak-minded and vulgar wife, he had no
refuge. In the love and sympathy of others, he knew
that he had no right and no place. His life had been
selfish and greedy. For many years his heart had gone
out in affection toward only one object, and that one
was not only taken away from him, but it was forever
ruined.

The distance rapidly diminished that divided him
from a home that had no attractions for him and no
meaning—from duties that had lost their significance
and their charm. At length he arrived upon a hill
some five miles distant from the Run, from which, in
the daytime, he could see the tall chimney of the mill.
He pulled up his horse for a moment's rest, and for
such calm reflection as the motion of the wagon denied
him. There was no star to be seen. The sky was all
obscured by low, dark clouds. As he sat with his eyes
in the direction of his home, whither his thoughts had
gone, he saw a faint light, as if, through the clouds, he
caught reflection of a rising moon. As he gazed, the
light grew brighter, then died away, then grew again.
It was a strange light—not diffused over a large space—
not soft and steady, but fitful—sometimes red, sometimes

yellow. He watched it like a man entranced, and
wondered, questioned in fact, whether it were not the
figment of his own disordered brain. He wiped his
eyes, and gazed again; and dimly, but certainly, he
caught sight of a tall shaft, and other familiar objects
near it.

The pause and the trance were over. He struck his
horse a heavy blow, and started down the long hill at a
break-neck pace. He relinquished all thought of guiding
the animal. The reins hung loosely in his hands,
but the whip was grasped firmly, and used freely.

The horse was left to find his own way, while the
eye of the driver was fastened upon the distant light that
every minute grew broader and brighter. The low
clouds before him had all changed to a deep, bloody
red. Then little tongues of flame leaped and faded.
Then a broad shaft of flame rose, quivered, and fell.
Then a great spire of fire shot up, and swayed for a
moment, and burst in myriad stars of fire, that were
swept away, and fell in a crimson rain.

The long declivity was passed, yet the proprietor
knew not how. His horse was running fiercely, and
breathing heavily, with a short, quick snort at every
straining leap. The wagon reeled from side to side of
the road, but the rider, with every muscle rigid, seemed
to have grown to it, and unconsciously to manage to
keep it from overthrow. Soon he began to hear outcries
from the farm-houses, and to pass men running
toward the light, that flamed more and still more intensely.
He passed dim faces that stopped and stood
still with horror as he rushed wildly past them through
the darkness, and rained, with constantly increasing

madness, his blows upon the infuriated horse. Bridges,
hills, rocks—all were alike unminded in that terrible
ride.

One mile only remained to be passed over, and then
the whole country around was alight. Chimneys sprang
out of the darkness like ghosts in the reflection of the
flames. Trees glowed like gold upon one side, and
were wrapped in pitchy darkness on the other. The air
was wild with yells, and full of falling cinders, swept off
upon the wind. As the proprietor rushed on, growing
still more intensely excited, half a dozen men leaped
from the bushes before him, with the intention to stop
his horse. Riding toward the light, both the animal and
his driver were seen as distinctly as if the sun had been
shining. The men caught a quick glimpse of the flying
animal and the single ghostly passenger, and leaped
back into the cover, just in time to save themselves
from the resistless wheels, and the vehicle rushed on.

As the proprietor came to the summit of the hill
that overlooked the mill, he saw that structure, which
he had worn out a life to build, enveloped in flames in
every part. The horse, as he rushed down the hill,
caught early attention from the mass of men and
women that crowded the road, and with frenzied shouts
they rushed in every direction to escape him. The hill
was descended with the same furious speed that had
been maintained from the time the first burst of light
was discovered.

Blinded by the blaze, and frightened by the heat, the
horse came opposite to the burning mass, and stopped
so suddenly as almost to throw the crazed proprietor
from his seat. Then he stood a moment, trembling and

smoking, in the fiery heat, then staggered, and fell heavily
upon the road, stone-dead.

The moment the horse fell, his driver rose to his
feet in the wagon, and faced the fire. The tumult all
around him ceased. Every eye was turned to where he
stood in the blinding glare, his pale face lit up by the
roaring flames, and his garments smoking in the heat.
Every tongue was silent. The proprietor's sudden and
almost miraculous appearance, his wild ride down the
hill, the fall of the over-driven animal, and the statue-like,
unblinking gaze of those eyes into the glowing furnace,
tended to impress them with almost a superstitious
terror. His rigid attitude made them rigid; his
silence hushed them. They expected to see him fall
dead like his horse, or that some chimney would reel
over and crush him.

At length, one man broke the spell which rested
upon the crowd, and ran down the road, shielding his
face from the heat with his cap. As he came up to the
wagon, he shouted to the proprietor to run for his life.
The old man, startled into action, leaped directly for the
flames, evidently bent on self-destruction. Arthur
Blague, for it was he, leaped after him, and grasping
him around the body, dragged him away to where he
could gather a single breath, and then lifted him to his
feet, and led him like a child to his dwelling. Mrs.
Ruggles was at the door weeping and praying, but the
proprietor did not recognize her. He allowed himself
to be led to his room, and laid upon the bed. His face
already was a mass of blisters, and he moaned piteously.
Arthur then left him for an hour, in the care of his almost
helpless wife, and ran off to do what he could to

save the property in the vicinity of the mill. In that
brief hour, that massive structure, with all its wealth of
cunning machinery, dissolved into air, and nothing was
left but a heap of red and smoking ruins, and the tall
chimney, standing stark against the wall of darkness
that moved in as the flames went down, and surrounded
the ghastly desolation.

Groups of bareheaded girls were gathered here and
there without shelter. Men, whose bread was taken
from them by the calamity, stood bitterly apart, and
thought of the future. Careless young fellows jested
and laughed, or went up to the ruins, and lit their pipes
with a brand.

Having arranged for a watch, Arthur returned to
the house of the proprietor, and found him in a raving
delirium. Soon afterwards, Dr. Gilbert, who had been
off upon one of his night trips, came in, and administered
a powerful opiate. The poor proprietor raved
about Arthur as the cause of all his trials and reverses,
and then talked wildly of his daughter and her seducer.
At length, the dose took effect, and he slept. Arthur,
utterly exhausted by the excitements and labors of the
evening, dropped upon a sofa in the room, and in a moment
was locked in slumber.

How long he slept he did not know; but before his
eyes, in all his troubled dreams, the conflagration still
raged on. The voices of a great multitude were ringing
in his ears. At last, in the centre of the flames which
rose and roared so wildly before his dream, there
swelled a grand column of fire, following an explosion
that seemed to shake the very ground, and to stun his
ears to deafness. He was awake in an instant, but the

room was perfectly dark. For a moment, he did not
know where he was. There was a strange sound in his
ears—a gurgling, difficult breathing, like that of a man
bestridden by an incubus. He rose to his feet, and
groped his way to an adjoining room, where he found a
light burning, and where were gathered a dozen young
women who had come in for shelter. They had heard
a noise, and were frightened into speechlessness. He
took the lamp in his hand, and quickly retracing his
steps, found the proprietor lying upon the floor, a sheet
of blood covering his face, and a pistol lying at his side.
He had waked, had drunk in one draught the cup of woe
which the events of the week had mixed for him, and,
maddened by the mixture, had deliberately risen, and
with the weapon which his fears had for years kept at
his bedside, had blown out his brains. He was quite
unconscious, and a few long-drawn, stertorous respirations
finished the life of the proprietor of Hucklebury Run.

It is needless to enter into a detail of the events immediately
following the tragic end of this series of calamities
—to tell of the coroner's jury, which found that Mr. Ruggles
died by his own hand, while temporarily insane; of
the arrest of the young conspirators on a charge of incendiarism,
and their discharge, for lack of sufficient evidence
to hold them; of the funeral, which called together a
crowd from twenty miles around—a funeral with but
one mourner, and she not comfortless; of the scattering
of the operatives in all directions in search of work;
of a generous subscription gathered in all the region to
aid those poor people who had lost their all; of a brace
of sermons at the Crampton church, suggested by the
events that have been described.

A few weeks passed away, and the cloud was lifted.
People ceased to think about the great event of the region
and the time. The stream flowed by unused.
The tall chimney stood like a monument over dead
hopes; over scattered life; over ruined property; over
vanished industry. The widow sat in her weeds in her
little cottage on the hill, and dreamed of the past and
the future. It would be an outrage upon human nature
to say that she did not care for what had befallen her;
yet she felt that life had something for her yet.

Long years before, she had ceased to love her husband,
and long had she felt the galling slavery of his
presence as a curse upon her. For her daughter she
mourned. She wanted her society. She could forgive
every thing, if the faithless girl would return. That she
dreamed of the future, Dr. Gilbert ascertained early.
She had never in her life called for so much medical attendance
as in the first month after the death of her husband;
and Dr. Gilbert always received a message from
her with a wry face, and staid in her house but a
short time. Exactly what she used to say to him will
never be known; but he, by some means, ascertained
that whatever might be the fate of the estate, she held,
in her own right, an amount of bank-stock that would
make her very comfortable under any circumstances.

Arthur, of all the operatives, was alone left with
work to do. Of all of them, he only had a knowledge
of the proprietor's business, and, under legal supervision,
it was his task to settle the estate. There were
multitudinous accounts to be adjusted, and in the settlement
of these complicated affairs there stretched before
him a whole year of remunerative labor.