University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
THE PERILOUS HOUR.

Up to this time Dick Venner had not decided
on the particular mode and the precise period of
relieving himself from the unwarrantable interference
which threatened to defeat his plans. The
luxury of feeling that he had his man in his
power was its own reward. One who watches
in the dark, outside, while his enemy, in utter
unconsciousness, is illuminating his apartment
and himself so that every movement of his head
and every button on his coat can be seen and
counted, experiences a peculiar kind of pleasure,
if he holds a loaded rifle in his hand, which he
naturally hates to bring to its climax by testing
his skill as a marksman upon the object of his
attention.

Besides, Dick had two sides in his nature, almost
as distinct as we sometimes observe in those
persons who are the subjects of the condition
known as double consciousness. On his New-England
side he was cunning and calculating,
always cautious, measuring his distance before
he risked his stroke, as nicely as if he were

throwing his lasso. But he was liable to intercurrent
fits of jealousy and rage, such as the
light-hued races are hardly capable of conceiving,
— blinding paroxysms of passion, which for
the time overmastered him, and which, if they
found no ready outlet, transformed themselves
into the more dangerous forces that worked
through the instrumentality of his cool craftiness.

He had failed as yet in getting any positive
evidence that there was any relation between
Elsie and the school-master other than such as
might exist unsuspected and unblamed between
a teacher and his pupil. A book, or a note,
even, did not prove the existence of any sentiment.
At one time he would be devoured by
suspicions, at another he would try to laugh
himself out of them. And in the mean while
he followed Elsie's tastes as closely as he could,
determined to make some impression upon her,
— to become a habit, a convenience, a necessity,
— whatever might aid him in the attainment
of the one end which was now the aim
of his life.

It was to humor one of her tastes already
known to the reader, that he said to her one
morning, — “Come, Elsie, take your castanets,
and let us have a dance.”

He had struck the right vein in the girl's fancy,
for she was in the mood for this exercise, and very
willingly led the way into one of the more empty

apartments. What there was in this particular
kind of dance which excited her it might not be
easy to guess; but those who looked in with the
old Doctor, on a former occasion, and saw her,
will remember that she was strangely carried
away by it, and became almost fearful in the
vehemence of her passion. The sound of the
castanets seemed to make her alive all over.
Dick knew well enough what the exhibition
would be, and was almost afraid of her at
these moments; for it was like the dancing
mania of Eastern devotees, more than the ordinary
light amusement of joyous youth, — a convulsion
of the body and the mind, rather than
a series of voluntary modulated motions.

Elsie rattled out the triple measure of a
saraband. Her eyes began to glitter more brilliantly,
and her shape to undulate in freer curves.
Presently she noticed that Dick's look was fixed
upon her necklace. His face betrayed his curiosity;
he was intent on solving the question,
why she always wore something about her neck.
The chain of mosaics she had on at that moment
displaced itself at every step, and he was peering
with malignant, searching eagerness to see if an
unsunned ring of fairer hue than the rest of the
surface, or any less easily explained peculiarity,
were hidden by her ornaments.

She stopped suddenly, caught the chain of
mosaics and settled it hastily in its place, flung
down her castanets, drew herself back, and stood

looking at him, with her head a little on one side,
and her eyes narrowing in the way he had known
so long and well.

“What is the matter, Cousin Elsie? What
do you stop for?” he said.

Elsie did not answer, but kept her eyes on
him, full of malicious light. The jealousy which
lay covered up under his surface-thoughts took
this opportunity to break out.

“You wouldn't act so, if you were dancing
with Mr. Langdon, — would you, Elsie?” he
asked.

It was with some effort that he looked steadily
at her to see the effect of his question.

Elsie colored, — not much, but still perceptibly.
Dick could not remember that he had ever seen
her show this mark of emotion before, in all his
experience of her fitful changes of mood. It
had a singular depth of significance, therefore,
for him; he knew how hardly her color came.
Blushing means nothing, in some persons; in others,
it betrays a profound inward agitation, — a
perturbation of the feelings far more trying than
the passions which with many easily moved persons
break forth in tears. All who have observed
much are aware that some men, who have seen
a good deal of life in its less chastened aspects
and are anything but modest, will blush often
and easily, while there are delicate and sensitive
women who can faint, or go into fits, if necessary,
but are very rarely seen to betray their

feelings in their cheeks, even when their expression
shows that their inmost soul is blushing
scarlet.

Presently she answered, abruptly and scornfully,
—

“Mr. Langdon is a gentleman, and would not
vex me as you do.”

“A gentleman!” Dick answered, with the
most insulting accent, — “a gentleman! Come,
Elsie, you've got the Dudley blood in your veins,
and it doesn't do for you to call this poor, sneaking
school-master a gentleman!”

He stopped short. Elsie's bosom was heaving,
the faint flush on her cheek was becoming a vivid
glow. Whether it were shame or wrath, he saw
that he had reached some deep-lying centre of
emotion. There was no longer any doubt in
his mind. With another girl these signs of confusion
might mean little or nothing; with her
they were decisive and final. Elsie Venner
loved Bernard Langdon.

The sudden conviction, absolute, overwhelming,
which rushed upon him, had wellnigh led
to an explosion of wrath, and perhaps some
terrible scene which might have fulfilled some
of Old Sophy's predictions. This, however,
would never do. Dick's face whitened with
his thoughts, but he kept still until he could
speak calmly.

“I've nothing against the young fellow,” he
said; “only I don't think there's anything quite

good enough to keep the company of people that
have the Dudley blood in them. You a'n't as
proud as I am. I can't quite make up my mind
to call a school-master a gentleman, though this
one may be well enough. I've nothing against
him, at any rate.”

Elsie made no answer, but glided out of the
room and slid away to her own apartment. She
bolted the door and drew her curtains close.
Then she threw herself on the floor, and fell
into a dull, slow ache of passion, without tears,
without words, almost without thoughts. So
she remained, perhaps, for a half-hour, at the
end of which time it seemed that her passion
had become a sullen purpose. She arose, and,
looking cautiously round, went to the hearth,
which was ornamented with curious old Dutch
tiles, with pictures of Scripture subjects. One
of these represented the lifting of the brazen
serpent. She took a hair-pin from one of her
braids, and, insinuating its points under the edge
of the tile, raised it from its place. A small
leaden box lay under the tile, which she opened,
and, taking from it a little white powder, which
she folded in a scrap of paper, replaced the box
and the tile over it.

Whether Dick had by any means got a knowledge
of this proceeding, or whether he only suspected
some unmentionable design on her part,
there is no sufficient means of determining. At
any rate, when they met, an hour or two after

these occurrences, he could not help noticing how
easily she seemed to have got over her excitement.
She was very pleasant with him, — too pleasant,
Dick thought. It was not Elsie's way to come out
of a fit of anger so easily as that. She had contrived
some way of letting off her spite; that was
certain. Dick was pretty cunning, as Old Sophy
had said, and, whether or not he had any means
of knowing Elsie's private intentions, watched
her closely, and was on his guard against accidents.

For the first time, he took certain precautions
with reference to his diet, such as were quite alien
to his common habits. On coming to the dinner-table,
that day, he complained of headache, took
but little food, and refused the cup of coffee which
Elsie offered him, saying that it did not agree
with him when he had these attacks.

Here was a new complication. Obviously
enough, he could not live in this way, suspecting
everything but plain bread and water, and hardly
feeling safe in meddling with them. Not only
had this school-keeping wretch come between
him and the scheme by which he was to secure
his future fortune, but his image had so infected
his cousin's mind that she was ready to try on
him some of those tricks which, as he had heard
hinted in the village, she had once before put in
practice upon a person who had become odious
to her.

Something must be done, and at once, to meet

the double necessities of this case. Every day,
while the young girl was in these relations with
the young man, was only making matters worse.
They could exchange words and looks, they could
arrange private interviews, they would be stooping
together over the same book, her hair touching
his cheek, her breath mingling with his, all the
magnetic attractions drawing them together with
strange, invisible effluences. As her passion for
the school-master increased, her dislike to him, her
cousin, would grow with it, and all his dangers
would be multiplied. It was a fearful point he
had reached. He was tempted at one moment to
give up all his plans and to disappear suddenly
from the place, leaving with the school-master,
who had come between him and his object, an
anonymous token of his personal sentiments
which would be remembered a good while in
the history of the town of Rockland. This was
but a momentary thought; the great Dudley
property could not be given up in that way.

Something must happen at once to break up
all this order of things. He could think of but
one Providential event adequate to the emergency,
— an event foreshadowed by various recent
circumstances, but hitherto floating in his mind
only as a possibility. Its occurrence would at
once change the course of Elsie's feelings, providing
her with something to think of besides mischief,
and remove the accursed obstacle which
was thwarting all his own projects. Every possible

motive, then, — his interest, his jealousy, his
longing for revenge, and now his fears for his own
safety, — urged him to regard the happening of a
certain casualty as a matter of simple necessity.
This was the self-destruction of Mr. Bernard
Langdon.

Such an event, though it might be surprising
to many people, would not be incredible, nor
without many parallel cases. He was poor, a
miserable fag, under the control of that mean
wretch up there at the school, who looked as if
he had sour buttermilk in his veins instead of
blood. He was in love with a girl above his
station, rich, and of old family, but strange in all
her ways, and it was conceivable that he should
become suddenly jealous of her. Or she might
have frightened him with some display of her
peculiarities which had filled him with a sudden
repugnance in the place of love. Any of these
things were credible, and would make a probable
story enough, — so thought Dick over to himself
with the New-England half of his mind.

Unfortunately, men will not always take themselves
out of the way when, so far as their neighbors
are concerned, it would be altogether the
most appropriate and graceful and acceptable
service they could render. There was at this
particular moment no special reason for believing
that the school-master meditated any violence
to his own person. On the contrary, there was
good evidence that he was taking some care of

himself. He was looking well and in good spirits,
and in the habit of amusing himself and exercising,
as if to keep up his standard of health,
especially of taking certain evening-walks, before
referred to, at an hour when most of the Rockland
people had “retired,” or, in vulgar language,
“gone to b-d.”

Dick Venner settled it, however, in his own
mind, that Mr. Bernard Langdon must lay violent
hands upon himself. He even went so far as to
determine the precise hour, and the method in
which the “rash act,” as it would undoubtedly be
called in the next issue of “The Rockland Weekly
Universe,” should be committed. Time, — this
evening. Method, — asphyxia, by suspension. It
was, unquestionably, taking a great liberty with
a man to decide that he should become felo de se
without his own consent. Such, however, was
the decision of Mr. Richard Venner with regard
to Mr. Bernard Langdon.

If everything went right, then, there would be
a coroner's inquest to-morrow upon what remained
of that gentleman, found suspended to the branch
of a tree somewhere within a mile of the Apollinean
Institute. The “Weekly Universe” would
have a startling paragraph announcing a “SAD
EVENT!!!” which had “thrown the town into
an intense state of excitement. Mr. Barnard
Langden, a well known teacher at the Appolinian
Institute, was found, etc., etc. The vital spark
was extinct. The motive to the rash act can only

be conjectured, but is supposed to be disapointed
affection. The name of an accomplished young
lady of the highest respectability and great beauty
is mentioned in connection with this melencholy
occurence.”

Dick Venner was at the tea-table that evening,
as usual. — No, he would take green tea, if she
pleased, — the same that her father drank. It
would suit his headache better. — Nothing, — he
was much obliged to her. He would help himself,
— which he did in a little different way from common,
naturally enough, on account of his headache.
He noticed that Elsie seemed a little nervous
while she was rinsing some of the teacups
before their removal.

“There's something going on in that witch's
head,” he said to himself. “I know her, — she'd
be savage now, if she hadn't got some trick in
hand. Let's see how she looks to-morrow!”

Dick announced that he should go to bed early
that evening, on account of this confounded headache
which had been troubling him so much. In
fact, he went up early, and locked his door after
him, with as much noise as he could make. He
then changed some part of his dress, so that it
should be dark throughout, slipped off his boots,
drew the lasso out from the bottom of the contents
of his trunk, and, carrying that and his boots
in his hand, opened his door softly, locked it after
him, and stole down the back-stairs, so as to get
out of the house unnoticed. He went straight to

the stable and saddled the mustang. He took a
rope from the stable with him, mounted his horse,
and set forth in the direction of the Institute.

Mr. Bernard, as we have seen, had not been
very profoundly impressed by the old Doctor's
cautions, — enough, however, to follow out some
of his hints which were not troublesome to attend
to. He laughed at the idea of carrying a loaded
pistol about with him; but still it seemed only
fair, as the old Doctor thought so much of the
matter, to humor him about it. As for not going
about when and where he liked, for fear he might
have some lurking enemy, that was a thing not
to be listened to nor thought of. There was
nothing to be ashamed of or troubled about in
any of his relations with the school-girls. Elsie,
no doubt, showed a kind of attraction towards
him, as did perhaps some others; but he had been
perfectly discreet, and no father or brother or lover
had any just cause of quarrel with him. To be
sure, that dark young man at the Dudley mansion-house
looked as if he were his enemy, when
he had met him; but certainly there was nothing
in their relations to each other, or in his own to
Elsie, that would be like to stir such malice in
his mind as would lead him to play any of his
wild Southern tricks at his, Mr. Bernard's, expense.
Yet he had a vague feeling that this
young man was dangerous, and he had been
given to understand that one of the risks he ran
was from that quarter.

On this particular evening, he had a strange,
unusual sense of some impending peril. His
recent interview with the Doctor, certain remarks
which had been dropped in his hearing, but above
all an unaccountable impression upon his spirits,
all combined to fill his mind with a foreboding
conviction that he was very near some overshadowing
danger. It was as the chill of the ice-mountain
toward which the ship is steering under
full sail. He felt a strong impulse to see Helen
Darley and talk with her. She was in the common
parlor, and, fortunately, alone.

“Helen,” he said, — for they were almost like
brother and sister now, — “I have been thinking
what you would do, if I should have to leave the
school at short notice, or be taken away suddenly
by any accident.”

“Do?” she said, her cheek growing paler than
its natural delicate hue, — “why, I do not know
how I could possibly consent to live here, if you
left us. Since you came, my life has been almost
easy; before, it was getting intolerable.
You must not talk about going, my dear friend;
you have spoiled me for my place. Who is there
here that I can have any true society with, but
you? You would not leave us for another school,
would you?”

“No, no, my dear Helen,” Mr. Bernard said;
“if it depends on myself, I shall stay out my
full time, and enjoy your company and friendship.
But everything is uncertain in this world;

I have been thinking that I might be wanted
elsewhere, and called when I did not think of it;
— it was a fancy, perhaps, — but I can't keep it
out of my mind this evening. If any of my
fancies should come true, Helen, there are two or
three messages I want to leave with you. I have
marked a book or two with a cross in pencil on
the fly-leaf; — these are for you. There is a little
hymn-book I should like to have you give to
Elsie from me; — it may be a kind of comfort
to the poor girl.”

Helen's eyes glistened as she interrupted
him, —

“What do you mean? You must not talk
so, Mr. Langdon. Why, you never looked better
in your life. Tell me now, you are not in
earnest, are you, but only trying a little sentiment
on me?”

Mr. Bernard smiled, but rather sadly.

“About half in earnest,” he said. “I have
had some fancies in my head, — superstitions, I
suppose, — at any rate, it does no harm to tell
you what I should like to have done, if anything
should happen, — very likely nothing ever will.
Send the rest of the books home, if you please,
and write a letter to my mother. And, Helen,
you will find one small volume in my desk enveloped
and directed, you will see to whom; —
give this with your own hands; it is a keepsake.”

The tears gathered in her eyes; she could not
speak at first. Presently, —

“Why, Bernard, my dear friend, my brother, it
cannot be that you are in danger? Tell me what
it is, and, if I can share it with you, or counsel
you in any way, it will only be paying back the
great debt I owe you. No, no, — it can't be
true, — you are tired and worried, and your spirits
have got depressed. I know what that is; — I
was sure, one winter, that I should die before
spring; but I lived to see the dandelions and
buttercups go to seed. Come, tell me it was
nothing but your imagination.”

She felt a tear upon her cheek, but would not
turn her face away from him; it was the tear
of a sister.

“I am really in earnest, Helen,” he said. “I
don't know that there is the least reason in the
world for these fancies. If they all go off and
nothing comes of them, you may laugh at me, if
you like. But if there should be any occasion,
remember my requests. You don't believe in
presentiments, do you?”

“Oh, don't ask me, I beg you,” Helen answered.
“I have had a good many frights for
every one real misfortune I have suffered. Sometimes
I have thought I was warned beforehand
of coming trouble, just as many people are of
changes in the weather, by some unaccountable
feeling, — but not often, and I don't like to talk
about such things. I wouldn't think about these
fancies of yours. I don't believe you have
exercised enough; — don't you think it's confinement

in the school has made you nervous?”

“Perhaps it has; but it happens that I have
thought more of exercise lately, and have taken
regular evening walks, besides playing my old
gymnastic tricks every day.”

They talked on many subjects, but through all
he said Helen perceived a pervading tone of sadness,
and an expression as of a dreamy foreboding
of unknown evil. They parted at the usual
hour, and went to their several rooms. The sadness
of Mr. Bernard had sunk into the heart of
Helen, and she mingled many tears with her
prayers that evening, earnestly entreating that he
might be comforted in his days of trial and protected
in his hour of danger.

Mr. Bernard stayed in his room a short time
before setting out for his evening walk. His eye
fell upon the Bible his mother had given him
when he left home, and he opened it in the New
Testament at a venture. It happened that the
first words he read were these, — “Lest, coming
suddenly, he find you sleeping.” In the state of
mind in which he was at the moment, the text
startled him. It was like a supernatural warning.
He was not going to expose himself to any
particular danger this evening; a walk in a quiet
village was as free from risk as Helen Darley or
his own mother could ask; yet he had an unaccountable
feeling of apprehension, without any
definite object. At this moment he remembered

the old Doctor's counsel, which he had sometimes
neglected, and, blushing at the feeling which led
him to do it, he took the pistol his suspicious old
friend had forced upon him, which he had put
away loaded, and, thrusting it into his pocket, set
out upon his walk.

The moon was shining at intervals, for the
night was partially clouded. There seemed to be
nobody stirring, though his attention was unusually
awake, and he could hear the whirr of the
bats overhead, and the pulsating croak of the
frogs in the distant pools and marshes. Presently
he detected the sound of hoofs at some distance,
and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in
his direction. The moon was under a cloud at
the moment, and he could only observe that the
horse and his rider looked like a single dark object,
and that they were moving along at an easy
pace. Mr. Bernard was really ashamed of himself,
when he found his hand on the butt of his
pistol. When the horseman was within a hundred
and fifty yards of him, the moon shone out
suddenly and revealed each of them to the other.
The rider paused for a moment, as if carefully
surveying the pedestrian, then suddenly put his
horse to the full gallop, and dashed towards him,
rising at the same instant in his stirrups and
swinging something round his head, — what, Mr.
Bernard could not make out. It was a strange
manœuvre, — so strange and threatening in aspect
that the young man forgot his nervousness

in an instant, cocked his pistol, and waited to see
what mischief all this meant. He did not wait
long. As the rider came rushing towards him,
he made a rapid motion and something leaped
five-and-twenty feet through the air, in Mr. Bernard's
direction. In an instant he felt a ring,
as of a rope or thong, settle upon his shoulders.
There was no time to think, — he would be lost
in another second. He raised his pistol and fired,
— not at the rider, but at the horse. His aim
was true; the mustang gave one bound and fell
lifeless, shot through the head. The lasso was
fastened to his saddle, and his last bound threw
Mr. Bernard violently to the earth, where he lay
motionless, as if stunned.

In the mean time, Dick Venner, who had been
dashed down with his horse, was trying to extricate
himself, — one of his legs being held fast
under the animal, the long spur on his boot having
caught in the saddle-cloth. He found, however,
that he could do nothing with his right arm,
his shoulder having been in some way injured in
his fall. But his Southern blood was up, and, as
he saw Mr. Bernard move as if he were coming
to his senses, he struggled violently to free himself.

“I'll have the dog, yet,” he said, — “only let
me get at him with the knife!”

He had just succeeded in extricating his imprisoned
leg, and was ready to spring to his feet,
when he was caught firmly by the throat, and,

looking up, saw a clumsy barbed weapon, commonly
known as a hay-fork, within an inch of
his breast.

“Hold on there! What 'n thunder 'r' y'
abaout, y' darned Portagee?” said a voice, with
a decided nasal tone in it, but sharp and resolute.

Dick looked from the weapon to the person
who held it, and saw a sturdy, plain man standing
over him, with his teeth clinched, and his
aspect that of one all ready for mischief.

“Lay still, naow!” said Abel Stebbins, the
Doctor's man; “'f y' don't, I'll stick ye, 'z sure
'z y' 'r' alive! I been aäfter ye f'r a week, 'n' I
got y' naow! I knowed I'd ketch ye at some
darned trick or 'nother 'fore I'd done 'ith ye!”

Dick lay perfectly still, feeling that he was
crippled and helpless, thinking all the time with
the Yankee half of his mind what to do about it.
He saw Mr. Bernard lift his head and look around
him. He would get his senses again in a few
minutes, very probably, and then he, Mr. Richard
Venner, would be done for.

“Let me up! let me up!” he cried, in a low,
hurried voice, — “I'll give you a hundred dollars
in gold to let me go. The man a'n't hurt, —
don't you see him stirring? He'll come to himself
in two minutes. Let me up! I'll give you
a hundred and fifty dollars in gold, now, here on
the spot, — and the watch out of my pocket; take
it yourself, with your own hands!”

“I'll see y' darned fust! Ketch me lett'n' go!”
was Abel's emphatic answer. “Yeou lay still, 'n'
wait t'll that man comes tew.”

He kept the hay-fork ready for action at the
slightest sign of resistance.

Mr. Bernard, in the mean time, had been getting,
first his senses, and then some few of his
scattered wits, a little together.

“What is it?” — he said. “Who's hurt?
What's happened?”

“Come along here 'z quick 'z y' ken,” Abel answered,
“'n' haälp me fix this fellah. Y' been
hurt, y'rself, 'n' the' 's murder come pooty nigh
happenin'.”

Mr. Bernard heard the answer, but presently
stared about and asked again, “Who's hurt?
What's happened?”

“Y' 'r' hurt, y'rself, I tell ye,” said Abel; “'n'
the' 's been a murder, pooty nigh.”

Mr. Bernard felt something about his neck,
and, putting his hands up, found the loop of the
lasso, which he loosened, but did not think to slip
over his head, in the confusion of his perceptions
and thoughts. It was a wonder that it had not
choked him, but he had fallen forward so as to
slacken it.

By this time he was getting some notion of
what he was about, and presently began looking
round for his pistol, which had fallen. He found
it lying near him, cocked it mechanically, and
walked, somewhat unsteadily, towards the two

men, who were keeping their position as still as
if they were performing in a tableau.

“Quick, naow!” said Abel, who had heard the
click of cocking the pistol, and saw that he held
it in his hand, as he came towards him. “Gi' me
that pistil, and yeou fetch that 'ere rope layin'
there. I'll have this here fellah fixed 'n less 'n
two minutes.”

Mr. Bernard did as Abel said, — stupidly and
mechanically, for he was but half right as yet.
Abel pointed the pistol at Dick's head.

“Naow hold up y'r hands, yeou fellah,” he
said, “'n' keep 'em up, while this man puts the
rope raound y'r wrists.”

Dick felt himself helpless, and, rather than have
his disabled arm roughly dealt with, held up his
hands. Mr. Bernard did as Abel said; he was in
a purely passive state, and obeyed orders like a
child. Abel then secured the rope in a most
thorough and satisfactory complication of twists
and knots.

“Naow get up, will ye?” he said; and the unfortunate
Dick rose to his feet.

“Who's hurt? What's happened?” asked poor
Mr. Bernard again, his memory having been completely
jarred out of him for the time.

“Come, look here naow, yeou, don' stan' aäskin'
questions over 'n' over; — 't beats all! ha'n't I
tol' y' a dozen times?”

As Abel spoke, he turned and looked at Mr.
Bernard.

“Hullo! What 'n thunder's that 'ere raoun'
y'r neck? Ketched ye 'ith a slippernoose, hey?
Wal, if that a'n't the craowner! Hol' on a minute,
Cap'n, 'n' I'll show ye what that 'ere halter's
good for.”

Abel slipped the noose over Mr. Bernard's head,
and put it round the neck of the miserable Dick
Venner, who made no sign of resistance, — whether
on account of the pain he was in, or from mere
helplessness, or because he was waiting for some
unguarded moment to escape, — since resistance
seemed of no use.

“I'm go'n' to kerry y' home,” said Abel; “th'
ol' Doctor, he's got a gre't cur'osity t' see ye. Jes'
step along naow, — off that way, will ye? — 'n'
I'll hol' on t' th' bridle, f' fear y' sh'd run away.”

He took hold of the leather thong, but found
that it was fastened at the other end to the saddle.
This was too much for Abel.

“Wal, naow, yeou be a pooty chap to hev
raound! A fellah's neck in a slippernoose at one
eend of a halter, 'n' a hoss on th' full spring at
t'other eend!”

He looked at him from head to foot as a naturalist
inspects a new specimen. His clothes had
suffered in his fall, especially on the leg which
had been caught under the horse.

“Hullo! look o' there, naow! What's that
'ere stickin' aout o' y'r boot?”

It was nothing but the handle of an ugly knife,
which Abel instantly relieved him of.

The party now took up the line of march for
old Doctor Kittredge's house, Abel carrying the
pistol and knife, and Mr. Bernard walking in
silence, still half-stunned, holding the hay-fork,
which Abel had thrust into his hand. It was all
a dream to him as yet. He remembered the
horseman riding at him, and his firing the pistol;
but whether he was alive, and these walls around
him belonged to the village of Rockland, or
whether he had passed the dark river, and was
in a suburb of the New Jerusalem, he could not
as yet have told.

They were in the street where the Doctor's
house was situated.

“I guess I'll fire off one o' these here berrils,”
said Abel.

He fired.

Presently there was a noise of opening windows,
and the nocturnal head-dresses of Rockland flowered
out of them like so many developments of
the Night-blooming Cereus. White cotton caps
and red bandanna handkerchiefs were the prevailing
forms of efflorescence. The main point was
that the village was waked up. The old Doctor
always waked easily, from long habit, and was
the first among those who looked out to see what
had happened.

“Why, Abel!” he called out, “what have you
got there? and what's all this noise about?”

“We've ketched the Portagee!” Abel answered,
as laconically as the hero of Lake Erie

in his famous dispatch. “Go in there, you fellah!”

The prisoner was marched into the house,
and the Doctor, who had bewitched his clothes
upon him in a way that would have been miraculous
in anybody but a physician, was down
in presentable form as soon as if it had been a
child in a fit that he was sent for.

“Richard Venner!” the Doctor exclaimed.
“What is the meaning of all this? Mr. Langdon,
has anything happened to you?”

Mr. Bernard put his hand to his head.

“My mind is confused,” he said. “I've had
a fall. — Oh, yes! — wait a minute and it will
all come back to me.”

“Sit down, sit down,” the doctor said. “Abel
will tell me about it. Slight concussion of the
brain. Can't remember very well for an hour or
two, — will come right by to-morrow.”

“Been stunded,” Abel said. “He can't tell
nothin'.”

Abel then proceeded to give a Napoleonic
bulletin of the recent combat of cavalry and
infantry and its results, — none slain, one captured.

The Doctor looked at the prisoner through his
spectacles.

“What's the matter with your shoulder, Venner?”

Dick answered sullenly, that he didn't know, —
fell on it when his horse came down. The Doctor

examined it as carefully as he could through
his clothes.

“Out of joint. Untie his hands, Abel.”

By this time a small alarm had spread among
the neighbors, and there was a circle around Dick,
who glared about on the assembled honest people
like a hawk with a broken wing.

When the Doctor said, “Untie his hands,” the
circle widened perceptibly.

“Isn't it a leetle rash to give him the use of
his hands? I see there's females and children
standin' near.”

This was the remark of our old friend, Deacon
Soper, who retired from the front row, as he
spoke, behind a respectable-looking, but somewhat
hastily dressed person of the defenceless
sex, the female help of a neighboring household,
accompanied by a boy, whose unsmoothed shock
of hair looked like a last-year's crow's-nest.

But Abel untied his hands, in spite of the Deacon's
considerate remonstrance.

“Now,” said the Doctor, “the first thing is to
put the joint back.”

“Stop,” said Deacon Soper, — “stop a minute.
Don't you think it will be safer — for the women-folks
— jest to wait till mornin', afore you put
that j'int into the socket?”

Colonel Sprowle, who had been called by a
special messenger, spoke up at this moment.

“Let the women-folks and the deacons go
home, if they're scared, and put the fellah's j'int

in as quick as you like. I'll resk him, j'int in
or out.”

“I want one of you to go straight down to
Dudley Venner's with a message,” the Doctor
said. “I will have the young man's shoulder
in quick enough.”

“Don't send that message!” said Dick, in a
hoarse voice; — “do what you like with my arm,
but don't send that message! Let me go, — I
can walk, and I'll be off from this place. There's
nobody hurt but myself. Damn the shoulder! —
let me go! You shall never hear of me again!”

Mr. Bernard came forward.

“My friends,” he said, “I am not injured,
— seriously, at least. Nobody need complain
against this man, if I don't. The Doctor will
treat him like a human being, at any rate; and
then, if he will go, let him. There are too many
witnesses against him here for him to want to
stay.”

The Doctor, in the mean time, without saying
a word to all this, had got a towel round the
shoulder and chest and another round the arm,
and had the bone replaced in a very few minutes.

“Abel, put Cassia into the new chaise,” he
said, quietly. “My friends and neighbors, leave
this young man to me.”

“Colonel Sprowle, you're a justice of the
peace,” said Deacon Soper, “and you know
what the law says in cases like this. I a'n't

so clear that it won't have to come afore the
Grand Jury, whether we will or no.”

“I guess we'll set that j'int to-morrow mornin',”
said Colonel Sprowle, — which made a
laugh at the Deacon's expense, and virtually
settled the question.

“Now trust this young man in my care,” said
the old Doctor, “and go home and finish your
naps. I knew him when he was a boy and I'll
answer for it, he won't trouble you any more.
The Dudley blood makes folks proud, I can tell
you, whatever else they are.”

The good people so respected and believed in
the Doctor that they left the prisoner with him.

Presently, Cassia, the fast Morgan mare, came
up to the front-door, with the wheels of the new,
light chaise flashing behind her in the moonlight.
The Doctor drove Dick forty miles at a stretch
that night, out of the limits of the State.

“Do you want money?” he said, before he
left him.

Dick told him the secret of his golden belt.

“Where shall I send your trunk after you
from your uncle's?”

Dick gave him a direction to a seaport town
to which he himself was going, to take passage
for a port in South America.

“Good-bye, Richard,” said the Doctor. “Try
to learn something from to-night's lesson.”

The Southern impulses in Dick's wild blood
overcame him, and he kissed the old Doctor on

both cheeks, crying as only the children of the
sun can cry, after the first hours in the dewy
morning of life. So Dick Venner disappears
from this story. An hour after dawn, Cassia
pointed her fine ears homeward, and struck into
her square, honest trot, as if she had not been
doing anything more than her duty during her
four hours' stretch of the last night.

Abel was not in the habit of questioning the
Doctor's decisions.

“It's all right,” he said to Mr. Bernard. “The
fellah's Squire Venner's relation, anyhaow. Don't
you want to wait here, jest a little while, till I
come back? The' 's a consid'able nice saddle 'n'
bridle on a dead hoss that's layin' daown there
in the road 'n' I guess the' a'n't no use in lettin'
on 'em spile, — so I'll jest step aout 'n' fetch 'em
along. I kind o' calc'late 't won't pay to take the
cretur's shoes 'n' hide off to-night, — 'n' the' won't
be much iron on that hoss's huffs an haour after
daylight, I'll bate ye a quarter.”

“I'll walk along with you,” said Mr. Bernard;
— “I feel as if I could get along well enough
now.”

So they set off together. There was a little
crowd round the dead mustang already, principally
consisting of neighbors who had adjourned
from the Doctor's house to see the scene of the
late adventure. In addition to these, however,
the assembly was honored by the presence of Mr.
Principal Silas Peckham, who had been called

from his slumbers by a message that Master
Langdon was shot through the head by a highway-robber,
but had learned a true version of
the story by this time. His voice was at that
moment heard above the rest, — sharp, but thin,
like bad cider-vinegar.

“I take charge of that property, I say. Master
Langdon's actin' under my orders, and I claim
that hoss and all that's on him. Hiram! jest slip
off that saddle and bridle, and carry 'em up to
the Institoot, and bring down a pair of pinchers
and a file, — and — stop — fetch a pair of shears,
too; there's hoss-hair enough in that mane and
tail to stuff a bolster with.”

“You let that hoss alone!” spoke up Colonel
Sprowle. “When a fellah goes out huntin' and
shoots a squirrel, do you think he's go'n' to let
another fellah pick him up and kerry him off?
Not if he's got a double-berril gun, and t'other
berril ha'n't been fired off yet! I should like to
see the mahn that'll take off that seddle 'n' bridle,
excep' the one th't hez a fair right to the whole
concern!”

Hiram was from one of the lean streaks in New
Hampshire, and, not being overfed in Mr. Silas
Peckham's kitchen, was somewhat wanting in
stamina, as well as in stomach, for so doubtful
an enterprise as undertaking to carry out his employer's
orders in the face of the Colonel's defiance.

Just then Mr. Bernard and Abel came up together.

“Here they be,” said the Colonel. “Stan' beck,
gentlemen!”

Mr. Bernard, who was pale and still a little confused,
but gradually becoming more like himself,
stood and looked in silence for a moment.

All his thoughts seemed to be clearing themselves
in this interval. He took in the whole
series of incidents: his own frightful risk; the
strange, instinctive, nay, Providential impulse
which had led him so suddenly to do the one only
thing which could possibly have saved him; the
sudden appearance of the Doctor's man, but for
which he might yet have been lost; and the discomfiture
and capture of his dangerous enemy.

It was all past now, and a feeling of pity rose
in Mr. Bernard's heart.

“He loved that horse, no doubt,” he said, —
“and no wonder. A beautiful, wild-looking creature!
Take off those things that are on him,
Abel, and have them carried to Mr. Dudley Venner's.
If he does not want them, you may keep
them yourself, for all that I have to say. One
thing more. I hope nobody will lift his hand
against this noble creature to mutilate him in
any way. After you have taken off the saddle
and bridle, Abel, bury him just as he is. Under
that old beech-tree will be a good place. You'll
see to it, — won't you, Abel?”

Abel nodded assent, and Mr. Bernard returned
to the Institute, threw himself in his clothes on
the bed, and slept like one who is heavy with
wine.

Following Mr. Bernard's wishes, Abel at once
took off the high-peaked saddle and the richly ornamented
bridle from the mustang. Then, with the
aid of two or three others, he removed him to the
place indicated. Spades and shovels were soon
procured, and before the moon had set, the wild
horse of the Pampas was at rest under the turf at
the way-side, in the far village among the hills of
New England.