Mark Gildersleeve.

A Novel.

BY JOHN S. SAUZADE.

NEW YORK:
G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers.
LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
M.DCCC.LXXIII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
JOHN S. SAUZADE,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Stereotyped at the
WOMEN'S PRINTING HOUSE,
56, 58 and 60 Park Street,
New York.

MARK GILDERSLEEVE.

I.

Although of much importance as a manufacturing place, Belton is noted chiefly for the beautiful water-fall to which the town, in fact, owes its existence.

Here the Passaic, interrupted in its placid flow by a rocky barrier, takes an abrupt turn, and plunges in a narrow sheet of foam adown a deep chasm, formed in one of Nature's throes ages ago, and then with wild swirls rushes angrily over a rocky bed, until spent and quiet it skirts the town, and winds away appeased and pellucid—despite the murky drain of dye-houses—through woodlands, fields, and pastures green. Ere reaching the cataract, however, the river is tapped by a canal which serves to feed the flumes that run the many mills of Belton; and through this race-way the diverted waters speed on their busy errand, starting cumbersome overshot, undershot, breast, and turbine wheels into action, that in their turn quicken into life the restless shuttle and whirling spindle.

From the cliff, at the head of the cataract, one may completely overlook the town, a cheerful hive, compactly built, and consisting chiefly of long brick factories, with little belfries, and rows of small white wooden dwellings. The whole is neat and bright; no canopy of coal-smoke obscures the blue sky, and but an occasional tall chimney or jet of vapor is seen, for here steam is dethroned, and the cheaper motor reigns supreme.

The river side, the cliff, the falls, in short the water-power belongs and has belonged for generations to the Obershaw family. In days of yore, when Whitman Obershaw ran a saw-mill, and tilled a clearing hereabout, his worldly possessions, it is safe to say, were not such as to assimilate his chances of salvation to the facility with which a camel can go through a needle's eye, and it was reserved for his son, John Peter Obershaw, to reap the benefit of the accident that had put his ancestors in possession of the site of Belton. And when you consider the present magnitude of the place, its many mills, and the enormous yearly rental of the water-power, you will not be surprised to learn that the costly stone mansion on the cliff, with its imposing front, its beautiful grounds, conservatories, and lodges, is the residence of the Hon. Rufus Heath, son-in-law and heir of John Peter Obershaw, who built it.

There is a mural tablet in the apse of St. Jude's, Belton, inscribed to the memory of

JOHN PETER OBERSHAW,
OF THIS TOWN,
Through whose munificence this Church
WAS ERECTED,
A.D. 1840.
HIS CHRISTIAN VIRTUES ENDEARED HIM TO ALL.

An epitaph which bore out the proverbial reputation of its kind in being essentially a lie—a lie in black and white, for old Obershaw had no Christian or even Pagan virtues to speak of, and was rather disliked by all for a selfish, avaricious, nonagenarian. Perhaps the only commendable act of his life was the erection of the small, but handsome church in question. Yet, even this was looked upon as but the placatory offering of a prudent worldling, about to appear before the final tribunal, and anxious to propitiate the great Judge. Moreover, those who knew the most about it asserted that the church would never have been built, nor a dollar spent towards it, had it not been for Rufus Heath, who, during the last years of his father-in-law's life, had the entire control of the estate, owing to the latter's age and incapacity. Doubtless these assertions were true, for neither dread of God or demon could ever have wrung an unremunerative stiver from old John Peter Obershaw's clutching fist, as he belonged to the orthodox school of misers—the class who live but to accumulate, and find all their pleasure in that sound, wholesome vice which prolongs life, and betrays not to a fool's paradise.

To the last he was steadfast to his idol. For years previous he was confined to his room by paralysis, dead to all affections save love of money, and vegetating in an easy chair stuffed literally with gold; for the senile miser, like a magpie, slyly secreted coin in every nook and corner of his chamber. In this second childhood, it was necessary to quiet him by giving him money to toy with, and musty accounts and deeds, which he pored over with the vacuity of an imbecile. To the end the ruling passion swayed him. At the last moment, when the taper of life was about giving its expiring flicker, he asked his attendant to bring him a surveyor's map of his estate. "And, James, tell ... tell Mr. Heath I want to see him ... see him at once. Must buy Van Slyke's farm if he'll sell it right ... sell it right. But he wants too much ... too much. No ... no ... can't give it. No ... no; haven't ... got the money. Soon as I am well, well ... and strong, I'll go out and have a look at it ... look at it. Soon as I am well, and go out ... go out. But can't 'ford to pay much. No ... no. Van Slyke's farm'll square the addition. But, I can't pay much ... can't 'ford it;" and a nervous twitching of his pale thin lips, as he mumbled to himself, showed teeth still sound, though worn down like an old mastiff's. He was a man of large frame, gaunt, bowed with age, and the dried yellow skin of his face resembled wrinkled parchment. When the map was brought to him, he stared vacantly at it with faded eyes that looked like dull agates, then relapsed into a still slumber with the map gripped in his long, talon-like, bony fingers, as if some one would steal it from him. Aroused by the entrance of his son-in-law, he again mumbled—"Where's the map ... map? Heath, see Van Slyke 'bout the farm and don't let him ... let him cheat me. I ain't quite ... quite so strong now, and ... and they'll cheat me. Ah, they're a close, sharp set.... Soon as I am well I'll go ... I'll go...."

The last words were uttered in a faint whisper; no further sound came from the moving lips; the death film crept over his eyes, and he was gone. He had lasted well and long, for avarice is a powerful antiseptic. The dry heart burns to the socket, and the selfish miser was blessed with an euthanasia that a saint might have envied.

The nearest physician, Dr. Wattletop, was swiftly summoned, only to return discomfited, as he expressed it, by that omnipotent leech who carries his lancet at the end of a snath.

The fall of so heavily laden a body into the great ocean of eternity created, to use a homely simile, an unusual splash, and occasioned no little commotion in Belton.

"Why, sir," said Mr. Madison Mumbie, the eminent paper-maker, addressing Dr. Wattletop, in the agitation of the moment, "Why, sir, Mr. Obershaw's wealth is e-normous! Probably the richest man we had in the State. Yes, sir" (with a sigh), "I regret to say it, we have lost a gentleman, and a Christian, who leaves at least two millions of dollars. Yes, sir, two millions at the lowest calculation—he leaves all of that!"

"Leaves!" repeated the doctor. "Aye, there's the rub. Now, if he could only have taken the two millions with him, there would have been something in it, wouldn't there?"

This view of the case did not strike Mr. Mumbie, who was himself rather inclined to accumulate, as cheerful or encouraging, and he went his way in a meditative mood.

Mr. Mook, the gentlemanly undertaker, in walking twenty rods from the residence of the deceased, was accosted by not less than a dozen anxious inquirers eager to learn the slightest particular relating