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(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

A RICH MAN'S RELATIVES

PRESS NOTICES

OF

"INCHBRACKEN,"

A NOVEL BY R. CLELAND

---

Westminster Review, October, 1883.

"Inchbracken" is a clever sketch of Scottish life and manners at the time of the "Disruption," or great secession from the Established Church of Scotland, which resulted in the formation of the Free Church. The scene of the story is a remote country parish in the north of Scotland, within a few miles of the highland line. The main interest centres in the young Free Church minister and his sister and their relations, on the one hand, with the enthusiastic supporters of the Disruption movement, mostly of the peasant or small tradesmen class, with a sprinkling of the smaller landowners; and, on the other hand, with the zealous supporters of the Established Church, represented by the Drysdales of Inchbracken, the great family of the neighbourhood. The story is well and simply told, with many a quiet touch of humour, founded on no inconsiderable knowledge of human nature.

Academy, 27th October, 1883.

There is a great deal of solid writing in "Inchbracken," and they who read it will hardly do so in vain. It is a story of the Disruption; and it sets forth, with much pains and not a little spirit, the humours and scandals of one of the communities affected by the event. The main incident of the story has nothing to do with the Disruption, it is true; but its personages are those of the time, and the uses to which they are put are such as the Disruption made possible. Roderick Brown, the enthusiastic young Free Church minister, finds on the sea-shore after wreck and storm, a poor little human waif which the sea has spared. He takes the baby home, and does his best for it. One of his parishioners has lost her character, however; and as Roderick, at the instigation of his beadle, the real author of her ruin, is good enough to give her money and help, it soon becomes evident to Inchbracken that he is the villain, and that the baby of the wreck is the fruit of an illicit amour. How it ends I shall not say. I shall do no more than note that the story of the minister's trials and the portraitures--of elders and gossips, hags and maids and village notables--with which it is enriched are (especially if you are not afraid of the broadest Scotch, written with the most uncompromising regard for the national honour) amusing and natural in no mean degree.

W. E. Henley.

Athenæum, 17th November, 1883.

"Inchbracken" will be found amusing by those who are familiar with Scotch country life. The period chosen, the "Disruption time," is an epoch in the religious and social life of Scotland, marking a revival, in an extremely modified and not altogether genuine form, of the polemic Puritanism of the early Presbyterians, and so furnishing a subject which lends itself better to literary treatment than most sides of Scottish life in this prosaic century. The author has a good descriptive gift, and makes the most of the picturesque side of the early Free Church meetings at which declaimers against Erastian patronage posed in the attitude of the Covenanters of old. The story opens on a stormy night when Roderick Brown, the young Free Church minister of Kilrundle, is summoned on a ten-mile expedition to attend a dying woman, an expedition which involves him in all the troubles which form the subject of the book. The patient has nothing on her mind of an urgent character. "No, mem! na!" says the messenger.

The example of Jenny Geddes has been too much for the poor old woman:--

The excuse for this long extract must be its excellence as a specimen of a long-winded statement, just such as a Scotch fisher boy would make when once the ice was broken. Not less idiomatic is the interview between Mrs. Boague, the shepherd's wife, and Mrs. Sangster "of Auchlippie," the great lady of the congregation, when the latter has had her painful experience of mountain climbing, till rescued by the "lug and the horn" at the hands of her spiritual pastor. Other good scenes are the meeting of the two old wives in mutches an the brae side, and the final discomfiture of the hypocritical scamp Joseph Smiley by his mother-in-law, Tibbie Tirpie, who rights her daughter's wrongs and the minister's reputation by a capital coup de main. Of more serious interest, though full of humour, are the trials the excellent Roderick endures at the hands of his kirk session. Ebenezer Prittie and Peter Malloch are types of many an elder minister and ministers' wives have had to groan under, and the race is not extinct. But all who are interested in such specimens of human nature should refer to Mr. Cleland, who knows his countrymen as well as he can describe his country.

Select Novels by Popular Authors.

Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. each.

---

By Florence Marryat.

By Annie Thomas.

By Mrs. Eiloart.

WIFE.
SOME OF OUR GIRLS.

By Lady Constance Howard.

By the Author of "Recommended to Mercy."

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By Harriett Jay.

A

RICH MAN'S RELATIVES.

BY

R. CLELAND,

AUTHOR OF "INCHBRACKEN."

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

F. V. WHITE AND CO.,

31, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.

1885.

PRINTED BY
KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS;
AND MIDDLE MILL KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.

CONTENTS

---

CHAP.   I. --How his Relations vexed the Rich Man. II. --Steadfast Mary. III. --Little Arcadia. IV. --"Ouff." V. --Fidèle. VI. --The Misses Stanley. VII. --The Desolate Mother. VIII. --Ralph. IX. --At St. Euphrase. X. --Ten Years Later. XI. --Mahomet and Kadijah. XII. --A Garden Tea. XIII. --On Account of Strawberries.

A RICH MAN'S RELATIVES.

CHAPTER I.

HOW HIS RELATIONS VEXED THE RICH MAN.

One evening early in July, 1858, there might have been seen through the railings of a villa in a suburban street of Montreal, if only the thick shrubbery leaves would have permitted the view, a lady--Miss Judith Herkimer, to wit--seated in a quiet corner of the verandah, and partially concealed by the clusters of a wisteria trained to the pillar against which she leaned. Miss Judith had entered on that uninteresting middle time of life, when, though youth with its graces is undeniably of the past, the grey hairs which may perchance intrude among the brown, are not yet a crown of honour; the bloom and the promise of life are over, but the pathetic dignity of retrospect, with its suggestions of what has or what might have been, which make age beautiful, are not yet arrived. It was the sear and dusty afternoon stage of her pilgrimage and her spinsterhood, and there was a shade of severity in her aspect, as though living had grown into something to be struggled with and endured--the season for duty to a serious mind, seeing that the time for enjoyment is manifestly gone by.

The flatness with which her hair was laid upon her temples, and then drawn back tightly without wave or pad to the apex of her head, and secured in the form of an onion, left no doubt as to the seriousness of Miss Judith's mind, while the severe ungracefulness of her dress argued an ascetic tendency of that aggressive kind which says, "Brother, I would fast, therefore you shall go without your dinner"--a person tiresome rather than bad, but with the long chin of that obstinacy which can be so provoking when the understanding and imagination are too narrow to perceive the true relation of things.

On the lawn before her stood a mulatto lad of about eighteen, dressed in the white linen suit of a house servant, and with a long apron suspended from his neck, as though he had been called from his glass-washing in the pantry.

"You say, Miss Judith," he was saying, while he pulled the apron through his fingers with a puzzled look, "dat I b'long to myself and not to de cu'nel as owns me? Den w'y dis house as you owns not b'long to me too?"

"Because property in our fellow-men is not recognized in this free country, Cato. But you cannot be expected to understand these intricate questions all at once. Patience and humility, Cato! Now for your reading. Have you got your book? Ah! yes. Here is the place. What does r a t read?"

"Cat! Miss Judy."

"Fie! Cato. C a t is cat. That is rat! Begins with an R. You see?"

"'Cep' de cat hab done gone eaten de rat. Den whaar will he be, Miss Judy? All cat after dat! I reckon."

"Cato, you are foolish! Now,

attend!"

"Cato," said another voice from the background, "go to your pantry and assist Bridget with her tea-things," and Miss Herkimer stepped out on the verandah from a window not far off. Miss Herkimer was a good many years older than her sister, but she admitted the fact that she was elderly, and did not seem to find it interfere with her comfort. Her hair was white, and hung in curls over her temples, and the folds of her black silk gown had a free and contented swing which refreshed the eye after the pinched exactness of Miss Judith's costume.

"Gerald and his friend have moved into the smoking-room with their cigars, and as the windows are open I was afraid your instructions might be overheard; and then, Judith, there would be a commotion which you would regret."

"We must think what is right, Susan, do it, and never mind the consequences."

"It cannot be right to interfere between our brother Gerald and his servant. If the customs in his country are different from ours, that cannot be helped. He follows his own, and while he is our guest, it is not for us to disturb."

"Think of the iniquity of slavery, Susan--that that young man should be held in bondage, in this free Canada! It seems awful. Look at him, and deny if you can that he is a man and a brother!"

"I have no objection whatever to admit his being a man and brother, but I certainly should not like to have to call him nephew! And that is what it may come to if you provoke Gerald. You know how violent he can be when he is roused, and if he thought we were tampering with his negro, or attempting an abolitionist scheme, he is capable even of--adopting him, we will call it--and leaving him his whole fortune."

"Do you think so? That would be most unprincipled conduct on his part."

"I know he is quite capable of it; and besides, Judith, I think you are unnecessarily scrupulous about that ugly word 'slavery.' It really seems not so bad a thing after all, come to see it in action. Gerald, now, is extremely kind to the boy--spoils him, indeed, with indulgence, and makes him do very little work. How much better he is off than Stephen's foot-boy, with a pony to mind and the garden to weed when he is not splitting wood or acting butler in the house. It is Stephen's boy who is the slave, to my thinking. Again, I heard Gerald say he refused two thousand dollars for him from a barber in New Orleans. He is quite a valuable boy, and you would tempt him to leave his master!"

"Two thousand dollars for a black boy? Why! Stephen's white boy gets only ten dollars a month and some clothes. Does it not seem extravagant, now, to have so much money tied up in one negro?--and sinful? How much good might be done with that money if the boy were realized! One like Stephen's at ten dollars a month could do his work--it seems to be only shaving his master, and after that to do what he is bid--and the rest of the money might do such very great good. Five hundred dollars might be given to African missions to enlighten his pagan fellow-countrymen, and would carry the truth to so many!--and still there would be money over to do much good."

"And how do you propose to realize a negro boy, sister, except by selling him to another slave owner? And what about the man and brother?"

"True, Susan! Quite true. I admit the force of your objection. It is another illustration of the mystery our good rector dwelt upon so touchingly last Sunday, that good and evil walk the earth hand-in-hand. A solemn thought! But in this case it really seems to me that the boy's bondage would be well compensated. He is a slave already, you must remember--has no idea what liberty means--and five hundred dollars would bring so many darkened savages within the influence of gospel light. If the poor ignorant creature knew enough to understand, I am sure he would rejoice to think that so slight a change in his own circumstances would bring so vast a benefit to his benighted brethren."

"And you'd still be fifteen hundred dollars to the good, Judith. Quite an operation in another man's niggers! Ha, ha! Godliness is profitable! That's sound evangelical doctrine! Ha, ha, ha!"

These words rang forth in a discordant voice from a neighbouring window, the Venetians of which were now pushed open.

The ladies gasped and turned round in dismay. As they had grown earnest in their conversation their voices had been rising to the pitch at which they could not but be heard without eaves-dropping, and they had been overheard.

Within the window, which was open, stood the "Gerald" of whom they had been discoursing--a tall square-framed man, but sadly wasted and collapsed under prolonged attacks of malarial fever. He was between fifty and sixty years of age, with features which had once been stern and resolute, but now, under the stress of continued ill-health, had grown querulous and peevish in their expression. He had gone to Louisiana some thirty years before to push his fortune. From French-speaking Lower Canada to French-understanding Louisiana seemed less of an expatriation than to English New York or California, and such Frenchness as he was able to bring--he was English-born after all, and only Canadian by education--had prepossessed the Louisianians in his favour. He had pushed his fortune--married the heiress of a valuable plantation near Natchez, where he had resided ever since--and amassed wealth. He had lost, however, his wife, his child, and latterly his good-health; and at last had been compelled to return to his friends in the North to give his shattered constitution a last chance to shake off the creeping agues which were dragging him to the grave. He had been a year already under his sisters' roof, greatly to his own worriment; for between his fever fits and the prostration which followed them, there would intervene hours of restless irritability, when it seemed to him that his affairs were entangling themselves into a knot of hopeless confusion, deprived as they were of the master's eye which alone sees clearly.

"What do you think of that, major?" Gerald continued, turning to his companion who was gnawing the end of a very large cigar--a tall sallow man with a much waxed and pointed black moustache and goatee, and an exuberant display of jewellery in his shirt front. "Who in Natchez would expect to find me summering in a nest of blazing abolitionists? Better say nothing when you get home, or I may have to settle with the vigilance committee when I go back."

"I did not expect it, colonel," said the major, pulling down his waistcoat and looking dignified. "Among fanatical Yankees I reckon on hearing the institootions of my country vilified, and so I give sech cattle a wide berth; but here, on British terri-tory, I expected some liberality. Bless my soul! trying to corrupt your servant under your very nose!"

The ladies had withdrawn in confusion under their brother's first attack, or civility to his hostesses must have kept the major silent. At the same time he felt outraged. To think that he, one of the most "high-toned" men of his neighbourhood, and with the very soundest Southern principles, should have been trapped into a den of lowlived--it was always "lowlived"--abolitionism! His friend Herkimer too, had always passed for a "high-toned gentleman" of sound principles when in Natchez, and to find him the member of such a family was inexpressibly shocking.

"Yes," said Herkimer, "it is bad--shows what fools women can be when they don't know, and swallow all the rant that gets into print. After that they think they know so much that they won't believe a word those who could tell them can say. If my boy, Cato, now, had not been an extra good nigger, these sisters of mine would have made him leave me long ago. When his

mother, Amanda, died, I promised her I would always keep him about myself--and he does, I will say, understand my little ways--or I never would have ventured to bring him to Canada; but the fact is, the boy's fond of me, and won't leave me, say what they like. Still it provokes a man to see his property being tampered with. Then, too, my sister Judith feels it her dooty, she says, to speak to me about the sinfulness of having property in human beings. I ask her to prove that they are human, but she just rolls her eyes and looks solemn. She calls her talk 'a word in season,' but she chooses the most unseasonable times to hold forth; generally when my chill is coming on, and the long yawn creeping up my back that we all know, when I don't feel man enough to say 'bo' to a goose. My wig! If I could I'd say more than 'bo' to Judith. She holds on steady till I begin to grow blue and my teeth chatter, then I pull the bell for Cato to bring more blankets, and he--good lad--always sends her away, first tiling. Susan bothers too--money, generally--but I'm free to allow she has more gumption than Judith. Old maids both. That's a sort of critter we don't have down Natchez way. There they marry. Reckon you never saw any before, major? Pecoolier, ain't they?"

"The ladies are your sisters, colonel. Estimable, I doubt not; but they do not understand our Southern institootions."

"Talking of understanding, major, do you see much of my nephew, Ralph? When he went down to the plantation I gave him a letter to you, as being my nearest neighbour, and a good friend. I told him he might place implicit reliance on your opinion in any case of doubt which might arise. The overseers are men whom I could trust to make a crop if I was on the spot myself; but of course the young man had to learn, and circumstances were sure to arise in which your advice would be most val'able. Do you see him often?"

Major Considine--I omitted to mention his name earlier, and I may now add by way of making amends for the neglect, that the "major" was a prefix of courtesy conferred by his neighbours to describe his social status and the extent of his possessions; Herkimer's colonelcy was of the same kind, but the higher rank implied a larger holding in land and negroes--Major Considine coughed dryly, drew himself up, and looked sallower if possible than his wont, while his eyes sought the ground.

"I have seen your nephew, sir," he said, "frequently. When he came down first I invited him to come and see me, and treated him in all respects as I would any other gentleman, your friend; but I am bound to own that lately we have not met;" and he gave the waxed points of his moustache a further twirl with something of an aggrieved air, as if to intimate that while he had done his part unimpeachably, he had reason to complain of the way in which his advances had been met.

Herkimer frowned and threw away his cigar. "Fact is, major," he said, "I have a letter from Taine. Taine has been my overseer for a good many years, as you know, and I have found him a good man. He talks of leaving my employment at the end of the year, and asks me to send him a letter stating my satisfaction with him during the years he has been overseeing for me. I can well do that, but I'd hate to lose him. Good overseers are scarce. He complains that Ralph has discharged one of the assistant overseers against his wish, that he interferes with the field work, and has damaged ten of the hands to the extent of two or three hundred dollars apiece, and the crop prospect is reduced by forty or fifty bales. He says that his character for getting more bales to the hand than any other overseer in the section is at stake, and he has concluded, if I feel unable to return to the plantation, that he will leave. What do you think of it?"

"Not at all surprised, sir; Taine is not to be blamed. Mr. Ralph Herkimer came to me shortly after he had discharged that assistant you mention, to ask my advice. It seems they had met accidentally immediately after the discharge, in some saloon, and Mister Ralph Herkimer being ignorant, it appears, that in our glorious land of freedom all white men are equal, had put on some of his plantation airs. He has those plantation airs mighty strong, having, as you say yourself, knocked three or four thousand dollars off the value of your field gangs, by nothing but whipping--clear unmerciful whipping, they do say around Natchez. Waal, his tale was a good deal mixed, and I don't pretend to know the rights, but it seems the discharged overseer asked him to drink, to show he bore no spite. Mr. Ralph Herkimer refused, said something about white trash, and flung the liquor in his face. The overseer drew his pistol, and would have fired, but the folks in the bar-room interfered to protect an unarmed man, and so Mr. Ralph Herkimer rode safe home, and shortly after arriving there received a hostile message. He rode over to see me with the letter in his hand, and that is how I come to know the circumstance, colonel. And let me add, sir, that though I fear no man living, I would not have pained your feelin's by alluding to it, if you had not made it necessary yourself, by bringing up the subject. The young man showed me his letter of defiance, and I spoke to him, as an older man and a gentleman, I hope, colonel, should speak to your nephew on such an occasion. He said he was indignant at being addressed in that style by a common fellow, and that where there was no equality there could be no claim to satisfaction. I pointed out to him that under the constitootion of our State all white men are equal, and that we, the first families, were always scrupulously courteous to our poorer neighbours, that being the only way to hold the community together. We want their help often, I told him, as at election times, in case of jury trials, when their goodwill goes farther to gain a verdict than all the blathering of the lawyers; and in case of serious trouble with the hands we can always depend on a white man, and it is well worth our while to accord him such equality as he can understand. Our first families, I told him, yield all that cheerfully, and find they can still be exclusive enough. As he had gone so far, I assured him he must fight, which after all would be a high compliment to the poor devil, and would make him--your nephew--popular with the meaner sort, which he would find profitable at an election, if by-and-by he were to naturalize and go into politics. I offered to undertake the management of the whole affair, and you are aware, colonel, I have some experience. I even showed him my French case of spring triggers, and my new patent Colt's revolvers, in case he had any preference as to arms, the choice resting with him; and--would you believe it, sir?--but really, really I dare not call up the blush of shame on your honourable features. The--this young man--declined my offer with thanks! He said it did not become him as a gentleman to go cut-throating with common fellows. I suggested that it was often nothing but a reverse of fortune which turned a gentleman into an assistant overseer. Then he said that bloodshed on account of a trifling misunderstanding was against his principles, when I replied that he must have mistaken Mississippi for Pennsylvania, and warned him that if he did not fight when it was put upon him, he would be insulted every time he appeared outside his own plantation. Then he asked me to use my good offices to accommodate things, but I explained to him that I could only meet the class to which his adversary belonged, either to fight them or to order them what they should do. After that Mr. Ralph Herkimer grew sulky--I thought at one time he was going to be offensive--but the pistol cases stood open on the table, and the gentleman don't like firearms I think; anyhow, he simmered down. I believe he ended by apologizing to the assistant overseer for not drinking his liquor; but I do know, I have never spoken to Mr. Ralph Herkimer since."

class="normal">"I don't blame you, major," said Herkimer. "The young man is not what my father's grandson ought to be. He won't do for Mississippi, that's clear; and I ain't going to let Taine leave me on account of him. I was wise to let him go down for the first year alone, leaving his wife and child here till he knew how he liked it. He had better come home again, for I don't like it, whether he does or no. I had meant him to succeed me down there, major; but the man who first pays off overseers and then apologizes to them cannot do that. He is my only brother Stephen's only son. It is disappointing. My two sisters, whom you have seen, would not do for planteresses in Mississippi; but I have another sister yet--young, major, and handsome--my half-sister; just about the age of Ralph. She might be made my heiress, and if she marries as I would wish, she shall! I need not conceal the truth from myself, major. The doctors have as good as told me I shall never return to Mississippi. You have not seen her yet, Considine, this sister of mine, Mary. She is just about the age of Jeanne de Beaulieu when I married her--poor Jeanne!--not unlike her, and quite as handsome. Strange, would it not be, if Beaulieu went with an heiress again? Here comes Cato to call us into the drawing-room for tea. We'll go, Considine, if you have finished your cigar; and--who knows?--we may see Mary."

CHAPTER II.

STEADFAST MARY.

It was late in November. The screen of foliage which hid the villa from the road had grown thin, changing to all gay colours, and dropping leaf by leaf. Old Gerald's health had not improved. The clear autumnal airs had failed to invigorate his fever-worn system, or brace it into vigour. They only chilled him, and forced him to keep his room.

The light was fading out of a grey and lifeless afternoon--one of those days when all things are possible, rain, frost, snow, or even a revulsion into the sunshine of a last brief remnant of St. Martin's summer, and yet nothing happens. Gerald sat by the window in his easy chair, wrapped in a thick dressing-gown and buried under many rugs. His letters lay at his elbow unread, and the New Orleans Picayune was on his lap, but he was too listless to look into its contents. His eyes were turned towards the road, and he watched with as much impatience as his torpid faculties were capable of feeling.

"There she is at last!" he muttered after a while. "Glad! She is all the company I have now, or can expect while I am kept indoors. Susan and Judith don't count in that way, even if they tried to be agreeable, which they don't. The one is for ever bothering about my negroes and my soul, the other about my money. What have I done that they should imagine they may puzzle their foolish heads over me and my affairs, or wag their cackling tongues. I am sick, and want nursing, so they take me for a child? Think of me, who consult no one, being advised by them! But never mind, here is little Mary. She is always good company, and she never bothers."

"But who is the fellow walking with her? Big and strapping. Fair hair, whiskers and moustache--not bad to look at, but seems most unnecessarily eager in his attentions. Wonder who he is. Carrying her music? Very proper; but he need not linger so long before letting go her hand. Mary shouldn't let him--looks particular--the major would not like that."

Presently Mary entered the room. She was flushed, or perhaps the air had heightened her complexion and brightened her eyes, which shone like stars; and there were smiles lingering about her lips, in wait, as it were, to break forth again on the first pretext.

"Your walk has done you good," said Gerald. "Where have you been? I have been wearying for you to come home; but now one sees you, it is impossible to grudge your short constitutional, you are so brightened up by it. I wish Considine was here to see you."

"I have been at choir-practising. I promised to take the solo in Sunday's anthem, and have been trying it over. The booming of the organ through the empty church rouses, one, I think. I generally feel brighter after it, and that may account for my looking so cheerful as you say."

"And who is the gentleman who carried home your music?"

"That is Mr. Selby, our organist. A splendid player. If you had not been such an invalid, you would have known both his playing and himself ere now."

"It would seem that you know him very well; and to see you walking together one would have said that he knows you very well too. You appear quite intimate, and yet I have never seen him here."

"No. Susan will not let him be invited to the house. She says his is not a recognized profession. As if a successful musician were not better than a bungling doctor or notary! It has something to do with the line which she says must be drawn--between wholesale and retail, for instance--if Montreal is to have a Society. A ridiculous line, it seems to me, which excludes many wealthy and accomplished people as traders, while it lets in poor Stephen and his wife, with her superfluous h's, because his little business in needles and pins is wholesale, seeing that he never sells less than a thousand at a time."

"Mrs. Stephen is my sister-in-law, and may do with her h's what she pleases. It is not her fault if she was born in the British metropolis, and if Stephen is not in opulent circumstances, it is just because it has so happened. I have known many high-toned families who were but in a small way pecooniarily speaking. I am surprised to hear you run Stephen and his family down, though I confess I have been disappointed myself in his son Ralph."

"I don't run them down; but why should they be so particular about others? It was Mrs. Stephen who said to Susan that an organist wasn't 'genteel,'--Mrs. Stephen, who doesn't know one tune from another--and so Mr. Selby has never been asked to the house. And then Judith chimed in with her 'higher grounds.' She says that good music is a snare and device of the High Church party, and that you got on very well without it long ago in the old church at Stoke-upon-Severn. A funny church it must have been."

"So it was, and I reckon you would not have liked it. The village joiner and the bellows mender played the clarionet and the bassoon in a little loft over the squire's pew, while the blacksmith's daughter sang the hymns, and the schoolmaster as clerk said the responses out loud before the people. But the world has changed since then. Yes! I daresay an organist might do as well to invite as anybody else. But what does it matter? What do you want with an organist? You have no organ."

"I like to be able to invite my friends just as other people do. If you knew him, Gerald, you would like him."

"I dare say. There are many people one would like if one knew them. Yet if one does not, it seems of little consequence, there are so many others. If you lived in Natchez, now, you would not see much of your Canadian friends. You would make friends down there, and very high-toned and elegant you would find them."

"Natchez, Gerald? What should I be doing there?"

"Doing? Living, of course; surrounded by every elegance that money and the best society can secure. If I live and get well, it is my intention to carry you back with me, and make you mistress of the Beaulieu estate--de Bully they call it for short. In case I do not, and I can see the doctor has not much hope of my recovery, I have willed the place and all my property to you. Don't stare, Mary. It is

so. I feel it a duty to provide a good mistress for those helpless creatures who are dependent on me, and you, I am satisfied, will be that. I have tried Ralph, as you know, and have found him unfit to take my place. You are the only other member of the family who could go there. You will marry, and the plantation will prosper. Treat the poor creatures kindly, Mary. But I know you will, and Considine is an excellent manager. His place adjoins ours. You will have the finest estate for miles on that part of the river."

"Oh! This seems very strange to me."

"You will get used to it in time. But to tell you the truth, I did not think the idea would be altogether new to you. I did not think Considine would have been so backward. He must be hard hit to be so diffident of his success in taking a girl's fancy. Has he said nothing to you?"

"It would have been strange in Major Considine to have divulged your testamentary intentions. You surely do not think he would speculate to me about your chances of recovery, or what you would do with your property. I should have stopped him at once if he had mooted the subject, you may be sure."

"I did not suppose that he had divulged my intentions, but I think it is about time that he had declared his own. After visiting here so constantly all through the summer, and keeping you singing by the hour to him downstairs in the drawing-room, he has surely made himself understood. Still, I wonder he has not spoken. Not that I have a right to complain, he has declared himself plainly enough to me, or you may be sure I would have put a stop to his visits long ago. Still I wonder at his backwardness. Where are you running to, Mary? Has he said nothing?"

"I want to take off my things," said Mary, her face aflame with blushes.

"Tell me before you go. What has he said? Tell me! There is his ring at the front door. I must speak to him."

"I don't know. But better say nothing," cried Mary in evident confusion, escaping from the room.

Gerald would have recalled her, but the major's heavy step was already audible on the stairs. He could only throw himself back in his chair with an impatient snort.

"Colonel!" said Considine, entering, "I come to make you my adieux"--'adoos' is how he pronounced it, the Major was certainly not French. "What orders for Taine at the plantation? Any commands for any one down there? I shall be pleased to be your messenger. I see by the Memphis paper there was a slight touch of frost the other night, so the sickly season is over, and I can safely go home to look after my affairs. They want looking into, I reckon, after five months' absence. I have to thank you for the very pleasant summer I have put in here."

"Do you mean it, major? Going right off? I have reckoned on your being here till the New Year."

"The call to go home has come sudden, colonel, but I reckon I had best obey it."

"And what about our plan to join the plantations?"

"I'm agreeable, colonel--anxious I should say; but if the lady ain't, what can I do?"

"You don't know, major, till you try. I reckon a sister of mine ain't just like a ripe persimmon, to drop in a man's mouth before he shakes the tree."

"Shakes the tree, colonel? There ain't no man ever shook the tree harder than I did. I shook in both my shoes for a mortal hour before I could steady my voice--that shook too--enough to say what I wanted. All the time I was trying, the lady was diverting herself with her singing. French songs, and I-talian songs, full of all kind of rare fandangoes, like a mocking bird in a cherry tree. I couldn't get a word in endways for ever so long, and when I did, at last, she just stopped and looked at me out of her eyes. And when I got through, she said 'Oh! Mr. Considine, it's all a mistake. You have misunderstood, and I don't understand. I am quite sure I cannot say what you desire, so we will suppose that you have not asked me to, and that nothing has been said at all, and we will agree never to recur to the subject.' And then she asked me if I did not think the last movement in the song she had been singing very effective, and the bravura passage at the end powerfully written. By-and-by I got away. You may suppose she did not play a great deal more music, and that I had got about enough for that time. I ain't a widower, colonel, as you know; I never was refused before, and I never backed out of an engagement, so you may say that I have no experience in these matters; but it appears to me that the young lady knows her own mind, and there is no use in my speaking to her again."

"But she didn't know about the joining our plantations then. I had only just done explaining that to her when you came in, and she ran out, which shows that she ain't indifferent to the idea, as who in their senses could be? The two will make a mighty pretty property, and you and Mary will look well at the head of it, and raise a fine family to come after you. She did not know she was heir to my property when she took you down that time. Ha, ha, major! It makes me laugh to think of it. You that so long have been boss of the range, and had only to beckon to fetch any gal in all the country--you to come all the way to Canada to be took down by a gal that didn't know she had a dollar to her name!"

"Sir, the subject of your jests is not a pleasant one. Let us pass on."

"I ask your pardon, major. No offence was intended; but if you will speak to Mary now, I am willing to bet any money her answer will be different. A man of experience should not mind every word a young woman says, when it is about marrying. It is the one time in life she is let have her head, and we must not blame her for taking it, just at first. Trust me, she has thought better of it already. Try again."

"It would be useless, colonel."

"Don't give in, sir! If the gal and the plantation are to your liking, that is."

"I think a mighty deal of the lady, sir; and would be fain to repeat my offer, even if she were as much without fortune as she believed herself to be last night; but I do not see my way to doing so after what has passed between us, the more so that now my fortune--a mighty neat one though it be--will count for less than before, seeing she knows now how well you have provided for her."

"I believe that will influence her the other way. However, it is reasonable you should want to halt and take breath before returning to the attack. This is a disappointment to me, but I won't cry beat yet, if you are still minded to persevere. Let me speak to her, and I will write to you. Now the ice has been broken between you, you will be able to take up the subject by letter." Considine shortly took his leave, and Gerald awaited the return of Mary, who did not appear till Cato had been sent to hammer on her chamber door and request her presence.

"Is this true," said Gerald, when she at length entered the room, "which I hear of you? Have you really gone and said 'No' to Considine's proposal? Do you know that he owns a hundred and fifty head of the likeliest niggers in all the Mississippi Valley, besides land and sundries?--nigh on two hundred thousand dollars, and no debts. What do you expect to be able to catch if Considine ain't good enough for you?"

"I didn't say he was not good enough. He deserves a better wife than I could make him, and I believe he will have no difficulty in finding her."

"But it is in you he thinks he has found her, Mary! Don't be foolish, you are not likely ever to get a better offer, or another half as good. The man is steady and well off, a kind man and a perfect gentleman. What more would you have?"

"I do not want

more, Gerald! But then I do not want--him."

"What is your objection to him? Is it his appearance, or his temper, or what? Is he not passably well-looking?"

"I would almost call him handsome."

"Does he not succeed in making himself sufficiently agreeable to you? I can assure you, at any rate, that you have succeeded in being agreeable to him. He says he would be fain to get you if you had not a cent to your name. Can a man say more than that?"

"I do not know that he can."

"Then what is your fault to him?"

"I find no fault with him. On the contrary----"

"Then why won't you marry him?"

"Because I could not like him in that way."

"What can a girl like you know about the marrying way?"

"I know that I could not marry Mr. Considine."

"Why? Is there some one else?"

Mary's face flushed hotly and her eyes fell.

"Ha! Have I caught you? You are engaged already? Why did you never tell? Surely you might have trusted your big brother. You never saw me till the other day, it is true, but we have been fast friends for twelve months now, have we not, Mary? Why did you never tell me?" And he drew her towards him as he spoke, and kissed her on the forehead. "Think I feel no interest in my future heir?"

"Because, Gerald, you do not know him. How could I tell you?"

"Tell me now, then, dear. Who is he?"

"You must find out," she answered with a watery smile and changing colour. "Girls are not expected to say such things, because they cannot."

"You say I do not know him? Have I seen him?"

"Yes."

"Do I know him by sight? Or have I seen him recently?"

"Yes, very recently indeed--as recently as could be."

"What? Then--you do not say? But it cannot be, Mary?"

There was a self-convicted look in Mary's face which pleaded guilty to the unspoken indictment.

"Do you really mean--but no, you cannot mean your friend the organist?"

Mary bowed her head in silence and looked expectantly in her brother's face, till his rising colour and the gathering frown left no doubt as to his reception of her tidings; then she removed her eyes with a heavy sigh and let them fall on the carpet.

"You cannot mean it, Mary? You!--my father's daughter!--my sister!--to engage yourself to marry a kind of fiddler!"

"He is not a fiddler, in your sense, Gerald, although he can play the violin, and indeed most other instruments. He is a cultured person, and has his university degree--Bachelor of Music--while few of those who try to look down on him have had the chance even to get plucked for one, having never gone to college at all."

"He plays tunes at any rate in a church loft on Sundays for a living. Is that a fit occupation for the man who would marry my sister?"

"Remember the great composers, Gerald. More than one of them was a chapelmaster, which is just an organist."

"The great fiddlesticks! If you had seen them in their lifetime in their frowzy little German houses and dirty linen, with their wives cooking their dinner, such as it was, for there was little enough at times to put in the pot, you would think less of their greatness. What good is the greatness which is not found out till after you are dead? A great fortune! That is the only greatness a sensible woman will marry to."

"Shame, Gerald! You do not mean what you say. You have been married yourself, and I know you loved and honoured your wife. Do you mean now to say that your wife was a fool because she married you when you were not rich? Or is it that she was mercenary and married you for your money?"

"Tush! Mary. You never saw poor Jeanne, so you cannot speak about her. The beautiful darling!" Gerald's voice grew husky here, and there was some coughing before he could resume.

"No! She was not mercenary, and she was not a fool. She married me when I was a poor man because we loved one another, and she did not think about money. But if she had, it was not an unwise thing, as it turned out, which she did in marrying me, for I managed her property successfully, and more than doubled its value."

"Then why will you doubt that another woman--and she your own sister--may love as well, or that the man she intrusts her future to, may be as well able as you were to take care of it? Mr. Selby has a great many pupils, and can very well maintain a wife."

"A wife, I dare say, but not my sister. It is true my property which I intend you to have is far more than Jeanne had when she married me; but I was able to take care of her and of what she had, and the property throve in my hands. An organist is different. What could such as he do with a gang of unruly niggers? It needs a clear business head and a strong arm to make plantation property pay."

"He does not aspire to your property, Gerald. He does not know of it, and with his feelings I am not sure that he would consent to become a slave-owner."

"Not consent, eh? Never fear. His consent will not be asked, for mine shall never be given to his owning my negroes. Slave-owning forsooth! No. Let him manage his chest of whistles. I have no right and no wish to dictate to you, though I would dearly like to see you marry Considine; but at least I can make sure, and I will, that your insidious organ-grinder shall never benefit a cent by my money, I promise you that, and I shall alter my will accordingly."

CHAPTER III.

LITTLE ARCADIA.

Four years later, and summer once more. Again it is in a suburban garden, not a very extensive one, but nicety kept; inclosed by tall trees and dense shrubbery on every side, and disclosing nothing of what may stand beyond, but here and there the corner of a chimney intruding its morsel of red amongst the sunny green of the tree-tops, and the golden cross on the neighbouring steeple soaring over all, and shining down its benediction on the peace below.

The grass is as short, soft, and green as constant mowing and sprinkling and warmth can make it. The flower-beds are masses of brilliant colour, and in the centre stands the house, a tin-roofed wooden cottage painted in the whitest white, relieved by vividly green Venetians; a broad verandah round the whole, windows descending to the floor, and above, small casements peering out through the shining tin, each with its Venetian thrown open to admit the breeze which comes up at the decline of day. The effect is cool, and home-like, notwithstanding the keenness of the colours, and quite other than that of the raw-toned packing-boxes in which so many an American is condemned to pass the night, and from which he is in so great a hurry to escape in the morning. It may be merely a peculiarity in the pitch of a French Canadian roof, or it may be some spiritual association which lingers about the work of these first settlers and oldest inhabitants; but there is a personality, permanence, and history about the newest and frailest of their structures which is wanting in the buildings of their English speaking neighbours, even when they give permanence to vulgar commonplace by embodying it in brick or stone.

The pillars of the verandah are garlanded with roses--pink, crimson, white, and creamy yellow--blooming profusely, but, to judge

from the ruin of shed petals scattered on the ground, soon to cease. Already, however, clematis--white, purple, blue--has begun to appear and will be ready to catch up the song of the roses, though in a minor key, so soon as their colour harmonies shall fade out. Butterflies are fluttering in the scented air, and a humming bird flits here and there where the flowers are thickest.

In a garden seat is Mary--no longer Herkimer, but Selby, now--and at her feet is a child, something more than a year old, who rolls and kicks upon the grass, crowing and babbling the while in a language which only mothers understand. Mary looks no older than she did in her brother's sick-room; fresher, perhaps, and fuller of harmonious life, as well may happen where the desires were reasonable and are all fulfilled. She is mistress of her own life, and of his in whom she trusts, as well as of that other at her feet, in whom his and hers are united and bloom anew; and as for the life, she would not wish it to be other than it is, even if it were in her power to change it. She is at work upon some small matter of muslin and lace which busies her fingers, while it leaves her thoughts free to wander; and their wanderings are among pleasant places, to judge by her smile and the big full breath of utter content.

The winter which was coming on when we saw Gerald last proved more than his enfeebled system could bear up against; he died before it was out; and Mary, feeling that her duty at home was accomplished, and seeing no good reason to sacrifice herself to the family prejudices, took her fate in her own hands and married the man of her choice.

"And it has all turned out so beautifully," she was saying to herself with a well-pleased sigh, when the click of the gate latch roused her from her reverie. It was Selby with his roll of music. She rose to meet him, and they made the round of their domain together, observing what new buds had opened since yesterday, and telling each other the events of the day.

"I heard a man down town say that your nephew Ralph is succeeding most wonderfully since he dropped the law and turned broker."

"I am glad of that, George. Poor Ralph! It was hard upon him the way Gerald seemed to take him up at first--sending him down to live upon the property at Natchez, and letting him expect to inherit it--and then to recall him and drop him so suddenly. He refused to see him even, when he came home. Judith says it was Colonel Considine set him against Ralph, to make him leave everything to me. But I do not think that. I always found Colonel Considine 'very much of a gentleman,' to use his own expression--a little high-backed and tiresome, no doubt, but incapable of a shabbiness like that. What good would it have done him my getting everything, considering how little we saw or cared for each other?"

"Speak for yourself, Mary. I am not so sure that Considine's interest in you was slight. From little things you have said I suspect--Nay, never blush for that, dearest, though the crimson is infinitely becoming--Having gained the prize I am not churl enough to resent another's having wished for it. Indeed, knowing as I do now how much he has missed, I could feel sorry for him, and I cannot but respect his good taste. I really could not believe that he attempted to undermine Ralph in his uncle's favour; a thing, by-the-way, which Ralph, according to those who know him best, is well able to do for himself; he has so many crooked little ways, and is proud of them, and careless about concealment, because I suppose it does not strike him that they can shock people, or are at all out of the way--obtuseness of moral perception, I fancy, it might be called."

"And yet, George, he was the only one of the family who did not oppose our marriage, and who has not given me up utterly, even since. Surely that shows a good heart. I, at least, shall always think kindly of Ralph for that, if for nothing else."

"My good innocent darling! Do you not see that that manœuvre alone, if there were nothing else, would stamp the man as selfish and a schemer? Remember the terms of your brother's will. He names you as his heiress, but he provides against contingencies which he fears may arise. He does not leave the property to you, but to Jordan the notary, and Considine, as trustees. In case you married Considine the trust was at an end, and everything passed to you at once. If you did not, all was to be sold and the money invested in Canada bank-stock and other securities which he named. You were to have the interest while you remained single or married with the approval of Mr. Jordan, in accordance with written instructions left in his hands. If you married contrary to these instructions, however, you were to receive nothing. The interest and dividends were to be re-invested as they fell due, and at the end of twenty years from your brother's death the whole is to be divided among your children, share and share alike; and in case you have none it is to go to Ralph's boy. Everything is tied up with only an annuity of a thousand dollars each to his three sisters and his brother. Now! Do you recognize the true inwardness of Ralph's amiability?"

"And pray, sir," cried Mary, drawing back with eyes wide open, "How come you to know all this? I would have bitten my tongue out sooner than tell you. It seems so ungenerous in Gerald to have treated you so."

"It shows the generosity of Gerald's sister, and that is all I care for. But often, I will own it, my conscience has reproached me with depriving you of your splendid inheritance; only, we are so happy here; and if love can make up for money--if my love----"

"Hush, George! I have all I want--more, I think sometimes, than should fall to one woman's share--and I wonder if it can last. But who told you about the will?"

"Who but your sister Judith!"

"She? I did not think you knew her; and she spoke so unkindly when I proposed to bring and introduce you. You surprise me."

"Ah! Miss Judy is a woman of surprises--a woman of energy who does not stick at trifles; and she is a diplomatist. She would not let you introduce me, that would have been yielding you a point; but she could find me out for herself when she wished to speak to me. That was on what she considered business, and did not oblige her to know me next time we met. It would have forced me to know her afterwards, if she had wished it; but that is nothing. Where would be the gain in being a lady, if rules worked both ways? Miss Judy found me out, and requested a few minutes' private conversation in the most gracious way possible. She apologized profusely for the intrusion, with quite a pretty warming of the complexion and an engaging little twitter behind her glove tips. Ass that I was, I grew red like a lobster all over my face, and my heart thumped against my ribs like a smithy hammer. I imagined your family were relenting towards me--that piety and true principle had overcome in the second Miss Herkimer her disapproval of our attachment, and that she had come to tell me so. I could have knelt down and kissed her hand, so overcome was I with grateful joy. It was well I did not. The group would have been too ridiculous. Miss Judy appealed to my feelings as a gentleman and a man of honour 'not to ruin the prospects of her sweet young sister;' that was her phrase, and she rendered it in a fine adagio manner, accompanied by a tremolo of her crumpled pocket-handkerchief, which did her artistic instinct the greatest credit, and really made the little petition seem both reasonable and affecting. Judy would have succeeded on the stage, Mary, I do believe, if they had put her in training early."

"George, you are profane. It sounds ribald to speak of serious people in that way."

"Judy and the playhouse, eh? It is a little

incongruous, I admit; but which has most right to resent the juxtaposition we need not stop to inquire. Miss Judith told me you had come into a large fortune, and your family were anxious about your matrimonial prospects, so many swells were your friends, and you were so highly connected. There was at least one general officer and a captain of dragoons, besides many more; but whether they wanted to marry you, or were only your grandfather's cousins, I did not quite catch. You see my feelings were a little tumultuous, like those of the man stepping on board a steamboat to meet his sweetheart, when he misses the plank and drops into the water. I had a feeling of cold bath all over, and was cross, I dare say; at least I did not respond to Miss Judy's condescensions as she had expected. At once she changed her tone, drawing herself up and looking severely superior. It was scarcely conceivable, she told me with dignified coldness, that I could seriously have expected anything more than a little notoriety would result from my appearing in public conversing with her sister, but if I cherished any delusion on the subject, it was for my good that she should speak plainly, and as a Christian she saw it her duty to do so. It was out of the question, she told me, that you should marry a man in my position, and one who was not a gentleman. This to me, whose gentlemanly feelings she had just been appealing to! It sent the blood tingling down to my fingertips, and revived me after the douche of what she had been saying before. I told her these were matters I declined to discuss with a lady whom I had not the honour of being acquainted with, and that while I enjoyed the privilege of your friendship, none but yourself should dictate to me the terms. Then she pulled out a paper which she said was a copy of your brother Gerald's will, and another, the private instructions he had left with Jordan. She insisted on reading them both to me, word by word, and was especially emphatic in her rendering of the instructions in which I am mentioned by name as a person you were not to marry."

"I know, George; and I think it was cruel in Gerald to make such a stipulation. However, it does not matter. I did not want the money, and you do not grudge to earn money for us both; and what do we want which we have not got?"

"True, my darling; and after all, your dividends which fell due before you disobeyed your kinsman's commands by marrying me have bought us this cosey little home, so you did not come to me a penniless bride after all. Talking of these things, by-the-way, reminds me--Did you observe Considine's name in the war news this morning? He is a general now. Why, Mary, you might have been one of their great ladies down there, if you had chosen!"

"But I did not choose; and I question if a general's lady down there has much to congratulate herself on. Grant is in Memphis, I see, and steadily working southwards. The negroes on the plantations are in a ferment, and Mrs. Dunwiddie, the refugee who is staying with Mrs. Brown, and called here to-day, says the boxes of silver spoons and candlesticks the Yankee officers are sending home to their friends by express are more than the Express Company's car will carry, and they talk of requisitioning a gunboat to carry their loot North to Cincinnati. I should not have liked to ride with my plate and valuables in an ambulance in the rear of even a husband's column. But is it not fortunate that Gerald's property was realized, and the money received safely in Canada before these troubles began? You and I may not be the richer for it, but think of Edith, the little elf; what a sum it will be when she is old enough to receive it!"

"Over a million of dollars. Far too much for a girl to have. Let us hope she may have brothers and sisters to share it with. But where, at the same time, have you left this great heiress? I have not had a chance yet to give her a kiss."

"I called Lisette to come for her when you came in. Ah! There she is, among the raspberry bushes--ruining her white frock with berry juice, I'll be bound, for it is Cato who is carrying her. See how she clutches his curly wool while he picks fruit for her. Her tugging must be quite sore, but he seems positively to enjoy it, he is so fond of her."

"And well he may. Have you forgot Judith's and Ralph's attempt to 'realize' him when his master died?--to huddle him over to Buffalo and sell him into slavery again. Miss Judith thought she could do so much good with the money, and Ralph encouraged her, and undertook to arrange the transaction on the American side, when he would quietly have pocketed the money, I make no doubt. If you had not interfered and explained things to the poor boy he certainly would have fallen into their trap, and been disposed of for cash down. He is the only decent nigger I ever saw, and the only one who could have been so imposed on. Oh, yes! He would do anything for you or the child."

"Dinner will be on the table almost at once, George. Come in and get ready."

"Ah, yes! Dinner and something cool, after the long broiling day. By-and-by, when the candles are lit, and the moths and beetles come droning in from the darkness to singe their wings in the flame, we will have music and a little singing. Some of those dear old songs by the masters we used to revel in long ago. Haydn and the rest. Such as 'Gra-a-aceful partner.'"

"Quite so, your highness. That I may have to respond 'Spouse adorèd,' my most sovereign lord and master! Ha, ha, ha! What it is to be a lord of creation! Meanwhile, there is the bell. Hurry to your room."