Chapter 13

AN OATH.

"It's not worth the paper it's written on, except to show us our sister is pure."

Levi addressed his father and brothers in the school-room on the Sunday following his mother's funeral. He referred to the marriage-certificate which Lizzi guarded so carefully.

Hunch Blair lay close to the floor, under a desk which protected him from discovery. During the day he had heard Levi tell Cassi to come to the school-house in the evening. Suspecting something interesting, he got there before the McAnays.

"It's no good, I say," Levi continued, "and there's nothing left for us to do but bring the sneak back and have Parson Lawrence marry him and Lizzi. And if he won't come, why, settle with him, that's all."

"Yes, tar and feather and then burn him," suggested Matthi as his idea of settlement.

"No, lynch him," Cassi advised.

"Well, we must lose no time," said Levi.

"But Lizzi believes Gill is dead," Peter remarked.

"Dead nothin'," replied the stolid Matthi. "He's most likely foolin' another girl some place, and I'd like ter git a chance ter put a stop to his gallantin'."

Matthi made a gesture suggestive of wringing the neck of a chicken.

"Come, boys," Levi said, "let's swear. Join your right hands to mine above our father's head. Now say, we are three brothers whose sister has been deeply wronged, and we do swear in the presence of our aged father and upon our honor as men to seek John Gillfillan, our sister's betrayer, and compel him to return to her and make her his wife, and if he will not, to avenge our sister's honor by his blood."

"We swear," they all said solemnly, after the formula had been repeated.

Peter bowed his approval, and encouraged them by saying:

"Go to-morrer, boys, and God bless ye. I'll take care of Lizzi."

Levi pulled from his pocket some money, not very much, although it was the savings of two years, and began counting it in the moonlight, while the others watched him curiously. He fingered the bills fondly. He slowly dropped the gold coins into his hat, and listened with evident delight to the clinking of the falling pieces. He held the silver close to the window, and looked from it to the gold, from the gold to the moon.

"The moon is a silver dollar, and the sun is a twenty-dollar gold-piece."

About to make a sacrifice, he said a silly thing that his father and brothers should think he gave easily and without pain.

"There, father," he said, turning first the silver, then the gold, into his father's hat, and on top of the yellow and argent pile laying the paper money, "there, father, that's for Lizzi, and will keep her until we come back, bringing her husband. If we don't find him, we'll work for her."

Peter, seized with a fit of trembling, sat down helplessly, and picking up the hat, ran his fingers among the coins, clinking them. Cassi and Matthi looked on in quiet admiration, both wishing heartily that the balance due them on the furnace books was not so light. Although half ashamed to place his small savings beside Levi's princely gift, Matthi remarked:

"Guess if we put our money together it would look bigger, Cassi."

"Kind of small potatoes beside of Levi's pile," Cassi replied; "but if Levi will write us an order, we'll sign it, hey, Matthi?"

Levi had with him an inkstand, a then new invention for the pocket, and pen and paper. He wrote the order in the moonlight, and the brothers signed it.

"God bless ye all!" exclaimed Peter as he received the order. "Ye are the best sons any man ever had. Oh! if yer mother's lookin' down on us, she's not ashamed ter hold her head up among the angels, 'less she feels bad 'bout not believin' in Lizzi." He put the money and order in his pocket. When they were secure, Levi hoisted a window on the dark side of the school-house and crawled through it. Then he helped his father out, and the others followed. For a moment they stood under the trees and breathed the resinous atmosphere of the woods just budding.

There was a silent shake of the father's trembling hand by each son in turn, and then they parted.

Lizzi got the usual early Monday breakfast, but made places for four only. Levi's school was closed for the year, and she meant he should enjoy a long morning nap if he chose. Her father came down, and she inquired if he had called Matthi and Cassi.

"I looked in their room, but they're up," he replied.

"Up? Funny I didn't hear them. Wonder where they could have gone this time in the morning without any breakfast."

"There's no tellin'," was Peter's answer.

Father and daughter ate silently. When his hunger was satisfied, Peter kissed her and, taking his axe and bundle, departed to the chopping.

The morning slipped by. Matthi and Cassi did not return, and Levi's sleep seemed endless. Lizzi went to his door and listened, but heard no sound. Pushing the door open a little, she looked in. The room was empty. The bed had not been slept in that night. On the wash-stand lay a note addressed to her in Levi's writing.

"DEAR LIZZI: We have gone to find out for you all about John Gillfillan.

YOUR THREE BROTHERS."

"Father knew it," she said, with a soft smile. "I hope the boys will bring me good news; but I know John is dead."

She had not wept for her husband, but for him a constant stream of grief flowed through her being, a river of soul-tears, no sound of its current rising to the surface.

She was almost entirely alone now. No one came to see her except Gret Reed and Mrs. Hornberger. Even Blind Benner and Hunch seemed to have deserted her, for they were missing from the town.