Chapter 7

"Haow, Galusha!" came in nasal accents from the door-way. "Who ye got in the phayton?"

"The folks as has took the cottage yonder!" called back Galusha.

"Humph! I'll be dummed!" was Pincus's audible comment as the shay rattled on.

"Yonder's the store," presently added Galusha, pointing with his two feet of whip-stock to a place placarded with patent-medicine advertisements, and apparently the rendezvous for all the tobacco-chewers of the neighborhood.

"And the post-office?" asked Mabel timidly.

"In the store, mum. Barton Bump's our pos'master. Some'at of a man, Barton is. He was 'p'inted by the Pres'dent 'imself. Barton fit in the war, yer see, an' I 'spect Gen'ral Grant took a powerful shine to him. He made him pos'master fust thing."

The greatness of Barton Bump did not seem to impress the party as much as Galusha anticipated. "Git 'long, Kittie!" he said, retiring into himself and seeking solace in a fresh mouthful of tobacco. He couldn't contain himself long, though. He soon exclaimed, "So you's the folks as has took the cottage yonder. Well, I want t' know!" He paused again to chew awhile, and then continued, "Yer ain't bin much hereabouts, I reckon?" Another reflective cud. "Well, 'tain't so durned 'citin' here, maybe, as 't might be up to Bosting, but we 'casion'lly gets up reels an' sich for the young folks an' 'joys erselves.--Go 'long, Kittie!--You heard tell, I reckon, on Farmer Manton, lives down 'longside this here cottage of yourn. No? Well, I want t' know. He's 'sider'ble of a man in these parts, Manton is. His gals is great on's on flare-ups, an' powerful smart gals they be, too.--Go 'long, Kittie Krinklebottom!--But durn me if he ain't got the cussedest boy as ever stepped! He don't do nothin' but mope about an' ac' silly. He didn't never do no chores about the yard nor nothin', an' one fine day he come to Manton an' says, 'Dad,' says he, 'I want to go to college,' says he. Well, the old man was that cumflusticated an' took aback that says he, 'John,' says he, 'yer ain't no durned use on the farm,' says he, 'an', if yer got the notion, go, an' God bless yer!' An' John went,--that's nigh onter four year ago,--an' he ain't got ter be perfessor nor nothin' yet. I guess as he's cracked; an' one day says I, kinder kind-like, 'Farmer Manton,' says I, 'John's not right,' says I. 'Galusha,' says he, kinder hot, 'you mind yer own business,' says he. 'I ain't father to no idjots.' An' I ain't said no more sence."

Galusha laughed long and heartily over this reminiscence, while Kittie jogged on along the road to the sea. Presently they turned a sharp bend in the road; a pretty little Queen-Anne cottage came in sight, backing upon a thick wood and overlooking the ocean, and Galusha, reining in the mare, just as though she would not have come to a halt unassisted, exclaimed, "Here yer be!"

It required, of course, three or four days for Mabel to become accustomed to her new surroundings. There was the prettily-furnished house to make acquaintance with, while she wondered all the time what ever induced its owner to plant it so utterly out of the world; there was the little forest of pines to explore, and its most romantic nooks to be discovered; and there was the sea, a thing of never-failing beauty, to gaze upon from the rocky cliffs, as it dashed itself in fine spray against their base, or from the broad crescent beach beyond, as it rolled its crested billows up the sandy slope. Yes, all these things were very pleasant,--far more delightful than she had anticipated. She thought during those first few days that she would like to live on there forever, until the novelty wore off and her father's ailings crushed out the new life which the change had given birth to and kept him locked in his own den with his miseries; and even then nature began to pall as a constant and sole companion, and her mind turned with ever-increasing anxiety to the one event which could possibly break this spell of monotony. Had her letter _in fact_ miscarried? or could it be that the favored recipient had treated it with cold contempt, ruthlessly destroyed it or cast it into the wastepaper-basket? Many were the painful, blush-provoking thoughts that each terrible possibility suggested. She had long since decided that she had been a little fool, and that of course Seniors in college had better things to do than to answer silly girls' more silly letters, when one day on her regular visit to Barton Bump's store she overheard the following:

"It's bin a-kickin' round this here store three days, an' I ain't goin' ter be bothered no longer. Hiram, jes' you stick the dratted thing in one o' them 'ficial en-_vell_ups, an' 'dress it to Wash'ton, D.C."

"Ain't ye goin' to advertise it, dad?"

"'Tain't no good advertisin' it, Hiram. There ain't nobody as calls herself Jennings in the hull county, an' I know it."

But Mabel interrupted him. "Miss Jane Jennings, is it? Why, that letter is for me!" she exclaimed eagerly.

"Fur you, miss?" asked Barton, glancing at her suspiciously over his spectacles. "Ain't your name Moreley?"

"Yes," she answered, in some embarrassment, "but--but Jane Jennings is our servant, you know. Give me the letter. I will take it to her."

Barton hesitated. He hadn't had any communication with the government for some time, and liked to remind them in the capital now and then of his existence. "Well," he said finally, and with reluctance, "ef you're sartin', why, here ye be." And Mabel took it, and bore it away with a palpitating heart, quite forgetting to purchase the supplies which the cook had commissioned her to bring home for dinner.

In the most secluded spot in the dark pine wood she broke the seal and read as follows:

"MY LONG-LOST JENNIE,--Remember my charming little playmate? Remember the one object that makes my childhood a bright picture to look back upon? Of course I do, with all the pleasure in the recollection that her presence used to inspire in those happy days. Remember the diabolical exploit with Jones's eggs? Distinctly. And the telegraph system? I believe I could go through the alphabet now. And I remember, too, that day on the skating-pond, with contrition, however, and a prayer that my heartlessness may be forgiven. How can I ever have been unkind to my faithful Jennie? Nor have I forgotten--how could I?--our tender parting. You said that you could never forget me, and now your letter proves that you were sincere; and I hope my answer may convince you that when I told you of my never-failing constancy I spoke the truth.

"It is a delightful surprise to me to have heard from you at last. The years that I have been thinking and dreaming of you and wishing for news of you are over, and now I have at last found the idol of my boyish admiration.

"But you must have changed as well as I in all this time. I should like very much to have a likeness of you as you are now, to compare with that which is indelibly stamped on my memory. Won't you send me one?

"It surprises me that in recalling those experiences of ours you should have omitted the one that is most vivid and most delightful to me. Can it be that you have forgotten the little house we built under the old chestnut-tree, where you prepared the supper on your best doll's china for the weary hunter who used to return laden with green apples, currants, strawberries, and other wild beasts, the spoils of his chase? How generous and self-sacrificing you used to be with the slender provisions, and anxious lest the foot-sore huntsman should not get enough to sustain his toilsome existence! What an example you were of domesticity! and I cannot believe that you are anything else to-day but the same good pattern for womanhood.

"Do let me hear from you soon again. Although I have existed so long in ignorance even as to whether you were still alive, the knowledge now that you are so, and that you have still a corner in your memory, if not in your heart, for me, has revived all my old feelings and keeps me in constant hope of further news of you.

"As ever, your affectionate playmate,

"MORT."

Notwithstanding all the hopes and fears of the past few days, there was the reply, after all, and Mabel, after reading it through three times, concluded that "Mort" must be "splendid," and that this sort of sport was far ahead of anything she had yet attempted. It combined, so she argued, all the spice of a heavy flirtation with the advantage of a strict incognito, and, with judicious management, she thought that it might be carried on in perfect safety for some time to come.

Mr. Moreley was worse than usual that evening; dinner, without the articles which Mabel should have brought from the village, was not a success, and such a catastrophe always aggravated his disease. Having learned who was to blame for it, it was many days before he could forgive or forget his daughter's inhuman treatment of her much-suffering papa, so that she was left even more than usual to her own devices, and spent a deal of her time either with novels or her writing-case in the romantic corners of the pine wood or on the rocks and along the beach by the sea.

Dudley's letter had been answered one afternoon, when the late sun was throwing long shadows and touching the distant sails upon the ocean with a shade of delicate pink, when a gentle breeze was only rippling the surface of the water and the waves were only murmuring soft music upon the sand; and if but half of the tender emotion which these surroundings gave birth to were transferred to her paper, Dudley, if his heart were at all as he had represented it, must have found in her reply an ample reward for his strange constancy. Circumstances, at any rate, went to show that it had been very welcome and pleasing to its recipient, for it was scarcely three days later that a second missive for Miss Jane Jennings reached the Stillton office and was duly claimed by Mabel before any possible accident could throw it into other hands. She had perused it with marked pleasure; it had contained many fresh allusions to "childhood's happy hour," many additional and very original accounts of doings in their fancied youth, several frank compliments, and a reiterated and very urgent request for a photograph. She had allowed several days to pass in considering what notice to take of this somewhat impudent demand. At one time she almost concluded to let Mr. Dudley drop altogether. What right had he to call upon her for her likeness? At another she was quite as firmly resolved to send him one. The whispered vanity which told her that he would not be disappointed in it was not easily resisted. At last, however, a simple middle course--an easy way out of the difficulty--suggested itself, and, as it promised, too, to throw another puzzling veil of mystery over her identity, she seized it eagerly, and that very afternoon put it into execution. Seated on the rocks that overlooked the sea, gathering thoughts in long gazes toward the distant horizon, and allowing imagination to roam as freely as could her eyes over the unbounded ocean, she wrote her answer. After touching upon the episodes of their earlier days which his last letter had brought to light, and adding the details of a few more experiences which her fertile mind suggested, she turned to the subject of the photograph. "I wish it were better," she wrote. "It is a shockingly poor likeness, I know, but may serve as a reminder of your little playmate, if not as a perfect representation of her." She sealed the envelope, enclosing the picture, and, seeing Galusha Krinklebottom drive by just at the moment, hailed him, and sent photograph, letter, and all in his care to the mails.

It is strange how, even after bitter experience, many of us persist in putting the cart before the horse,--doing the deed before taking the proper consideration of its consequences. When the letter had gone, and not before, Mabel fully realized that she had done something positively wicked and unpardonable. Her terrible sin kept her awake all that night and preyed upon her mind for days afterward. "I hardly know the girl," she pleaded in self-excuse to her injured conscience. "What of that?" exclaimed the voice sternly. "I don't like her, anyhow," she added, almost in tears. "What of that?" persisted the voice angrily. Oh, well, it was done and could not be undone now. It was mean, perhaps, to send him another girl's picture, but, considering that the whole world acknowledged that Mabel Moreley was far the better-looking of the two, did not this sacrifice of vanity palliate the offence? It seemed, after all, a very remote possibility that any harm could come to the other girl through this freak of hers. She could not, of course, have sent her own picture, and this was the only one in her collection that had seemed at all passable: so, eventually, the iniquity of the proceeding faded before these convincing arguments, and she soon found herself much more interested in looking forward to the receipt of the likeness which he could not fail to send in return than with reproaches over a hasty piece of folly.

The reply arrived in due course, and with it the photograph of a handsome face, with fine, bold eyes, a prominent nose, an expressive mouth, and a moustache in the springtime of its existence. It was captivating, but, after her own deception, she was naturally in doubt as to who the true owner of that very attractive physiognomy might be. If indeed it were Dudley, her random shot had hit the mark. To her imagination he had always been handsome; whether he were so in reality had never before seemed at all a matter of importance; but now, with a picture before her from which a lasting impression might be derived, it became necessary either to accept it or reject it. Should this face, then, be hereafter regarded as that of her playmate in his maturer years? After careful scrutiny she decided that it should, and from that time, when it was not in her hands undergoing admiration, it lay in secure repose among the treasured notes, faded flowers, and sweet-smelling rose-leaves in her writing-case. Not many days later she felt impelled to acknowledge its receipt, and, taking her materials in this precious box to a shaded corner of the pine wood, spread them out before her and was soon deep in her pleasant task. She was necessarily obliged to draw heavily upon imagination in tracing the points in the photograph which she asserted recalled vividly his youthful countenance, and, when at last she had finished, lay back exhausted by the effort, and soon fell into a condition of dreaminess bordering closely on sleep. Suddenly, however, the sound of approaching footsteps aroused her, and before she had time to gather together all her sacred belongings, the figure of a tall man, in a slouch hat and with an unprepossessingly cadaverous cast of features, appeared from behind the rocks, which until then had hidden them from each other's view. He stopped short on discovering her, raised his hat in some confusion, muttered something in apology for his intrusion, and was just planning a hasty retreat, when she asked, with some nervousness, "Do you wish to see my father?"

"No," he answered, with equal embarrassment. "I--I was going down to the beach. I forgot for the moment that--that this place was occupied: this is a short cut for me. I hope you will excuse my trespassing. I live just back of here," he went on, in an explanatory way, as she made no reply. "My name is Manton."

"Oh!" Mabel exclaimed, remembering Galusha Krinklebottom's story of the young man who was "not right," and concluding that this must be he. "I am sure there can be no objection to your taking this way to the beach, Mr. Manton," she answered, smiling sweetly, in the hope of averting a possible outbreak of lunacy.

He thanked her with a grave, formal bow, and started to pass on, when his eye fell upon the recently-arrived photograph as it lay on a rock by her side. He stopped, and looked quickly from it to her face and then back at the picture.

Mabel's face grew scarlet. Could it be that he recognized it? Was her secret discovered? Or was this merely a madman's strange idiosyncrasy?

"We have a mutual friend, I think," he said, rather bluntly, though in a gentle tone.

"Indeed?" asked Mabel nervously.

"That must be Mort Dudley," he went on, half to himself, and still gazing at the photograph.

("Then it _must_ be his own likeness!" inwardly exclaimed Mabel.)

"I beg your pardon if I am mistaken," Manton added apologetically; "the picture caught my eye and reminded me very strongly of a college classmate of mine."

"Then you know Mr. Dudley?" she asked, deeply interested, and forgetful now of the stranger's reputed mental unsoundness.

"Yes, indeed," he replied, looking at the photograph more closely. "This is his class-picture. I have one like it. It is an excellent likeness of him; don't you think so?"

Mabel said that she thought it was, and blushed again as she said it.

Manton concluded from this that there must be something thicker than mere friendship between Dudley and his new acquaintance, and an awkward silence ensued.

"Yes," continued Manton presently, "Dudley was the warmest friend I had at college. I hadn't many," he added, in a tone that struck Mabel as being somewhat sad. "I hadn't time to make many friends, or even acquaintances. The work was rather harder for me than for most of the men, I think; but Dudley, from the very first, helped me when he could, and I think was the only cheering influence I met with during the entire course. He was always so full of life and so jolly, and at the same time sympathetic, and never depressed and in the blues, as I frequently was. I never could understand why he was so good a friend to me, unless perhaps because there may be a force of attraction between two extremes."

"Yes; I should not fancy you at all like him," Mabel said, trying to impress him with her intimate knowledge of Dudley's nature.

"No, not at all. In the first place, he has been so differently brought up: he has travelled, seen a great deal of the world, and profited by this experience, and I don't believe has ever had to take a thought of dollars and cents: thus he is naturally liberal both in his ideas and with his money. I am not,--not because I don't wish to be, but because I cannot be. Secondly, he is another animal physically,--an athlete born; while I have never engaged in any sport, know nothing of such matters, nor could I learn them. And then there is such a vast difference mentally between us: his mind is as quick and nimble as his muscles, while mine is much like a muddy stream, I'm afraid,--opaque and sluggish. Yes, I have often wondered over his friendship for me."

"I think you are detracting from your own virtues in order to flatter his," said Mabel, smiling, but rejoicing inwardly over the happy selection she had made in the college catalogue.

Manton protested that he had said no more than the truth, and continued to sound the praises of his friend until the hour for Mabel's luncheon arrived, when he departed for his solitary stroll upon the beach, delighted, though by no means as much so as Mabel was, at having found a friend of Dudley's.

After this it happened, if not by actual design, at any rate with suspicious frequency, that Manton took the short cut to the beach and that Mabel read her books and wrote her letters in the pine wood. One day when they met thus, and after their acquaintance had grown to be some three weeks old, Manton found the young lady (whom he had never regarded in any other light than that of Dudley's betrothed) very abstracted and apparently little inclined to lend the customary willing ear to his tales of their mutual friend. This troubled him sorely. That there had been some lovers' quarrel he could not doubt, and it pained him to think that any cloud should have arisen to darken the brightness of his friend's existence.

"Have you heard from Mort to-day?" he asked suddenly, in his blunt fashion.

After a moment's hesitation, Mabel acknowledged that she had, but further than that she vouchsafed him no information, and he soon concluded to continue his journey to the beach, his presence seeming only to add to Miss Moreley's nervousness and evident irritation.

What was she to do? How could she save herself now? Why indeed had she done this foolish thing? She took the letter from her pocket to read it once more, hoping that some suggestion might spring from it, some possible means for her escape be brought to light.

"Miraculous as it may appear to you," he wrote, dating his letter from Newport, "I have met the image of my early playmate! It was at a garden-party, yesterday. At first it seemed impossible that two such faces could exist. I was on the point of rushing to her, clasping her in my arms, and hailing her with all the warmth that would only be natural upon discovering my long-lost Jennie, but some prudent voice suggested asking for an introduction first. I did so. To my astonishment, the name was not Jennings at all, but Bathersea, and her acknowledgement of my impressive bow and more expressive smile was as chilly as a winter morning. I took occasion to introduce my name into the conversation, fearing that she might have misunderstood it. No light of intelligence beamed from her lovely eyes. I referred to my college days (and I suspect she took me for a Freshman), I hinted at Stillton, I even suggested that we had met as babies; but she only said that her recollection did not extend to that early period, and left me--for what? it is humiliating, but I will acknowledge it--for another fellow. This at last convinced me that she could not be my Jennie. Her resemblance to the photograph, however, was perfect,--really startling. In justice I must add that she was lovely. It is the face that has captivated me, not the girl; she rather snubbed me,--but that face! I never saw half so much beauty in one face before."

It was bad enough that he should have actually met the girl whose picture she had been cowardly enough to send in place of her own, but what followed literally chilled the blood in her veins. He was coming! Coming to Stillton! Coming to find her! Was actually on the way at that moment to claim her acquaintance,--perhaps to show her letters and reveal all her deceit to that inexorable papa of hers should she disclaim all knowledge of him, or to make matters even more difficult to explain should she confess the truth of their relations. "Heavens!" she exclaimed, in fright. "What shall I do? what shall I do?" Her time for action was fast growing short. The afternoon was rapidly advancing. Ah, might not Manton be her saviour? But how explain to Manton her deceit toward him during all this time of their acquaintance? No, she could not tell him: he would not understand. Could she not boldly confront him, implore him to forgive and forget her thoughtless foolishness, beg him to spare her, to leave her before this terrible secret should reach her father's ears and bring everlasting woe and disgrace upon her? This seemed to call for even more courage than was required to face the awful alternative. Should she, then, confess all to the father whose ire she so greatly feared?--go to him now with tears of repentance and cast herself at his feet, praying for mercy and for protection? There was the cliff, with its terrifying height and its sharp, ugly crags: she would almost rather throw herself into the swashing, roaring waves at its base than tell the tale of her folly. Yet--oh, what _was_ she to do? Quick! Time was flying on its swiftest wings. He might be there at any moment. Oh, would no one save her?