images generously made available by the internet archive/american libraries.) a picture-book of merry tales. [illustration: _the dwarfs' capers._] [illustration: title page] a picture-book of merry tales. _london: bosworth and harrison, 215, regent street._ contents. page i. the birth of owlglass, and how he was thrice baptized 1 ii. how all the people of the village, both men and women, made complaints of young owlglass; and how, whilst on horseback with his father, without his knowledge, he made game of them all 5 iii. how owlglass crept into a beehive; and how, when two thieves came in the night to steal it, he managed to set them quarrelling, so that they came to blows and left the hive behind them 10 iv. how owlglass ate a roasted fowl off the spit, and did only half work 15 v. how owlglass was forbidden the duchy of luneburgh, and bought himself land of his own 19 vi. of the manner in which owlglass paints a picture for the count of hessen, and how he persuades him that those of base birth could not see the painting 23 vii. how, at erfurt, owlglass taught a donkey to read 29 viii. how owlglass brought it about that the watch of nurenberg fell into the water 33 ix. how owlglass appears as dentist and doctor 37 x. how owlglass sells his horse to a jew, and on what terms 41 xi. how owlglass sells an old hat for more than its weight in gold 45 xii. how owlglass, by means of a false confession, cheated the priest of riesenburgh out of his horse; and how he steals another priest's snuff-box 48 xiii. how a bootmaker of brunswick larded owlglass's boots; and how he was paid for doing so 56 xiv. how owlglass hires himself to a tailor; and how well he executes his master's orders 60 xv. how owlglass caused three tailors to fall from their work-board, and persuaded the people that the wind had blown them down 63 xvi. how owlglass tells a truth to a smith, to his wife, his assistant, and his maidservant, for which he gets his horse shod 66 xvii. how owlglass hired himself to a merchant as cook and coachman 70 xviii. how owlglass cheated a horse-dealer at wismar, and afterwards cheated the public 78 xix. how owlglass sowed rogues 82 xx. how owlglass hired himself to a barber, and entered his house through the window 85 xxi. how owlglass frightened an innkeeper at eisleben with a dead wolf 90 xxii. the grateful animals 95 xxiii. tim jarvis 106 xxiv. the shoemaker and the dwarfs 115 xxv. the countryman and the jew 121 xxvi. my watch 130 xxvii. fittletetot 140 xxviii. the wee bannock 148 xxix. jock and his mother 154 xxx. the irish highwayman 161 xxxi. fiddling jackey 169 xxxii. teeny-tiny 199 xxxiii. the cannibal cow 203 xxxiv. the three men of gotham on nottingham bridge 224 xxxv. the man of gotham and his cheeses 231 xxxvi. twelve men of gotham go out fishing together 236 xxxvii. the cobbler's wager 243 xxxviii. the miller and his donkey 256 xxxix. dr. dobbs, and his horse nobbs 263 xl. the brownie 268 [decoration] i. _the birth of owlglass, and how he was thrice baptized._ in the duchy of brunswick is a forest called seib, and in this lies the village of kneitlingen, where the good child owlglass was born. the life of this child does not confirm the old saying, "like father like son," for his father, by name elaus owlglass, was a quiet respectable man, and his mother, anna, was the very model of a woman, for she was meek and a woman of few words. no particular circumstance attending the birth of our hero is handed down to us, and it therefore was, probably, not very different to other births; but it is recorded that he enjoyed the benefit of three distinct baptisms. there does not seem to have been any church in the village where he was born, for when the time came for him to be christened he was sent by his parents to the village of amptlen, where he received the name of tyll owlglass. the place is still remembered as the scene of this ceremony; but also because close by there stood once a castle of the same name, destroyed, as a nest of robbers, by the good people of magdeburgh, with the help of their neighbours. at the time we are speaking of it was the custom of the land that the godfathers and godmothers, together with the nurse and child, should adjourn, immediately after the christening, to an alehouse, there to enjoy themselves; and that part of the ceremony was not forgotten or neglected on this occasion. now it was a long way from the church to the ale-house, and the day was very hot, so that the party indulged rather freely in the refreshing beverage, delaying their homeward journey as long as possible. at length, however, they had to get on their way; and the nurse, whose head was rather giddy and legs not over-steady, had very unpleasant visions of a narrow footpath with ground sloping down into a muddy ditch, and she had serious forebodings of how that part of the journey would be accomplished. the nearer she drew to the dreaded spot the more her nervousness increased, and young tyll, whether that she clutched him more firmly to her, or whether he too had forebodings of danger, began to kick and struggle in her arms, so that her stopping on the brink of danger, to gather steadiness and courage, was of no manner of use, for just as one foot rested on a loose stone a violent plunge of the child threw her fairly off her legs, and threw himself over her head into the ditch below. but weeds are not easily extirpated; so no harm happened to the child excepting that he was covered with mud and slime. then he was taken home and washed. [illustration: _owlglass's second baptism._] thus owlglass was, on one and the same day, thrice baptized. first, in all proper order and due form, then in the muddy ditch, and lastly, in warm water to cleanse him from the dirt. this was symbolic of the many mishaps of his future life, for evil is sure to fall back upon its perpetrator. ii. _how all the people of the village, both men and women, made complaints of young owlglass; and how, whilst on horseback with his father, without his knowledge, he made game of them all._ our young acquaintance, tyll, began at an early age to show signs of a decidedly marked character. he was full of life and spirits, as the other children of the village found out to their cost, for no sooner could he crawl amongst them than he played all manner of tricks. in truth he was more like a monkey than the child of respectable christian parents, and when he had reached the age of four years he became daily more mischievous. he played his companions as many tricks daily as he was inches high, and, as "ill weeds grow apace," he soon became almost unbearable; but yet they could not do without him, so quick was his invention at all games, which, however, he so contrived that they were sure to end in a quarrel, taking care to get out of it himself before the blows came; and he would afterwards mock and laugh at those who had got hurt. he was even more dangerous away than with them, for he was then most certainly planning mischief. he would find out holes in the ground, which he carefully covered with sticks and grass, and then foremost in the race to a mark he had set up a little beyond the hole, he would stop short, in time to watch the others tumble one over the other into the trap he had set them. neither were the girls spared. unknown to them he would fasten their petticoats together with thorns, as they sat on the ground, and then frighten them, so as to make them jump up suddenly, when he did not fail to point out the rents in their dresses, and laugh at them for the scolding and beating they would get at home. a hundred different tricks he played them, so that every day some were sure to be sent home crying and complaining. true, he got many a thrashing from boys bigger and stronger than himself; but so sure was he to repay them tenfold, in one way or another, that both big and small were afraid of him. nor were the parents spared when he could safely do mischief to man or woman, so that constant complaints were made to his father, to whom, however, he knew how to defend and excuse himself so artfully that the good simple man thought his dear child shamefully ill-used. [illustration: _young owlglass mocking the villagers._] tired, at length, of these daily complaints, his father determined to take him out with him when he knew the street would be full, in order to show the people how well and soberly his boy could behave; so, taking him behind him on his horse, having first impressed upon him that he must be very good, they started off together. now what did this obedient child do? he put his finger up to his nose, and by various other insulting gestures mocked the people as they passed, till there was a general outcry against the mischievous little imp. his father was sorely puzzled; and tyll, pretending to cry, said to him, "you hear, dear father, what the people say. you know that i am sitting here quietly, without saying a single word, and yet all complain of me." his father hereupon places his dear child before him. young hopeful, now seated before his father, could do nothing but make faces and put out his tongue at the people, who again were loud in their complaints. the poor man, who could see no fault in his darling, said, "do not fret, my own dear boy. we will go and live somewhere else, and get away from these evil-minded people." he did, indeed, move to a distance, and not many years after died, leaving wife and child in great poverty. now young tyll, though sixteen years old, had learnt no business, nor anything useful or good, but with years had increased in all malice and mischief. [decoration] iii. _how owlglass crept into a beehive; and how, when two thieves came in the night to steal it, he managed to set them quarrelling, so that they came to blows and left the hive behind them._ we pass over a few years of owlglass's life during which he continued to thrive in body, but we are sorry to say gave no signs of moral improvement. however, in the adventure we are about to relate, he was not so much to blame, the sufferers being scarcely better than himself, and in no way deserving of our sympathy. he went one day, with his mother, to a feast in a neighbouring village, where, having eaten and drunk as much as he could bear for the time, he looked about him for a convenient place to sleep. he found some beehives, four of which were empty, and creeping into one of these he thought he would have an hour's quiet rest, but slept from mid-day to mid-night, so that his mother thought he had gone back home. now in that night two thieves came to steal one of the beehives, and having heard that the heaviest was always the best, they tried the weight of each; and finding that one the heaviest in which owlglass was, they settled between them that that was the one they would take, and walked off with it. the night was as dark as pitch, so that there was no seeing at all; but owlglass was awake, and had heard them consulting with each other. the motion was not unpleasant as they carried him along; but yet he thought he could do better than sleep, and after short consideration he stretched out one hand, and with his finger first slightly touched the neck of the man before him, then he touched his nose, chin, cheeks, and forehead. at each touch of the finger the thief thought one of the bees had settled on him, till he fancied his face covered with them, and dreaded every moment to feel their sting. he dared not speak nor move a muscle of his face, but trembled with fear till the perspiration streamed down him. at length, however, scarcely moving his jaws, he ventured to mutter to his companion, "i say, jack," he said, "have you anything on your face?" "yes," growled his companion, who was not in the best of humours, for he began to find the hive heavy, "i have a nose on my face, and pray what have you to say against it?" "it is not that i mean," said the first speaker; "but have you ever heard that bees swarm in the dark, for i am covered with them?" "you are a fool," was jack's only reply. after a minute owlglass again put out his hand; and this time gave the front man a sharp tug by the hair, who, thinking his companion had done it, began to complain and swear. the other cried, "how is it possible i could pull your hair? do i not want both my hands to carry this abominable hive? you must be mad or drunk; but let us have no more of your nonsense, or it will be the worse for you." owlglass laughed in his sleeve, enjoying this fine sport; and, after they had gone on a little further, he caught hold of the fellow's hair at the back, giving his head such a pull forward that he scraped his nose against the hive. the fellow's rage now knew no bounds. "you scoundrel," he cried, "first you say i pull your hair and now you pull mine; but wait, you shall catch it." whereupon he let go of the hive, and the other doing the like, they fell upon each other, and a furious fight began. at length they both came to the ground, and, rolling one over the other down a steep bank, they became separated, and in the great darkness neither knew where to find the other nor the beehive. [illustration: _owlglass in the beehive._] owlglass, seeing it was still dark, went to sleep again in the hive; and the next morning, not knowing where he was, went on his way whither chance might lead him. [decoration] iv. _how owlglass ate a roasted fowl off the spit, and did only half work._ the first village owlglass came to he went straight to the priest's house. here he was hired, the priest telling him that he should live as well as he and his cook, and do only half the work. owlglass agreed, promising himself to the very letter to act up to what had been said. the cook, who had but one eye, put two chickens to the fire to roast, bidding him turn the spit. this he readily did, thinking all the while of the priest's words, that he should live as well as he and his cook; and, when the chickens were well roasted, took one of them off the spit, and ate it then and there. when dinner-time had come the cook went to the fire to baste the chickens, and seeing only one, said to owlglass, "what has become of the other fowl?" to this he answered, "open your other eye, my good woman, and you will see the two." she flew into a passion at having her defect of the loss of one eye thus thrown in her teeth, and straightway went to her master, to whom she complained of the insult offered to her, and how that his new servant understood cooking so well that two chickens dwindled down into one. the priest thereupon went into the kitchen, and said, "why is it, owlglass, that you have mocked my servant? i see that there is only one fowl on the spit, whereas there were two; what has become of the other?" owlglass answered, "open both your eyes, and you will see that the other fowl is on the spit. i only said the same to your cook, when she grew angry." the priest laughed, and said, "my cook cannot open both eyes since she has only one." owlglass replied, "that you say, i do not say so." the priest continued, "with all this, there is but one fowl." owlglass said, "the other i have eaten, for you said i should live as well as you and your cook, and therefore one chicken was for me, and the other for you two. i should have been grieved that what you said were not true, and thus i took my share beforehand." "well, well, my good fellow," his master said, "it matters little about the eaten fowl, only you do in future what my cook tells you." owlglass said, "yes, my dear master, as you told me so will i do." now, at the hiring, the priest had said owlglass should do half the work which the cook would tell him, so that he only did the half of what she told him to do. [illustration: _owlglass eats the priest's fowl._] when told to fetch a pail full of water, he brought it only half full, and when he was to put two logs of wood on the fire, he only put one on. the cook saw well enough that all this was done to vex her, and said to her master that if he kept such a perverse fellow in his house she would leave it. owlglass defended himself, saying, it was quite natural that having only one eye she should see the work only half done. at this the priest laughed; but to appease his cook was obliged to dismiss his man, promising, however, that he would be a friend to him. [decoration] v. _how owlglass was forbidden the duchy of luneburgh, and bought himself land of his own._ owlglass had played so many pranks in the duchy of luneburgh that he was forbidden the land, the duke giving orders that if found there he should be hanged. nevertheless, he continued to pass through the duchy whenever his road led that way; but one day, as he was riding along devoid of care, he saw the duke himself coming with several followers. then he said to himself, "if i fly i shall be pursued and cut down, and, if i remain as i am, the duke will come up in great anger and have me hanged on the nearest tree;" and most provokingly one stood close by. there was not much time for consideration, and none to be lost, so, jumping off his horse, he killed the animal, and, ripping it open, took his stand in its inside. now when the duke came up to him he was astonished at his impudence, and still more so at his extraordinary position. "did i not promise you," he said, "that, if found in my territory, you should be surely hanged? what have you to say for yourself?" owlglass answered, "i put my trust in your grace's goodness, and that you will not carry your threat into execution, seeing that i have not done anything to deserve hanging." "well," said the duke, "let me hear what you have to say in your defence, or rather, tell me why you are standing inside your horse?" owlglass answered, "i sorely feared your grace's displeasure, and thought i had better be found in my own property, where i ought to be safe." the duke laughed, and said, "as long as you remain where you are you shall be safe," and then rode away. owlglass made the best of his way over the frontier; but it was not long before he had occasion again to be in the duchy of luneburgh, and hearing that the duke was coming to the neighbourhood where he was, he straightway got a cart and horse, and going up to a peasant, whom he saw digging in a field, he asked whose land it was. the peasant said it was his own, for he had lately inherited it. hereupon owlglass asked for how much he would sell him his cart full of earth. they agreed for a shilling; and owlglass paying the money, filled his cart with earth, in which he buried himself up to his arm-pits, and drove leisurely on his way. [illustration: _owlglass rides on his own land._] it was not long before he met the duke, who, seeing him sitting thus in the cart, stopped, and, with difficulty restraining his laughter, said, "owlglass, have i not forbidden you my land on pain of death?" to this owlglass answered, "i am not in your grace's land, but sitting in my own, which i purchased from a peasant whose inheritance it was." the duke replied, "though sitting in your own land, your cart and horse are on mine; but this once more i will let you go in safety; beware, however, that you do not come again, for then nothing shall save you." owlglass then immediately sprang upon his horse and rode off, leaving the cart behind. vi. _of the manner in which owlglass paints a picture for the count of hessen, and how he persuades him that those of base birth could not see the painting._ after owlglass had wandered all over saxony, and was so well known that his trickery and scheming were no longer of any avail, he went to hessen to the count's court. the count asked him what he could do, to which he answered, "noble sir, i am a painter such as is not to be found far and wide, for my work far surpasses all other." the count then said, "let me see some of your work." whereupon owlglass produced some curiously painted cloth which he had bought in flanders. the count was well pleased, and said, "what must i pay you to paint the walls of the grand saloon, representing the origin of the counts of hessen, and how they have held on in friendship and enmity with the kings of hungary, and other princes up to the present time?" owlglass said for that he must have two hundred pounds; which the count agreed to pay if he did the work well. owlglass stipulated for one hundred pounds to be paid in advance, that he might buy colours and hire assistants, and also that no one but his assistants should enter the saloon during the progress of the work, so that he might not be hindered. all being agreed to, he hired three assistants, with whom he settled that they were not to do any work; but he nevertheless paid them their wages, and they employed themselves mostly playing at cards and dice. a month passed by, and then the count desired to know what progress had been made with the work, and also to be allowed to enter the saloon. owlglass now said, "noble sir, there is one thing i must tell you, namely, that the base born cannot see my work." [illustration: _owlglass shows his picture to the count._] the count was rejoiced on hearing this, thinking how he could prove the birth of all by whom he was surrounded, for he was mightily proud. they then entered the saloon; and owlglass partly drawing back a cloth, which he had stretched across the side of the room he was supposed to be painting, said, pointing at the same time with his mahlstick, which he held in his hand, "here you behold the first count of hessen, in whose noble bearing i trust you recognize the great founder of your noble house; by his side you see his wife, daughter of justinian, afterwards emperor of bavaria: they had issue adolphus, from whom descended, in a direct line, william the brave, lewis the good, and so on up to your own noble self. you will not fail to appreciate how skilfully i have brought into my composition each worthy personage, occupied in a manner best suited to his character. the drawing i know is faultless, and i hope you admire the richness of the colours." now the count said nothing to all this, and he said to himself, "can it be possible that i am base born, for i see nothing but the white wall?" however, for the sake of his own honour, he expressed himself well pleased, adding that his want of knowledge of art prevented his doing full justice to the great talent displayed; whereupon he left the room. as soon as the countess saw him she anxiously inquired how he liked the painting, for she had her doubts of owlglass, who appeared to her a rogue. the count said he was well satisfied; and on her expressing a wish to see it, said she might, with the painter's permission. she immediately sent for owlglass, and requested permission to see his work. owlglass answered that he should be most happy to have her opinion of what he considered his masterpiece, telling her, as he had told the count, the peculiarity about his work, that it was invisible to the base born. the countess went to the saloon with eight attendants, one of whom, a distant relation of her own, was rather weak-minded. owlglass drew back the cloth, as he had done before, and explained his painting in the same words as to the count. the countess stared at the wall and then at him, and at the wall again, but did not make one single observation. the attendants were equally mute, excepting the weak-minded one, who looked at the wall and her companions in astonishment, and then exclaimed, that base born or not, she could see nothing but a white wall, and was convinced there was no more painting on it than on the back of her hand. the countess went straight to her husband, and told him that she was as well satisfied as he had been; but that her weak-minded relative maintained that there was no painting whatever on the wall, and that owlglass was an impostor who was making fools of the whole court. the count was vexed at this, and scarcely knew what to think; but determined to see whether any one else would make similar observations, he sent word to owlglass to have everything ready on the following day to receive a visit from himself and his whole court. on receiving this message owlglass immediately dismissed his assistants, and went to the treasurer and begged to be paid the hundred pounds that were still due to him. he got the money without difficulty, and the following day was no longer at the court, nor anywhere in hessen. [decoration] vii. _how, at erfurt, owlglass taught a donkey to read._ having had such signal success in the arts, owlglass determined to try science and letters; and therefore, when he came to prague, in bohemia, he had notices stuck up, on the church and college doors, stating that he could solve the most difficult questions. his answers, here, puzzled the learned more than they had puzzled him with their questions; and thus made bolder in impudence, he went to erfurt, where he gave out that he could teach any animal to read and write. now, at erfurt there was a celebrated university, and all the learned doctors met together and discussed what they should propose to owlglass, so that they might disgrace him, and come off with greater honor, themselves, than their brethren of prague. as soon as they had come to a satisfactory conclusion, they had owlglass called before them, and the head of the university said that they had determined to put a donkey to school with him, if he would undertake to teach it to read. owlglass agreed to do this without hesitation, adding that, as a donkey was naturally a dull animal, they must allow him a reasonable time and a sufficient sum for the support of his scholar during the course of his instruction. after conferring among themselves, the learned doctors proposed that twenty years should be allowed for the accomplishment of the task, together with a sum of money which owlglass thought sufficient; and having received part of the money in advance, he led his scholar off to a stall he had constructed on purpose for him. he felt no difficulty in his position, for he would be freed from all responsibility by the death of his pupil, which, at any time, could be brought about, but for the time being determined to have some sport. he took an old book, which he laid in the donkey's crib, having strewed some oats between the leaves, and when the animal found this out, it turned the leaves over with its tongue to get at the oats. now, when it no longer found any it cried out, "e-aw! e-aw!" which owlglass noticing, at once went to the head of the university and said, "learned doctor, would you not like to see how my pupil is getting on?" "does he improve?" the doctor asked; to which owlglass replied, "he is naturally uncouth and difficult to be taught, but by great care and perseverance i have brought him on so far that he pronounces some letters." several of the dignitaries of the university assembled at the donkey's stable, and as soon as owlglass placed a book before the poor creature, which had been kept fasting all day, it eagerly turned over the leaves, looking for the oats, and not finding any, cried with a loud voice, "e-aw! e-aw!" "you hear, my worthy sirs," owlglass said, "that he already pronounces a vowel and a diphthong pretty distinctly, and i have every hope that his progress will now be more rapid." after this exhibition, owlglass one night fastened a notice up at the college door to the effect that the donkey, his scholar, was now fully competent to be at the head of the university, and to instruct the other donkeys of erfurt, whom he therefore left to his charge. owlglass that night disappeared from the town, not forgetting to take with him the money he had so deservedly earned. [illustration: _owlglass's learned donkey._] viii. _how owlglass brought it about that the watch of nurenberg fell into the water._ after leaving erfurt, owlglass dressed himself as a priest, and, travelling about different parts, levied contributions wherever he found ignorance and credulity, of which there was no lack. he carried a death's head about with him, which he pretended was the skull of saint brandonis, possessing miraculous virtue for the cure of all manner of illnesses. he also pretended that he was collecting subscriptions for building a church in honour of saint brandonis, and that all who brought an offering would, by the intercession of the saint, find it restored to them a hundredfold before the year was over. when he arrived at any town or village he sought to find out any prevailing vice or sin, and would then give out that, from persons addicted to this particular vice or sin, he could not accept any offering for the saint. by these means the offerings flowed in more abundantly than had ever been collected, for those who felt themselves most guilty were most eager, by their offerings, to prove their innocence. thus owlglass got his pockets well filled and went to nurenberg, where he determined to rest for a time from his labours, and enjoy himself as long as his money would last. after being there some time, and knowing all the in's and out's of the place, he grew tired of idleness, and nothing could satisfy him but a piece of mischief. during his wanderings he had noticed that, in the evening, the town watchmen assembled together in a cellar under the town-hall, and that to get from the town-hall to the pig-market a small wooden bridge had to be passed, which crossed the river called the pegnetz. bearing all this in mind, he waited one night till the whole town was quiet, then, after breaking three planks of the bridge, he went up to the town-hall and set up a furious bellowing and shouting, at the same time striking the paved road with an iron spiked stick till the sparks flew on all sides. this roused the watch, and as he ran away, they chased him towards the pig-market. owlglass jumped over that part of the bridge where he had broken the planks, and stopped on the other side, shouting to his pursuers, "o! o! you pig-headed timber-toed rogues, is that the way you run? i see i must needs wait for you!" this enraged the men, and all together they rushed on the bridge, which giving way where he had broken the planks, they fell one over the other into the pegnitz. there he left them, and turned his back upon the town of nurenberg. [illustration: _the watchmen of nurenberg._] [decoration] ix. _how owlglass appears as dentist and doctor._ owlglass visited schomberg, where he had notices posted that he was a celebrated dentist and doctor; that he could not only cure the toothache without extracting the tooth, but that the most inveterate disease would immediately yield to his remedies. he met with a wag who was willing to join him in cheating the good people of schomberg, afterwards to share the plunder with him; and for this purpose his accomplice pretended to suffer intolerable pain from toothache, but immediately that owlglass had administered a pill to him, which was nothing more than simple bread, he professed to be perfectly cured. this wonderful cure took place before all the people, whereat they were greatly astonished, and they crowded to him to be cured of every imaginable pain; but owlglass appointed all to meet him on the following day, at a stated time, for he was in treaty to restore the patients of the hospital to health, and that before that great work was accomplished, he could not undertake any fresh case. the master of the hospital, on hearing owlglass's announcement that he could cure all diseases, had applied to him, for he had the hospital full of patients, and was most anxious to be rid of as many as possible. he agreed to pay fifty pounds, owlglass engaging that the next day the hospital should be free of patients. now this is the way he set about the serious task. he went to the hospital and asked each patient separately what ailed him or her, after which he said:-"you must now solemnly swear that you will not reveal to any living being what i am about to tell you." and having received the required promise, he continued:--"the only way in which i can cure you is by taking one of your number, and burning him to powder, give a portion to each of the others. therefore, i shall take that one amongst you who is most seriously affected, in order that the others may be saved. now to find out which is most hopelessly ill, i shall place the master of the hospital at the door, who will cry with a loud voice, 'let those who are well come out;' and then the one that remains behind i shall burn to powder. do not forget what i now tell you, for i should be sorry to have you sacrificed." [illustration: _owlglass administers a pill._] the following morning he said to the master:-"all the patients are now cured, the truth of which you will find; for if you stand at the door and cry out, 'let all those who are well come forth,' you shall see that not one will remain behind." it happened, indeed, as he said, and the hospital was left empty, whereupon he received the promised fifty pounds, besides many thanks. after this he received all who sought relief, whatever their sufferings might be; and giving each one of his bread pills, for which he took a small sum, he promised a perfect cure in three hours' time. before this time had elapsed, however, owlglass left the town with his illgotten earnings. x. _how owlglass sells his horse to a jew, and on what terms._ owlglass stopped one day at a roadside inn, for he had ridden a long way, and both he and his horse were tired. on entering the kitchen, which served as travellers' room, he found a jew and two or three countrymen, who had watched him as he rode up, and were joking about his and his horse's appearance. as i said, he had ridden a long way, and his horse, which was none of the handsomest, jaded and covered with dust as it was, cut but a sorry appearance, his own not being much better. the countrymen thought themselves rather wags, and one said, turning to owlglass, "that is a handsome animal of yours." "and it must be allowed," the other added, "that the gentleman sat the spirited creature well. i should not have liked my sweetheart to see him as he came along." the jew was glad to put in his joke, too; and, when it appeared he could do so with safety, said:-"is the shentleman willing to part with his handsome beast? for if so i shall be happy to deal with him, as it would just suit a great nobleman, a particular friend of mine, for whom i have been looking out for a horse; but he is very particular, and up to the present i have not been able to find one good enough for him." the countrymen laughed boisterously at this sally of the jew's, but owlglass, appearing to take it seriously, answered:-"my horse is, indeed, a splendid animal; but as i intend to rest myself here for some days i shall not need it, and am therefore willing to deal with you, my good friend. i have sworn, however, not to part with it for any sum of money, however great, and i cannot break my oath; but you can have the horse for your friend, if you agree to my terms. these are, that, after i shall have given you six stripes on your bare back, the animal is yours." miserable as the creature was the jew was ready enough to have it without paying any money, so agreed to the proposal. [illustration: _the jew's bargain._] whilst the jew was stripping his shoulders owlglass said, "these two gentlemen are witnesses that the horse is not to be yours till i have given you six stripes." the countrymen, anxious for the fun, said they would be witnesses; and the jew having bared his back, owlglass tied his hands to a staple in the door-post, and clutching his whip firmly gave him such a cut that the poor jew danced again. at the second stroke he fairly howled; and after giving him a third owlglass said, "i see, my friend, that you are not able to complete the bargain now, so i will keep my horse till some future time, when i shall have paid you the remaining three stripes." the countrymen were convulsed with laughter, and the jew had the worst of the bargain. [decoration] xi. _how owlglass sells an old hat for more than its weight in gold._ owlglass having determined to give himself a few days' rest, put up at an inn where he had noticed that the landlady was a very lively intelligent woman, for he thought that if an opportunity for a good piece of mischief occurred, she would be quite ready to second him. he remarked that amongst the daily visiters there were two particularly stupid who just on that account thought themselves superior to the rest, and gave themselves considerable airs. owlglass could not resist the temptation to play these a trick; and, having taken the landlady into his confidence, he invited them to sup with him. he told them many curious stories and adventures; and after he had prepared their minds to take in anything, however wonderful, he took down his hat, which was hanging against the wall, and which happened to be a very old one, saying, "you will scarcely believe that this hat is worth fifty times its weight in gold; but the fact is, it has the extraordinary power of making any one to whom i owe money believe i have paid them, when i hold it in a particular manner." fools as his guests were, this was more than they could believe; but owlglass engaged to give them proof of it that very moment, and that they should see the landlady would say she was paid. he rang the bell, and when the landlady appeared, he asked her how much he owed her for the supper, and she said five shillings. whereupon he continued, holding his old hat in a peculiar manner, on the tips of his fingers, "have i not paid you for the supper?" to which she answered, "yes;" adding that she was very much obliged to him. at this they marvelled; and when he said he was willing to sell it for fifty pounds, there was a dispute between them which should buy it, when it was at length agreed they should buy it between them. when owlglass received the money he made his accomplice a handsome present and went on his way, leaving the purchasers to try the virtue of the hat. [illustration: _owlglass paying the landlady._] xii. _how owlglass, by means of a false confession, cheated the priest of riesenburgh out of his horse; and how he steals another priest's snuff-box._ after this adventure, owlglass went to riesenburgh, where he lodged with the priest, whom he knew, having been there several times before. this priest had a very pretty maid-servant and a beautiful little horse, which horse the duke of brunswick much wished to have, and offered a considerable sum of money for its possession; but though the offer was often repeated the priest as often refused, for he was scarcely less fond of his horse than of his maid. owlglass having heard this, and soon after hearing that the duke was in the town, went to him, and said, "what will your highness give me if i get you the priest's horse?" "if you can do that," the duke answered, "i will give you the coat i now have on." now this coat was of scarlet velvet, ornamented with pearls. after this owlglass pretended to be ill; and taking to his bed, moaned and sighed so piteously that both the priest and his maid were much grieved, and knew not what to do. as he daily seemed to grow worse, the priest admonished him to confess, as he had many sins to answer for. owlglass answered, that he was anxious to confess himself, for though he did not feel guilty of any grievous sin, yet there was one which weighed heavily on his mind, but that he could not confess to him, and therefore earnestly begged he would fetch him another priest. when the priest heard this, there seemed something strange in it, and his curiosity being strongly excited, he said, "dear owlglass, i should have to go a long way for another confessor, and if in the meantime you should die unabsolved we should both have much to answer for, therefore speak, my son, and your sin shall be forgiven you." "be it so then," owlglass said, "but my sin is not so great, as that i fear offending you, for it concerns you." this excited the priest's curiosity still more, and he said, "speak without hesitation, for i forgive you beforehand; besides, my anger need not matter, for i dare not divulge your confession." "oh, my dear, good friend," owlglass answered, "i know i shall much anger and offend you; but since i feel that my end is near i will no longer delay. i grieve to say that i have kissed your maid more than once." the priest inquired how often that had happened; and being told five times, he hastily absolved his penitent, and going out called his servant to him. he accused her of having allowed herself to be kissed by owlglass; and though she denied it, he took a stick and beat her till she was black and blue. owlglass laughed when he heard the maid cry, and thought to himself, now the business is settled; so after remaining in bed one more day and night he got up, declaring himself to be quite well. after settling with his host for his board and lodging, he said, "i am now going to halberstadt to the bishop, to denounce you for having divulged the secrets of the confessional." the poor priest, who a moment before had felt quite happy at the prospect of getting rid of so dangerous a visiter, was now taken quite aback, when he saw ruin staring him in the face, and he begged most earnestly that he would not betray him, for it was in anger. he added that he would give him twenty pounds to purchase his secrecy, but owlglass declared that he would not take fifty. thereupon the priest begged his maid to intercede, and ascertain what owlglass would accept; and he, after making much difficulty, said he would not take anything but the priest's horse. now the priest would rather have parted with anything than his horse; but there was no help for it, so he gave him the animal. owlglass mounted the horse and rode off to wolfenbuttel, where he found the duke standing on the bridge. as he came near, the duke took off his coat, saying, "you see, owlglass, that as you have performed your part of the agreement i am ready to perform mine. there, take the coat i promised you." owlglass then had to relate by what means he obtained the horse from the priest; at which the duke laughed heartily, and besides the coat gave him another horse. [illustration: _owlglass's confession._] this was not the only priest whom owlglass tricked, as you shall hear. * * * * * whilst staying in the house where the adventure just told you occurred, he had become acquainted with a priest who came there several times, and there were two things he did not fail to note. firstly, this priest was very heavy with sleep every day after dinner, so that it seemed impossible to him to keep his eyes open; and secondly, he had a handsome silver snuff-box, which it was his habit to lay down by his side after taking a pinch from it. he lived in a town at no great distance from riesenburgh; and thither owlglass went to stay a day or two, the very first opportunity he had. choosing the time when he knew the priest had dined, he went to the confessional, and by means of a rambling story soon sent his friend asleep, his snuff-box lying by his side as usual. owlglass then put the box in his own pocket, and having waked the priest, said, "there is one thing weighs very heavily on my mind, for i have committed the mean crime of theft, and i must beg of you to accept the stolen article." this the priest refused to do, advising him to restore it to its real owner; but owlglass said, "he refuses to accept it." "under those circumstances keep it, my son, and i give you full absolution for having committed the great sin of stealing." owlglass then took the box out of his pocket, saying, "this is the box, and it was from you i stole it; when urged by remorse i wished to make restoration, but you refused to accept it, giving me full absolution." after this he left the confessional, and shortly after the town. [illustration: _owlglass takes the priest's snuff-box._] xiii. _how a bootmaker of brunswick larded owlglass's boots; and how he was paid for doing so._ the weather having turned wet, owlglass thought it well to have his boots greased, that his feet might be kept dry during his frequent wanderings; so, going to a bootmaker of the name of christopher, in the marketplace of brunswick, he gave him the boots, and said, "let these be well larded, and have them ready by to-morrow morning." when he had left the shop, the bootmaker's foreman said, "master, that is owlglass, who plays every one some ugly trick or another, so be very careful what you do, or your turn will have come." the master asked, "what did he tell us to do?" "he told you to lard his boots, meaning to grease them," the foreman answered; "and if i were you i would act up to the letter of what he said; i should not grease them, but lard them as one lards meat." "well, we will do as he bids us," the master said; and cutting up a piece of bacon into small strips, he larded the boots as if they were a joint of meat. owlglass called the following morning to ask whether the boots were ready; and the bootmaker, pointing to them as they hung against the wall, answered, "yes, there they are." owlglass, seeing his boots thus larded, burst out laughing, and said, "now you are the sort of tradesman i like, for you have conscientiously done as i ordered; how much do i owe you?" "a shilling," was the answer. as he paid the money, owlglass said, "you are much too moderate in your charges, but i shall not consider that with one miserable shilling i have paid you. rest assured, my good friend, that i will not forget you." then taking his boots he departed, the master and his foreman, looking after him, said, "he is the last man to whom such a thing should have happened." and as they talked it over they chuckled that the trickster, in his turn, had been tricked. their merriment, however, was of but short duration, for suddenly owlglass's head and shoulders appeared through the shop window, the glass flying in all directions about the place. "pray, my friend," he said, "have the goodness to tell me whether my boots are larded with sow's or boar's bacon." when the bootmaker had recovered a little from his surprise, he exclaimed, "get out of that, you scoundrel, or you will have my last at your head." "do not be angry, my good sir," owlglass said, "for i only wish to know what bacon that is with which you have larded my boots; whether it is from a boar or a sow?" the bootmaker's rage increased, and he abused him in the vilest terms for breaking his window; but owlglass said coolly, "if you will not tell me what bacon it is, i must go and ask some one else;" and drawing back his head and shoulders, contriving at the same time to break the windows still further, he disappeared. then the bootmaker was in a rage with his man, and said, "you gave me advice before; now advise me what i am to do to make my window whole again. pack yourself off at once, and the wages due to you i shall apply to repairing the mischief your wisdom has caused." [illustration: _owlglass returns with the boots._] xiv. _how owlglass hires himself to a tailor; and how well he executes his master's orders._ when owlglass found his pockets empty, he hired himself to a tailor, who said to him, "sew neatly, so that no one can see it, as a good workman should do." so owlglass took a needle and some pieces of cloth, and having crept under the cutting board, with his face turned to the wall, he laid the work across his knees and began to sew in the dark. when the master beheld this proceeding, he said, "what are you doing there, my man? that is a most extraordinary way of working." owlglass answered, "master, you told me to work so that no one could see it, and as you yourself cannot see what i am doing, so can no one else see my work, and therefore i am strictly executing your orders." the tailor, who was a quiet, easy man, then said, "that was not what i meant; come out there, and sew in such a manner that every one may see how fine your work is." thus they went on for a matter of three days, when, one evening, the tailor, feeling sleepy, threw a half-finished rough peasant's coat over to owlglass, and said, "there, make up that wolf for me, and then you can go to bed, as i am now going to do." you must know, that that particular sort of coat was called a wolf. as soon as the tailor had left the workshop, owlglass cut up the coat, and with the pieces first made the head, and then the body and legs of a wolf. he stood it up by means of sticks, and then went to bed. when, on the following morning, the master went into the shop, he started back in a fright, but owlglass just then coming in, he saw how it was, and said, "what have you been doing here?" owlglass answered, "i have made a wolf, as you bid me." and the tailor saying that he did not mean a wolf of that sort, but the peasant's rough coat, he continued, "my dear master, i wish i had understood your meaning, for i would rather have made a coat than a wolf." with this the master was satisfied, and they went on comfortably together for three or four days more, when one evening he again felt sleepy; but thinking it too early for his man to go to bed, he gave him a coat which was finished all but putting in the sleeves, and said, "whip the sleeves to this coat, and then you can go to rest." owlglass hung the coat up on a hook, and having laid the sleeves near it, he lighted two candles, and, with a whip he then made, whipped the sleeves all through the night. when the tailor came in, in the morning, he exclaimed, "what tomfoolery is this?" "it is no tomfoolery," owlglass answered, "i have done as you told me; but though i have stood here all night whipping the sleeves, i could not get them to stick to the coat. it would have been better you had let me go to bed than make me waste my time in this way." "it is not my fault," the tailor said, "how could i know you understood it this way, when i meant you to sew the sleeves into the coat?" owlglass answered, "i wish you would not say one thing when you mean another; but now you may do the work, for i must go to bed." this the tailor would no way agree to, so they quarrelled; and owlglass leaving him, went his way. xv. _how owlglass caused three tailors to fall from their work-board, and persuaded the people that the wind had blown them down._ owlglass took a lodging at bamberg, near to the market-place, where he remained about a fortnight, and next door to him there lived a tailor who had three workmen. these men sat on a board, supported by four posts, outside the window, and they laughed at owlglass, and threw pieces of rag or cloth at him whenever he passed. owlglass bore all in silence, biding his time to pay them back with interest; and this he determined should be on a fair day, when the market-place would be full of people. the night before the day of the fair he had sawed the posts nearly through which supported the board on which the three tailors sat, and in the morning they placed the board on them as usual, seated themselves on it and began their sewing. now, when the swineherd blew his horn all the people let out their pigs, and the tailor's pigs also came out of his house, and went, as owlglass well knew they would, under the board, rubbing themselves against the posts, which, giving way, the three journeymen tailors were thrown into the gutter. owlglass, who had been on the watch, now cried out, "see how light three tailors are, for a gust of wind has blown them all at once into the street, as if they were but three feathers! how easily a tailor can fly!" and this he cried so loud that he could be heard all over the marketplace. all the people came running to the spot to see the fun, and mocked and laughed at the poor tailors, who knew not what to do for very shame. they could not tell how it was their board fell; but they found out at last, and guessed that it was owlglass who had played them that trick. they put up fresh posts, but did not again venture to make game of owlglass. [illustration: _downfall of the tailors._] xvi. _how owlglass tells a truth to a smith, to his wife, his assistant, and his maidservant, for which he gets his horse shod._ owlglass now being in funds, he rode about the country like a gentleman, and one day came to a small town, where he saw a very neat woman, with her servant maid, standing at the door of a smithy, and judged her to be the smith's wife. he put up at an inn just opposite, and during the night pulled the four shoes off his horse. on the following morning he led his horse to the smithy; and as soon as it was known that it was owlglass, the wife and maidservant came out to see what had brought him there. owlglass asked the smith whether he would shoe his horse; to which he at once agreed, for he was glad of an opportunity to have some talk with a man of whom he had heard so much. after much talk on both sides, the smith said, "if you will tell me a truth that is really true, i will put one shoe on your horse without any charge." to this owlglass answered, "if you have iron and coals, and there is plenty of wind in the bellows, the fault will be yours if the forge does not go on well." "that is undoubtedly true," said the smith; and he gave him the promised horseshoe. the assistant, as he was putting on the shoe, said that if he would tell him a truth that applied to him, he would put another shoe on his horse. in answer, owlglass said, "a smith's assistant must work hard and not spare himself if he expects to please his master." "that is true enough," was the answer, and the horse had a second shoe. then the wife and the servant wanted a truth told them, for which each promised his horse a shoe. owlglass whispered his answer in the ear of each of these. to the mistress he said, "when a servant apes her mistress's dress, she would be mistress not only in dress alone." the mistress marked his glances as well as his words, and said, "that is true enough;" so there was a third shoe for the horse. and to the maid he said, "when a servant is better looking than her mistress, she will find it difficult to please her in anything." the maid said, "that i know to be true." so the horse got its fourth shoe, and owlglass rode further on his way. [illustration: _owlglass in the smithy._] [decoration] xvii. _how owlglass hired himself to a merchant as cook and coachman._ in the town of windsheim there lived a rich merchant, who was walking one day outside the town, when he saw owlglass lying on the grass, and stopping, he asked him what his calling was. owlglass answered that he was a cook; whereupon the merchant said, "you are just the man i want, that is, if you understand your business; for my wife is not at all satisfied with her present cook, and we have some of the first people of the town to dine with us to-morrow, to whom we would like to give a good dinner." owlglass said that he would serve him faithfully, and that he felt confident of giving satisfaction; so the merchant engaged him, stipulating that he should also serve as coachman, and took him home with him at once. as soon as the merchant's wife saw owlglass, she said, "who is this fellow whom you have brought home with you, for i do not like the look of him at all?" her husband answered, "never mind his look, my dear, for he is a first-rate cook, and we will serve up a dinner to-morrow that shall be the envy of the whole town." early the next morning the merchant gave owlglass full instructions as to the dinner, telling him what soup, meat, and vegetables to get, and how he liked everything done. "as for game," he added, "professor guzzle is particularly fond of roast hare, so we cannot do better than let him have his favourite puss; but, mind, let it be the finest that can be got in the whole town." owlglass promised that all his instructions should be strictly attended to; and the merchant, having business of importance to attend to, went out in easy confidence in his new servant. the merchant got home only just in time to receive his guests, so that he could not visit the kitchen before dinner, and his wife was too fine a lady to attend to such matters. however, the dinner went off very well, and the hare, in particular, was declared to be the finest that had been seen that year; so that all the company were in high spirits. at dessert the conversation turned upon cats; and one of the ladies, addressing the mistress of the house, said she had heard that she had the finest one in the whole town. the merchant's wife was very proud of her cat, and gave orders that it should be brought into the room; but it could not be found anywhere; and now the servants remembered that they had not seen it since the morning, when one of them saw owlglass carry it from the kitchen to an outhouse. owlglass was now sent for into the dining-room, before all the guests, and questioned as to what had become of the cat. without being in the slightest degree disconcerted, he said his master had told him that professor guzzle was very fond of roast hare, and that they could not do better than let him have his favourite puss, and therefore he, owlglass, was to be sure and get the very finest in the town; that he had searched the whole town through, but there were none to compare to the one in the house, and he was sure his master would not begrudge it his guests; therefore he had killed and roasted it, and the company had just eaten it. horror was depicted upon most of the countenances, whilst one or two of the guests tried to joke about it; but these the very first showed symptoms of distress, and one after another of the company had to leave the room pale as death, and not one returned. the mistress insisted upon owlglass being at once sent away; but the merchant said, "i want him to drive me and the priest to goslar to-morrow, and when we get back i will immediately send him about his business." that evening he told owlglass to get the carriage ready for the morrow, and to grease it well. as soon as all had gone to bed, owlglass took some cart grease and greased the carriage outside and in, but particularly the seats. early the next morning the merchant ordered the horses to be put to the carriage, and he and the priest getting in, they drove off in high spirits. they had not gone far, however, when they found they were gradually slipping off the seats; and the priest exclaimed, "what is all this grease? i held on with my hands to check the jolting, and i am all grease." they ordered owlglass to stop, and they found they were covered with grease; so that they had to buy a bundle of straw from a farmer and rub themselves and the carriage well. the merchant had now lost all patience, and he cried out to owlglass, "i find out now that you are a professed wag, and of the most mischievous class; but you are in the right road, go on, my good friend, straight to the gallows, and there your journey will be at an end." owlglass did as he was bid, for, turning off the road, he drove straight to a gallows which stood at no great distance, and stopping there began to take the horses out of the carriage. "what are you doing now, you rascal?" the merchant exclaimed. owlglass answered, "you told me to go straight to the gallows, and that there my journey would be at an end, so i naturally thought that we were to stop here." the merchant looked out of the carriage, and seeing that they were indeed under the gallows, could not help laughing. he said, "you have delayed us so long on the road with your foolery that i am afraid we shall not reach goslar in time for our business, so now, my good fellow, i pray you get on as fast as you can. do not look behind you, but mind only the road before you." owlglass now again mounted his horse, having first loosened the pin connecting the front wheels, and set off as fast as the horses could gallop. he had not gone far when the pin fell out; but, without looking behind him, he galloped on, carrying off the pole and front wheels, and leaving the body of the carriage far behind. in vain the priest and merchant shouted to him to stop. on he went; so they had to jump out of the carriage, and by scrambling through hedges and running across fields they were, fortunately, able to overtake him. complaint was useless; and as they found they could not now reach goslar in time, even if their coachman could be trusted to take them there, they determined upon returning home. the homeward journey was accomplished without any further accident; and when the merchant found himself safe in his own house, he called owlglass to him and said, "it is but too evident that all the mischief you have done since you have been with me has been done purposely. what have you to say to this?" owlglass answered, "i do everything strictly to the letter, as i am told, and if i do wrong, the fault is therefore not mine, but the fault of those who give the orders. you do not seem satisfied, so, if you pay me my wages, i would rather look for justice elsewhere." the merchant thinking it better to avoid further, and perhaps worse, mischief by getting rid of him at once, paid him, and they parted. [illustration: _owlglass's "skilful" coachmanship._] [decoration] xviii. _how owlglass cheated a horse-dealer at wismar, and afterwards cheated the public._ owlglass next went to wismar, a town much frequented by horse-dealers, and one of these had a habit of pulling the tail of any horse he thought of buying. this he did from a notion that, if the hair were firm in the tail, the horse was strong, and would live long; but if, on the contrary, the hair came out freely, that the animal would not last long, and he would therefore have nothing to do with it. owlglass knew of this habit, and determined to make some profit of it, so he bought a horse without a tail, which he got very cheap on that account, and most artfully he fastened a beautifully flowing tail to the bare stump, by means of blood and gum. with this horse he went to wismar, and asked so high a price that no one would bid for it, until the dealer came whose habit it was to pull the horses' tails, and him he asked a very low price. before striking a bargain, the horse-dealer, as usual, caught hold of the tail, and having formed a favourable opinion of the animal, gave it, perhaps, a harder tug than customary, when, lo and behold, the tail remained in his hands, and he measured his length upon the ground. a shout of laughter arose on all sides; but that was not enough for owlglass, who cried out, at the highest pitch of his voice, "see here! the villain has ruined my horse, for, beautiful creature that it is, who would have it without a tail?" the people drew nearer and took part with owlglass, so that the horse-dealer had to pay him ten pounds for the damage done to his horse, and owlglass laughed more heartily than any one, though only to himself. he rode out of wismar in high spirits, his trick having succeeded so well; and as soon as he was outside the town he fastened the tail on again, intending to sell the horse in the next town. as he rode along, however, he thought of some other way how to make money by his horse, before finally parting with it. in pursuance of the plan he had formed, he stopped at an inn two or three miles distant from the town, where he intended to put his plan into execution. here he remained till it had grown dark, so that he might enter the town unseen; which having done, he hired a stable, and having put up his horse, and attended to it himself, he locked the stable-door, putting the key in his pocket. the next morning he had it cried through the town that there was a horse to be shown with its tail where its head should be, stating a certain hour at which only it could be seen. before the appointed time he made all necessary preparations in the stable, when he again locked the door and then stood before it, waiting the arrival of the curious. now, as curiosity was pretty general in the town, there was a numerous attendance; and when owlglass judged that all the company to be expected had arrived, he collected the admission price from each, and then threw the door open. there was a general rush, followed by laughter from some, and indignant complaints from others, as they saw the horse, no different in itself to other horses, but fastened with its tail to the manger instead of its head. [illustration: _the horse's tail where his head should be._] xix. _how owlglass sowed rogues._ we next meet with owlglass in a town where he remained so long that he knew all the secrets of the place. by turns he took up his abode in twelve different inns, so that what had escaped him in one he was sure to hear in another, and it was little good he heard in either. for a long while he puzzled his brain what he could best do to suit the good people among whom he had the honour of living, when, at length, he hit upon a novel fancy, and, going into the market-place, he began sowing, up and down, sideways and crossways, the seed being represented by small pebbles. the people came in crowds, and to their questions what he was sowing, answered that he was sowing rogues. the people cried out, "those are not wanted here, for we have more than enough of them; and, pray, why do you not sow honest men as well?" he answered, "those will not grow here." these words were reported to the town council, who had him called before them, and ordered him to pick up his seed again, and then leave the town. his seed he could not well pick up; but he left the town, and after travelling about ten miles, came to another. here, however, the report of his wonderful seed had reached before him, so that he was not allowed to stop there, but had to pass through as quickly as possible. there was no help for it, so, escorted by the town authorities, he went down to the side of a river, which flowed through the town, and there hired a boat to carry him and his seed. he jumped into the boat, but when the boatman raised his bag to lift that in, it burst and all the seed fell out. owlglass pushed off the boat, crying out to the astonished spectators that he left them his seed, for he was sure that in such a highly virtuous town a few rogues were required to keep up a proper balance; and when he reached the opposite side, leaving the boat to the mercy of the stream, he ran on his way. whether the seed took root or not is not said; but to judge by the quantity of rogues in the world, it would seem it did, and that owlglass sowed some of the same sort in other parts of the world. [illustration: _owlglass sowing rogues._] xx. _how owlglass hired himself to a barber, and entered his house through the window._ once upon a time owlglass went to the city of hamburg, and having reached the market-place he there stood still and looked about him. whilst he was standing there a man came up to him and asked what he was looking out for. owlglass saw at once, by his questioner's appearance, what business he followed, answered that he was a barber and was seeking employment. "well met then," his new acquaintance said, "for i just happen to be in want of a barber's assistant, and i dare say we shall be able to come to a satisfactory arrangement together. i live in that high house just opposite. you see those windows that reach down to the ground. go in there, and i will follow you presently." owlglass answered, "yes." then crossing the road walked straight through the window, with a terrific crash, and made a polite bow to those within the room. the barber's wife sat there spinning, and, being much frightened, cried out for help, saying, "here is a madman come through the window." owlglass said to her, "my good lady, pray be not angry, for the master bid me come in here, having just hired me as his assistant." "may the foul fiend take you," the lady answered, for she was not possessed of the most even temper, "a pretty assistant you are. was the door not wide enough for you, that you must needs come in through the window?" owlglass answered, "my dear madam, must not an assistant do as his master bids him?" just then the barber entered, and seeing all the destruction around him, exclaimed, "what does all this mean?" owlglass addressed him thus, "you said to me, you see those windows that reach down to the ground--go in there, and i will follow you presently. now this good lady is angry that i have broken the window, but how could i help doing so, as it was not open? it seems to me that i have the most reason to complain, for i might have cut myself to pieces in doing what i was told to do; but i hope whatever may be the danger i shall never shrink from doing my duty. now, excuse me to the lady i beseech you, my dear master, for you see i could not avoid causing the mischief that has happened." [illustration: _owlglass walks through the barber's window._] the poor barber knew not what to say, so thought he might as well not say anything; besides, he wanted his assistance, and was in hopes he might be induced to accept more reasonable terms in consideration of the damage he had done. he now gave owlglass some razors to sharpen, and as they were somewhat rusty at the backs, he said, "brighten up the backs; indeed, make them quite like the edge." owlglass took the razors and made the backs as sharp as the edges, so that the barber, when he went to see what he was doing, exclaimed, "this is not right!" "how not right?" owlglass said; "are the backs not sharp enough? but have a little patience and they shall be quite like the edges, as you told me to make them. you see they had got very blunt at the backs, but after a little more sharpening you will be satisfied with them." "are you an idiot?" the master cried in a rage; "or is all this mischief done intentionally? leave the sharpening and pack yourself off back to where you came from." "well," owlglass said, "i see we should not be happy together for all our lives, so i may as well go at once;" and he walked out through the window as he had gone in. the barber was still more enraged at this, and ran after him to have him seized and locked up till he paid for the broken window; but owlglass was too quick for him, reached a ship that was just about to sail, and was off. [decoration] xxi. _how owlglass frightened an innkeeper at eisleben with a dead wolf._ in the depth of winter owlglass put up at an inn at eisleben, where one evening there also arrived three merchants from saxony on their way to nurenberg. they related how they had been attacked by a wolf, against which they had much difficulty in defending themselves, and that this disagreeable adventure had considerably delayed them. the host, who was a bragging sarcastic sort of a person, joked them much about their adventure, declaring that it was a shame they should allow themselves to be delayed by a miserable wolf; that, for his part, if he were attacked by two wolves, he would soon drive them off, but here three were frightened by one wolf. this continued all the evening till the merchants went to bed, owlglass in the mean time remaining silent, but turning it over in his mind how he could best play mine host some trick to pay him off for his bragging. the merchants and owlglass shared the same bed-room; and when the former discussed among themselves how they could repay the mocking of the innkeeper, owlglass said he had been thinking it over, and that if they would leave it to him he would engage that they should hear no more about the wolf. the merchants readily agreed, promising a handsome reward if he paid their tormentor off well; and owlglass then proposed that they should continue their journey, and all meet again there on their return. early the next morning the merchants paid the reckoning for owlglass, as well as for themselves, and rode on their way, mine host calling after them to beware lest a wolf should cross their path. owlglass also took his departure and went on the chase after a wolf. he succeeded in killing one, which he left out in the cold till it was frozen quite stiff, and when the merchants returned he put his prize in a sack, and, taking it with him, joined them at the inn as agreed upon. the innkeeper again teased his guests about the wolf, talking very big of how he would act. when the merchants went to their bed-room owlglass joined them, and said, "my good friends, keep your candle burning, and do not go to bed yet, for we will have some sport this night." now, as soon as all the household had gone to bed, owlglass fetched the dead wolf, which was hard frozen, and taking it to the kitchen placed it near the hearth, supporting it with sticks so that it stood upright, at the same time opening its jaws in which he put a child's shoe. then, quietly returning to his room, he called loudly for something to drink. when the innkeeper heard this he grumbled at being disturbed, and calling up the maid told her to get some beer for his guests. the maid went to the fire in the kitchen to light a candle, and seeing the wolf with its jaws wide open, rushed out into the yard, thinking the brute had surely devoured the children. owlglass and the merchants continued to call for drink, and the innkeeper, thinking the maid had gone to sleep again, called the man. he went to the fire to light a candle, and when he saw the wolf, thought it had made away with the maid, so he too ran out into the yard. the shouting for drink still continuing, the innkeeper thought the man must be asleep as well as the maid, and, grumbling like a bear, he himself got up. as soon as he had lighted a candle he saw the wolf with the shoe in its jaws, and running to the merchant's room, trembling with terror, cried out, "come and help me, my dear friends, for there is a frightful monster in the kitchen, which has devoured my children, maid, and man servant." they went with him; the girl and the man came from the yard, and the wife brought the children. all were alive. owlglass then went up to the wolf, which he turned over with his foot, and it did not stir; then turning to the innkeeper, said, "what an arrant coward you are! it is not long ago that you said you were ready to fight two wolves, and just now you ran away, trembling and shouting, from a dead one." the merchants made rare fun of mine host, and the next morning, after paying the bill, took their departure with owlglass. [illustration: _the frightful monster._] xxii. _the grateful animals._ a good many years ago some boys in a village were having rare sport with a mouse which they had quite surrounded, so that the poor little thing could nowhere escape, for to which ever side it turned, a heavy shoe, or a stick, threatened it with instant death. the poor animal thought this no sport at all, but the boys shouted with laughter as they saw it scamper and jump to avoid the blows aimed at it. activity alone saved it from its tormentors; but this was beginning to fail, when, fortunately, a man came that way. this man had more kindness in his heart than money in his pockets; but with this he had one great fault, for he was somewhat restless and fickle-minded, which, however, on this occasion proved fortunate for the poor little mouse, and eventually so for himself. his restless disposition had driven him to travel, poor as he was, and thus he came to the village, where witnessing the little creature's distress he released it, by giving the boys a few half-pence, and it instantly took refuge in a hole close by. in his wanderings he came to another village where he saw a crowd of boys, and, i am sorry to say, there were girls as well, tormenting an inoffensive donkey, which he saved from further molestation by again parting with a little of his scanty stock of money. further on he reached another village, where he released a bear from like persecution by giving more money. not long after these adventures this good man himself got into trouble, and was condemned by a cruel judge to be put into a box with only a jug of water and one loaf of bread, and thus thrown into the river, though i assure you he was quite innocent. you may imagine his distress, for he was not very comfortable in his box, nor could he see where he was being carried to, when all at once he felt the box grating against the ground, and then heard a nibbling at the lock, which, after awhile, gave way, and when he raised the lid was delighted to see his three friends, the mouse, the ass, and the bear, who now helped him in return for his kindness to them. [illustration: _friends in grave consultation._] they were not satisfied with merely saving his life, for they knew that he was poor, and had, moreover, spent some of his money to save them; so they were consulting together what they could do for him, when the bear espied a white stone come floating along. "nothing could happen more fortunate," the bear cried, "for here comes the lucky stone, and whoever has that will have all his wishes fulfilled on the instant." the man, hearing this, seized the stone as it was passing, and wished himself in a palace with every comfort and luxury, surrounded by beautiful grounds; and the next instant all was as he had wished. now, dazzled by so much splendour, and happy beyond anything he had ever dreamt of, he forgot his friends, the mouse, the ass, and the bear, though, i have no doubt, he would have thought of them sooner or later and wished them with him; but before this fault was remedied misfortune came upon him. it so happened that some merchants passed that way, and seeing a magnificent palace, where before there had only been barren land, they were seized with wonder and curiosity, so they went in and asked the owner how he had worked such a truly wonderful change. "i had only to wish for it," was the answer. they marvelled at this, as well they might; and being told that it was by means of the lucky stone his wish had been fulfilled, they offered all their merchandize for the stone. our friend, whose head, it must be confessed, was not as good as his heart, seeing so many beautiful things, agreed to the bargain at once, without thinking that he need only wish and he could have all those and more beautiful things. he gave the merchants the stone; and it was no sooner out of his hands than he found himself in his former position, which was rendered worse when he compared all the splendour and comfort he had lost to his ugly comfortless box, with only a jug of water and one loaf. his friends, however, did not desert him in his distress, but this time they could not open the box; and, after consulting, the bear said, "i see we cannot do any good without the lucky stone, so let us go to the palace where the merchants now live and try to get it." this was agreed upon; and when they got there they held another council. the bear seems to have had the wisest head, for he was again spokesman, and said, "it is useless for us to expect to be let in here; but you, my friend mrs. mouse, you can creep through anywhere--see, there is just a little hole at the bottom of the door. go in, and, as only one of the merchants is now at home, worry him in every possible way, for you can always manage to escape; and when you have worked him into a perfect fury lead him here to the door, and no doubt he will open it to rush out after you. then we two will go in and easily master him between us. only you take care to find out where he keeps the stone." the mouse got through the hole in the door without difficulty; and, after finding out where the stone was, went in search of the merchant, whom she found in bed. she crept in at the bottom and began nibbling at his toes. the merchant jumped up in a fright, but when he saw the mouse his fright turned to rage, and he made a snatch at it; but the little thing was too quick for him: and now began a chase all round the bed-room, round every table and chair, and into every corner of the next room, and, finally, into the hall, where, jumping up and biting him in the calf of the leg, in order to exasperate him still more, she slipped through the hole she had got in at. [illustration: _the merchant's rough handling._] the merchant threw open the door, and the bear, who was ready, greeted him with the closest embrace. they rolled down together, but the bear soon hugged all the breath out of him, and leaving him in charge of the donkey went with the mouse to fetch the stone. no sooner had they this in their possession than the three went off, regardless of the confusion they left behind them. they soon reached the water-side; but the box was floating in deep water, and the donkey said, in despair-"we shall never get at it." the bear, however, cried, "nonsense, leave that to me, i can swim well enough, so you, donkey, just put your fore-feet round my neck, and take the stone in your mouth, but mind you don't swallow it; and you, my little friend, can make yourself snug somewhere in my long hair." all being satisfactorily arranged, off they set, but were destined to meet with a misfortune on their voyage; for the bear, who was rather fond of hearing himself talk, could not refrain from expatiating on the past adventure. "we managed that pretty well, i flatter myself. what is your opinion, my long-eared friend?" and as the donkey made no answer he continued-"how is this? i was always taught that a civil question deserves a civil answer; but this does not seem to enter into your notions of politeness. who taught you manners, my friend?" the donkey could stand it no longer, but opened his mouth, and out fell the stone "plop" into the water. "there, you see what comes of your talking. could you not wait till our work was finished? how could i open my mouth without losing the stone? and now it is gone, and with it all hope of helping our friend." "well, well, my good fellow," the bear interrupted him, for he was not anxious to hear any more, as he felt himself in the wrong, "a moment's action is better than an hour's regret. i have a bright idea that will put all right again. let us go back, and i'll set about it at once." on the way back the bear called up all the frogs that were in those parts, and said to them, "fetch me up as many stones as possible from the bottom of the water, for i have an idea of building you a place of refuge in case of danger." a loud croaking was immediately heard, which called the frogs from all parts; and they set about collecting stones without loss of time. it was not long before the lucky stone was added to the heap, which the bear immediately seized; and telling the frogs that there were now stones enough, the three friends started off again. they soon reached the box, which now opened without difficulty, and the poor prisoner was relieved; but only just in time, for the loaf of bread was consumed, and he began to suffer from want. as soon as he had the stone in his hand he wished himself back in the palace, which he found just as he had left it. this time he did not forget his friends, and they lived happily together to the end of their days. now, does not this story prove that an act of kindness meets with its reward, and that the ungrateful are worse than the brute beasts, for our three good animals effectually showed their gratitude? [decoration] xxiii. _tim jarvis._ tim jarvis was as decent and hardworking a man as any one could wish to know, till the evil spirit got astride his imagination. tim was not only a decent, hardworking man, but recollected his early lessons, that the evil one should be resisted with might and main. nor was it during the day that the enemy, at first, attempted to gain any advantage; but it was at night that he mainly worked upon his mind by means of dreams. night after night he dreamed of treasures of gold and precious stones that were to be found, first in one place and then in another, till it grew too much for him, and his waking hours were scarcely different to dreaming. he was now found digging anywhere but in his garden or potatoe field; and indeed his dreams led him all the way from ireland to london-bridge, with his spade across his shoulder. now, when poor tim was on london-bridge he felt himself more puzzled than ever he had been in his life; he was quite bewildered by the confusion and noise, and being pushed from one side to another; but after a while he began to recover himself; and as he walked up and down, first on one side and then on the other, he tried the ground with his spade, but quite accidentally like, or as if it were a walking-stick, for he was wide awake. "for sure," he said to himself, "i'm not going to let so many people suspect what treasure is lying under their feet." he was encouraged by the hollowness of the sound; but then again his spirits sank, for he found no spot where his spade could make the slightest impression, nay, he doubted whether he could stick a pin in anywhere, so hard were the stones. when it had grown dark, and the bridge was still crowded, he began to fear that all the people were there for the same purpose as himself; but he was determined that he would tire them out; and indeed the numbers did gradually decrease. st. paul's had just struck twelve, when a stranger, stopping just in front of our friend, said-"well, tim, you have come a long way, but you might have done better nearer home. you know, tim, the lane that runs at the back of your cabin, and you know the old wall, for i've seen you digging under that many a night. well, tim, you were in the right road, but too near home. i've seen you turn sharp round that wall, and, crossing the big bog, look longingly at the heap of stones behind the furze-bush in terry o'toole's field." "yes," sighed tim; "but it would have been more than my life was worth to dig there, for though terry knows well that his whole field is nothing but ugly stones, he would murther man, woman, or child who stuck a spade in any part of the ground--the big baste." "true for you, tim," the stranger said, "but the gold is there." after these words the stranger was gone as suddenly as he had appeared, and poor tim was left, more puzzled than ever. "may be," he said to himself, "its desaiving me he is, that he may have the digging of lunnon-bridge all to hisself, but then sorrow a spadeful of earth could any one throw up here, in all his life. no, it was to meet the sthrainger that i came all the way here without knowing it, so now i'll go back to ould ireland." tim did go back, and, after selling his potatoe-field, bought the waste bit of land, which o'toole was pleased to call a field. what did tim care, when all the neighbours called him mad, or even when his wife threatened him because he sold the bed from under her to buy a new spade and pick, for he knew it was troublesome ground he had to work in, and no mistake. when night came, after he had all ready, tim went to his new property, and, hard as the work was, did not rest till the first grey of morning began to appear. just then, through a crack in the ground, he thought he heard voices below. he listened, scarcely drawing his breath, when all the breath was frightened out of him, for he plainly heard-"we'll give tim a nice dance when he comes for our gold." when he had recovered himself a bit, he scrambled out of the hole as fast as possible, and went home, where he met with no over-pleasant reception from his wife. a strange day that was which tim spent, divided between rejoicing and trembling, for he knew now for certain that gold was there; but he knew, too, that there were some sort of beings to be dealt with; and what were those beings? his hair stood on end as he pictured some frightful monsters to himself; but yet all must be risked to gain possession of the gold, and he said, "it's mighty polite i'll be to the gintlemen, and sure they won't harm a poor man." over and over again he repeated what he should say to the "gintlemen," and thus the day passed; the most anxious day of his life. he took care to arm himself with more than natural courage, in the shape of a bottle of potheen, of which he took a sup, and then another, and then a still longer one, before he jumped into the hole. in the darkness, for night had come on, he plainly saw a light shining through the crack in the ground, as the night before, so he immediately set to work; and he had not thrown up many spades of earth, when the ground gave way, and he sank down, he never knew how low, nor could he ever recollect more than that he found himself surrounded by the strangest little beings, who were all jabbering at once, and seemed very angry. he remembered that he made them his best of bows, and gave them his fairest words, when the tallest of them, stepping forward, addressed tim thus:-"tim, we see that you are a decent, well-spoken, and polite gentleman, and in your case we will overlook our privacy being intruded on, which you must look upon as a great favour." "and 'tis very much obleged that i am to your honer and the other gintlemen, and sure 'tis i that will never forget it; but might i not make so bold as to tell you that i am a poor man, and ask your honour whether you could not help me with a thrifle?" there was a loud shout of laughter, and then the same little fellow that had addressed him before, said, "well, tim, we have plenty of the rubbish you all think so much of. there, take as much of the gold as you can carry." tim saw that the ground was covered with guineas, which he set to picking up as fast as he could stow them away, and when he could not find room for one more, he took both his hands full, sighing that he must leave so many behind. then the little people cried out, "go home, tim jarvis; but shut your eyes close, or some mischief will happen to you." he did as he was told, and felt himself whisked through the air quicker than lightning. some time after he knew that he no longer moved, he ventured to open his eyes, for he felt a mighty tugging at his hair. he found himself by the side of the hole he had been digging, and his wife, who had grown tired of his strange ways of late, was shaking him rather roughly. [illustration: _tim jarvis and his wife._] "lave the breath in me," he cried, "and i will fill your apron with golden guineas." he put his hand in his pocket, but only pulled out a few yellow furze-blossoms. when he saw this tim was quite dejected, and did not venture to answer a word to his wife's reproaches, but allowed himself to be led home. from that night he left off dreaming; and taking again to his industrious, hardworking habits, soon made up for his past neglect, and was not only able to buy back his potatoe-field, but became a happy, flourishing man. his wife used to say that it was only a dream about the little people and the gold, for that certainly she had found him asleep; but tim shook his head. [decoration] xxiv. _the shoemaker and the dwarfs._ why do we read of so many shoemakers that were poor? surely they must have lived in ireland; but, be that as it may, we have to tell of another, who, though he was most anxious to fit all the world, could find no customers, till at last he had nothing left but just leather enough to make one pair of shoes. he had been running about all day, longingly looking at all the feet, and wishing he might measure some one for this last pair of shoes, but he returned, having only worn out his own. however, with all his poverty, he had a light heart and a good wife, who was always ready to cheer him; so he determined to make up the shoes in the very best style, and, putting them in his window, trust to a purchaser. he cut them out, intending to begin his work early the next morning, and went to bed, soon falling asleep. imagine the good man's astonishment when, on the following morning, he found the shoes already made, and in such a manner that he could not take his eyes off them. he put them in his window, though he could hardly make up his mind to part with them, and, half hoping to frighten purchasers away, he set twice as high a price upon them as it had been his custom to charge. however, a customer was soon found; and though it was with regret he parted with those master-pieces of work, yet, when he held so much money in his hand, he was delighted, for not only could he buy leather to make two pairs of shoes, but he could get his wife a few necessaries she had been long obliged to dispense with. that evening he cut out two pairs of shoes, ready for the next morning, when, on getting up, he found those finished, with workmanship no less excellent than that of the night before. for these, also, customers were speedily found, at equally good prices as the previous pair; and that night the shoemaker cut out four pairs of shoes, which he again found made to perfection the following morning. thus it went on, the work that was prepared at night being finished by the morning, so that our good friend soon became a flourishing man; but he and his wife remained as simple in their habits as of old, preferring to spend what they could spare on their more needy neighbours. curiosity seems part of a woman's nature, and the shoemaker's wife certainly felt very curious to see who their friends were that did the work so beautifully; so she proposed to her husband that they should hide themselves, and, leaving a candle burning, watch for their nightly visitors. they did so, and at midnight saw two dwarfs come in, who immediately set to at the work left for them, stitching and hammering away so fast that the shoemaker felt quite bewildered by their rapidity. not one moment did they stop, but worked on till all was finished, and disappeared long before daylight. now, if the shoemaker's wife was curious, she was kind-hearted as well, and was much grieved to see that such good, industrious little fellows should be so neglected by their families and friends, for they had not a stitch of clothes on, when it was winter too. had they no wives or no sisters to look after their comfort? and she proposed to make them a decent suit of clothes each. the good man was delighted at the proposal; so she bought the stuff, and gave herself but little rest till she had made them a coat, waistcoat, and a pair of trowsers each, as near their shape and size as she could guess. as soon as finished, the clothes were left for them instead of the customary work, and the shoemaker and his wife again watched their coming. about midnight they appeared; and when they found the clothes in place of their usual work, they stood for a moment irresolute, and then took up each article, examining it on all sides. they then began to try on the things, not without making several mistakes, for one of the little fellows had got his arms into the legs of the trowsers, whilst the other was putting on the waistcoat over the coat. but at length they were dressed; and having examined each other, and then themselves, they were so delighted that they set to capering and dancing about the room, and playing all manner of antics, jumping over the chairs and tumbling over head and heels, till at last they danced out of the room hand-in-hand. [illustration: _the dwarfs' capers._] they did not appear again; but the shoemaker continued to prosper, and became a rich man; he and his wife being respected and loved by all who knew them. [decoration] xxv. _the countryman and the jew._ there was once a farmer, a great miser, and he had a servant as simple as he himself was close, for he had served his master, three years without being offered any wages, or asking for any. after the three years, however, the man thought he would not work any longer without pay, so he said to his master, "i have worked for you diligently and faithfully, and hope you will now give me a fair reward for my services." knowing that his man was a great simpleton, the farmer gave him three-pence, saying, "i not only reward you fairly, but splendidly--here is a penny for each year; but, now that you are rich, do not squander your money and get into idle habits." the poor fellow thought that he was rich indeed, so determined that he would not work and slave any longer, but travel and enjoy himself. with his fortune in his purse, and his purse safely in his pocket, he set out; and as he was going along, singing merrily, a little dwarf came up and asked him why he was so merry. "why should i not be merry," he answered, "for i am rich and have nothing to do but to enjoy myself? i have worked hard for three years, and saved all my earnings." "and how much might they be?" the little man asked. when told that the amount was three-pence, he said he was very poor, and begged hard for the money. the countryman did not make him ask long, and cheerfully gave him his three-pence, when the little fellow said-"you have a kind, generous heart, and shall not suffer for your liberality. you shall have three wishes, which shall be granted you--one for each penny." the countryman was highly rejoiced, and said, "many thanks, my good friend, for your offer; and, first of all, i would like to have a gun which will bring down everything that i shoot at; and, secondly, i choose a fiddle, to which, when i play, every one must dance, whether he will or no. these will satisfy me, so i will not trouble you with a third wish at present." "your wishes are soon granted," said the dwarf, and gave him the desired gun and fiddle; after which he went his way. our friend was happy before, but now his happiness knew no bounds; and he only wanted an opportunity to try his fiddle, for the gun he had already tried several times as he walked along. the desired opportunity was not long wanting, for he soon met a jew; and just where they met stood a tree, on one of the branches of which sat a plump wood-pigeon. "i wish i had that bird," said the jew; "could you not shoot it for me, my friend?" "that is easily done," was the answer; and the same instant the bird fell amongst some thorn-bushes at the foot of the tree. the jew crept in among the bushes to pick it up; and no sooner was he in the middle than the countryman took his fiddle and played the sprightliest of jigs. the first sound no sooner reached the jew's ears than he began to dance; and, as the tune went on, he jumped and capered higher and higher, at every leap he took leaving a piece of his clothes hanging to the thorns. the thorns soon began to enter his flesh, and, in pain, he cried out-"for heaven's sake, leave off playing! what have i done to deserve this?" "what have you done?" said the countryman. "how many a poor wretch have you not ruined! and the duty to avenge them has fallen upon me, so i will just play you another tune, and mind you dance well to it." the jew then offered him money to give over; but, as his offer did not rise high enough, he had to dance on till, in despair and worn out by fatigue and pain, he said he would give a hundred pieces of gold, which he had in his purse. as the purse was thrown down the countryman's heart was softened; so he gave over playing, took up the purse and went his way, highly delighted with his day's work. [illustration: _the jew's dance._] no sooner had he gone than the jew crept out from among the thorns, half naked, and his heart full of bitterness and revenge. the loss of his money smarted even more intolerably than the wounds in his flesh, and he hastened to the nearest judge, to whom he complained how he had been robbed and ill-treated, giving a description of his tormentor. the judge could not refuse justice to the jew; so he sent out his officers, who soon caught the countryman, and, brought back, he was put upon his trial. the jew's evidence, and the sorry plight he was in, were too convincing to be got over, though the defence was that the money had been given of his own account and not taken from him. the countryman was condemned to be hanged. he was led off to the gallows at once; but just as the rope was about to be put round his neck he said-"my lord judge, i cannot complain of the sentence passed upon me, since my accuser swears that i robbed and ill-treated him, and i only ask to have one favour granted me before i die." "anything excepting your life," was the answer. "i do not ask my life, but only that you will order my fiddle to be restored to me, and allow me to play once more upon it." "no! no! for heaven's sake, no!" cried the jew. "don't let him have that infernal fiddle, my lord, or misfortune will come upon the whole of us." but the judge said his word had been given; so he ordered the fiddle to be given to the prisoner. the countryman no sooner had the instrument in his hands than he struck up a dance, and at the very first note even the judge's feet began to shuffle about as he sat in his chair, and as for the others they fairly danced. in vain the jew caught hold of the clerk's desk, for his legs flew out on either side; and as the height of his capers was checked they only became the more frequent. the judge's clerk, the officers of the court, the hangman, as well as all the spectators, were dancing with all their might, and soon the judge himself danced out of his chair into the midst of them. at first all seemed good humour and enjoyment, and no one, excepting the jew, wished to check the general merriment; but as it went on there were no bounds to the capers, and there were cries of pain, as one alighted on another's toes, and cuffs and blows were exchanged as one jostled the other. the jew, who had broken away from his hold of the desk, was the maddest in his capers, and he shrieked for mercy; the others soon joining in the cry, begged the player to leave off, but he fiddled away faster and faster till the judge promised him a free pardon. the countryman said, "i already once earned the hundred pieces of gold, and i deserve them now again for the dance i have played; so pray, my lord, order the money to be restored to me, or i must think that you are not yet satisfied." the judge then said the money should be given him; but the countryman, without leaving off playing, addressed all the other dancers thus, "you all hear how handsomely his lordship rewards me, and i expect that each of you will show your gratitude, for the amusement i have afforded you, by a present; each according to his means." so anxious were all to put an end to the dance that every one offered what he could afford, but the countryman said, "i did not hear the jew's voice. now, of him i have to request a full confession of how he came by the hundred pieces of gold; and till he has made this confession i must trouble you all to continue the dance." all threatened the jew with instant death if he did not confess; so the rogue was forced to condemn himself by confessing that he stole the hundred pieces of gold; for which he was punished with as many stripes, when the dance was over. [decoration] xxvi. _my watch._ i must tell you my story myself, that is the story of my watch, and bad luck to it, for it was small comfort to me; and what have i now left of it, but to tell the trouble it brought upon me? one day of the year eighteen hundred and thirty-three, tim looney, the parish schoolmaster, a mighty learned man, from whom i got my learning, went up to dublin, to get his lease renewed with 'squire beamish, who is now dead and gone, rest his soul. well, as i was saying, tim looney went up to dublin, and had just come back, when of course all the neighbours came to hear the news from the big city, and molly mahone, as you can imagine, thrust herself before them all, saying-"come, you auld pictur card, when are you goin' to tell us the news? what is the good of you, you auld worm, if you canna even speak?" you know moll is rather hasty. "och, and it's more wonders i have to tell than one of you will believe. i saw the great boneparte riding on a flea, and the dook of wellington by his side, quite friendly like." "and was boneparte a very big man?" said i. "i don't know," said tim; "i've heard say he was a little man, but they call him the great boneparte for all that." "he was a great man," said moll to me, "just as you are a great fool, so hauld yer tongue, will ye, and let tim go on." tim did go on, and told us many other great wonders; but it's of myself i want to speak. well, then, after tim had told us all he had seen, he gave me such a fine large silver watch, and a thirty shilling note, which my sister, biddy, had sent from merica, for me to buy a new fiddle with, for she had heard that i was great in music. i put the watch in my pocket to keep it safe, and then i examined the note all over, thinking all the while how beautiful i would play on my new fiddle; but tim soon stopped me by asking me what o'clock it was. after looking at the sun, which he himself had taught me, i told him it must be about two; when he said, "and why can't you look at the watch, and tell me the exact minute it is?" i didn't look at my watch, for i thought it was making game of me he was, but i said, "and how should she tell me the time of day? can she speak?" "you are a big fool, paul," he said; "look at her face, and see where her hands point to." that she should be able to tell me the time, and have a face and hands, with which she points, was too much, so i burst out laughing, but i took her out of my pocket. "there," tim said, "don't you see something sticking out on her face? those are her hands, and you see they point to numbers; but may be it's your numbers you don't know, after all my teaching." this provoked me, so i looked at what he called her face, and saw the numbers, sure enough, and the things he called the hands too. "well," tim went on, "and what number does the short hand point to?" "none," said i, "for it points just half way between the two and the three." "then the long hand points to six, and it's half-past two it is," tim said. "and how does all this happen?" i asked, for i was sorely puzzled, tim knowing too where the long hand pointed, without my telling him. "put her up to your ear," he said, "and she will tell you how she works." i did as i was told, and heard her go "tick-a-tick, tick-a-tick." as i listened to her a mighty fear came over me, and i flung her from me, crying out, "the crittur does talk some unnatural language, and perhaps she'll bite too." tim caught her, and exclaimed, "what a fool you are, paul!" for he was now quite angry; "if i had not caught her she would have been done for entirely." after he had held her some time in his hands, seeing there was no harm in her, i took her again and went home. i was half afraid of her, so did not look at her again till night, when the big varmint, pat molloy, came in, shouting fit to frighten the life out of one. "is it a watch i hear you've got, paul?" "those ugly long ears of yours heard right," i answered, for i did not much like pat. "and may be then you'll be after telling one the time it is." with that i pulled out the watch, and looked at her; but i had clean forgotten what tim had told me, though i recollected something about her hands pointing to a number, so seeing something pointing to seven, i said at once, "it's near seven o'clock," for i did not like to be looking too long, to be laughed at by that fellow. "and it's near seven, it is," pat said. "you're a fine fellow to have a watch. it's a turnip you might as well have in your pocket, for it's long past eight, it is." the pride of the o'moors and of the o'doughertys was taken out of me entirely quite by that rascal, for i felt it rush from the soles of my feet into my head, but i wouldn't get into a passion, for him to see that i was in the wrong, so i said, "and if you know the time so well, why do you ask me?" pat only burst into a hoarse laugh, and ran out of the cabin to tell every one, he could show his ugly face to. i went to bed to drown my troubles, but it was one long night-mare i had; first the watch and then the fiddle dancing on my chest, grinning at me all the while, with pat molloy looking on. my first thought on waking in the morning was my watch, and looking up to her, for i had hung her on a nail, as i had been told, i said, "good morning to you, how are you this morning, my dear?" for i thought it best to be civil to her, but no answer did she make me. i spoke to her again, and as she was still silent i took her down from the nail and held her to my ear. "och, it's dead she is," i cried, as she still gave no signs of life, and i rushed across to tim's. i knocked at his window, shouting, "are you awake?" "no," he said; "why should i be awake at this time o'morning?" "then," said i, "you must listen to me in your sleep, for it's dead she is, and what will i do at all?" "i hope she had the benefit of the clergy," tim cried, starting up and coming to the window. "it's not that i mean, it's not my mother at all, it's the watch that's dead," i explained. "leave me in peace then," he said, going back to his bed; but as i would not leave him in peace, but kept crying out, "what will i do?" he growled, "wind her up, you fool; she's not dead at all; but give her here, and the key, or it's ruin her you will." so i gave him the watch and the barn-door key, which i happened to have in my pocket. it was well for me that i turned my head on one side, as i thought i heard some one coming, for just then the key came whizzing past my ear. "i wish it had broken your lubberly head," tim cried, in the biggest rage i ever saw him. "it's the little key i want; the one with the bit of red tape i gave you yesterday." i fortunately found the funny little thing in my pocket, but it was not a bit like a key. as soon as i gave it him he twisted and twirled it about in her, till i heard her cry, and then he said-"there, take her away, for she is all right again, and mind you don't let me see you for a whole week, or surely it's murder you i will." now, mind this and you'll see how strangely things come about. if it had not been for this what tim said, i should not have had to tell you the story of my watch, or it would not have ended as it now must. if tim had told me about winding her up the night before i should not have disturbed him in the morning, and he would not have been so angry, and would not have told me not to see him again for a week. he has since said that he did not mean a word of that; and, had i but known it, that tarnation pat could not have cheated me; however i will tell you how it happened. [illustration: _the death of the watch._] directly after i left tim, whom should i meet but pat, who spoke quite civil, saying, "well, paul, and how's the watch? i've been thinking since i heard her 'glucking' last night that it's to lay she wants, and that if she had a nest you'd have some young watches in a day or two." "do you think so?" said i. "i'm sure of it," said he; so we went along to the barn together and made her a nice comfortable nest of hay. "now," he said, as he laid her in it, and covered her up quite warm and snug, "you must not go near or disturb her for five days, or it's desert her nest she will, and you'll have no younguns." well, to finish with my story, after five days i went to the nest, and what do you think i found? no younguns, nor the old watch neither, but a big turnip. i ran to pat's, but he had gone off to america. i never saw my watch again; but up to this day the boys call out, when they are out of my reach-"paul, tell us what o'clock it is." [decoration] xxvii. _fittletetot._ there was a good woman of kittleroopit, but where kittleroopit is exactly i cannot tell you; so it's of no use pretending to more than one knows. her husband was a vagabondizing sort of a body, and he went to a fair one day, from which he not only never returned, but never was anything more heard of him. some said that he enlisted, and others that he had fallen into the hands of the press-gang; certain it is, anyhow, that the press-gang was about the country ready to snap up anyone, for our good dame's eldest brother, sandy, was all but smothered in the meal-tub, hiding from these man-stealers; and after they had gone he was pulled out from the meal wheezing and sneezing, and was as white as any ghost. his mother had to pick the meal out of his mouth with the handle of a spoon. well, when her husband was gone the good woman of kittleroopit had little left but her baby, and there was not much of that; for it was only a wee thing of a few weeks old. everybody said they were sorry for her, but no one helped her, which is a case of constant occurrence, as you know. the good woman, however, had still something left, which was a sow; and it was, moreover, near littering time. but we all know that fortune is uncertain; for one day, when the dame went into the sty to fill the trough, what should she find but the sow lying on her back groaning and grunting, and ready to give up the ghost. this was a blow to the poor woman, so she sat down with the child on her knee and fretted more sorely than ever she had done for the loss of her husband. i must tell you that the cottage of kittleroopit was built on the slope of a hill, with a small fir-wood behind it; and as the good woman happened to look down the hill she saw an old woman coming up the footpath, dressed almost like a lady. she had on a green dress, and wore a black velvet hood and steeple-crowned hat. she carried a staff in her hand as long as herself--the sort of staff that old men and old women used to help themselves along with long ago. they seem to be out of fashion now. well, when the good woman saw the green lady near her she rose up and began courtesying, and said, "madam, i am one of the most misfortunate women alive, for i have lost--" but the green woman interrupted her, saying-"i don't wish to hear piper's news and fiddler's tales, my good woman. i know that you have lost the good man of the house, but that is no such great loss; and i know that your sow is very ill, which is worse; but that can be remedied. now, what will you give me if i cure your sow?" "anything your good ladyship likes," answered the good woman, for she little knew whom she had to deal with. "let's shake hands on that bargain," said the green lady; so they shook hands, and madam then marched into the sty. she looked peeringly at the sow, and then began to mutter something which the good woman could not well understand, but she said it sounded like- "pitter patter, holy water." then she took a little bottle out of her pocket, with something like oil in it, and rubbed the sow about the snout and on the tip of the tail. "get up, beast," said the green woman; and no sooner said than done, for up jumps the sow with a grunt and goes off to the trough for her breakfast. the good woman of kittleroopit was now as happy as need be, and would have kissed the very hem of the green madam's gown-tail, but she wouldn't let her, and said, "i'm not fond of any such nonsense; but now that i have set your sick beast on its legs again let us settle our agreement. you'll not find me over unreasonable. i like to do a good turn for a small reward. now all i ask, and will have, is the baby at your breast!" the good woman of kittleroopit, who now knew her customer, gave a scream like a screech-owl, and falls to begging and praying, but it wouldn't do. "you may spare yourself all this trouble and screeching as if i were as deaf as a door-post; but this i'll tell you, by our laws i cannot take your child till the third day from this day, and not then if you can tell me my right name." hereupon the green lady goes her way, round the back of the pig-sty, and the good woman fell down in a swoon where she stood. that night she could not sleep for fretting, and the next day she could do nothing but hug her baby, that she nearly squeezed the breath out of it; but the second day she thought a walk would do her good, so she went into the fir-wood i told you of. she walked on far among the trees, with her baby in her arms, till she came to an old quarry hole all over-grown with grass. before she came close up to it she heard the "bizzing" of a spinning-wheel and a voice singing, so she crept quietly among the bushes and peeped down into the hole. what should she see, but the green fairy spinning away as fast as possible and singing awhile- "little knows the good old dame that fittletetot is my name." "ah, ha!" laughed our good woman, and she was fit to jump for joy, when she thought how the green old fairy would be cheated. [illustration: _the good woman discovering the fairy._] she was a merry woman when there was nothing to weigh too heavily on her heart, so she determined to have some sport with the fairy when she came the next day, as she little doubted she would. that night she slept well, and found herself laughing in the morning when she woke. when she saw the green fairy coming up the hill, neither lazy nor lame this time, she put the baby under her stool on which she sat so as to hide it, and turning one leg over the other she put her elbow on her knee, resting her head in her hand as if she were fretting. up came the old fairy, and said, "you know what i have come for, so let us waste no time." the good woman pretends to grieve more than ever, and wringing her hands as she fell on her knees, "good, kind madam," she cried, "spare my only child, and take the old sow." "the foul fiend take the sow," the fairy said; "i came not here for swine flesh. now don't be troublesome, but give me the child at once." "oh! my good lady," the good woman again said, "leave my dear child and take myself." "what does the old jade mean?" the fairy cried, this time in a passion. "why, you old fool, who do you think would have anything to do with the like of you, you ugly old cat?" this, i promise you, put the good dame's back up; for though she had blear eyes, and a long red nose, she thought herself no less engaging than the vainest; so up she jumped, and making a courtesy down to the ground, she said-"we cannot all be as beautiful as your own sweet self, and i might have known that i should not be thought fit to tie even the shoes of the high and mighty princess fittletetot." the old fairy could not have jumped higher if she had been blown up; but down she came again, and roaring with rage ran down the hill, followed by the laughter of the good dame of kittleroopit. xxviii. _the wee bannock._ there was an old man who had an old wife, and they lived by the side of a hill. they had two cows, five hens and a cock, a cat and two kittens. the old man looked after the cows whilst the old woman knitted stockings for him, and when she let her ball of yarn fall the kittens sprang upon it, and after it as it rolled away, till it got twisted round all the legs of the chairs and of the table, so that the old woman had plenty to do without knitting the stockings. one day, after breakfast, she thought she would have a bannock, so she made two oatmeal bannocks and put them to the fire to bake. after a while the old man came in and sat down by the side of the fire, and when he saw the bannocks he took up one and snapped it through the middle. no sooner did the other see this than off it ran as fast as it could, and the old woman after it; but the wee bannock ran away and out of sight, and ran till it came to a pretty large thatched house, into which it ran boldly up to the fire-side. there were three tailors sitting on a table, and when they saw the wee bannock come in they jumped up and off the table, and ran behind the good wife who was carding tow on the other side of the fire. "be not afraid," she cried, "it's only a wee bannock. catch it, and i'll give you a basin of milk with it." up she gets with the tow-cards, and the tailor with the goose, and the two apprentices: the one with the shears and the other with the sleeve-board, but it eluded them all. the one apprentice made a snap at it with the shears, but he fell into the ash-pit. the tailor threw the goose and his wife the tow-cards; but it wouldn't do; the bannock got away and ran till it came to a little house by the road-side, into which it ran. there was a weaver sitting on his loom, and his wife was winding a skein of yarn. "kitty," said he, "what's that?" "oh," said she, "it's a wee bannock." "it's welcome," said he, "for our pottage was rather thin to-day. catch hold of it, my girl; catch it." "yes, that i will," said she. "how now! why that's a clever bannock. stop it, willie; stop it, man." but it wouldn't be stopped, and away it went over the hillock and ran into the nearest house, straight up to the fire-side. there was the good wife churning, and she said, "come along, my wee bannock. i have cream, but no bread." however the bannock dodged round the churn, and she after it, till she nearly upset the churn, and before she could steady it the wee bannock was off, down by the side of the stream into the mill. the miller was sifting meal; but when he looked up and saw the bannock, he said, "it's a sign of plenty when you're running about like that and no one to look after you. but i like a bannock and cheese, so come here, and i'll give you a night's lodging." but the bannock wouldn't trust itself with the miller and his cheese, so it turned and ran out again, and the miller didn't trouble himself about it. this time it rolled on gently till it came to a smithy, and in it ran up to the anvil. the smith, who was making horse-nails, said, "i like a stoup of good ale and a well-toasted bannock, so you are just the thing for me." but the bannock was frightened when it heard him talk of the ale, so it ran off as hard as it could split, and the smith after it, but all to no purpose; for it was out of sight in a crack, and it ran on till it came to a farm-house. in it went up to the fire-side, where the farmer was plaiting straw ropes. "why, janet," he cried, "here's a bannock. i'll have the half of't." "well, john, and i the other half." but neither could get hold of it, and off it was, up one side of the hill and down the other, to the nearest house, and in it went up to the fire. the good folks were just sitting down to supper. "shut the door," cried the good woman, "for here's a wee bannock come in to warm itself by our fire, and it's just in time for supper." when the bannock heard this it ran all about the house, and got out at last, when it ran faster and faster till it got to another house. as it ran in the folk were just going to bed. the goodman was taking off his breeches, and his wife raking out the fire. "what's that?" cried he. "it's a wee bannock," said his wife. "i could eat the half of it for all the supper i had," said he. "catch hold of it," cried she, "and i'll have a bit too. throw your breeches at it--there, stop it--stop it!" the goodman threw his breeches at it and nearly buried it, but it got away and out of the house. the goodman ran after it; and now a regular chase began, round the house, through the garden, across the fields on to a common among the furze, where he lost it, and he had to trot home again half naked. it had now grown quite dark, and the wee bannock could not see an inch before it, so by mistake it got into a fox's hole. now the fox had had no meat for two days, so it made a snap at the bannock and it was gone in an instant. it would seem as if there were little use in the wee bannock having escaped so many dangers, but not so, for all its pursuers could do very well without it, whereas the poor fox had fasted two days and must have been really hungry. [illustration: _the bannock hunt._] xxix. _jock and his mother._ there was once a widow who had a son, and she called him jock. now, one day she said to him, "you are a lazy fellow, but now you must go out and earn something in order to help me." "i'll do that willingly," said jock. so away he went, and fell in with a pedler, who said to him, "if you'll carry my pack all day, i'll give you a needle at night." he carried the pack all day, receiving the needle at night; and as he went on his way home to his mother, he cut a bundle of rushes and put the needle in the middle of them. when he got home his mother said to him, "what have you done, and brought home to-day?" "i met with a pedler," said jock, "and carried his pack for him, for which i received a needle, which you may look for among the rushes." "out upon you, for a blockhead," said his mother, "you should have stuck it in your cap." "i'll mind that another time," said jock. the next day he overtook a man carrying plough-shares, and the man said to him, "if you'll help me to carry my plough-shares during the day, i'll give you one for yourself at night." "agreed," said jock. so at night he gets a plough-share, which he sticks in his cap. on his way home he was thirsty, so he went down to the river to have a drink, and as he stooped the plough-share fell out of his cap and was lost in the water. he then went home, and his mother said to him, "well, jock, what have you been doing to-day?" and when he told her she cried out, "how stupid you are, jock! you should have tied a piece of string to it and trailed it after you along the ground." "well, i'll mind that another time," said jock. off he started the next morning and fell in with a butcher. "if you'll be my servant for the day," he said, "i'll give you a leg of mutton at night." "that is a bargain," said jock. and after serving his day out he got a leg of mutton, to which he tied a piece of string and dragged it after him through all the dust and dirt. when his mother saw him she exclaimed, "will you never grow wise? you should have carried the leg of mutton on your shoulder." "well, mother, another time i shall know better," was his answer. the next day he went out as usual, and he met a horse-dealer. he said, "if you will help me with my horses during the day, i'll give you one at night." "i'll do that," said jock. so after serving him he received a horse as his day's wages. he tied the animal's feet together, but was not able to lift it up; so he left it and went home to his mother, whom he told how he had tried to do as she bid him, but that he could not lift the horse on to his shoulder to carry it. "oh, you born idiot!" she cried; "could you not have jumped on its back and ridden it home?" "i'll not forget that the next time," he promised. the next day he overtook a drover driving some cattle to a neighbouring town, and the drover said to him, "if you'll help me safely to the town with my cattle, i'll give you a cow for your trouble." this jock agreed to; and when he got his promised cow he jumped on to its back, and taking its tail over his shoulder, he galloped along, in high glee, towards home. [illustration: _jock's cure for melancholy._] now there was a very rich man who had an only daughter, and she had such fits of melancholy that it was sad to see her; so that, after trying every remedy and consulting all the quacks in the country, he had it publicly announced that whoever could make her laugh should have her for his wife. though she was young and beautiful no one had been found to cure her, and she was sitting in a very melancholy state, at the window, when jock came galloping along on his cow, which seemed so highly ridiculous to her that she burst out laughing. well, according to her father's promise, she was married to jock, and a grand wedding it was, and a grand supper was prepared for the guests; but of all the delicacies jock was most pleased with some honey he had eaten. now, after all the company had departed, excepting the old priest that had married them, and who had fallen asleep by the kitchen fire, jock, who could not forget the honey, said to his bride, "is there any more of that delicious honey we had for supper?" "yes," she answered, "you will find plenty more in jars in the kitchen cupboard." so he went into the kitchen, where the lights had been put out, and all had gone to bed, excepting the priest, who was sleeping by the fire; and he found the honey jars. he thrust his hand into one of the jars to get at some of the honey, but his hand would not come out again, and he did not know what he should do, when he bethought him of breaking the jar on the hearth-stone. now, as already said, the kitchen was in darkness; and jock, mistaking a large white wig, which the priest wore, for the hearth-stone, gave the poor man such a whack on the head with the honey jar that he screamed out murder; and jock, frightened out of his senses, ran out and hid himself among the bee-hives. that very night, as luck would have it, some thieves came to steal the bee-hives, which they bundled into a large plaid, and jock with them without knowing it. off the thieves ran with their booty on their backs, and when they came to the brook where jock had dropped the plough-share, one of them kicking his foot against it, cried out, "here's a plough-share in the water." "that is mine," jock cried from out of the plaid; and the thieves thinking it was a ghost on their backs, let the plaid, with its contents, fall into the water, and it being tied up jock could not get out, so was drowned with all the bees. [decoration] xxx. _the irish highwayman._ it was before the introduction of railways, into ireland at any rate, that a certain irish bishop had occasion to visit dublin. there was, no doubt, a public conveyance of some sort or another of which the good bishop might have availed himself, but his lordship was a portly gentleman and fond of his ease; besides which his wife and daughter wished to make the journey with him, and they never would for a moment have listened to travelling in a dirty car or coach, so their own comfortable carriage was got ready. i said the bishop was portly and fond of his ease, but by that i did not mean to infer that all bishops are stout, for i knew one who was a very lean man; nor did i mean that portly personages are all fond of their ease, that is, not more so than the rest of us are; nor do i now mean that a lean man does not appreciate comfort. be that as it may, the bishop in question had a handsome comfortable carriage which he thought he might as well use; and, indeed, as his lady and daughter were going with him, he had no choice, so the carriage was used and his lordship's horses too; and to save both, as well as the ladies, the journey was performed in easy stages. now the bishop was an advocate for a moderate amount of exercise, and for this reason, as well as to spare his horses as much as possible, he made a point of alighting from his carriage at the foot of the hills, and walking up to the top, unless, indeed, the hill proved too steep. on one occasion he had loitered behind admiring the scenery, which was particularly wild and beautiful, and the carriage had got out of sight. however, as it always waited for him at the top of the hill, that did not trouble him as long as he had only the difficulties of the road to contend with; but soon danger appeared in the shape of an ugly looking fellow, who, suddenly starting up from behind a heap of stones, stood right in front of him, effectually stopping his progress, which was particularly vexatious. from the appearance of the stranger the bishop felt very much inclined to quicken his pace. [illustration: _the bishop and the highwayman._] "what can i do for you, my good man?" said the bishop very civilly, and in his softest voice, for he did not like the look of the man, nor of a dangerous looking club he held in his hand. "as your honour is so civil as to ask," the fellow said, "you may first of all give me your money, for i'm sartain sure so kind a gintleman would not like to see a poor fellow in distress, when you can relieve him by only putting your hand in your pocket." civilly as he spoke he was a determined looking rascal, with whom it would evidently be of no use to argue, so the bishop gave him what silver he had about him, hoping to get off with that; but he was mistaken, for the fellow had no sooner put it into his coat pocket than he said-"your honour has made a mistake, for it's sure i am a thorough gintleman like you could not intend to give only a few paltry shillings. but i beg your riverence's pardon, for i see now that you are an ornament of the blessed church. it's some gold pieces you intended to give me; but it will save your riverence trouble if you give me your purse." this was accompanied by a scarcely perceptible movement of the club, which however seemed a very convincing argument, for his lordship immediately produced his purse, which as quickly followed the silver into the capacious pocket. "i'm sorry to trouble your honour, your riverence i mane, any further, for i see you're in a hurry, and it's beg your pardon i do for the same; but i judge you're going to dublin, and you can have everything in the big city for the asking; but here nothing can be got for love or money, and you see that i want a new coat and hat. now i'm sure so kind a gintleman won't mind changing yours with me." "this is too much, my good man," the bishop said, driven to resistance by this extraordinary demand. "recollect that you are breaking the laws of god and man, and think of the punishment in this world and the next. be satisfied, for you have taken all my money, and my clothes i will not part with." "now, sure," was the answer, "your honor's riverence makes a mistake, for you gave me that bit of money, and it is that very kindness makes me not believe that you mane to refuse me now. pray consider, and i'll wait with pleasure for another answer, for i know you'll be sorry." he stepped back a few paces, and, as if to while away the time whilst waiting for the answer, he flourished his cudgel about, first over his head, then on one side and then on the other. what was to be done? the poor bishop saw that help was hopeless and resistance equally so, and, after a few moments' hesitation, he took off his coat and hat, laying them on the heap of stones by his side. "now, bless your riverence," the fellow said, "i knew you would not refuse me; but after all your kindness i cannot allow you to be without a coat and hat. it would be neither comfortable nor dacent, and, therefore, just put on my coat. indeed i'll not take a refusal," he continued, as the bishop hesitated, and he helped his lordship on with his tattered garment. he then removed his unresisting victim's wig and placed his old hat on his head. "now i hope you intend to let me go," the bishop said. "i have one more favour to ask, and then i will bid your riverence a very good morning. i must beg the loan of your watch till i have the honor of seeing you again, for there is no watch or clock for miles around, and it is very awkward, for i don't know when to be at my work, and i'm afraid of cheating my employer out of some of the time due to him. your honor can easily get another." "will you never be satisfied? but beware of keeping me any longer, for there is my carriage close by, and the servants, whom i have only to call to my help." this the bishop said in despair, pointing along the road as he spoke, but he had a quick reply. "don't trouble yourself to call, for i saw your riverence's carriage pass, and it is far out of hearing." this his lordship knew well, so he gave up his watch, and was at length allowed to depart. he hurried on, for he was afraid of another demand being made upon him, and it was not long before he reached his carriage. much astonishment was caused by his extraordinary appearance, and after he had related his adventure his wife said to him: "throw off that filthy coat, my dear, for we shall soon reach a town where you can buy something more befitting you to wear." "not so easily, my dear," was his reply, "for i have not a shilling of money left." "well, never mind," his wife said, "take off the nasty thing, for positively you cannot come into the carriage that figure. i'll give you my cloak to cover your shoulders." the good man was not used to resist his wife, so he took off the coat, throwing it upon the road. as he did so some silver fell out, which induced him to make his servant examine it, and to his joy and relief all his property was found in the pocket. the party reached dublin without any further adventure, and a few days after received intelligence of the capture of the highwayman. xxxi. _fiddling jackey._ there was once a little boy, who led a very unhappy life, for his father was tipsy from morning till night, and he had no mother to soothe and console him when he had met with ill-treatment, which happened almost daily. i cannot tell you exactly how long ago this was, but it must be a long, long time, for there were fairies then, and the birds, trees, and flowers sang and spoke, which you know has not happened within your recollection, at all events. jackey's father, for jackey was the little boy's name, was village musician, and had once played the violin remarkably well, but since he had taken to drinking had grown so careless that his scraping was a horror to all who could hear at all, that the dogs even howled in disgust, and probably in pain, for the noise they made was piteous in the extreme. now, when the drunken fiddler reeled home at night, accompanied by the most dissolute of the village, the shouting of these, the horrid scraping of the fiddle, and the discordant chorus of some twenty or thirty dogs, made the more steady and respectable portion of the community tremble in their beds, with some undefined fear. all this, you must know, happened in germany, where in every cottage of the villages there is, at least, one dog, and where the watchman, who is generally the swineherd as well, no doubt was not over sober himself, and more likely to add to the noise than stop it. though the fiddler was a sad reprobate, and his playing of the worst description, he was tolerated; for the fact is that the most of the elder portion of the villagers cared only for drinking, and the younger ones thought of nothing but dancing; so he was good enough for them after all. his disorderly life and cruelty had killed his poor wife, jackey's mother, who would have looked upon death as a real blessing, had she not feared for the future of her young son; however, jackey, who was eight years old, had the thoughtlessness of youth and good health to support him, though, it is true, he cried bitterly after his father had been beating him, and felt sorrowful enough when he had not enough to eat, which happened but too often. jackey still remembered the time when, though at rare intervals, his father played really well; and the sweet sounds of music had so entered his very soul that he felt a secret consolation within him, amidst all his troubles. this love of music, though it consoled him, occasionally caused him more bitter sorrow than the most cruel beatings; for when he looked at the violin, hanging against the wall, neglected and covered with mud, he thought of the sweet sounds that were still within it, though there was no one to bring them out. now, one day, when jackey had been staring longer than usual at the violin, and his mind was filled with sad thoughts, his father happened to come in, and the poor boy, mustering up all his courage, said-"my dear father, do not be angry if i ask what the poor fiddle has done to you that you neglect it so? take care or it will die too, as my dear good mother did, of a broken heart." the only answer to this was a sound thrashing; and, as the beating had been more severe than usual, so jackey cried longer and more bitterly, all by himself, for his father had gone again; but, as the pain grew less, his crying was not so violent nor loud; then he thought he heard a voice, like sobbing, come from the wall. there was no mistaking it, the sobbing proceeded from the violin, and jackey's tears burst forth afresh; but there must be an end to all things, and when he had become calmer, he got on a chair, so as to be nearer the instrument, and whispered-"my dear fiddle, you pity me, and now i have a friend in the place of my good lost mother. but you, too, i am afraid, are not more happy than she was. tell me if i can do anything for you." "i do pity you," the violin answered, "for you are a good boy, and i wish to console you for the loss of your mother, and make you forget all the hardships you have to suffer. at the same time, you can do me a very great service. take me down, and when you have cleaned me and put me in proper order, i will teach you how to make me sing again, better than ever i used to do. then i shall be happy, and you, my poor boy, will forget your sorrow, for i know that sweet sounds will console you in all your troubles." [illustration: _the neglected fiddle repining._] jackey said, sorrowfully, "oh, how i wish to make you happy! but if i take you down, my father will beat me, and, what is worse, perhaps, in his passion, throw you against the wall, and dash you to pieces." "be not afraid, but do as i tell you," the violin answered; "you know that your father is at the tavern all day long till dusk, when he comes to fetch me, and if, by chance, he does come in, he never notices anything. i promise you no harm shall happen to you; so take me down and carry me, with the bow, into the forest, where, by the side of the stream, i will teach you how to make me bring forth sweet sounds." "you know better than i do what is safe to do, so i will take you to the forest, as you tell me." as he said this, jackey took down the violin, and having cleaned and tuned it, according to its own directions, he carried it and the bow into the forest, where he seated himself by the side of the rivulet. the breeze played between the leaves and branches of the trees, the leaves and branches rustled, the birds sang sweetly, the stream murmured softly, and all seemed to say-"welcome, jackey! welcome to the forest!" "oh, how delightful it is here!" jackey cried; "and now, my dear fiddle, teach me to imitate all these sweet sounds." the violin told him how to hold the bow and where to place his fingers; and all the birds came round him, first one whistling a note till he could imitate it, and then another giving him the next note, and so on; the rivulet, too, and the wind assisted; and then came the nightingale and taught him how to join the different notes together, that they might harmonize and form sounds agreeable to the ear. jackey was so attentive, and did all so well, that the trees, the flowers, the stream, and all the birds cried out-"bravo, jackey!" as soon as evening began to draw near jackey put up his fiddle and prepared to go home, when all the voices, with one accord, cried-"come again soon, and we will sing together." jackey went the very next day, and every succeeding day, and he made the flowers join in the universal harmony. his dear fiddle seconded him in all his endeavours, so that very shortly he imitated all the voices of the forest with the greatest accuracy. it happened about this time that the landlord of the village inn died, leaving a widow, who wished for nothing better than to give him a successor as speedily as possible; but though she was rich, and the business most thriving, yet no suitors appeared. jackey's father, in his drunken moments, thought he would propose to the widow, for he said to himself that, when master of the inn, he could have as much drink as he liked without paying for it; but when a little more sober his courage failed him, for she was the veriest shrew, and the charms of her person were no more engaging than those of her character. her hair was neither red, brown, nor black, but a sort of dirty coloured mixture of the three, and each hair seemed to go a different way. her nose was very, very long, not projecting, but hanging down, like the beak of some of the small tribes of parrots. i think the love-birds have such beaks, but i can scarcely compare her to those, for certainly she had nothing of the love about her. well, her nose, anyhow, was like a parrot's beak, but flattened down, and that on one side, or else it would have covered her mouth, which would have been no great harm, for that was as ugly a feature as any other, and not improved by having only half the due number of teeth, which, unlike the nose, stuck out instead of hanging down. her eyes were like those of a cat, and one squinted awfully. shaggy eyebrows and a pointed hairy chin complete her portrait. her figure was long, lank, and shapeless--shapeless not meaning no shape at all, but an ugly shape. most people have some redeeming qualities, or quality at least, but no one had yet discovered hers, and no one had been found bold enough to propose to the interesting widow, though she let it be clearly understood that she wished to remain a widow no longer. jackey's father had so often made up his mind to make her an offer that at last his mind became familiarized to the horror, and if not in love with the widow, he was decidedly so with her beer and spirits; so one evening, having screwed up his courage to the highest pitch, he, in a few words, offered himself as a husband. the widow took but a few minutes to consider, that, though he was a drunken, worthless fellow, he was better than no husband at all; so she did not give him time to draw back, but accepted him with all his faults. the wedding followed with the least possible loss of time, and the guests drank deeply to the health and happiness of the bride and bridegroom, but the happy husband drank more than any of them. this was a happy beginning; but how short-lived is happiness, for to his this was not only the beginning but also the end. how changed was everything the very next day! beer and spirits were carefully locked up, and the poor fiddler was put under the water-cure treatment, and this was the first of a series of strictly sober days. he did not resign himself to petticoat government without a struggle, but in every way she was more than his match. adversity is the bitterest of all medicines, but frequently acts most beneficially on the soul, if not on the body. so it proved with the fiddler, for though, during the first few days of his new life, his temper was sourer than ever, by degrees his spirit was broken, and the outbursts of passion became less frequent. passion was of no avail, for it never gained him his object, and his amiable spouse still remained his better half. example had its effect also, for as he daily suffered from his wife's intolerable temper, her unamiability, which at first roused his anger, now caused disgust and horror, and occasionally he could not help reflecting that in many respects he had been like her. as yet the improvement in his character was involuntary, forced upon him, as it were, and failed to soothe his mind and feelings; but jackey, being treated with less harshness, began to feel for the first time that he had a father. the good boy, looking on his father now without fear, saw the dejection he was constantly labouring under, and, as much as he had dreaded and almost abhorred the harsh brutal man, he now pitied his suffering father, so that he took every opportunity to get near to him, sometimes venturing a remark; and one day, when he saw him in a particularly desponding mood, he fetched the violin and played the voices of the forest to him. jackey's father was at first bewildered by the tender emotions to which his heart had so long been a stranger, but as the sweet sounds continued, it seemed as if his nature were changed and a new life dawned upon him. he clasped his son to his breast and burst into tears. when he became a little calm, he said-"how beautifully you play, jackey! how did you learn? but why inquire? you have always been a good boy, and kinder, better spirits than those of the earth, seeing you so neglected by your unnatural father, have taken compassion on you. i have led a bad life, but now i see my faults, and i will be always kind to you, my son. oh, jackey, your good mother will forgive me for all my past cruelty when she sees how i watch over her dear child!" "dear father," jackey said, "my dear, good mother, who is in heaven, forgives you now. oh, if she were but here to share our happiness!" "play me that tune once more," his father said, "and then we will go to your step-mother, and i will beg and pray of her to send you to school, for i can do nothing, my poor boy." they went to that amiable lady, with whom, however, all prayers were in vain. she said she would not spend a farthing of her money on father or son, but that jackey should be a shoemaker; that she would send him to her brother, who was a shoemaker in a neighbouring village, where he would soon be broken of his idle habits. jackey said he would not be a shoemaker; whereupon she gave him a slap on the face, which made his ears sing and bright spots dance before his eyes, promising at the same time to break his fiddle over his head. jackey, however, was none the less determined not to be a shoemaker, and his only trouble was how to keep the dear fiddle out of her way. the next morning very early he was waked by a kiss from his father, who said-"get up quickly, my boy, and dress yourself, for i cannot do anything for you here, not even protect you, and it will be better to trust to the kindness of strangers than go to that cruel woman's brother, who no doubt is as bad as herself. we must part, my dear jackey, but i do not fear for you, for wherever you play the airs you played me yesterday, you will be sure to find friends. take your fiddle then, and wander forth into the world, and if you remain a good boy, as you have hitherto been, god will watch over you and protect you. make haste; and in the meantime i will see what i can find to eat for you to take with you." jackey was ready when his father returned with some provisions done up in a bag. "now follow me," he said, "and take care that you do not make any noise, so that no one may hear us." they got out safely and went straight to the forest, where jackey's father stopping, said to him, "you are now safe out of the clutches of your wicked stepmother, and we must part; but, my dear boy, we will put our trust in providence, and, if my life is spared a few years longer, i shall see you again, for when you prosper in the world, and prosper you will, my son, you will not forget your old father." "let me remain with you, my dear father," jackey said, "for you are not happy, and i will try to cheer you with my fiddle. i do not mind my stepmother's cruelty." "no, my child, it must not be," his father answered, "i have deserved my fate, and will try and bear it with resignation; but fortune awaits you in the world, far from here. do not cry; and now, with my blessing on you, we must part." he pressed his son to his breast, and turned back without uttering another word. jackey watched him till he was out of sight, and then sadly went on his way into the forest, he knew and cared not whither. after a time he reached the very spot, by the side of the rivulet, where he had first sat with the violin and listened to the voices of the forest; and as he seated himself, the rustling in the trees and the murmuring of the stream joined with the different notes of the birds in forming the harmony of music. the sadness of his heart gradually became softened, and, taking the violin out of the bag in which he always kept it, he again imitated the various sounds he heard, the birds vieing with each other to teach him something new. returning cheerfulness and the freshness of the air reminded jackey that he had not yet eaten anything, so he made a good breakfast off the provisions put up by his father, not forgetting to give some crumbs to the birds that gathered about him; and with a light heart he continued his journey deeper into the forest. he thus wandered on all day, and neither found the time long, nor was he weary; for there was constantly something new to see, and hear, and imitate upon his dear fiddle. the sun had sunk below the horizon, tingeing a few feathery clouds with a beautiful pink, and the little wanderer saw no end to the forest; but that did not trouble him, and he chose a soft mossy spot for a bed, on which he lay down, and was soon fast asleep, forgetful of time and everything else. nothing disturbed his quiet slumbers till about midnight, when a sudden light flashing across his eyes awakened him. he started up, and saw it as light as day all around. yet it was not daylight; it was more like the light of the moon, but milder and warmer. he looked through some bushes, where the light seemed strongest, and stood transfixed with amazement at what he saw. hundreds of the most lovely beings were dancing in a circle, whilst thousands of others seemed to fill the air around. some were sitting, swinging backwards and forwards, on the different flowers, whilst others, in countless numbers, appeared gliding up and down the rays of light. he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as the little aerial beings before him. though so very small--for they were not nearly the size of jackey--their forms were fully developed, and of the most exquisite elegance and grace. the maidens in particular, who seemed all of the age of seventeen or eighteen, were lovely in the extreme. jackey knew they must be fairies; and two of the number who were a little taller, and, if possible, more beautiful than the rest, besides that they wore silver crowns, he judged to be the king and the queen. dazzled by the light and the beauty of the scene before him, he was for a time lost in admiration; but gradually the sweet tones, as the fairies sang, gained the ascendancy, and all the other senses seemed absorbed by that of hearing. as the fairies danced, they sang, and were joined by thousands of other voices--in sounds, now of the most lively merriment, then softly till they became solemn, when again they burst forth in the wildest strains. the dance never ceased; but as some withdrew from the ring their places were taken by others, who began the song anew. jackey had no knowledge of time, whether the music continued for minutes only or for hours; however, it became fainter and fainter till it melted away, and he found himself in darkness; but long, long after he lay down again it seemed as if he still heard the fairy song, and when he awoke in the morning it still sounded in his ears. [illustration: _the sight jackey saw._] "how lovely!" jackey exclaimed; "oh, could i but imitate those sweet sounds!" "try," the violin said from its bag. "well thought," jackey cried; and taking it out, immediately began to play the fairy song. he played it over and over again, and each time better, till at length he said, kissing his dear violin, "well done, fiddle, we can do it now." then jackey ate his breakfast, and having tried the song once more, he resumed his wanderings through the forest. he stopped several times to play the fairy song again, trying also his other tunes, to see that they had not been driven out of his memory by these still sweeter sounds; and having had his breakfast very early, had made a finish of his stock of provisions, but that did not trouble him, though there seemed no end to the forest. about mid-day, however, he began to feel hungry again, and hastened his steps, in hopes of finding some outlet from the forest, or at least some woodman's hut. he began to feel some anxiety for the future; but he did not despair, for he was a good boy, and put his trust in providence. the birds sang merrily, as if to cheer him; and soon he saw that the forest became lighter, nor was it long before he found himself on the highway, and at no great distance stood a village. anxious as he was to reach some human habitations, when he was outside the forest he turned round to bid it farewell, and thank his dear birds for their kindness to him. a farewell sounded back, and cheerfully he went on his way to the village. he remembered his father having said that wheresoever he played he would be sure to find friends; and no sooner did he reach the first houses, than he took out his violin and began to play. first he played the voices of the forest, and soon all the people were at their windows and their doors, listening to him; but when he played the fairy song, they came out and surrounded him, and he had to begin again and again. there was now a contest amongst the principal inhabitants of the village who should take the wonderful boy to their home, when the clergyman and his wife carried him off. jackey would not accept their kindness without telling them that he could not stay long, for his father had sent him to seek his fortune in the world, that his father was not happy at home, and that he was going back to fetch him as soon as he had made his fortune. the good people promised that they would not keep him longer than he felt inclined to remain with them. they were, however, so kind that week after week still found him there, and he was so intelligent and docile that every one loved him. living now with people of good education, jackey soon felt his ignorance, and applied himself so diligently to his studies, in which he was assisted both by the clergyman and his wife, that he made rapid progress. he did not neglect his music, and frequently went back into the forest--no one interfering with his wanderings. neither did he forget his father, nor give up the intention of seeking his fortune in the world, though he was delayed by the persuasion of his kind protectors, who, however, gave their consent to his departure after he had been with them about a year, providing him with every necessary for his journey, as also with a small supply of money. jackey had improved as much in person as in mind, but retained his former innocent simplicity of heart and kindly feelings, so that his feathered friends loved him still, and he was as happy as the day was long. he visited one country after another, passing from village to village, and from town to town; and wherever he played, both old and young surrounded him, and every one was ready to befriend him. thus year after year passed away, and jackey had grown to be a tall, handsome youth of about nineteen, with flowing black hair, large dark eyes, and an expression of cheerfulness and good humour. his playing was celebrated far and wide, but, more particularly, when he played the fairy song every one was carried away by admiration and surprise. in each country he visited many inducements had been held out to detain him; but a secret impulse drew him on till he came to a large and powerful kingdom, which he found plunged in the deepest mourning; for not only had the queen just died, but the most beautiful of princesses, her daughter, was brought to the very verge of death by grief at the loss of her beloved mother. her royal father, whose only child she was, in the utmost despair, had promised half his kingdom to the physician who should save her; but the only remedy the most learned could propose was any excitement that would distract her from her grief, for it was that alone that was consuming her. this remedy was beyond their art, and the king proclaimed that whoever cured the princess should be the inheritor of his throne and the husband of his daughter, if she consented to marry him. jackey, on hearing this proclamation, determined to try what his art could do to cure the princess, since all that was required was to enliven her, and make her forget her grief. he trusted that, with the help of providence, he should succeed; and that, if even the princess would not marry him, which he scarcely dared to hope, he might still receive a reward sufficient to secure his old father's future happiness, besides having the consolation of saving the life of a young lady universally beloved. he went boldly to the palace, where he was immediately admitted, on stating what his errand was; for the king had given orders not to refuse admittance to any one, however humble, who came to cure his daughter. [illustration: _jackey playing to the princess._] the king was much surprised and disappointed when he saw jackey; but after he had received an explanation of the means intended to be employed, he became more reconciled, and ordered him to be conducted to the princess's apartment. jackey gazed with admiration at the beautiful form before him; and to the interest he before felt was added pity, for the princess lay in bed with closed eyes and so pale as if death had already laid its icy hand upon her. he felt that he would willingly lay down life itself to restore colour and animation to that lovely face, and determined to exert his utmost skill in her behalf. first he played the voices of the forest--the soft breeze gliding through the leaves, the low murmur of the stream, and the gentle warbling of the birds; then, as the princess's attention was attracted, he made his violin speak louder and louder, and the princess exclaimed, "how came i into the forest? oh! how delightful it is! sing on, you darling birds!" at length she opened her eyes, and sitting up in the bed, looked about her in amazement. jackey now played the fairy song; and when he had finished, she said--"go on, gentle youth, i entreat you. you have been sent by heaven to call me back to life." she sank back upon her pillow, and as jackey continued to play, she fell into a soft sleep, with a smile on her lovely face. the king, having been informed of all that had happened, hastened to his daughter's room; and the calm expression of her features, together with the assurance of the head physician that all danger had now passed over, made him, for the moment, forget all his sorrow; and embracing jackey, he assured him of his everlasting gratitude. the next day the princess awoke, restored to health; and when her preserver was presented to her by the king, she received him with the sweetest smile, and thanked him in the kindest terms. but that was not all jackey's reward; for when the princess was told of the promise made by her royal father to whoever should save her life, she declared herself ready to fulfil that promise, as soon as the time of mourning for her departed mother had passed. they were, however, betrothed before the whole court, and the king publicly proclaimed that, next to himself, jackey should be the first in the land. an establishment in every way befitting a prince of the royal blood was appointed him, and he lived in the closest intimacy with the king and his amiable daughter. jackey, however, in all his splendour, and by the side of his future bride, did not forget his old father, nor the promise he had made him; so he begged permission of the king to go and visit him, which was immediately granted. he set out on his journey to the village where he was born, attended by a numerous retinue, travelling day and night till he reached the forest where he had learned the first notes of music, the foundation of all his fortune. he remembered all the trees, but the whole generation of birds that had known him had long since died. in his heart, however, he thanked them for their kindness, and in remembrance of them he passed on in silence, having left his attendants at the beginning of the forest. his heart beat with anxiety and fear, lest his father should no longer be living, for it was more than ten years since he had left his home; but when he reached the stream where he had first sat in the forest he saw an old man sitting by its side. jackey immediately recognized his father, but the old man did not see him, for he was plunged in sorrow. wiping a tear from his eyes, he said, "am i never to see my dear jackey again? for how many years have i come here every day, till gradually all his friends have died off--and he, too, i am afraid, must be dead; and i am the cause of his death, for it was i persuaded him to go out into the world." jackey now took out his violin, which he had carried with him, and played the tune with which he had first soothed his father's grief. the old man recognized the notes, and he cried out, "that is my own jackey! come to my arms, my dear boy!" it was long before either could find words; but then the old man told him that his stepmother was dead; and jackey related all his adventures, and his present happiness and splendour. jackey went with his father to the village; but the next day he had him removed to where he had left his followers, and they all returned, without loss of time, to the king, and jackey's future wife. jackey and his father were received with great rejoicings, and when the time of mourning for the late queen was over, jackey was married to the lovely princess, with whom he spent a long life of happiness and peace, reigning with justice and wisdom over the kingdom after the king and his own old father were dead. [decoration] xxxii. _teeny-tiny._[1] [1 from halliwell's "nursery stories."] once upon a time there was a teeny-tiny woman, who lived in a teeny-tiny house in a teeny-tiny village. now one day this teeny-tiny woman put on her teeny-tiny bonnet, and went out of her teeny-tiny house to take a teeny-tiny walk. and when this teeny-tiny woman had gone a teeny-tiny way she came to a teeny-tiny gate, and went into a teeny-tiny church-yard. and when this teeny-tiny woman had got into the teeny-tiny churchyard she saw a teeny-tiny bone on a teeny-tiny grave, and the teeny-tiny woman said to her teeny-tiny self, "this teeny-tiny bone will make me some teeny-tiny soup for my teeny-tiny supper." so the teeny-tiny woman put the teeny-tiny bone into her teeny-tiny pocket, and went home to her teeny-tiny house. now when the teeny-tiny woman got home to her teeny-tiny house she was a teeny-tiny tired; so she went up her teeny-tiny stairs to her teeny-tiny bed, and put the teeny-tiny bone into a teeny-tiny cupboard. and when this teeny-tiny woman had been to sleep a teeny-tiny time she was awakened by a teeny-tiny voice from the teeny-tiny cupboard, which said--"give me my bone!" at this the teeny-tiny woman was a teeny-tiny frightened, so she hid her teeny-tiny head under the teeny-tiny clothes, and went to sleep again. and when she had been asleep a teeny-tiny time the teeny-tiny voice again cried out from the teeny-tiny cupboard a teeny-tiny louder--"give me my bone!" this made the teeny-tiny woman a teeny-tiny more frightened, and she hid her teeny-tiny head a teeny-tiny further under the teeny-tiny clothes. and when the teeny-tiny woman had been to sleep again a teeny-tiny time the teeny-tiny voice from the teeny-tiny cupboard said again a teeny-tiny louder--"give me my bone!" [illustration: _the teeny-tiny woman's fright._] and this teeny-tiny woman was a teeny-tiny bit more frightened, but she put her teeny-tiny head out of the teeny-tiny clothes, and said in her loudest teeny-tiny voice--"take it!" [decoration] xxxiii. _the cannibal cow._ it was in the year ----. but why should i insult you by being more particular in date than that it was during the irish rebellion, when, one dreadfully stormy night, old goff, with his wife, daughter, and only son, tim, were sitting in the kitchen, which not only served as general sitting-room, but was also the old couple's bed-room? the wind howled and blew in gusts, shaking the windows and doors as one without, in a hurry to get in, amongst whose virtues patience could not be numbered. "this is a fearful night," old goff said, "and fearful work, may be, is going on just now; for i heard from neighbour flanagan that the red-coats have been seen in the neighbourhood. go, tim, and see that all the doors are well fastened; and when the old woman has given us our supper, we'll get to bed, for that is the safest place these times." the old man had no sooner spoken than there was a tap at the door--at first, gentle; as, however, neither father nor son moved, but sat staring at each other in fear and trembling, the knocking grew louder and louder. at length tim whispered, "hadn't you best go to the door, father, for that will impose upon them more, if it's thaves they are, and show more respect, like, if it's the red-coats?" "no, no, my son!" the old man whispered back, "you go; for then they will see that you are safely at home, like a steady lad, and not out with those wild boys, who are the cause of all these troubles. go, my son; but don't open the door, for the life of ye, but ask the gintlemen, civil, who might be there, and what they might be wanting?" there was no help for it, so poor tim crept to the door, and, after listening whether he heard the cocking of pistols or the clanking of swords, mustered courage to ask who was there. "and who should it be, sure," was answered from without, "but paddy, auld paddy the piper? och! then let me in, darlint, that i may warm and dry mesel', for it's caulder than the 'squire's greetin', and as damp as the say itsel'." [illustration: _a terror-stricken household._] without answering him, tim ran back to his father, who, in the mean time, had put out the light, and had got as far as the kitchen-door to listen. now tim, in his hurry, rushed upon the old man, who went rolling down, and tim, to save himself, caught hold of the table, which he upset, and he himself fell sprawling upon the floor. not being hurt, he went to help his father, who was shouting thieves and murder, and it was some time before his son could convince him that the place was not full of thieves, but that it was only paddy the piper who wanted to come in. "nay, lave me in pace," he said, as tim tried to raise him up, "for i'm dead, sure!" "but what about paddy?" tim asked. "and are ye sure it's paddy it is, and that it is by himself he is?" and then the old man added--"if it's the piper himself, i think bad not to give him the bit and the sup; but ye mustn't let him in, tim, for sure it's paddy has a baddish name, and if he's found here we shall all swing for't. but take the kay, my boy, and let him into katty's shed, where he can be as comfortable, like, as the priest himself in his own bed, and he shall not go without his supper." now katty, you must know, was old goff's best and favourite cow, and as such had a shed to herself, to which tim led the piper; and when paddy had a good large mug of whisky, he forgot that he was wet and cold. we will not assist at old goff's recovery from being "murthered quite," but suppose him, as well as the others, safely in bed; and as we shall be busy with the piper we will not disturb them till the morning. paddy was so warm and comfortable after his supper, but more particularly after the whisky, that he felt one drop more would make him the happiest man in all ireland; but he dared not risk offending old goff by disturbing him again, for he always found a good friend in him when his wanderings took him that way. what was to be done? he tried to sleep, but it would not do; though it was not the want of a bed that troubled him, for it was little paddy knew of that, except by name, and, indeed, katty gave him the best of accommodation; but yet the comfort was fast oozing out of him. now paddy had a friend who, quietly and quite in private, distilled the best of spirit, and there was no fear of his being in bed--at least, not at night. true, he lived full four miles off, and most of the way lay across a dreary bog; but now that paddy was once with him in imagination he found less rest than ever. tim had carefully locked katty's door; but, though old, the piper was still active, so made nothing of clambering up to a hole in the roof--for where is the shed or cabin to be found in ireland that has not a hole in the roof? if, indeed, what should be the roof is not one big hole. in dear old ireland everything is old, excepting the hearts and spirits of its people. once outside the shed, paddy made the best of his way towards his friend's; and expectation giving strength and activity to his legs, he ran briskly on, when, all at once, he was brought to a stand--not because he was out of breath from running, but from astonishment at the fruit borne by a sturdy old tree he had just reached. a man, well and securely hanged, was dangling from a branch of the tree, with his toes most provokingly just beyond reach of the ground. paddy peered at him through the dark, to see which of his friends it was, and then addressed him thus:--"och! murphy, me lad! and is it yerself i run my nose agin here in the dark? but i forgie yer for not gettin' out o' the way, seeing that yer movements are not quite yer own. now tell me what has brought yer here in this ugly fix? but how's this?" he continued, examining his friend still more closely--"and was it for this dance yer put on them iligant boots? why, murphy, i shouldn't know yer if i didn't see that it's yerself! but now," paddy continued, talking to himself, "his dance is over, and what will he be wanting with his boots? i'm sartain he won't mind if i borrow them, for sure me own brogues are none of the best. but why, my auld friend," he said, again addressing the hanging man, "why didn't yer put on yer sunday best intirely, for yer no better than a scarecrow dangling there?" paddy examined himself from head to foot, and then, shaking his head, he muttered--"no, i canna better mesel', 'cepting with the boots, which i'll make bold to take, trusting poor murphy won't feel his feet cauld." after thus alternately soliloquising and addressing his friend, paddy set himself to work to pull off the dead man's boots, but they resisted all his efforts. he took it good-humouredly and out of humour, but with equally bad success, and at length went on his way; but he could not make up his mind to resign such a splendid piece of good fortune, so he returned after he had gone a few steps, and made another attempt. the boots, however, remained immoveable, and losing all patience, he exclaimed, "bad luck to them!" and taking out a large knife he carried with him, cut off the legs just above the boots, thinking that, more at his leisure, he would be able to clear them out. his plans were now altered, and instead of going on to his friend, he returned to katty's shed, carefully carrying his new acquisition under his arm. he found no difficulty in getting back into the shed, but the difficulty of freeing the boots from the feet and portion of the legs that remained in them was increased rather than lessened; and at length paddy fell asleep over his unaccomplished task. when he awoke day was already beginning to dawn, and as he wanted to be early at a small town, some six miles off, where there was to be a fair, he had no time to lose; so he quickly got out of the shed, leaving the boots behind him as useless--his friend murphy's feet pertinaciously keeping possession of them. not long after, tim went to fetch him to breakfast, to make up for the inhospitality of the previous night; for with returning light the courage of the family was restored, and, as is frequently the case with weak minds, day gave an appearance of security to that which night had shrouded in danger. what was his surprise to see the shed occupied by katty alone; for he had found the door locked as he had left it the night before, and yet paddy was nowhere to be seen. he never once thought of the hole in the roof, and was puzzled beyond measure. paddy must be somewhere; so he looked in all the four corners of the shed, under the straw, and even under katty herself, who was comfortably lying down. he now saw the boots, and was more puzzled than ever. he scratched his head, as people will do when the understanding is at fault, and during that process a horrible light burst upon him. he rushed out of the shed back to the kitchen, where, to the amazement of all, he let himself fall into old goff's, just then, vacant chair, his mouth open, his hair erect, and his eyes nearly starting from his head. all exclaimed with one voice, "what in heaven's name has happened! what is the matter with you, tim?" after gasping several times for breath tim cried out, "och, the unnatural baste! och, the blood-thirsty cannibal! poor paddy! och, the murthering brute!" "in the name of all the saints tell us what has happened!" his father said; and after a few more incoherent sentences, tim related how on going into the shed he could not find the piper, though he could not have got out, for he had locked the door the night before, and found it still locked; how that, after looking all about, he had discovered the boots, but that katty had eaten up poor paddy. [illustration: _tim's dismay at katty's cannibalism._] an exclamation of horror burst from all. "every bit of him," tim continued. "the blood-thirsty baste has eaten every bit of him. not a morsel of poor paddy is left but the boots." the rest were quite as much horrified as tim himself, and not a word was uttered till his sister, who first recovered something like self-possession, said, "let us go and look once more, for it is almost too horrible to believe that katty could do such a thing; she has always been such a good, gentle beast." "och, the cannibal!" tim muttered, with a shudder. "tim," old goff said, "i've heard that a cannibal is one man that eats another, and if so, perhaps katty is not a cannibal; but, mind me, i'm not going to defend the unnatural baste if she has eaten the piper. did you say his pipes and all are gone? take care and don't go too near the crittur, but take the pitchfork with you. oh, that i should ever live to hear the like!" most unwillingly tim went back to the shed; but as his sister led the way he was ashamed to remain behind. however, when they got there katty began bellowing with all her might, for she was unused to being neglected, and felt herself ill used that tim should have been in without taking her her morning's food, and now finding herself again disappointed, she stared wildly at them. both started back, and tim cried, "see there, how wicked she looks! is that the baste you say is so gentle? sure she's dangerous, let's go back." the sister ventured in and took the boots, which she carried to the house. these told the tale but too clearly, and poor katty had not a single voice raised in her favour. it was now discussed what should be done with the animal, for keeping her was out of the question. who would drink the milk of such a beast! besides, it was dangerous to go near her; and it was therefore settled that tim should take her to the fair, which fortunately was held that very day, and sell her at any price. suddenly they were startled by a loud bellowing from the shed, for during this time no one had thought of feeding the poor beast, and the next moment all were seized with the utmost consternation, for katty appeared at the shed door and walked straight up towards the house. the kitchen was now a scene of the wildest confusion, for in their eagerness to seize upon any article of furniture that might serve as a weapon of defence, they rushed against each other; but katty stopped at some fresh grass that was in a cart near the house, which indeed had attracted her. as soon, however, as she had taken the edge off her morning appetite she went to the window, for she was a sociable beast, and had always been accustomed to be noticed; but all the inmates of the kitchen were huddled together at the further end, and their terror is indescribable when she pushed the window open, for it had not been properly fastened. she, however, stood so quiet, and looked so gentle and mild, that after a time old goff mustered courage to say, "now that she has filled herself with grass she will perhaps not bite, so now is the time to secure her. take the rope that is hanging up there, tim, make a noose, and slip it quickly over her nose." as tim hesitated, his sister said, "i will go with you;" and then he did as he was directed, till, as he was about to slip the rope over her nose, she opened her mouth, thinking it was something for her to eat. tim started back so suddenly that, losing his balance, he fell flat upon the floor, shouting for help, but his sister, catching hold of the rope, put it round katty's nose; and when tim saw that there was no danger he finished the work for her, tying the rope at least half-a-dozen times round the unresisting creature's jaws. nothing now remained to be done but for tim to get on his sunday clothes, which did not take long, and poor katty was led off, receiving much rougher treatment than she had been accustomed to. for a time tim and katty had the road to themselves, and were not over-pleasant companions, for to poor katty all seemed strange; besides that she received many a blow from her guide, who was in anything but a good humour; and when they were joined by any one it made it none the more pleasant for tim, who now found out all the difficulties he had to contend with, for he was not prepared with an answer when asked what was the reason why katty was to be sold, or why her mouth was fastened up so. what could he answer, for, as he said to himself, "if i tell the truth who would buy the unnatural baste? and i won't let the people think we want money." his pride revolted at this; but it was evident he must be prepared with a more satisfactory answer than he had hitherto given, namely, that he did not know why his father intended to part with his cow, for he heard two farmers, who had lately joined the others, talking thus together. the one said, "why, that is old goff's favourite cow, sure it can't be it's selling her he is, for i heard that he was offered twelve pounds for her no longer than a fortnight ago, but he wouldn't sell her at any price." "may be it's gone dry she is," said the other. "no, she doesn't look like that." "then it's money he wants. may be the rint isn't paid, and--" "no, it's not that," the first speaker interrupted him, "for old goff is too close an old fist not to have plenty of money; but mark me, neighbour, there's something wrong with her, sleek and fresh as she looks, and it isn't i that would be buying her at any price." poor tim was sadly puzzled, for it was impossible he could escape being asked all manner of questions, and he knew no more than his heels what to say. then, too, he feared that no one would have her, and what should he do with her then. his worst fears were soon to be realized, for a new comer, who had heard the end of the conversation of the last two speakers, now said to him-"well, tim, and what has the darling of your house done that you want to sell her? is it fits she has, for there is something wild in her eye? or it's vicious she is? speak, man, what is the matter with her?" to avoid unpleasant questions, tim said, "it's too much trouble to my sister to attend to her, for it's my sister's cow she is." "and is it washing her face of a morning that's too much trouble to your sister?" tim was now asked; "or perhaps combing her hair is troublesome, or may be it's cutting her corns your sister doesn't like; but come, tim, that won't do, man, for why is katty more trouble than the other cows? let me look at her, that i may see what ails her." he examined her all over; and, to tim's horror, taking the rope from round her nose, looked into her mouth, but he could not discover one single fault in her, which only excited his suspicion the more. "may be you'd take five pounds for her?" and, as tim eagerly assented, he continued, "you'll take five pounds for her, and your father just a day or two ago refused twelve. there's something in all this i can't make out, so go on with her, for i'll none of her. i'm not going to be tricked by you." tim was now in utter despair. he saw plainly he must say that it was money they wanted. but would even that do, for his father had other cows, and why sell the one which everybody knew was the favourite? his only chance was to get rid of her to some one who did not know him, and he therefore hurried her on to the market. the market was very full, and, when he found himself surrounded by strange faces, he felt more at ease; however, no purchaser was found, and tim began to feel not only impatient, but seriously uneasy, for katty looked about her in a very suspicious manner, and he dreaded the consequences should she grow very hungry. he shuddered as he thought of the fate of poor paddy, and, oh horror! just then he thought he saw paddy himself in the distance. he could not take his eyes from the spot where he had seen the horrid apparition, though he trembled at the possibility of its reappearance. there it was again, beckoning to him. this was more than poor tim could bear, and he rushed wildly out of the market, down the nearest turning, and out of the town. on he ran, not knowing where, pursued in imagination by poor paddy's ghost, till out of breath, when he ventured to look back. he could run no more, for he was now transfixed to the spot by horror. katty, with her mouth open, came full gallop after him, and quicker than the wind followed paddy's ghost. he stood motionless till they were close upon him, and then fell senseless to the ground. when he recovered he found paddy holding a pocket flask of whisky to his lips, whilst katty was looking at him with the mildest expression of concern. "what were you doing in the market with katty? and what, in heaven's name, induced you to run away as if possessed by a thousand devils?" paddy said. "what does all this mean, tim? have you gone clean mad?" "and is it you, paddy?" tim asked; "or is it your ghost? for if it's your ghost i beg your honor ten thousand pardons for all the trouble i've given you, in making your honor run after me so far. and i beg your honor to forgive my auld father and mother, and my dear sister, and to forgive me too. and i humbly beg your honor will not haunt us, for it will be the bodily death of us all; but if we can do anything to give your blessid soul rest, tell me what it is and it shall be done. where shall we bury your blessid feet? it was not our fault that this blood-thirsty baste, bad luck to it, ate you up last night, all but your honor's feet, bless them. directly we found out the misfortune that had happened to your honor, for i went early to fetch you to the most iligant breakfast my mother could get ready, we all settled that the cannibal brute should no longer be one of our family, and i brought her to the market to sell. this is every word the blessid truth. so i beg your honor to forgive us, and may your soul rest in peace!" "stop," paddy cried, "or yer'll be the rale death o' me." it was now paddy's turn to fall, and he rolled about on the ground convulsed with laughter, for he now saw what a mistake murphy's boots had led to. when he had recovered himself enough to be able to speak, he told tim how all had happened, and advised him to take katty home again directly, which he did, and katty became even a greater favourite with the whole family than ever she had been. xxxiv. _the three men of gotham on nottingham bridge._ you, of course, know that the good people of gotham have been particularly noted for their wisdom; but if, by chance, this should not form one of the items of your varied knowledge, the stories i am about to relate will leave no doubt on your minds as to the justice of the report. whether it may be something in the air that has made these people so peculiarly gifted i cannot tell, for i must confess that i have never been at gotham, and know absolutely nothing of the geological properties of the soil, or indeed of the neighbourhood in any way, excepting that nottingham is the principal city of that part of the country. you probably know, as well as i can tell you, what nottingham is noted for, so i will say nothing about it, particularly as what i might and could say would in no way help us in clearing up the mystery, namely, why the inhabitants of one particular place should be mentally gifted beyond others. if, indeed, we were considering nottingham itself i might attempt some sort of an explanation, by telling you that a great part of the business of the town being shoemaking would perhaps account for a contemplative turn of its citizens, for shoemakers are supposed to be men of deep thought. why this should be so is another mystery requiring to be cleared up, which i will leave to others to do, and only just remark, that there can be no doubt several cases of men of thought and talent among that class might be cited. i will only mention the german shoemaker, of whom perhaps you have heard, who wrote up over his shop,- "hans saxs shoe maker and poet too." that's not bad, particularly for a german. but to return to gotham, with which a consideration of nottingham has nothing to do. we all know particular individuals who are shining stars, and even families of stars we know, but still that does not tell us how and why there should be a whole community of such extraordinary lights. we have confessed our inability to explain this in the case of gotham, and therefore let us take a liberal view of the matter, and suppose that from generation to generation the children inherited from their parents such a happy development of brain, that it was utterly impossible they could be anything but wise. it might be worth a phrenologist's while to go down there. but mind, i am only speaking of what the people of gotham were, for, as i said, i know, personally, nothing of the place, and at the present day all may be materially altered. i cannot tell you exactly when it happened, but on a certain day, in a certain year, two men of gotham met on nottingham bridge. "well met, neighbour," said the one man, "whither are you going?" "i have just come from the market at nottingham, and am going home to fetch my wife and child, whom i forgot," was the answer; "and pray where are you going, neighbour?" "i'm going to the market at nottingham to buy sheep," said the first man. "and which way do you intend to bring the sheep home?" asked the man who had come from nottingham. "over this bridge," answered he who was going thither. "but you cannot," said the one. "but i must," said the other. "but you shall not, neighbour," said the man who was on his way home to fetch his wife and child. "and why shall i not, neighbour?" asked he who was going to nottingham to buy sheep. "you see," said the one, "that there is not room for my wife and child to pass, so keep them back, man." "i care not," said the other, "my sheep shall pass, so let your wife and child stand back." "they shall not pass." "but they shall pass." "woo! woo! back there," shouted the one man, spreading out his arms and legs, as is done to keep sheep back. "woo! woo! get on there," shouted the other, flourishing his stick, and striking the ground first on one side and then on the other. "take care, or you will drive them over my wife. but if she is hurt you shall pay the doctor's bill." "i will not pay the doctor's bill. but you take care, for if you make my sheep jump over the side of the bridge and they are drowned you shall pay for them." "i will not pay for them." "but you must pay for them." whilst this dispute was going on another man of gotham had ridden up, with a sack of meal behind him on his donkey, and hearing the quarrel between his neighbours about the one's wife, whom he had just seen safe at home, and about the other's sheep, when there were no sheep there, he got off his donkey and called to the two disputants to lift the sack of meal upon his shoulders. when they had done so, first untying the mouth of the sack, he emptied the meal over the side of the bridge into the river. then, holding up the sack with the mouth down, before his astonished neighbours, he said,-"will you tell me how much meal there is in this sack?" [illustration: _the three wise gothamites._] "why, none," both said, "since you have just emptied it out." "well," he answered, "just so much wit is in your two heads when you dispute about wife and sheep, and neither wife nor sheep are here." now which was the wisest of the three? [decoration] xxxv. _the man of gotham and his cheeses._ one hot summer's day a man of gotham was on his way to nottingham market to sell his cheeses, which he carried in a bag slung across his shoulder. he found the heat oppressive, and his load so troublesome, that he could not help bewailing his lot in the following words--"unfortunate man that i am, why have i not a cart like neighbour dobbins, or even a barrow like old mathews? my good woman will make so many cheeses that i have no rest any market day. but now i have it; she is a shrewd woman, and i will propose to her to make the cheeses so that they can walk to market, and then i need only walk by the side of them, to see that they do not loiter or play by the way. i wonder she never thought of that." this bright idea consoled him and made him forget even his load for a time, but it weighed so heavily upon him that he was soon recalled to his misfortunes, and as he trudged along he constantly changed the bag from one shoulder to the other. now with these frequent changes the mouth of the bag had got loose, and just as he reached the top of the hill, looking down upon the bridge and nottingham in the distance, one of the cheeses fell out and rolled down the hill. he watched it for a time, and as it kept so well to the road, neither turning to one side nor the other, but jumping over the stones that lay in its way, he exclaimed in delight, "well done, well done, keep on like that, my good friend, and you'll soon be at your journey's end! it was foolish of my old woman not to tell me that they could run by themselves, but now that i have found it out, i'm not going to carry the lazy things a step farther." having come to this wise resolution he bundled the cheeses out of the bag, and, as they rolled down the hill, cried after them, "there, follow your companion; but you need not run so fast, for i shall rest myself a bit and then walk leisurely after you. now, mind you all meet me in the market-place." he watched them with the greatest satisfaction as they ran down the hill and over the bridge, when, the road turning suddenly, they were lost to his sight; and then, too, they all left the road, some running into one bush and some into another, whilst the rest got no further than the ditch by the roadside. [illustration: _the gothamite and his cheeses._] after a short rest the worthy man went on his way to nottingham, without troubling his mind about the cheeses, as he fully expected to find them waiting for him in the market-place; but when he got there he was somewhat astonished to find that they had not yet arrived. "no doubt," he said to himself, "as soon as they were out of my sight they got to some of their games in some field or another. that is always the way, but they'll be here soon." when, however, the market time was nearly over, and the cheeses had not appeared, he inquired of the market people whether they had seen them. no one had seen his cheeses, and when he was asked who brought them he said,-"no one brought them. sure they were quite able to come by themselves, as you would say if you had seen them running along the road; but now i think of it, they were going at such a rate that they are no doubt half way on their road to york by now." so he hired a horse and rode off towards york to try and overtake them, but strange to say he did not overtake them, nor indeed did he ever see them again, nor hear any tidings of them. [decoration] xxxvi. _twelve men of gotham go out fishing together._ twelve men of gotham settled to go out fishing together; and, as the anticipation of pleasure is nearly worth the pleasure itself, they fixed the time a fortnight off, and each day during the interval made some preparation for the great day. the appointed day came in due time, and it was cold and drizzling; but the twelve met, for what true sportsman would allow weather to stop him? they were all in the highest spirits, and their conversation was of the wittiest and most brilliant description, as you will judge it must have been when you know more of the men. i do not attempt to give it you here, being well aware that i could not possibly do it justice. when they got to the river-side, after a lengthy consultation, they settled that the fish would feel shy of coming to them, seeing so many together; and it was therefore agreed they should separate, all to meet again at the same place in five hours' time. after they had fairly divided their provisions into twelve parts, each took his share, and went whither his fancy guided him. exact to the time, the twelve again assembled together, and adjourned to a tavern, where it had been arranged the day should be finished in conviviality. they were cold and wet to the skin, but all declared they had had a delightful day, each reserving his adventures till they were comfortably seated together. most extraordinary adventures they had all had; for one related how, immediately that he had thrown his line, well baited with a worm, he hooked the most wonderful fish he had ever seen; for though it only appeared on the top of the water for a moment at a time, he could plainly discover that it was hairy, and had a long tail. he had given the creature line enough to play, but, when he had followed it more than a mile, the line unfortunately broke--for the beast was strong, being quite as large as a cat. "that is extraordinary," another then cried, "for i, too, followed a hairy fish, such as i never saw before. you must know, as i went along looking for a likely spot, i frightened the creature from the bank, and it swam across the river. as quick as possible, i threw my worm just before its nose, but it would not bite, so, like a shot, i was in the water, and waded across after it. it took refuge in a hole, and when i put in my hand to catch it, it bit me so that i have not been able to use that hand all day, and no doubt that is the reason i have not hooked a single fish. the beast appeared, for all the world, like a rat." a third then told his companions how he had wandered along the side of a river till he came to a mill, where, by the bubbles under the wheel, he could see that the water was swarming with fish. he threw in his bait, and almost immediately had a bite. he felt convinced that he must have hooked several large fish at the same time, for no single one could have pulled the line with such force. the line was strong, so that it did not break, and at length the rod itself was fairly dragged out of his hands, and for a moment disappeared under the water. the fish, however, must have broken away, for the rod appeared again entangled in the wheel, and was whirled round till it was dashed to pieces. finishing the account of his startling adventure, he said, "i am sure, my friends, that at that spot there will be plenty of sport for the whole twelve of us together; and had it not been for that unlucky accident of losing my rod, i should have brought fish enough for all our suppers." various were the adventures narrated, several of them having narrowly escaped drowning, as they said--only that the water was not deep enough. amongst the whole twelve only one fish was produced--a small one, which its fortunate captor had found floating, dead, upon the water. when the last of the twelve had finished his account, he said, "i am sure, my good friends and neighbours, that no twelve men ever had such an extraordinary day's fishing as we have had; and, had we not met with these unfortunate accidents, we should have brought home such strange fish, and in such quantities, that the account of our day's sport would have been inserted in all the newspapers. but, my dear brethren, we have been in many great dangers, and i shudder when i think of it, that perhaps one of us has been drowned. let us count, and see whether the whole twelve of us are safely here." "yes, let us count!" all exclaimed; "for perhaps one of our dear brothers is drowned, and what will his unfortunate widow do?" each of the twelve counted in turn, and each only counted eleven, omitting himself; and then all cried out, "it is but too true that one of our dear brothers is lost! who shall carry the sad news to his widow? but first let us go back to the river, and look for the body." these twelve wise men went down to the river, and searched every place where, during the day, either of them had been, but no body was found, which they bitterly bewailed, as it was deprived of christian burial. they then drew lots which of them should inform the unfortunate widow of her dreadful loss; and when he on whom the lot fell inquired of the others to whose widow he should go, and no one could tell him, they bewailed still more bitterly that they could not discover which of their dear brothers was lost. [illustration: _the lost fisherman found._] it happened that at this time a gentleman from the court was passing, and seeing them in such distress, asked the cause. they said, "this morning twelve of us came down to the river to fish, and one is missing, whom we cannot find." then the gentleman said, "what will you give me if i find your missing companion?" to which they answered, that they would gladly give all the money they had if he could restore their lost brother to them. he then made them stand in a row, and riding along the back of them gave each such a smart cut with his whip that they cried aloud with pain, and as they did so he numbered them; but when he came to the twelfth he thrashed him till he and all his companions cried out for mercy for him; and the gentleman said, "this is the twelfth of you!" whereupon they thanked him for restoring their lost brother to them. xxxvii. _the cobbler's wager._ one fine summer's day a strong, active young man was sauntering along the exeter road, with apparently no immediate object in view but to pass away the time, for he certainly seemed in no hurry to reach the place of his destination--if, indeed, such a thing was in his thoughts, as it undoubtedly should have been, for he was carrying home a pair of shoes he had taken the greater part of the week to mend. you will guess by this that he was a cobbler by trade, and from the way he was going on we may, perhaps, form an idea how it is that cobblers are proverbially so little to be depended upon in the performance of a promise--at least, when that promise refers to their work. the young man we are talking of was not fond of work, but, being a merry, jovial fellow, was much liked in the neighbourhood where he lived, more particularly as he was always ready to give a helping hand to any one who required the assistance of a strong arm, and never hesitated to neglect his own business to help others. perhaps, too, that sort of occupation was more profitable than mending boots and shoes, for he always seemed to have money to spare when he met any companions of his own stamp at the different road-side inns. he was now coming near to such a house, and was trying to find a good excuse to turn in--for the landlord, according to his words, was a man of the right sort--when a butcher, in his cart, carrying a calf he had just bought, whom he knew well, overtook him. no excuse was, of course, required now to drop in at tom turner's, the landlord just mentioned, if even he had not been standing at his door, where, however, he was, ready to welcome them. the three were soon merry enough over a jug of foaming ale; and the butcher, in particular, was in high spirits, for he had not only made a good bargain, but one he prided himself upon. the landlord said to him, "i'm sure you've been playing your pranks off on some one, or that you've overreached some poor wretch in a bargain, makes you in such high glee this morning." "well, i've not done so badly, i think," the butcher answered, rubbing his hands. "a little mother's wit in one's head is worth having, and where's the good if one doesn't use it? you must know i particularly wanted a calf this morning--indeed, i couldn't do without it, whatever price i had to give; and as i happened to hear yesterday that old farmer hagan had some very fine ones, i went to him. now i didn't tell him that i wanted a calf--leave me alone for that--but i said i wanted some sheep, which i knew he just happened not to have. he told me that he hadn't any, and, as i expected, then said he had some first-rate calves which he wished me to see. "'i am very sorry to hear it, neighbour,' i said; 'for calves are falling down to nothing in value since the celebrated doctor tweedle came into these parts. you know that he has declared veal to be the most unwholesome meat there is, and that eating it is little short of eating poison; so that no one will touch it. i have two of the most beautiful calves you ever saw, which i am but too happy to be able to get rid of at thirty shillings each--just half what i gave for them. a friend of mine has occasion for three, which he is going to send off to a distance; so i am glad to be able to do you a good turn, if you are willing to part with one of yours on the same terms; but it must be a good 'un.' "old hagan was loath to part with one of his calves at such a price, but was so frightened by what i had told him, that he let me have the one that is outside in my cart, saying, 'i know, neighbour, that you are not a man likely to be over-reached, and that you would not sell at such a price if you saw a chance of getting a better one.' "now," the butcher continued, "does either of you think he could make as good a bargain as that?" and he chuckled, again rubbing his hands, as they both confessed that they gave in to him. shortly after, the cobbler rose to go, saying, as the butcher offered to give him a lift in his cart, that he was going another way; and as he went out, he made a sign to the landlord to follow him. when they were outside together he whispered, "i should like to play our boasting friend a good trick." "i wish, with all my heart, you could," the landlord answered; "but he is a cunning fellow." "cunning as he is, i've a great mind to steal the calf he's so proud of having cheated old hagan out of, and then sell it him again, but at double the price," the cobbler said. "he's too deep for you," said the landlord; "you can't do it." "what will you bet?" the cobbler asked. "anything you like!" was the answer. "well, then," the cobbler again said, "let it be a gallon of your very best ale. now you go back, and manage--as if without any particular motive--to tell our friend that you have a calf (that can be easily done as he is getting into his cart), when you may as well say that it is just like the one he has. you do this, and leave the rest to me." "i hope, with all my heart, that you'll succeed," the landlord said, as he went back into the house; and the cobbler hastened along the road which he knew was the butcher's way. when he had got some distance from the house, he dropped one of the shoes he was carrying home by the side of the road, where it would be sure to be seen, and then ran on some distance further, where he dropped the other shoe, choosing the spot close by an opening in the hedge by the road-side. shortly after, the butcher came the same way, still chuckling over his morning's bargain, and when he saw the shoe, drew in his horse. he was about to get out, when he thought better of it, saying, "there's some of that careless cobbler's work. he evidently has come this way, and dropped one of the shoes i saw him carrying--but i'm not going to take the trouble to carry it after him. let him come back, and that will teach him not to refuse a civil offer again. if he had but dropped the pair, i should not mind getting out to pick them up--though certainly it would not be to give them to him, but to keep them myself." with these friendly thoughts he drove on, and, before long, saw the other shoe. "hallo!" he said; "why, that lazy rascal of a cobbler, rather than go back when he discovered the loss of the one shoe, has thrown the other away as useless; but i'll not be such a fool, and won't begrudge a little trouble for the sake of a good pair of shoes." so saying, he jumped out of his cart and picked up the shoe, and, finding it was a good one, ran back for the other, leaving his cart standing in the road. no sooner had he turned a corner in the road, than the cobbler jumped out from behind the hedge where he had hidden himself, and having lifted the calf out of the cart, took it on his shoulders, and hurried back with his load, as fast as possible, a short cut to tom turner's house. tom received him with an acclamation of joy; and as soon as they had stowed the calf away in a shed, he produced some of his very best ale, over which they discussed what was further to be done. the cobbler said, "as soon as the butcher finds that his calf has disappeared, and that there are no signs of it, he will be sure to come back to you, having heard you had one; but be sure you do not let him have it a farthing under three pounds, for you know that was the price named by himself, and that he said he must have one to-day at any price. when we have had our joke out, we will give him back his money, making him pay the amount of our wager, and another gallon to boot. but he is a slippery rogue, so mind you do not part with the calf without receiving the money down. and now, what will you bet that i do not steal this very calf again?" the landlord, enjoying the joke, betted another gallon, and his companion continued, "to prepare for another sale, tell him, as he is driving off--tell him you have another calf, the twin brother to this one, and so like it that no one can tell one from the other." after all that had been arranged, the cobbler related every circumstance of the past adventure--not forgetting the butcher's soliloquy--to tom's infinite amusement, and added, "take particular notice whether he says anything about finding the shoes; for if he intends to act dishonestly we may alter our determination about giving him back his money." he had scarcely finished when they saw the butcher's cart at the door, so he hastened away to his former hiding-place. [illustration: _the cobbler carrying off the calf._] the next moment the butcher was in the house, and he cried out, "tom! you must positively let me have that calf of yours, for mine has played me an infernal trick, and has run off! i saw the brute, and ran after it. but it doesn't matter, for i know where it is, and can easily catch it again. but i'm in a hurry, so i thought it better to come back for yours." "how did it happen?" tom asked. "why, my horse got a stone in its hoof, and as i had to go a few yards off to get a dry stick to pick it out with, the brute took advantage of my being away, jumped out of the cart and got into a field by the side of the road. when i got back, though i saw it, it had the start of me, and i was not inclined to run far after it. but, now, i'm in a hurry; so tell me at once, tom, what you want for your calf." tom answered, "you know that i do not quite believe in veal being poison, in spite of the great doctor's opinion; but, to accommodate a friend, i don't mind parting with it cheap, though i really can't take less than three pounds." the butcher, finding that his own words were used against him, made no difficulty, but, paying the money, carried off the calf, tom calling after him that if he lost that he had his twin brother for him. he congratulated himself, as he drove along, that, though he paid dearly for the calf, he had, at least, got a good pair of shoes for nothing. to make up for lost time he put his horse to its best trot, but drew in suddenly when he got to the spot of his misfortune, for he heard a sound like the bleating of a calf. he listened for a moment, and then exclaimed, in glee, "oh! it's you is it, my runaway? now, take my word for it, you shall suffer for this." he jumped out of the cart and got into the field, but the bleating seemed to proceed from the next field, and when he got there from another, till he was led on to a considerable distance from his cart. the cobbler, who had imitated the bleating of a calf, when he had led on the butcher till he got confused, hurried back to where the cart was, and hastily taking out the calf, got safely back with it to tom turner's. tom, who had scarcely expected success this time, was fit to split his sides with laughter, when he heard an account of this last adventure, and in his turn told what had passed between him and the butcher. "why, the rascal!" exclaimed the cobbler, who was a honest fellow himself, "so he intends to steal the shoes, for he knows well enough that they belong to me. we'll give him another chance when he comes back, for i'll tell him that i lost the shoes; but if then he does not restore them, why i'll sell them to him for his calf and the money we get out of him. don't you think it will serve him right?" the landlord agreed, that if he persisted in dishonestly keeping the shoes, he would deserve to pay dearly for them, adding,-"if we could manage it, it would be well to let him have his calf this time for nothing." but the cobbler, who was very indignant at the fellow's shuffling dishonesty, said, "no, no, he deserves no manner of consideration, but i hope he won't prove quite as bad as i think him." the butcher soon returned, and this time told the truth of the manner in which he had lost the calf; but when the cobbler told him of his loss he was far from confessing that he had found the shoes, and that they were then in his cart, hidden under some straw. he was out of humour at his own losses, and said, rather brutally, "you are so careless that your loss serves you right. what is your loss to mine? i have now paid four pounds ten for a calf, and still haven't got one for my customers. come, tom, my good friend, you must be merciful this time, and let me have your other calf a little cheaper. if you'll let me have it for two pounds here's the money, but if not i must go back to old hagan's for one." whilst this bargain was being concluded the cobbler went out, and looking in the butcher's cart soon found the shoes, which he took, replacing the straw as he found it. tom accepted the two pounds that were offered him, and the butcher was this time allowed to get his dearly-bought calf safely home; but i'm sorry to say the owner of the shoes had to wait another day for them, as the cobbler spent the remainder of that one with his friend, and merrily they spent it. xxxviii. _the miller and his donkey._ there was a miller, never mind in what part of the country, who had a tall, gawky son; but their combined wit had not proved sufficient to keep their business in a flourishing condition, for the poor man got poorer and poorer, selling one thing after another that was not absolutely required to keep the mill going, when, indeed, there was work for it to do, till the turn came for the donkey to be sold. this donkey had been a faithful servant to the miller, who looked upon it as a friend, and being a kind feeling man, it was with a heavy heart he made up his mind to take it to the fair to sell--but there is no resisting necessity. on the day of the fair, having some distance to go, he started early, and took his son with him, that they might both see the last of their friend. the donkey walked on in front, thoughtfully and demurely, as donkeys are wont to do, whilst the father and son followed sorrowfully. they soon got into the high road, which was crowded with people going to the fair, and the two poor simple fellows soon became the butt of the different wits. "that is a hopeful son of yours," one would say to the father; "you must feel proud of him i should think." and another would say to the son, pointing with his thumb to his father, "the old 'un looks a tartar; does he whip you much?" many of the like remarks we made to father and son, loud enough to be heard by both, though pretended to be in a whisper; but the principal shafts were shot at them in conversations carried on round about, not a word of which could they fail to hear. "did you ever see such an old fool as that," said one, "to be walking along this hot road, and his donkey going on in front with nothing to carry?" "oh," another said, "that's the donkey behind, for he in front is much the wiser of the two." "i wonder," another joined in, "the old fellow doesn't take more care of himself at his time of life, if not for his own sake, at least for his baby's, for what would become of the poor child if anything were to happen to him?" stung by these remarks the old man got on to the donkey, though he regretted giving the poor beast such a load to carry, and he sought to lighten it by partly walking, for his long legs easily reached the ground. this made matters worse, for he soon heard one of his tormentors say, "look there, was there ever such an old brute? he's taking it easy, and lets his poor boy toil along as best he can. such an interesting child, too! oh, if its mother did but know how cruelly her darling child is being treated." hearing this the miller made his son take his place, and wondered, as he walked by his side, whether he was now doing right. he was as far from it as ever, poor man, for he very shortly heard an exclamation, and this time from an old man, whose opinion should carry some weight. "well, this is too bad; what will the world come to next? here's a big lout of a fellow riding whilst his old father's walking. it's disgraceful, that it is, for if even the fellow's lame, at any rate he should make room for the old man. the donkey's strong enough to carry the two." [illustration: _the burdened beast._] now the miller got on the donkey in front of his son, to whom he whispered not to weigh too heavily on the poor beast's back, and they got on for some distance in peace. but it was not to last long, for when the donkey happened to stumble, from kicking against a stone, there was a general outcry: "they want to kill the poor beast. is there no one to interfere? but it's one comfort that cruelty to animals can be punished. who'll inform against these two big brutes? why either of them is strong enough to carry the poor little thing, instead of breaking its back, as they are doing with their weight." "when shall we do what's right?" said the poor miller. "get off, my son, and so will i, and we'll carry the donkey between us. surely then we shall not be blamed." [illustration: _the beast a burden._] having borrowed a strong pole, they tied the donkey's four legs to it, and each taking an end of the pole across his shoulder, they managed, though with great difficulty, to carry it; but it seemed impossible to please the people. there was a general shout of laughter as the two poor fellows toiled along, nearly weighed down by the load they were carrying; but that was not enough, for the most insulting epithets were showered upon them, till worried and distressed beyond endurance, the old man exclaimed, in despair, "i see there is no doing right, but as long as we remain together fault will be found, so we must part, my old friend;" and as they just then came to a bridge, with his son's help, he threw the donkey over the side into the river below. [decoration] xxxix. _doctor dobbs, and his horse nobbs._ doctor daniel dobbs, of doncaster, had a nag that was called nobbs. one day, in the middle of winter, the doctor having been summoned to attend a patient at some distance from his dwelling, and being anxious to return home before it was dark, rode poor nobbs very hard. on his arrival, not finding his man in the way, the doctor fastened nobbs by his bridle to a rail in the yard, and went into his parlour, where he sat down to warm himself by a good fire. it had happened that the doctor's dairy-maid had brewed a barrel of strong beer, which had been drawn off into the cooler; and the dairy-maid having been called away to milk her cows, she had carelessly left the door of the brewhouse open. the steam of the beer proved wonderfully inviting to poor nobbs, who had been hard rode, and now stood in the cold extremely thirsty. after sundry efforts he got loose from the rail, and repairing to the brewhouse, drank so heartily of the beer, that, before he was aware of it, he fell down dead drunk. the doctor's man coming home, ran into the yard to convey nobbs to the stable; not finding him at the rail, he looked about, and at length discovered him stretched upon the ground, cold and insensible. bursting into the parlour, where the doctor was seated with mrs. dobbs, he communicated to them the news of poor nobby's decease. the doctor and mrs. dobbs were both good-natured people, and of course were much concerned; but as the doctor never suffered misfortunes to get the better of his discretion, he immediately gave orders that nobbs should without delay be flayed, and that his skin should be taken next morning to the currier. the doctor's man accordingly set to work: poor nobbs was dragged to the dunghill, his skin was stripped off, and he was left to be eaten by the hounds. he had not, however, lain long before the novelty of his situation had a considerable effect upon him. as he had lost his skin, of course the coldness of the night operated with double activity in dissipating the fumes of the beer which he had swallowed; and at length he awoke, got upon his legs, and trotted away to the stable-door, which happened to be close by the parlour. not finding it open, and being both cold and hungry, he began to whinny for assistance. the doctor and his wife had just done supper, and happened at that moment to be talking of the accident which had befallen their nag, over a hot bowl of brandy-punch. no sooner had nobbs whinnied, than mrs. dobbs turned pale, and exclaimed, "doctor dobbs! as sure as i live, that is nobb's voice--i know him by his whinny!" "my dear," said the doctor, "it is nobb's whinny sure enough; but, poor thing, he is dead, and has been flayed." he had hardly said this before nobbs whinnied again--up jumps the doctor, takes a candle in his hand, and runs into the yard. the first thing he saw was nobbs himself without his skin. the doctor summoned all his servants, ordered six sheep to be killed, and clapped their skins upon poor nobbs. to make a long story short, nobbs recovered, and did his work as well as ever. the sheep-skin stuck fast, and answered his purpose as well as his own skin ever did. but what is most remarkable, the wool grew rapidly; and when the shearing season came, the doctor had nobbs sheared. every year he gave the doctor a noble fleece, for he carried upon his back, you know, as much as six sheep; and as long as nobbs lived, all the doctor's stockings, and all mrs. dobbs' flannel petticoats, were made of his wool. [illustration: _doctor dobbs on his horse nobbs._] xl. _the brownie._ there was once a farmer whose name was john burdon, a kindly, industrious man, who lived happily with his wife and children, in an old house, where his father had lived before him. his five children were thriving and merry, with no more quarrelling than is usual amongst children, and altogether there was a quiet in the old house, in spite of the games that were going on within. of a sudden all this changed, and every thing seemed to go wrong. whatever the game might be, one of the children was sure to be hurt. if they were playing at ball, the ball would be sure to strike one or the other on the nose or in the eye, on which a bellowing followed; or if the game was puss-in-the-corner, or blind-man's-buff, two or more of the children were certain to run their heads together, or tear their clothes, so that the good dame, whose boast it had always been that they never got into mischief, had now enough to do to repair the daily damage. the farmer, now hearing constant complaints, said some evil spirit must have crept into the house; and he was right enough. a brownie or goblin had taken up his abode there, and not finding the quiet within which the outside promised, bestowed his ill-humour upon the inmates, and daily invented some new scheme for tormenting the children. in one corner of the kitchen in which they generally played there was a closet, where the brownie had located himself; and that he might watch them, and see at what moment he could best torment them, he had thrust out a knot that was in the closet door, thus making himself a little window. now, it happened one day that the eldest boy had the shoe-horn in his hand, and merely in play stuck it in the knot-hole, whence it was immediately ejected, striking the boy on the head. [illustration: _the brownie's revengeful pranks._] as often as this was repeated so often it darted out, such good aim being taken that it invariably struck one of them on the head, and generally the one who had put it there. though one always suffered, it was sport to the others, and therefore the horn was frequently stuck in the hole, so that the brownie became more and more irritated, not confining his pranks to the children, but making the parents suffer in various ways. there would be noises in the night, and things that were in daily use would all at once be mislaid, and, after ever so much trouble and worry, found in places where they had already been a dozen times looked for. there could be no doubt this was the brownie's doing, and there could be still less doubt when the chair was moved back, just at the moment when one of the old couple was going to sit down, and he or she went rolling on the floor, for then a laugh was heard proceeding from the moved chair. this trick was played them more particularly when they had anything in their hands, such as a cup of tea, which would be emptied in the falling one's face, and the laughing on such occasions was louder and longer. at length, unable to bear it, the farmer determined to leave a house where there was no longer any comfort, and, if possible, to let it. the last load of the furniture was being removed, and the farmer, following with his wife, said-"i'm heavy at heart at leaving the old house, where, for years, we were so happy, and perhaps we shall not find the new one half as convenient." "the new one will not be half as convenient," was uttered in a strange, squeaky voice, which seemed to be in an old tub at the back of the cart. "oh! oh! are you there?" cried the poor farmer, "then we may as well turn back." "yes! turn back," said the squeaky voice. they did, in fact, turn back, and from that day peace was restored to the house, for the brownie no longer tormented any of its inmates, nor, indeed, gave any signs of being there, excepting by immediately darting the shoe-horn out whenever it was put in the knot-hole. the end. chiswick press:--printed by whittingham and wilkins, tooks court, chancery lane. transcriber's note text in italics has been surrounded with _underscores_, and small capitals were changed to all capitals. a few punctuation errors have been corrected silently, and an extraneous space was removed. otherwise the original was preserved, including inconsistent spelling and hyphenation. for example: the river pegnitz is also spelled as pegnetz, this has not been changed. highways in hiding george o. smith a lancer book 1967 copyright 1956 by george o. smith _highways in hiding_ is based upon material originally copyrighted by greenleaf publishing co., 1955. all rights reserved library of congress catalog card no.: 56-10457 printed in the u.s.a. _cover painting by roy g. krenkel_ lancer books, inc., 185 madison avenue, new york, n.y. 10016 [transcriber's note: this is a rule 6 clearance. pg has not been able to find a u.s. copyright renewal.] _for my drinking uncle don and, of course marian_ _historical note_ in the founding days of rhine institute the need arose for a new punctuation mark which would indicate on the printed page that the passage was of mental origin, just as the familiar quotation marks indicate that the words between them were of verbal origin. accordingly, the symbol # was chosen, primarily because it appears on every typewriter. up to the present time, the use of the symbol # to indicate directed mental communication has been restricted to technical papers, term theses, and scholarly treatises by professors, scholars, and students of telepathy. here, for the first time in any popular work, the symbol # is used to signify that the passage between the marks was mental communication. steve cornell, _m. ing._ stalemate macklin said, "please put that weapon down, mr. cornell. let's not add attempted murder to your other crimes." "don't force me to it, then," i told him. but i knew i couldn't do it. i hated them all. i wanted the whole highways in hiding rolled up like an old discarded carpet, with every mekstrom on earth rolled up in it. but i couldn't pull the trigger. the survivors would have enough savvy to clean up the mess before our bodies got cold, and the highways crowd would be doing business at the same old stand. without, i might add, the minor nuisance that people call steve cornell. what i really wanted was to find catherine. and then it came to me that what i really wanted second of all was to possess a body of mekstrom flesh, to be a physical superman.... i i came up out of the blackness just enough to know that i was no longer pinned down by a couple of tons of wrecked automobile. i floated on soft sheets with only a light blanket over me. i hurt all over like a hundred and sixty pounds of boil. my right arm was numb and my left thigh was aching. breathing felt like being stabbed with rapiers and the skin of my face felt stretched tight. there was a bandage over my eyes and the place was as quiet as the grave. but i knew that i was not in any grave because my nose was working just barely well enough to register the unmistakable pungent odor that only goes with hospitals. i tried my sense of perception, but like any delicate and critical sense, perception was one of the first to go. i could not dig out beyond a few inches. i could sense the bed and the white sheets and that was all. some brave soul had hauled me out of that crack-up before the fuel tank went up in the fire. i hope that whoever he was, he'd had enough sense to haul catherine out of the mess first. the thought of living without catherine was too dark to bear, and so i just let the blackness close down over me again because it cut out all pain, both physical and mental. the next time i awoke there was light and a pleasant male voice saying, "steve cornell. steve, can you hear me?" i tried to answer but no sound came out. not even a hoarse croak. the voice went on, "don't try to talk, steve. just think it." #catherine?# i thought sharply, because most medicos are telepath, not perceptive. "catherine is all right," he replied. #can i see her?# "lord no!" he said quickly. "you'd scare her half to death the way you look right now." #how bad off am i?# "you're a mess, steve. broken ribs, compound fracture of the left tibia, broken humerus. scars, mars, abrasions, some flashburn and post-accident shock. and if you're interested, not a trace of mekstrom's disease." #mekstrom's disease--?# was my thought of horror. "forget it, steve. i always check for it because it's been my specialty. don't worry." #okay. so how long have i been here?# "eight days." #eight days? couldn't you do the usual job?# "you were pretty badly ground up, steve. that's what took the time. now, suppose you tell me what happened?" #catherine and i were eloping. just like most other couples do since rhine institute made it difficult to find personal privacy. then we cracked up.# "what did it?" asked the doctor. "perceptives like you usually sense danger before you can see it." #catherine called my attention to a peculiar road sign, and i sent my perception back to take another dig. we hit the fallen limb of a tree and went over and over. you know the rest.# "bad," said the doctor. "but what kind of a sign would call your interest so deep that you didn't at least see the limb, even if you were perceiving the sign?" #peculiar sign,# i thought. ornamental wrought iron gizmo with curlicues and a little decorative circle that sort of looks like the boy scout tenderfoot badge suspended on three spokes. one of the spokes were broken away; i got involved because i was trying to guess whether it had been shot away by some vandal who missed the central design. then--blooie!# "it's really too bad, steve. but you'll be all right in a while." #thanks, doctor. doctor? doctor--?# "sorry, steve. i forget that everybody is not telepath like i am. i'm james thorndyke." much later i began to wake up again, and with better clarity of mind, i found that i could extend my esper as far as the wall and through the door by a few inches. it was strictly hospital all right; sere white and stainless steel as far as my esper could reach. in my room was a nurse, rustling in starched white. i tried to speak, croaked once, and then paused to form my voice. "can--i see--how is--? where is?" i stopped again, because the nurse was probably as esper as i was and required a full sentence to get the thought behind it. only a telepath like the doctor could have followed my jumbled ideas. but the nurse was good. she tried: "mr. cornell? you're awake!" "look--nurse--" "take it easy. i'm miss farrow. i'll get the doctor." "no--wait. i've been here eight days--?" "but you were badly hurt, you know." "but the doctor. he said that she was here, too." "don't worry about it, mr. cornell." "but he said that she was not badly hurt." "she wasn't." "then why was--is--she here so long?" miss farrow laughed cheerfully. "your christine is in fine shape. she is still here because she wouldn't leave until you were well out of danger. now stop fretting. you'll see her soon enough." her laugh was light but strained. it sounded off-key because it was as off-key as a ten-yard-strip of baldfaced perjury. she left in a hurry and i was able to esper as far as outside the door, where she leaned back against the wood and began to cry. she was hating herself because she had blown her lines and she knew that i knew it. and catherine had never been in this hospital, because if she had been brought in with me, the nurse would have known the right name. not that it mattered to me now, but miss farrow was no esper or she'd have dug my belongings and found catherine's name on the license. miss farrow was a telepath; i'd not called my girl by name, only by an affectionate mental image. ii i was fighting my body upright when doctor thorndyke came running. "easy, steve," he said with a quiet gesture. he pushed me gently back down in the bed with hands that were as soft as a mother's, but as firm as the kind that tie bow knots in half-inch bars. "easy," he repeated soothingly. "catherine?" i croaked pleadingly. thorndyke fingered the call button in some code or other before he answered me. "steve," he said honestly, "you can't be kept in ignorance forever. we hoped it would be a little longer, when you were stronger--" "stop beating around!" i yelled. at least it felt like i was yelling, but maybe it was only my mind welling. "easy, steve. you've had a rough time. shock--" the door opened and a nurse came in with a hypo all loaded, its needle buried in a fluff of cotton. thorndyke eyed it professionally and took it; the nurse faded quietly from the room. "take it easy, steve. this will--" "no! not until i know--" "easy," he repeated. he held the needle up before my eyes. "steve," he said, "i don't know whether you have enough esper training to dig the contents of this needle, but if you haven't, will you please trust me? this contains a neurohypnotic. it won't put you under. it will leave you as wide awake as you are now, but it will disconnect your running gear and keep you from blowing a fuse." then with swift deftness that amazed me, the doctor slid the needle into my arm and let me have the full load. i was feeling the excitement rise in me because something was wrong, but i could also feel the stuff going to work. within half a minute i was in a chilled-off frame of mind that was capable of recognizing the facts but not caring much one way or the other. when he saw the stuff taking hold, thorndyke asked, "steve, just who is catherine?" the shock almost cut through the drug. my mind whirled with all the things that catherine was to me, and the doctor followed it every bit of the way. "steve, you've been under an accident shock. there was no catherine with you. there was no one with you at all. understand that and accept it. no one. you were alone. do you understand?" i shook my head. i sounded to myself like an actor reading the script of a play for the first time. i wanted to pound on the table and add the vigor of physical violence to my hoarse voice, but all i could do was to reply in a calm voice: "catherine was with me. we were--" i let it trail off because thorndyke knew very well what we were doing. we were eloping in the new definition of the word. rhine institute and its associated studies had changed a lot of customs; a couple intending to commit matrimony today were inclined to take off quietly and disappear from their usual haunts until they'd managed to get intimately acquainted with one another. elopement was a means of finding some personal privacy. we should have stayed at home and faced the crude jokes that haven't changed since pithecanthropus first discovered that sex was funny. but our mutual desire to find some privacy in this modern fish-bowl had put me in the hospital and catherine--where--? "steve, listen to me!" "yeah?" "i know you espers. you're sensitive, maybe more so than telepaths. more imagination--" this was for the birds in my estimation. among the customs that rhine has changed was the old argument as to whether women or men were smarter. now the big argument was whether espers or telepaths could get along better with the rest of the world. thorndyke laughed at my objections and went on: "you're in accident shock. you piled up your car. you begin to imagine how terrible it would have been if your catherine had been with you. next you carefully build up in your subconscious mind a whole and complete story, so well put together that to you it seems to be fact." but, #--how could anyone have taken a look at the scene of the accident and not seen traces of woman? my woman.# "we looked," he said in answer to my unspoken question. "there was not a trace, steve." #fingerprints?# "you'd been dating her." #naturally!# thorndyke nodded quietly. "there were a lot of her prints on the remains of your car. but no one could begin to put a date on them, or tell how recent was the latest, due to the fire. then we made a door to door canvas of the neighborhood to be sure she hadn't wandered off in a daze and shock. not even a footprint. nary a trace." he shook his head unhappily. "i suppose you're going to ask about that travelling bag you claim to have put in the trunk beside your own. there was no trace of any travelling bag." "doctor," i asked pointedly, "if we weren't together, suppose you tell me first why i had a marriage license in my pocket; second, how come i made a date with the reverend towle in midtown; and third, why did i bother to reserve the bridal suite in the reignoir hotel in westlake? or was i nuts a long time before this accident. maybe," i added, "after making reservations, i had to go out and pile myself up as an excuse for not turning up with a bride." "i--all i can say is that there was not a trace of woman in that accident." "you've been digging in my mind. did you dig her telephone number?" he looked at me blankly. "and you found what, when you tried to call her?" "i--er--" "her landlady told you that miss lewis was not in her apartment because miss lewis was on her honeymoon, operating under the name of mrs. steve cornell. that about it?" "all right. so now you know." "then where the hell is she, doc?" the drug was not as all-powerful as it had been and i was beginning to feel excitement again. "we don't know, steve." "how about the guy that hauled me out of that wreck? what does he say?" "he was there when we arrived. the car had been hauled off you by block and tackle. by the time we got there the tackle had been burned and the car was back down again in a crumpled mass. he is a farmer by the name of harrison. he had one of his older sons with him, a man about twenty-four, named phillip. they both swore later that there was no woman in that car nor a trace of one." "oh, he did, did he?" dr. thorndyke shook his head slowly and then said very gently. "steve, there's no predicting what a man's mind will do in a case of shock. i've seen 'em come up with a completely false identity, all the way back to childhood. now, let's take your case once more. among the other incredible items--" "incredible?" i roared. "easy. hear me out. after all, am i to believe your unsubstantiated story or the evidence of a whole raft of witnesses, the police detail, the accident squad, and the guys who hauled you out of a burning car before it blew up? as i was saying, how can we credit much of your tale when you raved about one man lifting the car and the other hauling you out from underneath?" i shrugged. "that's obviously a mistaken impression. no one could--" "so when you admit that one hunk of your story is mistaken--" "that doesn't prove the rest is false!" "the police have been tracking this affair hard," said the doctor slowly. "they've gotten nowhere. tell me, did anyone see you leave that apartment with miss lewis?" "no," i said slowly. "no one that knew us." thorndyke shook his head unhappily. "that's why we have to assume that you are in post-accident shock." i snorted angrily. "then explain the license, the date with the reverend, the hotel reservation?" thorndyke said quietly, "hear me out, steve. this is not my own idea alone, but the combined ideas of a number of people who have studied the human mind--" "in other words, i'm nuts?" "no. shock." "shock?" he nodded very slowly. "let's put it this way. let's assume that you wanted this marriage with miss lewis. you made preparations, furnished an apartment, got a license, made a date with a preacher, reserved a honeymoon suite, and bought flowers for the bride. you take off from work, arrive at her door, only to find that miss lewis has taken off for parts unknown. maybe she left you a letter--" "letter!" "hear me out, steve. you arrive at her apartment and find her gone. you read a letter from her saying that she cannot marry you. this is a rather deep shock to you and you can't face it. know what happens?" "i blow my brains out along a country road at ninety miles per hour." "please, this is serious." "it sounds incredibly stupid to me." "you're rejecting it in the same way you rejected the fact that miss lewis ran away rather than marry you." "do go on, doctor." "you drive along the same road you'd planned to take, but the frustration and shock pile up to put you in an accident-prone frame of mind. you then pile up, not consciously, but as soon as you come upon something like that tree limb which can be used to make an accident authentic." "oh, sure." thorndyke eyed me soberly. "steve," he asked me in a brittle voice, "you won't try to convince me that any esper will let physical danger of that sort get close enough to--" "i've told you how it happened. my attention was on that busted sign!" "fine. more evidence to the fact that miss lewis was with you? now listen to me. in accident-shock you'd not remember anything that your mind didn't want you to recall. failure is a hard thing to take. so now you can blame your misfortune on that accident." "so now you tell me how you justify the fact that catherine told landladies, friends, bosses, and all the rest that she was going to marry me a good long time before i was ready to be verbal about my plans?" "i--" "suppose i've succeeded in bribing everybody to perjure themselves. maybe we all had it in for catherine, and did her in?" thorndyke shrugged. "i don't know," he said. "i really don't know, steve. i wish i did." "that makes two of us," i grunted. "hasn't anybody thought of arresting me for kidnapping, suspicion of murder, reckless driving and cluttering up the highway with junk?" "yes," he said quietly. "the police were most thorough. they had two of their top men look into you." "what did they find?" i asked angrily. no man likes to have his mind turned inside out and laid out flat so that all the little wheels, cables and levers are open to the public gaze. on the other hand, since i was not only innocent of any crime but as baffled as the rest of them, i'd have gone to them willingly to let them dig, to see if they could dig past my conscious mind into the real truth. "they found that your story was substantially an honest one." "then why all this balderdash about shock, rejection, and so on?" he shook his head. "none of us are supermen," he said simply. "your story was honest, you weren't lying. you believe every word of it. you saw it, you went through it. that doesn't prove your story true." "now see here--" "it does prove one thing; that you, steve cornell, did not have any malicious, premeditated plans against catherine lewis. they've checked everything from hell to breakfast, and so far all we can do is make long-distance guesses as to what happened." i snorted in my disgust. "that's a telepath for you. everything so neatly laid out in rows of slats like a snow fence. me--i'm going to consult a scholar and have him really dig me deep." thorndyke shook his head. "they had their top men, steve. scholar redfern and scholar berks. both of them rhine scholars, _magna cum laude_." i blinked as i always do when i am flabbergasted. i've known a lot of doctors of this and that, from medicine to languages. i've even known a scholar or two, but none of them intimately. but when a doctor of psi is invited to take his scholarte at rhine, that's it, brother; i pass. thorndyke smiled. "you weren't too bad yourself, steve. ran twelfth in your class at illinois, didn't you?" i nodded glumly. "i forgot to cover the facts. they'd called all the bright boys out and collected them under one special-study roof. i majored in mechanical ingenuity not psi. hoped to get a d. ing. out of it, at least, but had to stop. partly because i'm not ingenious enough and partly because i ran out of cash." doctor thorndyke nodded. "i know how it is," he said. i realized that he was leading me away from the main subject gently, but i couldn't see how to lead him back without starting another verbal hassle. he had me cold. he could dig my mind and get the best way to lead me away, while i couldn't read his. i gave up. it felt better, too, getting my mind off this completely baffling puzzle even for a moment. he caught my thoughts but his face didn't twitch a bit as he picked up his narrative smoothly: "i didn't make it either," he said unhappily. "i'm psi and good. but i'm telepath and not esper. i weasled my way through pre-med and medical by main force and awkwardness, so to speak." he grinned at me sheepishly. "i'm not much different than you or any other psi. the espers all think that perception is superior to the ability to read minds, and vice versa. i was going to show 'em that a telepath can make scholar of medicine. so i 'pathed my way through med by reading the minds of my fellows, who were all good espers. i got so good that i could read the mind of an esper watching me do a delicate dissecting job, and move my hands according to his perception. i could diagnose the deep ills with the best of them--so long as there was an esper in the place." "so what tripped you up?" "telepaths make out best dealing with people. espers do better with things." "isn't medicine a field that deals with people?" he shook his head. "not when a headache means spinal tumor, or indigestion, or a bad cold. 'doctor,' says the patient, 'i've a bad ache along my left side just below the ribs,' and after you diagnose, it turns out to be acute appendicitis. you see, steve, the patient doesn't know what's wrong with him. only the symptoms. a telepath can follow the patient's symptoms perfectly, but it takes an esper to dig in his guts and perceive the tumor that's pressing on the spine or the striae on his liver." "yeah." "so i flopped on a couple of tests that the rest of the class sailed through, just because i was not fast enough to read their minds and put my own ability to work. it made 'em suspicious and so here i am, a mere doctor instead of a scholar." "there are fields for you, i'm sure." he nodded. "two. psychiatry and psychology, neither of which i have any love for. and medical research, where the ability to grasp another doctor or scholar's plan, ideas and theories is slightly more important than the ability to dig esper into the experiments." "don't see that," i said with a shake of my head. "well, steve, let's take mekstrom's disease, for instance." "let's take something simple. what i know about mekstrom's disease could be carved on the head of a pin with a blunt butter knife." "let's take mekstrom's. that's my chance to make scholar of medicine, steve, if i can come up with an answer to one of the minor questions. i'll be in the clinical laboratory where the only cases present are those rare cases of mekstrom's. the other doctors, espers every one of them, and the scholars over them, will dig the man's body right down to the last cell, looking and combing--you know some of the better espers can actually dig into the constituency of a cell?--but i'll be the doctor who can collect all their information, correlate it, and maybe come up with an answer." "you picked a dilly," i told him. it was a real one, all right. otto mekstrom had been a mechanic-tech at white sands space station during the first flight to venus, mars and moon round-trip with landings. about two weeks after the ship came home, otto mekstrom's left fingertips began to grow hard. the hardening crawled up slowly until his hand was like a rock. they studied him and worked over him and took all sorts of samples and made all sorts of tests until otto's forearm was as hard as his hand. then they amputated at the shoulder. but by that time, otto mekstrom's toes on both feet were getting solid and his other hand was beginning to show signs of the same. on one side of the creepline the flesh was soft and normal, but on the other it was all you could do to poke a sharp needle into the skin. poor otto ended up a basket case, just in time to have the damned stuff start all over again at the stumps of his arms and legs. he died when hardening reached his vitals. since that day, some twenty-odd years ago, there had been about thirty cases a year turn up. all fatal, despite amputations and everything else known to modern medical science. god alone knew how many unfortunate human beings took to suicide without contacting the big medical research center at marion, indiana. well, if thorndyke could uncover something, no one could claim that a telepath had no place in medicine. i wished him luck. i did not see thorndyke again in that hospital. they released me the next day and then i had nothing to do but to chew my fingernails and wonder what had happened to catherine. iii i'd rather not go into the next week and a half in detail. i became known as the bridegroom who lost his bride, and between the veiled accusations and the half-covered snickers, life was pretty miserable. i talked to the police a couple-three times, first as a citizen asking for information and ending up as a complainant against party or parties unknown. the latter got me nowhere. apparently the police had more lines out than the grand bank fishing fleet and were getting no more nibbles than they'd get in the dead sea. they admitted it; the day had gone when the police gave out news reports that an arrest was expected hourly, meaning that they were baffled. the police, with their fine collection of psi boys, were willing to admit when they were really baffled. i talked to telepaths who could tell me what i'd had for breakfast on the day i'd entered pre-school classes, and espers who could sense the color of the clothing i wore yesterday. i've a poor color-esper, primitive so to speak. these guys were good, but no matter how good they were, catherine lewis had vanished as neatly as ambrose bierce. i even read charles fort, although i have no belief in the supernatural, and rather faint faith in the hereafter. and people who enter the hereafter leave their remains behind for evidence. having to face catherine's mother and father, who came east to see me, made me a complete mental wreck. it is harder than you think to face the parents of a woman you loved, and find that all you can tell them is that somehow you fouled your drive, cracked up, and lost their daughter. not even dead-for-sure. death, i think, we all could have faced. but this uncertainty was something that gnawed at the soul's roots and left it rotting. to stand there and watch the tears in the eyes of a woman as she asks you, "but can't you remember, son?" is a little too much, and i don't care to go into details. the upshot of it was, after about ten days of lying awake nights and wondering where she was and why. watching her eyes peer out of a metal casting at me from a position sidewise of my head. nightmares, either the one about us turning over and over and over, or mrs. lewis pleading with me only to tell her the truth. then having the police inform me that they were marking this case down as "unexplained." i gave up. i finally swore that i was going to find her and return with her, or i was going to join her in whatever strange, unknown world she had entered. * * * * * the first thing i did was to go back to the hospital in the hope that dr. thorndyke might be able to add something. in my unconscious ramblings there might be something that fell into a pattern if it could be pieced together. but this was a failure, too. the hospital super was sorry, but dr. thorndyke had left for the medical research center a couple of days before. nor could i get in touch with him because he had a six-week interim vacation and planned a long, slow jaunt through yellowstone, with neither schedule nor forwarding addresses. i was standing there on the steps hoping to wave down a cruising coptercab when the door opened and a woman came out. i turned to look and she recognized me. it was miss farrow, my former nurse. "why, mr. cornell, what are you doing back here?" "mostly looking for thorndyke. he's not here." "i know. isn't it wonderful, though? he'll get his chance to study for his scholarte now." i nodded glumly. "yeah," i said. it probably sounded resentful, but it is hard to show cheer over the good fortune of someone else when your own world has come unglued. "still hoping," she said. it was a statement and not a question. i nodded slowly. "i'm hoping," i said. "someone has the answer to this puzzle. i'll have to find it myself. everyone else has given up." "i wish you luck," said miss farrow with a smile. "you certainly have the determination." i grunted. "it's about all i have. what i need is training. here i am, a mechanical engineer, about to tackle the job of a professional detective and tracer of missing persons. about all i know about the job is what i have read. one gets the idea that these writers must know something of the job, the way they write about it. but once you're faced with it yourself, you realize that the writer has planted his own clues." miss farrow nodded. "one thing," she suggested, "have you talked to the people who got you out from under your car yet?" "no, i haven't. the police talked to them and claimed they knew nothing. i doubt that i can ask them anything that the police have not satisfied themselves about." miss farrow looked up at me sidewise. "you won't find anything by asking people who have never heard of you." "i suppose not." a coptercab came along at that moment, and probably sensing my intention, he gave his horn a tap. i'd have liked to talk longer with miss farrow, but a cab was what i wanted, so with a wave i took it and she went on down the steps to her own business. i had to pause long enough to buy a new car, but a few hours afterward i was rolling along that same highway with my esper extended as far as i could in all directions. i was driving slowly, this time both alert and ready. i went past the scene of the accident slowly and shut my mind off as i saw the black-burned patch. the block was still hanging from an overhead branch, and the rope that had burned off was still dangling, about two feet of it, looped through the pulleys and ending in a tapered, burned end. i turned left into a driveway toward the home of the harrisons and went along a winding dirt road, growing more and more conscious of a dead area ahead of me. it was not a real dead zone, because i could still penetrate some of the region. but as far as really digging any of the details of the rambling harrison house, i could get more from my eyesight than from any sense of perception. but even if they couldn't find a really dead area, the harrisons had done very well in finding one that made my sense of perception ineffective. it was sort of like looking through a light fog, and the closer i got to the house the thicker it became. just about the point where the dead area was first beginning to make its effect tell, i came upon a tall, browned man of about twenty-four who had been probing into the interior of a tractor up to the time he heard my car. he waved, and i stopped. "mr. harrison?" "i'm phillip. and you are mr. cornell." "call me steve like everybody else," i said. "how'd you guess?" "recognized you," he said with a grin. "i'm the guy that pulled you out." "thanks," i said, offering a hand. he chuckled. "steve, consider the hand taken and shook, because i've enough grime to muss up a regiment." "it won't bother me," i said. "thanks, but it's still a gesture, and i appreciate it, but let's be sensible. i know you can wash, but let's shake later. what can i do for you?" "i'd like a first-hand account, phil." "not much to tell. dad and i were pulling stumps over about a thousand feet from the wreck. we heard the racket. i am esper enough to dig that distance with clarity, so we knew we'd better bring along the block and tackle. the tractor wouldn't go through. so we came on the double, dad rigged the tackle and hoisted and i took a running dive, grabbed and hauled you out before the whole thing went _whoosh!_ we were both lucky, steve." i grunted a bit but managed to nod with a smile. "i suppose you know that i'm still trying to find my fiancã©e?" "i'd heard tell," he said. he looked at me sharply. i'm a total blank as a telepath, like all espers, but i could tell what he was thinking. "everybody is convinced that catherine was not with me," i admitted. "but i'm not. i know she was." he shook his head slowly. "as soon as we heard the screech of brakes and rubber we esped the place," he said quietly. "we dug you, of course. but no one else. even if she'd jumped as soon as that tree limb came into view, she could not have run far enough to be out of range. as for removing a bag, she'd have had to wait until the slam-bang was over to get it out, and by the time your car was finished rolling, dad and i were on the way with help. she was not there, steve." #you're a goddam liar!# phillip harrison did not move a muscle. he was blank telepathically. i was esping the muscles in his stomach, under his loose clothing, for that first tensing sign of anger, but nothing showed. he had not been reading my mind. i smiled thinly at phil harrison and shrugged. he smiled back sympathetically, but behind it i could see that he was wishing that i'd stop harping on a dead subject. "i sincerely wish i could be of help," he said. in that he was sincere. but somewhere, someone was not, and i wanted to find out who it was. the impasse looked as though it might go on forever unless i turned away and left. i had no desire to leave. not that phil could help me, but even though this was a dead end, i was loath to leave the place because it was the last place where i had been close to catherine. the silence between us must have been a bit strained at this point, but luckily we had an interruption. i perceived motion, turned and caught sight of a woman coming along the road toward us. "my sister," said phil. "marian." marian harrison was quite a girl; if i'd not been emotionally tied to catherine lewis, i'd have been happy to invite myself in. marian was almost as tall as i am, a dark, brown-haired woman with eyes of a startling, electricity colored blue. she was about twenty-two, young and healthy. her skin was tanned toast brown so that the bright blue eyes fairly sparked out at you. her red mouth made a pleasing blend with the tan of her skin and her teeth gleamed white against the dark when she smiled. insultingly, i made some complimentary but impolite mental observations about her figure, but marion did not appear to notice. she was no telepath. "you're mr. cornell," she said, "i remembered you," she said quietly. "please believe us, mr. cornell, when we extend our sympathy." "thanks," i said glumly. "please understand me, miss harrison. i appreciate your sympathy, but what i need is action and information and answers. once i get those, the sympathy won't be needed." "of course i understand," she replied instantly. "we are all aware that sympathy is a poor substitute. all the world grieving with you doesn't turn a stitch to help you out of your trouble. all we can do is to wish, with you, that it hadn't happened." "that's the point," i said helplessly. "i don't even know what happened." "that makes it even worse," she said softly. marian had a pleasant voice, throaty and low, that sounded intimate even when talking about something pragmatic. "i wish we could help you, steve." "i wish someone could." she nodded. "they asked me about it, too, even though i was not present until afterward. they asked me," she said thoughtfully, "about the mental attitude of a woman running off to get married. i told them that i couldn't speak for your woman, but that i might be able to speak for me, putting myself in the same circumstances." she paused a moment, and her brother turned idly back to his tractor and fitted a small end wrench to a bolt-head and gave it a twist. he seemed to think that as long as marian and i were talking, he could well afford to get along with his work. i agreed with him. i wanted information, but i did not expect the entire world to stop progress to help me. he spun the bolt and started on another, lost in his job while marian went on: "i told them that your story was authentic--the one about the bridal nightgown." a very slight color came under the deep tan. "i told them that i have one, too, still in its wrapper, and that someday i'd be planning marriage and packing a go-away bag with the gown shaken out and then packed neatly. i told them that i'd be doing the same thing no matter whether we were having a formal church wedding with a four-alarm reception and all the trimmings or a quiet elopement such as you were. i told them that it was the essentials that count, not the trimmings and the tinsel. my questioner's remark was to the effect that either you were telling the truth, or that you had esped a woman about to marry and identified her actions with your own wishes." "i know which," i said with a sour smile. "it was both." marian nodded. "then they asked me if it were probable that a woman would take this step completely unprepared and i laughed at them. i told them that long before rhine, women were putting their nuptial affairs in order about the time the gentleman was beginning to view marriage with an attitude slightly less than loathing, and that by the time he popped the question, she'd been practicing writing her name as 'mrs.' and picking out the china-ware and prospective names for the children, and that if any woman had ever been so stunned by a proposal of marriage that she'd take off without so much as a toothbrush, no one in history had ever heard of her." "then you begin to agree with me?" she shrugged. "please," she said in that low voice, "don't ask me my opinion of your veracity. you believe it, but all the evidence lies against you. there was not a shred of woman-trace anywhere along your course, from the point along the road where you first caught sight of the limb that threw you to the place where you piled up. nor was there a trace anywhere in a vast circle--almost a half mile they searched--from the crack-up. they had doctors of psi digging for footprints, shreds of clothing, everything. not a trace." "but where did she go?" i cried, and when i say 'cried' i mean just that. marian shook her head very slowly. "steve," she said in a voice so low that i could hardly hear her over the faint shrill of bolts being unscrewed by her brother, "so far as we know, she was never here. why don't you forget her--" i looked at her. she stood there, poised and a bit tensed as though she were trying to force some feeling of affectionate kinhood across the gap that separated us, as though she wanted to give me both physical and mental comfort despite the fact that we were strangers on a ten-minute first-meeting. there was distress in her face. "forget her--?" i ground out. "i'd rather die!" "oh steve--no!" one hand went to her throat and the other came out to fasten around my forearm. her grip was hard. i stood there wondering what to do next. marian's grip on my arm relaxed and she stepped back. i pulled myself together. "i'm sorry," i told her honestly. "i'm putting you through a set of emotional hurdles by bringing my problems here. i'd better take them away." she nodded very slowly. "please go. but please come back once you get yourself squared away, no matter how. we'd all like to see you when you aren't all tied up inside." phil looked up from the guts of the tractor. "take it easy, steve," he said. "and remember that you do have friends here." blindly i turned from them and stumbled back to my car. they were a pair of very fine people, firm, upright. marian's grip on my arm had been no weaker than her sympathy, and phil's less-emotional approach to my trouble was no less deep, actually. it was as strong as his good right arm, loosening the head bolts of a tractor engine with a small adjustable wrench. i'd be back. i wanted to see them again. i wanted to go back there with catherine and introduce them to her. but i was definitely going to go back. i was quite a way toward home before i realized that i had not met the old man. i bet myself that father harrison was quite the firm, active patriarch. iv the days dragged slowly. i faced each morning hopefully at first, but as the days dragged on and on, i began to feel that each morning was opening another day of futility, to be barely borne until it was time to flop down in weariness. i faced the night in loneliness and in anger at my own inability to do something productive. i pestered the police until they escorted me to the door and told me that if i came again, they'd take me to another kind of door and loose thereafter the key. i shrugged and left disconsolately, because by that time i had been able to esp, page by page, the entire file that dealt with the case of "missing person: lewis, catherine," stamped "inactive, but not closed." i hated the words. but as the days dragged out, one after another, with no respite and no hope, my raw nervous system began to heal. it was probably a case of numbness; you maul your thumb with a hammer and it will hurt just so long before it stops. i was numb for a long time. i remember night after night, lying awake and staring into the darkness at the wall i knew was beside me, and i hated my esper because i wanted to project my mind out across some unknown space to reach for catherine's mind. if we'd both been telepaths we could cross the universe to touch each other with that affectionate tenderness that mated telepaths always claim they have. instead i found myself more aware of a clouded-veil perception of marian harrison as she took my arm and looked into my face on that day when i admitted that i found little worth living for. i knew what that meant--nothing. it was a case of my subconscious mind pointing out that the available present was more desirable than the unavailable not-present. at first i resented my apparent inconstancy in forming an esper projection of marian harrison when i was trying to project my blank telepathic inadequacy to catherine. but as the weeks faded into the past, the shock and the frustration began to pale and i found marian's projective image less and less an unwanted intrusion and more and more pleasant. i had two deeply depressed spells in those six weeks. at the end of the fourth week i received a small carton containing some of my personal junk that had been in catherine's apartment. a man can't date his girl for weeks without dropping a few things like a cigarette lighter, a tie clip, one odd cuff-link, some papers, a few letters, some books, and stuff both valuable and worthless that had turned up as gifts for one reason or another. it was a shock to get this box and its arrival bounced me deep into a doldrum-period of three or four days. then at the end of the sixth week i received a card from dr. thorndyke. it contained a lithograph in stereo of some scene in yellowstone other than old faithful blowing its stack. on the message side was a cryptic note: _steve: i just drove along that road in the right side of the picture. it reminded me of yours, so i'm writing because i want to know how you are making out. i'll be at the med-center in a couple of weeks, you can write me there. jim thorndyke._ i turned the postcard over and eyed it critically. then i got it. along the roadside was a tall ornamental standard of wrought iron. the same design as the road signs along that fatal highway of mine. i sat there with a magnifying glass on the roadsign; its stereo image standing up alongside the road in full color and solidity. it took me back to that moment when catherine had wriggled against my side, thrilling me with her warmth and eagerness. that put me down a few days, too. * * * * * another month passed. i'd come out of my shell quite a bit in the meantime. i now felt that i could walk in a bar and have a drink without wondering whether all the other people in the place were pointing at me. i'd cut myself off from all my previous friends, and i'd made no new friends in the weeks gone by. but i was getting more and more lonely and consequently more and more inclined to speak to people and want friends. the accident had paled from its original horror; the vital scene returned only infrequently. catherine was assuming the position of a lost love rather than a sweetheart expected to return soon. i remembered the warmth of her arms and the eagerness of her kiss in a nostalgic way and my mind, especially when in a doze, would play me tricks. i would recall catherine, but when she came into my arms, i'd be holding marian, brown and tawny, with her electric blue eyes and her vibrant nature. but i did nothing about it. i knew that once i had asked marian harrison for a date i would be emotionally involved. and then if--no, when--catherine turned up i would be torn between desires. i would wake up and call myself all sorts of a fool. i had seen marian for a total of perhaps fifteen minutes--in the company of her brother. but eventually dreaming loses its sting just as futile waiting and searching does, and i awoke one morning in a long and involved debate between my id and my conscience. i decided at that moment that i would take that highway out and pay a visit to the harrison farm. i was salving my slightly rusty conscience by telling myself that it was because i had never paid my respects to father harrison, but not too deep inside i knew that if father were missing and daughter were present i'd enjoy my visit to the farm with more relish. but my id took a licking because the doorbell rang about nine o'clock that morning and when i dug the doorstep i came up with two gentlemen wearing gold badges in leather folders in their jacket pockets. i opened the door because i couldn't have played absent to a team consisting of one esper and one telepath. they both knew i was home. "mr. cornell, we'll waste no time. we want to know how well you know doctor james thorndyke." i didn't blink at the bluntness of it. it is standard technique when an esper-telepath team go investigating. the telepath knew all about me, including the fact that i'd dug their wallets and identification cards, badges and the serial numbers of the nasty little automatics they carried. the idea was to drive the important question hard and first; it being impossible to not-think the several quick answers that pop through your mind. what i knew about thorndyke was sketchy enough but they got it all because i didn't have any reason for covering up. i let them know that, too. finally, #that's about all,# i thought. #now--why?# the telepath half of the team answered. "normally we wouldn't answer, mr. cornell, unless you said it aloud. but we don't mind letting you know which of us is the telepath this time. to answer, you are the last person to have received any message from thorndyke." "i--what?" "that postcard. it was the last contact thorndyke made with anyone. he has disappeared." "but--" "thorndyke was due to arrive at the medical research center in marion, indiana, three weeks ago. we've been tracking him ever since he failed to turn up. we've been able to retrace his meanderings very well up to a certain point in yellowstone. there the trail stops. he had a telephoned reservation to a small hotel; there he dropped out of sight. now, mr. cornell, may i see that postcard?" "certainly." i got it for them. the esper took it over to the window and eyed it in the light, and as he did that i went over to stand beside him and together we espered that postcard until i thought the edges would start to curl. but if there were any codes, concealed writings or any other form of hidden meaning or message in or on that card, i didn't dig any. i gave up. i'm no trained investigator. but i knew that thorndyke was fairly well acquainted with the depth of my perceptive sense, and he would not have concealed anything too deep for me. then the esper shook his head. he handed me the card. "not a trace." the telepath nodded. he looked at me and smiled sort of thin and strained. "we're naturally interested in you, mr. cornell. this seems to be the second disappearance. and you know nothing about either." "i know," i said slowly. the puzzle began to go around and around in my head again, all the way back to that gleaming road and the crack-up. "we'll probably be back, mr. cornell. you don't mind?" "look," i told them rather firmly, "if this puzzle can be unwound, i'll be one of the happiest men on the planet. if i can do anything to help, just say the word." they left after that and so did i. i was still going to pay my visit to the harrison farm. another wild goose chase, but somewhere along this cockeyed row there was an angle. honest people who are healthy and fairly happy with good prospects ahead of them do not just drop out of sight without a trace. * * * * * a couple of hours later i was making a good pace along the highway again. it was getting familiar to me. i could not avoid letting my perceptive sense rest on the sign as i drove past. not long enough to put me in danger, but long enough to discover to my surprise that someone had taken the trouble to repair the broken spoke. someone must have been a perfectionist. the break was so slight that it seemed like calling in a mechanic because the ashtray in the car is full. then i noticed other changes that time had caused. the burned scar was fading in a growth of tall weeds. the limb of the tree that hung out over the scene, from which block and tackle had hung, was beginning to lose its smoke-blackened appearance. the block was gone from the limb. _give us a year_, i thought, _and the only remaining scar will be the one on my mind, and even that will be fading_. i turned into the drive, wound around the homestead road, and pulled up in front of the big, rambling house. it looked bleak. the front lawn was a bit shaggy and there were some wisps of paper on the front porch. the venetian blinds were down and slatted shut behind closed windows. since it was summer by now, the closed windows and the tight door, neither of which had flyscreens installed, quickly gave the fact away. the harrisons were gone. another disappearance? i turned quickly and drove to the nearest town and went to the post office. "i'm looking for the harrison family," i told the man behind the wicket. "why, they moved several weeks ago." "moved?" i asked with a blank-sounding voice. the clerk nodded. then he leaned forward and said in a confidential whisper, "heard a rumor that the girl got a touch of that spacemen's disease." "mekstrom's?" i blurted. the clerk looked at me as if i'd shouted a dirty word. "she was a fine girl," he said softly. "it's a shame." i nodded and he went into the back files. i tried to dig alone behind him, but the files were in a small dead area in the rear of the building. i swore under my breath although i'd expected to find files in dead areas. just as rhine institute was opened, the government combed the countryside for dead or cloudy areas for their secret and confidential files. there had been one mad claim-staking rush with the government about six feet ahead of the rest of the general public, business and the underworld. he came back with a sorrowful look. "they left a concealed address," he said. i felt like flashing a twenty at him like a private eye did in the old tough-books, but i knew it wouldn't work. rhine also made it impossible for a public official to take a bribe. so instead, i tried to look distressed. "this is extremely important. i'd say it was a matter of life and death." "i'm sorry. a concealed forwarding address is still concealed. if you must get in touch with them, you might drop them a letter to be forwarded. then if they care to answer, they'll reply to your home." "later," i told him. "i'll probably be back to mail it direct from here." he waved at the writing desk. i nodded and left. i drove back to the ex-harrison farm slowly, thinking it over. wondering. people did not just go around catching mekstrom's disease, from what little i knew of it. and somehow the idea of marian harrison withering away or becoming a basket case, or maybe taking the painless way out was a thought that my mind kept avoiding except for occasional flashes of horror. i drove in toward the farmhouse again and parked in front of the verandah. i was not sure of why i was there except that i wanted to wander through it to see what i could find before i went back to the post-office to write that card or letter. the back of the house was locked with an old-fashioned slide bolt that was turned with what they used to call an "e" key. i shrugged, oiled my conscience and found a bit of bent wire. probing a lock like that would have been easy for a total blank; with esper i lifted the simple keepers and slid back the bolt almost as swiftly as if i had used a proper key. this was no case of disappearance. in every one of the fourteen rooms were the unmistakable signs of a deliberate removal. discarded stuff was mixed with the odds and ends of packing case materials, a scattered collection of temporary nails, a half-finished but never used box filled with old clothing. i pawed through this but found nothing, even though i separated it from the rest to help my esper dig it without interference. i roamed the house slowly letting my perception wander from point to point. i tried to time-dig the place but that was futile. i didn't have enough perception. i caught only one response. it was in one of the upper bedrooms. but then as i stopped in the room where marian had slept, i began again to doubt my senses. it could have been esper, but it was more likely that i'd caught the dying traces of perfume. then i suddenly realized that the entire premises were clear to me! an esper map of the world looked sort of like a mottled sky, with bright places and cloudy patches strewn in disorder across it. a mottled sky, except that the psi-pattern usually does not change. but this house had been in a murky area, if not dead. now it was clear. i left the house and went to the big combination barn and garage. it was as unsatisfying as the house had been. phillip harrison, or someone, had had a workshop out there. i found the bench and a small table where bolt-holes, oil marks, and other traces said that there had been one of those big combination woodworking machines there, the kind that combines circular saw, drill, lathe, planer, router, dado, and does everything. there had been some metal-working stuff there, too, but nothing as elaborate as the woodshop. mostly things like hacksaws and an electric drill, and a circular scar where a blowtorch had been sitting. i don't know why i kept on standing there esping the abandoned set-up. maybe it was because my esper dug the fact that there was something there that i should know about, but which was so minute or remote that the impression did not come through. i stood there puzzled at my own reluctance to leave until something satisfied that almost imperceptible impression. idly i leaned down and picked up a bit of metal from the floor and fumbled it in my hand nervously. i looked around the place with my eyes and saw nothing. i gave the whole garage a thorough scanning with my esper and got zero for my trouble. finally i snarled at myself for being an imbecile, and left. everyone has done what i did, time and time again. i do not recall anything of my walk back to the car, lost in a whirl of thoughts, ideas, plans and questions. i would probably have driven all the way back to my apartment with my mind in that whirligig, driving by habit and training, but i was shaken out of it because i could not start my car by poking that bit of metal in the lock. it did not fit. i laughed, a bit ashamed of my preoccupation, and flung the bit of metal into the grass, poked my key in the lock-and then i was out pawing the grass for that piece of metal. for the small piece of metal i had found on the floor of the abandoned workshop was the spoke of that road sign that had been missing when catherine and i cracked up! i drove out along the highway and stopped near one of the standards. i esped the sign, compared my impression against my eyesight. i made sure. that bit of metal, a half inch long and a bit under a quarter inch in diameter, with both ends faintly broken-ragged, was identical in size and shape to the unbroken spokes in the sign! then i noticed something else. the trefoil ornament in the middle did not look the same as i recalled them. i took thorndyke's card out of my pocket and looked at the stereo. i compared the picture against the real thing before me and i knew that i was right. the trefoil gizmo was a take-off on the fleur-de-lis or the boy scout tenderfoot badge, or the design they use to signify north on a compass. but the lower flare of the leaves was wider than any of the more familiar emblems; almost as wide as the top. it took a comparison to tell the difference between one of them right-side-up and another one upside-down. one assumes for this design that the larger foils are supposed to be up. if that were so, then the ones along that road out there in or near yellowstone were right-side-up, while the ones along my familiar highway were upside-down. i goaded myself. #memory, have these things been turned or were they always upside-down?# the last thing i did as i turned off the highway was to stop and let my esper dig that design once more. i covered the design itself, let my perception roam along the spokes, and then around the circlet that supported the spokes that held the trefoil emblem. oh, it was not obvious. it was designed in, so to speak. if i were asked even today for my professional opinion i would have to admit that the way the circlet snapped into the rest of the ornamental scrollwork was a matter of good assembly design, and not a design deliberately created so that the emblem could be turned upside down. in fact, if it had not been for that tiny, broken spoke i found on the floor of the harrison garage, never in a million years would i have considered these road signs significant. * * * * * at the post office i wrote a letter to phillip harrison: _dear phil:_ _i was by your old place today and was sorry to find that you had moved. i'd like to get in touch with you again. if i may ask, please send me your forwarding address. i'll keep it concealed if you like, or i'll reply through the post office, concealed forward._ _as an item of interest, did you know that your house has lost its deadness? a medium-equipped esper can dig it with ease. have you ever heard of the psi-pattern changing before?_ _ah, and another item, that road sign with the busted spoke has been replaced. you must be a bum shot, not to hit that curlicue in the middle. i found the spoke you hit on the floor of your garage, if you'd like it for a souvenir of one close miss._ _please write and let me know how things are going. rumor has it that marian contracted mekstrom's and if you will pardon my mentioning a delicate subject, i am doing so because i really want to help if i am able. after all, no matter how lightly you hold it, i still owe you my life. this is a debt i do not intend to forget._ _sincerely,_ _steve cornell._ v i did not go to the police. they were sick of my face and already considering me a candidate for the paranoid ward. all i would have to do is go roaring into the station to tell them that i had uncovered some deep plot where the underground was using ornamental road signs to conceal their own network of roads and directions, and that the disappearance of catherine lewis, dr. thorndyke and the removal of the harrisons were all tied together. instead, i closed my apartment and told everyone that i was going to take a long, rambling tourist jaunt to settle my nerves; that i thought getting away from the scene might finish the job that time and rest had started. then i started to drive. i drove for several days, not attempting to pace off miles, but covering a lot of aimless-direction territory. i was just as likely to spend four hours going north on one highway, and then take the next four coming back south on a parallel highway, and sometimes i even came back to the original starting place. after a week i had come no farther west than across that sliver of west virginia into eastern ohio. and in eastern ohio i saw some more of the now familiar and suspicious road signs. the emblem was right side up, and the signs looked as though they had not been up long. i followed that road for seventy-five miles, and as i went the signs kept getting newer and newer until i finally came to a truck loaded with pipe, hardware, and ornamental ironwork. leading the truck was one of those iron mole things. i watched the automatic gear hoist one of the old pipe and white and black enamel roadsigns up by its roots, and place it on a truck full of discards. i watched the mole drive a corkscrew blade into the ground with a roaring of engine and bucking of the truck. it paused, pulled upward to bring out the screw and its load of dirt, stones and gravel. the crew placed one of the new signs in the cradle and i watched the machine set the sign upright, pour the concrete, tamp down the earth, and then move along down the road. there was little point in asking questions of the crew, so i just took off and drove to columbus as hard as i could make it. * * * * * shined, cleaned, polished, and very conservatively dressed, i presented myself to the state commissioner of roads and highways. i toyed briefly with the idea of representing myself as a minor official from some distant state like alaska or the virgin islands, inquiring about these signs for official reasons. but then i knew that if i bumped into a hot telepath i'd be in the soup. on the other hand, mere curiosity on the part of a citizen, well oiled with compliments, would get me at the very least a polite answer. the commissioner's fifth-under-secretary bucked me down the hall; another office bucked me upstairs. a third buck-around brought me to the department of highways marking and road maps. a sub-secretary finally admitted that he might be able to help me. his name was houghton. but whether he was telepath or esper did not matter because the commission building was constructed right in the middle of a dead area. i still played it straight. i told him i was a citizen of new york, interested in the new road signs, ohio was to be commended, et cetera. "i'm glad you feel that way," he said beaming. "i presume these signs cost quite a bit more than the stark, black and white enamel jobs?" "on the contrary," he said with pride. "they might, but mass-production methods brought the cost down. you see, the enamel jobs, while we buy several thousand of the plates for any highway, must be set up, stamped out, enamelled, and so on. the new signs are all made in one plant as they are needed; i don't suppose you know, but the highway number and any other information is put on the plate from loose, snap-in letters. that means we can buy so many thousand of this or that letter or number, and the necessary base plates and put them together as needed. they admitted that they were still running at a loss, but if they could get enough states interested, they'd eventually come out even, and maybe they could reduce the cost. why, they even have a contingent-clause in the contract stating that if the cost were lowered, they would make a rebate to cover it. that's so the first users will not bide their time instead of buying now." he went on and on and on like any bureaucrat. i was glad we were in a dead area because he'd have thrown me out of his office for what i was thinking. eventually mr. houghton ran down and i left. i toyed around with the idea of barging in on the main office of the company but i figured that might be too much like poking my head into a hornet's nest. i pocketed the card he gave me from the company, and i studied the ink-fresh road map, which he had proudly supplied. it pointed out in a replica panel of the fancy signs, that the state of ohio was beautifying their highways with these new signs at no increased cost to the taxpayer, and that the dates in green on the various highways here and there gave the dates when the new signs would be installed. the bottom of the panel gave the road commissioner's name in boldface with houghton's name below in slightly smaller print. i smiled. usually i get mad at signs that proclaim that such and such a tunnel is being created by mayor so-and-so, as if the good mayor were out there with a shovel and hoe digging the tunnel. but this sort of thing would have been a worthy cause if it hadn't been for the sinister side. i selected a highway that had been completed toward cincinnati and made my way there with no waste of time. * * * * * the road was new and it was another beaut. the signs led me on, mile after mile and sign after sign. i did not know what i was following, and i was not sure i knew what i was looking for. but i was on the trail of something and a bit of activity, both mental and physical, after weeks of blank-wall frustration made my spirits rise and my mental equipment sharper. the radio in the car was yangling with hillbilly songs, the only thing you can pick up in ohio, but i didn't care. i was looking for something significant. i found it late in the afternoon about half-way between dayton and cincinnati. one of the spokes was missing. fifty yards ahead was a crossroad. i hauled in with a whine of rubber and brakes, and sat there trying to reason out my next move by logic. do i turn with the missing spoke, or do i turn with the one that is not missing? memory came to my aid. the "ten o'clock" spoke had been missing back there near the harrison farm. the harrisons had lived on the left side of the highway. one follows the missing spoke. here the "two o'clock" spoke was missing, so i turned to the right along the crossroad until i came to another sign that was complete. then, wondering, i u-turned and drove back across the main highway and drove for about five miles watching the signs as i went. the ones on my right had that trefoil emblem upside down. the ones on my left were right side up. the difference was so small that only someone who knew the significance would distinguish one from the other. so far as i could reason out, it meant that what i sought was in the other direction. when the emblem was upside down i was going away from, and when right side up, i was going toward. away from or toward what? i u-turned again and started following the signs. twenty miles beyond the main highway where i'd seen the sign that announced the turn, i came upon another missing spoke. this indicated a turn to the left, and so i slowed down until i came upon a homestead road leading off toward a farmhouse. i turned, determined to make like a man lost and hoping that i'd not bump into a telepath. a few hundred yards in from the main road i came upon a girl who was walking briskly toward me. i stopped. she looked at me with a quizzical smile and asked me if she could be of any help. brashly, i nodded. "i'm looking for some old friends of mine," i said. "haven't seen them for years. named harrison." she smiled up at me. "i don't know of any harrison around here." her voice had the ohio twang. "no?" "just where do they live?" i eyed her carefully, hoping my glance did not look like a wolf eyeing a lamb. "well, they gave me some crude directions. said i was to turn at the main highway onto this road and come about twenty miles and stop on the left side when i came upon one of those new road signs where someone had shot one of the spokes out." "spokes? left side--" she mumbled the words and was apparently mulling the idea around in her mind. she was not more than about seventeen, sun-tanned and animal-alive from living in the open. i wondered about her. as far as i was concerned, she was part and parcel of this whole mysterious affair. no matter what she said or did, it was an obvious fact that the hidden road sign directions pointed to this farm. and since no one at seventeen can be kept in complete ignorance of the business of the parents, she must be aware of some of the ramifications. after some thought she said, "no, i don't know of any harrisons." i grunted. i was really making the least of this, now that i'd arrived. "your folks at home?" i asked. "yes," she replied. "i think i'll drop in and ask them, too." she shrugged. "go ahead," she said with the noncommittal attitude of youth. "you didn't happen to notice whether the mailbox flag was up, did you?" i hadn't, but i espied back quickly and said, "no, it isn't." "then the mailman hasn't been to deliver," she said. "mind if i ride back to the house with you, mister?" "hop in." she smiled brightly and got in quickly. i took off down the road toward the house at an easy pace. she seemed interested in the car, and finally said, "i've never been in a car like this before. new?" "few weeks," i responded. "fast?" "if you want to make it go fast. she'll take this rocky road at fifty, if anyone wants to be so foolish." "let's see." i laughed. "nobody but an idiot would tackle a road like this at fifty." "i like to go fast. my brother takes it at sixty." that, so far as i was concerned, was youthful exaggeration. i was busy telling her all the perils of fast driving when a rabbit came barrelling out of the bushes along one side and streaked across in front of me. i twitched the wheel. the car went out of the narrow road and up on the shoulder, tilting quite a bit. beyond the rabbit i swung back into the road, but not before the youngster had grabbed my arm to keep from being tossed all over the front seat. her grip was like a hydraulic vise. my arm went numb and my fingers went limp on the wheel. i struggled with my left hand to spin the wheel to keep on the narrow, winding road and my foot hit the brake to bring the car down, but fast. taking a deep breath as we stopped, i shook my right hand by holding it in my left at the wrist. i was a mass of tingling pins and needles because she had grabbed me just above the elbow. it felt as though it would have taken only a trifle more to pinch my arm off and leave me with a bloody stump. "sorry, mister," she said breathlessly, her eyes wide open. her face was white around the corners of the mouth and at the edges of her nose. the whiteness of the flesh under the deep tan gave her a completely frightened look, far more than the shake-up could have produced. i reached over and took her hand. "that's a mighty powerful grip you--" the flesh of her hand was hard and solid. not the meaty solidity of good tone, fine training and excellent health. it was the solidity of a--all i could think of at the time was a green cucumber. i squeezed a bit and the flesh gave way only a trifle. i rubbed my thumb over her palm and found it solid-hard instead of soft and yielding. i wondered. i had never seen a case of mekstrom's disease--before. i looked down at the hand and said, "young lady, do you realize that you have an advanced case of mekstrom's disease?" she eyed me coldly. "now," she said in a hard voice. "i know you'll come in." something in my make-up objects violently to being ordered around by a slip of a girl. i balance off at about one-sixty. i guessed her at about two-thirds of that, say one-ten or thereabouts-"one-eight," she said levelly. #a telepath!# "yes," she replied calmly. "and i don't mind letting you know it, so you'll not try anything stupid." #i'm getting the heck out of here!# "no, you're not. you are coming in with me." "like heck!" i exploded. "don't be silly. you'll come in. or shall i lay one along your jaw and carry you?" i had to try something, anything, to get free. yet-"now you're being un-bright," she told me insolently. "you should know that you can't plan any surprise move with a telepath. and if you try a frontal attack i'll belt you so cold they'll have to put you in the oven for a week." i just let her ramble for a few seconds because when she was rattling this way she couldn't put her entire mental attention on my thoughts. so while she was yaking it off, i had an idea that felt as though it might work. she shut up like a clam when she realized that her mouthing had given me a chance to think, and i went into high gear with my perception: #not bad--for a kid. growing up fast. been playing hookey from momma, leaving off your panties like the big girls do. i can tell by the elastic cord marks you had 'em on not long ago.# seventeeners have a lot more modesty than they like to admit. she was stunned by my cold-blooded catalog of her body just long enough for me to make a quick lunge across her lap to the door handle on her side. i flipped it over and gave her a shove at the same time. she went bottom over appetite in a sprawl that would have jarred the teeth loose in a normal body and might have cracked a few bones. but she landed on the back of her neck, rolled and came to her feet like a cat. i didn't wait to close the door. i just tromped on the go-pedal and the car leaped forward with a jerk that slammed the door for me. i roared forward and left her just as she was making another grab. how i hoped to get out of there i did not know. all i wanted was momentary freedom to think. i turned this way and that to follow the road until i came to the house. i left the road, circled the house with the turbine screaming like a banshee and the car taking the corners on the outside wheels. i skidded into a turn like a racing driver and ironed my wheels out flat on the takeaway, rounded another corner and turned back into the road again going the other way. she was standing there waiting for me as i pelted past at a good sixty, and she reached out one girder-strong arm, latched onto the frame of the open window on my side, and swung onto the half-inch trim along the bottom of the car-body like a switchman hooking a freight car. she reached for the steering wheel with her free hand. i knew what was to happen next. she'd casually haul and i'd go off the road into a tree or pile up in a ditch, and while the smoke was clearing out of my mind, she'd be untangling me from the wreck and carting me over her shoulder, without a scratch to show for her adventure. i yanked the wheel--whip! whap!--cutting an arc. i slammed past a tree, missing it by half an inch. i wiped her off the side of the car like a mailbag is clipped from the fast express by the catch-hook. i heard a cry of "whoof!" as her body hit the trunk of the tree. but as i regained the road and went racing on to safety, i saw in the rear view mirror that she had bounced off the tree, sprawled a bit, caught her balance, and was standing in the middle of the road, shaking her small but very dangerous fist at my tail license plate. i didn't stop driving at one-ten until i was above dayton again. then i paused along the road to take stock. stock? what the hell did i know, really? i'd uncovered and confirmed the fact that there was some secret organization that had a program that included their own highway system, concealed within the confines of the united states. i was almost certain by this time that they had been the prime movers in the disappearance of catherine and dr. thorndyke. they-i suddenly re-lived the big crack-up. willingly now, no longer rejecting the memory, i followed my recollection as catherine and i went along that highway at a happy pace. with care i recalled every detail of catherine, watching the road through my mind and eyes, how she'd mentioned the case of the missing spoke, and how i'd projected back to perceive that which i had not been conscious of. reminding myself that it was past, i went through it again, deliberately. the fallen limb that blocked the road, my own horror as the wheels hit it. the struggle to regain control of the careening car. as a man watching a motion picture, i watched the sky and the earth turn over and over, and i heard my voice mouthing wordless shouts of fear. catherine's cry of pain and fright came, and i listened as my mind reconstructed it this time without wincing. then the final crash, the horrid wave of pain and the sear of the flash-fire. i went through my own horror and self condemnation, and my concern over catherine. i didn't shut if off. i waded through it. now i remembered something else. something that any normal, sensible mind would reject as an hallucination. beyond any shadow of a doubt there had been no time for a man to rig a block and tackle on a tree above a burning automobile in time to get the trapped victims out alive. and even more certain it was that no normal man of fifty would have had enough strength to lift a car by its front bumper while his son made a rush into the flames. that tackle had been rigged and burned afterward. but who would reject a block and tackle in favor of an impossibly strong man? no, with the tackle in sight, the recollection of a man lifting that overturned automobile like a weight lifter pressing up a bar bell would be buried in any mind as a rank hallucination. then one more item came driving home hard. so hard that i almost jumped when the idea crossed my mind. both catherine and dr. thorndyke had been telepaths. a telepath close to any member of his underground outfit would divine their purpose, come to know their organization, and begin to grasp the fundamentals of their program. such a person would be dangerous. on the other hand, an esper such as myself could be turned aside with bland remarks and a convincing attitude. i knew that i had no way of telling lie from truth and that made my problem a lot more difficult. from the facts that i did have, something smelled of overripe seafood. government and charities were pouring scads of dough into a joint called the medical research center. to hear the scholars of medicine tell it, mekstrom's disease was about the last human frailty that hadn't been licked to a standstill. they boasted that if a victim of practically anything had enough life left in him to crawl to a telephone and use it, his life could be saved. they grafted well. i'd heard tales of things like fingers, and i know they were experimenting on hands, arms and legs with some success. but when it came to mekstrom's they were stopped cold. therefore the medical research center received a walloping batch of money for that alone; all the money that used to go to the various heart, lung, spine and cancer funds. it added up well. but the medical research center seemed unaware that some group had solved their basic problem. from the books i've read i am well aware of one of the fundamental principles of running an underground: _keep it underground!_ the commie menace in these united states might have won out in the middle of the century if they'd been able to stay a secret organization. so the highways in hiding could stay underground and be an efficient organization only until someone smoked them out. that one was going to be me. but i needed an aide-de-camp. especially and specifically i needed a trained telepath, one who would listen to my tale and not instantly howl for the nut-hatch attendants. the f.b.i. were all trained investigators and they used esper-telepath teams all the time. one dug the joint while the other dug the inhabitant, which covered the situation to a faretheewell. it would take time to come up with a possible helper. so i spent the next hour driving toward chicago, and by the time i'd crossed the ohio-indiana line and hit richmond, i had a plan laid out. i placed a call to new york and within a few minutes i was talking to nurse farrow. i'll not go into detail because there was a lot of mish-mash that is not particularly interesting and a lot more that covered my tracks since i'd parted company with her on the steps of the hospital. i did not, of course, mention my real purpose over the telephone and miss farrow could not read my mind from new york. the upshot of the deal was that i felt that i needed a nurse for a while, not that i was ill, but that i felt a bit woozy now and then because i hadn't learned to slow down. i worked too fast and too long and my condition was not up to it yet. this miss farrow allowed as being quite possible. i repeated my offer to pay her at the going prices for registered nurses with a one-month guarantee, paid in advance. that softened her quite a bit. then i added that i'd videograph her a check large enough to cover the works plus a round trip ticket. she should come out and have a look, and if she weren't satisfied, she could return without digging into her own pocket. all she'd lose was one day, and it might be a bit of a vacation if she enjoyed flying in a jetliner at sixty thousand feet. the accumulation of offers finally sold her and she agreed to arrange a leave of absence. she'd meet me in the morning of the day-after-tomorrow, at central airport in chicago. i videographed the check and then took off again, confident that i'd be able to sell her on the idea of being the telepath half of my amateur investigation team. then because i needed some direct information, i turned west and crossed the line into indiana, heading toward marion. so far i had a lot of well-placed suspicions, but until i was certain, i could do no more than postulate ideas. i had to know definitely how to identify mekstrom's disease, or at least the infected flesh. i have a fairly good recall; all i needed now was to have someone point to a case and say flatly that this was a case of mekstrom's disease. then i'd know whether what i'd seen in ohio was actually one hundred percent mekstrom. vi i walked into the front office with a lot of self-assurance. the medical center was a big, rambling place with a lot of spread-out oneand two-story buildings that looked so much like "hospital" that no one in the world would have mistaken them for anything else. the main building was by the road, the rest spread out behind as far as i could see; beyond my esper range even though the whole business was set in one of the clearest psi areas that i'd even been in. i was only mildly worried about telepaths. in the first place, the only thing i had to hide was my conviction about a secret organization and how part of it functioned. in the second place, the chances were good that few, if any, telepaths were working there, if the case of dr. thorndyke carried any weight. that there were some telepaths, i did not doubt, but these would not be among the high-powered help. so i sailed in and faced the receptionist, who was a good-looking chemical-type blonde with a pale skin, lovely complexion and figure to match. she greeted me with a glacial calm and asked my business. brazenly i lied. "i'm a freelance writer and i'm looking for material." "have you an assignment?" she asked without a trace of interest in the answer. "not this time. i'm strictly freelance. i like it better this way because i can write whatever i like." her glacial air melted a bit at the inference that my writing had not been in vain. "where have you been published?" she asked. i made a fast stab in the dark, aiming in a direction that looked safe. "last article was one on the latest archeological findings in assyria. got my source material direct from the oriental institute in chicago." "too bad i missed it," she said, looking regretful. i had to grin, i'd carefully avoided giving the name of the publication and the supposed date. she went on, "i suppose you would not be happy with the usual press release?" "handouts contain material, all right, but they're so confounded trite and impersonal. people prefer to read anecdotes about the people rather than a listing of facts and figures." she nodded at that. "just a moment," she said. then she addressed her telephone in a voice that i couldn't hear. when she finished, she smiled in a warmish-type manner as if to indicate that she'd gone all out in my behalf and that i'd be a heel to forget it. i nodded back and tried to match the tooth-paste-ad smile. then the door opened and a man came in briskly. he was a tall man, as straight as a ramrod, with a firm jaw and a close-clipped moustache. he had an air like a thin-man's captain bligh. when he spoke, his voice was as clipped and precise as his moustache; in fact it was so precise that it seemed almost mechanical. "i am dr. lyon sprague," he clipped. "what may i do for you?" "i'm steve cornell," i said. "i'm here after source material for a magazine article about mekstrom's disease. i'd prefer not to take my material from a handout." "do you hope to get more?" he demanded. "i usually do. i've seen your handouts; i could get as much by taking last year's medical encyclopedia. far too dry, too uninteresting, too impersonal." "just exactly what do you have in mind?" i eyed him with speculation. here was not a man who would take kindly to imaginative conjecture. so dr. lyon sprague was not the man i'd like to talk to. with an inward smile, i said, "i have a rather new idea about mekstrom's that i'd like to discuss with the right party." he looked down at me, although our eyes were on the same level. "i doubt that any layman could possibly come up with an idea that has not been most thoroughly discussed here among the research staff." "in cold words you feel that no untrained lunk has a right to have an idea." he froze. "i did not say that." "you implied, at least, that suggestions from outsiders were not welcome. i begin to understand why the medical center has failed to get anywhere with mekstrom's in the past twenty years." "what do you mean?" he snapped. "merely that it is the duty of all scientists to listen to every suggestion and to discard it only after it has been shown wrong." "such as--?" he said coldly, with a curl of his eyebrows. "well, just for instance, suppose some way were found to keep a victim alive during the vital period, so that he would end up a complete mekstrom human." "the idea is utterly fantastic. we have no time for such idle speculation. there is too much foggy thinking in the world already. why, only last week we had a velikovsky adherent tell us that mekstrom's had been predicted in the bible. there are still people reporting flying saucers, you know. we have no time for foolish notions or utter nonsense." "may i quote you?" "of course not," he snapped stiffly. "i'm merely pointing out that non-medical persons cannot have the grasp--" the door opened again and a second man entered. the new arrival had pleasant blue eyes, a van dyke beard, and a good-natured air of self-confidence and competence. "may i cut in?" he said to dr. sprague. "certainly. mr. cornell, this is scholar phelps, director of the center. scholar phelps, this is mr. steve cornell, a gentleman of the press," he added in a tone of voice that made the identification a sort of nasty name. "mr. cornell has an odd theory about mekstrom's disease that he intends to publish unless we can convince him that it is not possible." "odd theory?" asked scholar phelps with some interest. "well, if mr. cornell can come up with something new, i'll be most happy to hear him out." dr. lyon sprague decamped with alacrity. scholar phelps smiled after him, then turned to me and said, "dr. sprague is a diligent worker, businesslike and well-informed, but he lacks the imagination and the sense of humor that makes a man brilliant in research. unfortunately, dr. sprague cannot abide anything that is not laid out as neat as an interlocking tile floor. now, mr. cornell, how about this theory of yours?" "first," i replied, "i'd like to know how come you turn up in the nick of time." he laughed good-naturedly. "we always send dr. sprague out to interview visitors. if the visitor can be turned away easily, all is well and quiet. dr. sprague can do the job with ease. but if the visitor, like yourself, mr. cornell, proposes something that distresses the good dr. sprague and will not be loftily dismissed, dr. sprague's blood pressure goes up. we all keep a bit of esper on his nervous system and when the fuse begins to blow, we come out and effect a double rescue." i laughed with him. apparently the medical center staff enjoyed needling dr. sprague. "scholar phelps, before i get into my theory, i'd like to know more about mekstrom's disease. i may not be able to use it in my article, but any background material works well with writers of fact articles." "you're quite right. what would you like to know?" "i've heard, too many times, that no one knows anything at all about mekstrom's. this is unbelievable, considering that you folks have been working on it for some twenty years." he nodded. "we have some, but it's precious little." "it seems to me that you could analyze the flesh--" he smiled. "we have. the state of analytical chemistry is well advanced. we could, i think, take a dry scraping out of the cauldron used by macbeth's witches, and determine whether shakespeare had reported the formula correctly. now, young man, if you think that something is added to the human flesh to make it mekstrom's flesh, you are wrong. standard analysis shows that the flesh is composed of exactly the same chemicals that normal flesh contains, in the same proportion. nothing is added, as, for instance, in the case of calcification." "then what is the difference?" "the difference lies in the structure. by x-ray crystallographic method, we have determined that mekstrom's flesh is a micro-crystalline formation, interlocked tightly." scholar phelps looked at me thoughtfully. "do you know much about crystallography?" as a mechanical engineer i did, but as a writer of magazine articles i felt i should profess some ignorance, so i merely said that i knew a little about the subject. "well, mr. cornell, you may know that in the field of solid geometry there are only five possible regular polyhedrons. like the laws of topology that state that no more than four colors need be used to print a map on a flat surface, or that no more than seven colors are required to print separate patches on a toroid, the laws of solid geometry prove that no more than five regular polyhedrons are possible. now in crystallography there are only thirty-two possible classes of crystal lattice construction. of these only thirty have ever been discovered in nature. yet we know how the other two would appear if they did emerge in natural formation." i knew it all right but i made scribblings in my notebooks as if the idea were of interest. scholar phelps waited patiently until i'd made the notation. "now, mr. cornell, here comes the shock. mekstrom's flesh is one of the other two classes." this was news to me and i blinked. then his face faded into a solemn expression. "unfortunately," he said in a low voice, "knowing how a crystal should form does not help us much in forming one to that class. we have no real control over the arrangement of atoms in a crystal lattice. we can prevent the crystal formation, we can control the size of the crystal as it forms. but we cannot change the crystal into some other class." "i suppose it's sort of like baking a cake. once the ingredients are mixed, the cake can be big or small or shaped to fit the pan, or you can spoil it complete. but if you mix devil's food, it either comes out devil's food or nothing." "an amusing analogy and rather correct. however i prefer the one used years ago by dr. willy ley, who observed that analysis is fine, but you can't learn how a locomotive is built by melting it down and analyzing the mess." then he went on again. "to get back to mekstrom's disease and what we know about it. we know that the crawl goes at about a sixty-fourth of an inch per hour. if, for instance, you turned up here with a trace on your right middle finger, the entire first joint would be mekstrom's flesh in approximately three days. within two weeks your entire middle finger would be solid. without anesthesia we could take a saw and cut off a bit for our research." "no feeling?" "none whatever. the joints knit together, the arteries become as hard as steel tubing and the heart cannot function properly--not that the heart cares about minor conditions such as the arteries in the extremities, but as the mekstrom infection crawls up the arm toward the shoulder the larger arteries become solid and then the heart cannot drive the blood through them in its accustomed fashion. it gets like an advanced case of arteriosclerosis. eventually the infection reaches and immobilizes the shoulder; this takes about ninety days. by this time, the other extremities have also become infected and the crawl is coming up all four limbs." he looked at me very solemnly at that. "the rest is not pretty. death comes shortly after that. i can almost say that he is blessed who catches mekstrom's in the left hand for them the infection reaches the heart before it reaches other parts. those whose initial infection is in the toes are particularly cursed, because the infection reaches the lower parts of the body. i believe you can imagine the result, elimination is prevented because of the stoppage of peristalsis. death comes of autointoxication, which is slow and painful." i shuddered at the idea. the thought of death has always bothered me. the idea of looking at a hand and knowing that i was going to die by the calendar seemed particularly horrible. taking the bit between my teeth, i said, "scholar phelps, i've been wondering whether you and your center have ever considered treating mekstrom's by helping it?" "helping it?" he asked. "sure. consider what a man might be if he were mekstrom's all the way through." he nodded. "you would have a physical superman," he said. "steel-strong muscles driving steel-hard flesh covered by a near impenetrable skin. perhaps such a man would be free of all minor pains and ills. imagine a normal bacterium trying to bore into flesh as hard as concrete. mekstrom flesh tends to be acid-resistant as well as tough physically. it is not beyond the imagination to believe that your mekstrom superman might live three times our frail four-score and ten. but--" here he paused. "not to pull down your house of cards, this idea is not a new one. some years ago we invited a brilliant young doctor here to study for his scholarate. the unfortunate fellow arrived with the first traces of mekstrom's in his right middle toe. we placed about a hundred of our most brilliant researchers under his guidance, and he decided to take this particular angle of study. he failed; for all his efforts, he did not stay his death by a single hour. from that time to the present we have maintained one group on this part of the problem." it occurred to me at that moment that if i turned up with a trace of mekstrom's i'd be seeking out the highways in hiding rather than the medical center. that fast thought brought a second: suppose that dr. thorndyke learned that he had a trace, or rather, the highways found it out. what better way to augment their medical staff than to approach the victim with a proposition: you help us, work with us, and we will save your life. that, of course, led to the next idea: that if the highways in hiding had any honest motive, they'd not be hidden in the first place and they'd have taken their cure to the medical center in the second. well, i had a bit of something listed against them, so i decided to let my bombshell drop. "scholar phelps," i said quietly, "one of the reasons i am here is that i have fairly good evidence that the cure for mekstrom's disease does exist, and that it produces people of ultrahard bodies and superhuman strength." he smiled at me with the same tolerant air that father uses on the offspring who comes up with one of the standard juvenile plans for perpetual motion. "what do you consider good evidence?" "suppose i claimed to have seen it myself." "then i would say that you had misinterpreted your evidence," he replied calmly. "the flying saucer enthusiasts still insist that the things they see are piloted by little green men from venus, even though we have been there and found venus to be absolutely uninhabited by anything higher than slugs, grubs, and little globby animals like tellurian leeches." "but--" "this, too, is an old story," he told me with a whimsical smile. "it goes with the standard routine about a secret organization that is intending to take over the earth. the outline has been popular ever since charles fort. now--er--just tell me what you saw." i concocted a tale that was about thirty-three percent true and the rest partly distorted. it covered my hitting a girl in ohio with my car, hard enough to clobber her. but when i stopped to help her, she got up and ran away unhurt. she hadn't left a trace of blood although the front fender of the car was badly smashed. he nodded solemnly. "such things happen," he said. "the human body is really quite durable; now and then comes the lucky happenstance when the fearful accident does no more than raise a slight bruise. i've read the story of the man whose parachute did not open and who lived to return it to the factory in person, according to the old joke. but now, mr. cornell, have you ever considered the utter impossibility of running any sort of secret organization in this world of today. even before rhine it was difficult. you'll be adding to your tale next--some sort of secret sign, maybe a form of fraternity grip, or perhaps even a world-wide system of local clubs and hangouts, all aimed at some dire purpose." i squirmed nervously for a bit. scholar phelps was too close to the truth to make me like it, because he was scoffing. he went right on making me nervous. "now before we get too deep, i only want to ask about the probable motives of such an organization. you grant them superhuman strength, perhaps extreme longevity. if they wanted to take over the earth, couldn't they do it by a show of force? or are they mild-mannered supermen, only quietly interested in overrunning the human race and waiting out the inevitable decline of normal homo sapiens? you're not endowing them with extraterrestrial origin, are you?" i shook my head unhappily. "good. that shows some logic, mr. cornell. after all, we know now that while we could live on mars or venus with a lot of home-sent aid, we'd be most uncomfortable there. we could not live a minute on any planet of our solar system without artificial help." "i might point out that our hypothetical superman might be able to stand a lot of rough treatment," i blurted. "oh, this i'll grant if your tale held any water at all. but let's forget this fruitless conjecture and take a look at the utter impossibility of running such an organization. even planting all of their secret hangouts in dead areas and never going into urban centers, they'd still find some telepath or esper on their trail. perhaps a team. let's go back a step and consider, even without psi training, how long such an outfit could function. it would run until the first specimen had an automobile accident on, say times square; or until one of them walked--or ran--out of the fire following a jetliner crash." he then spared me with a cold eye. "write it as fiction, mr. cornell. but leave my name out of it. i thought you were after facts." "i am. but the better fact articles always use a bit of speculation to liven it up." "well," he grunted, "one such fanciful suggestion is the possibility of such an underground outfit being able to develop a 'cure' while we cannot. we, who have had the best of brains and money for twenty years." i nodded, and while i did not agree with phelps, i knew that to insist was to insult him to his face, and get myself tossed out. "you do seem to have quite a set-up here," i said, off-hand. at this point phelps offered to show me around the place, and i accepted. medical center was far larger than i had believed at first; it spread beyond my esper range into the hills beyond the main plant. the buildings were arranged in a haphazard-looking pattern out in the back section; i say "looking" because only a psi-trained person can dig a pattern. the wide-open psi area did not extend for miles. behind the main buildings it closed down into the usual mottled pattern and the medical buildings had been placed in the open areas. dwellings and dormitories were in the dark places. a nice set-up. i did not meet any of the patients, but phelps let me stand in the corridor outside a couple of rooms and use my esper on the flesh. it was both distressing and instructive. he explained, "the usual thing after someone visits this way, is that the visitor goes out itching. in medical circles this is a form of what we call 'sophomore's syndrome.' ever heard of it?" i nodded. "that's during the first years at pre-med. knowing all too little of medicine, every disease they study produces the same symptoms that the student finds in himself. until tomorrow, when they study the next. then the symptoms in the student change." "right. so in order to prevent 'sophomore's syndrome' among visitors we usually let them study the real thing. also," he added seriously, "we'd like to have as many people as possible recognize the real thing as early as possible. even though we can't do anything for them at the present time, someday we will." he stopped before a closed door. "in here is a girl of eighteen, doomed to die in a month." his voice trailed off as he tapped on the door of the room. i froze. a few beads of cold sweat ran down my spine, and i fought myself into a state of nervous calmness. i put the observation away, buried it as deep as i could, tried to think around it, and so far as i knew, succeeded. the tap of scholar phelps' finger against the door panel was the rap-rap-rap sound characteristic of hard-tanned leather tapping wood. scholar phelps was a mekstrom! * * * * * i paid only surface attention to the rest of my visit. i thanked my personal gods that esper training had also given me the ability to dissemble. it was impossible to not think of something but it is possible to keep the mind so busy with surface thoughts that the underlying idea does not come through the interference. eventually i managed to leave the medical center without exciting anyone, and when i left i took off like a skyrocket for chicago. vii nurse gloria farrow waved at me from the ramp of the jetliner, and i ran forward to collect her baggage. she eyed me curiously but said no more than the usual greetings and indication of which bag was hers. i knew that she was reading my mind like a psychologist all the time, and i let her know that i wanted her to. i let my mind merely ramble on with the usual pile of irrelevancies that the mind uses to fill in blank spaces. it came up with a couple of notions here and there but nothing definite. miss farrow followed me to my car without saying a word, and let me install her luggage in the trunk. then, for the first time, she spoke: "steve cornell, you're as healthy as i am." "i admit it." "then what is this all about? you don't need a nurse!" "i need a competent witness, miss farrow." "for what?" she looked puzzled. "suppose you stay right here and start explaining." "you'll listen to the bitter end?" "i've two hours before the next plane goes back. you'll have that time to convince me--or else. okay?" "that's a deal." i fumbled around for a beginning, and then i decided to start right at the beginning, whether it sounded cockeyed or not. giving information to a telepath is the easiest thing in the world. while i started at the beginning, i fumbled and finally ended up by going back and forth in a haphazard manner, but miss farrow managed to insert the trivia in the right chronological order so that when i finished, she nodded with interest. i posed the question: #am i nuts?# "no, steve," she replied solemnly. "i don't think so. you've managed to accept data which is obviously mingled truth and falsehood, and you've managed to question the validity of all of it." i grunted. "how about the crazy man who questions his own sanity, using this personal question as proof of his sanity since real nuts _know_ they're sane?" "no nut can think that deep into complication. what i mean is that they cannot even question their own sanity in the first premise of postulated argument. but forget that, what i wanted to know is where you intend to go from here." i shook my head unhappily. "when i called you i had it all laid out like a roadmap. i was going to show you proof and use you as an impartial observer to convince someone else. then we'd go to the medical center and hand it to them on a platter. since then i've had a shock that i can't get over, or plan beyond. scholar phelps is a mekstrom. that means that the guy knows what gives with mekstrom's disease and yet he is running an outfit that professes to be helpless in the face of this disease. for all we know phelps may be the head of the highways in hiding, an organization strictly for profit of some sort at the expense of the public welfare." "you're certain that phelps is a mekstrom?" "not absolutely positive. i had to close my mind because there might be a telepath on tap. but i can tell you that nobody with normal flesh-type fingers ever made that solid rap." "a fingernail?" i shook my head at her. "that's a click. with an ear at all you'd note the difference." "i'll accept it for the moment. but lacking your original plan, what are you going to do now?" "i'm not sure beyond showing you the facts. maybe i should call up that f.b.i. team that called on me after thorndyke's disappearance and put it in their laps." "good idea. but why would scholar phelps be lying? and beyond your basic suspicions, what can you prove?" "very little. i admit that my evidence is extremely thin. i saw phillip harrison turning head bolts on a tractor engine with a small end wrench. it should require a crossbar socket and a lot of muscle. next is the girl in ohio who should be a bloody mess from the way she was treated. instead she got up and tried to chase me. then answer me a puzzler: did the harrisons move because marian caught mekstrom's, or did they move because they felt that i was too close to discovering their secret? the highway was relocated after that, you'll recall." "it sounds frightfully complicated, steve." "you bet it does," i grunted. "so next i meet a guy who is supposed to know all the answers; a man dedicated to the public welfare, medicine, and the ideal of service. a man sworn to the hippocratic oath. or," i went on bitterly, "is it the hypocritic oath?" "steve, please--" "please, hell!" i stormed. "why is he quietly sitting there in mekstrom hide while he is overtly grieving over the painful death of his fellow man?" "i wouldn't know." "well, i'm tired of being pushed around," i growled. "pushed around?" she asked quietly. with a trace of scorn, i said, "miss farrow, i can see two possible answers. either i am being pushed around for some deliberate reason, or i'm too smart, too cagey and too dangerous for them to handle directly. it takes only about eight weeks for me to reluctantly abandon the second in favor of the first." "but what makes you think you are being pushed?" she wanted to know. "you can't tell me that i am so important that they couldn't erase me as easily as they did catherine and dr. thorndyke. and now that his name comes up, let's ask why any doctor who once met a casual patient would go to the bother of sending a postcard with a message on it that is certain to cause me unhappiness. he's also the guy who nudged me by calling my attention to my so-called 'shock hallucination' about father harrison lifting my car while phillip harrison raced into the fire to make the rescue. add it up," i told her sharply. "next he is invited to medical center to study mekstrom's. only instead of landing there, he sends me a postcard with one of the highways in the picture, after which he disappears." miss farrow nodded thoughtfully. "it is all tied up with your highways and your mekstrom people." "that isn't all," i said. "how come the harrisons moved so abruptly?" "you're posing questions that i can't answer," complained miss farrow. "and i'm not one hundred percent convinced that you are right." "you are here, and if you take a look at what i'll show you, you'll be convinced. we'll put it this way, to start: something cockeyed is going on. now, one more thing i can add, and this is the part that confuses me: everything that has been done seems to point to me. so far as i can see they are operating just as though they want me to start a big hassle that will end up by getting the highways out of their hiding." "why on earth would they be doing that?" she wanted to know. "i don't have the foggiest notion. but i do have that feeling and there is evidence pointing that way. they've let me in on things that normally they'd be able to conceal from a highly trained telepath. so i intend to go along with them, because somewhere at the bottom of it all we'll find the answer." she nodded agreement. now i started up the car, saying, "i'm going to find us one of the highways in hiding, and we'll follow it to one of the way stations. then you'll see for yourself that there is something definitely fishy going on." "this i'd like to see," she replied quietly. almost too quietly. i took a dig at her as i turned the car out through a tight corner of the lot onto the road. she was sitting there with a noncommittal expression on her face and i wondered why. she replied to my thought: "steve, you must face one thing. anything you firmly believe will necessarily pass across your mind as fact. so forgive me if i hold a few small doubts until i have a chance to survey some of the evidence at first hand." "sure," i told her. "the first bit won't be hard." i drove eagerly across illinois into iowa watching for road signs. i knew that once i convinced someone else, it would be easier to convince a third, and a fourth, and a fiftieth until the entire world was out on the warpath. we drove all day, stopping for chow now and then, behaving like a couple out on a vacation tour. we stopped in a small town along about midnight and found a hotel without having come upon any of the hidden highways. we met at breakfast, talked our ideas over mildly, and took off again. we crossed into nebraska about noon and continued to meander until late in the afternoon when we came upon our first giveaway road sign. "there," i told her triumphantly. she nodded. "i see the sign, steve. that much i knew. now all you have to do is to show me the trial-blazes up in that emblem." "unless they've changed their method," i told her, "this one leads west, slightly south of." i stopped the car not many yards from the sign and went over it with my sense of perception. #you'll note the ease with which the emblem could be turned upside down,# i interjected. #note the similar width of the top and bottom trefoil, so that only a trained and interested observer can tell the difference.# i drove along until we saw one on the other side of the road and we stopped again, giving the sign a thorough going over. #note that the signs leading away from the direction are upside down,# i went on. i didn't say a word, i was using every ounce of energy in running my perception over the sign and commenting on its various odds and ends. #now,# i finished, #we'll drive along this highway in hiding until we come to some intersection or hideout. then you'll be convinced.# she was silent. we took off along that road rather fast and we followed it for miles, passing sign after sign with its emblem turned up along the right side of the road and turned upside-down when the sign was on the left. eventually we came to a crossing highway, and at that i pointed triumphantly. "note the missing spoke!" i said with considerable enthusiasm. "now, miss farrow, we shall first turn against it for a few miles and then we shall u-turn and come back along the cross highway with it." "i'm beginning to be convinced, steve." we turned north against the sign and went forty or fifty miles, just to be sure. the signs were all against us. eventually i turned into a gas station and filled the carte up to the scuppers. as we turned back south, i asked her, "any more comment?" she shook her head. "not yet." i nodded. "if you want, we'll take a jaunt along our original course." "by all means." "in other words you are more than willing to be convinced?" "yes," she said simply. she went silent then and i wondered what she was thinking about, but she didn't bother to tell me. eventually we came back to the crossroad, and with a feeling of having been successful, i continued south with a confidence that i had not felt before. we stopped for dinner in a small town, ate hastily but well, and then had a very mild debate. "shall we have a drink and relax for a moment?" "i'd like it," she replied honestly. "but somehow i doubt that i could relax." "i know. but it does seem like a good idea to take it easy for a half hour. it might even be better if we stopped over and took off again in the morning." "steve," she told me, "the only way i could relax or go to sleep would be to take on a roaring load so that i'd pass out cold. i'd rather not because i'd get up tomorrow with a most colossal hangover. frankly, i'm excited and i'd prefer to follow this thing to a finish." "it's a deal," i said. "we'll go until we have to stop." it was about eight o'clock when we hit the road again. * * * * * by nine-forty-five we'd covered something better than two hundred miles, followed another intersection turn according to the missing spoke, and were heading well toward the upper right-hand corner of colorado on the road map. at ten o'clock plus a few minutes we came upon the roadsign that pointed the way to a ranch-type house set prettily on the top of a small knoll several hundred yards back from the main road. i stopped briefly a few hundred feet from the lead-in road and asked miss farrow: "what's your telepath range? you've never told me." she replied instantly, "intense concentration directed at me is about a half mile. superficial thinking that might include me or my personality as a by-thought about five hundred yards. to pick up a thought that has nothing to do with me or my interests, not much more than a couple of hundred feet. things that are definitely none of my business close down to forty or fifty feet." that was about the average for a person with a bit of psi training either in telepathy or in esper; it matched mine fairly well, excepting that part about things that were none of my business. she meant _thoughts_ and not _things_. i had always had a hard time differentiating between things that were none of my damned business, although i do find it more difficult to dig the contents of a letter between two unknown parties at a given distance than it is to dig a letter written or addressed to a person i know. _things_ are, by and large, a lot less personal than thoughts, if i'm saying anything new. "well," i told her, "this is it. we're going to go in close enough for you to take a 'pathic look-around. keep your mind sensitive. if you dig any danger, yell out. i'm going to extend my esper as far as i can and if i suddenly take off like a startled spacecraft, it's because i have uncovered something disagreeable. but keep your mind on them and not me, because i'm relying on you to keep posted on their mental angle." miss farrow nodded. "it's hard to remember that other people haven't the ability to make contact mentally. it's like a normal man talking to a blind man and referring constantly to visible things because he doesn't understand. i'll try to remember." "i'm going to back in," i said. "then if trouble turns up, i'll have an advantage. as soon as they feel our minds coming in at them, they'll know that we're not in there for their health. so here we go!" "i'm a good actor," she said. "no matter what i say, i'm with you all the way!" i yanked the car forward, and angled back. i hit the road easily and started backing along the driveway at a rather fast speed with my eyes half-closed to give my esper sense the full benefit of my concentration along the road. when i was not concentrating on how i was going to turn the wheel at the next curve i thought, #i hope these folks know the best way to get to colorado springs from here. dammit, we're lost!# miss farrow squeezed my arm gently, letting me know that she was thinking the same general thoughts. suddenly she said, "it's a dead area, steve." it was a dead area, all right. my perception came to a barrier that made it fade from full perception to not being able to perceive anything in a matter of yards. it always gives me an eerie feeling when i approach a dead area and find that i can see a building clearly and not be able to cast my perception beyond a few feet. i kept on backing up into the fringe of that dead area until i was deep within the edge and it took all my concentration to perceive the road a few feet ahead of my rear wheels so that i could steer. i was inching now, coming back like a blind man feeling his way. we were within about forty feet of the ranch house when miss farrow yelped: "they're surrounding us, steve!" my hands whipped into action and my heavy right foot came down on the gas-pedal. the car shuddered, howled like a wounded banshee, and then leaped forward with a roar. a man sprang out of the bushes and stood in front of the car like a statue with his hand held up. miss farrow screamed something unintelligible and clutched at my arm frantically. i threw her hand off with a snarl, kept my foot rammed down hard and hit the man dead center. the car bucked and i heard metal crumple angrily. we lurched, bounced viciously twice as my wheels passed over his floundering body, and then we were racing like complete idiots along a road that should not have been covered at more than twenty. the main road came into sight and i sliced the car around with a screech of the rear tires, controlled the deliberate skid with some fancy wheel-work and some fast digging of the surrounding dangers. then we were tearing along the broad and beautifully clear concrete with the speedometer needle running into the one-fifteen region. "steve," said miss farrow breathlessly, "that man you hit--" in a hard voice i said, "he was getting to his feet when i drove out of range." "i know," she said in a whimper. "i was in his mind. he was not hurt! god! steve--what are we up against?" her voice rose to a wail. "i don't know, exactly," i said. "but i know what we're going to do." "but steve--what can we do?" "alone or together, very little. but we can bring one person more out along these highways and then convince a fourth and a fifth and a fiftieth and a thousandth. by then we'll be shoved back off the stage while the big wheels grind painfully slow but exceedingly meticulous." "that'll take time." "certainly. but we've got a start. look how long it took getting a start in the first place." "but what is their purpose?" she asked. "that i can't say. i can't say a lot of things, like how, and why and wherefore. but i know that now we have a front tooth in this affair we're not going to let go." i thought for a moment. "i could use thorndyke; he'd be the next guy to convince if we could find him. or maybe catherine, if we could find her. the next best thing is to get hold of that f.b.i. team that called on me. there's a pair of cold-blooded characters that seem willing to sift through a million tons of ash to find one valuable cinder. they'll listen. i--" miss farrow looked at her watch; i dug it as she made the gesture. #eleven o'clock.# "going to call?" she asked. "no," i said. "it's too late. it's one in new york now and the f.b.i. team wouldn't be ready for a fast job at this hour." "so?" "i have no intention of placing a 'when you are ready' call to a number identified with the federal bureau of investigation. not when a full eight hours must elapse between the call and a reply. too much can happen to us in the meantime. but if i call in the morning, we can probably take care of ourselves well enough until they arrive if we stay in some place that is positively teeming with citizens. sensible?" "sounds reasonable, steve." i let the matter drop at that; i put the go-pedal down to the floor and fractured a lot of speed laws until we came to denver. we made denver just before midnight and drove around until we located a hotel that filled our needs. it was large, which would prevent overt operations on the part of the 'enemy' and it was a dead area, which would prevent one of them from reading our minds while we slept, and so enable them to lay counterplans against us. the bellhop gave us a knowing leer as we registered separately, but i was content to let him think what he wanted. better that he get the wrong idea about us than the right one. he fiddled around in miss farrow's room on the ninth, bucking for a big tip--not for good service, but for leaving us alone, which he did by demonstrating how big a nuisance he could be if not properly rewarded. but finally he got tired of his drawer-opening and lamp-testing and towel-stacking, and escorted me up to the twelfth. i led him out with a five spot clutched in his fist and the leer even stronger. if he expected me to race downstairs as soon as he was out of ear-shot, he was mistaken, for i hit the sack like the proverbial ton of crushed mortar. it had been literally weeks since i'd had a pleasant, restful sleep that was not broken by fitful dreams and worry-insomnia. now that we had something solid to work on, i could look forward to some concrete action instead of merely feeling pushed around. viii i'd put in for an eight o'clock call, but my sleep had been so sound and perfect that i was all slept out by seven-thirty. i was anxious to get going so i dressed and shaved in a hurry and cancelled the eight o'clock call. then i asked the operator to connect me with 913. a gruff, angry male voice snarled out of the earpiece at me. i began to apologize profusely but the other guy slammed the phone down on the hook hard enough to make my ear ring. i jiggled my hook angrily and when the operator answered i told her that she'd miscued. she listened to my complaint and then replied in a pettish tone, "but i did ring 913, sir. i'll try again." i wanted to tell her to just try, that there was no 'again' about it, but i didn't. i tried to dig through the murk to her switchboard but i couldn't dig a foot through this area. i waited impatiently until she re-made the connections at her switchboard and i heard the burring of the phone as the other end rang. then the same mad-bull-rage voice delivered a number of pointed comments about people who ring up honest citizens in the middle of the night; and he hung up again in the middle of my apology. i got irked again and demanded that the operator connect me with the registration clerk. to him i told my troubles. "one moment, sir," he said. a half minute later he returned with, "sorry, sir. there is no farrow registered. could i have mis-heard you?" "no, goddammit," i snarled. "it's farrow. f as in frank; a as in arthur; double r as in robert robert; o as in oliver; and w as in washington. i saw her register, i went with her and the bellhop to her room, number 913, and saw her installed. then the same 'hop took me up to my room in 1224 on the twelfth." there was another moment of silence. then he said, "you're mr. cornell. registered in room 1224 last night approximately four minutes after midnight." "i know all about me. i was there and did it myself. and if i registered at four after midnight, miss farrow must have registered about two after midnight because the ink was still wet on her card when i wrote my name. we came in together, we were travelling together. now, what gives?" "i wouldn't know, sir. we have no guest named farrow." "see here," i snapped, "did you ever have a guest named farrow?" "not in the records i have available at this desk. perhaps in the past there may have been--" "forget the past. what about the character in 913?" the registration clerk returned and informed me coldly, "room 913 has been occupied by a mr. horace westfield for over three months, mr. cornell. there is no mistake." his voice sounded professionally sympathetic, and i knew that he would forget my troubles as soon as his telephone was put back on its hook. "forget it," i snapped and hung up angrily. then i went towards the elevators, walking in a sort of dream-like daze. there was a cold lump of something concrete hard beginning to form in the pit of my stomach. wetness ran down my spine and a drop of sweat dropped from my armpit and hit my body a few inches above my belt like a pellet of icy hail. my face felt cold but when i wiped it with the palm of a shaking hand i found it beaded with an oily sweat. everything seemed unreally horrifying. "nine," i told the elevator operator in a voice that sounded far away and hoarse. i wondered whether this might not be a very vivid dream, and maybe if i went all the way back to my room, took a short nap, and got up to start all over again, i would awaken to honest reality. the elevator stopped at nine and i walked the corridor that was familiar from last night. i rapped on the door of room 913. the door opened and a big stubble-faced gorilla gazed out and snarled at me: "are you the persistent character?" "look," i said patiently, "last night a woman friend of mine registered at this hotel and i accompanied her to this door. number 913. now--" a long apelike arm came out and caught me by the coat lapels. he hauled and i went in fast. his breath was sour and his eyes were bloodshot and he was angry all the way through. his other hand caught me by the seat of the pants and he danced me into the room like a jumping jack. "friend," he ground out, "take a look. there ain't no woman in this room, see?" he whirled, carrying me off my feet. he took a lunging step forward and hurled me onto the bed, where i carried the springs deep down, to bounce up and off and forward to come up flat against the far wall. i landed sort of spread-eagle flat and seemed to hang there before i slid down the wall to the floor with a meaty-sounding whump! then before i could collect my wits or myself, he came over the bed in one long leap and had me hauled upright by the coat lapels again. the other hand was cocked back level with his shoulder it looked the size of a twenty-five pound sack of flour and was probably as hard as set cement. _steve_, i told myself, _this time you're in for it!_ "all right," i said as apologetically as i knew how, "so i've made a bad mistake. i apologize. i'll also admit that you could wipe up the hotel with me. but do you have to prove it?" mr. horace westfield's mental processes were not slow, cumbersome, and crude. he was as fast and hard on his mental feet as he was on his physical feet. he made some remarks about my intelligence, my upbringing, my parentage and its legal status, and my unwillingness to face a superior enemy. during this catalog of my virtueless existence, he gandy-walked me to the door and opened it. he concluded his lecture by suggesting that in the future i accept anything that any registration clerk said as god-stated truth, and if i then held any doubts i should take them to the police. then he hurled me out of the room by just sort of shoving me away. i sailed across the hall on my toes, backward, and slapped my frame flat again, and once more i hung against the wall until the kinetic energy had spent itself. then i landed on wobbly ankles as the door to room 913 came closed with a violent slam. i cursed the habit of building hotels in dead areas, although i admitted that i'd steer clear of any hotel in a clear area myself. but i didn't need a clear area nor a sense of perception to inform me that room 913 was absolutely and totally devoid of any remote sign of female habitation. in fact, i gathered the impression that for all of his brute strength and virile masculinity, mr. horace westfield hadn't entertained a woman in that room since he'd been there. there was one other certainty: it was impossible for any agency short of sheer fairyland magic to have produced overnight a room that displayed its long-term occupancy by a not-too-immaculate character. that distinctive sour smell takes a long time to permeate the furnishings of any decent hotel; i wondered why a joint as well kept as this one would put up with a bird as careless of his person as mr. horace westfield. so i came to the reluctant conclusion that room 913 was not occupied by nurse farrow, but i was not yet convinced that she was totally missing from the premises. instead of taking the elevator, i took to the stairs and tried the eighth. my perception was not too good for much in this murk, but i was mentally sensitive to nurse farrow and if i could get close enough to her, i might be able to perceive some trace of her even through the deadness. i put my forehead against the door of room 813 and drew a blank. i could dig no farther than the inside of the door. if farrow were in 813, i couldn't dig a trace of her. so i went to 713 and tried there. i was determined to try every -13th room on every floor, but as i was standing with my forehead against the door to room 413, someone came up behind me quietly and asked in a rough voice: "just what do you think you're doing, mister?" his dress indicated housedick, but of course i couldn't dig the license in his wallet any more than he could read my mental, #none of your business, flatfoot!# i said, "i'm looking for a friend." "you'd better come with me," he said flatly. "there's been complaints." "yeah?" i growled. "maybe i made one of them myself." "want to start something?" he snapped. i shrugged and he smiled. it was a stony smile, humorless as a crevasse in a rock-face. he kept that professional-type smile on his face until we reached the manager's office. the manager was out, but one of the assistant managers was in his desk. the little sign on the desk said "henry walton. assistant manager." mr. walton said, coldly, "what seems to be the trouble, mr. cornell?" i decided to play it just as though i were back at the beginning again. "last night," i explained very carefully, "i checked into this hotel. i was accompanied by a woman companion. a registered nurse. miss gloria farrow. she registered first, and we were taken by one of your bellboys to rooms 913 and 1224 respectively. i went with miss farrow to 913 and saw her enter. then the bellhop escorted me to 1224 and left me for the night. this morning i can find no trace of miss farrow anywhere in this fleabag." he bristled at the derogatory title but he covered it quickly. "please be assured that no one connected with this hotel has any intention of confusing you, mr. cornell." "i'm tired of playing games," i snapped. "i'll accept your statement so far as the management goes, but someone is guilty of fouling up your registration lists." "that's rather harsh," he replied coldly. "falsifying or tampering with hotel registration lists is illegal. what you've just said amounts to libel or slander, you know." "not if it's true." i half expected henry walton to backwater fast, but instead, he merely eyed me with the same expression of distaste that he might have used upon finding half of a fuzzy caterpillar in his green salad. as cold as a cake of carbon dioxide snow, he said, "can you prove this, mr. cornell?" "your night crew--" "you've given us a bit of trouble this morning," he informed me. "so i've taken the liberty of calling in the night crew for you." he pressed a button and a bunch came in and lined up as if for formal inspection. "boys," said walton quietly, "suppose you tell us what you know about mr. cornell's arrival here last night." they nodded their heads in unison. "wait a minute," i snapped. "i want a reliable witness to listen to this. in fact, if i could, i'd like to have their stories made under oath." "you'd like to register a formal charge? perhaps of kidnapping, or maybe illegal restraint?" "just get me an impartial witness," i told him sourly. "very well." he picked up his telephone and spoke into it. we waited a few minutes, and finally a very prim young woman came in. she was followed by a uniformed policeman. she was carrying one of those sub-miniature silent typewriters which she set up on its little stand with a few efficient motions. "miss mason is our certified public stenographer," he said. "officer, i'll want your signature on her copy when we're finished. this is a simple routine matter, but it must be legal to the satisfaction of mr. cornell. now, boys, go ahead and explain. give your name and position first for miss mason's record." it was then that i noticed that the night crew had arranged themselves in chronological order. the elderly gent spoke first. he'd been the night doorman but now he was stripped of his admiral's gold braid and he looked just like any other sleepy man of middle age. "george comstock," he announced. "doorman. as soon as i saw the car angling out of traffic, i pressed the call-button for a bell boy. peter wright came out and was standing in readiness by the time mr. cornell's car came to a stop by the curb. johnny olson was out next, and after peter had taken mr. cornell's bag, johnny got into mr. cornell's car and took off for the hotel garage--" walton interrupted. "let each man tell what he did himself. no prompting, please." "well, then, you've heard my part in it. johnny olson took off in mr. cornell's car and peter wright took off with mr. cornell's bag, and mr. cornell followed peter." the next man in line, at a nod from the assistant manager, stepped forward about a half a pace and said, "i'm johnny olson. i followed peter wright out of the door and after peter had collected mr. cornell's bag, i got in mr. cornell's car and took it to the hotel garage." the third was peter wright, the bellhop. "i carried his bag to the desk and waited until he registered. then we went up to room 1224. i opened the door, lit the lights, opened the window, and stuff. mr. cornell tipped me five bucks and i left him there. alone." "i'm thomas boothe, the elevator operator. i took mr. cornell and peter wright to the twelfth. peter said i should wait because he wouldn't be long, and so i waited on the twelfth until peter got back. that's all." "i'm doris caspary, the night telephone operator. mr. cornell called me about fifteen minutes after twelve and asked me to put him down for a call at eight o'clock this morning. then he called at about seven thirty and said that he was already awake and not to bother." henry walton said, "that's about it, mr. cornell." "but--" the policeman looked puzzled. "what is the meaning of all this? if i'm to witness any statements like these, i'll have to know what for." walton looked at me. i couldn't afford not to answer. wearily i said, "last night i came in here with a woman companion and we registered in separate rooms. she went into 913 and i waited until she was installed and then went to my own room on the twelfth. this morning there is no trace of her." i went on to tell him a few more details, but the more i told him the more he lifted his eyebrows. "done any drinking?" he asked me curtly. "no." "certain?" "absolutely." walton looked at his crew. they burst into a chorus of, "well, he _was_ steady on his feet," and "he didn't _seem_ under the influence," and a lot of other statements, all generally indicating that for all they knew i could have been gassed to the ears, but one of those rare guys who don't show it. the policeman smiled thinly. "just why was this registered nurse travelling with you?" i gave them the excuse-type statement; the one about the accident and that i felt that i was still a bit on the rocky side and so forth. about all i did for that was to convince the policeman that i was not a stable character. his attitude seemed to indicate that any man travelling with a nurse must either be physically sick or maybe mentally out of tune. then with a sudden thought, i whirled on johnny olson. "will you get my car?" i asked him. he nodded after a nod from walton. i said, "there's plenty of evidence in my car. in the meantime, let's face one thing, officer. i've been accused of spinning a yarn. i'd hardly be demanding witnesses if i weren't telling the truth. i was standing beside miss farrow when she signed the register, complete with the r.n. title. it's too bad that hotels have taken to using card files instead of the old registration book. cards are so easy to misplace--" walton cut in angrily. "if that's an accusation, i'm inclined to see that you make it in a court of law." the policeman looked calm. "i'd take it easy, mr. cornell. your story is not corroborated. but the employees of the hotel bear one another out. and from the record, it would appear that you were under the eyes of at least two of them from the moment your car slowed down in front of the main entrance up to the time that you were escorted to your room." "i object to being accused of complicity in a kidnapping," put in the assistant manager. "i object to being accused of mental incompetence," i snapped. "why do we stand around accusing people back and forth when there's evidence if you'll only uncover it." we stood there glaring at one another. the air grew tense. the only ones in the place who did not have chips on their shoulders were the policeman and the certified stenographer, who was clicking her silent keys in lightning manner, taking down every comment as it was uttered. eventually olson returned, to put an end to the thick silence. "y'car's outside," he told me angrily. "fine," i said. "now we'll go outside and take a look. you'll find plenty of traces of miss farrow's having been there. officer--are you telepath or perceptive?" "perceptive," he said. "but not in here." "how far out does this damned dead area extend?" i asked walton. "about half way across the sidewalk." "okay. so let's all go." we traipsed out to the curb. miss mason brought her little silent along, slipping the stand high up so that she could type from an erect position. we lined up along the curb and i looked into my car with a triumphant feeling. and then that cold chill congealed my spine again. my car was clean and shining. it had been washed and buffed and polished until it looked as new as the day i picked it out on the salesroom floor. walton looked blank, and i whipped a thought at him: #damned telepath!# he nodded perceptibly and said smoothly, "i'm rather sorry we couldn't find any fingerprints. because now, you see," and here he turned to the policeman and went on, "mr. cornell will now accuse us of having washed his car to destroy the evidence. however, you'll find that as a general policy of the hotel, the car-washing is performed as a standard service. in fact, if any guest parks his car in our garage and his car is not rendered spick and span, someone is going to get fired for negligence." so that was that. i took a fast look around, because i knew that i had to get out of there fast. if i remained to carry on any more argument, i'd be tapped for being a nuisance and jugged. i had no doubt at all that the whole hotel staff were all involved in nurse farrow's disappearance. but they'd done their job in such a way that if the question were pushed hard, i would end up answering formal charges, the topmost of which might be murder and concealment of the body. i could do nothing by sitting in jail. this was the time to get out first and worry about farrow later. so i opened the car door and slipped in. i fiddled with the so-called glove compartment and opened it; the maps were all neatly stacked and all the flub had been cleaned out. i fumbled inside and dropped a couple of road maps to the floor, and while i was down picking them up i turned the ignition key which olson had left plugged in the lock. i took off with a jerk and howl of tires. there was the sudden shrill of a police whistle but it was stopped after one brief blast. as i turned the corner, i caught a fast backwards dig at them. they were filing back into the hotel. i did not believe that the policeman was part of the conspiracy, but i was willing to bet that walton was going to slip the policeman a box of fine cigars as a reward for having helped them to get rid of a very embarrassing screwball. ix i put a lot of miles between me and my recent adventure before i stopped to take stock. the answer to the mess was still obscure, but the elimination of nurse farrow fell into the pattern very neatly. alone, i was no problem. so long as my actions were restricted to meandering up and down the highways and byways, peering into nooks and crannies and crying, "catherine," in a plaintive voice, no one cared. but when i teamed up with a telepath, they moved in with the efficiency of a well-run machine and extracted the disturbing element. in fact, their machinations had been so smooth that i was beginning to believe that my 'discoveries' were really an assortment of unimportant facts shown to me deliberately for some reason of their own. the only snag in the latter theory was the fact of our accident. assuming that i had to get involved in the mess, there were easier ways to introduce me than by planning a bad crack-up that could have been fatal, even granting the close proximity of the harrison tribe to come to the rescue. the accident had to be an accident in the dictionary definition of the word itself. under the circumstances, a planned accident could only be accepted under an entirely different set of conditions. for instance, let's assume that catherine was a mekstrom and i was about to disclose the fact. then she or they could plan such an accident, knowing that she could walk out of the wreck with her hair barely mussed, leaving me dead for sure. but catherine was not a mekstrom. i'd been close enough to that satin skin to know that the body beneath it was soft and yielding. yet the facts as they stood did not throw out my theory. it merely had to be revised. catherine was no mekstrom, but if the harrisons had detected the faintest traces of an incipient mekstrom infection, they could very well have taken her in. i fumed at the idea. i could almost visualize them pointing out her infection and then informing her bluntly that she could either swear in with them and be cured or she could die alone and miserably. this could easily explain her disappearance. naturally, being what they were, they cared nothing for me or any other non-mekstrom. i was no menace. not until i teamed up with a telepath, and they knew what to do about that. completely angry, i decided that it was time that i made a noise like an erupting volcano. with plans forming, i took off again towards yellowstone, pausing only long enough at fort collins to buy some armament. colorado is still a part of the united states where a man can go into a store and buy a gun over the counter just like any other tool. i picked out a bonanza .375 because it is small enough to fit the hip pocket, light because of the new alloys so it wouldn't unballast me, and mostly because it packs enough wallop to stop a charging hippo. i did not know whether it would drill all the way through a mekstrom hide, but the impact would at least set any target back on the seat of his pants. then i drove into wyoming and made my way to yellowstone, and one day i was driving along the same road that had been pictured in dr. thorndyke's postcard. i drove along it boldly, loaded for bear, and watching the highway signs that led me nicely toward my goal. eventually i came to the inevitable missing spoke. it pointed to a ranch-type establishment that lay sprawled out in a billow of dead area. i eyed it warily and kept on driving because my plans did not include marching up to the front door like a rug peddler. instead, i went on to the next town, some twenty miles away, which i reached about dark. i stopped for a leisurely dinner, saw a moving picture at the drive-in, killed a few at the bar, and started back to the way station about midnight. the name, dug from the mailbox, was macklin. again i did not turn in. i parked the car down the highway by about three miles, figuring that only a psi of doctor's degree would be able to dig anything at that distance. i counted on there being no such mental giant in this out of the way place. i made my way back toward the ranch house across the fields and among the rolling rock. i extended my perception as far as i could; i made myself sensitive to danger and covered the ground foot by foot, digging for traps, alarm lines, photocell trips, and parties who might be lying in wait for me. i encountered no sign of any trip or trap all the way to the fringe of the dead zone. the possibility that they knew of my presence and were comfortably awaiting me deep within the zone occurred to me, and so i was very cautious as i cased the layout and decided to make my entry at the point where the irregular boundary of the dead area was closest to the house itself. i entered and became completely psi-blind. starlight cast just enough light so that i could see to walk without falling into a chuck hole or stumbling over something, but beyond a few yards everything lost shape and became a murky blob. the night was dead silent except for an occasional hiss of wind through the brush. esperwise i was not covering much more than my eyes could see. i stepped deeper into the zone and lost another yard of perception. i kept probing at the murk, sort of like poking a finger at a hanging blanket. it moved if i dug hard enough in any direction, but as soon as i released the pressure, the murk moved right back where it was before. i crouched and took a few more steps into the zone, got to a place where i could begin to see the outlines of the house itself. dark, silent, it looked uninhabited. i wished that there had been a college course in housebreaking, prowling and second-story operations. i went at it very slowly. i took my sweet time crossing the boards of the back verandah, even though the short hair on the back of my neck was beginning to prickle from nervousness. i was also scared. at any given moment, they had the legal right to open a window, poke out a field-piece, and blow me into bloody ribbons where i stood. the zone was really a dead one. my esper range was no more than about six inches from my forehead; a motion picture of steve cornell sounding out the border of a window with his forehead would have looked funny, it was not funny at the time. but i found that the sash was not locked and that the flyscreen could be unshipped from the outside. i entered a dining room. inside, it was blacker than pitch. i crossed the dining room by sheer feel and instinct and managed to get to the hallway without making any racket. at this point i stopped and asked myself what the heck i thought i was trying to do. i had to admit that i had no plan in definite form. i was just prowling the joint to see what information i might be able to pick up. down the hall i found a library. i'd been told that you tell what kind of people folks are by inspecting their library, and so i conned the book titles by running my head along a row of books. the books in the library indicated to me that this was a family of some size with rather broad tastes. there was everything from science fiction to shakespeare, everything from philosophy to adventure. a short row of kid's books. a bible. encyclopedia brittanica (published in chicago), in fifty-four volumes, but there were no places that were worn that might give me an idea as to any special interest. the living room was also blank of any evidence of anything out or the ordinary. i turned away and stood in the hallway, blocked by indecision. i was a fool, i kept telling myself, because i did not have any experience in casing a joint, and what i knew had been studied out of old-time detective tales. even if the inhabitants of the place were to let me go at it in broad daylight, i'm not too sure that i'd do a good job of finding something of interest except for sheer luck. but on the other hand, i'd gotten nowhere by dodging and ducking. i was in no mood to run quivering in fear. i was more inclined to emit a bellow just to see what would happen next. so instead of sneaking quietly away, i found the stairs and started to go up very slowly. it occurred to me at about the third step that i must be right. anybody with any sense wouldn't keep anything dangerous in their downstairs library. it would be too much like a safe-cracker storing his nitro in the liquor cabinet or the murderer who hangs his weapon over the mantelpiece. yet everybody kept some sort of records, or had things in their homes that were not shown to visiting firemen. and if it weren't on the second floor, then it might be in the cellar. if i weren't caught first, i'd prowl the whole damned place, inch by inch--avoiding if possible those rooms in which people slept. the fifth step squeaked ever so faintly, but it sounded like someone pulling a spike out of a packing case made of green wood. i froze, half aching for some perceptive range so that i could dig any sign of danger, and half remembering that if it weren't for the dead area, i'd not be this far. i'd have been frightened to try it in a clear zone. eventually i went on up, and as my head came above the level of the floor, everything became psi-clear once more. here was as neat a bit of home planning as i have ever seen. just below the level of the second floor, their dead area faded out, so that the top floor was clean, bright, and clear as day. i paused, startled at it, and spent a few moments digging outside. the dead area billowed above the rooftop out of my range; from what little i could survey of the dark psi area, it must have been shaped sort of like an angel-food cake, except that the central hole did not go all the way down. only to the first-floor level. it was a wonderful set-up for a home; privacy was granted on the first floor and from the road and all the surrounding territory, but on the second floor there was plenty of pleasant esperclear space for the close-knit family and friends. their dead area was shaped in the ideal form for any ideal home. then i stopped complimenting the architect and went on about my business, because there, directly in front of my nose, i could dig the familiar impression of a medical office. i went the rest of the way up the stairs and into the medical office. there was no mistake. the usual cabinets full of instruments, a laboratory examination table, shelves of little bottles, and along one wall was a library of medical books. all it needed was a sign on the door: 's. p. macklin, msch' to make it standard. at the end of the library was a set of looseleaf notebooks, and i pulled the more recent of them out and held it up to my face. i did not dare snap on a light, so i had to go it esper. even in the clear area, this told me very little. esper is not like eyesight, any more than you can hear printed words or perhaps carry on a conversation by watching the wiggly green line on an oscilloscope. i wished it was. instead, esper gives you a grasp of materials and shapes and things in position with regard to other things. it is sort of like seeing something simultaneously from all sides, if you can imagine such a sensation. so instead of being able to esper-read the journal, i had to take it letter by letter by digging the shape of the ink on the page with respect to the paper and the other letters, and since the guy's handwriting was atrocious, i could get no more than if the thing were written in latin. if it had been typewritten, or with a stylized hand, it would have been far less difficult; or if it had been any of my damned business i could have dug it easily. but as it was---"looking for something, mr. cornell?" asked a cool voice that dripped with acid sarcasm. at the same instant, the lights went on. i whirled, clutched at my hip pocket, and dropped to my knees at the same time. the sights of my .375 centered in the middle of a silk-covered midriff. she stood there indolently, disdainful of the cannon that was aimed at her. she was not armed; i'd have caught the esper warning of danger if she'd come at me with a weapon of some sort, even though i was preoccupied with the bookful of evidence. i stood up and faced her and let my esper run lightly over her body. she was another mekstrom, which did not surprise me a bit. "i seem to have found what i was looking for," i said. her laugh was scornful but not loud. "you're welcome, mr. cornell." #telepath?# "yes, and a good one." #who else is awake?# "just me, so far," she replied quietly. "but i'll be glad to call out--" #keep it quiet, sister macklin.# "stop thinking like an idiot, mr. cornell. quiet or not, you'll not leave this house until i permit you to go." i let my esper roam quickly through the house. an elderly couple slept in the front bedroom. a man slept alone in the room beside them; a pair of young boys slept in an over-and-under bunk in the room across the hall. the next room must have been hers, the bed was tumbled but empty. the room next to the medical office contained a man trussed in traction splints, white bandages, and literally festooned with those little hanging bottles that contain everything from blood plasma to food and water, right on down to lubrication for the joints. i tried to dig his face under the swath of bandage but i couldn't make out much more than the fact that it was a face and that the face was half mekstrom flesh. "he is a mekstrom patient," said miss macklin quietly. "at this stage, he is unconscious." i sort of sneered at her. "good friend of yours, no doubt." "not particularly," she said. "let's say that he is a poor victim that would die if we hadn't found his infection early." the tone and expression of her voice made me seethe; she sounded as though she felt herself to be a real benefactor to the human race, and that she and her outfit would do the same for any other poor guy that caught mekstrom's--providing they learned about this unfortunate occurrence in time. "we would, mr. cornell." "bah-loney," i grunted. "why dispute my word?" she asked in the same tone of innocent honesty. i eyed her angrily and i felt my hand tighten on the revolver. "i've a reason to become suspicious," i told her in a voice that i hoped was as mild-mannered as her own. "because three people have disappeared in the past half-year without a trace, but under circumstances that put me in the middle. all of them, somehow, seem to be involved with your hidden road sign system and mekstrom's disease." "that's unfortunate," she said quietly. i had to grab myself to keep from yelling, "unfortunate?" and managed to muffle it down to a mere voice-volume sound. "people dying of mekstrom's because you're keeping this cure a secret and i'm batted from pillar to post because--" i gave up on that because i really did not know why. "it's unfortunate that you had to become involved," she said firmly. "because you--" "it's unfortunate for everybody," i snapped, "because i'm going to bust you all wide open!" "i'm afraid not. you see, in order to do that you'll have to get out of here and that i will not permit." i grunted. "miss macklin, you mekstroms have hard bodies, but do you think your hide will stop a slug from this?" "you'll never know. you see, mr. cornell, you do not have the cold, brittle, determined guts that you'd need to pull that trigger." "no?" "pull it," she said. "or do you agree, now that you're of age, that you can't bluff a telepath." i eyed her sourly because she was right. she held that strength that lies in weakness; i could not pull that trigger and fire a .375 inch slug into that slender, silk-covered midriff. and opposite that, miss macklin also had a strength that was strength itself. she could hold me aloft with one hand kicking and squirming while she was twisting my arms and legs off with her other hand. she held all the big cards of her sex, too. i couldn't slug her with my fist, even though i knew that i'd only break my hand without even bruising her. i was in an awkward situation and i knew it. if she'd been a normal woman i could have shrugged my way past her and left, but she was determined not to let me leave without a lot of physical violence. violence committed on a woman gets the man in dutch no matter how justified he is. yet in my own weakness there was a strength; there was another way out and i took it. abruptly and without forethought. x shifting my aim slightly, i pulled the trigger. the .375 bonanza went off with a sound like an atom bomb in a telephone booth, and the slug whiffed between her arm and her body and drilled a crater in the plaster behind her. the roar stunned her stiff. the color drained from her face and she swayed uncertainly. i found time enough to observe that while her body was as hard as chromium, her nervous system was still human and sensitive enough to make her faint from a sudden shock. she caught herself, and stood there stiff and white with one delicate (but steel-hard) hand up against her throat. then i dug the household. they were piling out of the hay like a bunch of trained firemen answering a still alarm. they arrived in all stages of nightdress in the following order: the man, about twenty-two or three, who skidded into the room on dead gallop and put on brakes with a screech as he caught sight of the .375 with its thin wisp of blue vapor still trailing out of the muzzle. the twins, aged about fourteen, who might have turned to run if they'd not been frightened stiff at the sight of the cannon in my fist. father and then mother macklin, who came in briskly but without panic. mr. macklin said, crisply, "may i have an explanation, mr. cornell?" "i'm a cornered rat," i said thickly. "and so i'm scared. i want out of here in one piece. i'm so scared that if i'm intercepted, i may get panicky, and if i do someone is likely to get hurt. understand?" "perfectly," said mr. macklin calmly. "are you going to let him get away with this?" snapped the eldest son. "fred, a nervous man with a revolver is very dangerous. especially one who lacks the rudimentary training in the simpler forms of burglary." i couldn't help but admire the older gentleman's bland self-confidence. "young man," he said to me, "you've made a bad mistake." "no i haven't," i snapped. "i've been on the trail of something concrete for a long time, and now that i've found it i'm not going to let it go easily." i waved the .375 and they all cringed but mr. macklin. he said, "please put that weapon down, mr. cornell. let's not add attempted murder to your other crimes." "don't force me to it, then. get out of my way and let me go." he smiled. "i don't have to be telepath to tell you that you won't pull that trigger until you're sorely driven," he replied calmly. he was so right that it made me mad. he added, "also, you've got four shells left since you carry the firearm on an empty chamber. not used to guns, are you, mr. cornell?" well, i wasn't used to wearing a gun. now that he mentioned it, i remembered that it was impossible to fire the shell under the hammer by any means except by pulling the trigger. what he was telling me meant that even if i made a careful but bloody sweep of it with my four shells, there would be two of them left, and even the twins were more than capable of taking me apart inch by inch once my revolver was empty. "seems to be an impasse, mr. cornell," he said with an amused smile. "you bland-mannered bunch of--" "ah now, please," he said abruptly. "my wife is not accustomed to such language, nor is my daughter, although my son and the twins probably know enough definitions to make them angry. this is an impasse, mr. cornell, and it behooves all of us to be extremely polite to one another. for one wrong move and you'll fire; this will mean complete chaos for all of us. one wrong word from you and someone of us will take offense, which will be equally fatal. now, let's all stand quietly and talk this over." "what's to talk over?" i demanded. "a truce. or call it an armistice." "do go on." he looked at his family, and i followed his gaze. miss macklin was leaning against the wall with a look of concentrated interest. her elder brother fred was standing alert and ready but not quite poised for a leap. mrs. macklin had a motherly-looking smile on her face which for some unknown reason she was aiming at me in a disarming manner. the twins were standing close together, both of them puzzled-looking. i wondered whether they were esper or telepath (twins are always the same when they're identical, and opposite when fraternal). the thing that really bothered me was their attitude they all seemed to look at me as though i were a poor misguided individual who had unwittingly tromped on their toes after having fallen in among bad company. they reminded me of the harrisons, who looked and sounded so sympathetic when i'd gone out there seeking catherine. a fine bunch to trust! first they swipe my girl and erase all traces of her; then when i go looking they offer me help and sympathy for my distress. the right hand giveth and the left hand taketh away, yeah! i hated them all, yet i am not a hero-type. i wanted the whole highways in hiding rolled up like an old discarded corridor carpet, with every mekstrom on earth rolled up in it. but even if i'd been filled to the scuppers with self-abnegation in favor of my fellow man, i could not have pulled the trigger and started the shambles. for instead of blowing the whole thing wide open because of a batch of bodies, the survivors would have enough savvy to clean up the mess before our bodies got cold, and the old highways crowd would be doing business at the same old stand. without, i might add, without the minor nuisance that people call steve cornell. what i really wanted was to find catherine. and then it came to me that what i really wanted second of all was to possess a body of mekstrom flesh, to be a physical superman. "suppose," said miss macklin unexpectedly, "that it is impossible?" "impossible?" i roared. "what have you got that i haven't got?" "mekstrom's disease," replied miss macklin quietly. "fine," i sneered. "so how do i go out and get it?" "you'll get it naturally--or not at all," she said. "now see here--" i started off, but mr. macklin stopped me with an upraised hand. "mr. cornell," he said, "we are in the very awkward position of trying to convince a man that his preconceived notion is incorrect. we can produce no direct evidence to support our statement. all we can do is to tell you that so far as we know, and as much as we know about mekstrom's disease, no one has ever contracted the infection artificially." "and how can i believe you?" "that's our awkward position. we cannot show you anything that will support our statement. we can profess the attitudes of honesty, truth, honor, good-will, altruism, and every other word that means the same thing. we can talk until doomsday and nothing will be said." "so where is all this getting us?" i asked. "i hope it is beginning to cause your mind to doubt the preconceived notion," he said. "ask yourself why any outfit such as ours would deliberately show you evidence." "i have it and it does not make sense." he smiled. "precisely. it does not." fred macklin interrupted, "look, dad, why are we bothering with all this guff?" "because i have hopes that mr. cornell can be made to see our point, to join, as it were, our side." "fat chance," i snapped. "please, i'm your elder and not at all inclined to waste my time. you came here seeking information and you shall have it. you will not believe it, but it will, i hope, fill in some blank spots after you have had a chance to compare, sort, and use your own logic on the problem. as a mechanical engineer, you are familiar with the line of reasoning that we non-engineering people call occam's razor?" "the law of least reaction," i said automatically. "the what?" asked mrs. macklin. miss macklin said, "i'll read it from mr. cornell's mind, mother. the law of least reaction can be demonstrated by the following: if a bucket of mixed wood-shavings and gasoline are heated, there is a calculable probability that the gasoline will catch fire first because the gasoline is easier--least reaction--to set on fire." "right," i said. "but how does this apply to me?" mr. macklin took up the podium again: "for one thing, your assumption regarding catherine is correct. at the time of the accident she was found to have mekstrom's disease in its earliest form. the harrisons did take her in to save her life. now, dropping that side of the long story, we must follow your troubles. the accident, to a certain group of persons, was a fortunate one. it placed under their medical care a man--you--in whose mind could be planted a certain mild curiosity about a peculiar road sign and other evidences. the upshot of this was that you took off on a tour of investigation." that sounded logical, but there were a lot of questions that had open, ragged ends flying loose. mr. macklin went on: "let's diverge for the moment. mr. cornell, what is your reaction to mekstrom's disease at this point?" that was easy. it was a curse to the human race, excepting that some outfit knew how to cure it. once cured, it made a physical superman of the so-called victim. what stuck in my craw was the number of unfortunate people who caught it and died painfully--or by their own hand in horror--without the sign of aid or assistance. he nodded when i'd gone about half-way through my conclusions and before i got mentally violent about them. "mr. cornell, you've expressed your own doom at certain hands. you feel that the human race could benefit by exploitation of mekstrom's disease." "it could, if everybody helped out and worked together." "everybody?" he asked with a sly look. i yearned again for the ability of a telepath, and i knew that the reason why i was running around loose was because i was only an esper and therefore incapable of learning the truth directly. i stood there like a totem pole and tried to think. eventually it occurred to me. just as there are people who cannot stand dictatorships, there are others who cannot abide democracy; in any aggregation like the human race there will be the warped souls who feel superior to the rest of humanity. they welcome dictatorships providing they can be among the dictators and if they are not included, they fight until the other dictatorship is deposed so that they can take over. "true," said mr. macklin, "and yet, if they declared their intentions, how long would they last?" "not very long. not until they had enough power to make it stick," i said. "and above all, not until they have the power to grant this blessing to those whose minds agree with theirs. so now, mr. cornell, i'll make a statement that you can accept as a mere collection of words, to be used in your arguments with yourself: we'll assume two groups, one working to set up a hierarchy of mekstroms in which the rest of the human race will become hewers of wood and drawers of water. contrasting that group is another group who feels that no man or even a congress of men are capable of picking and choosing the individual who is to be granted the body of the physical superman. we cannot hope to watch the watchers, mr. cornell, and we will not have on our conscience the weight of having to select a over b as being more desirable. enough of this! you'll have to argue it out by yourself later." "later?" grunted fred macklin. "you're not going to--" "i certainly am," said his father firmly. "mr. cornell may yet be the agency whereby we succeed in winning out." he spoke to me again. "neither group dares to come into the open, mr. cornell. we cannot accuse the other group of anything nefarious, any more than they dare to accuse us. their mode of attack is to coerce you into exposing us for a group of undercover operators who are making supermen." "look," i asked him, "why not admit it? you've got nothing sinister in mind." "think of all the millions of people who have not had schooling beyond the preparatory grades," he said. "people of latent psi ability instead of trained practice, or those poor souls who have no psi ability worth mentioning. do you know the history of the rhine institute, mr. cornell?" "only vaguely." "in the early days of rhine's work at duke university, there were many scoffers. the scoffers and detractors, naturally enough, were those people who had the least amount of psi ability. admitting that at the time all psi ability was latent, they still had less of it. but after rhine's death, his associates managed to prove his theories and eventually worked out a system of training that would develop the psi ability. then, mr. cornell, those who are blessed with a high ability in telepathy or perception--the common term of esper is a misnomer, you know, because there's nothing extra-sensory about perception--found themselves being suspected and hated by those who had not this delicate sense. it took forty of fifty years before common public acceptance got around to looking at telepathy and perception in the same light as they saw a musician with a trained ear or an artist with a trained eye. psi is a talent that everybody has to some degree, and today this is accepted with very little angry jealousy. "but now," he went on thoughtfully, "consider what would happen if we made a public announcement that we could cure mekstrom's disease by making a physical superman out of the poor victim. our main enemy would then stand up righteously and howl that we are concealing the secret; he would be believed. we would be tracked down and persecuted, eventually wiped out, while he sat behind his position and went on picking and choosing victims whose attitude parallel his own." "and who is the character?" i demanded. i knew. but i wanted him to say it aloud. he shook his head. "i'll not say it," he said. "because i will not accuse him aloud, any more than he dares to tell you flatly that we are an underground organization that must be rooted out. he knows about our highways and our way stations and our cure, because he uses the same cure. he can hide behind his position so long as he makes no direct accusation. you know the law, mr. cornell." yes, i knew the law. so long as the accuser came into court with a completely clean mind, he was safe. but scholar phelps could hardly make the accusation, nor could he supply the tiniest smidgin of direct evidence to me. for in my accusation i'd implicate him as an accessory-accuser and then he would be called upon to supply not only evidence but a clear, clean, and open mind. in shorter words, the old stunt of pointing loudly to someone else as a dodge for covering up your own crime was a lost art in this present-day world of telepathic competence. the law, of course, insisted that no man could be convicted for what he was thinking, but only upon direct evidence of action. but a crooked-thinking witness found himself in deep trouble anyway, even though crooked thinking was in itself no crime. "now for one more time," said mr. macklin. "consider a medical person who cannot qualify because he is a telepath and not a perceptive. his very soul was devoted to being a scholar of medicine like his father and his grandfather, but his telepath ability does not allow him to be the full scholar. a doctor he can be. but he can never achieve the final training, again the ultimate degree. such a man overcompensates and becomes the frustrate; a ripe disciple for the superman theory." "dr. thorndyke!" i blurted. his face was as blank, as noncommittal as a bronze bust; i could neither detect affirmation nor negation in it. he was playing it flat; i'd never get any evidence from him, either. "so now, mr. cornell, i have given you food for thought. i've made no direct statements; nothing that you could point to. i've defended myself as any man will do, but only by protestations of innocence. therefore i suggest that you take your artillery and vacate the premises." i remembered the bonanza .375 that was hanging in my hand. shamefacedly i slipped it back in my hip pocket. "but look, sir--" "please leave, mr. cornell. any more i cannot say without laying us wide open for trouble. i am sorry for you, it is no joy being a pawn. but i hope that your pawn-ship will work for our side, and i hope that you will come through it safely. now, please leave us quietly." i shrugged. i left. and as i was leaving, miss macklin touched my arm and said in a soft voice: "i hope you find your catherine, steve. and i hope that someday you'll be able to join her." i nodded dumbly. it was not until i was all the way back to my car that i remembered that her last statement was something similar to wishing me a case of measles so that i'd be afterward immune from them. xi as the miles separated me from the macklins, my mind kept whirling around in a tight circle. i had a lot of the bits, but none of them seemed to lock together very tight. and unhappily, too many of the bits that fit together were hunks that i did not like. i knew the futility of being non-telepath. had mr. macklin given me the truth or was i being sold another shoddy bill of goods? or had he spun me a yarn just to get me out of his house without a riot? of course, there had been a riot, and he'd been expecting it. if nothing else, it proved that i was a valuable bit of material, for some undisclosed reason. i had to grin. i didn't know the reason, but whatever reason they had, it must gripe the devil out of them to be unable to erase me. then the grin faded. no one had told me about catherine. they'd neatly avoided the subject. well, since i'd taken off on this still hunt to find catherine, i'd continue looking, even though every corner i looked into turned out to be the hiding place for another bunch of mad spooks. my mind took another tack: admitting that neither side could rub me out without losing, why in heck didn't they just collect me and put me in a cage? dammit, if i had an organization as well oiled as either of them, i could collect the president right out of the new white house and put him in a cage along with the king of england, the shah of persia, and the dali lama to make a fourth for bridge. this was one of those questions that cannot be answered by the application of logic, reasoning, or by applying either experience or knowledge. i did not know, nor understand. and the only way i would ever find out was to locate someone who was willing to tell. then it occurred to me that--aside from my one experience in housebreaking--that i'd been playing according to the rules. i'm pretty much a law-abiding citizen. yet it did seem to me that i learned more during those times when the rules, if not broken, at least were bent rather sharply. so i decided to try my hand at busting a couple of rather high-level rules. there was a way to track down catherine. so i gassed up the buggy, turned the nose east, and took off like a man with a purpose in mind. en route, i laid out my course. along that course there turned out to be seven way stations, according to the highway signs. three of them were along u.s. 12 on the way from yellowstone to chicago. one of them was between chicago and hammond, indiana. there was another to the south of sandusky, ohio, one was somewhere south of erie, pa., and the last was in the vicinity of newark. there were a lot of the highways themselves, leading into and out of my main route--as well as along it. but i ignored them all, and nobody gave me a rough time. eventually i walked into my apartment. it was musty, dusty, and lonesome. some of catherine's things were still on the table where i'd dropped them; they looked up at me mutely until i covered them with the walloping pile of mail that had arrived in my long absence. i got a bottle of beer and began to go through the mail, wastebasketing the advertisements, piling the magazines neatly, and filing some offers of jobs (which reminded me that i was still an engineer and that my funds wouldn't last indefinitely) and went on through the mail until i came to a letter--the letter. _dear mr. cornell:_ _we're glad to hear from you. we moved, not because marian caught mekstrom's, but because the dead area shifted and left us sort of living in a fish-bowl, psi-wise._ _everybody is hale and hearty here and we all wish you the best._ _please do not think for a moment that you owe us anything. we'd rather be free of your so-called debt. we regret that catherine was not with you, maybe the accident might not have happened. but we do all think that we stand as an association with a very unhappy period in your life, and that it will be better for you if you try to forget that we exist. this is a hard thing to say, steve, but really, all we can do for you is to remind you of your troubles._ _therefore with love from all of us, we'd like to make this a sincerely sympathetic and final--_ _farewell, philip harrison._ i grunted unhappily. it was a nice-sounding letter, but it did not ring true, somehow. i sat there digging it for hidden meanings, but none came. i didn't care. in fact, i didn't really expect any more than this. if they'd not written me at all, i'd still have done what i did. i sat down and wrote phillip harrison another letter: _dear philip:_ _i received your letter today, as i returned from an extended trip through the west. i'm glad to hear that marian is not suffering from mekstrom's disease. i am told that it is fatal to the--uninitiated._ _however, i hope to see you soon._ _regards, steve cornell._ _that_, i thought, _should do it!_ then to help me and my esper, i located a tiny silk handkerchief of catherine's, one she'd left after one of her visits. i slipped it into the envelope and slapped a stamp and a notation on the envelope that this letter was to be forwarded to phillip harrison. i dropped it in the box about eleven that night, but i didn't bother trying to follow it until the morning. ultimately it was picked up and taken to the local post office, and from there it went to the clearing station at pennsylvania station at 34th st., where i hung around the mail-baggage section until i attracted the attention of a policeman. "looking for something, mr. cornell?" "not particularly," i told the telepath cop. "why?" "you've been digging every mailbag that comes out of there." "am i?" i asked ingeniously. "can it buster, or we'll let you dig your way out of a jail." "you can't arrest a man for thinking." "i'll be happy to make it loitering," he said sharply. "i've a train ticket." "use it, then." "sure. at train time i'll use it." "which train?" he asked me sourly. "you've missed three already." "i'm waiting for a special train, officer." "then please go and wait in the bar, mr. cornell." "okay. i'm sorry i caused you any trouble, but i've a bit of a personal problem. it isn't illegal." "anything that involves taking a perceptive dig at the u.s. mail is illegal," said the policeman. "personal or not, it's out. so either you stop digging or else." i left. there was no sense in arguing with the cop. i'd just end up short. so i went to the bar and i found out why he'd recommended it. it was in a faintly-dead area, hazy enough to prevent me from taking a squint at the baggage section. i had a couple of fast ones, but i couldn't stand the suspense of not knowing when my letter might take off without me. since i'd also pushed my loitering-luck i gave up. the only thing i could hope for was that the sealed forwarding address had been made out at that little town near the harrisons and hadn't been moved. so i went and took a train that carried no mail. it made my life hard. i had to wander around that tank town for hours, keeping a blanket-watch on the post office for either the income or the outgo of my precious hunk of mail. i caught some hard eyes from the local yokels but eventually i discovered that my luck was with me. a fast train whiffled through the town and they baggage-hooked a mailbag off the car at about a hundred and fifty per. i found out that the next stop of that train was albany. i'd have been out of luck if i'd hoped to ride with the bag. then came another period of haunting that dinky post office (i've mentioned before that it was in a dead area, so i couldn't watch the insides, only the exits) until at long last i perceived my favorite bit of mail emerging in another bag. it was carted to the railroad station and hung up on another pick-up hook. i bought a ticket back to new york and sat on a bench near the hook, probing into the bag as hard as my sense of perception could dig. i cursed the whole world. the bag was merely labelled "forwarding mail" in letters that could be seen at ninety feet. my own letter, of course, i could read very well, to every dotted 'i' and crossed 't' and the stitching in catherine's little kerchief. but i could not make out the address printed on the form that was pasted across the front of the letter itself. as i sat there trying to probe that sealed address, a fast train came along and scooped the bag off the hook. i caught the next train. i swore and i squirmed and i groaned because that train stopped at every wide spot in the road, paused to take on milk, swap cars, and generally tried to see how long it could take to make a run of some forty miles. this was fate. naturally, any train that stopped at my rattle burg would also stop at every other point along the road where some pioneer had stopped to toss a beer bottle off of his covered wagon. at long last i returned to pennsylvania station just in time to perceive my letter being loaded on a conveyor for laguardia. then the same damned policeman collared me. "this is it," he said. "now see here, officer. i--" "will you come quietly, mr. cornell? or shall i put the big arm on you?" "for what?" "you've been violating the 'disclosure' section of the federal communications act, and i know it." "now look, officer, i said this was not illegal." "i'm not an idiot, cornell!" i noted uncomfortably that he had dropped the formal address. "you have been trailing a specific piece of mail with the express purpose of finding out where it is going. since its destination is a sealed forwarding address, your attempt to determine this destination is a violation of the act." he eyed me coldly as if to dare me to deny it. "now," he finished, "shall i read you chapter and verse?" he had me cold. the 'disclosure' act was an old ruling that any transmission must not be used for the benefit of any handler. when rhine came along, 'disclosure' act was extended to everything. "look officer, it's my girl," hoping that would make a difference. "i know that," he told me flatly. "which is why i'm not running you in. i'm just telling you to lay off. your girl went away and left you a sealed forwarding address. maybe she doesn't want to see you again." "she's sick," i said. "maybe her family thinks you made her sick. now stop it and go away. and if i ever find you trying to dig the mail again, you'll dig iron bars. now scat!" he urged me towards the outside of the station like a sheep-dog hazing his flock. i took a cab to laguardia, even though it was not as fast as the subway. i was glad to be out of his presence. i connected with my letter again at laguardia. it was being loaded aboard a dc-16 headed for chicago, denver, los angeles, hawaii, and manila. i didn't know how far it was going so i bought a ticket for the route with my travel card and i got aboard just ahead of the closing door. my bit of mail was in the compartment below me, and in the hour travel time to chicago, i found out that chicago was the destination for the mailbag, although the superscript on the letter was still hazy. i followed the bag off the plane at chicago and stopped long enough to cancel the rest of my ticket. there was no use wasting the money for the unused fare from chicago to manila. i rode into the city in a combination bus-truck less than six feet from my little point-of-interest. during the ride i managed to dig the superscript. it forwarded the letter to ladysmith, wisconsin, and from there to a rural route that i couldn't understand although i got the number. then i went back to midway airport and found to my disgust that the chicago airport did not have a bar. i dug into this oddity for a moment until i found out that the chicago airport was built on public school property and that according to law, they couldn't sell anything harder than soda pop within three hundred feet of public school property, no matter who rented it. so i dawdled in the bar across cicero avenue until plane time, and took an old propeller-driven convair to eau claire on a daisy-clipping ride that stopped at every wide spot on the course. from eau claire the mail bag took off in the antediluvian convair but i took off by train because the bag was scheduled to be dropped by guided glider into ladysmith. at ladysmith i rented a car, checked the rural routes, and took off about the same time as my significant hunk of mail. nine miles from ladysmith is a flagstop called bruce, and not far from bruce there is a body of water slightly larger than a duck pond called caley lake. a backroad, decorated with ornamental metal signs, led me from bruce, wisconsin, to caley lake, where the road signs showed a missing spoke. i turned in, feeling like ferdinand magellan must have felt when he finally made his passage through the strait to discover the open sea that lay beyond the new world. i had done a fine job of tailing and i wanted someone to pin a leather medal on me. the side road wound in and out for a few hundred yards, and then i saw phillip harrison. he was poking a long tool into the guts of an automatic pump, built to lift water from a deep well into a water tower about forty feet tall. he did not notice my arrival until i stopped my rented car beside him and said: "being a mechanical engineer and an esper, phil, i can tell you that you have a--" "a worn gasket seal," he said. "it doesn't take an esper engineer to figure it out. how the heck did you find us?" "out in your mailbox there is a letter," i told him. "i came with it." he eyed me humorously. "how much postage did you cost? or did you come second class mail?" i was not sure that i cared for the inference, but phillip was kidding me by the half-smile on his face. i asked, "phil, please tell me--what is going on?" his half-smile faded. he shook his head unhappily as he said, "why can't you leave well-enough alone?" my feelings welled up and i blew my scalp. "let well enough alone?" i roared. "i'm pushed from pillar to post by everybody. you steal my girl. i'm in hokus with the cops, and then you tell me that i'm to stay--" "up the proverbial estuary lacking the customary means of locomotion," he finished with a smile. i couldn't see the humor in it. "yeah," i drawled humorlessly. "you realize that you're probably as big a liability with us as you were trying to find us?" i grunted. "i could always blow my brains out." "that's no solution and you know it." "then give me an alternative." phillip shrugged. "now that you're here, you're here. it's obvious that you know too much, steve. you should have left well enough alone." "i didn't know well enough. besides, i couldn't have been pushed better if someone had slipped me--" i stopped, stunned at the idea and then i went on in a falter, "--a post-hypnotic suggestion." "steve, you'd better come in and meet marian. maybe that's what happened." "marian?" i said hollowly. "she's a high-grade telepath. master of psi, no less." my mind went red as i remembered how i'd catalogued her physical charms on our first meeting in an effort to find out whether she were esper or telepath. marian had fine control; her mind must have positively seethed at my invasion of her privacy. i did not want to meet marian face to face right now, but there wasn't a thing i could do about it. phillip left his pump and waved for me to follow. he took off in his jeep and i trailed him to the farmhouse. we went through a dim area that was almost the ideal shape for a home. the ring was not complete, but the open part faced the fields behind the house so that good privacy was ensured for all practical purposes. on the steps of the verandah stood marian. sight of her was enough to make me forget my self-accusation of a few moments ago. she stood tall and lissome, the picture of slender, robust health. "come in, steve," she said, holding out her hand. i took it. her grip was firm and hard, but it was gentle. i knew that she could have pulped my hand if she squeezed hard. "i'm very happy to see that rumor is wrong and that you're not--suffering--from mekstrom's disease," i told her. "so now you know, steve. too bad." "why?" "because it adds a load to all of us. even you." she looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "well, come on in and relax, steve. we'll talk it out." we all went inside. on a divan in the living room, covered by a light blanket, resting in a very light snooze, was a woman. her face was turned away from me, but the hair and the line of the figure and the-#catherine!# she turned and sat up at once, alive and shocked awake. she rubbed the sleep from her eyes with swift knuckles and then looked over her hands at me. "steve!" she cried, and all the world and the soul of her was in the throb of her voice. xii catherine took one unsteady step towards me and then came forward with a rush. she hurled herself into my arms, pressed herself against me, held me tight. it was like being attacked by a bulldozer. phillip stayed my back against her headlong rush or i would have been thrown back out through the door, across the verandah, and into the middle of the yard. the strength of her crushed my chest and wrenched my spine. her lips crushed mine. i began to black out from the physical hunger of a woman who did not know the extent of her new-found body. all that catherine remembered was that once she held me to the end of her strength and yearned for more. to hold me that way now meant--death. her body was the same slenderness, but the warm softness was gone. it was a flesh-warm waist of flexible steel. i was being held by a statue of bronze, animated by some monster servo-mechanism. this was no woman. phillip and marian pried her away from me before she broke my back. phillip led her away, whispering softly in her ear. marian carried me to the divan and let me down on my face gently. her hands were gentle as she pressed the air back into my lungs and soothed away the awful wrench in my spine. gradually i came alive again, but there was pain left that made me gasp at every breath. then the physical hurt went away, leaving only the mental pain; the horror of knowing that the girl that i loved could never hold me in her arms. i shuddered. all that i wanted out of this life was marriage with catherine, and now that i had found her again, i had to face the fact that the first embrace would kill me. i cursed my fate just as any invalid has cursed the malady that makes him a responsibility and a burden to his partner instead of a joy and helpmeet. like the helpless, i didn't want it; i hadn't asked for it; nor had i earned it. yet all i could do was to rail against the unfairness of the unwarranted punishment. without knowing that i was asking, i cried out, "but why?" in a plaintive voice. in a gentle tone, marian replied: "steve, you cannot blame yourself. catherine was lost to you before you met her at her apartment that evening. what she thought to be a callous on her small toe was really the initial infection of mekstrom's disease. we're all psi-sensitive to mekstrom's disease, steve. so when you cracked up and dad and phil went on the dead run to help, they caught a perception of it. naturally we had to help her." i must have looked bitter. "look, steve," said phillip slowly. "you wouldn't have wanted us not to help? after all, would you want catherine to stay with you? so that you could watch her die at the rate of a sixty-fourth of an inch each hour?" "hell," i snarled, "someone might have let me know." phillip shook his head. "we couldn't steve. you've got to understand our viewpoint." "to heck with your viewpoint!" i roared angrily. "has anybody ever stopped to consider mine?" i did not give a hoot that they could wind me around a doorknob and tuck my feet in the keyhole. sure, i was grateful for their aid to catherine. but why didn't someone stop to think of the poor benighted case who was in the accident ward? the bird that had been traipsing all over hell's footstool trying to get a line on his lost sweetheart. i'd been through the grinder; questioned by the f.b.i., suspected by the police; and i'd been the guy who'd been asked by a grieving, elderly couple, "but can't you remember, son?" them and their stinking point of view! "easy, steve," warned phillip harrison. "easy nothing! what possible justification have you for putting me through my jumps?" "look, steve. we're in a precarious position. we're fighting a battle against an unscrupulous enemy, an undercover battle, steve. if we could get something on phelps, we'd expose him and his medical center like that. conversely, if we slip a millimeter, phelps will clip us so hard that the sky will ring. he--damn him--has the government on his side. we can't afford to look suspicious." "couldn't you have taken me in too?" he shook his head sadly. "no," he said. "there was a bad accident, you know. the authorities have every right to insist that each and every automobile on the highway be occupied by a minimum of one driver. they also believe that for every accident there must be a victim, even though the damage is no more than a bad case of fright." i could hardly argue with that. changing the subject, i asked, "but what about the others who just drop out of sight?" "we see to it that plausible letters of explanation are written." "so who wrote me?" i demanded hotly. he looked at me pointedly. "if we'd known about catherine before, she'd have--disappeared--leaving you a trite letter. but no one could think of a letter to explain her disappearance from an accident, steve." "oh fine." "well, you'd still prefer to find her alive, wouldn't you?" "couldn't someone tell me?" "and have you radiating the fact like a broadcasting station?" "why couldn't i have joined her--you--?" he shook his head in the same way that a man shakes it when he is trying to explain _why_ two plus two are four and not maybe five or three and a half. "steve," he said, "you haven't got mekstroms' disease." "how do i get it?" i demanded hotly. "nobody knows," he said unhappily. "if we did, we'd be providing the rest of the human race with indestructible bodies as fast as we could spread it and take care of them." "but couldn't i have been told _something_?" i pleaded. i must have sounded like a hurt kitten. marian put her hand on my arm. "steve," she said, "you'd have been smoothed over, maybe brought in to work for us in some dead area. but then you turned up acting dangerously for all of us." "who--me?" "by the time you came out for your visit, you were dangerous to us." "what do you mean?" "let me find out. relax, will you steve? i'd like to read you deep. catherine, you come in with me." "what are we looking for?" "traces of post-hypnotic suggestion. it'll be hard to find because there will be only traces of a plan, all put in so that it looks like natural, logical reasoning." catherine looked doubtful. "when would they have the chance?" she asked. "thorndyke. in the hospital." catherine nodded and i relaxed. at the beginning i was very reluctant. i didn't mind catherine digging into the dark and dusty corners of my mind, but marian harrison bothered me. "think of the accident, steve," she said. then i managed to lull my reluctant mind by remembering that she was trying to help me. i relaxed mentally and physically and regressed back to the day of the accident. i found it hard even then to go through the love-play and sweet seriousness that went on between catherine and me, knowing that marian harrison was a sort of mental spectator. but i fought down my reticence and went on with it. i practically re-lived the accident. it was easier now that i'd found catherine again. it was like a cleansing bath. i began to enjoy it. so i went on with my life and adventures right up to the present. having come to the end, i stopped. marian looked at catherine. "did you get it?" silence. more silence. then, "it seems dim. almost incredulous--that it could be--" with a trail-off into thought again. phillip snorted. "make with the chin-music, you two. the rest of us aren't telepaths, you know." "sorry," said marian. "it's sort of complicated and hard to figure, you know. what seems to be the case is sort of like this," she went on in an uncertain tone, "we can't find any direct evidence of anything like hypnotic suggestion. the urge to follow what you call the highways in hiding is rather high for a mere bump of curiosity, but nothing definite. i think you were probably urged very gently. catherine objects, saying that it would take a brilliant psycho-telepath to do a job delicate enough to produce the urge without showing the traces of the operation." "someone of scholar grade in both psychology and telepathy," said catherine. i thought it over for a moment. "it seems to me that whoever did it--if it was done--was well aware that a good part of this urge would be generated by catherine's total and unexplicable disappearance. you'd have saved yourselves a lot of trouble--and saved me a lot of heartache if you'd let me know something. god! haven't you any feelings?" catherine looked at me from hurt eyes. "steve," she said quietly, "a billion girls have sworn that they'd rather die than live without their one and only. i swore it too. but when your life's end is shown to you on a microscope slide, love becomes less important. what should i do? just die? painfully?" that was handing it to me on a platter. it hurt but i am not chuckleheaded enough to insist that she come with me to die instead of leaving me and living. what really hurt was not knowing. "steve," said marian. "you know that we couldn't have told you the truth." "yeah," i agreed disconsolately. "let's suppose that catherine wrote you a letter telling you that she was alive and safe, but that she'd reconsidered the marriage. you were to forget her and all that. what happens next?" unhappily i told him. "i'd not have believed it." phillip nodded. "next would have been a telepath-esper team. maybe a perceptive with a temporal sense who could retrace that letter back to the point of origin, teamed up with a telepath strong enough to drill a hole through the dead area that surrounds new washington. why, even before rhine institute, it was sheer folly for a runaway to write a letter. what would it be now?" i nodded. what he said was true, but it did not ease the hurt. "then on the other hand," he went on in a more cheerful vein, "let's take another look at us and you, steve. tell me, fellow, where are you now?" i looked up at him. phillip was smiling in a knowing-superior sort of manner. i looked at marian. she was half-smiling. catherine looked satisfied. i got it. "yeah. i'm here." "you're here without having any letters, without leaving any broad trail of suspicion upon yourself. you've not disappeared, steve. you've been a-running up and down the country all on your own decision. where you go and what you do is your own business and nobody is going to set up a hue and cry after you. sure, it took a lot longer this way. but it was a lot safer." he grinned wide then as he went on, "and if you'd like to take some comfort out of it, just remember that you've shown yourself to be quite capable, filled with dogged determination, and ultimately successful." he was right. in fact, if i'd tried the letter-following stunt long earlier, i'd have been here a lot sooner. "all right," i said. "so what do we do now?" "we go on and on and on, steve, until we're successful." "successful?" he nodded soberly. "until we can make every man, woman, and child on the face of this earth as much physical superman as we are, our job is not finished." i nodded. "i learned a few of the answers at the macklin place." "then this does not come as a complete shock." "no. not a complete shock. but there are a lot of loose ends still. so the basic theme i'll buy. scholar phelps and his medical center are busy using their public position to create the nucleus of a totalitarian state, or a physical hierarchy. you and the highways in hiding are busy tearing phelps down because you don't want to see any more rule by the divine right of kings, dictators, or family lines." "go on, steve." "well, why in the devil don't you announce yourselves?" "no good, old man. look, you yourself want to be a mekstrom. even with your grasp of the situation, you resent the fact that you cannot." "you're right." phillip nodded slowly. "let's hypothesize for a moment, taking a subject that has nothing to do with mekstrom's disease. let's take one of the old standby science-fiction plots. some cataclysm is threatening the solar system. the future of the earth is threatened, and we have only one spacecraft capable of carrying a hundred people to safety--somewhere else. how would you select them?" i shrugged. "since we're hypothecating, i suppose that i'd select the more healthy, the more intelligent, the more virile, the more--" i struggled for another category and then let it stand right there because i couldn't think of another at that instant. phillip agreed. "health and intelligence and all the rest being pretty much a matter of birth and upbringing, how can you explain to wilbur zilch that oscar hossenpfeiffer has shown himself smarter and healthier and therefore better stock for survival? maybe you can, but the end-result is that wilbur zilch slaughters oscar hossenpfeiffer. this either provides an opening for zilch, or if he is caught at it, it provides zilch with the satisfaction of knowing that he's stopped the other guy from getting what he could not come by honestly." "so what has this to do with mekstrom's disease and supermen?" "the day that we--and i mean either of us--announces that we can 'cure' mekstrom's disease and make physical supermen of the former victims, there will be a large scream from everybody to give them the same treatment. no, we'll tell them, we can't cure anybody who hasn't caught it. then some pedagogue will stand up and declare that we are suppressing information. this will be believed by enough people to do us more harm than good. darn it, we're not absolutely indestructible, steve. we can be killed. we could be wiped out by a mob of angry citizens who saw in us a threat to their security. neither we of the highways nor phelps of the medical center have enough manpower to be safe." "so that i'll accept. the next awkward question comes up: what are we going to do with me?" "you've agreed that we cannot move until we know how to inoculate healthy flesh. we need normal humans, to be our guinea pigs. will you help bring to the earth's people the blessing that is now denied them?" "if you are successful, steve," said marian, "you'll go down in history along with otto mekstrom. you could be the turning point of the human race, you know." "and if i fail?" phillip harrison's face took on a hard and determined look. "steve, there can be no failure. we shall go on and on until we have success." that was a fine prospect. old guinea-pig cornell, celebrating his seventieth birthday as the medical experimentation went on and on. catherine was leaning forward, her eyes bright. "steve," she cried, "you've just _got_ to!" "just call me the unwilling hero," i said in a drab voice. "and put it down that the condemned specimen drank a hearty dinner. i trust that there is a drink in the house." there was enough whiskey in the place to provide the new specimen with a near-total anesthesia. the evening was spent in forced badinage, shallow laughter, and a pointed avoidance of the main subject. the whiskey was good; i took it undiluted and succeeded in getting boiled to the eyebrows before they carted me off to bed. i did not sleep well despite my anesthesia. there was too much on my mind and very little of it was the fault of the harrisons. one of the things that i had to face was the cold fact that part of catherine's lack of communication with me was caused by logic and good sense. both history and fiction are filled with cases where love was set aside because consummation was impossible for any number of good reasons. so i slept fitfully, and my dreams were as unhappy as the thoughts i had during my waking moments. somehow i realized that i'd have been far better off if i'd been able to forget catherine after the accident, if i'd been able to resist the urge to follow the highways in hiding, if i'd never known that those ornamental road signs were something more than the desire of some road commissioner to beautify the countryside. but no, i had to go and poke my big bump of curiosity into the problem. so here i was, resentful as all hell because i was denied the pleasure of living in the strong body of a mekstrom. it was not fair. although life itself is seldom fair, it seemed to me that life was less fair to me than to others. and then to compound my feelings of persecution, i woke up once about three in the morning with a strong urge to take a perceptive dig down below. i should have resisted it, but of course, no one has ever been able to resist the urge of his sense of perception. down in the living room, catherine was crying on phillip harrison's shoulder. he held her gently with one arm around her slender waist and he was stroking her hair softly with his other hand. i couldn't begin to dig what was being said, but the tableau was unmistakable. she leaned back and looked at him as he said something. her head moved in a 'no' motion as she took a deep breath for another bawl. she buried her face in his neck and sobbed. phillip held her close for a moment and then loosed one hand to find a handkerchief for her. he wiped her eyes gently and talked to her until she shook her head in a visible effort to shake away both the tears and the unhappy thoughts. eventually he lit two cigarettes and handed one to her. side by side they walked to the divan and sat down close together. catherine leaned against him gently and he put his arm over her shoulders and hugged her to him. she relaxed, looking unhappy, but obviously taking comfort in the strength and physical presence of him. it was a hell of a thing to dig in my mental condition. i drifted off to a sleep filled with unhappy dreams while they were still downstairs. frankly, i forced myself into fitful sleep because i did not want to stay awake to follow them. as bad as the nightmare quality of my dreams were, they were better for me than the probable reality. * * * * * oh, i'd been infernally brilliant when i uncovered the first secret of the highways in hiding. i found out that i did not know one-tenth of the truth. they had a network of highways that would make the department of roads and highways look like a backwood, second-rate, political organization. i'd believed, for instance, that the highways were spotted only along main arteries to and from their way stations. the truth was that they had a complete system from one end of the country to the other. lanes led from maine and from florida into a central main highway that laid across the breadth of the united states. then from washington and from southern california another branching network met this main highway. lesser lines served canada and mexico. the big main trunk ran from new york to san francisco with only one large major division: a heavy line that led down to a place in texas called _homestead_. homestead, texas, was a big center that made scholar phelps' medical center look like a teeny weeny village by comparison. we drove in marian's car. my rented car, of course, was returned to the agency and my own bus would be ferried out as soon as it could be arranged so that i'd not be without personal transportation in texas. catherine remained in wisconsin because she was too new at being a mekstrom to know how to conduct herself so that the fact of her super-powerful body did not cause a lot of slack jaws and high suspicion. we drove along the highways to homestead, carrying a bag of the mekstrom mail. the trip was uneventful. xiii since this account of my life and adventures is not being written without some plan, it is no mere coincidence that this particular section comes under chapter thirteen. old unlucky thirteen covers ninety days which i consider the most dismal ninety days of my life. things, which had been going along smoothly had, suddenly got worse. we started with enthusiasm. they cut and they dug and they poked needles into me and trimmed out bits of my hide for slides. i helped them by digging my own flesh and letting their better telepaths read my results for their records. they were nice to me. i got the best of everything. but being nice to me was not enough; it sort of made me feel like gulliver in brobdingnag. they were so over-strong that they did not know their own strength. this was especially true of the youngsters of mekstrom parents. i tried to re-diaper a baby one night and got my ring finger gummed for my efforts. it was like wrestling bad cyril in a one-fall match, winner take all. as the days added up into weeks, their hope and enthusiasm began to fade. the long list of proposed experiments dwindled and it became obvious that they were starting to work on brand new ideas. but brand new ideas are neither fast in arriving nor high in quantity, and time began to hang dismally heavy. they began to avoid my eyes. they stopped discussing their attempts on me; i no longer found out what they were doing and how they hoped to accomplish the act. they showed the helplessness that comes of failure, and this feeling of utter futility was transmitted to me. at first i was mentally frantic at the idea of failure, but as the futile days wore on and the fact was practically shoved down my throat, i was forced to admit that there was no future for steve cornell. i began at that time to look forward to my visit to reorientation. reorientation is a form of mental suicide. once reoriented, the problems that make life intolerable are forgotten, your personality is changed, your grasp of everything is revised, your appreciation of all things comes from an entirely new angle. you are a new person. then one morning i faced my image in the mirror and came to the conclusion that if i couldn't be me, i didn't want to be somebody else. it is no good to be alive if i am not me, i told my image, who obediently agreed with me. i didn't even wait to argue with me. i just went out and got into my car and sloped. it was not hard; everybody in homestead trusted me. xiv i left homestead with a half-formed idea that i was going to visit bruce, wisconsin, long enough to say goodbye to catherine and to release her from any matrimonial involvement she may have felt binding. i did not relish this idea, but i felt that getting it out, done, and agreed was only a duty. but as i hit the road and had time to think, i knew that my half-formed intention was a sort of martyrdom; i was going to renounce myself in a fine welter of tears and then go staggering off into the setting sun to die of my mental wounds. i took careful stock of myself and faced the fact that my half-baked idea was a sort of suicide-wish; walking into any mekstrom way station now was just asking for capture and a fast trip to their reorientation rooms. the facts of my failure and my taking-of-leave would be indication enough for catherine that i was bowing out. it would be better for catherine, too, to avoid a fine, high-strung, emotional scene. i remembered the little bawling session in the harrison living room that night; catherine would not die for want of a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. in fact, as she'd said pragmatically, well balanced people never die of broken hearts. having finally convinced myself of the validity of this piece of obvious logic, i suddenly felt a lot better. my morose feeling faded away; my conviction of utter uselessness died; and my half-formed desire to investigate a highly hypothetical hereafter took an abrupt about-face. and in place of this collection of undesirable self-pities came a much nicer emotion. it was a fine feeling, that royal anger that boiled up inside of me. i couldn't lick 'em and i couldn't join 'em, so i was going out to pull something down, even if it all came down around my own ears. i stopped long enough to check the bonanza .375 both visually and perceptively and then loaded it full. i consulted a road map to chart a course. then i took off with the coal wide open and the damper rods all the way out and made the wheels roll towards the east. i especially gave all the highways a very wide berth. i went down several, but always in the wrong direction. and in the meantime, i kept my sense of perception on the alert for any pursuit. i drove with my eyes alone. i could have made it across the mississippi by nightfall if i'd not taken the time to duck highway signs. but when i got good, and sick, and tired of driving, i was not very far from the river. i found a motel in a rather untravelled spot and sacked in for the night. i awoke at the crack of dawn with a feeling of impending _something_. it was not doom, because any close-danger would have nudged me on the bump of perception. nor was it good, because i'd have awakened looking forward to it. something odd was up and doing. i dressed hastily, and as i pulled my clothing on i took a slow dig at the other cabins in the motel. number one contained a salesman type, i decided, after digging through his baggage. number two was occupied by an elderly couple who were loaded with tourist-type junk and four or five cameras. number three harbored a stopover truck driver and number four was almost overflowing with a gang of schoolgirls packed sardine-wise in the single bed. number five was mine. number six was vacant. number seven was also vacant but the bed was tumbled and the water in the washbowl was still running out, and the door was still slamming, and the little front steps were still clicking to the fast clip of high heels, and---i hauled myself out of my cabin on a dead gallop and made a fast line for my car. i hit the car, clawed myself inside, wound up the turbine and let the old heap in gear in one unbroken series of motions. the wheels spun and sent back a hail of gravel, then they took a bite out of the parking lot and the take-off snapped my head back. both esper and eyesight were very busy cross-stitching a crooked course through the parking lot between the parked cars and the trees that were intended to lend the outfit a rustic atmosphere. so i was too busy to take more than a vague notice of a hand that clamped onto the doorframe until the door opened and closed again. by then i was out on the highway and i could relax a bit. "steve," she said, "why do you do these things?" yeah, it was marian harrison. "i didn't ask to get shoved into this mess," i growled. "you didn't ask to be born, either," she said. i didn't think the argument was very logical, and i said so. "life wasn't too hard to bear until i met you people," i told her sourly. "life would be very pleasant if you'd go away. on the other hand, life is all i've got and it's far better than the alternative. so if i'm making your life miserable, that goes double for me." "why not give it up?" she asked me. i stopped the car. i eyed her dead center, eye to eye until she couldn't take it any more. "what would you like me to just give up, marian? shall i please everybody by taking a bite of my hip-pocket artillery sights whilst testing the trigger pull with one forefinger? will it make anybody happy if i walk into the nearest reorientation museum blowing smoke out of my nose and claiming that i am a teakettle that's gotta be taken off the stove before i blow my lid?" marian's eyes dropped. "do you yourself really expect me to seek blessed oblivion?" she shook her head slowly. "then for the love of god, what do you expect of me?" i roared. "as i am, i'm neither flesh nor fish; just foul. i'm not likely to give up, marian. if i'm a menace to you and to your kind, it's just too tough. but if you want me out of your hair, you'll have to wrap me up in something suitable for framing and haul me kicking and screaming to your mind-refurbishing department. because i'm not having any on my own. understand?" "i understand, steve," she said softly. "i know you; we all know you and your type. you can't give up. you're unable to." "not when i've been hypnoed into it," i said. marian's head tossed disdainfully. "thorndyke's hypnotic suggestion was very weak," she explained. "he had to plant the idea in such a way as to remain unidentified afterwards. no, steve, your urge has always been your own personal drive. all that thorndyke did was to point you slightly in our direction and give you a nudge. you did the rest." "well, you're a telepath. maybe you're also capable of planting a post-hypnotic suggestion that i forget the whole idea." "i'm not," she said with a sudden flare. i looked at her. not being a telepath i couldn't read a single thought, but it was certain that she was telling the truth, and telling it in such a manner as to be convincing. finally i said, "marian, if you know that i'm not to be changed by logic or argument, why do you bother?" for a full minute she was silent, then her eyes came up and gave it back to me with their electric blue. "for the same reason that scholar phelps hoped to use you against us," she said. "your fate and your future is tied up with ours whether you turn out to be friend or enemy." i grunted. "sounds like a soap opera, marian," i told her bitterly. "will catherine find solace in phillip's arms? will steve catch mekstrom's disease? will the dastardly scholar phelps--" "stop it!" she cried. "all right. i'll stop as soon as you tell me what you intend to do with me now that you've caught up with me again." she smiled. "steve, i'm going along with you. partly to play the telepath-half of your team. if you'll trust me to deliver the truth. and partly to see that you don't get into trouble that you can't get out of again." my mind curled its lip. pappy had tanned my landing gear until i was out of the habit of using mother for protection against the slings and arrows of outrageous schoolchums. i'd not taken sanctuary behind a woman's skirts since i was eight. so the idea of running under the protection of a woman went against the grain, even though i knew that she was my physical superior by no sensible proportion. being cared for physically by a dame of a hundred-ten-"eighteen." --didn't sit well on me. "do you believe me, steve?" "i've got to. you're here to stay. i'm a sucker for a good-looking woman anyway, it seems. they tell me anything and i'm not hardhearted enough to even indicate that i don't believe them." she took my arm impulsively; then she let me go before she pinched it off at the elbow. "steve," she said earnestly, "believe me and let me be your--" #better half?# i finished sourly. "please don't," she said plaintively. "steve, you've simply _got_ to trust _somebody_!" i looked into her face coldly. "the hardest job in the world for a non-telepath is to locate someone he can trust. the next hardest is to explain that to a telepath; because telepaths can't see any difficulty in weeding out the non-trustworthy. now--" "you still haven't faced the facts." "neither have you, marian. you intend to go along with me, ostensibly to help me in whatever i intend to do. that's fine. i'll accept it. but you know good and well that i intend to carry on and on until something cracks. now, tell me honestly, are you going along to help me crack something wide open, or just to steer me into channels that will not result in a crack-up for your side?" marian harrison looked down for a moment; i didn't need telepathy to know that i'd touched the sore spot. then she looked up and said, "steve, more than anything, i intend to keep you out of trouble. you should know by now that there is very little you can really do to harm either side of our own private little war." #and if i can't harm either side, i can hardly do either side any good.# she nodded. #yet i must be of some importance.# she nodded again. at that point i almost gave up. i'd been around this circle so many times in the past half-year that i knew how the back of my head looked. always, the same old question. #_cherchez le angle_,# i thought in bum french. something i had was important enough to both sides to make them keep me on the loose instead of erasing me and my nuisance value. so far as i could see, i was as useless to either side as a coat of protective paint laid on stainless steel. i was immune to mekstrom's disease; the immunity of one who has had everything tried on him that scholars of the disease could devise. about the only thing that ever took place was the sudden disappearance of everybody that i came in contact with. marian touched my arm gently. "you mustn't think like that, steve," she said gently. "you've done enough useless self-condemnation. can't you stop accusing yourself of some evil factor? something that really is not so?" "not until i know the truth," i replied. "i certainly can't dig it; i'm no telepath. perhaps if i were, i'd not be in this awkward position." again her silence proved to me that i'd hit a touchy spot. "what am i?" i demanded sourly. "am i a great big curse? what have i done, other than to be present just before several people turn up missing? makes me sort of a male typhoid mary, doesn't it?" "now, steve--" "well, maybe that's the way i feel. everything i put my great big clutching hands on turns dark green and starts to rot. regardless of which side they're on, it goes one, two, three, four; catherine, thorndyke, you, nurse farrow." "steve, what on earth are you talking about?" i smiled down at her in a crooked sort of quirk. "you, of course, have not the faintest idea of what i'm thinking." "oh, steve--" "and then again maybe you're doing your best to lead my puzzled little mind away from what you consider a dangerous subject?" "i'd hardly do that--" "sure you would. i'd do it if our positions were reversed. i don't think it un-admirable to defend one's own personal stand, marian. but you'll not divert me this time. i have a hunch that i am a sort of male typhoid mary. let's call me old mekstrom steve. the carrier of mekstrom's disease, who can innocently or maliciously go around handing it out to anybody that i contact. is that it, marian?" "it's probably excellent logic, steve. but it isn't true." i eyed her coldly. "how can i possibly believe you?" "that's the trouble," she said with a plaintive cry. "you can't. you've got to believe me on faith, steve." i smiled crookedly. "marian," i said, "that's just the right angle to take. since i cannot read your mind, i must accept the old appeal to the emotions. i must tell myself that marian harrison just simply could not lie to me for many reasons, among which is that people do not lie to blind men nor cause the cripple any hurt. well, phooey. whatever kind of gambit is being played here, it is bigger than any of its parts or pieces. i'm something between a queen and a pawn, marian; a piece that can be sacrificed at any time to further the progress of the game. slipping me a lie or two to cause me to move in some desired direction should come as a natural." "but why would we lie to you?" she asked, and then she bit her lip; i think that she slipped, that she hadn't intended to urge me into deeper consideration of the problem lest i succeed in making a sharp analysis. after all, the way to keep people from figuring things out is to stop them from thinking about the subject. that's the first rule. next comes the process of feeding them false information if the first law cannot be invoked. "why would you lie to me?" i replied in a sort of sneer. i didn't really want to sneer but it came naturally. "in an earlier age it might not be necessary." "what?" she asked in surprise. "might not be necessary," i said. "let's assume that we are living in the mid-fifties, before rhine. steve cornell turns up being a carrier of a disease that is really a blessing instead of a curse. in such a time, marian, either side could sign me up openly as a sort of missionary; i could go around the country inoculating the right people, those citizens who have the right kind of mind, attitude, or whatever-factor. following me could be a clean-up corps to collect the wights who'd been inoculated by my contact. sounds reasonable, doesn't it?" without waiting for either protest or that downcast look of agreement, i went on: "but now we have perception and telepathy all over the place. so steve cornell, the carrier, must be pushed around from pillar to post, meeting people and inoculating them without ever knowing what he is doing. because once he knows what he is doing, his usefulness is ended in this world of rhine institute." "steve--" she started, but i interrupted again. "about all i have to do now is to walk down any main street radiating my suspicions," i said bitterly. "and it's off to medical center for steve--unless the highways catch me first." very quietly, marian said, "we really dislike to use reorientation on people. it changes them so--" "but that's what i'm headed for, isn't it?" i demanded flatly. "i'm sorry, steve." angrily i went on, not caring that i'd finally caught on and by doing so had sealed my own package. "so after i have my mind ironed out smoothly, i'll still go on and on from pillar to post providing newly inoculated mekstroms for your follow-up squad." she looked up at me and there were tears in her eyes. "we were all hoping--" she started. "were you?" i asked roughly. "were you all working to innoculate me at homestead, or were you really studying me to find out what made me a carrier instead of a victim?" "both, steve," she said, and there was a ring of honesty in her tone. i had to believe her, it made sense. "dismal prospect, isn't it?" i asked. "for a guy that's done nothing wrong." "we're all sorry." "look," i said with a sudden thought, "why can't i still go on? i could start a way station of some sort, on some pretext, and go on innoculating the public as they come past. then i could go on working for you and still keep my right mind." she shook her head. "scholar phelps knows," she said. "above all things we must keep you out of his hands. he'd use you for his own purpose." i grunted sourly. "he has already and he will again," i told her. "not only that, but phelps has had plenty of chance to collect me on or off the hook. so what you fear does not make sense." "it does now," she told me seriously. "so long as you did not suspect your own part in the picture, you could do more good for phelps by running free. now you know and phelps' careful herding of your motions won't work." "don't get it." "watch," she said with a shrug. "they'll try. i don't dare experiment, steve, or i'd leave you right now. you'd find out very shortly that you're with me because i got here first." "and knowing the score makes me also dangerous to your highways? likely to bring 'em out of hiding?" "yes." "so now that i've dumped over the old apple cart, i can assume that you're here to take me in." "what else can i do, steve?" she said unhappily. i couldn't answer that. i just sat there looking at her and trying to remember that her shapely one hundred and eighteen pounds were steel hard and monster strong and that she could probably carry me under one arm all the way to homestead without breathing hard. i couldn't cut and run; she could outrun me. i couldn't slug her on the jaw and get away; i'd break my hand. the bonanza .375 would probably stun her, but i have not the cold blooded viciousness to pull a gun on a woman and drill her. i grunted sourly, that weapon had been about as useful to me as a stuffed bear or an authentic egyptian obelisk. "well, i'm not going," i said stubbornly. she looked at me in surprise. "what are you going to do?" she asked me. i felt a glow of self-confidence. if i could not run loose with guilty knowledge of my being a mekstrom carrier, it was equally impossible for anybody to kidnap me and carry me across the country. i'd radiate like mad; i'd complain about the situation at every crossroad, at every filling station, before every farmer. i'd complain mentally and bitterly, and sooner or later someone would get suspicious. "don't think like an idiot," she told me sharply. "you drove across the country before, remember? how many people did you convince?" "i wasn't trying, then--" "how about the people in the hotel in denver?" she asked me pointedly. "what good did you do there?" #very little, but--# "one of the advantages of a telepath is that we can't be taken by surprise," she informed me. "because no one can possibly work without plans of some kind." "one of the troubles of a telepath," i told her right back, "is that they get so confounded used to knowing what is going to happen next that it takes all the pleasant element of surprise out of their lives. that makes 'em dull and--" the element of surprise came in through the back window, passed between us and went _splat!_ against the wind-shield. there was the sound like someone chipping ice with a spike followed by the distant bark of a rifle. a second slug came through the back window about the time that the first one landed on the floor of the car. the second slug, not slowed by the shatter-proof glass in the rear, went through the shatter-proof glass in the front. a third slug passed through the same tunnel. these were warning shots. he'd missed us intentionally. he'd proved it by firing three times through the same hole, from beyond my esper range. i wound up the machinery and we took off. marian cried something about not being foolish, but her words were swept out through the hole in the rear window, just above the marks on the pavement caused by my tires as we spun the wheels. xv "steve, stop it!" cried marian as soon as she could get her breath. "nuts," i growled. i took a long curve on the outside wheels and ironed out again. "he isn't after our corpse, honey. he's after our hide. i don't care for any." the fourth shot went singing off the pavement to one side. it whined into the distance making that noise that sets the teeth on edge and makes one want to duck. i lowered the boom on the go pedal and tried to make the meter read off the far end of the scale; i had a notion that the guy behind might shoot the tires out if we were going slow enough so that a blowout wouldn't cause a bad wreck; but he probably wouldn't do it once i got the speed up. he was not after marian. marian could walk out of any crack-up without a bruise, but i couldn't. we went roaring around a curve. i fought the wheel into a nasty double 's' curve to swing out and around a truck, then back on my own side of the road again to avoid an oncoming car. i could almost count the front teeth of the guy driving the car as we straightened out with a coat of varnish to spare. i scared everybody in all three vehicles, including me. then i passed a couple of guys standing beside the road; one of them waved me on, the other stood there peering past me down the road. as we roared by, another group on the other side of the highway came running out hauling a big old hay wagon. they set the wagon across the road and then sloped into the ditch on either side of it. i managed to dig the bare glimmer of firearms before i had to yank my perception away from them and slam it back on the road in front. i was none too soon, because dead ahead by a thousand feet or so, they were hauling a second road block out. marian, not possessed of esper, cried out as soon as she read this new menace in my mind. i rode the brakes easily and came to a stop long before we hit it. in back sounded a crackle of rifle fire; in front, three men came out waving their rifles at us. i whipped the car back, spun it in a seesaw, and took off back towards the first road block. half way back i whirled my car into a rough sideroad just as the left hand rear tire went out with a roar. the car sagged and dragged me to a stop with my nose in a little ditch. the heap hadn't stopped rocking yet before i was out and on the run. "steve!" cried marian. "come back!" #to heck with it.# i kept right on running. before me by a couple of hundred yards was a thicket of trees; i headed that way fast. i managed to sling a dig back; marian was joining the others; pointing in my direction. one of them raised the rifle but she knocked it down. i went on running. it looked as though i'd be all right so long as i didn't get in the way of an accidental shot. my life was once more charmed with the fact that no one wanted me dead. the thicket of woods was not as thick as i'd have liked. from a distance they'd seemed almost impenetrable, but when i was running through them towards the center, they looked pitifully thin. i could see light from any direction and the floor of the woods was trimmed, the underbrush cleaned out, and a lot of it was tramped down. ahead of me i perceived a few of them coming towards the woods warily, behind me there was another gang closing in. i began to feel like the caterpillar on the blade of grass in front of the lawn mower. i tried to hide under a deadfall, knowing that it was poor protection against rifle fire. i hauled out the bonanza and checked the cylinder. i didn't know which side i was going to shoot at, but that didn't bother me. i was going to shoot at the first side that got close. a couple of shots whipped by over my head, making noises like someone snapping a bullwhip. i couldn't tell which direction they came from; i was too busy trying to stuff my feet into a gopher hole under my deadfall. i cast around the thicket with my sense of perception and caught the layout. both sides were spread out, stalking forward like infantry advancing through disputed ground. now and then one of them would raise his rifle and fire at some unexpected motion. this, i gathered, was more nervousness than fighting skill because no group of telepaths and/or perceptives would be so jittery on the trigger if they weren't basically nervous. they should, as i did, have the absolute position of both the enemy and their own side. with a growing nervous sweat i dug their advances. they were avoiding my position, trying to encircle me by making long semicircular marches, hoping to get between me and the other side. this was a rough maneuver, sort of like two telepaths playing chess. both sides knew to a minute exactly what the other had in mind, where he was, and what he was going to do about his position. but they kept shifting, feinting and counter-advancing, trying to gain the advantage of number or position so that the other would be forced to retreat. it became a war of nerves; a game of seeing who had the most guts; who could walk closer to the muzzle of an enemy rifle without getting hit. their rifles were mixed; there were a couple of deer guns, a nice 35-70 express that fired a slug slightly smaller than a panetella cigar, a few shotguns, a carbine sports rifle that looked like it might have been a garand with the barrel shortened by a couple of inches, some revolvers, one nasty-looking colt .45 automatic, and so on. i shivered down in my little hideout; as soon as the shooting started in earnest, they were going to clean out this woods but good. it was going to be a fine barrage, with guns going off in all directions, because it is hard to keep your head in a melee. esper and telepathy go by the board when shooting starts. i still didn't know which side was which. the gang behind me were friends of marian harrison; but that did not endear them to me any more than knowing that the gang in front were from scholar phelps medical center or some group affiliated with him. in the midst of it, i managed to bet myself a new hat that old scholar phelps didn't really know what was going on. he would be cagey enough to stay ignorant of any overt strife or any other skullduggery that could be laid at his door. then on one edge of the woodsy section, two guys of equal damfool-factor advanced, came up standing, and faced one another across fifty feet of open woods. their rifles came up and yelled at one another like a string of firecrackers; they wasted a lot of powder and lead by not taking careful aim. one of them emptied his rifle and started to fade back to reload, the other let him have it in the shoulder. it spun the guy around and dumped him on his spine. his outflung hand slammed his rifle against a tree, which broke it. he gave a painful moan and started to crawl back, his arm hanging limp-like but not broken. from behind me came a roar and a peltering of shotgun pellets through the trees; it was answered by the heavy bark of the 35-70 express. i'm sure that in the entire artillery present, the only rifle heavy enough to really damage those mekstroms was that express, which would stop a charging rhino. when you get down to facts, my bonanza .375 packed a terrific wallop but it did not have the shocking power of the heavy big-game rifle. motion caught my perception to one side; two of them had let go shotgun blasts from single-shot guns. they were standing face to face swinging their guns like a pair of axemen; swing, chop! swing, chop! and with each swing their guns were losing shape, splinters from the butts, and bits of machinery. their clothing was in ribbons from the shotgun blasts. but neither of them seemed willing to give up. there was not a sign of blood; only a few places on each belly that looked shiny-like. on the other side of me, one guy let go with a rifle that slugged the other bird in the middle. he folded over the shot and his middle went back and down, which whipped his head over, back, and down where it hit the ground with an audible thump. the first guy leaped forward just as the victim of his attack sat up, rubbed his belly ruefully, and drew a hunting knife with his other hand. the first guy took a running dive at the supine one, who swung the hunting knife in a vicious arc. the point hit the chest of the man coming through the air but it stopped as though the man had been wearing plate armor. you could dig the return shock that stunned the knife-wielder's arm when the point turned. all it did was rip the clothing. then the pair of them were at it in a free-for-all that made the woods ring. this deadly combat did not last long. one of them took aim with a fist and let the other have it. the rifle shot hadn't stopped him but the hard fist of another mekstrom laid him out colder than a mackerel iced for shipment. the deadly 35-70 express roared again, and there started a concentration of troops heading towards the point of origin. i had a hunch that the other side did not like anybody to be playing quite as rough as a big-game gun. someone might really get hurt. by now they were all in close and swinging; now and then someone would stand off and gain a few moments of breathing space by letting go with a shotgun or knocking someone off of his feet with a carbine. there was some bloodshed, too; not all these shots bounced. but from what i could perceive, none of them were fatal. just painful. the guy who'd been stopped first with the rifle slug and then the other mekstrom's fist was still out cold and bleeding lightly from the place in his stomach. a bit horrified, i perceived that the pellet was embedded about a half-inch in. the two birds who'd been hacking at one another with the remains of their shotguns had settled it barehanded, too. the loser was groaning and trying to pull himself together. the shiny spots on his chest were shotgun pellets stuck in the skin. it was one heck of a fight. mekstroms could play with guns and knives and go around taking swings at one another with hunks of tree or clubbed rifles, or they could stand off and hurl boulders. such a battlefield was no place for a guy named steve cornell. by now all good sense and fine management was gone. if i'd been spotted, they'd have taken a swing at me, forgetting that i am no mekstrom. so i decided that it was time for steve to leave. i cast about me with my perception; the gang that marian had joined had advanced until they were almost even with my central position; there were a couple of swinging matches to either side and one in front of me. i wondered about marian; somehow i still don't like seeing a woman tangled up in a free-for-all. marian was out of esper range, which was all right with me. i crawled out of my hideout cautiously, stood up in a low crouch and began to run. a couple of them caught sight of me and put up a howl, but they were too busy with their personal foe to take off after me. one of them was free; i doubled him up and dropped him on his back with a slug from my bonanza .375. somehow it did not seem rough or vicious to shoot since there was nothing lethal in it. it was more like a game of cowboy and indian than deadly earnest warfare. then i was out and free of them all, out of the woods and running like a deer. i cursed the car with its blown out tire; the old crate had been a fine bus, nicely broken in and conveniently fast. but it was as useful to me now as a pair of skids. a couple of them behind me caught on and gave chase. i heard cries for me to stop, which i ignored like any sensible man. someone cut loose with a roar; the big slug from the express whipped past and went _sprang!_ off a rock somewhere ahead. it only added a few more feet per second to my flight. if they were going to play that rough, i didn't care to stay. i fired an unaimed shot over my shoulder, which did no good at all except for lifting my morale. i hoped that it would slow them a bit, but if it did i couldn't tell. then i leaped over a ditch and came upon a cluster of cars. i dug at them as i approached and selected one of the faster models that still had its key dangling from the lock. i was in and off and away as fast as a scared man can move. they were still yelling and fighting in the woods when i raced out of my range. * * * * * the heap i'd jumped was a clinton special with rock-like springs and a low slung frame that hugged the ground like a clam. i was intent upon putting as many miles as i could between me and the late engagement in as short a time as possible, and the clinton seemed especially apt until i remembered that the figure 300 on the dial meant kilometers instead of miles per hour. then i let her out a bit more and tried for the end of the dial. the clinton tried with me, and i had to keep my esper carefully aimed at the road ahead because i was definitely overdriving my eyesight and reaction-time. i was so intent upon making feet that i did not notice the jetcopter that came swooping down over my head until the howl of its vane-jets raised hell with my eardrums. then i slowed the car and lifted my perception at the same time for a quick dig. the jetcopter was painted policeman blue and it sported a large gold-leaf on its side, and inside the cabin were two hard-faced gentlemen wearing uniforms with brass buttons and that old bailey look in their eye. the one on the left was jingling a pair of handcuffs. they passed over my head at about fifteen feet, swooped on past by a thousand, and dropped a road-block bomb. it flared briefly and let out with a billow of thick red smoke. i leaned on the brakes hard enough to stand the clinton up on its nose, because if i shoved my front bumper through that cloud of red smoke it was a signal for them to let me have it. i came to a stop about a foot this side of the bomb, and the jetcopter came down hovering. its vanes blew the smoke away and the 'copter landed in front of my swiped clinton special. the policeman was both curt and angry. "driver's ticket, registration, and maybe your pilot's license," he snapped. well, that was _it_. i had a driver's ticket all right, _but_ it did not permit me to drive a car that i'd selected out of a group willy nilly. the car registration was in the glove compartment where it was supposed to be, but what it said did not match what the driver's license claimed. no matter what i said, there would be the devil to pay. "i'll go quietly, officer," i told him. "darn' white of you, pilot," he said cynically. he was scribbling on a book of tickets and it was piling up deep. speeding, reckless driving, violation of ordinance something-or-other by number. driving a car without proper registration in the absence of the rightful owner (check for stolen car records) and so on and on and on until it looked like a life term in the local jug. "move over, cornell," he said curtly. "i'm taking you in." i moved politely. the only time it pays to be arrogant with the police is long after you've proved them wrong, and then only when you're facing your mirror at home telling yourself what you should have said. i was driven to court; escorted in by the pair of them and seated with one on each side. the sign on the judge's table said: magistrate hollister. magistrate hollister was an elderly gentleman with a cast iron jaw and a glance as cold as a bucket of snow. he dealt justice with a sharp-edged shovel and his attitude seemed to be that everybody was either guilty as charged or was contemplating some form of evil to be committed as soon as he was out of the sight of justice. i sat there squirming while he piled the top on a couple whose only crime was parking overtime; i itched from top to bottom while he slapped one miscreant in gaol for turning left in violation of city ordinance. his next attempt gave a ten dollar fine for failing to come to a full and grinding halt at the sign of the big red light, despite the fact that the criminal was esper to a fine degree and dug the fact that there was no cross-traffic for a half mile. then his honor licked his chops and called my name. he speared me with an icicle-eye and asked sarcastically: "well, mr. cornell, with what form of sophistry are you going to explain your recent violations?" i blinked. he aimed a cold glance at the bailiff, who arose and read off the charges against me in a deep, hollow intonation. "speak up!" he snapped. "are you guilty or not guilty?" "guilty," i admitted. he beamed a sort of self-righteous evil. it was easy to see that never in his tenure of office had he ever encountered a criminal as hardened and as vicious as i. nor one who admitted to his turpitude so blandly. i felt it coming, and it made me itch, and i knew that if i tried to scratch his honor would take the act as a personal affront. i fought down the crazy desire to scratch everything i could reach and it was hard; about the time his honor added a charge of endangering human life on the highway to the rest of my assorted crimes, the itch had localized into the ring finger of my left hand. that i could scratch by rubbing it against the seam of my trousers. then his honor went on, delivering lecture number seven on crime, delinquency, and grand larceny. i was going to be an example, he vowed. i was assumed to be esper since no normal--that's the word he used, which indicated that the old bird was a blank and hated everybody who wasn't--human being would be able to drive as though he had eyes mounted a half mile in front of him. not that my useless life was in danger, or that i was actually not-in-control of my car, but that my actions made for panic among normal--again he used it!--people who were not blessed with either telepathy or perception by a mere accident of birth. the last one proved it; it was not an accident of birth so much as it was proper training, to my way of thinking. magistrate hollister hated psi-trained people and was out to make examples of them. he polished off his lecture by pronouncing sentence: "--and the law provides punishment by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, or a sentence of ninety days in jail--_or both_." he rolled the latter off as though he relished the sound of the words. i waited impatiently. the itch on my finger increased; i flung a fast dig at it but there was nothing there but sophomore's syndrome. good old nervous association. it was the finger that little snoodles, the three-month baby supergirl had munched to a faretheewell. darned good thing the kid didn't have teeth! but i was old steve, the immune, the carrier, the-"well, mr. cornell?" i blinked. "yes, your honor?" "which will it be? i am granting you the leniency of selecting which penalty you prefer." i could probably rake up a thousand by selling some stock, personal possessions, and draining my already-weakened bank account. the most valuable of my possessions was parked in a ditch with a blowout and probably a bent frame and even so, i only owned about six monthly payments worth of it. "your honor, i will prefer to pay the fine--if you'll grant me time in which to go and collect--" he rapped his desk with his gavel. "mr. cornell," he boomed angrily. "a thief cannot be trusted. within a matter of minutes you could remove yourself from the jurisdiction of this court unless a binding penalty is placed against your person. you may go on your search for money, but only after posting bond--to the same amount as your fine!" _lenient--?_ "however, unless you are able to pay, i have no recourse but to exact the prison sentence of ninety days. bailiff--!" i gave up. it even felt sort of good to give up, especially when the turn is called by someone too big to be argued with. no matter what, i was going to take ninety days off, during which i could sit and think and plan and wonder and chew my fingernails. the itch in my finger burned again, deep this time, and not at all easy to satisfy by rubbing it against my trousers. i picked at it with the thumbnail and the nail caught something hard. i looked down at the itching finger and sent my perception into it with as much concentration as i could. my thumbnail had lifted a tiny circle no larger than the head of a pin. blood was oozing from beneath the lifted rim, and i nervously picked off the tiny patch of hard, hard flesh and watched the surface blood well out into a tiny droplet. my perception told me the truth: it was mekstrom's disease and not a doubt. the immune had caught it! the bailiff tapped me on the shoulder and said, "come along, cornell!" and i was going to have ninety days to watch that patch grow at the inexorable rate of one sixty-fourth of an inch per hour! xvi the bailiff repeated, "come along, cornell." then he added sourly, "or i'll have to slip the cuffs on you." i turned with a helpless shrug. i'd tried to lick 'em and i'd tried to join 'em and i'd failed both. then, as of this instant when i might have been able to go join 'em, i was headed for the wrong side as soon as i opened my big yap. and if i didn't yelp, i was a dead one anyway. sooner or later someone in the local jug would latch on to my condition and pack me off to scholar phelps' medical center. once more i was in a situation where all i could do was to play it by ear, wait for a break, and see if i could make something out of it. but before i could take more than a step or two toward the big door, someone in the back of the courtroom called out: "your honor, i have some vital information in this case." his honor looked up across the court with a great amount of irritation showing in his face. his voice rasped, "indeed?" i whirled, shocked. suavely, dr. thorndyke strode down the aisle. he faced the judge and explained who he was and why, then he backed it up with a wallet full of credentials, cards, identification, and so forth. the judge looked the shebang over sourly but finally nodded agreement. thorndyke smiled self-confidently and then went on, facing me: "it would be against my duty to permit you to incarcerate this miscreant," he said smoothly. "because mr. cornell has mekstrom's disease!" everybody faded back and away from me as though he'd announced me to be the carrier of plague. they looked at me with horror and disgust on their faces, a couple of them began to wipe their hands with handkerchiefs; one guy who'd been standing where i'd dropped my little patch of mekstrom flesh backed out of that uncharmed circle. some of the spectators left hurriedly. his honor paled. "you're certain?" he demanded of dr. thorndyke. "i'm certain. you'll note the blood on his finger; cornell recently picked off a patch of mekstrom flesh no larger than the head of a pin. it was his first sign." the doctor went on explaining, "normally this early seizure would be difficult to detect, except from a clinical examination. but since i am telepath and cornell has perception, his own mind told me he was aware of his sorry condition. one only need read his mind, or to dig at the tiny bit of mekstrom flesh that he dropped to your floor." the judge eyed me nastily. "maybe i should add a charge of contaminating a courtroom," he muttered. he was running his eyes across the floor from me to wherever i'd been, trying to locate the little patch. i helped him by not looking at it. the rest of the court faded back from me still farther. i could hardly have been less admired if i'd been made of pure cyanide gas. the judge rapped his gavel sharply. "i parole this prisoner in the custody of dr. thorndyke, who as a representative of the medical center will remove the prisoner to that place where the proper treatment awaits him." "now see here--" i started. but his honor cut me off. "you'll go as i say," he snapped. "unfortunately, the law does not permit me to enjoy any cruel or unusual punishments, or i'd insist upon your ninety-day sentence and watch you die painfully. i--bailiff! remove this menace before i forget my position here and find myself in contempt of the law i have sworn to uphold. i cannot be impartial before a man who contaminates my court with the world's most dangerous disease!" i turned to thorndyke. "all right," i grunted. "you win." he smiled again; i wanted to wipe that smile away with a set of knuckles but i knew that all i'd get would be a broken hand against thorndyke's stone-hard flesh. "now, mr. cornell," he said with that clinical smoothness, "let's not get the old standard attitude." "nearly everybody who contracts mekstrom's disease," he said to the judge, "takes on a persecution complex as soon as he finds out that he has it. some of them have even accused me of fomenting some big fantastic plot against them. please, mr. cornell," he went on facing me, "we'll give you the best of treatment that medical science knows." "yeah," i grunted. his honor rapped on the gavel once more. "officer gruenwald," he snapped, "you will accompany the prisoner and dr. thorndyke to the medical center and having done that you will return to report to me that you have accomplished your mission." then the judge glared around, rapped once more, and cried, "case finished. next case!" i felt almost as sorry for the next guy coming in as i felt for myself. his honor was going to be one tough baby for some days to come. as they escorted me out, a janitor came in and began to swab the floor where i'd been standing. he was using something nicely corrosive that made the icy, judicial eyes water, all of which discomfort was likely to be added to the next law-breaker's sorry lot. * * * * * i was in fine company. thorndyke was a telepath and officer gruenwald was perceptive. they went as a team and gave me about as much chance to escape as if i'd been a horned toad sealed in a cornerstone. gruenwald, of course, treated me as though my breath was deadly, my touch foul, and my presence evil. in gruenwald's eyes, the only difference between me and medusa the gorgon was that looking at me did not turn him to stone. he kept at least one eye on me almost constantly. i could almost perceive thorndyke's amusement. with the best of social amenities, he could hardly have spent a full waking day in the company of either a telepath or a perceptive without giving away the fact that he was mekstrom. but with me to watch over, officer gruenwald's mental attention was not to be turned aside to take an impolite dig at his companion. even if he had, thorndyke would have been there quickly to turn his attention aside. i've read the early books that contain predictions of how we are supposed to operate. the old boys seemed to have the quaint notion that a telepath should be able at once to know everything that goes on everywhere, and a perceptive should be aware of everything material about him. there should be no privacy. there was to be no defense against the mental peeping tom. it ain't necessarily so. if gruenwald had taken a dig at thorndyke's hide, the doctor would have speared the policeman with a cold, indignant eye and called him for it. of course, there was no good reason for gruenwald to take a dig at thorndyke and so he didn't. so i went along with the status quo and tried to think of some way to break it up. an hour later i was still thinking, and the bleeding on my finger had stopped. mekstrom flesh had covered the raw spot with a thin, stone-hard plate that could not be separated visually from the rest of my skin. "as a perceptive," observed dr. thorndyke in a professional tone, "you'll notice the patch of infection growing on mr. cornell's finger. the rate of growth seems normal; i'll have to check it accurately once i get him to the clinic. in fifty or sixty hours, mr. cornell's finger will be solid to the first joint. in ninety days his arm will have become as solid as the arm of a marble statue." i interjected, "and what do we do about it?" he moved his head a bit and eyed me in the rear view mirror. "i hope we can help you, cornell," he said in a tone of sympathy that was definitely intended to impress officer gruenwald with his medical appreciation of the doctor's debt to humanity. "i sincerely hope so. for in doing so, we will serve the human race. and," he admitted with an entirely human-sounding selfishness, "i may be able to deliver a thesis on the cure that will qualify me for my scholarate." i took a fast stab: "doctor, how does my flesh differ from yours?" thorndyke parried this attention-getting question: "mine is of no consequence. dig your own above and below the line of infection, cornell. if your sense of perception has been trained fine enough, dig the actual line of infection and watch the molecular structure rearrange. can you dig that fine, officer? cornell, i hate to dwell at length upon your misfortune, but perhaps i can help you face it by bringing the facts to light." #like the devil you hate to dwell, doctor mekstrom!# in the rear view mirror, his lips parted in a bland smile and one eyelid dropped in a knowing wink. i opened my mouth to make another stab in the open but thorndyke got there first. "officer gruenwald," he suggested, "you can help by putting out your perception along the road ahead and seeing how it goes. i'd like to make tracks with this crate." gruenwald nodded. thorndyke put the goose-pedal down and the car took off with a howl of passing wind. he said with a grin, "it isn't very often that i get a chance to drive like this, but as long as i've an officer with me--" he was above one forty by the time he let his voice trail off. i watched the back of their heads for a moment. at this speed, thorndyke would have both his mind and his hands full and the cop would be digging at the road as far ahead as his perception could dig a clear appreciation of the road and its hazards. thorndyke's telepathy would be occupied in taking this perception and using it. that left me free to think. i cast a dig behind me, as far behind me as my perception would reach. nothing. i thought furiously. it resulted in nothing. i needed either a parachute or a full set of mekstrom hide to get out of this car now. with either i might have taken a chance and jumped. but as it was, the only guy who could scramble out of this car was dr. james thorndyke. i caught his dropping eyelid in the rear view mirror again and swore at him under my breath. time, and miles, went past. one after the other, very fast. we hissed through towns where the streets had been opened for us and along broad stretches of highway and between cars and trucks running at normal speeds. one thing i must say for thorndyke: he was almost as good a driver as i. * * * * * my second arrival at the medical center was rather quiet. i went in the service entrance, so to speak, and didn't get a look at the enamelled blonde at the front portal. they whiffed me in at a broad gate that was opened by a flunky and we drove for another mile through the grounds far from the main road. we ended up in front of a small brick building and as we went through the front office into a private place, thorndyke told a secretary that she should prepare a legal receipt for my person. i did not like being bandied about like a hunk of merchandise, but nobody seemed to care what i thought. it was all very fast and efficient. i'd barely seated myself and lit a cigarette when the nurse came in with the document which thorndyke signed, she witnessed, and was subsequently handed to officer gruenwald. "is there any danger of me--er--contracting--" he faltered uncertainly to dr. thorndyke. "you'll notice that--" i started to call attention to thorndyke's calmness at being in my presence and was going to invite gruenwald to take a dig at the doctor's hide, but once more the doctor blocked me. "none of us have ever found any factor of contagion," he said. "and we live among mekstrom cases. you'll notice miss clifton's lack of concern." miss clifton, the nurse, turned a calm face to the policeman and gave him her hand. miss clifton had a face and a figure that was enough to make a man forget anything. she knew her part very well; together, the nurse and the policeman left the office together and i wondered just why a non-mekstrom would have anything to do with an outfit like this. thorndyke smiled and said, "i won't tell you, steve. what you don't know won't hurt anybody." "mind telling me what i'm slated for? the high jump? going to watch me writhing in pain as my infection climbs toward my vitals? going to amputate? or are you going to cut it off inch by inch and watch me suffer?" "steve, some things you know already. one, that you are a carrier. there have been no other carriers. we'd like to know what makes you a carrier." #the laboratory again?# i thought. he nodded. "also whether your final contraction of mekstrom's disease removes the carrier-factor." i said hopefully, "i suppose as a mekstrom i'll eventually be qualified to join you?" thorndyke looked blank. "perhaps," he said flatly. to my mind, that flat _perhaps_ was the same sort of reply that mother used to hand me when i wanted something that she did not want to give. i'd been eleven before i got walloped across the bazoo by pointing out to her that _we'll see_ really meant _no_, because nothing that she said it to ever came to pass. "look, thorndyke, let's take off our shoes and stop dancing," i told him. "i have a pretty good idea of what's been going on. i'd like an honest answer to what's likely to go on from here." "i can't give you that." "who can?" he said nothing, but he began to look at me as though i weren't quite bright. that made two of us, i was looking at him in the same manner. my finger itched a bit, saving the situation. i'd been about to forget that thorndyke was a mekstrom and take a swing at him. he laughed at me cynically. "you're in a very poor position to dictate terms," he said sharply. "all right," i agreed reluctantly. "so i'm a prisoner. i'm also under a sentence of death. don't think me unreasonable if i object to it." "the trouble with your thinking is that you expect all things to be black or white and so defined. you ask me, 'am i going to live or die?' and expect me to answer without qualification. i can only tell you that i don't know which. that it all depends." "depends upon exactly what?" he eyed me with a cold stare. "whether you're worthy of living." "who's to decide?" "we will." i grunted, wishing that i knew more latin. i wanted to quote that latin platitude about who watches the watchers. he watched me narrowly, and i expected him to quote me the phrase after having read my mind. but apparently the implication of the phrase did not appeal to him, and so he remained silent. i broke the silence by saying, "what right has any man or collection of men to decide whether i, or anyone else, has the right to live or die?" "it's done all the time," he replied succinctly. "yeah?" "criminals are--" "i'm not a criminal; i've violated no man-made law. i've not even violated very many of the ten commandments. at least, not the one that is punishable by death." he was silent for a moment again, then he said, "steve, you're the victim of loose propaganda." "who isn't?" i granted. "the entire human race is lambasted by one form of propaganda or another from the time the infant learns to sit up until the elderly lays down and dies. we're all guilty of loose thinking. my own father, for instance, had to quit school before he could take any advanced schooling, had to fight his way up, had to collect his advanced education by study, application, and hard practice. he always swore that this long period of hardship strengthened his will and his character and gave him the guts to go out and do things that he'd never have thought of if he'd had an easy life. then the old duck turns right around and swears that he'll never see any son of his take the bumps as he took them." "that's beside the point, steve. i know what sort of propaganda you've been listening to. it's the old do-good line; the everything for anybody line; the no man must die alone line." "is it bad?" dr. thorndyke shrugged. "you've talked about loose propaganda," he said. "well, in this welter of loose propaganda, every man had at least the opportunity of choosing which line of guff he intends to adhere to. i'm even willing to admit that there is both right and wrong on both sides. are you?" i stifled a sour grin. "i shouldn't, because it is a mistake in any political argument to even let on that the other guy is slightly more than an idiot. but as an engineer, i'll admit it." "now that's a help," he said more cheerfully. "you're objecting, of course, to the fact that we are taking the right to pick, choose, and select those people that we think are more likely to be of good advantage to the human race. you've listened to that old line about the hypothetical cataclysm that threatens the human race, and how would you choose the hundred people who are supposed to carry on. well, have you ever eyed the human race in slightly another manner?" "i wouldn't know," i told him. "maybe." "have you ever watched the proceedings of one of those big trials where some conkpot has blown the brains out of a half-dozen citizens by pointing a gun and emptying it at a crowd? if you have, you've been appalled by the sob sisters and do-gooders who show that the vicious character was momentarily off his toggle. we mustn't execute a nut, no matter how vicious he is. we've got to protect him, feed him, and house him for the next fifty years. now, not only is he doing society absolutely no damned good while he's locked up for fifty years, he's also eating up his share of the standard of living. then to top this off, so long as this nut is alive, there is the danger that some soft-hearted fathead will succeed in getting him turned loose once more." "agreed," i said. "but you're again talking about criminals, which i don't think applies in my case." "no, of course not," he said quickly. "i used it to prove to you that this is one way of looking at a less concrete case. carry this soft headed thinking a couple of steps higher. medical science has made it possible for the human race to dilute its strength. epileptics are saved to breed epileptics; haemophiliacs are preserved, neurotics are ironed out, weaknesses of all kinds are kept alive to breed their strain of weakness." "just what has this to do with me and my future?" i asked. "quite a lot. i'm trying to make you agree that there are quite a lot of undeserving characters here on earth." "did i ever deny it?" i asked him pointedly, but he took it as not including present company. but i could see where thorndyke was heading. first eliminate the lice on the body politic. okay, so i am blind and cannot see the sense of incarcerating a murderer that has to be fed, clothed, and housed at my expense for the rest of his natural life. then for the second step we get rid of weaklings, both physical and mental. i'll call step two passably okay, but--? number three includes grifters, beggars, bums, and guys out for the soft touch and here i begin to wonder. i've known some entertaining grifters, beggars, and bums; a few of them chose their way of life for their own, just as i became a mechanical engineer. the trouble with this sort of philosophy is that it starts off with an appeal to justice and logic (i'm quoting myself), but it quickly gets dangerous. start knocking off the bilge-scum. then when the lowest strata of society is gone, start on the next. carry this line of reasoning out to straight aristotelian logic and you come up with parties like you and me, who may have been quite acceptable when compared to the whole cross-section of humanity, but who now have no one but his betters to compete with. i had never reasoned this out before, but as i did right there and then, i decided that society cannot draw lines nor assume a static pose. society must move constantly, either in one direction or the other. and while i object to paying taxes to support some rattlehead for the rest of his natural life, i'd rather have it that way than to have someone start a trend of bopping off everybody who has not the ability to absorb the educational level of the scholar. because, if the trend turned upward instead of downward, that's where the dividing line would end. anarchy at one end, is as bad as tyranny at the other-"i'm sorry you cannot come to a reasonable conclusion," said dr. thorndyke. "if you cannot see the logic of--" i cut him off short. "look, doc," i snapped, "if you can't see where your line of thinking ends, you're in bad shape." he looked superior. "you're sour because you know you haven't got what it takes." i almost nipped. "you're so damned dumb that you can't see that in any society of supermen, you'd not be qualified to clean out ash trays," i tossed back at him. he smiled self-confidently. "by the time they start looking at my level--if they ever do--you'll have been gone long ago. sorry, cornell. you don't add up." well, that was nothing i didn't know already. in his society, i was a nonentity. yet, somehow, if that's what the human race was coming to under the thorndyke's and the phelps', i didn't care to stay around. "all right," i snapped. "which way do i go from here? the laboratory, or will you dispense with the preliminaries and let me take the high slide right now before this--" i held up my infected finger, "gets to the painful stages." with the air and tone of a man inspecting an interesting specimen impaled on a mounting pin, thorndyke replied: "oh--we have use for the likes of you." xvii it would please me no end to report here that the gang at the medical center were crude, rough, vicious, and that they didn't give a damn about human suffering. unfortunately for my sense of moral balance, i can't. they didn't cut huge slices out of my hide without benefit of anaesthesia. they didn't shove pipe-sized needles into me, or strap me on a board and open me up with dull knives. instead, they treated me as if i'd been going to pay for my treatment and ultimately emerge from the center to go forth and extol its virtues. i ate good food, slept in a clean and comfortable bed, smoked free cigarettes, read the best magazines--and also some of the worst, if i must report the whole truth--and was permitted to mingle with the rest of the patients, guests, victims, personnel, and so forth that were attached to my ward. i was not at any time treated as though i were anything but a willing and happy member of their team. it was known that i was not, but if any emotion was shown, it was sympathy at my plight in not being one of them. this was viewed in the same way as any other accident of birth or upbringing. in my room was another man about my age. he'd arrived a day before me, with an early infection at the tip of his middle toe. he was, if i've got to produce a time-table, about three-eights of an inch ahead of me. he had no worries. he was one of their kind of thinkers. "how'd you connect?" i asked him. "i didn't," he said, scratching his infected toe vigorously. "they connected with me." "oh?" "yeah. i was sleeping tight and not even dreaming. someone rapped on my apartment door and i growled myself out of bed and sort of felt my way. it was three in the morning. guy stood there looking apologetic. 'got a message for you,' he tells me. 'can't it wait until morning?' i snarl back. 'no,' he says. 'it's important!' so i invite him in. he doesn't waste any time at all; his first act is to point at an iron floor lamp in the corner and ask me how much i'd paid for it. i tell him. then this bird drops twice the amount on the coffee table, strides over to the corner, picks up the lamp, and ties the iron pipe into a fancy-looking bowknot. he didn't even grunt. 'mr. mullaney,' he asks me, 'how would you like to be that strong?' i didn't have to think it over. i told him right then and there. then we spent from three ayem to five thirty going through a fast question and answer routine, sort of like a complicated word-association test. at six o'clock i've packed and i'm on my way here with my case of mekstrom's disease." "just like that?" i asked mr. mullaney. "just like that," he repeated. "so now what happens?" "oh, about tomorrow i'll go in for treatment," he said. "seems as how they've got to start treatment before the infection creeps to the first joint or i'll lose the joint." he contemplated me a bit; he was a perceptive and i knew it. "you've got another day or more. that's because your ring finger is longer than my toe." "what's the treatment like?" i asked him. "that i don't know. i've tried to dig the treatment, but it's too far away from here. this is just a sort of preliminary ward; i gather that they know when to start and so on." he veiled his eyes for a moment. he was undoubtedly thinking of my fate. "chess?" he asked, changing the subject abruptly. "why not?" i grinned. my mind wasn't in it. he beat me three out of four. i bedded down about eleven, and to my surprise i slept well. they must have been shoving something into me to make me sleep; i know me very well and i'm sure that i couldn't have closed an eye if they hadn't been slipping me the old closeout powder. for three nights, now, i'd corked off solid until seven ack emma and i'd come alive in the morning fine, fit, and fresh. but on the following morning, mr. mullaney was missing. i never saw him again. at noon, or thereabouts, the end of the ring finger on my left hand was as solid as a rock. i could squeeze it in a door or burn it with a cigarette; i got into a little habit of scratching kitchen matches on it as i tried to dig into the solid flesh with my perception. i growled a bit at my fate, but not much. it was about this time, too, that the slight itch began to change. you know how a deep-felt itch is. it can sometimes be pleasant. like the itch that comes after a fast swim in the salty sea and a dry-out in the bright sun, when the drying salt water makes your skin itch with the vibrant pleasure of just being alive. this is not like the bite of any bug, but the kind that makes you want to take another dive into the ocean instead of trying to scratch it with your claws. well, the itch in my finger had been one of the pleasant kinds. i could sort of scratch it away by taking the steel-hard part of my finger in my other hand and wiggle, briskly. but now the itch turned into a deep burning pain. my perception, never good enough to dig the finer structure clearly, was good enough to tell me that my crawling horror had come to the boundary line of the first joint. it was this pause that was causing the burning pain. according to what i'd been told, if someone didn't do something about me right now, i'd lose the end joint of my finger. nobody came to ease my pain, nor to ease my mind. they left me strictly alone. i spent the time from noon until three o'clock examining my fingertip as i'd not examined it before. it was rock hard, but strangely flexible if i could exert enough pressure on the flesh. it still moved with the flexing of my hands. the fingernail itself was like a chip of chilled steel. i could flex the nail neither with my other hand nor by biting it; between my teeth it had the uncomfortable solidity of a sheet of metal that conveyed to my brain that the old teeth should not try to bite too hard. i tried prying on a bit of metal with the fingernail; inserting the nail in the crack where a metal cylinder had been formed to make a table leg. i might have been able to pry the crack wider, but the rest of my body did not have the power nor the rigidity necessary to drive the tiny lever that was my fingertip. i wondered what kind of tool-grinder they used for a manicure. at three-thirty, the door to my room opened and in came scholar phelps, complete with his benign smile and his hearty air. "well," he boomed over-cheerfully, "we meet again, mr. cornell." "under trying circumstances," i said. "unfortunately so," he nodded. "however, we can't all be fortunate." "i dislike being a vital statistic." "so does everybody. yet, from a philosophical point of view, you have no more right to live at the expense of someone else than someone else has a right to live at your expense. it all comes out even in the final accounting. and, of course, if every man were granted a guaranteed immortality, we'd have one cluttered-up world." i had to admit that he was right, but i still could not accept his statistical attitude. not while i'm the statistic. he followed my thought even though he was esper; it wasn't hard to follow anyway. "all right, i admit that this is no time to sit around discussing philosophy or metaphysics or anything of that nature. what you are interested in is you." "how absolutely correct." "you know, of course, that you are a carrier." "so i've come to believe. at least, everybody i seem to have any contact with either turns up missing or comes down with mekstrom's--or both." scholar phelps nodded. "you might have gone on for quite some time if it hadn't been so obvious." i eyed him. "just what went on?" i asked casually. "did you have a clean-up squad following me all the time, picking up the debris? or did you just pick up the ones you wanted? or did the highways make you indulge in a running competition?" "too many questions at once. most of which answers would be best that you did not know. best for us, that is. maybe even for you." i shrugged. "we seem to be bordering on philosophy again when the important point is what you intend to do to me." he looked unhappy. "mr. cornell, it is hard to remain unphilosophical in a case like this. so many avenues of thought have been opened, so many ideas and angles come to mind. we'll readily admit what you've probably concluded; that you as a carrier have become the one basic factor that we have been seeking for some twenty years and more. you are the dirigible force, the last brick in the building, the final answer. or, and i hate to say it, were." "were?" "for all of our knowledge of mekstrom's we know so very little," he said. "in certain maladies the carrier is himself immune. in some we observe that the carrier results from a low-level, incomplete infection with the disease which immunizes him but does not kill the bugs. in others, we've seen the carrier become normal after he has finally contracted the disease. what we must know now is: is steve cornell, the mekstrom carrier, now a non-carrier because he has contracted the disease?" "how are you going to find out?" i asked him. "that's a problem," he said thoughtfully. "one school feels that we should not treat you, since the treatment itself may destroy whatever unknown factor makes you a carrier. the other claims that if we don't treat you, you'll hardly live long enough to permit comprehensive research anyway. a third school believes that there is time to find out whether you are still a carrier, make some tests, and then treat you, after which these tests are to be repeated." rather bitterly, i said, "i suppose i have absolutely no vote." "hardly," his face was pragmatic. "and to which school do you belong?" i asked sourly. "do you want me to get the cure? or am i to die miserably while you take tabs on my blood pressure, or do i merely lose an arm while you're sitting with folded hands waiting for the laboratory report?" "in any case, we'll learn a lot about mekstrom's from you," he said. "even if you die." as caustically as i could, i said, "it's nice to know that i am not going to die in vain." he eyed me with contempt. "you're not afraid to die, are you, mr. cornell?" that's a dirty question to ask any man. sure, i'm afraid to die. i just don't like the idea of being not-alive. as bad as life is, it's better than nothing. but the way he put the question he was implying that i should be happy to die for the benefit of humanity in general, and that's a question that is unfairly loaded. after all, everybody is slated to kick off. there is no other way of resigning from the universe. so if i have to die, it might as well be for the benefit of something, and if it happens to be humanity, so much the better. but when the case is proffered on a silver tray, i feel, "somebody else, not me!" the next argument phelps would be tossing out would be the one that goes, "two thousand years ago, a man died for humanity--" which always makes me sick. no matter how you look at us, there is no resemblance between him and me. i cut him short before he could say it: "whether or not i'm afraid to die, and for good or evil, now or later, is beside the point. i have, obviously, nothing to say about the time, place, and the reasons." we sat there and glared at one another; he didn't know whether to laugh or snarl and i didn't care which he did. it seemed to me that he was leading up to something that looked like the end. then i'd get the standard funeral and statements would be given out that i'd died because medical research had not been able to save me and blah blah blah complete with lack of funds and the medical center charity drive. the result would mean more moola for phelps and higher efficiency for his operations, and to the devil with the rest of the world. "let's get along with it," i snapped. "i've no opinion, no vote, no right of appeal. why bother to ask me how i feel?" calmly he replied, "because i am not a rough-shod, unhuman monster, mr. cornell. i would prefer that you see my point of view--or at least enough of it to admit that there is a bit of right on my side." "seems to me i went through that with thorndyke." "this is another angle. i'm speaking of my right of discovery." "you're speaking of what?" "my right of discovery. you as an engineer should be familiar with the idea. if i were a poet i could write an ode to my love and no one would forbid me my right to give it to her and to nobody else. if i were a cook with a special recipe no one could demand that i hand it over unless i had a special friend. he who discovers something new should be granted the right to control it. if this mekstrom business were some sort of physical patent or some new process, i could apply for a patent and have it for my exclusive use for a period of seventeen years. am i not right?" "yes, but--" "except that my patent would be infringed upon and i'd have no control--" i stood up suddenly and faced him angrily. he did not cower; after all he was a mekstrom. but he did shut up for a moment. "seems to me," i snarled, "that any process that can be used to save human life should not be held secret, patentable, or under the control of any one man or group." "this is an argument that always comes up. you may, of course, be correct. but happily for me, mr. cornell, i have the process and you have not, and it is my own conviction that i have the right to use it on those people who seem, in my opinion, to hold the most for the future advancement of the human race. however, i do not care to go over this argument again, it is tiresome and it never ends. as one of the ancient greek philosophers observed, you cannot change a man's mind by arguing with him. the other fact remains, however, that you do have something to offer us, despite your contrary mental processes." "do go on? what do i have to do to gain this benefit? who do i have to kill?" i eyed him cynically and then added, "or is it 'whom shall i kill?' i like these things to be proper, you know." "don't be sarcastic. i'm serious," he told me. "then stop pussyfooting and come to the point," i snapped. "you know what the story is. i don't. so if you think i'll be interested, why not tell me instead of letting me find out the hard way." "you, of course, were a carrier. maybe you still are. we can find out. in fact, we'll have to find out, before we--" "for god's sake stop it!" i yelled. "you're meandering." "sorry," he said in a tone of apology that surprised me all the way down to my feet. he shook himself visibly and went on from there: "you, if still a carrier, can be of use to the medical center. now do you understand?" sure i understand, but good. as a normal human type, they held nothing over me and just shoved me here and there and picked up the victims after me. but now that i was a victim myself, they could offer me their "cure" only if i would swear to go around the country deliberately infecting the people they wanted among them. it was that--or lie there and die miserably. this had not come to scholar phelps as a sudden flash of genius. he'd been planning this all along; had been waiting to pop this delicate question after i'd been pushed around, had a chance to torture myself mentally, and was undoubtedly soft for anything that looked like salvation. "there is one awkward point," said scholar phelps suavely. "once we have cured you, we would have no hold on you other than your loyalty and your personal honor to fulfill a promise given. neither of us are naive, mr. cornell. we both know that any honorable promise is only as valid as the basic honor involved. since your personal opinion is that this medical treatment should be used indiscriminately, and that our program to better the human race by competitive selection is foreign to your feelings, you would feel honor-bound to betray us. am i not correct?" what could i say to that? first i'm out, then i'm in, now i'm out again. what was phelps getting at? "if our positions were reversed, mr. cornell, i'm sure that you'd seek some additional binding force against me. i shall continue to seek some such lever against you for the same reason. in the meantime, mr. cornell, we shall make a test to see whether we have any real basis for any agreement at all. you may have ceased to be a carrier, you know." "yeah," i admitted darkly. "in the meantime," he said cheerfully, "the least we can do is to treat your finger. i'd hate to have you hedge a deal because we did not deliver your cured body in the whole." he put his head out of the door and summoned a nurse who came with a black bag. from the bag, scholar phelps took a skin-blast hypo and a small metal box, the top of which held a small slender, jointed platform and some tiny straps. he strapped my finger to this platform and then plugged in a length of line cord to the nearest wall socket. the little platforms moved; the one nearest my wrist vibrated rapidly across a very small excursion that tickled like the devil. the end platform moved in an arc, flexing the finger tip from straight to about seventy degrees. this moved fairly slow but regularly up and down. "i'll not fool you," he said drily. "this is going to hurt." he set the skin-blast hypo on top of the joint and let it go. for a moment the finger felt cold, numb, pleasant. then the shock wore away and the tip of my finger, my whole finger and part of my hand shocked me with the most excruciating agony that the hide of man ever felt. flashes and waves of pain darted up my arm to the elbow and the muscles in my forearm jumped. the sensitive nerve in my elbow sang and sent darting waves of zigzag needles up to my shoulder. my hand was a source of searing heat and freezing cold and the pain of being crushed and twisted and wrenched out of joint all at the same time. phelps wiped my wet face with a towel, loaded another hypo and let me have it in the shoulder. gradually the stuff took hold and the awful pain began to subside. not all the way, it just diminished from absolutely unbearable to merely terrible. i knew at that moment why a trapped animal will bite off its own foreleg to get free of the trap. from the depths of his bag he found a bottle and poured a half-tumbler for me; it went down like a whiskey-flavored soft drink. it had about as much kick as when you pour a drink of water into a highball glass that still holds a dreg of melted ice and diluted liquor. but it burned like fury once it hit my stomach and my mind began to wobble. he'd given me a slug of the pure quill, one hundred proof. as some sort of counter-irritant, it worked. very gradually the awful pain in my hand began to subside. "you can take that manipulator off in an hour or so," he told me. "and in the meantime we'll get along with our testing." i gathered that they could stop this treatment anywhere along the process if i did not measure up. xviii midnight. the manipulator had been off my hand for several hours, and it was obvious that my mekstrom's was past the first joint and creeping up towards the next. i eyed it with some distaste; as much as i wanted to have a fine hard body, i was not too pleased at having agony for a companion every time the infection crossed a joint. i began to wonder about the wrist; this is a nice complicated joint and should, if possible, exceed the pain of the first joint in the ring finger. i'd heard tell, of course, that once you've reached the top, additional torture does not hurt any greater. i'd accepted this statement as it was printed. but now i was not too sure that what i'd just been through was not one of those exceptions that take place every now and then to the best of rules. i was still in a dark and disconsolate mood. but i'd managed to eat, and i'd shaved and showered, and i'd hit the hay because it was as good a place to be as anywhere else. i could lie there and dig the premises with my esper. there were very few patients in this building, and none were done up like the character in the macklin place. they moved the patients to some other part of the grounds when the cure started. there weren't very many nurses, doctors, scholars, or other personnel around, either. outside along one side of a road was a small lighted house that was obviously a sort of guard, but it was casual instead of being formal and military in appearance. the ground, instead of being patrolled by human guards (which might have caused some comment) was carefully laid off into checkerboard squares by a complicated system of photobeams and induction bridges. you've probably read about how the job of casing a joint should be done. i did it the same way. i dug back and forth, collecting the layout from the back door of my building towards the nearest puff of dead area. this coign of safety billowed outward from the pattern towards the building like an arm of cumulus cloud and the top of it rose like a column to a height above my range. it sort of leaned forward but it did not lean far enough to be directly above the building. the far side of the column was just like the rear side; even though i'm well trained, it always startles me when i perceive the far side of a smallish dead area. i'm inclined like everybody else to consider perception on a line-of-sight basis instead of on a sort of all-around grasp. i let my thinker run free. if i could direct a breakout from this joint with a lot of outside help, i'd have a hot jetcopter pilot come down the dead-area column with a dead engine. the medical center did not have any radar, probably on the proposition that too high a degree of security indicated a high degree of top-secret material to hide. so i'd come down dead engine, land, and wait it out. timing would have to be perfect, because i, the prisoner, would have to make a fast gallop across a couple of hundred yards of wide open psi area, scale a tall fence topped with barbed wire, cross another fifty yards into the murk, and then find my rescuer. the take off would be fast once i'd located the 'copter in the murk, and everything would depend upon a hot pilot who felt confident enough in his engine and his rotorjets to let 'em go with a roar and a lift without warmup. during which time, unfortunately for all plans, the people at the medical center would have been reading my mind and would probably have that dead patch well patrolled with big, rough gentlemen armed with stuff heavy enough to stop a tank. lacking any sort of device or doodad that would conceal my mind from prying telepaths, about the only thing i could do was to lay here in my soft bed and daydream of making my escape. eventually i went to sleep and dreamed that i was hunting mallards with a fly-rod baited with a stale doughnut. the only thing that bothered me was a couple of odd-looking guys who thought that the way to hunt mallards was with shotguns, and their dress was just as out of taste as their equipment. who ever hunted ducks from a canoe, dressed in windbreakers and hightopped boots? eventually they bought some ducks from me and went home, leaving me to my slumbers. * * * * * about eight in the morning, there was a tentative tap on my door. while i was growling about why they should bother tapping, the door opened and a woman came in with my breakfast tray. she was not my nurse; she was the enamelled blonde receptionist. she had lost some of her enamelled sophistication. it was not evident in her make-up, her dress, or her hair-do. these were perfection. in fact, she bore that store-window look that made me think of an automaton, triggered to make the right noises and to present the proper expression at the correct time. as though she had never had a thought of her own or an emotion that was above the level of very mild interest. as if the perfection of her dress and the characterless beauty of her face were more important than anything else in her life. but the loss of absolute plate-glass impersonality was gone, and it took me some several moments to dig it out of her appearance. then i saw it. her eyes. they no longer looked glassily out of that clear oval face at a point about three inches above my left shoulder, but they were centered on me from no matter what point in the room she'd be as she went about the business of running open the blinds, checking the this and that and the other like any nurses' helper. finally she placed my tray on the bed-table and stood looking down at me. from my first meeting with her i knew she was no telepath, so i bluntly said, "where's the regular girl? where's my nurse?" "i'm taking over for the time," she told me. her voice was strained; she'd been trying to use that too-deeply cultured tone she used as the professional receptionist but the voice had cracked through the training enough to let some of her natural tone come through. "why?" then she relaxed completely, or maybe it was a matter of coming unglued. her face allowed itself to take on some character and her body ceased being that rigid window-dummy type. "what's your trouble--?" i asked her softly. she had something on her mind that was a bit too big for her, but her training was not broad enough to allow her to get it out. i hoped to help, if i could. i also wanted to know what she was doing here. if scholar phelps was thinking about putting a lever on me of the female type, he'd guessed wrong. she was looking at me and i could see a fragment of fright in her face. "is it terrible?" she asked me in a whisper. "is what terrible?" "me--me--mekstrom's d--disease--" the last word came out with a couple of big tears oozing from closed lids. "why?" i asked. "do i look all shot to bits?" she opened the eyes and looked at me. "does it hurt?" i remembered the agony of my finger and tried to lie. "a little," i told her. "but i'm told that it was because i'd waited too long for my first treatment." i hoped that i was correct; maybe it was wishful thinking, but i claim that right. i didn't want to go through the same agony every time we crossed a joint. i reached over to the bedside table and found my cigarettes. i slipped two up and offered one of them to her. she put a tentative hand forward, slowly, a scared-to-touch reluctance in her motion. this changed as her hand came forward. it was the same sort of reluctance that you feel when you start out to visit the dentist for a roaring tooth. the closer you get to the dentist's office the less inclined you are to finish the job. then at some indeterminate point you cross the place of no return and from that moment you go forward with increased determination. she finally made the cigarette package but she was very careful not to touch my hand as she took out the weed. then, as if she'd reached that point of no return, her hand slipped around the package and caught me by the wrist. we were statue-still for three heartbeats. then i lifted my other hand, took out the cigarette she'd missed, and held it forward for her. she took it. i dropped the pack and let my hand slip back until we were holding hands, practically. she shuddered. i flipped my lighter and let her inhale a big puff before i put the next question: "why are you here and what goes on?" in a flat, dry voice she said, "i'm--supposed--to--" and let it trail away without finishing it. "guinea pig?" i blurted bluntly. she collapsed like a deflated balloon. next, she had her face buried in my shoulder, bawling like a hurt baby. i stroked her shoulder gently, but she shuddered away from my hand as though it were poison. i shoved her upright and shook her a bit. "don't blubber like an idiot. sit there and talk like a human being!" it took her a minute of visible effort before she said, "you're supposed to be a--carrier. i'm supposed to find out--whether you are--a carrier." well, i'd suspected something of that sort. shakily she asked me, "how do i get it, mr. cornell?" i eyed her sympathetically. then i held up my left hand and looked at the infection. this was the finger that had been gummed to bits by the mekstrom infant back in homestead. with a shrug of uncertainty, i lifted her hand to my mouth. i felt with my tongue and dug with my perception until i had a tiny fold of her skin between my front teeth. then sharply, i bit down, drawing blood. she jerked, stiffened, closed her eyes and took a deep breath but she did not cry out. "that, if anything, should do it," i said flatly. "now go out and get some iodine for the cut. human-bite is likely to become infected with something bad. and i don't think antiseptic will hurt the mekstrom infection if it's taken place." they'd given me the antiseptic works in homestead, i recalled. "now, miss nameless, you sit over there and tell me how come this distressing tableau?" "oh--i can't," she cried. then she left in a hurry sucking on her bleeding finger. i didn't need any explanation; i'd just wanted my suspicions confirmed. someone had a lever on her. maybe someone she loved was a mekstrom and her loyalty was extracted because of it. the chances were also high that she'd been given to understand that they'd accept her as a member if she ever caught mekstrom's; and they'd taken my arrival as a fine chance to check me and get her at the same time. i wondered about her; she was no big-brain. i couldn't quite see the stratified society outlined by scholar phelps as holding a position open for her in the top echelon. except she was a woman, attractive if you like your women beautiful and dull-minded, and she probably would be happy to live in a little vacuum-type world bounded on all sides with women's magazines, lace curtains, tv soap opera, and a corral full of little mekstrom kids. i grinned. funny how the proponents of the stratified society always have their comeuppance by the need of women whose minds are bent on mundane things like homes and families. well, i hoped she caught it, if that's what she wanted. i was willing to bet my life that she cared a lot more for being with her man than she did for the cockeyed society he was supporting. i finished my breakfast and went out to watch a couple of telepaths playing chess until lunch time and then gave up. telepathic chess was too much like playing perceptive poker. then after lunch came the afternoon full of laboratory tests, inspections, experiments, and so forth; they didn't do much that hadn't been tried at homestead, and i surprised them again by being able to help in their never-ending blood counts and stuff of that sort. they did not provide me with a new room mate, so i wandered around after dinner hoping that i could avoid both thorndyke and phelps. i didn't want to get into another fool social-structure argument with them and the affair of the little scared receptionist was more than likely to make me say a few words that might well get me cast into the outer darkness for their mere semantic content. once more i hit the sack early. and, once more, there came a tap on my door about eight o'clock. it was not a tentative little frightened tap this time, it was more jovial and eager sounding. my reaction was about the same. since it was their show and their property, i couldn't see any reason why they made this odd lip-service to politeness. it was the receptionist again. she came in with a big wistful smile and dropped my tray on the bed table. "look," she cried. she held up her hand. the bleeding had stopped and there was a thin film over the cut. i dug at it and nodded; it was the first show of mekstrom flesh without a doubt. "that's it, kid." "i know," she said happily. "golly, i could kiss you." then before i could think of all the various ways in which the word "golly" sounded out of character for her, she launched herself into my arms and was busily erasing every attempt at logical thought with one of the warmest, no-holds-barred smoocheroo that i'd enjoyed for what seemed like years. since i'd held catherine in my arms in her apartment just before we'd eloped, i'd spent my time in the company of nurse farrow who held no emotional appeal to me, and the rest of my female company had been mekstroms whose handholding might twist off a wrist if they got a thrill out of it. about the time i began to respond with enthusiasm and vigor, she extricated herself from my clutch and slid back to the foot of the bed out of reach. a little breathlessly she said, "harry will thank you for this." _this_ meant the infection in her finger. then she was gone and i was thinking, _harry should drop dead_! then i grinned at myself like the cheshire cat because i realized that i was so valuable a property that they couldn't afford to let me die. no matter what, i'd be kept alive. and after having things go so sour for so long a time, things were about to take a fast turn and go my way. i discounted the baby-bite affair. even if the baby were another carrier, it would take a long time before the kid was old enough to be trusted in his aim. i discounted it even more because i hadn't been roaring around the countryside biting innocent citizens. mere contact was enough; if the bite did anything, it may have hastened the process. so here i was, a nice valuable property, with a will of my own. i could either throw in with phelps and bite only phelps' chosen aristocrats, or i could go back to the highways and bite everybody in sight. i laughed at my image in the mirror. i am a democratic sort of soul, but when it comes to biting, there's some i'd rather bite than others. i bared my teeth at my image, but it was more of a leering smile of the tooth-paste ad than a fierce snarl. my image looked pensive. it was thinking, _steve, old carnivore, ere you go biting anybody, you've first got to bite your way out of the medical center._ xix one hour later they pulled my fangs without benefit of anaesthesia. thorndyke came in to inspect the progress of my infection and allowed as how i'd be about ready for the full treatment in a few days. "we like to delay the full treatment as long as possible," he told me, "because it immobilizes the patient too long as it is." he pressed a call bell, waited, and soon the door opened to admit a nurses' helper pushing a trundle cart loaded with medical junk. i still don't know what was on the cart because i was too flabbergasted to notice it. i was paying all my attention to catherine, cheerful in her gray lady uniform, being utterly helpful, bright, gay, and relaxed. i was tongue tied, geflummoxed, beaten down, and--well, just speechless. catherine was quite professional about her help. she loaded the skin-blast hypo and slapped it into thorndyke's open hand. her eyes looked into mine and they smiled reassuringly. her hand was firm as she took my arm; she locked her strength on my hand and held it immobile while thorndyke shot me in the second joint. there was a personal touch to her only briefly when she breathed, "steve, i'm so glad!" and then went on about her work. the irony of it escaped me; but later i did recall the oddity of congratulating someone who's just contracted a disease. then that wave of agony hit me, and the only thing i can remember through it was catherine folding a towel so that the hem would be on the inside when she wiped the beads of sweat from my face. she cradled my head between her hands and crooned lightly to me until the depths of the pain was past. then she got efficient again and waved thorndyke aside to see to the little straps on the manipulator herself. she adjusted them delicately. then she poured me a glass of ice water and put it where i could reach it with my other hand. she left after one long searching look into my eyes, and i knew that she would be back later to talk to me alone. this seemed all right with dr. thorndyke, the wily telepath who would be able to dig a reconstruction of our private talk with a little urging on his part. after catherine was gone, thorndyke smiled down at me with cynical self-confidence. "there's your lever, steve," he said. the dope helped to kill all but the worst waves of searing pain; between them i managed to grind out, "how did you sell her that bill of goods, thorndyke?" his reply was scornful. "maybe she likes your hide all in one piece," he grunted. he left me with my mind a-whirl with thoughts and pain. the little manipulator was working my second finger joint up and down rhythmically, and with each move came pain. it also exercised the old joint, which had grown so rigid that my muscles hadn't been able to move it for several hours. that added agony, too. the dope helped, but it also dimmed my ability to concentrate. up to a certain point everything was quite logical and easy to understand. catherine was here because they had contacted her through some channel and said, "throw in with us and we'll see that your lover does not die miserably." so much was reasonable, but after that point the whole thing began to take on a mad puzzle-like quality. given normal circumstances, catherine would have come to me as swiftly as i'd have gone to her if i'd known how. not only that, but i'd probably have sworn eternal fealty to them for their service even though i could not stand their way of thinking. but catherine was smart enough to realize that i, as the only known carrier of mekstrom's disease, was more valuable live than dead. why, then, had catherine come here to place herself in their hands? alone, she might have gone off half-cocked in an emotional tizzy. but the highways had good advisers who should have pointed out that steve cornell was one man alive who could walk with impunity among friend or foe. why, they hadn't even tried to collect me until it became evident that i was in line for the old treatment. then they had to take me in, because the medical center wanted any information they could get above and beyond the fact that i was a carrier. if someone from homestead had been in that courtroom, i'd now be among friends. then the ugly thought hit me and my mind couldn't face it for some time. _reorientation._ catherine's cheerful willingness to help them must be reorientation and nothing else. now, although i've mentioned reorientation before, what i actually know about it is meager. it makes dr. jekylls out of former mr. hydes and the transformation is complete. it can be done swiftly; the rapidity depends upon the strength of the mind of the operator compared to the mind of the subject. it is slightly harder to reorient a defiant mind than a willing one. it sticks unless someone else begins to tinker again. it is easier to make a good man out of a bad one than the reverse, although the latter is eminently possible. this is too difficult a problem to discuss to the satisfaction of everybody, but it seems to go along with the old theory that "good" does benefit the tribe of mankind in the long run, while "bad" things cause trouble. i'll say no more than to point out that no culture based upon theft, murder, piracy, and pillage, has ever survived. the thought of catherine's mind being tampered with made me seethe with anger. i forgot my pain and began to probe around wildly, and as i probed i began to know the real feeling of helpless futility. for here i was, practically immobilized and certainly dependent upon them for help. this was no time to attempt a rescue of my sweetheart--who would only be taken away kicking and screaming all the way from here to the first place where i could find a haven and have her re-reoriented. the latter would not be hard; among the other things i knew about reorientation was that it could be negated by some strong emotional ties and a personal background that included worthy objection to the new personality. for my perceptive digging i came up with nothing but those things that any hospital held. patients, nurses, interns, orderlies; a couple of doctors, a scholar presiding over a sheaf of files. and finally catherine puttering over an autoclave. she was setting out a string of instruments under the tutelage of a superintendent of nurses who was explaining how the job should be done. i took a deep, thankful breath. her mind was occupied enough to keep her from reading the dark thoughts that were going through mine. i did not even want a loved one to know how utterly helpless and angry i felt. and then, because i was preoccupied with catherine and my own thoughts, the door opened without my having taken a dig at the opener beforehand. the arrival was all i needed to crack wide open in a howling fit of hysteria. it was so pat. i couldn't help but let myself go: "well! this looks like old home week!" miss gloria farrow, registered nurse, did not respond to my awkward joviality. her face, if anything, was darker than my thoughts. i doubted that she had her telepathy working; people who get that wound up find it hard to even see and hear straight, let alone think right. and telepathy or perception goes out of kilter first because the psi is a very delicate factor. she eyed me coldly. "you utter imbecile," she snarled. "you--" "whoa, baby!" i roared. "slow down. i'm a bit less than bright, but what have i done now?" i'd have slapped her across the face as an anodyne if she hadn't been mekstrom. farrow cooled visibly, then her face sort of came apart and she sort of flopped forward onto the bed and buried her face in my shoulder. i couldn't help but make comparisons; she was like a hunk of marble, warm and vibrant. like having a statue crying on my shoulder. she sagged against me like a loose bag of cement and her hands clutched at my shoulder blades like a pair of c-clamps. a big juicy tear dropped from her cheek to land on my chest, and i was actually surprised to find that a teardrop from a mekstrom did not land like a drop of mercury. it just splashed like any other drop of water, spread out, and made my chest wet. eventually i held her up from me, tried to shake her gently, and said, "now what's the shooting all about, farrow?" she shook her head as if to clear her thinking gear. "steve," she said in a quietly serious tone, "i've been such an utter fool." "you're not unique, farrow," i told her. "people have been doing damfool stunts since--" "i know," she broke in. then with an effort at light-heartedness, she added, "there must be a different version of that garden of eden story. eve is always blamed as having tempted adam. somewhere, old adam must have been slightly to blame--?" i didn't know what she was driving toward, but i stroked her hair and waited. she was probably right. it still takes two of a kind to make one pair. "steve--get out of here! while you're safe!" "huh?" i blurted. "what cooks, farrow?" "i was a nice patsy," she said. she sat up and wiped her eyes. "i was a fool. steve, if james thorndyke had asked me to jump off the roof, i'd have asked him 'what direction?' that's how fat-headed i am." "yes?" something was beginning to form, now. "i--led you on, steve." that blinkoed me. the phrase didn't jell. the half a minute she'd spent bawling on my shoulder with my arms around her had been the first physical contact i'd ever had with nurse farrow. it didn't seem-"no, steve. not that way. i couldn't see you for thorndyke any more than you could see me for catherine." her telepathy had returned, obviously; she was in better control of herself. "steve," she said, "i led you on; did everything that thorndyke told me to. you fell into it like a rock. oh--it was going to be a big thing. all i had to do was to haul you deeper into this mess, then i'd disappear strangely. then we'd be--tog--ether--we'd be--" she started to come unglued again but stopped the dissolving process just before the wet and gooey stage set in. she seemed to put a set in her shoulders, and then she looked down at me with pity. "poor esper," she said softly, "you couldn't really know--" "know what?" i asked harshly. "he fooled me--too," she said, in what sounded like a complete irrelevancy. "look, farrow, try and make a bit of sense to a poor perceptive who can't read a mind. keep it running in one direction, please?" again, as apparently irrelevant, she said, "he's a top grade telepath; he knows control--" "control--?" i asked blankly. "you don't know," she said. "but a good telepath can think in patterns that prevent lesser telepaths from really digging deep. thorndyke is brilliant, of scholar grade, really. he--" "let's get back to it, farrow. what's cooking?" sternly she tossed her head. it was an angry motion, one that showed her disdain for her own tears and her own weakness. "your own sweet catherine." i eyed her, not coldly but with a growing puzzlement. i tried to formulate my own idea but she went on, briskly, "that accident of yours was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to you, steve." "how long have i been known to be a mekstrom carrier?" i asked bluntly. "no more than three weeks before you met catherine lewis," she told me as bluntly. "it took the medical center that long to work her into a position to meet you, steve." that put the icing on the cake. if nothing else, it explained why catherine was here willingly. i didn't really believe it because no one can turn one hundred and eighty degrees without effort, but i couldn't deny the fact that the evidence fits the claim. if what farrow said were true, my marriage to catherine would have provided them with the same lever as the little blonde receptionist. the pile-up must have really fouled up their plans. "it did, steve," said farrow, who had been following my mental ramblings. "the highways had to step in and help. this fouled things up for both sides." "both sides?" i asked, completely baffled. she nodded. "until the accident, the medical center did not know that the highways existed. but when catherine dropped completely out of sight, thorndyke did a fine job of probing you. that's when he came upon the scant evidence of the highway sign and the mental impression of the elder harrison lifting the car so that phillip could get you out. then he knew, and--" "farrow," i snapped, "there are a lot of holes in your story. for instance--" she held up a hand to stop me. "steve," she said quietly, "you know how difficult it is for a non-telepath to find someone he can trust. but i'm trying to convince you that--" i stopped farrow this time. "how can i believe you now?" i asked her pointedly. "you seem to have a part in this side of the quiet warfare." nurse farrow made a wry face as though she'd just discovered that the stuff she had in her mouth was a ball of wooly centipedes. "i'm a woman," she said simply. "i'm soft and gullible and easily talked into complacency. but i've just learned that their willingness to accept women is based upon the fact that no culture can thrive without women to propagate the race. i find that i am--" she paused, swallowed, and her voice became strained with bitterness, "--useful as a breeding animal. just one of the peasants whose glory lies in carrying their heirs. but i tell you, steve--" and here she became strong and her voice rang out with a vigorous rejection of her future, "i'll be forever damned if i will let my child be raised with the cockeyed notion that he has some god-granted right to rule." my vigilant sense of perception had detected a change in the human-pattern in the building. people were moving--no, it was one person who was moving. down in the laboratory below, and at the other end of the building, catherine was still working over the autoclave and instruments. the waspish-looking superintendent had taken off for somewhere else, and while catherine was alone now, she was about to be joined by dr. thorndyke. half afraid that my perception of them would touch off their own telepathic sense of danger, i watched deliberately. the door opened and thorndyke came in; catherine turned from her work and said something, which of course i could not possibly catch. #what are they saying, farrow?# i snapped mentally. "i don't know. they're too far for my range." i swore, but i didn't really have to have a dialog script. nor did they do the obvious; what they did was far more telling. catherine turned and patted his cheek. they laughed at one another, and then catherine began handing thorndyke the instruments out of the autoclave, which he proceeded to mix in an unholy mess in the surgical tray. catherine saw what he was doing and made some remark; then threatened him with a pair of haemostats big enough to clamp off a three-inch fire hose. it was pleasant enough looking horseplay; the sort of intimacy that people have when they've been together for a long time. thorndyke did not look at all frightened of the haemostats, and catherine did not really look as though she'd follow through with her threat. they finally tangled in a wrestle for the instrument, and thorndyke took it away from her. they leaned against a cabinet side by side, their elbows touching, and went on talking as if they had something important to discuss in the midst of their fun. it could have been reorientation or it could have been catherine's real self. i still couldn't quite believe that she had played me false. my mind spinned from one side to the other until i came up with a blunt question that came to my lips without any mental planning. i snapped, "farrow, what grade of telepath is catherine?" "doctor grade," she replied flatly. "might have taken some pre-scholar training if economics hadn't interfered. i'd not really call her rhine scholar material, but i'm prejudiced against her." if what farrow said was true, catherine was telepath enough to control and marshall her mind to a faretheewell. she could think and plan to herself in the presence of another telepath without giving her plots away. she was certainly smart enough to lead one half-trained perceptive around by a ring in my nose. me? i was as big a fool as farrow. xx nurse farrow caught my hand. "steve," she snapped out in a rapid, flat voice, "think only one thought. think of how catherine is here; that she came here to protect your life and your future!" "huh?" "think it!" she almost cried. "she's coming!" i nearly fumbled it. then i caught on. catherine was coming; to remove the little finger manipulator and to have a chit-chat with me. i didn't want to see her, and i was beginning to wish--then i remembered that one glimmer out of me that i knew the truth and everything would be higher than orbital station one. i shoved my mind into low gear and started to think idle thoughts, letting myself sort of daydream. i was convincing to myself; it's hard to explain exactly, but i was play-thinking like a dramatist. i fell into it; it seemed almost truth to me as i roamed on and on. i'd been trapped and catherine had come here to hand herself over as a hostage against my good behavior. she'd escaped the highways bunch or maybe she just left them quietly. somehow phelps had seen to it that catherine got word--i didn't know how, but that was not important. the important thing was catherine being here as a means of keeping me alive and well. i went on thinking the lie. catherine came in shortly and saw what nurse farrow was doing. "i was supposed to do that," said catherine. nurse farrow straightened up from her work of loosening the straps on the manipulator. "sorry," she said in a cool, crisp voice. "i didn't know that. this is usually my job. it's a rather delicate proposition, you know." there was a chill of professional rebuff in farrow's voice. it was the pert white hat and the gold pin looking down upon the gray uniform with no adornment. catherine looked a bit uncomfortable but she apparently had to take it. catherine tried lamely, "you see, mr. cornell is my fiancã©e." farrow jumped on that one hard. "i'm aware of that. so let's not forget that scholars of medicine do not treat their own loved ones for ethical reasons." catherine took it like a slap across the face with an iced towel. "i'm sure that dr. thorndyke would not have let me take care of him if i'd not been capable," she replied. "perhaps dr. thorndyke did not realize at the time that mr. cornell would be ready for the treatment department. or," she added slyly, "have you been trained to prepare a patient for the full treatment?" "the full treatment--? dr. thorndyke did not seem to think--" "please," said farrow with that cold crispness coming out hard, "as a nurse i must keep my own opinion to myself, as well as keeping the opinions of doctors to myself. i take orders only and i perform them." that was a sharp shot; practically telling catherine that she, as a nurses' helper, had even less right to go shooting off her mouth. catherine started to reply but gave it up. instead she came over and looked down at me. she cooed and stroked my forehead. "ah, steve," she breathed, "so you're going for the treatment. think of me, steve. don't let it hurt too much." i smiled thinly and looked up into her eyes. they were soft and warm, a bit moist. her lips were full and red and they were parted slightly; the lower lip glistened slightly in the light. these were lips i'd kissed and found sweet; a face i'd held between my hands. her hair fluffed forward a trifle; threatened to cascade down over her shoulders. no, it was not at all hard to lie there and go on thinking all the soft-sweet thoughts i'd once hoped might come true-she recoiled, her face changing swiftly from its mask of sweet concern to one of hard calculation. i'd slipped with that last hunk of thinking and given the whole affair away. catherine straightened up and turned to head for the door. she took one step and caved in like a wet towel. over her still-falling body i saw nurse farrow calmly reloading the skin-blast hypo, which she used to fire a second load into the base of catherine's neck, just below the shoulder blades. "that," said farrow succinctly, "should keep her cold for a week. i just wish i'd been born with enough guts to commit murder." "what--?" "get dressed," she snapped. "it's cold outside, remember?" i started to dress as farrow hurled my clothing out of the closet at me. she went on in the meantime: "i knew you couldn't keep it entirely concealed from her. she's too good a telepath. so while you were holding her attention, i let her have a shot in the neck. one of the rather bad things about being a mekstrom is that minor items like the hypo don't register too well." i stopped. "isn't that bad? seems to me that i've heard that pain is a necessary factor for the preservation of the--" "stop yapping and dress," snapped farrow. "pain is useful when it's needed. it isn't needed in the case of a pin pricking the hide of a mekstrom. when a mekstrom gets in the way of something big enough to damage him physically, then it hurts him." "sort of when a locomotive falls on their head?" i grunted. "keep on dressing. we're not out of this jungle yet." "so have you any plans?" she nodded soberly. "yes, steve. once you asked me to be your telepath, to complete your team. i let you down. now i've picked you up again, and from here on--out--i--" i nodded. "sold," i told her. "good. now, steve, dig the hallway." i did. there was no one there. i opened my mouth to tell her so, and then closed it foolishly. "dig the hallway down to the left. farther. to the door down there--three beyond the one you're perceiving now--is there a wheelchair there?" "wheelchair?" i blurted. "steve, this is a hospital. they don't even let a man with an aching tooth walk to the toothache ward. he rides. now, you keep a good esper watch on the hall and if anybody looks out while i'm gone, just cast a deep dig at their face. it's possible that at this close range i can identify them from the perceived image in your mind. although, god knows, no two people ever _see_ anything alike, let alone perceive it." she slipped out, leaving me with the recumbent form of my former sweetheart. her face had fallen into the relaxed expression of sleep, sort of slack and unbuttoned. #tough, baby,# i thought as i closed my eyes so that all my energy could be aimed at the use of my perception. farrow was going down the hall like a professional heading for the wheelchair on a strict order. no one bothered to look out; she reached the locker room and dusted the wheelchair just as if she'd been getting it for a real patient. (the throb in my finger returned for a parthian shot and i remembered that i _was_ a real patient!) she trundled the chair back and into my room. "in," she said. "and keep that perception aimed on the hallway, the elevator, and the center corridor stairs." she packed me with a blanket, tucking it so that my shoes and overclothing would not show, doing the job briskly. then she scooped catherine up from the floor and dropped her into my bed, and then rolled catherine into one of those hospital doodads that hospitals use for male and female alike as bedclothing. "anyone taking a fast dig in here will think she's a patient--unless the digger knows that this room is supposed to be occupied by one steve cornell, obviously male. now, steve, ready to steer?" "steer?" "steer by esper. i'll drive. oh--i know the way," she told me with a chuckle. "you just keep your perception peeled for characters who might be over-nosy. i'll handle the rest." we went along the hallway. i took fast digs at the rooms and hall ahead of us; the whole coast seemed clear. waiting for the two-bit elevator was nerve wracking; hospitals always have such poky elevators. but eventually it came and we trundled aboard. the pilot was no big-dome. he smiled at nurse farrow and nodded genially at me. he was probably a blank, jockeying an elevator is about the top job for a non-psi these days. but as the elevator started down, a doctor came out of one of the rooms on the floor below. he took a fast look at the indicator above the elevator door and made a dash to thumb the button. the elevator came to a grinding halt and he got on. this bothered me, but farrow merely simpered at the guy and melted him down to size. she made some remark to him that i couldn't hear, but from the sudden increase of his pulse rate, i gathered that she'd really put him off guard. he replied in the same unintelligible tone and reached for her hand. she held his hand, and if the guy was thinking of me, my name is sing hoy low and i am a chinese policeman. he held her hand until we hit the first floor, and he debarked with a calf-like glance at nurse farrow. we went on to the ground floor and down the lower corridor to the end, where farrow spent another lifetime and a half filling out a white cardboard form. the superintendent eyed me with a sniff. "i'll call the car," she said. i half-expected farrow to make some objection, but she quietly nodded and we waited for another lifetime until a big car whined to a stop outside. two big guys in white coats came in, tripped the lever on back of the wheelchair and stretched me out flat and low-slung on the same wheels. it was a neat conversion from wheelchair to wheeled stretcher, but as farrow trundled me out feet first into the cold, i felt a sort of nervous chill somewhere south of my navel. she swung me around at the last minute and i was shoved head first into the back of the car. car? this was a full-fledged ambulance, about as long as a city block and as heavy as a battleship. it was completely fitted for everything that anybody could think of, including a great big muscular turbo-electric power plant capable of putting many miles per behind the tail-pipe. the door closed on my feet, and we took off with farrow sitting right behind the two big hospital attendants, one of whom was driving and the other of whom was ogling farrow in a calculating manner. she invited the ogle. heck, she did it in such a way that i couldn't help ogling a bit myself. if i haven't said that farrow was an attractive woman, it was because i hadn't really paid attention to her looks. but now i went along and ogled, realizing in the dimmer and more obscure recesses of my mind that if i ogled in a loudly lewd perceptive manner, i'd not be thinking of what she was doing. so while i was pleasantly occupied in ogling, farrow slipped two more hypos out from under her clothing. she slipped her hands out sidewise on the backs of their seats, put her face between them and said, "anybody got a cigarette, fellows?" the next that took place happened, in order of occurrence, as follows: the driver grunted and turned his head to look at her. the other guy fumbled for a cigarette. driver poked at the lighter on the dash, still dividing his attention between the road and nurse farrow. the man beside him reached for the lighter when it popped out and he held it for her while she puffed it into action. farrow fingered the triggers on the skin-blast hypos. the man beside the driver replaced the lighter in its socket on the dash. the driver slid aside and to the floor, a second before the other hospital orderly flopped down like a deflated balloon. the ambulance took a swoop to the right, nosed down into a shallow ditch and leaped like a shot deer out on the other side. farrow went over the back of the seat in a flurry and i rolled off of my stretcher into the angle of the floor and the sidewall. there was a rumble and then a series of crashes before we came to a shuddering halt. i came up from beneath a pile of assorted medical supplies, braced myself against the canted deck, and looked out the wind-shield. the trunk of a tree split the field of view as close to dead center as it could be. "out, steve," said farrow, untangling herself from the steering wheel and the two attendants. "out!" "what next?" i asked her. "we've made enough racket to wake the statue of lincoln. out and run for it." "which way?" "follow me!" she snapped, and took off. even in nurse's shoes with those semi-heels, farrow made time in a phenomenal way. i lost ground steadily. luckily it was still early in the afternoon, so i used my perception to keep track of her once she got out of sight. she was following the gently rolling ground, keeping to the lower hollows and gradually heading toward a group of buildings off in the near-distance. i caught up with her just as we hit a tiny patch of dead area; just inside the area she stopped and we flopped on the ground and panted our lungs full of nice biting cold air. then she pointed at the collection of buildings and said, "steve, take a few steps out of this deadness and take a fast dig. look for cars." i nodded; in a few steps i could send my esper forward to dig the fact that there were several cars parked in a row near one of the buildings. i wasted no time in digging any deeper, i just retreated into the dead area and told her what i'd seen. "take another dig, steve. take a dig for ignition keys. we've got to steal." "i don't mind stealing." i took another trip into the open section and gandered at ignition locks. i tried to memorize the ones with keys hanging in the locks but failed to remember all of them. "okay, steve. this is where we walk in boldly and walk up to a couple of cars and get in and drive off." "yeah, but why--" "that's the only way we'll ever get out of here," she told me firmly. i shrugged. farrow knew more about the medical center than i did. if that's the way she figured it, that's the way it had to be. we broke out of the dead area, and as we came into the open, farrow linked her arm in mine and hugged it. "make like a couple of fatuous mushbirds," she chuckled. "we've been out walking and communing with nature and getting acquainted." "isn't the fact that you're mekstrom and i'm human likely to cause some rather pointed comment?" "it would if we were to stick around to hear it," she said. "and if they try to read our minds, all we have to do is to think nice mushy thoughts. face it," she said quietly, "it won't be hard." "huh?" "you're a rather nice guy, steve. you're fast on the uptake, you're generally pleasant. you've got an awful lot of grit, guts and determination, steve. you're no pinup boy, steve, but--and this may come as a shock to you--women don't put one-tenth the stock in pulchritude that men do? you--" "hey. whoa," i bubbled. "slow down, before you--" she hugged my arm again. "steve," she said seriously, "i'm not in love with you. it's not possible for a woman to be in love with a man who does not return that love. you don't love me. but you can't help but admit that i am an attractive woman, steve, and perhaps under other circumstances you'd take on a large load of that old feeling. i'll admit that the reverse could easily take place. now, let's forget all the odd angles and start thinking like a pair of people for whom the time, the place, and the opposite sex all turned up opportunely." i couldn't help thinking of nurse farrow as--nurse farrow. the name gloria did not quite come out. i tried to submerge this mental attitude, and so i looked down at her with what i hoped to resemble the expression of a love-struck male. i think it was closer to the expression of a would-be little-theatre actor expressing lust, and not quite making the grade. farrow giggled. but as i sort of leered down at her, i had to admit upon proper examination of her charm that nurse farrow could very easily become gloria, if as she said, we had the time to let the change occur. another idea formed in my mind: if farrow had been kicked in the emotions by thorndyke, i'd equally been pushed in the face by catherine. that made us sort of kindred souls, as they used to call it in the early books of the twentieth century. gloria farrow chuckled. "unlike the old torch-carriers of that day," she said, "we rebound a bit too fast." then she let my arm go and took my hand. we went swinging across the field in a sort of happy comradeship; it must have looked as though we were long-term friends. she was a good egg, hurt and beaten down and shoved off by thorndyke, but she had a lot of the good old bounce. of a sudden impulse i wanted to kiss her. "go ahead, steve," she said. "but it'll be for the probable onlookers. i'm mekstrom, you know." so i didn't try. i just put an arm around her briefly and realized that any attempt at affection would be like trying to strike sparks off flint with a hunk of flannel. we walked hand in hand towards the buildings, strolled up saucily towards two of the parked cars, made the sort of wave that lovers give one another in goodbye when they don't really want to demonstrate their affection before ten thousand people and stepped into two cars and took off. gloria farrow was in the lead. we went howling down the road, farrow in the lead car by a hundred feet and me behind her. we went roaring around a curve, over a hill, and i had my perception out to its range, which was far ahead of her car. the main gate came into range, and we bore down upon that wire and steel portal like a pair of madmen. gloria farrow plowed into the gate without letting up. the gate went whirling in pieces, glass flew and tires howled and bits of metal and plastic sang through the air. her car weaved aside; i forgot the road ahead and put my perception into her car. farrow was fighting the wheel like a racing driver in a spin. her hands wrenched the wheel with the swift strength of the mekstrom flesh she wore, and the wheel bent under her hands. over and around she went, with a tire blown and the lower rail of the big gate hanging onto the fender like a dry-land sea-anchor. she juggled the wheel and made a snaky path off to one side of the road. out of the guardhouse came a uniformed man with a riot gun. he did not have time to raise it. farrow ironed out her course and aimed the careening car dead center. she mowed the guard down and a half-thousandth of a second later she plowed into the guardhouse. the structure erupted like a box of stove-matches hit with a heavy-caliber soft-nosed slug, like a house of cards and an air-jet. there was a roar and a small gout of flame and then out of the flying wreckage on the far side came farrow and her stolen car. out of the mess of brimstone and shingles she came, turning end for end in a crazy, metal-crushing twist and spin. she ground to a broken halt before the last of the debris landed, and then everything was silent. and then for the first and only time in my life i felt the penetrant, forceful impact of an incoming thought; a mental contact from another mind: #steve!# it screamed in my mind, #get out! get going! it's your move now----# i put my foot on the faucet and poured on the oil. xxi my car leaped forward and i headed along the outside road towards the nearby highway. through the busted gate i roared, past the downed guard and the smashed guardhouse, past the wreck of farrow's car. but nurse farrow was not finished with this gambit yet. as i drew even with her, she pried herself out of the messy tangle and came across the field in a dead run--and how that girl could run! as fast as i was going, she caught up; as fast as it all happened i had too little time to slow me down before nurse farrow closed the intervening distance from her wreck to my car and had hooked her arm in through one open window. my car lurched with the impact, but i fought the wheel straight again and farrow snapped, "keep going, steve!" i kept going; farrow snaked herself inside and flopped into the seat beside me. "now," she said, patting the dashboard of our car, "it's up to the both of us now! don't talk, steve. just drive like crazy!" "where--?" she laughed a weak little chuckle. "anywhere--so long as it's a long, long way from here." i nodded and settled down to some fancy mile-getting. farrow relaxed in the seat, opened the glove compartment and took out a first aid kit. it was only then i noticed that she was banged up quite a bit for a mekstrom. i'd not been too surprised when she emerged from the wreck; i'd become used to the idea of the indestructibility of the mekstrom. i was a bit surprised at her being banged up; i'd become so used to their damage-proof hide that the idea of minor cuts, scars, mars, and abrasions hadn't occurred to me. yes, that wreck would have mangled a normal man into an unrecognizable mess of hamburger. yet i'd expected a mekstrom to come through it unscathed. on the other hand, the damage to farrow's body was really minor. she bled from a long gash on her thigh, from a wound on her right arm, and from a myriad of little cuts on her face, neck, and shoulders. so as i drove crazy-fast away from the medical center nurse farrow relaxed in the seat and applied adhesive tape, compresses, and closed the gashes with a batch of little skin clips in lieu of sutures. then she lit two cigarettes and handed one of them to me. "okay now, steve," she said easily. "let's drive a little less crazily." i pulled the car down to a flat hundred and felt the strain go out of me. "as i remember, there's one of the highways not far from here--" she shook her head. "no, steve. we don't want the highways in hiding, either." at a mere hundred per i could let my esper do the road-sighting, so i looked over at her. she was half-smiling, but beneath the little smile was a firm look of self-confidence. "no," she said quietly, "we don't want the highways. if we go there, phelps and his outfit will turn heaven and earth to break it up, now that you've become so important. you forget that the medical center is still being run to look legal and aboveboard; while the highways are still in hiding. phelps could make quite a bitter case out of their reluctance to come out into the open." "well, where do we go?" i asked. "west," she said simply. "west, into new mexico. to my home." this sort of startled me. somehow i'd not connected farrow with any permanent home; as a nurse and later as one of the medical center, i'd come to think of her as having no permanent home of her own. yet like the rest of us, nurse farrow had been brought up in a home with a mother and a father and probably some sisters and brothers. mine were dead and the original home disbanded, but there was no reason why i should think of everybody else in the same terms. after all, catherine had had a mother and a father who'd come to see me after her disappearance. so we went west, across southern illinois and over the big bridge at st. louis into missouri and across missouri and west, west, west. we parked nights in small motels and took turns sleeping with one of us always awake and alert with esper and telepath senses geared high for the first sight of any threat. we gave the highways we came upon a wide berth; at no time did we come close to any of their way stations. it made our path crooked and much longer than it might have been if we'd strung a line and gone. but eventually we ended up in a small town in new mexico and at a small ranch house on the edge of the town. it is nice to have parents; i missed my own deeply when i was reminded of the sweet wonder of having people just plain glad to see their children again, no matter what they'd done under any circumstances. even bringing a semi-invalid into their homes for an extended course of treatment. john farrow was a tall man with gray at the temples and a pair of sharp blue eyes that missed nothing. he was a fair perceptive who might have been quite proficient if he had taken the full psi course at some university. mrs. farrow was the kind of elderly woman that any man would like to have for a mother. she was sweet and gentle but there was neither foolish softness or fatuous nonsense about her. she was a telepath and she knew her way around and let people know that she knew what the score was. farrow had a brother, james, who was not at home; he lived in town with his wife but came out to the old homestead about once every week on some errand or other. they took me in as though i'd come home with their daughter for sentimental reasons; gloria sat with us in their living room and went through the whole story, interrupted now and then by a remark aimed at me. they inspected my hand and agreed that something must be done. they were extremely interested in the mekstrom problem and were amazed at their daughter's feats of strength and endurance. my hand, by this time, was beginning to throb again. the infection was heading on a fine start down the pinky and middle fingers; the ring finger was approaching the second joint to that point where the advance stopped long enough for the infection to become complete before it crossed the joint. the first waves of that particular pain were coming at intervals and i knew that within a few hours the pain would become waves of agony so deep that i would not be able to stand it. ultimately, farrow got her brother james to come out from town with his tools, and between us all we rigged up a small manipulator for my hand. farrow performed the medical operations from the kit in the back of her car we'd stolen from the medical center. then after they'd put my hand through the next phase, nurse farrow looked me over and gave the opinion that it was now approaching the time for me to get the rest of the full treatment. one evening i went to bed, to be in bed for four solid months. * * * * * i'd like to be able to give a blow by blow description of those four solid months. unfortunately, i was under dope so much of the time that i know little about it. it was not pleasant. my arm laid like a log from the petrified forest, strapped into the machine that moved the joints with regular motion, and with each motion starting a dart of fire and mangling pain up to the shoulder. needles entered the veins at the elbow and the armpit, and from bottles suspended almost to the ceiling to provide a pressurehead, plasma and blood-sustenance was trickled in to keep the arm alive. dimly i recall having the other arm strapped down and the waves of pain that blasted at me from both sides. the only way i kept from going out of my mind with the pain was living from hypo to hypo and waiting for the blessed blackness that wiped out the agony; only to come out of it hours later with my infection advanced to another point of pain. when the infection reached my right shoulder, it stopped for a long time; the infection rose up my left arm and also stopped at the shoulder. i came out of the dope to find james and his father fitting one of the manipulators to my right leg and through that i could feel the darting pains in my calf and thigh. at those few times when my mind was clear enough to let me use my perception, i dug the room and found that i was lying in a veritable forest of bottles and rubber tubes and a swathe of bandages. utterly helpless, i vaguely knew that i was being cared for in every way. the periods of clarity were fewer, now, and shorter when they came. i awoke once to find my throat paralyzed, and again to find that my jaw, tongue, and lower face was a solid pincushion of darting needles of fire. later, my ears reported not a sound, and even later still i awoke to find myself strapped into a portable resuscitator that moved my chest up and down with an inexorable force. that's about all i know of it. when the smoke cleared away completely and the veil across my eyes was gone, it was spring outside and i was a mekstrom. * * * * * i sat up in bed. it was morning, the sun was streaming in the window brightly and the fresh morning air of spring stirred the curtains gently. it was quite warm and the smell that came in from the outside was alive with newborn greenery. it felt good just to be alive. the hanging bottles and festoons of rubber hose were gone. the crude manipulators had been stowed somewhere and the bottles of medicine and stuff were missing from the bureau. there wasn't even a thermometer in a glass anywhere within the range of my vision, and frankly i was so glad to be alive again that i did not see any point to digging through the joint with my perception to find the location of the medical junk. instead, i just wanted to get up and run. i did take a swing at the clothes closet and found my stuff. then i took a mild pass at the house, located the bathroom and also assured myself that no one was likely to interrupt me. i was going to shave and shower and dress and go downstairs. i was just shrugging myself up and out of bed when nurse farrow came bustling up the stairs and into the room with no preamble. "hi!" i greeted her. "i was going to--" "surprise us," she said quickly. "i know. so i came up to see that you don't get into trouble." "trouble?" i asked, pausing on the edge of the bed. "you're a mekstrom, steve," she told me unnecessarily. then she caught my thought and went on: "it's necessary to remind you. you have to learn how to control your strength, steve." i flexed my arms. they didn't feel any different. i pinched my muscle with my other hand and it pinched just as it always had. i took a deep breath and the air went in pleasantly and come out again. "i don't feel any different," i told her. she smiled and handed me a common wooden lead pencil. "write your name," she directed. "think i'll have to learn all over?" i grinned. i took the pencil, put my fist down on the top of the bureau above a pad of paper and chuckled at farrow. "now, let's see, my first initial is the letter 's' made by starting at the top and coming around in a sweeping, graceful curve like this--" it didn't come around in any curve. as the lead point hit the paper it bore down in, flicked off the tip, and then crunched down, breaking off the point and splintering the thin, whittled wood for about an eighth of an inch. the fact that i could not control it bothered me inside and i instinctively clutched at the shaft of the pencil. it cracked in three places in my hand; the top end with the eraser fell down over my wrist to the bureau top and rolled in a rapid rattle to the edge where it fell to the floor. "see?" asked farrow softly. "but--?" i blundered uncertainly. "steve, your muscles and your nervous system have been stepped up proportionately. you've got to re-learn the coordination between the muscle-stimulus and the feedback information from the work you are doing." i began to see what she meant. i remembered long years ago at school, when we'd been studying some of the new alloys and there had been a sample of a magnesium-lithium-something alloy that was machined into a smooth cylinder about four inches in diameter and a foot long. it looked like hard steel. people who picked it up for the first time invariably braced their muscles and set both hands on it. but it was so light that their initial effort almost tossed the bar through the ceiling, and even long after we all knew, it was hard not to attack the bar without using the experience of our mind and sense that told us that any bar of metal _that_ big had to be _that_ heavy. i went to a chair. farrow said, "be careful," and i was. but it was no trick at all to take the chair by one leg at the bottom and lift it chin high. "now, go take your shower," she told me. "but steve, please be careful of the plumbing. you can twist off the faucet handles, you know." i nodded and turned to her, holding out a hand. "farrow, you're a brick!" she took my hand. it was not steel hard. it was warm and firm and pleasant. it was--holding hands with a woman. farrow stepped back. "one thing you'll have to remember," she said cheerfully, "is only to mix with your own kind from now on. now go get that shower and shave. i'll be getting breakfast." showering was not hard and i remembered not to twist off the water-tap handles. shaving was easy although i had to change razor blades three times in the process. i broke all the teeth out of the comb because it was never intended to be pulled through a thicket of piano wire. getting dressed was something else. i caught my heel in one trouser leg and shredded the cloth. i broke the buckle on my belt. my shoelaces went like parting a length of wet spaghetti. the button on the top of my shirt pinched off and when i gave that final jerk to my necktie it pulled the knot down into something about the size of a pea. breakfast was very pleasant, although i bent the fork tines spearing a rasher of bacon and removed the handle of my coffee cup without half trying. after breakfast i discovered that i could not remove a cigarette from the package without pinching the end down flat, and after i succeeded in getting one into my mouth by treating both smoke and match as if they were made of tissue paper, my first drag on the smoke lit a howling furnace-fire on the end that consumed half of the cigarette in the first puff. "you're going to take some school before you are fit to walk among normal people, steve," said gloria with amused interest. "you're informing me?" i asked with some dismay, eyeing the wreckage left in my wake. compared to the new steve cornell, the famous bull in the china shop was gentle ferdinand. i picked up the cigarette package again; it squoze down even though i tried to treat it gentle; i felt like lenny, pinching the head off of the mouse. i also felt about as much of a bumbling idiot as lenny, too. my re-education went on before, through, and after breakfast. i manhandled old books from the attic. i shredded newspapers. i ruined some more lead pencils and finally broke the pencil sharpener to boot. i put an elbow through the middle panel of the kitchen door without even feeling it and then managed to twist off the door knob. generally operating like a one-man army of vandals, i laid waste to the farrow home. having thus ruined a nice house, gloria decided to try my strength on her car. i was much too fast and too hard on the brakes, which of course was not too bad because my foot was also too insensitive on the go-pedal. we took off like a rocket being launched and then i tromped on the brakes (bending the pedal) which brought us down sharp like hitting a haystack. this allowed our heads to catch up with the rest of us; i'm sure that if we'd been normal-bodied human beings we'd have had our spines snapped. eventually i learned that everything had to be handled as if it were tissue paper, and gradually re-adjusted my reflexes to take proper cognizance of the feedback data according to my new body. we returned home after a hectic twenty miles of roadwork and i broke the glass as i slammed the car door. "it's going to take time," i admitted with some reluctance. "it always does," smiled farrow as cheerfully as if i hadn't ruined their possessions. "i don't know how i'm going to face your folks." farrow's smile became cryptic. "maybe they won't notice." "now look, farrow----" "steve, don't forget for the moment that you're the only known mekstrom carrier." "in other words your parents are due for the treatment next?" "oh, i was most thorough. both of them are in the final stages right now. i'm sure that anything you did to the joint will only be added to by the time they get to the walking stage. and also anything you did they'll feel well repaid." "i didn't do anything for them." "you provided them with mekstrom bodies," she said simply. "they took to it willingly?" "yes. as soon as they were convinced by watching me and my strength. they knew what it would be like, but they were all for it." "you've been a very busy girl," i told her. she just nodded. then she looked up at me with troubled eyes and asked, "what are you going to do now, steve?" "i'm going to haul the whole shebang down like samson in the temple." "a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt if you do that." "i can't very well find a cave in antarctica and hide," i replied glumly. "think a bit, steve. could either side afford to let you walk into new washington with the living proof of your mekstrom body?" #didn't stop 'em before,# i thought angrily. #and it seems to me that both sides were sort of urging me to go and do something that would uncover the other side.# "not deep enough," said farrow. "that was only during the early phases. go back to the day when you didn't know what was going on." i grunted sourly, "look, farrow, tell me. why must i fumble my way through this as i've fumbled through everything else?" "because only by coming to the conclusion in your own way will you be convinced that someone isn't lying to you. now, think it over, steve." it made sense. even if i came to the wrong conclusion, i'd believe it more than if someone had told me. farrow nodded, following my thoughts. then i plunged in: #first we have a man who is found to be a carrier of mekstrom's disease. he doesn't know anything about the disease. right?# (farrow nodded slowly.) #so now the medical center puts an anchor onto their carrier by sicking an attractive dame on his trail. um--# at this point i went into a bit of a mental whirly-around trying to find an answer to one of the puzzlers. farrow just looked at me with a non-leading expression, waiting. i came out of the merry-go-round after six times around the circuit and went on: #i don't know all the factors. obviously, catherine had to lead me fast because we had to marry before she contracted the disease from me. but there's a discrepancy, farrow. the little blonde receptionist caught it in twenty-four hours--?# "steve," said farrow, "this is one i'll have to explain, since you're not a medical person. the period of incubation depends upon the type of contact. you actually bit the receptionist. that put blood contact into it. you didn't draw any blood from catherine." "we were pretty close," i said with a slight reddening of the ears. "from a medical standpoint, you were not much closer to catherine than you have been to me, or dr. thorndyke. you were closer to thorndyke and me, say, than you've been to many of the incidental parties along the path of our travels." "well, let that angle go for the moment. anyway, catherine and i had to marry before the initial traces were evident. then i'd be in the position of a man whose wife had contracted mekstrom's disease on our honeymoon, whereupon the medical center would step in and cure her, and i'd be in the position of being forever grateful and willing to do anything that the medical center wanted me to do. and as a poor non-telepath, i'd probably never learn the truth. right?" "so far," she said, still in a noncommittal tone. "so now we crack up along the highway near the harrison place. the highways take her in because they take any victim in no matter what. i also presume from what's gone on that catherine is a high enough telepath to conceal her thinking and so to become an undercover agent in the midst of the highways organization. and at this point the long long trail takes a fork, doesn't it? the medical center gang did not know about the highways in hiding until catherine and i barrelled into it end over end." farrow's face softened, and although she said nothing i knew i was on the right track. #so at this point,# i went on silently, #medical center found themselves in a mild quandary. they could hardly put another woman on my trail because i was already emotionally involved with the missing catherine--and so they decided to use me in another way. i was shown enough to keep me busy, i was more or less urged to go track down the highways in hiding for the medical center. after all, as soon as i'd made the initial discovery, phelps and his outfit shouldn't have needed any more help.# "a bit more thinking, steve. you've come up with that answer before." #sure. phelps wanted me to take my tale to the government. about this secret highway outfit. but if neither side can afford to have the secret come out, how come--?# i pondered this for a long time and admitted that it made no sense to me. finally farrow shook her head and said, "steve, i've got to prompt you now and then. but remember that i'm trying to make you think it out yourself. now consider: you are running an organization that must be kept secret. then someone learns the secret and starts heading for the authorities. what is your next move?" "okay," i replied. "so i'm stupid. naturally, i pull in my horns, hide my signs, and make like nothing was going on." "so stopping the advance of your organization, which is all that phelps really can expect." i thought some more. #and the fact that i was carrying a story that would get me popped into the nearest hatch for the incipient paranoid made it all right?# she nodded. "and now?" she asked me. "and now i'm living proof of my story. is that right?" "right. and steve, do not forget for one moment that the only reason that you're still alive is because you are valuable to both sides alive. dead, you're only good for a small quantity of mekstrom inoculation." "don't follow," i grunted. "as you say, i'm no medical person." "alive, your hair grows and must be cut. you shave and trim off beard. your fingernails are pared. now and then you lose a small bit of hide or a few milliliters of blood. these are things that, when injected under the skin of a normal human, makes them mekstrom. dead, your ground up body would not provide much substance." "pleasant prospect," i growled. "so what do i do to avert this future?" "steve, i don't know. i've done what i can for you. i've effected the cure and i've done it in safety; you're still steve cornell." xxii "look," i blurted with a sudden rush of brain to the head, "if i'm so all-fired important to both sides, how come you managed to sequester me for four months?" "we do have the laws of privacy," said farrow simply. "which neither side can afford to flout overtly. furthermore, since neither side really knew where you were, they've been busily prowling one another's camps and locking up the prowlers from one another's camps, and playing spy and counterspy and counter-counterspy, and generally piling it up pyramid-wise," she finished with a chuckle. "you got away with following that letter to catherine because uppermost in your mind was the brain of a lover hunting down his missing sweetheart. no one could go looking for steve cornell, mekstrom carrier, for reasons not intrinsically private." "for four months?" i asked, still incredulous. "well, one of the angles is that both sides knew you were immobilized somewhere, going through this cure. having you a full mekstrom is something that both sides want. so they've been willing to have you cured." "so long as someone does the work, huh?" "right," she said seriously. "well, then," i said with a grim smile, "the obvious thing for me to do is to slink quietly into new washington and to seek out some high official in secrecy. i'll put my story and facts into his hands, make him a mekstrom, have him cured, and then we'll set up an agency to provide the general public with--" "steve, you're an engineer. i presume you've studied mathematics. so let's assume that you can--er--bite one person every ten seconds." "that's six persons per minute; three-sixty per hour; and, ah, eighty-six-forty per day. with one hundred and sixty million americans at the last census--um. sixty years without sleep. i see what you mean." "not only that, steve, but it would create a panic, if not a global war. make an announcement like that, and certain of our not-too-friendly neighbors would demand their shares or else. so now add up your time to take care of about three billion human souls on this earth, steve." "all right. so i'll forget that cockeyed notion. but still, the government should know--" "if we could be absolutely certain that every elected official is a sensible, honest man, we could," said farrow. "the trouble is that we've got enough demagogues, publicity hounds, and rabble-rousers to make the secret impossible to keep." i couldn't argue against that. farrow was right. not only that, but government found it hard enough to function in this world of rhine institute with honest secrets. "okay, then," i said. "the only thing to do is to go back to homestead, texas, throw my aid to the highways in hiding, and see what we can do to provide the earth with some more sensible method of inoculation. i obviously cannot go around biting people for the rest of my life." "i guess that's it, steve." i looked at her. "i'll have to borrow your car." "it's yours." "you'll be all right?" she nodded. "eventually i'll be a way station on the highways, i suppose. can you make it alone, steve? or would you rather wait until my parents are cured? you could still use a telepath, you know." "think it's safe for me to wait?" "it's been four months. another week or two--?" "all right. and in the meantime i'll practice getting along with this new body of mine." we left it there. i roamed the house with farrow, helping her with her parents. i gradually learned how to control the power of my new muscles; learned how to walk among normal people without causing their attention; and one day succeeded in shaking hands with a storekeeper without giving away my secret. eventually nurse farrow's parents came out of their treatment and we spent another couple of days with them. we left them too soon, i'm sure, but they seemed willing that we take off. they'd set up a telephone system for getting supplies so that they'd not have to go into town until they learned how to handle their bodies properly, and farrow admitted that there was little more that we could do. so we took off because we all knew that time was running out. even though both sides had left us alone while i was immobilized, both sides must have a time-table good enough to predict my eventual cure. in fact, as i think about it now, both sides must have been waiting along the outer edges of some theoretical area waiting for me to emerge, since they couldn't come plowing in without giving away their purpose. so we left in farrow's car and once more hit the big broad road. we drove towards texas until we came upon a highway, and then turned along it looking for a way station. i wanted to get in touch with the highways. i wanted close communication with the harrisons and the rest of them, no matter what. eventually we came upon a sign with a missing spoke and turned in. the side road wound in and out, leading us back from the highway towards the conventional dead area. the house was a white structure among a light thicket of trees, and as we came close to it, we met a man busily tilling the soil with a tractor plow. farrow stopped her car. i leaned out and started to call, but something stopped me. "he is no mekstrom, steve," said farrow in a whisper. "but this is a way station, according to the road sign." "i know. but it isn't, according to him. he doesn't know any more about mekstrom's disease than you did before you met catherine." "then what the devil is wrong?" "i don't know. he's perceptive, but not too well trained. name's william carroll. let me do the talking, i'll drop leading remarks for you to pick up." the man came over amiably. "looking for someone?" he asked cheerfully. "why, yes," said gloria. "we're sort of mildly acquainted with the--mannheims who used to live here. sort of friends of friends of theirs, just dropped by to say hello, sort of," she went on, covering up the fact that she'd picked the name of the former occupant out of his mind. "the mannheims moved about two months ago," he said. "sold the place to us--we got a bargain. don't really know, of course, but the story is that one of them had to move for his health." "too bad. know where they went?" "no," said carroll regretfully. "they seem to have a lot of friends. always stopping by, but i can't help 'em any." #so they moved so fast that they couldn't even change their highway sign?# i thought worriedly. farrow nodded at me almost imperceptibly. then she said to carroll, "well, we won't keep you. too bad the mannheims moved, without leaving an address." "yeah," he said with obvious semi-interest. he eyed his half-plowed field and farrow started her car. we started off and he turned to go back to his work. "anything?" i asked. "no," she said, but it was a very puzzled voice. "nothing that i can put a finger on." "but what?" "i don't know much about real estate deals," she said. "i suppose that one family could move out and another family move in just in this short a time." "usually they don't let farmlands lie fallow," i pointed out. "if there's anything off color here, it's the fact that they changed their residence without changing the highway sign." "unless," i suggested brightly, "this is the coincidence. maybe this sign is really one that got busted." farrow turned her car into the main highway and we went along it. i could have been right about the spoke actually being broken instead of removed for its directing purpose. i hoped so. in fact i hoped so hard that i was almost willing to forget the other bits of evidence. but then i had to face the truth because we passed another highway sign and, of course, its directional information pointed to that farm. the signs on our side of the highway were upside down; indicating that we were leaving the way station. the ones that were posted on the left hand side were rightside up, indicating that the drive was approaching a way station. that cinched it. #well,# as i told both farrow and me, #one error doesn't create a trend. let's take another look!# one thing and another, we would either hit another way station before we got to homestead, or we wouldn't. either one could put us wise. so we took off again with determination and finally left that side of erroneous highway signs when we turned onto route 66. we weren't on route 66 very long because the famous u.s. highway sort of trends to the northeast and homestead was in a southern portion of texas. we left route 66 at amarillo and picked up u.s. 87, which leads due south. not many miles out of amarillo we came up another set of highway signs that pointed us on to the south. i tried to remember whether this section led to homestead by a long route, but i hadn't paid too much attention to the maps when i'd had the chance and therefore the facts eluded me. we'd find out, farrow and i agreed, and then before we could think much more about it, we came upon a way station sign that pointed in to another farmhouse. "easy," i said. "you bet," she replied, pointing to the rural-type mailbox alongside the road. i nodded. the box was not new but the lettering on the side was. "still wet," i said with a grunt. farrow slowed her car as we approached the house and i leaned out and gave a cheerful hail. a woman came out of the front door and waved at us. "i'm trying to locate a family named harrison," i called. "lived around here somewhere." the woman looked thoughtful. she was maybe thirty-five or so, clean but not company-dressed. there was a smudge of flour on her cheek and a smile on her face and she looked wholesome and honest. "why, i don't really know," she said. "that name sounds familiar, but it is not an uncommon name." "i know," i said uselessly. farrow nudged me on the ankle with her toe and then made a swift sign for "p" in the hand-sign code. "why don't you come on in?" invited the woman. "we've got an area telephone directory here. maybe--?" farrow nudged me once more and made the sign of "m" with her swift fingers. we had hit it this time; here was a woman perceptive and a mekstrom residing in a way station. i took a mild dig at her hands and there was no doubt of her. a man's head appeared in the doorway above the woman; he had a hard face and he was tall and broad shouldered but there was a smile on his face that spread around the pipe he was biting on. he called, "come on in and take a look." farrow made the sign of "t" and "m" and that told me that he was a telepath. she hadn't needed the "m" sign because i'd taken a fast glimpse of his hide as soon as he appeared. parrying for time and something evidential, i merely said, "no, we'd hate to intrude. we were just asking." the man said, "oh, shucks, mister. come on in and have a cup of coffee, anyway." his invitation was swift enough to set me on edge. i turned my perception away from him and took a fast cast at the surrounding territory. there was a mildly dead area along the lead-in road to the left; it curved around in a large arc and the other horn of this horseshoe shape came up behind the house and stopped abruptly just inside of their front door. the density of this area varied, the end in which the house was built was so total that i couldn't penetrate, while the other end that curved around to end by the road tapered off in deadness until it was hard to define the boundary. if someone were pulling a flanking movement around through that horseshoe to cut off our retreat, it would become evident very soon. a swift thought went through my mind: #farrow, they're mekstroms and he's a telepath and she's a perceptive, and they know we're friendly if they're highways. if they're connected with scholar phelps and his--# the man repeated, "come on in. we've some mail to go to homestead that you can take if you will." farrow made no sound. she just seesawed her car with three rapid back-and-forth jerks that sent showers of stones from her spinning wheels. we whined around in a curve that careened the car up on its outside wheels. then we ironed out and showered the face of the man with stones from the wheels as we took off. the shower of dust and stones blinded him, and kept him from latching onto the tail of the car and climbing in. we left him behind, swearing and rubbing dirt from his eyes. we whipped past the other end of the horseshoe area just as a jeepster came roaring down out of the thickened part into the region where my perception could make out the important things (like three burly gents wearing hunting rifles, for instance.) they jounced over the rough ground and onto the lead-in road just behind us; another few seconds of gab with our friends and they'd have been able to cut us off. "pour it on, farrow!" i knew i was a bit of a cowboy, but farrow made me look like a tenderfoot. we rocketed down the winding road with our wheels riding up on either side like the course in a toboggan run and farrow rode that car like a test pilot in a sudden thunderstorm. i was worried about the hunting rifles, but i need not have been concerned. we were going too fast to make good aim, and their jeepster was not a vehicle known for its smooth riding qualities. they lost one character over a rough bounce and he went tail over scalp into the grass along the way. he scared me by leaping to his feet, grabbing the rifle and throwing it up to aim. but before he could squeeze off a round we were out of the lead-in road and on the broad highway. once on the main road again, farrow put the car hard down by the nose and we outran them. the jeepster was a workhorse and could have either pulled over the house or climbed the wall and run along the roof, but it was not made for chase. "that," i said, "seems to be that." "something is bad," agreed farrow. "well, i doubt that they'll be able to clean out a place as big as homestead. so let's take our careful route to homestead and find out precisely what the devil is cooking." "know the route?" "no, but i know where it is on the map and we can figure it out from--" "steve, stop. take a very careful and delicate view over to the right." "digging for what?" "another car pacing us along a road on the other side of that field." i tried and failed. then i leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes and tried again. on this second try i got a very hazy perception of a large moving mass that could only have been a car. in the car i received a stronger impression of weapons. it was the latter that cinched it. i hauled out my roadmap and turned it to texas. i thumbed the sectional maps of texas until i located the sub-district through which we were passing and then i identified this section of u.s. 87 precisely. there was another road parallel and a half mile to the right, a dirt road according to the map-legend. it intersected our road a few miles ahead. my next was a thorough covering of the road behind; as i expected another car was pacing us just beyond the range of my perception for anything but a rifle aimed at my hide. pacing isn't quite the word, i use it in the sense of their keeping up with us. fact is that all of us were going about as fast as we could go, with safety of tertiary importance. anyway, they were pacing us and closing down from that parallel road on the right. i took a fast and very careful scanning of the landscape to our left but couldn't find anything. i spent some time at it then, but still came up with a blank. #turn left at that feeder road a mile ahead,# i thought at farrow and she nodded. there was one possibility that i did not like to face. we had definitely detected pursuit to our right and behind, but not to our left. this did not mean that the left-side was not covered. it was quite likely that the gang to the rear were in telepathic touch with a network of other telepaths, the end of which mental relay link was far beyond range, but as close in touch with our position and action as if we'd been in sight. the police make stake-out nets that way, but the idea is not exclusive. i recall hazing an eloping couple that way once. but there was nothing to do but to take the feeder road to the left, because the devil we could see was more dangerous than the devil we couldn't. farrow whipped into the side road and we tore along with only a slight slowing of our headlong speed. i ranged ahead, worried, suspicious of everything, scanning very carefully and strictly on the watch for any evidence of attempted interception. i caught a touch of danger converging up from the south on a series of small roads. this i did not consider dangerous after a fast look at my roadmap because this series of roads did not meet our side road for a long time and only after a lot of turning and twisting. so long as we went easterly, we were okay from that angle. the gang behind, of course, followed us, staying at the very edge of my range. "you'll have to fly, farrow," i told her. "if that gang to our south stays there, we'll not be able to turn down homestead way." "steve, i'm holding this crate on the road by main force and awkwardness as it is." but she did step it up a bit, at that. i kept a cautious and suspicious watchout, worrying in the back of my mind that someone among them might turn up with a jetcopter. so long as the sky remained clear-as time went on, i perceived that the converging car to the south was losing ground because of the convolutions of their road. accordingly we turned to the south, making our way around their nose, sort of, and crossing their anticipated course to lead south. we hit u.s. 180 to the west of breckenridge, texas and then farrow really poured on the coal. the idea was to hit fort worth and lose them in the city where fun, games, and telepath-perceptive hare-and-hounds would be viewed dimly by the peaceloving citizens. then we'd slope to the south on u.s. 81, cut over to u.s. 75 somewhere to the south and take 75 like a cannonball until we turned off on the familiar road to homestead. fort worth was a haven and a detriment to both sides. neither of us could afford to run afoul of the law. so we both cut down to sensible speeds and snaked our way through the town, with farrow and me probing the roads to the south in hope of finding a clear lane. there were three cars pacing us, cutting off our retreat southward. they hazed us forward to the east like a dog nosing a bunch of sheep towards pappy's barn. then we were out of forth worth and on u.s. 180. we whipped into dallas and tried the same circumfusion as before and we were as neatly barred. so we went out of dallas on u.s. 67 and as we left the city limits, we poured on the oil again, hoping to get around them so that we could turn back south towards homestead. "boxed," i said. "looks like it," said farrow unhappily. i looked at her. she was showing signs of weariness and i realized that she'd been riding this road for hours. "let me take it," i said. "we need your perception," she objected. "you can't drive and keep a ranging perception, steve." "a lot of good a ranging perception will do once you drop for lack of sleep and we tie us up in a ditch." "but--" "we're boxed," i told her. "we're being hazed. let's face it, farrow. they could have surrounded us and glommed us any time in the past six hours." "why didn't they?" she asked. "you ask that because you're tired," i said with a grim smile. "any bunch that has enough cars to throw a barrier along the streets of cities like forth worth and dallas have enough manpower to catch us if they want to. so long as we drive where they want us to go, they won't cramp us down." "i hate to admit it." "so do i. but let's swap, farrow. then you can use your telepathy on them maybe and find out what their game is." she nodded, pulled the car down to a mere ramble and we swapped seats quickly. as i let the crate out again, i took one last, fast dig of the landscape and located the cars that were blocking out the passageways to the south, west, and north, leaving a nice inviting hole to the easterly-north way. then i had to haul in my perception and slap it along the road ahead, because i was going to ramble far and fast and see if i could speed out of the trailing horseshoe and cut out around the south horn with enough leeway to double back towards homestead. "catch any plans from them?" i asked farrow. there was no answer. i looked at her. gloria farrow was semi-collapsed in her seat, her eyes closed gently and her breath coming in long, pleasant swells. i'd known she was tired, but i hadn't expected this absolute ungluing. a damned good kid, farrow. at that last thought, farrow moved slightly in her sleep and a wisp of a smile crossed her lips briefly. then she turned a bit and snuggled down in the seat and really hit the slumber-path. a car came roaring at me with flashing headlamps and i realized that dusk was coming. i didn't need the lights, but oncoming drivers did, so i snapped them on. the beams made bright tunnels in the light and we went along and on and on and on, hour after hour. now and then i caught a perceptive impression the crescent of cars that were corralling us along u.s. 67 and not letting us off the route. i hauled out my roadmap and eyed the pages as i drove by perception. u.s. 67 led to st. louis and from there due north. i had a hunch that by the time we played hide and seek through st. louis and got ourselves hazed out to their satisfaction, i'd be able to give a strong guess as to our ultimate destination. i settled down in my seat and just drove, still hoping to cut fast and far around them on my way to homestead. xxiii three times during the night i tried to flip around and cut my way through their cordon, and each time i faced interception. it was evident that we were being driven and so long as we went to their satisfaction they weren't going to clobber us. nurse farrow woke up along about dawn, stretched, and remarked that she could use a toothbrush and a tub of hot water and amusedly berated herself for not filling the back seat before we took off. then she became serious again and asked for the details of the night, which i slipped her as fast as i could. we stopped long enough to swap seats, and i stretched out but i couldn't sleep. finally i said, "stop at the next dog wagon, farrow. we're going to eat, comes anything." "won't that be dangerous?" "shucks," i grunted angrily. "they'll probably thank us. they're probably hungry too." "we'll find out." the smell of a roadside diner is usually a bit on the thick and greasy side, but i was so hungry that morning that it smelled like mother's kitchen. we went in, ordered coffee and orange juice, and then disappeared into the rest rooms long enough to clean up. that felt so good we ordered the works and watched the guy behind the fryplate handle the bacon, eggs, and home-fries with a deft efficient manner. we pitched in fast, hoping to beat the flies to our breakfast. we were so intent that we paid no attention to the car that came into the lot until a man came in, ordered coffee and a roll, and then carried it over to our table. "fine day for a ride, isn't it?" i eyed him; farrow bristled and got very tense. i said, "i doubt that i know you, friend." "quite likely. but i know you, cornell." i took a fast dig; there was no sign of anything lethal except the usual collection of tire irons, screwdrivers, and other tools which, oddly enough, seldom come through as being dangerous because they're not weapons-by-design. "i'm not heeled, cornell. i'm just here to save us all some trouble." #telepath?# he nodded imperceptibly. then he said, "we'll all save time, gasoline, and maybe getting into grief with the cops if you take route 40 out of st. louis." "suppose i don't like u.s. 40?" "get used to it," he said with a crooked smile. "because you'll take u.s. 40 out of st. louis whether you like it or not." i returned his crooked smile. i also dug his hide and he was a mekstrom, of course. "friend," i replied, "nothing would convince me, after what you've said, that u.s. 40 is anything but a cowpath; slippery when wet; and impassible in the early spring, late summer, and the third thursday after michelmas." he stood up. "cornell, i can see your point. you don't like u.s. 40. so i'll help you good people. if you don't want to drive along such a lousy slab of concrete, just say the word and we'll arrange for you to take it in style, luxury, and without a trace of pain or strain. i'll be seein' you. and a very pleasant trip to you, miss farrow." then the character got up, went to the cashier and paid for our breakfast as well as his own. he took off in his car and i have never seen him since. farrow looked at me, her face white and her whole attitude one of fright. "u.s. 40," she said in a shaky voice, "runs like a stretched string from st. louis to indianapolis." she didn't have to tell me any more. about sixty miles north of indianapolis on indiana state highway 37 lies the thriving metropolis of marion, indiana, the most important facet of which (to farrow and me) is an establishment called the medical research center. nothing was going to make me drive out of st. louis along u.s. 40. period; end of message; no answer required. nothing, because i was very well aware of their need to collect me alive and kicking. if i could not roar out of st. louis in the direction i selected, i was going to turn my car end for end and have at them. not in any mild manner, but with deadly intent to do deadly damage. if i'd make a mild pass, they'd undoubtedly corral me by main force and carry me off kicking and screaming. but if i went at them to kill or get killed, they'd have to move aside just to prevent me from killing myself. i didn't think i'd get to the last final blow of that self-destruction. i'd win through. so we left the diner after a breakfast on our enemy's expense account and took off again. i was counting on st. louis. the center of the old city is one big shapeless blob of a dead area; so nice and cold that st. louis has reversed the usual city-type blight area growth. ever since rhine, the slum sections have been moving out and the new buildings have been moving in. so with the dead area and the brand-new, wide streets and fancy traffic control, st. louis was the place to go in along one road, get lost in traffic, and come out, roaring along any road desirable. i could not believe that any outfit, hoping to work under cover, could collect enough manpower and cars to block every road, lane, highway and duckrunway that led out of a city as big as st. louis. again they hazed us by pacing along parallel roads and behind us with the open end of their crescent aimed along u.s. 67. we went like hell; without slowing a bit we sort of swooped up to st. louis and took a fast dive into that big blob-shaped dead area. we wound up in traffic and tied boy scout knots in our course. i was concerned about overhead coverage from a 'copter even though i've been told that the st. louis dead area extends upward in some places as high as thirteen thousand feet. the only thing missing was some device or doodad that would let us use our perception or telepathy in this deadness while they couldn't. as it was, we were as psi-blind as they were, so we had to go along the streets with our eyes carefully peeled for cars of questionable ownership. we saw some passenger cars with out-of-state licenses and gave them wide clearances. one of them hung on our tail until i committed a very neat coup by running through a stoplight and sandwiching my car between two whopping big fourteen-wheel moving vans. i'd have enjoyed the expression on the driver's face if i could have seen it. but then we were gone and he was probably cussing. i stayed between the vans as we wound ourselves along the road and turned into a side street. i stayed between them too long. because the guy in front slammed on his air-brakes and the big van came to a stop with a howl of tires on concrete. the guy behind did not even slow down. he closed in on us like an avalanche. i took a fast look around and fought the wheel of my car to turn aside, but he whaled into my tail and we went sliding forward. i was riding my brakes but the mass of that moving van was so great that my tires just wore flats on the pavement-side. we were bearing down on that stopped van and it looked as though we were going to be driving a very tall car with a very short wheelbase in a very short time. then the whole back panel of the front van came tumbling towards me from the top, pivoting on a hinge at the bottom, making a fine ramp. the van behind me nudged us up the ramp and we hurtled forward against a thick, resilient pad that stopped my car without any damage either to the car or to the inhabitants. then the back panel closed up and the van took off. two big birds on each side opened the doors of our car simultaneously and said "out!" the tall guy on my side gave me a cocksure smile and the short guy said, "we're about to leave st. louis on u.s. 40, cornell. i hope you won't find this journey too rough." i started to take a swing, but the tall one caught my elbow and threw me off balance. the short one reached down and picked up a baseball bat. "use this, cornell," he told me. "then no one will get hurt." i looked at the pair of them, and then gave up. there are odd characters in this world who actually enjoy physical combat and don't mind getting hurt if they can hurt the other guy more. these were the type. taking that baseball bat and busting it over the head of either one would be the same sort of act as kids use when they square off in an alley and exchange light blows which they call a "cardy" just to make the fight legal. all it would get me was a sore jaw and a few cracked ribs. so after my determination to take after them with murderous intent, they'd pulled my teeth by scooping me up in this van and disarming me. i relaxed. the short one nodded, although he looked disappointed that i hadn't allowed him the fun of a shindy. "you'll find u.s. 40 less rough than you expected," he said. "after all, it's like life; only rough if you make it rough." "go to hell and stay there," i snapped. that was about as weak a rejoinder as i've ever emitted, but it was all i could get out. the tall one said, "take it easy, cornell. you can't win 'em all." i looked across the nose of our trapped car to farrow. she was leaning against the hood, facing her pair. they were just standing there at ease. one of them was offering a cigarette and the other held a lighter ready. "relax," said the one with the smokes. the other one said, "might as well, miss farrow. fighting won't get nobody nowhere but where you're going anyway. might as well go on your own feet." scornfully, farrow shrugged. "why should i smoke my own?" she asked nobody in particular. mentally i agreed: #take 'em for all they're worth, farrow!# and then i reached for one, too. along the side of the van were benches. i sat down, stretched out on my back and let the smoke trickle up. i finished my cigarette and then found that the excitement of this chase, having died so abruptly, left me with only a desire to catch up on sleep. i dozed off thinking that it wasn't everybody who started off to go to homestead, texas, and ended up in marion, indiana. * * * * * scholar phelps did not have the green carpet out for our arrival, but he was present when our mobile prison cell opened deep inside of the medical center grounds. so was thorndyke. thorndyke and three nurses of amazon build escorted farrow off with the air of captors collecting a traitor. phelps smiled superciliously at me and said, "well, young sir, you've given us quite a chase." "give me another chance and we'll have another chase," i told him grumpily. "not if we can help it," he boomed cheerfully. "we've big plans for you." "have i got a vote? it's 'nay!' if i do." "you're too precipitous," he told me. "it is always an error, mr. cornell, to be opinionated. have an open mind." "to what?" "to everything," he said with an expansive gesture. "the error of all thinking, these days, is that people do not think. they merely follow someone else's thinking." "and i'm to follow yours?" "i'd prefer that, of course. it would indicate that you were possessed of a mind of your own; that you weren't merely taking the lazy man's attitude and following in the footsteps of your father." "skip it," i snapped. "your way isn't--" "now," he warned with a wave of a forefinger like a prohibitionist warning someone not to touch that quart, "one must never form an opinion on such short notice. remember, all ideas are not to be rejected just because they do not happen to agree with your own preconceived notions." "look, phelps," i snapped, deliberately omitting his title which i knew would bite a little, "i don't like your personal politics and i deplore your methods. you can't go on playing this way--" "young man, you err," he said quietly. he did not even look nettled that i'd addressed him in impolite (if not rough) terms. "may i point out that i am far ahead of your game? thoroughly outnumbered, and in ignorance of the counter-movement against me until you so vigorously brought it to my attention; within a year i have fought the counter-movement to a standstill, caused the dispersement of their main forces, ruined their far-flung lines of communication, and have so consolidated my position that i have now made open capture of the main roving factor. the latter is you, young man. a very disturbing influence and so very necessary to the conduct of this private war. you prate of my attitude, mr. cornell. you claim that such an attitude must be defeated. yet as you stand there mouthing platitudes, we are preparing to make a frontal assault upon their main base at homestead. we've waged our war of attrition; a mere spearhead will break them and scatter them to the far winds." "nice lecture," i grunted. "who are your writers?" "let's not attempt sarcasm," he said crisply. "it sits ill upon you, mr. cornell." "i'd like to sit on you," i snapped. "your humor is less tolerable than your sarcasm." "can it!" i snapped. "so you've collected me. i'll still--" "you'll do very little, mr. cornell," he told me. "your determination to attack us tooth and nail was an excellent program, and with another type of person it might have worked. but i happen to know that your will to live is very great, young man, and that in the final blow, you'd not have the will to die great enough to carry your assault to its completion." "know a lot, don't you." "yes, indeed i do. so now if you're through trying to fence at words, we'll go to your quarters." "lead on," i said in a hollow voice. with an air of stage-type politeness, he indicated a door. he showed me out and followed me. he steered me to a big limousine with a chauffeur and offered me cigarettes from a box on the arm rest as the driver started the turbine. the car purred with that muted sound of well-leashed power. "you could be of inestimable value to us," he said in a conversational tone. "i am talking this way to you because you can be of much more value as a willing ally than you would be if unwilling." "no doubt," i replied dryly. "i suggest you set aside your preconceived notions and employ a modicum of practical logic," suggested scholar phelps. "observe your position from a slightly different reign of vantage. be convinced that no matter what you do or say, we intend to make use of you to the best of our ability. you are not entertaining any doubts of that fact, i'm sure." i shrugged. phelps was not asking me these things, the inquisitor was actually telling me. he went right on telling me: "since you will be used no matter what, you might consider the advisability of being sensible, mr. cornell. in blunt words, we are prepared to meet cooperation with certain benefits which will not be proffered otherwise." "in blunter words you are offering to hire me." scholar phelps smiled in a superior manner. "not that blunt, mr. cornell, not that crude. the term 'hire' implies the performance of certain tasks in return for stipulated remuneration. no, my intention is to give you a position in this organization the exact terms of which are not clearly definable. look, young man, i've indicated that your willing cooperation is more valuable to us than otherwise. join us and you will enjoy the freedom of our most valued and trusted members; you will take part in upper level planning; you will enjoy the income and advantages of top executive personnel." he stopped short and eyed me with a peculiar expression. "mr. cornell, you have the most disconcerting way. you've actually caused me to talk as if this organization were some sort of big business instead of a cultural unit." i eyed him with the first bit of humor i'd found in many days. "you seem to talk just as though a cultural unit were set above, beyond, and spiritually divorced from anything so sordid as money, position, and the human equivalent of the barnyard pecking order," i told him. "so now let's stop goofing off, and put it into simple terms. you want me to join you willingly, to do your job for you, to advance your program. in return for which i shall be permitted to ride in the solid gold cadillac, quaff rare champagne, and select my own office furniture. isn't that about it?" scholar phelps smiled, using a benign expression that indicated that he was pleased with himself, but which had absolutely nothing to do with his attitude towards me or any of the rest of the human race. "mr. cornell, i am well aware of the time it may take for a man to effect a change in his attitude. in fact, i would be very suspicious if you were to make an abrupt reversal. however, i have outlined my position and you may have time to think it over. consider, at the very least, the fact that while cooperation will bring you pleasure and non-cooperation will bring you pain, the ultimate result will be that we will make use of your ability in either case. now--i will say no more for the present." the limousine had stopped in front of a four story brick building that was only slightly different in general architecture than others in the medical center. i could sense some slight difference, but when i took a dig at the interior i found to my amazement that this building had been built deliberately in a dead zone. the dead area stood up in the clarity like a little blob of black ink at the bottom of a crystal clear swimming pool, seen just before the ink began to diffuse. scholar phelps saw my look of puzzlement and said, suavely, "we've reversed the usual method of keeping unwilling guests. here we know their frame of mind and attitude; therefore to build the place in a dead area keeps them from plotting among themselves. i trust that your residence herein will be only temporary, mr. cornell." i nodded glumly. i was facing those last and final words: _or else!_ phelps signed a register at a guard's station in the lobby. we took a very fast and efficient elevator to the third floor and phelps escorted me along a hallway that was lined with doors, dormitory style. in the eye-level center of each door was a bull's eye that looked like one-way glass and undoubtedly was. i itched to take a look, but phelps was not having any; he stopped my single step with a hand on my arm. "this way," he said smoothly. i went this way and was finally shown into one of the rooms. my nice clean cell away from home. xxiv as soon as phelps was gone, i took a careful look at my new living quarters. the room itself was about fourteen by eighteen, but the end in which i was confined was only fourteen by ten, the other eight feet of end being barred off by a very efficient-looking set of heavy metal rods and equally strong cross-girdering. there was a sliding door that fit in place as nicely as the door to a bank vault; it was locked by heavy keeper-bars that slid up from the floor and down from the ceiling and they were actuated by hidden motors. in the barrier was a flat horizontal slot wide enough to take a tray and high enough to pass a teacup. the bottom of this slot was flush with a small table that extended through the barrier by a couple of feet on both sides so that a tray could be set down on the outside and slipped in. i tested the bars with my hands, but even my new set of muscles wouldn't flex them more than a few thousandths of an inch. the walls were steel. all i got as i tried them was a set of paint-clogged fingernails. the floor was also steel. the ceiling was a bit too high for me to tackle, but i assumed that it, too, was steel. the window was barred from the inside, undoubtedly so that any visitor from the outside could not catch on to the fact that this building was a private calaboose. the--er--furnishings of this cold storage bin were meager of minimum requirements. a washstand and toilet. a bunk made of metal girders welded to the floor. the bedding rested on wide resilient straps fixed to the cross-bars at top and bottom of the bed. a foam-rubber mattress, sheets, and one blanket finished off the bed. it was a cell designed by mekstroms to contain mekstroms and by wiseacres to contain other wiseacres. the non-metallic parts of the room were, of course, fireproof. anything i could get hold of was totally useless as a weapon or lever or tool; anything that might have been useful to a prisoner was welded down. having given up in the escape department, i sat on my bunk and lit a cigarette. i looked for tell-tales, and found a television lens set above the door of the room eight feet outside of my steel barrier. beside the lens was a speaker grille and a smaller opening that looked like a microphone dust cover. with a grunt, i flipped my cigarette at the television lens. i hit just above the hole, missing it by about an inch. immediately a tinny-sounding voice said, "that is not permitted, mr. cornell. you are expected to maintain some degree of personal cleanliness. since you cannot pick up that cigarette butt, you have placed an unwelcome task upon our personnel. one more infraction of this nature and you will not be permitted the luxury of smoking." "go to the devil!" i snapped. there was no reply. not even a haughty chuckle. the silence was worse than any reply because it pointed out the absolute superiority of their position. eventually i dozed off, there being nothing else to do. when i awoke they'd shoved a tray of food in on my table. i ate unenthusiastically. i dozed again, during which time someone removed the tray. when i woke up the second time it was night and time to go to bed, so i went. i woke up in the morning to see a burly guy enter with a tray of breakfast. i attempted to engage him in light conversation but he did not even let on that i was in the cell. later he removed the tray as silently as he'd brought it, and i was left with another four hours of utter boredom until the same bird returned with a light lunch. six hours after lunch came a slightly more substantial dinner, but no talk. by bedtime the second night i was getting stir-crazy. i hit the sack at about nine thirty, and tossed and turned, unable to drop off because i was not actually tired. i was also wondering when they'd come around with their brain-washing crew, or maybe someone who'd enter with an ultimatum. on the following morning, the tray-bearer was dr. thorndyke, who sat on the chair on the outside of my bars and looked at me silently. i tried giving him stare for stare, but eventually i gave up and said, "so now where do we go?" "cornell, you're in a bad spot of your own making." "could be," i admitted. "and yet, really, you're more of a victim of circumstances." "forgetting all the sideplay, i'm a prisoner," i told him curtly. "let's face a few facts, thorndyke, and stop tossing this guff." "all right," he said shortly, "the facts are these: we would prefer that you help us willingly. we'd further prefer to have you as you are. that is, un-reoriented mentally." "you couldn't afford to trust me," i grunted. "maybe we can. it's no secret that we've latched on to quite a number of your friends. let's assume that they will all be well-treated if you agree to join us willingly." "i'm sure that the attitude of any of my friends is such that they'd prefer me to stand my ground rather than betray their notions of right and wrong." i told him. "that's a foolish premise," he replied. "you could no more prevail against us than you could single-handedly overthrow the government. having faced that fact, it becomes sound and sensible to accept the premise and then see what sort of niche you can carve out of the new order." "i don't like your new order," i grunted. "many people will not," he admitted. "but then, people do not really know what's good for them." i almost laughed at him. "look," i said, "i'd rather make my own ignorant mistakes than to have some great father supervise my life. and speaking of fathers, we've both got to admit that god himself permits us the complete freedom of our wills." thorndyke sneered at me. "if we're to quote the scripture," he said sourly, "i'll point out that 'the lord thy god is a jealous god, visiting his wrath even upon seven generations of those who hate him.'" "granted," i replied calmly, "but whether we love him or hate him is entirely up to our own particular notion. now--" "cornell, stop talking like an idiot. here, too, you can take your choice. i'm not ordering you. i'm just trying to point out that whether you go on suffering or enjoying life is entirely up to your own decision. and also your decision will help or hinder others." "you're entirely too godlike," i told him. "well," he said, "think it over." "go to the devil!" "now, that's a very weak response," he said loftily, "doing nobody any good or harm. just talk. so stop gabbing and think." thorndyke left me with my thoughts. sure, i had bargaining power, but it was no good. i'd be useful only until they discovered some method of inoculating normal flesh with mekstrom's disease, and once that was taken care of, steve cornell would be a burden upon their resources. so that was the morning of my third day of incarceration and nothing more took place all day. they didn't even give me anything to read, and i almost went nuts. you have no idea of how long fourteen hours can be until you've been sitting in a cell with absolutely nothing to do. i exercised by chinning myself on the bars and playing gymnastics. i wanted to run but there was not enough room. the physical thrill i got out of being able to chin myself with one hand wore off after a half hundred pull-ups because it was no great feat for a mekstrom. i did push-ups and bridges and other stunts until i was bored again. and all the while, my thinking section was going around and around. the one main point that i kept coming back to was a very unpleasant future to face: it was certain that no matter what i did, nor how i argued, i was going to help them out. either i would do it willingly or they'd grow tired of the lecture routine and take me in for a mental re-evaluation, after which (being not-steve cornell any more) i'd join their ranks and do their bidding. about the only thing i could look at with self-confidence was my determination to hold out. if i was going to join them, it would be after i were no longer the man i am, but reoriented into whatever design they wanted. and that resolve was weakened by the normal human will to live. you can't make a horse drink water, but you can lead a human being to a well and he will drink it dry if you keep a shotgun pointed in his direction. and so it ended up with my always wondering if, when the cards were all dealt out face up, whether i would have the guts to keep on saying 'no' right up to the point where i walked into their department of brain-washing. in fact, i was rather afraid that in the last moment i'd weaken, just to stay being me. that uncertainty of mine was, of course, just the idea they wanted to nourish in my mind. they were doing it by leaving me alone with my mental merry-go-round. again i hit the sack out of sheer boredom and i turned and tossed for what seemed like hours before i dropped off to sleep, wondering and dreaming about who was to be the next visitor with a bill of goods to sell. the next visitor came in about midnight, or thereabouts. i woke up with the realization that someone had come in through the outer door and was standing there in the semi-dark caused by a bright moon shining in through my barred window. "steve," she said, in a near whisper. "go away," i told her. "haven't you done enough already?" "oh, please, steve. i've got to talk to you." i sat on the edge of my bunk and looked at her. she was fully dressed; her light printed silk was of the same general pattern and fit that she preferred. in fact, catherine looked as i'd always seen her, and as i'd pictured her during the long hopeless weeks of our separation. "you've got something to add?" i asked her coldly. "i've got to make you understand, steve," she pleaded. "understand what?" i snapped. "i know already. you deliberately set out to marry, or else-how tie some emotional cable onto me. god knows that you succeeded. if it hadn't been for that accident, i'd have been nailed down tight." "that part is true," she whispered. "naturally, you've got justification." "well, i have." "so has any burglar." she shook her head at me. "steve, you don't really understand. if only you could read my mind and know the truth--" she let this trail off in a helpless awkwardness. it was one of those statements that are meaningless because it can be said by either friend or foe and cannot be checked. i just looked at her and suddenly remembered something: this was the first time in my life that i was in a position to do some verbal fencing with a telepath on even terms. i could say 'yes' and think 'no' with absolute impunity. in fact, i might even have had an edge, since as a poor non-telepath i did have some training in subterfuge, falsehood, and diplomatic maneuver that the telepath couldn't have. catherine and i, at long last, were in the position of the so-called good old days when boys and girls couldn't really know the truth about one another's real thoughts. "so what's this truth?" i demanded. "steve, answer me truly. have you ever been put on an odious job, only to find that the job is really pleasant?" "yes." "then hear me out. i--in fact, no woman--takes kindly to being directed to do what i did. i was told to meet you, to marry--" her face looked flustered and it might have been a bit flushed for all i knew. i couldn't see color enough in the dim light to be sure. "--and then i met you, steve, and i found out that you were really a very nice sort of guy." "well, thanks." "don't be bitter. hear the truth. if otto mekstrom had not existed, if there were no such thing as mekstrom's disease, and i had met you freely and openly as men and women meet, i'd have come to feel the same, steve. i must make you understand that my emotional attachment to you was not increased nor decreased by the fact that my physical actions were directed at you. if anything, my job was just rendered pleasantly easier." i grunted. "and so you were made happy." "yes," she whispered. "and i was going to marry you and live honestly with you--" "heck of a marriage with the wife in the medical center for mekstrom's disease and our first child--" "steve, you poor fool, don't you understand? if our child came as predicted, the first thing i'd do would be to have the child inoculate the father? then we'd be--" "um," i grunted. "i hadn't thought of that." this was a flat lie. i'd considered it a-plenty since my jailing here. present the medical center with a child, a mekstrom, and a carrier, and good old pappy would be no longer needed. "well, after i found out all about you, steve, that's what i had in mind. but now--" "now what?" i urged her gently. i had a hunch that she was leading up to something, but ducking shy about it until she managed to find out how i thought. it would have been all zero if we'd been in a clear area, but as it was i led her gently on. "but now i've failed," she said with a slight wail. "what do they do with failures?" i asked harshly. "siberia? or a gunny sack weighted down with an anvil? or do they drum you out of the corps?" "i don't know." i eyed her closely. i was forced to admit that no matter how catherine thought, she was a mighty attractive dish from the physical standpoint. and regardless of the trouble she'd put me through, i could not overlook the fact that i had been deep enough in love to plan elopement and marriage. i'd held her slender body close, and either her response had been honestly warm or catherine was an actress of very rare physical ability. scholar phelps could hardly have picked a warmer temptress in the first place; putting her onto me now was a stroke of near-genius. i got up from the edge of my bunk and faced her through my bars. she came close, too, and we looked into each other's faces over a cross-rail of the heavy fence. i managed a wistful grin at her. "you're not really a failure yet, are you, kid?" "i don't quite know how to--to--" she replied. i looked around my little cell with a gruesome gesture. "this isn't my idea of a pleasant home. and yet it will be my home until someone decides that i'm too expensive to keep." "i know," she breathed. taking the bit in my teeth, i said, "catherine even though--well, heck. i'd like to help you." "you mean that?" she asked in almost an eager voice. "it's not impossible to forget that we were eloping when all this started." "it all seems so long ago," she said with a thick voice. "and i wish we were back there--no, steve, i wish mekstrom's disease had never happened--i wish--" "stop wishing and think," i told her half-humorously. "if there were no mekstrom's disease, the chances are that we'd never have met in the first place." "that's the cruel part of it all," she cried. and i mean _cried_. i rapped on the metal bars with a fist. "so here we are," i said unhappily. "i can't help you now, catherine." she put her hands through the bars and held my face between them. she looked searching into my eyes, as if straining to force her blocked telepath sense through the deadness of the area. she leaned against the steel but the barrier was very effective; our lips met through the cold metal. it was a very unsatisfactory kiss because we had to purse our lips like a pair of piccolo players to make them meet. it was like making love through a keyhole. this unsatisfactory lovemaking did not last long. unsteadily, catherine said, "i want you, steve." inwardly i grinned, and then with the same feeling as if i'd laughed out loud at a funeral, i said, "through these steel bars?" she brought out a little cylindrical key. then went to a brass wall plate beside the outer door, inserted the key, and turned. the sliding door to my cell opened on noiseless machined slides. then with a careful look at me, catherine slipped a little shutter over the glass bull's eye in the door. her hand reached up to a hidden toggle above the door and as she snapped it, a thick cover surged out above the speaker, television lens, and microphone grille, curved down and shut off the tell-tales with a cushioned sound. apparently the top management of the joint used these cells for other things than mere containment of unruly prisoners. i almost grinned; the society that scholar phelps proposed was not the kind that flourished in an atmosphere of trust, or privacy--except for the top brass. catherine turned from her switch plate and came across the floor with her face lifted and her lips parted. "hold me, steve." my hand came forward in a short jab that caught her dead center in the plexus below the ribs. her breath caught in one strangled gasp and her eyes went glassy. she swayed stiffly in half-paralysis. my other hand came up, closing as it rose, until it became a fist that connected in a shoulder-jarring wallop on the side of her jaw. her head snapped up and her knees caved in. she folded from the hips and went down bonelessly. from her throat came the bubbly sound of air being forced painfully through a flaccid wet tube. i jumped outside of the cell barrier because i was certain that they had some means of closing the cell from a master control center. i don't know much about penology, but that's the way i'd do it. i was half-surprised that i'd been able to get away with this much. catherine stirred and moaned, and i stopped long enough to take the key out of the wall plate. the cell door closed on its silent slides. i had hardly been able to more than run the zipper up my shirt when the door opened and i had to dance like a fool to get behind it. the door admitted a flood of bright light from the corridor, and dr. james thorndyke. the cell door must have been bugged. thorndyke came in behind a large automatic clutched in one nervous fist. he strained his eyes at the gloom that was not cut by the ribbon of light. and then i cut him down with a solid slice of my right hand to the base of his neck. i remembered to jump off the ground as the blow went home; there was a sickening crunch of bone and muscle as thorndyke caved forward to the floor. he dropped the gun, luckily, as his body began to twitch and kick spasmodically as the life drained out of him. i re-swallowed a mouthful of bitter bile as i reached down to pick up his gun. then the room got hot and unbearably small and i felt a frantic urge to leave, to close the door upon that sight. xxv i was yards away from my door before my panic left me. then i remembered where and who i was and took a fast look around. there was no one else in the corridor, of course, or i would not have been able to cut and run as i had. but i looked around anyway until my reasoning power told me that i had done little to help my position. like the canary, my plans for escape ended once i was outside of my cage. i literally did not know what to do with my new-found freedom. one thing was becoming painfully obvious: i'd be pinned down tight once i put a foot outside of the dead area in which this building was constructed. what i needed was friends, arms, ammunition, and a good, solid plan of escape. i had neither; unless you call my jailed friends such help. and there i could not go; the tell-tales would give me away to the master control center before i could raise my small--and unarmed--army. so i stood there in the brightly lighted corridor and tried to think. i got nowhere, but i was driven to action again by the unmistakable sound of the elevator at the end of the corridor. i eyed the various cell doors with suspicion; opening any but an empty room would cause some comment from the occupant, which again would give me away. nor did i have time to canvass the joint by peeking into the one-way bull's eyes, peering into a semi-gloom to see which room was empty. so instead of hiding in the corridor, i sloped towards the elevator and the stairwell that surrounded it, hoping that i could make it before the elevator rose to my floor. i know that my passage must have sounded like a turbojet in full flight, but i made the stairway and took a headlong leap down the first short flight of stairs just as the elevator door rolled open. i hit the wall with a bumping crash that jarred my senses, but i kept my feet and looked back up the stairs. i caught a flash of motion; a guard sauntering past the top of the well, a cigarette in one hand and a lazy-looking air about him. he was expecting no trouble, and so i gave him none. i crept up the stairs and poked my head out just at the floor level. the guard, obviously confident that nothing, but nothing, could ever happen in this welded metal crib, jauntily peered into a couple of the rooms at random, took a long squint at the room i'd recently vacated, and then went on to the end of the hall where he stuck a key in a signal-box. on his way back he paused again to peer into my room, straining to see if he could peer past the little shutter over the bull's eye. then he shrugged unhappily, and started to return. i loped down the stairs to the second floor and waited. the elevator came down, stopped, and the guard repeated his desultory search, not stopping to pry into any darkened rooms. just above the final, first-floor flight, i stopped and sprawled on the floor with only my head and the nose of my gun over the top step. below was the guard's desk and standing beside the desk with anger in every line of his ugly face was scholar phelps! the elevator came down, stopped, and the guard walked out, to be nailed by phelps. "your job," snapped the good scholar coldly, "says you are to walk." "well, er--sir--it's--" "walk!" stormed phelps angrily. "you can't cover that stairway in the elevator, you fumbling idiot." "but, sir--" "someone could easily come down while you go up." "i know that, sir, but--" "then why do you disobey?" roared phelps. "well, you see, sir, i know how this place is built and no one has ever made it yet. who could?" the guard looked mystified. phelps had to face that fact. he did not accept it gracefully. "my orders are orders," he said stiffly. "you'll follow them. to the last letter." "yes sir. i will." "see that you do. now, i'm going up. i'll ride and you walk. meet me on the fourth and bring the elevator down with you." "yessir." i sloped upstairs like a scared rabbit. up to the third again where i moved down the corridor and slipped into the much-too-thin niche made by a door. stolidly the guard came up the stairs, crossed in front of the elevator with his back to me, turned the far corner and went on up to the fourth. as his feet started up the stairs, i was behind him; by the time he reached the top, i was half way up. phelps said, "now, from this moment on, waldron, you'll follow every order to the absolute letter. and when i ring, don't make the error of bringing the elevator. send it. it'll come up and stop without a pilot." "yes sir. i'm sorry sir. but you understand, sir, there isn't really much to guard, sir." "then guard nothing. but guard it well, because a man in your position is gauged in success by the amount of boredom he creates for himself." the guard started down and i darted up to poke my head out to see where phelps was going. as i neared the floor level, i had a shock like someone hurling twenty gallons of ice water in my face. the top floor was the end of the dead area, and i---pulled my head down into the murk like a diver taking a plunge. so i stood there making like a guppy with my head, sounding out the boundary of that deadness, ducking down as soon as the mental murk gave me a faint perception of the wall and ceiling above me. then i'd move aside and sound it again. eventually i found a little billowing furrow that rose above the floor level and i crawled out along the floor, still sounding and moving cautiously with my body hidden in the deadness that rose and fell like a cloud of murky mental smoke to my sense of perception. i would have looked silly to any witness; wallowing along the floor like a porpoise acting furtive in the bright lights. but then i couldn't go any farther; the deadness sank below the floor level and left me looking along a bare floor that was also bare to my sense of perception. i shoved my head out of the dead zone and took a fast dig, then dropped back in again and lay there re-constructing what i'd perceived mentally. i did it the second time and the third, each time making a rapid scan of some portion of that fourth floor. in three fast swings, i collected a couple of empty offices, a very complete hospital set-up operating room, and a place that looked like a consultation theatre. on my fourth scan, i whipped past scholar phelps, who was apparently deep in some personal interest. i rose at once and strode down the hall and snapped the door open just as phelps' completely unexpecting mind grasped the perceptive fact that someone was coming down his hallway wearing a great big forty five automatic. "freeze!" i snapped. "put that weapon down, mr. cornell. it, nor its use, will get your freedom." "maybe all i want out of life is to see you leave it," i told him. "you'd not be that foolish, i'm sure," he said. "i might." he laughed, with all the self-confidence in the world. "mr. cornell, you have too much will to live. you're not the martyr type." "i might turn out to be the cornered-rat type," i told him seriously. "so play it cagey, phelps." "scholar phelps, please." "i wouldn't disgrace the medical profession," i told him. "so--" "so what do you propose to do about this?" "i'm getting out." "don't be ridiculous. one step out of this building and you'll return within a half minute. how did you get out?" "i was seduced out. now--" "i'd advise you to surrender; to stop this hopeless attempt; to put that weapon down. you cannot escape. there are, in this building, your mental and intellectual superiors whose incarceration bear me witness." i eyed him coldly and quietly. "i'm not convinced. i'm out. and if you could take a dig below you'd see a dead man and an unconscious woman to bear me witness. i broke your dr. thorndyke's neck with a chop of my bare hand, phelps; i knocked catherine cold with a fist. this thing might not kill you, but i'm a mekstrom, too, and so help me i can cool you down but good." "violence will get you nothing." "try my patience. i'll bet my worthless hide on it." then i grinned at him. "oh, it isn't so worthless, is it?" "one cry from me, mr. cornell, and--" "and you'll not live to see what happens. i've killed once tonight. i didn't like it. but the idea is not as new now as it was then. i'll kill you, phelps, if for no other reason than merely to keep my word." with a sneer, phelps turned to his desk and i stabbed my perception behind the papers and stuff to the call button; then i launched myself across the room like a rocket, swinging my gun hand as i soared. the steel caught him on the side of the head and drove him back from his call button before his finger could press it. then i let him have a fist in the belly because the pistol swat hadn't much more than dazed him. the fist did it. he crumpled in a heap and fought for breath unconsciously. i turned to the wall he'd been eyeing with so much attention. there was row upon row of small kine tubes, each showing the dark interior of a cell. below each was a row of pilot lights, all dark. on his desk was a large bank of push buttons, a speaker, and a microphone. and beside the push button set-up was a ledger containing a list of names with their cell numbers. i found marian harrison; pushed her button, and heard her ladylike snore from the speaker. a green lamp winked under one of the kine tubes and i walked over and looked into the darkened cell to see her familiar hair sprawled over a thick pillow. i went to the desk and snapped on the microphone. "marian," i said. "marian! hey! marian harrison!" in the picture tube there was a stir, then she sat up and looked around in a sort of daze. "marian, this is steve cornell, but don't--" "steve!" "--cry out," i finished uselessly. "where are you?" she asked in a whisper. "i'm in the con room." "but how on earth--?" "no time to gab. i'll be down in a rush with the key. get dressed!" "yes, steve." i took off in a headlong rush with the 'hotel register' in one hand. i made the third floor and marian's cell in slightly more than nothing flat, but she was ready when i came barging into her room. she was out of the cell before it hit the backstop and following me down the hall towards her brother's room. "what happened?" she asked breathlessly. "later," i told her. i opened phillip harrison's cell. "you go wake up fred macklin and tell him to come here. then get the macklin girl--alice, it says here--and the pair of you wake up others and start sending 'em up stairs. i'll call you on the telltale as soon as i can." marian took off with the key and the register and i started to shake phillip harrison's shoulder. "wake up!" i cried. "wake up, phillip!" phillip made a noise like a baby seal. "wake up!" "wha--?" "it's steve cornell. wake up!" with a rough shake of his head, phillip groaned and unwound himself out of a tangle of bedclothing. he looked at me through half-closed glassy eyes. then he straightened and made a perilous course to the washstand where he sopped a towel in cold water and applied it to his face, neck, and shoulders. when he dropped the towel in the sink, his expression was fresher and his eyes were mingled curiosity and amazement. "what gives?" he asked, starting to dress in a hurry. "i busted out, slugged scholar phelps, and took over the master control room. i need help. we can't keep it long unless we move fast." "yeah man. any moving will be fast," he said sourly. "got any plans?" "we've--" the door opened to let fred macklin enter. he carried his shirt and had been dressing on the run. "what goes on?" he asked. "look," i said quickly. "if i have to stop and give anybody a rundown, we'll have no time to do what has to be done. there are a couple of sources of danger. one is the guard down at the bottom of the stairway. the other is the possible visitor. you get a couple of other young, ambitious fellows and push that guard post over, but quick." "right. and you?" "i've got to keep our hostage cold," i snapped. "and i'm running the show by virtue of being the guy that managed to bust loose." in the hallway there was movement, but i left it to head back to scholar phelps. i got there in time to hear him groan and make scratching noises on the carpet. i took no chances; i cooled him down with a short jab to the pit of the stomach and doubled him over again. he was sleeping painfully but soundlessly when marian came in. i turned to her. "you're supposed to be waking up--" "i gave the key and the register to jo anne tweedy," she said. "jo anne's the brash young teenager you took a bump with in ohio. she's competent, steve. and she's got the macklin twins to help her. waking up the camp is a job for the junior division." she eyed the recumbent phelps distastefully. "what have you in mind for him?" "he's valuable," i said. "we'll use him to buy our freedom." the door opened again, interrupting marian. it was jonas harrison. he stood there in the frame of the door and looked at us with a sort of grim smile. i had never met the old patriarch of the harrison family before, but he lived up to my every expectation. he stood tall and straight; topped by a wealth of snow white hair, white eyebrows, and the touch of a white moustache. his eyes contrasted with the white; a rich and startling brown. this was a man to whom i could hand the basic problem of engineering our final escape; jonas harrison was capable of plotting an airtight getaway. his voice was rich and resonant; it had a lift in its tone that sounded as though his self-confidence had never been in danger of a set-back: "well, son, you seem to have accomplished quite a job this night. what shall we do next?" "get the devil out of here," i replied---wondering just exactly how i'd known so instantly that this was jonas harrison. the rich and resonant voice had flicked a subsurface recollection on a faint, raw spot and now something important was swimming around in the mire of my mind trying to break loose and come clear. i turned from the sword-sharp brown eyes and looked at marian. she was almost as i had first seen her: not much make-up if any at all, her hair free of fancy dressing but neat, her legs were bare and healthy-tanned. i looked at her, and for a half dozen heartbeats her image faded from my sight, replaced by the well remembered figure of catherine as i had known her first. it was a dizzy-making montage because my perception senses the real figure of marian, superimposed on the visual memory-image of catherine. then the false sight faded and both perception and eyesight focused upon the true person of marian harrison. marian stood there, her face softly proud. her eyes were looking straight into mine, as if she were mentally urging me to fight that hidden memory into full recollection. then i both saw and perceived something that i had never noticed before. a fine golden chain hung around her throat, its pendant hidden from sight beneath the edge of her bodice. but my sense of perception dug a modest diamond, and i could even dig the tiny initials engraved in the metal circlet: sc-mh to dig anything that fine, i knew that it must be of importance to me. and then i knew that it had once been so very personally my own business, for the submerged recollection came bursting up to the top of my mind. marian henderson had been mine once long ago! boldly i stepped forward and took the chain between my fingers. i snapped it, and held the ring. "will you wear it again, my dear?" she held up her left hand for me to slip it on. "steve," she breathed, "i've never stopped wearing it, not really." "but i didn't see it until now--" jonas harrison said, "no, steve, you couldn't see it until you remembered." "but look--" "blame me," he said in his firm determined voice. "the story begins and ends with you, steve. when marian contracted mekstrom's disease, she herself insisted that you be spared the emotional pain that the rest of us could not avoid. so i erased her from your mind, steve, and submerged any former association. then when the highways in hiding came to take us in, i left it that way because marian was still as unattainable to you as if she were dead. if an apology is needed, i'll only ask that you forgive my tampering with your mind and personality." "apologize?" i exploded. "i'm here, we're here, and you've just provided me with a way out of this mousetrap!" "a way out?" he murmured, in that absent way that telepaths have when they're concentrating on another mind. fast comprehension dawned in the sharp brown eyes and he looked even more self-confident and determined. marian leaned back in my arms to look into my eyes. "steve," she cried, "it's simply got to work!" gloria farrow merely said, "he'll have to have medication, of course," and went briskly to a wall cabinet and began to fiddle with medical tools. howard macklin and jonas harrison went into a deep telepathic conference that was interrupted only when jonas harrison turned to phillip to say, "you'll have to provide us with uninterrupted time, somehow." marian disengaged herself reluctantly and started to propel me out of the room. "go help him, steve. what we are going to do is not for any non-telepath to watch." outside, phillip threatened me with the guard's signal-box key. "mind telling a non-telepath what the devil you cooked up?" i smiled. "if your father has the mental power to erase marian from my mind, he also has the power to do a fine reorientation job on scholar phelps. once we get the spiderwebs cleaned out of the top dog, we start down the pyramid, line by line and echelon by echelon, with each reoriented recruit adding to our force. once we get this joint operating on the level, we can all go to work for the rest of the human race!" * * * * * there is little left to tell. the medical center and the highways in hiding are one agency dedicated to the conquest of the last and most puzzling of the diseases and maladies that beset mankind. we are no closer to a solution than we ever were, and so i am still a very busy man. i have written this account and disclosed our secret because we want no more victims of mekstrom's disease to suffer. so i will write finish with one earnest plea and one ray of hope: please do not follow one of our highways unless you are already infected. since i cannot hope to inoculate the entire human race, and will not pick or choose certain worthy types for special attention, i will deal only with those folks who find mekstrom's disease among their immediate family. such people need never be parted from their loved ones. the rest of you will have to wait your turn. but we'll get to it sooner or later. thirty days ago, steve, junior, was born. he's a healthy little mekstrom, and like his pappy, steve junior is a carrier, too. * * * * * [transcriber's note: back cover] quest impossible someone had stolen an important part of steve cornell's life. it was bad enough when his fiancã©e vanished. it was infinitely worse when everyone in the world insisted it couldn't have happened the way he knew it had. in a world where esp and telepathy were normal, it was difficult to keep secrets. but steve's search for his missing sweetheart brought him to the threshold of one of the greatest secrets of all time. and it was obvious that somebody would stop at nothing to keep him from uncovering it. what were the oddly sinister symbols along otherwise ordinary roads? what was behind the spreading plague called mekstrom's disease? why were there "blank" spots where telepathy didn't work? who was the elusive enemy with powers even beyond those esp had bestowed on mankind? and, most important of all ... could steve find that enemy before they made him vanish too? a lancer book â· never before complete in paperback this ebook was produced by charles franks and the online distributed proofreading team. the little minister by j. m. barrie author of "window in thrums," "auld light idylls," "when a man's single." etc. contents. chapter i. the love-light ii. runs alongside the making of a minister iii. the night-watchers iv. first coming of the egyptian woman v. a warlike chapter, culminating in the flouting of the minister by the woman vi. in which the soldiers meet the amazons of thrums vii. has the folly of looking into a woman's eyes by way of text viii. 3 a.m.--monstrous audacity of the woman ix. the woman considered in absence--adventures of a military cloak x. first sermon against women xi. tells in a whisper of man's fall during the curling season xii. tragedy of a mud house xiii. second coming of the egyptian woman xiv. the minister dances to the woman's piping xv. the minister bewitched--second sermon against women xvi. continued misbehavior of the egyptian woman xvii. intrusion of haggart into these pages against the author's wish xviii. caddam--love leading to a rupture xix. circumstances leading to the first sermon in approval of women xx. end of the state of indecision xxi. night--margaret--flashing of a lantern xxii. lovers xxiii. contains a birth, which is sufficient for one chapter xxiv. the new world, and the women who may not dwell therein xxv. beginning of the twenty-four hours xxvi. scene at the spittal xxvii. first journey of the dominie to thrums during the twenty-four hours xxviii. the hill before darkness fell--scene of the impending catastrophe xxix. story of the egyptian xxx. the meeting for rain xxxi. various bodies converging on the hill xxxii. leading swiftly to the appalling marriage xxxiii. while the ten o'clock bell was ringing xxxiv. the great rain xxxv. the glen at break of day xxxvi. story of the dominie xxxvii. second journey of the dominie to thrums during the twenty-four hours xxxviii. thrums during the twenty-four hours--defence of the manse xxxix. how babbie spent the night of august fourth xl. babbie and margaret--defence of the manse continued xli. rintoui and babbie--break-down of the defence of the manse xlii. margaret, the precentor, and god between xliii. rain--mist--the jaws xliv. end of the twenty-four hours xlv. talk of a little maid since grown tall chapter i. the love-light. long ago, in the days when our caged blackbirds never saw a king's soldier without whistling impudently, "come ower the water to charlie," a minister of thrums was to be married, but something happened, and he remained a bachelor. then, when he was old, he passed in our square the lady who was to have been his wife, and her hair was white, but she, too, was still unmarried. the meeting had only one witness, a weaver, and he said solemnly afterwards, "they didna speak, but they just gave one another a look, and i saw the love-light in their een." no more is remembered of these two, no being now living ever saw them, but the poetry that was in the soul of a battered weaver makes them human to us for ever. it is of another minister i am to tell, but only to those who know that light when they see it. i am not bidding good-bye to many readers, for though it is true that some men, of whom lord rintoul was one, live to an old age without knowing love, few of us can have met them, and of women so incomplete i never heard. gavin dishart was barely twenty-one when he and his mother came to thrums, light-hearted like the traveller who knows not what awaits him at the bend of the road. it was the time of year when the ground is carpeted beneath the firs with brown needles, when split-nuts patter all day from the beech, and children lay yellow corn on the dominie's desk to remind him that now they are needed in the fields. the day was so silent that carts could be heard rumbling a mile away. all thrums was out in its wynds and closes-a few of the weavers still in knee-breeches--to look at the new auld licht minister. i was there too, the dominie of glen quharity, which is four miles from thrums; and heavy was my heart as i stood afar off so that gavin's mother might not have the pain of seeing me. i was the only one in the crowd who looked at her more than at her son. eighteen years had passed since we parted. already her hair had lost the brightness of its youth, and she seemed to me smaller and more fragile; and the face that i loved when i was a hobbledehoy, and loved when i looked once more upon it in thrums, and always shall love till i die, was soft and worn. margaret was an old woman, and she was only forty-three: and i am the man who made her old. as gavin put his eager boyish face out at the carriage window, many saw that he was holding her hand, but none could be glad at the sight as the dominie was glad, looking on at a happiness in which he dared not mingle. margaret was crying because she was so proud of her boy. women do that. poor sons to be proud of, good mothers, but i would not have you dry those tears. when the little minister looked out at the carriage window, many of the people drew back humbly, but a little boy in a red frock with black spots pressed forward and offered him a sticky parly, which gavin accepted, though not without a tremor, for children were more terrible to him then than bearded men. the boy's mother, trying not to look elated, bore him away, but her face said that he was made for life. with this little incident gavin's career in thrums began. i remembered it suddenly the other day when wading across the wynd where it took place. many scenes in the little minister's life come back to me in this way. the first time i ever thought of writing his love story as an old man's gift to a little maid since grown tall, was one night while i sat alone in the school-house; on my knees a fiddle that has been my only living companion since i sold my hens. my mind had drifted back to the first time i saw gavin and the egyptian together, and what set it wandering to that midnight meeting was my garden gate shaking in the wind. at a gate on the hill i had first encountered these two. it rattled in his hand, and i looked up and saw them, and neither knew why i had such cause to start at the sight. then the gate swung to. it had just such a click as mine. these two figures on the hill are more real to me than things that happened yesterday, but i do not know that i can make them live to others. a ghost-show used to come yearly to thrums on the merry muckle friday, in which the illusion was contrived by hanging a glass between the onlookers and the stage. i cannot deny that the comings and goings of the ghost were highly diverting, yet the farmer of t'nowhead only laughed because he had paid his money at the hole in the door like the rest of us. t'nowhead sat at the end of a form where he saw round the glass and so saw no ghost. i fear my public may be in the same predicament. i see the little minister as he was at one-and-twenty, and the little girl to whom this story is to belong sees him, though the things i have to tell happened before she came into the world. but there are reasons why she should see; and i do not know that i can provide the glass for others. if they see round it, they will neither laugh nor cry with gavin and babbie. when gavin came to thrums he was as i am now, for the pages lay before him on which he was to write his life. yet he was not quite as i am. the life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. but the biographer sees the last chapter while he is still at the first, and i have only to write over with ink what gavin has written in pencil. how often is it a phanton woman who draws the man from the way he meant to go? so was man created, to hunger for the ideal that is above himself, until one day there is magic in the air, and the eyes of a girl rest upon him. he does not know that it is he himself who crowned her, and if the girl is as pure as he, their love is the one form of idolatry that is not quite ignoble. it is the joining of two souls on their way to god. but if the woman be bad, the test of the man is when he wakens from his dream. the nobler his ideal, the further will he have been hurried down the wrong way, for those who only run after little things will not go far. his love may now sink into passion, perhaps only to stain its wings and rise again, perhaps to drown. babbie, what shall i say of you who make me write these things? i am not your judge. shall we not laugh at the student who chafes when between him and his book comes the song of the thrushes, with whom, on the mad night you danced into gavin's life, you had more in common than with auld licht ministers? the gladness of living was in your step, your voice was melody, and he was wondering what love might be. you were the daughter of a summer night, born where all the birds are free, and the moon christened you with her soft light to dazzle the eyes of man. not our little minister alone was stricken by you into his second childhood. to look upon you was to rejoice that so fair a thing could be; to think of you is still to be young. even those who called you a little devil, of whom i have been one, admitted that in the end you had a soul, though not that you had been born with one. they said you stole it, and so made a woman of yourself. but again i say i am not your judge, and when i picture you as gavin saw you first, a bare-legged witch dancing up windyghoul, rowan berries in your black hair, and on your finger a jewel the little minister could not have bought with five years of toil, the shadows on my pages lift, and i cannot wonder that gavin loved you. often i say to myself that this is to be gavin's story, not mine. yet must it be mine too, in a manner, and of myself i shall sometimes have to speak; not willingly, for it is time my little tragedy had died of old age. i have kept it to myself so long that now i would stand at its grave alone. it is true that when i heard who was to be the new minister i hoped for a day that the life broken in harvie might be mended in thrums, but two minutes' talk with gavin showed me that margaret had kept from him the secret which was hers and mine and so knocked the bottom out of my vain hopes. i did not blame her then, nor do i blame her now, nor shall anyone who blames her ever be called friend by me; but it was bitter to look at the white manse among the trees and know that i must never enter it. for margaret's sake i had to keep aloof, yet this new trial came upon me like our parting at harvie. i thought that in those eighteen years my passions had burned like a ship till they sank, but i suffered again as on that awful night when adam dishart came back, nearly killing margaret and tearing up all my ambitions by the root in a single hour. i waited in thrums until i had looked again on margaret, who thought me dead, and gavin, who had never heard of me, and then i trudged back to the school-house. something i heard of them from time to time during the winter--for in the gossip of thrums i was well posted--but much of what is to be told here i only learned afterwards from those who knew it best. gavin heard of me at times as the dominie in the glen who had ceased to attend the auld licht kirk, and margaret did not even hear of me. it was all i could do for them. chapter ii. runs alongside the making of a minister. on the east coast of scotland, hidden, as if in a quarry, at the foot of cliffs that may one day fall forward, is a village called harvie. so has it shrunk since the day when i skulked from it that i hear of a traveller's asking lately at one of its doors how far he was from a village; yet harvie throve once and was celebrated even in distant thrums for its fish. most of our weavers would have thought it as unnatural not to buy harvies in the square on the muckle friday, as to let saturday night pass without laying in a sufficient stock of halfpennies to go round the family twice. gavin was born in harvie, but left it at such an early age that he could only recall thatched houses with nets drying on the roofs, and a sandy shore in which coarse grass grew. in the picture he could not pick out the house of his birth, though he might have been able to go to it had he ever returned to the village. soon he learned that his mother did not care to speak of harvie, and perhaps he thought that she had forgotten it too, all save one scene to which his memory still guided him. when his mind wandered to harvie, gavin saw the door of his home open and a fisherman enter, who scratched his head and then said, "your man's drowned, missis." gavin seemed to see many women crying, and his mother staring at them with a face suddenly painted white, and next to hear a voice that was his own saying, "never mind, mother; i'll be a man to you now, and i'll need breeks for the burial." but adam required no funeral, for his body lay deep in the sea. gavin thought that this was the tragedy of his mother's life, and the most memorable event of his own childhood. but it was neither. when margaret, even after she came to thrums, thought of harvie, it was not at adam's death she shuddered, but at the recollection of me. it would ill become me to take a late revenge on adam dishart now by saying what is not true of him. though he died a fisherman he was a sailor for a great part of his life, and doubtless his recklessness was washed into him on the high seas, where in his time men made a crony of death, and drank merrily over dodging it for another night. to me his roars of laughter without cause were as repellent as a boy's drum; yet many faces that were long in my company brightened at his coming, and women, with whom, despite my yearning, i was in no wise a favorite, ran to their doors to listen to him as readily as to the bell-man. children scurried from him if his mood was savage, but to him at all other times, while me they merely disregarded. there was always a smell of the sea about him. he had a rolling gait, unless he was drunk, when he walked very straight, and before both sexes he boasted that any woman would take him for his beard alone. of this beard he took prodigious care, though otherwise thinking little of his appearance, and i now see that he understood women better than i did, who had nevertheless reflected much about them. it cannot be said that he was vain, for though he thought he attracted women strangely, that, i maintain, is a weakness common to all men, and so no more to be marvelled at than a stake in a fence. foreign oaths were the nails with which he held his talk together, yet i doubt not they were a curiosity gathered at sea, like his chains of shells, more for his own pleasure than for others' pain. his friends gave them no weight, and when he wanted to talk emphatically he kept them back, though they were then as troublesome to him as eggs to the bird-nesting boy who has to speak with his spoil in his mouth. adam was drowned on gavin's fourth birthday, a year after i had to leave harvie. he was blown off his smack in a storm, and could not reach the rope his partner flung him. "it's no go, lad," he shouted; "so long, jim," and sank. a month afterwards margaret sold her share in the smack, which was all adam left her, and the furniture of the house was rouped. she took gavin to glasgow, where her only brother needed a housekeeper, and there mother and son remained until gavin got his call to thrums. during those seventeen years i lost knowledge of them as completely as margaret had lost knowledge of me. on hearing of adam's death i went back to harvie to try to trace her, but she had feared this, and so told no one where she was going. according to margaret, gavin's genius showed itself while he was still a child. he was born with a brow whose nobility impressed her from the first. it was a minister's brow, and though margaret herself was no scholar, being as slow to read as she was quick at turning bannocks on the girdle, she decided, when his age was still counted by months, that the ministry had need of him. in those days the first question asked of a child was not, "tell me your name," but "what are you to be?" and one child in every family replied, "a minister." he was set apart for the church as doggedly as the shilling a week for the rent, and the rule held good though the family consisted of only one boy. from his earliest days gavin thought he had been fashioned for the ministry as certainly as a spade for digging, and margaret rejoiced and marvelled thereat, though she had made her own puzzle. an enthusiastic mother may bend her son's mind as she chooses if she begins it once; nay, she may do stranger things. i know a mother in thrums who loves "features," and had a child born with no chin to speak of. the neighbors expected this to bring her to the dust, but it only showed what a mother can do. in a few months that child had a chin with the best of them. margaret's brother died, but she remained in his single room, and, ever with a picture of her son in a pulpit to repay her, contrived to keep gavin at school. everything a woman's fingers can do margaret's did better than most, and among the wealthy people who employed her--would that i could have the teaching of the sons of such as were good to her in those hard days!--her gentle manner was spoken of. for though margaret had no schooling, she was a lady at heart, moving and almost speaking as one even in harvie, where they did not perhaps like her the better for it. at six gavin hit another boy hard for belonging to the established church, and at seven he could not lose himself in the shorter catechism. his mother expounded the scriptures to him till he was eight, when he began to expound them to her. by this time he was studying the practical work of the pulpit as enthusiastically as ever medical student cut off a leg. from a front pew in the gallery gavin watched the minister's every movement, noting that the first thing to do on ascending the pulpit is to cover your face with your hands, as if the exalted position affected you like a strong light, and the second to move the big bible slightly, to show that the kirk officer, not having had a university education, could not be expected to know the very spot on which it ought to lie. gavin saw that the minister joined in the singing more like one countenancing a seemly thing than because he needed it himself, and that he only sang a mouthful now and again after the congregation was in full pursuit of the precentor. it was noteworthy that the first prayer lasted longer than all the others, and that to read the intimations about the bible-class and the collection elsewhere than immediately before the last psalm would have been as sacrilegious as to insert the dedication to king james at the end of revelation. sitting under a minister justly honoured in his day, the boy was often some words in advance of him, not vainglorious of his memory, but fervent, eager, and regarding the preacher as hardly less sacred than the book. gavin was encouraged by his frightened yet admiring mother to saw the air from their pew as the minister sawed it in the pulpit, and two benedictions were pronounced twice a sabbath in that church, in the same words, the same manner, and simultaneously. there was a black year when the things of this world, especially its pastimes, took such a grip of gavin that he said to margaret he would rather be good at the high jump than the author of "the pilgrim's progress." that year passed, and gavin came to his right mind. one afternoon margaret was at home making a glen-garry for him out of a piece of carpet, and giving it a tartan edging, when the boy bounded in from school, crying, "come quick, mother, and you'll see him." margaret reached the door in time to see a street musician flying from gavin and his friends. "did you take stock of him, mother?" the boy asked when he reappeared with the mark of a muddy stick on his back. "he's a papist!--a sore sight, mother, a sore sight. we stoned him for persecuting the noble martyrs." "when gavin was twelve he went to the university, and also got a place in a shop as errand boy. he used to run through the streets between his work and his classes. potatoes and salt fish, which could then be got at two pence the pound if bought by the halfhundred weight, were his food. there was not always a good meal for two, yet when gavin reached home at night there was generally something ready for him, and margaret had supped "hours ago." gavin's hunger urged him to fall to, but his love for his mother made him watchful. "what did you have yourself, mother?" he would demand suspiciously. "oh, i had a fine supper, i assure you." "what had you?" "i had potatoes, for one thing." "and dripping?" "you may be sure." "mother, you're cheating me. the dripping hasn't been touched since yesterday." "i dinna--don't--care for dripping--no much." then would gavin stride the room fiercely, a queer little figure. "do you think i'll stand this, mother? will i let myself be pampered with dripping and every delicacy while you starve?" "gavin, i really dinna care for dripping." "then i'll give up my classes, and we can have butter." "i assure you i'm no hungry. it's different wi' a growing laddie." "i'm not a growing laddie," gavin would say, bitterly; "but, mother, i warn you that not another bite passes my throat till i see you eating too." so margaret had to take her seat at the table, and when she said "i can eat no more," gavin retorted sternly, "nor will i, for fine i see through you." these two were as one far more than most married people, and, just as gavin in his childhood reflected his mother, she now reflected him. the people for whom she sewed thought it was contact with them that had rubbed the broad scotch from her tongue, but she was only keeping pace with gavin. when she was excited the harvie words came back to her, as they come back to me. i have taught the english language all my life, and i try to write it, but everything i say in this book i first think to myself in the doric. this, too, i notice, that in talking to myself i am broader than when gossiping with the farmers of the glen, who send their children to me to learn english, and then jeer at them if they say "old lights" instead of "auld lichts." to margaret it was happiness to sit through the long evenings sewing, and look over her work at gavin as he read or wrote or recited to himself the learning of the schools. but she coughed every time the weather changed, and then gavin would start. "you must go to your bed, mother," he would say, tearing himself from his books; or he would sit beside her and talk of the dream that was common to both--a dream of a manse where margaret was mistress and gavin was called the minister. every night gavin was at his mother's bedside to wind her shawl round her feet, and while he did it margaret smiled. "mother, this is the chaff pillow you've taken out of my bed, and given me your feather one." "gavin, you needna change them. i winna have the feather pillow." "do you dare to think i'll let you sleep on chaff? put up your head. now, is that soft?" "it's fine. i dinna deny but what i sleep better on feathers. do you mind, gavin, you bought this pillow for me the moment you got your bursary money?" the reserve that is a wall between many of the scottish poor had been broken down by these two. when he saw his mother sleeping happily, gavin went back to his work. to save the expense of a lamp, he would put his book almost beneath the dying fire, and, taking the place of the fender, read till he was shivering with cold. "gavin, it is near morning, and you not in your bed yet! what are you thinking about so hard?" "oh, mother, i was wondering if the time would ever come when i would be a minister, and you would have an egg for your breakfast every morning." so the years passed, and soon gavin would be a minister. he had now sermons to prepare, and every one of them was first preached to margaret. how solemn was his voice, how his eyes flashed, how stern were his admonitions. "gavin, such a sermon i never heard. the spirit of god is on you. i'm ashamed you should have me for a mother." "god grant, mother," gavin said, little thinking what was soon to happen, or he would have made this prayer on his knees, "that you may never be ashamed to have me for a son." "ah, mother," he would say wistfully, "it is not a great sermon, but do you think i'm preaching christ? that is what i try, but i'm carried away and forget to watch myself." "the lord has you by the hand, gavin; and mind, i dinna say that because you're my laddie." "yes, you do, mother, and well i know it, and yet it does me good to hear you." that it did him good i, who would fain have shared those days with them, am very sure. the praise that comes of love does not make us vain, but humble rather. knowing what we are, the pride that shines in our mother's eyes as she looks at us is about the most pathetic thing a man has to face, but he would be a devil altogether if it did not burn some of the sin out of him. not long before gavin preached for our kirk and got his call, a great event took place in the little room at glasgow. the student appeared for the first time before his mother in his ministerial clothes. he wore the black silk hat, that was destined to become a terror to evil-doers in thrums, and i dare say he was rather puffed up about himself that day. you would probably have smiled at him. "it's a pity i'm so little, mother," he said with a sigh. "you're no what i would call a particularly long man," margaret said, "but you're just the height i like." then gavin went out in his grandeur, and margaret cried for an hour. she was thinking of me as well as of gavin, and as it happens, i know that i was thinking at the same time of her. gavin kept a diary in those days, which i have seen, and by comparing it with mine, i discovered that while he was showing himself to his mother in his black clothes, i was on my way back from tilliedrum, where i had gone to buy a sand-glass for the school. the one i bought was so like another margaret had used at harvie that it set me thinking of her again all the way home. this is a matter hardly worth mentioning, and yet it interests me. busy days followed the call to thrums, and gavin had difficulty in forcing himself to his sermons when there was always something more to tell his mother about the weaving town they were going to, or about the manse or the furniture that had been transferred to him by the retiring minister. the little room which had become so familiar that it seemed one of a family party of three had to be stripped, and many of its contents were sold. among what were brought to thrums was a little exercise book, in which margaret had tried, unknown to gavin, to teach herself writing and grammar, that she might be less unfit for a manse. he found it accidentally one day. it was full of "i am, thou art, he is," and the like, written many times in a shaking hand. gavin put his arms round his mother when he saw what she had been doing. the exercise book is in my desk now, and will be my little maid's when i die. "gavin, gavin," margaret said many times in those last days at glasgow, "to think it has all come true!" "let the last word you say in the house be a prayer of thankfulness," she whispered to him when they were taking a final glance at the old home. in the bare room they called the house, the little minister and his mother went on their knees, but, as it chanced, their last word there was not addressed to god. "gavin," margaret whispered as he took her arm, "do you think this bonnet sets me?" chapter iii. the night-watchers. what first struck margaret in thrums was the smell of the caddis. the town smells of caddis no longer, but whiffs of it may be got even now as one passes the houses of the old, where the lay still swings at little windows like a great ghost pendulum. to me it is a homely smell, which i draw in with a great breath, but it was as strange to margaret as the weavers themselves, who, in their colored nightcaps and corduroys streaked with threads, gazed at her and gavin. the little minister was trying to look severe and old, but twenty-one was in his eye. "look, mother, at that white house with the green roof. that is the manse." the manse stands high, with a sharp eye on all the town. every back window in the tenements has a glint of it, and so the back of the tenements is always better behaved than the front. it was in the front that jamie don, a pitiful bachelor all his life because he thought the women proposed, kept his ferrets, and here, too, beattie hanged himself, going straight to the clothes-posts for another rope when the first one broke, such was his determination. in the front sanders gilruth openly boasted (on don's potato-pit) that by having a seat in two churches he could lie in bed on sabbath and get the credit of being at one or other. (gavin made short work of him.) to the right-minded the auld licht manse was as a family bible, ever lying open before them, but beattie spoke for more than him-self when he said, "dagone that manse! i never gie a swear but there it is glowering at me." the manse looks down on the town from the northeast, and is reached from the road that leaves thrums behind it in another moment by a wide, straight path, so rough that to carry a fraught of water to the manse without spilling was to be superlatively good at one thing. packages in a cart it set leaping like trout in a fishing-creel. opposite the opening of the garden wall in the manse, where for many years there had been an intention of putting up a gate, were two big stones a yard apart, standing ready for the winter, when the path was often a rush of yellow water, and this the only bridge to the glebe dyke, down which the minister walked to church. when margaret entered the manse on gavin's arm, it was a whitewashed house of five rooms, with a garret in which the minister could sleep if he had guests, as during the fast week. it stood with its garden within high walls, and the roof awing southward was carpeted with moss that shone in the sun in a dozen shades of green and yellow. three firs guarded the house from west winds, but blasts from the north often tore down the steep fields and skirled through the manse, banging all its doors at once. a beech, growing on the east side, leant over the roof as if to gossip with the well in the courtyard. the garden was to the south, and was over full of gooseberry and currant bushes. it contained a summer seat, where strange things were soon to happen. margaret would not even take off her bonnet until she had seen through the manse and opened all the presses. the parlour and kitchen were downstairs, and of the three rooms above, the study was so small that gavin's predecessor could touch each of its walls without shifting his position. every room save margaret's had long-lidded beds, which close as if with shutters, but hers was coff-fronted, or comparatively open, with carving on the wood like the ornamentation of coffins. where there were children in a house they liked to slope the boards of the closed-in bed against the dresser, and play at sliding down mountains on them. but for many years there had been no children in the manse. he in whose ways gavin was to attempt the heavy task of walking had been a widower three months after his marriage, a man narrow when he came to thrums, but so large-hearted when he left it that i, who know there is good in all the world because of the lovable souls i have met in this corner of it, yet cannot hope that many are as near to god as he. the most gladsome thing in the world is that few of us fall very low; the saddest that, with such capabilities, we seldom rise high. of those who stand perceptibly above their fellows i have known very few; only mr. carfrae and two or three women. gavin only saw a very frail old minister who shook as he walked, as if his feet were striking against stones. he was to depart on the morrow to the place of his birth, but he came to the manse to wish his successor god-speed. strangers were so formidable to margaret that she only saw him from her window. "may you never lose sight of god, mr. dishart," the old man said in the parlour. then he added, as if he had asked too much, "may you never turn from him as i often did when i was a lad like you." as this aged minister, with the beautiful face that god gives to all who love him and follow his commandments, spoke of his youth, he looked wistfully around the faded parlour. "it is like a dream," he said. "the first time i entered this room the thought passed through me that i would cut down that cherrytree, because it kept out the light, but, you see, it outlives me. i grew old while looking for the axe. only yesterday i was the young minister, mr. dishart, and to-morrow you will be the old one, bidding good-bye to your successor." his eyes came back to gavin's eager face. "you are very young, mr. dishart?" "nearly twenty-one." "twenty-one! ah, my dear sir, you do not know how pathetic that sounds to me. twenty-one! we are children for the second time at twenty-one, and again when we are grey and put all our burden on the lord. the young talk generously of relieving the old of their burdens, but the anxious heart is to the old when they see a load on the back of the young. let me tell you, mr. dishart, that i would condone many things in one-and-twenty now that i dealt hardly with at middle age. god himself, i think, is very willing to give one-and-twenty a second chance." "i am afraid," gavin said anxiously, "that i look even younger." "i think," mr. carfrae answered, smiling, "that your heart is as fresh as your face; and that is well. the useless men are those who never change with the years. many views that i held to in my youth and long afterwards are a pain to me now, and i am carrying away from thrums memories of errors into which i fell at every stage of my ministry. when you are older you will know that life is a long lesson in humility." he paused. "i hope," he said nervously, "that you don't sing the paraphrases?" mr. carfrae had not grown out of all his prejudices, you see; indeed, if gavin had been less bigoted than he on this question they might have parted stiffly. the old minister would rather have remained to die in his pulpit than surrender it to one who read his sermons. others may blame him for this, but i must say here plainly that i never hear a minister reading without wishing to send him back to college. "i cannot deny," mr. carfrae said, "that i broke down more than once to-day. this forenoon i was in tillyloss, for the last time, and it so happens that there is scarcely a house in it in which i have not had a marriage or prayed over a coffin. ah, sir, these are the scenes that make the minister more than all his sermons. you must join the family, mr. dishart, or you are only a minister once a week. and remember this, if your call is from above, it is a call to stay. many such partings in a lifetime as i have had today would be too heartrending." "and yet," gavin said, hesitatingly, "they told me in glasgow that i had received a call from the mouth of hell." "those were cruel words, but they only mean that people who are seldom more than a day's work in advance of want sometimes rise in arms for food. our weavers are passionately religious, and so independent that they dare any one to help them, but if their wages were lessened they could not live. and so at talk of reduction they catch fire. change of any kind alarms them, and though they call themselves whigs, they rose a few years ago over the paving of the streets and stoned the workmen, who were strangers, out of the town." "and though you may have thought the place quiet to-day, mr. dishart, there was an ugly outbreak only two months ago, when the weavers turned on the manufacturers for reducing the price of the web, made a bonfire of some of their doors, and terrified one of them into leaving thrums. under the command of some chartists, the people next paraded the streets to the music of fife and drum, and six policemen who drove up from tilliedrum in a light cart were sent back tied to the seats." "no one has been punished?" "not yet, but nearly two years ago there was a similar riot, and the sheriff took no action for months. then one night the square suddenly filled with soldiers, and the ringleaders were seized in their beds, mr. dishart, the people are determined not to be caught in that way again, and ever since the rising a watch has been kept by night on every road that leads to thrums. the signal that the soldiers are coining is to be the blowing of a horn. if you ever hear that horn, i implore you to hasten to the square." "the weavers would not fight?" "you do not know how the chartists have fired this part of the country. one misty day, a week ago, i was on the hill; i thought i had it to myself, when suddenly i heard a voice cry sharply, 'shoulder arms.' i could see no one, and after a moment i put it down to a freak of the wind. then all at once the mist before me blackened, and a body of men seemed to grow out of it. they were not shadows; they were thrums weavers drilling, with pikes in their hands. "they broke up," mr. carfrae continued, after a pause, "at my entreaty, but they have met again since then." "and there were auld lichts among them?" gavin asked. "i should have thought they would be frightened at our precentor, lang tammas, who seems to watch for backsliding in the congregation as if he had pleasure in discovering it." gavin spoke with feeling, for the precentor had already put him through his catechism, and it was a stiff ordeal. "the precentor!" said mr. carfrae. "why, he was one of them." the old minister, once so brave a figure, tottered as he rose to go, and reeled in a dizziness until he had walked a few paces. gavin went with him to the foot of the manse road; without his hat, as all thrums knew before bedtime. "i begin," gavin said, as they were parting, "where you leave off, and my prayer is that i may walk in your ways." "ah, mr. dishart," the white-haired minister said, with a sigh, "the world does not progress so quickly as a man grows old. you only begin where i began." he left gavin, and then, as if the little minister's last words had hurt him, turned and solemnly pointed his staff upward. such men are the strong nails that keep the world together. the twenty-one-years-old minister returned to the manse somewhat sadly, but when he saw his mother at the window of her bed-room, his heart leapt at the thought that she was with him and he had eighty pounds a year. gaily he waved both his hands to her, and she answered with a smile, and then, in his boyishness, he jumped over a gooseberry bush. immediately afterwards he reddened and tried to look venerable, for while in the air he had caught sight of two women and a man watching him from the dyke. he walked severely to the door, and, again forgetting himself, was bounding upstairs to margaret, when jean, the servant, stood scandalised in his way. "i don't think she caught me," was gavin's reflection, and "the lord preserves!" was jean's. gavin found his mother wondering how one should set about getting a cup of tea in a house that had a servant in it. he boldly rang the bell, and the willing jean answered it so promptly (in a rush and jump) that margaret was as much startled as aladdin the first time he rubbed his lamp. manse servants of the most admired kind move softly, as if constant contact with a minister were goloshes to them; but jean was new and raw, only having got her place because her father might be an elder any day. she had already conceived a romantic affection for her master; but to say "sir" to him-as she thirsted to do--would have been as difficult to her as to swallow oysters. so anxious was she to please that when gavin rang she fired herself at the bed-room, but bells were novelties to her as well as to margaret, and she cried, excitedly, "what is it?" thinking the house must be on fire. "there's a curran folk at the back door," jean announced later, "and their respects to you, and would you gie them some water out o' the well? it has been a drouth this aucht days, and the pumps is locked. na," she said, as gavin made a too liberal offer, "that would toom the well, and there's jimply enough for oursels. i should tell you, too, that three o' them is no auld lichts." "let that make no difference," gavin said grandly, but jean changed his message to: "a bowlful apiece to auld lichts; all other denominations one cupful." "ay, ay," said snecky hobart, letting down the bucket, "and we'll include atheists among other denominations." the conversation came to gavin and margaret through the kitchen doorway. "dinna class jo cruickshanks wi' me," said sam'l langlands the u. p. "na, na," said cruickshanks the atheist, "i'm ower independent to be religious. i dinna gang to the kirk to cry, 'oh, lord, gie, gie, gie.'" "take tent o' yoursel', my man," said lang tammas sternly, "or you'll soon be whaur you would neifer the warld for a cup o' that cauld water." "maybe you've ower keen an interest in the devil, tammas," retorted the atheist; "but, ony way, if it's heaven for climate, it's hell for company." "lads," said snecky, sitting down on the bucket, "we'll send mr. dishart to jo. he'll make another rob dow o' him." "speak mair reverently o' your minister," said the precentor. "he has the gift." --i hinna naturally your solemn rasping word, tammas, but in the heart i speak in all reverence. lads, the minister has a word! i tell you he prays near like one giving orders." "at first," snecky continued, "i thocht yon lang candidate was the earnestest o' them a", and i dinna deny but when i saw him wi' his head bowed-like in prayer during the singing i says to rnysel', 'thou art the man.' ay, but betsy wraxed up her head, and he wasna praying. he was combing his hair wi' his fingers on the sly." "you ken fine, sneck," said cruickshanks, "that you said, 'thou art the man' to ilka ane o' them, and just voted for mr. dishart because he preached hinmost." "i didna say it to--mr. urquhart, the ane that preached second," sneck said. "that was the lad that gaed through ither." "ay," said susy tibbits, nicknamed by haggart "the timidest woman" because she once said she was too young to marry, "but i was fell sorry for him, just being over anxious. he began bonny, flinging himself, like ane inspired, at the pulpit door, but after hendry munn pointed at it and cried out, 'be cautious, the sneck's loose,' he a' gaed to bits. what a coolness hendry has, though i suppose it was his duty, him being kirk-officer." "we didna want a man," lang tammas said, "that could be put out by sic a sma' thing as that. mr. urquhart was in sic a ravel after it that when he gies out the first line o' the hunder and nineteenth psalm for singing, says he, 'and so on to the end.' ay, that finished his chance." "the noblest o' them to look at," said tibbie birse, "was that ane frae aberdeen, him that had sic a saft side to jacob." "ay," said snecky, "and i speired at dr. mcqueen if i should vote for him. 'looks like a genius, does he?' says the doctor. 'weel, then,' says he, 'dinna vote for him, for my experience is that there's no folk sic idiots as them that looks like geniuses.'" "sal," susy said, "it's a guid thing we've settled, for i enjoyed sitting like a judge upon them so muckle that i sair doubt it was a kind o' sport to me." "it was no sport to them, susy, i'se uphaud, but it is a blessing we've settled, and ondoubtedly we've got the pick o' them. the only thing mr. dishart did that made me oneasy was his saying the word caesar as if it began wi' a k." "he'll startle you mair afore you're done wi' him," the atheist said maliciously. "i ken the ways o' thae ministers preaching for kirks. oh, they're cunning. you was a' pleased that mr. dishart spoke about looms and webs, but, lathies, it was a trick. ilka ane o' thae young ministers has a sermon about looms for weaving congregations, and a second about beating swords into ploughshares for country places, and another on the great catch of fishes for fishing villages. that's their stock-in-trade; and just you wait and see if you dinna get the ploughshares and the fishes afore the month's out. a minister preaching for a kirk is one thing, but a minister placed in't may be a very different berry." "joseph cruickshanks," cried the precentor, passionately, "none o' your d----d blasphemy!" they all looked at whamond, and he dug his teeth into his lips in shame. "wha's swearing now?" said the atheist. but whamond was quick. "matthew, twelve and thirty-one," he said. "dagont, tammas," exclaimed the baffled cruickshanks, "you're aye quoting scripture. how do you no quote feargus o'connor?" "lads," said snecky, "jo hasna heard mr. dishart's sermons. ay, we get it scalding when he comes to the sermon. i canna thole a minister that preaches as if heaven was round the corner." "if you're hitting at our minister, snecky," said james cochrane, "let me tell you he's a better man than yours." "a better curler, i dare say." "a better prayer." "ay, he can pray for a black frost as if it was ane o' the royal family. i ken his prayers, 'o lord, let it haud for anither day, and keep the snaw awa'.' will you pretend, jeames, that mr. duthie could make onything o' rob dow?" "i admit that rob's awakening was an extraordinary thing, and sufficient to gie mr. dishart a name. but mr. carfrae was baffled wi' rob too." "jeames, if you had been in our kirk that day mr. dishart preached for't you would be wearying the now for sabbath, to be back in't again. as you ken, that wicked man there, jo cruickshanks, got rob dow, drucken, cursing, poaching--rob dow, to come to the kirk to annoy the minister. ay, he hadna been at that work for ten minutes when mr. dishart stopped in his first prayer and ga'e rob a look. i couldna see the look, being in the precentor's box, but as sure as death i felt it boring through me. rob is hard wood, though, and soon he was at his tricks again. weel, the minister stopped a second time in the sermon, and so awful was the silence that a heap o' the congregation couldna keep their seats. i heard rob breathing quick and strong. mr. dishart had his arm pointed at him a' this time, and at last he says sternly, 'come forward.' listen, joseph cruickshanks, and tremble. rob gripped the board to keep himsel' frae obeying, and again mr. dishart says, 'come forward,' and syne rob rose shaking, and tottered to the pulpit stair like a man suddenly shot into the day of judgment. 'you hulking man of sin,' cries mr. dishart, not a tick fleid, though rob's as big as three o' him, 'sit down on the stair and attend to me, or i'll step doun frae the pulpit and run you out of the house of god,'" "and since that day," said hobart, "rob has worshipped mr. dishart as a man that has stepped out o' the bible. when the carriage passed this day we was discussing the minister, and sam'l dickie wasna sure but what mr. dishart wore his hat rather far back on his head. you should have seen rob. 'my certie,' he roars, 'there's the shine frae heaven on that little minister's face, and them as says there's no has me to fecht.'" "ay, weel," said the u. p., rising, "we'll see how rob wears--and how your minister wears too. i wouldna like to sit in a kirk whaur they daurna sing a paraphrase." "the psalms of david," retorted whamond, "mount straight to heaven, but your paraphrases sticks to the ceiling o' the kirk." "you're a bigoted set, tammas whamond, but i tell you this, and it's my last words to you the nicht, the day'll come when you'll hae mr. duthie, ay, and even the u. p. minister, preaching in the auld licht kirk." "and let this be my last words to you," replied the precentor, furiously; "that rather than see a u. p. preaching in the auld licht kirk i would burn in hell fire for ever!" this gossip increased gavin's knowledge of the grim men with whom he had now to deal. but as he sat beside margaret after she had gone to bed, their talk was pleasant. "you remember, mother," gavin said, "how i almost prayed for the manse that was to give you an egg every morning. i have been telling jean never to forget the egg." "ah, gavin, things have come about so much as we wanted that i'm a kind o' troubled. it's hardly natural, and i hope nothing terrible is to happen now." gavin arranged her pillows as she liked them, and when he next stole into the room in his stocking soles to look at her, he thought she was asleep. but she was not. i dare say she saw at that moment gavin in his first frock, and gavin in knickerbockers, and gavin as he used to walk into the glasgow room from college, all still as real to her as the gavin who had a kirk. the little minister took away the lamp to his own room, shaking his fist at himself for allowing his mother's door to creak. he pulled up his blind. the town lay as still as salt. but a steady light showed in the south, and on pressing his face against the window he saw another in the west. mr. carfrae's words about the night-watch came back to him. perhaps it had been on such a silent night as this that the soldiers marched into thrums. would they come again? chapter iv. first coming of the egyptian woman. a learned man says in a book, otherwise beautiful with truth, that villages are family groups. to him thrums would only be a village, though town is the word we have ever used, and this is not true of it. doubtless we have interests in common, from which a place so near (but the road is heavy) as tilliedrum is shut out, and we have an individuality of our own too, as if, like our red houses, we came from a quarry that supplies no other place. but we are not one family. in the old days, those of us who were of the tenements seldom wandered to the croft head, and if we did go there we saw men to whom we could not always give a name. to flit from the tanage brae to haggart's road was to change one's friends. a kirkwynd weaver might kill his swine and tillyloss not know of it until boys ran westward hitting each other with the bladders. only the voice of the dulsemen could be heard all over thrums at once. thus even in a small place but a few outstanding persons are known to everybody. in eight days gavin's figure was more familiar in thrums than many that had grown bent in it. he had already been twice to the cemetery, for a minister only reaches his new charge in time to attend a funeral. though short of stature he cast a great shadow. he was so full of his duties, jean said, that though he pulled to the door as he left the manse, he had passed the currant bushes before it snecked. he darted through courts, and invented ways into awkward houses. if you did not look up quickly he was round the corner. his visiting exhausted him only less than his zeal in the pulpit, from which, according to report, he staggered damp with perspiration to the vestry, where hendry munn wrung him like a wet cloth. a deaf lady, celebrated for giving out her washing, compelled him to hold her trumpet until she had peered into all his crannies, with the shorter catechism for a lantern. janet dundas told him, in answer to his knock, that she could not abide him, but she changed her mind when he said her garden was quite a show. the wives who expected a visit scrubbed their floors for him, cleaned out their presses for him, put diamond socks on their bairns for him, rubbed their hearthstones blue for him, and even tidied up the garret for him, and triumphed over the neighbours whose houses he passed by. for gavin blundered occasionally by inadvertence, as when he gave dear old betty davie occasion to say bitterly-"ou ay, you can sail by my door and gang to easie's, but i'm thinking you would stop at mine too if i had a brass handle on't." so passed the first four weeks, and then came the fateful night of the seventeenth of october, and with it the strange woman. family worship at the manse was over and gavin was talking to his mother, who never crossed the threshold save to go to church (though her activity at home was among the marvels jean sometimes slipped down to the tenements to announce). when wearyworld the policeman came to the door "with rob dow's compliments, and if you're no wi' me by ten o'clock i'm to break out again." gavin knew what this meant, and at once set off for rob's. "you'll let me gang a bit wi' you," the policeman entreated, "for till rob sent me on this errand not a soul has spoken to me the day; ay, mony a ane hae i spoken to, but not a man, woman, nor bairn would fling me a word." "i often meant to ask you," gavin said as they went along the tenements, which smelled at that hour of roasted potatoes, "why you are so unpopular." "it's because i'm police. i'm the first ane that has ever been in thrums, and the very folk that appointed me at a crown a week looks upon me as a disgraced man for accepting. it's gospel that my ain wife is short wi' me when i've on my uniform, though weel she kens that i would rather hae stuck to the loom if i hadna ha'en sic a queer richt leg. nobody feels the shame o' my position as i do mysel', but this is a town without pity." "it should be a consolation to you that you are discharging useful duties." "but i'm no. i'm doing harm. there's charles dickson says that the very sicht o' my uniform rouses his dander so muckle that it makes him break windows, though a peaceably-disposed man till i was appointed. and what's the use o' their haeing a policeman when they winna come to the lock-up after i lay hands on them?" "do they say they won't come?" "say? catch them saying onything! they just gie me a wap into the gutters. if they would speak i wouldna complain, for i'm nat'rally the sociablest man in thrums." "rob, however, had spoken to you." "because he had need o' me. that was ay rob's way, converted or no converted. when he was blind drunk he would order me to see him safe hame, but would he crack wi' me? na, na." wearyworld, who was so called because of his forlorn way of muttering, "it's a weary warld, and nobody bides in't," as he went his melancholy rounds, sighed like one about to cry, and gavin changed the subject. "is the watch for the soldiers still kept up?" he asked. "it is, but the watchers winna let me in aside them. i'll let you see that for yoursel' at me head o' the roods, for they watch there in the auld windmill." most of the thrums lights were already out, and that in the windmill disappeared as footsteps were heard. "you're desperate characters," the policeman cried, but got no answer. he changed his tactics. "a fine nicht for the time o' year," he cried. no answer. "but i wouldna wonder," he shouted, "though we had rain afore morning." no answer. "surely you could gie me a word frae ahint the door. you're doing an onlawful thing, but i dinna ken wha you are." "you'll swear to that?" some one asked gruffly. "i swear to it, peter." wearyworld tried another six remarks in vain. "ay," he said to the minister, "that's what it is to be an onpopular man. and now i'll hae to turn back, for the very anes that winna let me join them would be the first to complain if i gaed out o' bounds." gavin found dow at new zealand, a hamlet of mud houses, whose tenants could be seen on any sabbath morning washing themselves in the burn that trickled hard by. rob's son, micah, was asleep at the door, but he brightened when he saw who was shaking him. "my father put me out," he explained, "because he's daft for the drink, and was fleid he would curse me. he hasna cursed me," micah added, proudly, "for an aught days come sabbath. hearken to him at his loom. he daurna take his feet off the treadles for fear o' running straucht to the drink." gavin went in. the loom, and two stools, the one four-footed and the other a buffet, were rob's most conspicuous furniture. a shaving-strap hung on the wall. the fire was out, but the trunk of a tree, charred at one end, showed how he heated his house. he made a fire of peat, and on it placed one end of a tree trunk that might be six feet long. as the tree burned away it was pushed further into the fireplace, and a roaring fire could always be got by kicking pieces of the smouldering wood and blowing them into flame with the bellows. when rob saw the minister he groaned relief and left his loom. he had been weaving, his teeth clenched, his eyes on fire, for seven hours. "i wasna fleid," little micah said to the neighbours afterwards, "to gang in wi' the minister. he's a fine man that. he didna ca' my father names. na, he said, 'you're a brave fellow, rob,' and he took my father's hand, he did. my father was shaking after his fecht wi' the drink, and, says he. 'mr. dishart,' he says, 'if you'll let me break out nows and nans, i could, bide straucht atween times, but i canna keep sober if i hinna a drink to look forrit to.' ay, my father prigged sair to get one fou day in the month, and he said, 'syne if i die sudden, there's thirty chances to one that i gang to heaven, so it's worth risking.' but mr. dishart wouldna hear o't, and he cries, 'no, by god,' he cries, 'we'll wrestle wi' the devil till we throttle him,' and down him and my father gaed on their knees. "the minister prayed a lang time till my father said his hunger for the drink was gone, 'but', he says, 'it swells up in me o' a sudden aye, and it may be back afore you're hame.' 'then come to me at once,' says mr. dishart; but my father says, 'na, for it would haul me into the public-house as if it had me at the end o' a rope, but i'll send the laddie." "you saw my father crying the minister back? it was to gie him twa pound, and, says my father, 'god helping me,' he says, 'i'll droon mysel in the dam rather than let the drink master me, but in case it should get haud o' me and i should die drunk, it would be a michty gratification to me to ken that you had the siller to bury me respectable without ony help frae the poor's rates.' the minister wasna for taking it at first, but he took it when he saw how earnest my father was. ay, he's a noble man. after he gaed awa my father made me learn the names o' the apostles frae luke sixth, and he says to me, 'miss out bartholomew,' he says, 'for he did little, and put gavin dishart in his place.'" feeling as old as he sometimes tried to look, gavin turned homeward. margaret was already listening for him. you may be sure she knew his step. i think our steps vary as much as the human face. my book-shelves were made by a blind man who could identify by their steps nearly all who passed his window. yet he has admitted to me that he could not tell wherein my steps differed from others; and this i believe, though rejecting his boast that he could distinguish a minister's step from a doctor's, and even tell to which denomination the minister belonged. i have sometimes asked myself what would have been gavin's future had he gone straight home that night from dow's. he would doubtless have seen the egyptian before morning broke, but she would not have come upon him like a witch. there are, i dare say, many lovers who would never have been drawn to each other had they met for the first time, as, say, they met the second time. but such dreaming is to no purpose. gavin met sanders webster, the mole-catcher, and was persuaded by him to go home by caddam wood. gavin took the path to caddam, because sanders told him the wild lindsays were there, a gypsy family that threatened the farmers by day and danced devilishly, it was said, at night. the little minister knew them by repute as a race of giants, and that not many persons would have cared to face them alone at midnight; but he was feeling as one wound up to heavy duties, and meant to admonish them severely. sanders, an old man who lived with his sister nanny on the edge of the wood, went with him, and for a time both were silent. but sanders had something to say. "was you ever at the spittal, mr. dishart?" he asked. "lord rintoul's house at the top of glen quharity? no." "hae you ever looked on a lord?" "no." "or on an auld lord's young leddyship? i have." "what is she?" "you surely ken that rintoul's auld, and is to be married on a young leddyship. she's no' a leddyship yet, but they're to be married soon, so i may say i've seen a leddyship. ay, an impressive sicht. it was yestreen." "is there a great difference in their ages?" "as muckle as atween auld peter spens and his wife, wha was saxteen when he was saxty, and she was playing at dumps in the street when her man was waiting for her to make his porridge. ay, sic a differ doesna suit wi' common folk, but of course earls can please themsels. rintoul's so fond o' the leddyship 'at is to be, that when she was at the school in edinbury he wrote to her ilka day. kaytherine crummie telled me that, and she says aince you're used to it, writing letters is as easy as skinning moles. i dinna ken what they can write sic a heap about, but i daur say he gies her his views on the chartist agitation and the potato disease, and she'll write back about the romantic sichts o' edinbury and the sermons o' the grand preachers she hears. sal, though, thae grand folk has no religion to speak o', for they're a' english kirk. you're no' speiring what her leddyship said to me?" "what did she say?" "weel, you see, there was a dancing ball on, and kaytherine crummie took me to a window whaur i could stand on a flower-pot and watch the critturs whirling round in the ball like teetotums. what's mair, she pointed out the leddyship that's to be to me, and i just glowered at her, for thinks i, 'take your fill, sanders, and whaur there's lords and leddyships, dinna waste a minute on colonels and honourable misses and sic like dirt.' ay, but what wi' my een blinking at the blaze o' candles, i lost sicht o' her till all at aince somebody says at my lug, 'well, my man, and who is the prettiest lady in the room?' mr. dishart, it was her leddyship. she looked like a star." "and what did you do?" "the first thing i did was to fall aff the flower-pot; but syne i came to, and says i, wi' a polite smirk, 'i'm thinking your leddyship,' says i, 'as you're the bonniest yourself.'" "i see you are a cute man, sanders.'" "ay, but that's no' a'. she lauched in a pleased way and tapped me wi' her fan, and says she, 'why do you think me the prettiest?' i dinna deny but what that staggered me, but i thocht a minute, and took a look at the other dancers again, and syne i says, michty sly like, 'the other leddies,' i says, 'has sic sma' feet.'" sanders stopped here and looked doubtingly at gavin. "i canna make up my mind," he said, "whether she liked that, for she rapped my knuckles wi' her fan fell sair, and aff she gaed. ay, i consulted tammas haggart about it, and he says, 'the flirty crittur,' he says. what would you say, mr. dishart?" gavin managed to escape without giving an answer, for here their roads separated. he did not find the wild lindsays, however. children of whim, of prodigious strength while in the open, but destined to wither quickly in the hot air of towns, they had gone from caddam, leaving nothing of themselves behind but a black mark burned by their fires into the ground. thus they branded the earth through many counties until some hour when the spirit of wandering again fell on them, and they forsook their hearths with as little compunction as the bird leaves its nest. gavin had walked quickly, and he now stood silently in the wood, his hat in his hand. in the moonlight the grass seemed tipped with hoar frost. most of the beeches were already bare, but the shoots, clustering round them, like children at their mother's skirts, still retained their leaves red and brown. among the pines these leaves were as incongruous as a wedding-dress at a funeral. gavin was standing on grass, but there were patches of heather within sight, and broom, and the leaf of the blaeberry. where the beeches had drawn up the earth with them as they grew, their roots ran this way and that, slippery to the feet and looking like disinterred bones. a squirrel appeared suddenly on the charred ground, looked doubtfully at gavin to see if he was growing there, and then glided up a tree, where it sat eyeing him, and forgetting to conceal its shadow. caddam was very still. at long intervals came from far away the whack of an axe on wood. gavin was in a world by himself, and this might be someone breaking into it. the mystery of woods by moonlight thrilled the little minister. his eyes rested on the shining roots, and he remembered what had been told him of the legend of caddam, how once on a time it was a mighty wood, and a maiden most beautiful stood on its confines, panting and afraid, for a wicked man pursued her; how he drew near, and she ran a little way into the wood, and he followed her, and she still ran, and still he followed, until both were for ever lost, and the bones of her pursuer lie beneath a beech, but the lady may still be heard singing in the woods if the night be fine, for then she is a glad spirit, but weeping when there is wild wind, for then she is but a mortal seeking a way out of the wood. the squirrel slid down the fir and was gone. the axe's blows ceased. nothing that moved was in sight. the wind that has its nest in trees was circling around with many voices, that never rose above a whisper, and were often but the echo of a sigh. gavin was in the caddam of past days, where the beautiful maiden wanders ever, waiting for him who is so pure that he may find her. he will wander over the tree-tops looking for her, with the moon for his lamp, and some night he will hear her singing. the little minister drew a deep breath, and his foot snapped a brittle twig. then he remembered who and where he was, and stooped to pick up his staff. but he did not pick it up, for as his fingers were closing on it the lady began to sing. for perhaps a minute gavin stood stock still, like an intruder. then he ran towards the singing, which seemed to come from windy ghoul, a straight road through caddam that farmers use in summer, but leave in the back end of the year to leaves and pools. in windyghoul there is either no wind or so much that it rushes down the sieve like an army, entering with a shriek of terror, and escaping with a derisive howl. the moon was crossing the avenue. but gavin only saw the singer. she was still fifty yards away, sometimes singing gleefully, and again letting her body sway lightly as she came dancing up windyghoul. soon she was within a few feet of the little minister, to whom singing, except when out of tune, was a suspicious thing, and dancing a device of the devil. his arm went out wrathfully, and his intention was to pronounce sentence on this woman. but she passed, unconscious of his presence, and he had not moved nor spoken. though really of the average height, she was a little thing to the eyes of gavin, who always felt tall and stout except when he looked down. the grace of her swaying figure was a new chapter v. a warlike chapter, culminating in the flouting of the minister by the woman. "mr. dishart!" jean had clutched at gavin in bank street. her hair was streaming, and her wrapper but half buttoned. "oh, mr. dishart, look at the mistress! i couldna keep her in the manse." gavin saw his mother beside him, bare-headed, trembling. "how could i sit still, gavin, and the town full o' the skirls of women and bairns? oh, gavin, what can i do for them? they will suffer most this night." as gavin took her hand he knew that margaret felt for the people more than he. "but you must go home, mother," he said, "and leave me to do my duty. i will take you myself if you will not go with jean. be careful of her, jean." "ay, will i," jean answered, then burst into tears. "mr. dishart,"' she cried, "if they take my father they'd best take my mither too." the two women went back to the manse, where jean re-lit the fire, having nothing else to do, and boiled the kettle, while margaret wandered in anguish from room to room. men nearly naked ran past gavin, seeking to escape from thrums by the fields he had descended. when he shouted to them they only ran faster. a tillyloss weaver whom he tried to stop struck him savagely and sped past to the square. in bank street, which was full move. he had heard the horn. thrice it sounded, and thrice it struck him to the heart. he looked again and saw a shadow stealing along the tenements, then, another, then half-a-dozen. he remembered mr. carfrae's words, "if you ever hear that horn, i implore you to hasten to the square," and in another minute he had reached the tenements. now again he saw the gypsy. she ran past him, half-a-score of men, armed with staves and pikes, at her heels. at first he thought they were chasing her. but they were following her as a leader. her eyes sparkled as she waved them to the square with her arms. "the soldiers, the soldiers!" was the universal cry. "who is that woman?" demanded gavin, catching hold of a frightened old man. "curse the egyptian limmer," the man answered, "she's egging my laddie on to fecht." "bless her rather," the son cried, "for warning us that the sojers is coming. put your ear to the ground, mr. dishart, and you'll hear the dirl o' their feet." the young man rushed away to the square, flinging his father from him. gavin followed. as he turned into the school wynd, the town drum began to beat, windows were thrown open, and sullen men ran out of closes where women were screaming and trying to hold them back. at the foot of the wynd gavin passed sanders webster. "mr. dishart," the mole-catcher cried, "hae you seen that egyptian? may i be struck dead if it's no' her little leddyship." but gavin did not hear him. thing in the world to him. only while she passed did he see her as a gleam of colour, a gypsy elf poorly clad, her bare feet flashing beneath a short green skirt, a twig of rowan berries stuck carelessly into her black hair. her face was pale. she had an angel's loveliness. gavin shook. still she danced onwards, but she was very human, for when she came to muddy water she let her feet linger in it, and flung up her arms, dancing more wantonly than before. a diamond on her finger shot a thread of fire over the pool. undoubtedly she was the devil. gavin leaped into the avenue, and she heard him and looked behind. he tried to cry "woman!" sternly, but lost the word, for now she saw him, and laughed with her shoulders, and beckoned to him, so that he shook his fist at her. she tripped on, but often turning her head beckoned and mocked him, and he forgot his dignity and his pulpit and all other things, and ran after her. up windyghoul did he pursue her, and it was well that the precentor was not there to see. she reached the mouth of the avenue, and kissing her hand to gavin, so that the ring gleamed again, was gone. the minister's one thought was to find her, but he searched in vain. she might be crossing the hill on her way to thrums, or perhaps she was still laughing at him from behind a tree. after a longer time than he was aware of, gavin realised that his boots were chirping and his trousers streaked with mud. then he abandoned the search and hastened homewards in a rage. from the hill to the manse the nearest way is down two fields, and the little minister descended them rapidly. thrums, which is red in daylight, was grey and still as the cemetery. he had glimpses of several of its deserted streets. to the south the watch-light showed brightly, but no other was visible. so it seemed to gavin, and then--suddenly--he lost the power to of people at one moment and empty the next, the minister stumbled over old charles yuill, "take me and welcome," yuill cried, mistaking gavin for the enemy. he had only one arm through the sleeve of his jacket, and his feet were bare. "i am mr. dishart. are the soldiers already in the square, yuill?" "they'll be there in a minute." the man was so weak that gavin had to hold him. "be a man, charles. you have nothing to fear. it is not such as you the soldiers have come for. if need be, i can swear that you had not the strength, even if you had the will, to join in the weavers' riot." "for godsake, mr. dishart," yuill cried, his hands chattering on gavin's coat, "dinna swear that. my laddie was in the thick o' the riot; and if he's ta'en there's the poor's-house gaping for kitty and me, for i couldna weave half a web a week. if there's a warrant agin onybody o' the name of yuill, swear it's me; swear i'm a desperate character, swear i'm michty strong for all i look palsied; and if when they take me, my courage breaks down, swear the mair, swear i confessed my guilt to you on the book." as yuill spoke the quick rub-a-dub of a drum was heard. "the soldiers!" gavin let go his hold of the old man, who hastened away to give himself up. "that's no the sojers," said a woman; "it's the folk gathering in the square. this'll be a watery sabbath in thrums." "rob dow," shouted gavin, as dow flung past with a scythe in his hand, "lay down that scythe." "to hell wi' religion!" rob retorted, fiercely; "it spoils a' thing." "lay down that scythe; i command you." rob stopped undecidedly, then cast the scythe from him, but its rattle on the stones was more than he could bear. "i winna," he cried, and, picking it up, ran to the square. an upper window in bank street opened, and dr. mcqueen put out his head. he was smoking as usual. "mr. dishart," he said, "you will return home at once if you are a wise man; or, better still, come in here. you can do nothing with these people to-night." "i can stop their fighting." "you will only make black blood between them and you." "dinna heed him, mr. dishart," cried some women. "you had better heed him," cried a man. "i will not desert my people," gavin said. "listen, then, to my prescription," the doctor replied. "drive that gypsy lassie out of the town before the soldiers reach it. she is firing the men to a red-heat through sheer devilry." "she brocht the news, or we would have been nipped in our beds," some people cried. "does any one know who she is?" gavin demanded, but all shook their heads. the egyptian, as they called her, had never been seen in these parts before. "has any other person seen the soldiers?" he asked. "perhaps this is a false alarm." "several have seen them within the last few minutes," the doctor answered. "they came from tilliedrum, and were advancing on us from the south, but when they heard that we had got the alarm they stopped at the top of the brae, near t'nowhead's farm. man, you would take these things more coolly if you smoked." "show me this woman," gavin said sternly to those who had been listening. then a stream of people carried him into the square. the square has altered little, even in these days of enterprise, when tillyloss has become newton bank. and the craft head croft terrace, with enamelled labels on them for the guidance of slow people, who forget their address and have to run to the end of the street and look up every time they write a letter. the stones on which the butter-wives sat have disappeared, and with them the clay walls and the outside stairs. gone, too, is the stair of the town-house, from the top of which the drummer roared the gossip of the week on sabbaths to country folk, to the scandal of all who knew that the proper thing on that day is to keep your blinds down; but the townhouse itself, round and red, still makes exit to the south troublesome. wherever streets meet the square there is a house in the centre of them, and thus the heart of thrums is a box, in which the stranger finds himself suddenly, wondering at first how he is to get out, and presently how he got in. to gavin, who never before had seen a score of people in the square at once, here was a sight strange and terrible. andrew struthers, an old soldier, stood on the outside stair of the townhouse, shouting words of command to some fifty weavers, many of them scantily clad, but all armed with pikes and poles. most were known to the little minister, but they wore faces that were new to him. newcomers joined the body every moment. if the drill was clumsy the men were fierce. hundreds of people gathered around, some screaming, some shaking their fists at the old soldier, many trying to pluck their relatives out of danger. gavin could not see the egyptian. women and old men, fighting for the possession of his ear, implored him to disperse the armed band. he ran up the town-house stair, and in a moment it had become a pulpit. "dinna dare to interfere, mr. dishart," struthers said savagely. "andrew struthers," said gavin solemnly, "in the name of god i order you to leave me alone. if you don't," he added ferociously, "i'll fling you over the stair." "dinna heed him, andrew," some one shouted and another cried, "he canna understand our sufferings; he has dinner ilka day." struthers faltered, however, and gavin cast his eye over the armed men. "rob dow," he said, "william carmichael, thomas whamond, william munn, alexander hobart, henders haggart, step forward." these were auld lichts, and when they found that the minister would not take his eyes off them, they obeyed, all save rob dow. "never mind him, rob," said the atheist, cruickshanks, "it's better playing cards in hell than singing psalms in heaven." "joseph cruickshanks," responded gavin grimly, "you will find no cards down there." then rob also came to the foot of the stair. there was some angry muttering from the crowd, and young charles yuill exclaimed, "curse you, would you lord it ower us on week-days as weel as on sabbaths?" "lay down your weapons," gavin said to the six men. they looked at each other. hobart slipped his pike behind his back. "i hae no weapon," he said slily. "let me hae my fling this nicht," dow entreated, "and i'll promise to bide sober for a twelvemonth." "oh, rob, rob!" the minister said bitterly, "are you the man i prayed with a few hours ago?" the scythe fell from rob's hands. "down wi' your pikes," he roared to his companions, "or i'll brain you wi' them." "ay, lay them down," the precentor whispered, "but keep your feet on them." then the minister, who was shaking with excitement, though he did not know it, stretched forth his arms for silence, and it came so suddenly as to frighten the people in the neighboring streets. "if he prays we're done for," cried young charles yuill. but even in that hour many of the people were unbonneted. "oh, thou who art the lord of hosts," gavin prayed, "we are in thy hands this night. these are thy people, and they have sinned; but thou art a merciful god, and they were sore tried, and knew not what they did. to thee, our god, we turn for deliverance, for without thee we are lost." the little minister's prayer was heard all round the square, and many weapons were dropped as an amen to it. "if you fight," cried gavin, brightening as he heard the clatter of the iron on the stones, "your wives and children may be shot in the streets. these soldiers have come for a dozen of you; will you be benefited if they take away a hundred?" "oh, hearken to him," cried many women. "i winna," answered a man, "for i'm ane o' the dozen. whaur's the egyptian?" "here." gavin saw the crowd open, and the woman of windy ghoul come out of it, and, while he should have denounced her, he only blinked, for once more her loveliness struck him full in the eyes. she was beside him on the stair before he became a minister again. "how dare you, woman?" he cried; but she flung a rowan berry at him. "if i were a man," she exclaimed, addressing the people, "i wouldna let myself be catched like a mouse in a trap." "we winna," some answered. "what kind o' women are you," cried the egyptian, her face gleaming as she turned to her own sex, "that bid your men folk gang to gaol when a bold front would lead them to safety? do you want to be husbandless and hameless?" "disperse, i command you!" cried gavin. "this abandoned woman is inciting you to riot." "dinna heed this little man," the egyptian retorted. it is curious to know that even at that anxious moment gavin winced because she called him little. "she has the face of a mischief-maker," he shouted, "and her words are evil." "you men and women o' thrums," she responded, "ken that i wish you weel by the service i hae done you this nicht. wha telled you the sojers was coming?" "it was you; it was you!" "ay, and mony a mile i ran to bring the news, listen, and i'll tell you mair." "she has a false tongue," gavin cried; "listen not to the brazen woman." "what i have to tell," she said, "is as true as what i've telled already, and how true that is you a' ken. you're wondering how the sojers has come to a stop at the tap o' the brae instead o' marching on the town. here's the reason. they agreed to march straucht to the square if the alarm wasna given, but if it was they were to break into small bodies and surround the town so that you couldna get out. that's what they're doing now." at this the screams were redoubled, and many men lifted the weapons they had dropped. "believe her not," cried gavin. "how could a wandering gypsy know all this?" "ay, how can you ken?" some demanded. "it's enough that i do ken," the egyptian answered. "and this mair i ken, that the captain of the soldiers is confident he'll nab every one o' you that's wanted anless you do one thing." "what is 't?" "if you a' run different ways you're lost, but if you keep thegither you'll be able to force a road into the country, whaur you can scatter. that's what he's fleid you'll do." "then it's what we will do." "it is what you will not do," gavin said passionately. "the truth is not in this wicked woman." but scarcely had he spoken when he knew that startling news had reached the square. a murmur arose on the skirts of the mob, and swept with the roar of the sea towards the town-house. a detachment of the soldiers were marching down the roods from the north. "there's some coming frae the east-town end," was the next intelligence; "and they've gripped sanders webster, and auld charles yuill has given himsel' up." "you see, you see," the gypsy said, flashing triumph at gavin. "lay down your weapons," gavin cried, but his power over the people had gone. "the egyptian spoke true," they shouted; "dinna heed the minister." gavin tried to seize the gypsy by the shoulders, but she slipped past him down the stair, and crying "follow me!" ran round the town-house and down the brae. "woman!" he shouted after her, but she only waved her arms scornfully. the people followed her, many of the men still grasping their weapons, but all in disorder. within a minute after gavin saw the gleam of the ring on her finger, as she waved her hands, he and dow were alone in the square. "she's an awfu' woman that," rob said." i saw her lauching." gavin ground his teeth. "rob dow," he said, slowly, "if i had not found christ i would have throttled that woman. you saw how she flouted me?" chapter vi. in which the soldiers meet the amazons of thrums dow looked shamefacedly at the minister, and then set off up the square. "where are you going, rob?" "to gie myself up. i maun do something to let you see there's one man in thrums that has mair faith in you than in a fliskmahoy." "and only one, rob. but i don't know that they want to arrest you." "ay, i had a hand in tying the polissman to the--" "i want to hear nothing about that," gavin said, quickly. "will i hide, then?" "i dare not advise you to do that. it would be wrong." half a score of fugitives tore past the town-house, and were out of sight without a cry. there was a tread of heavier feet, and a dozen soldiers, with several policemen and two prisoners, appeared suddenly on the north side of the square. "rob," cried the minister in desperation, "run!" when the soldiers reached the town-house, where they locked up their prisoners, dow was skulking east-ward, and gavin running down the brae. "they're fechting," he was told, "they're fechting on the brae, the sojers is firing, a man's killed!" but this was an exaggeration. the brae, though short, is very steep. there is a hedge on one side of it, from which the land falls away, and on the other side a hillock. gavin reached the scene to see the soldiers marching down the brae, guarding a small body of policemen. the armed weavers were retreating before them. a hundred women or more were on the hillock, shrieking and gesticulating. gavin joined them, calling on them not to fling the stones they had begun to gather. the armed men broke into a rabble, flung down their weapons, and fled back towards the town-house. here they almost ran against the soldiers in the square, who again forced them into the brae. finding themselves about to be wedged between the two forces, some crawled through the hedge, where they were instantly seized by policemen. others sought to climb up the hillock and then escape into the country. the policemen clambered after them. the men were too frightened to fight, but a woman seized a policeman by the waist and flung him head foremost among the soldiers. one of these shouted "fire!" but the captain cried "no." then came showers of missiles from the women. they stood their ground and defended the retreat of the scared men. who flung the first stone is not known, but it is believed to have been the egyptian. the policemen were recalled, and the whole body ordered to advance down the brae. thus the weavers who had not escaped at once were driven before them, and soon hemmed in between the two bodies of soldiers, when they were easily captured. but for two minutes there was a thick shower of stones and clods of earth. it was ever afterwards painful to gavin to recall this scene, but less on account of the shower of stones than because of the flight of one divit in it. he had been watching the handsome young captain, halliwell, riding with his men; admiring him, too, for his coolness. this coolness exasperated the gypsy, who twice flung at halliwell and missed him. he rode on smiling contemptuously. "oh, if i could only fling straight!" the egyptian moaned. then she saw the minister by her side, and in the tick of a clock something happened that can never be explained. for the moment gavin was so lost in misery over the probable effect of the night's rioting that he had forgotten where he was. suddenly the egyptian's beautiful face was close to his, and she pressed a divit into his hand, at the same time pointing at the officer, and whispering "hit him." gavin flung the clod of earth, and hit halliwell on the head. i say i cannot explain this. i tell what happened, and add with thankfulness that only the egyptian witnessed the deed. gavin, i suppose, had flung the divit before he could stay his hand. then he shrank in horror. "woman!" he cried again. "you are a dear," she said, and vanished. by the time gavin was breathing freely again the lock-up was crammed with prisoners, and the riot act had been read from the town-house stair. it is still remembered that the baron-bailie, to whom this duty fell, had got no further than, "victoria, by the grace of god," when the paper was struck out of his hands. when a stirring event occurs up here we smack our lips over it for months, and so i could still write a history of that memorable night in thrums. i could tell how the doctor, a man whose shoulders often looked as if they had been caught in a shower of tobacco ash, brought me the news to the school-house, and now, when i crossed the fields to dumfounder waster lunny with it, i found birse, the post, reeling off the story to him as fast as a fisher could let out line. i know who was the first woman on the marywell brae to hear the horn, and how she woke her husband, and who heard it first at the denhead and the tenements, with what they immediately said and did. i had from dite deuchar's own lips the curious story of his sleeping placidly throughout the whole disturbance, and on wakening in the morning yoking to his loom as usual; and also his statement that such ill-luck was enough to shake a man's faith in religion. the police had knowledge that enabled them to go straight to the houses of the weavers wanted, but they sometimes brought away the wrong man, for such of the people as did not escape from the town had swopped houses for the night--a trick that served them better than all their drilling on the hill. old yuill's son escaped by burying himself in a peatrick, and snecky hobart by pretending that he was a sack of potatoes. less fortunate was sanders webster, the mole-catcher already mentioned. sanders was really an innocent man. he had not even been in thrums on the night of the rising against the manufacturers, but thinking that the outbreak was to be left unpunished, he wanted his share in the glory of it. so he had boasted of being a ringleader until many believed him, including the authorities. his braggadocio undid him. he was run to earth in a pig-sty, and got nine months. with the other arrests i need not concern myself, for they have no part in the story of the little minister. while gavin was with the families whose bread-winners were now in the lock-up, a cell that was usually crammed on fair nights and empty for the rest of the year, the sheriff and halliwell were in the round-room of the town-house, not in a good temper. they spoke loudly, and some of their words sank into the cell below. "the whole thing has been a fiasco," the sheriff was heard saying, "owing to our failing to take them by surprise. why, three-fourths of those taken will have to be liberated, and we have let the worst offenders slip through our hands." "well," answered halliwell, who was wearing a heavy cloak, "i have brought your policemen into the place, and that is all i undertook to do." "you brought them, but at the expense of alarming the countryside. i wish we had come without you." "nonsense! my men advanced like ghosts. could your police have come down that brae alone to-night?" "yes, because it would have been deserted. your soldiers, i tell you, have done the mischief. this woman, who, so many of our prisoners admit, brought the news of our coming, must either have got it from one of your men or have seen them on the march." "the men did not know their destination. true, she might have seen us despite our precautions, but you forget that she told them how we were to act in the event of our being seen. that is what perplexes me." "yes, and me too, for it was a close secret between you and me and lord rintoul and not half-a-dozen others." "well, find the woman, and we shall get the explanation. if she is still in the town she cannot escape, for my men are everywhere." "she was seen ten minutes ago." "then she is ours. i say, riach, if i were you i would set all my prisoners free and take away a cartload of their wives instead. i have only seen the backs of the men of thrums, but, on my word, i very nearly ran away from the women. hallo! i believe one of your police has caught our virago single-handed." so halliwell exclaimed, hearing some one shout, "this is the rascal!" but it was not the egyptian who was then thrust into the round-room. it was john dunwoodie, looking very sly. probably there was not, even in thrums, a cannier man than dunwoodie. his religious views were those of cruickshanks, but he went regularly to church "on the off-chance of there being a god after all; so i'm safe, whatever side may be wrong." "this is the man," explained a policeman, "who brought the alarm. he admits himself having been in tilliedrum just before we started." "your name, my man?" the sheriff demanded. "it micht be john dunwoodie," the tinsmith answered cautiously. "but is it?" "i dinna say it's no." "you were in tilliedrum this evening?" "i micht hae been." "were you?" "i'll swear to nothing." "why not?" "because i'm a canny man." "into the cell with him," halliwell cried, losing patience. "leave him to me," said the sheriff. "i understand the sort of man. now, dunwoodie, what were you doing in tilliedrum?" "i was taking my laddie down to be prenticed to a writer there," answered dunwoodie, falling into the sheriff's net. "what are you yourself?" "i micht be a tinsmith to trade." "and you, a mere tinsmith, dare to tell me that a lawyer was willing to take your son into his office? be cautious, dunwoodie." "weel, then, the laddie's highly edicated and i hae siller, and that's how the writer was to take him and make a gentleman o' him." "i learn from the neighbours," the policeman explained, "that this is partly true, but what makes us suspect him is this. he left the laddie at tilliedrum, and yet when he came home the first person he sees at the fireside is the laddie himself. the laddie had run home, and the reason plainly was that he had heard of our preparations and wanted to alarm the town." "there seems something in this, dunwoodie," the sheriff said, "and if you cannot explain it i must keep you in custody." "i'll make a clean breast o't," dunwoodie replied, seeing that in this matter truth was best. "the laddie was terrible against being made a gentleman, and when he saw the kind o' life he would hae to lead, clean hands, clean dickies, and no gutters on his breeks, his heart took mair scunner at genteelity than ever, and he ran hame. ay, i was mad when i saw him at the fireside, but he says to me, 'how would you like to be a gentleman yoursel', father?' he says, and that so affected me 'at i'm to gie him his ain way." another prisoner, dave langlands, was confronted with dunwoodie. "john dunwoodie's as innocent as i am mysel," dave said, "and i'm most michty innocent. it wasna john but the egyptian that gave the alarm. i tell you what, sheriff, if it'll make me innocenter-like i'll picture the egyptian to you just as i saw her, and syne you'll be able to catch her easier." "you are an honest fellow," said the sheriff. "i only wish i had the whipping of him," growled halliwell, who was of a generous nature. "for what business had she," continued dave righteously, "to meddle in other folks' business? she's no a thrums lassie, and so i say, 'let the law take its course on her.'" "will you listen to such a cur, riach?" asked halliwell. "certainly. speak out, langlands." "weel, then, i was in the windmill the nicht." "you were a watcher?" "i happened to be in the windmill wi' another man," dave went on, avoiding the officer's question. "what was his name?" demanded halliwell. "it was the egyptian i was to tell you about," dave said, looking to the sheriff. "ah, yes, you only tell tales about women," said halliwell. "strange women," corrected dave. "weel, we was there, and it would maybe be twal o'clock, and we was speaking (but about lawful things) when we heard some ane running yont the road. i keeked through a hole in the door, and i saw it was an egyptian lassie 'at i had never clapped een on afore. she saw the licht in the window, and she cried, 'hie, you billies in the windmill, the sojers is coming!' i fell in a fricht, but the other man opened the door, and again she cries, 'the sojers is coming; quick, or you'll be ta'en.' at that the other man up wi' his bonnet and ran, but i didna make off so smart." "you had to pick yourself up first," suggested the officer. "sal, it was the lassie picked me up; ay, and she picked up a horn at the same time." "'blaw on that,' she cried, 'and alarm the town.' but, sheriff, i didna do't. na, i had ower muckle respect for the law." "in other words," said halliwell, "you also bolted, and left the gypsy to blow the horn herself." "i dinna deny but what i made my feet my friend, but it wasna her that blew the horn. i ken that, for i looked back and saw her trying to do't, but she couldna, she didna ken the way." "then who did blow it?" "the first man she met, i suppose. we a' kent that the horn was to be the signal except wearywarld. he's police, so we kept it frae him." "that is all you saw of the woman?" "ay, for i ran straucht to my garret, and there your men took me. can i gae hame now, sheriff?" "no. you cannot. describe the woman's appearance." "she had a heap o' rowan berries stuck in her hair, and, i think, she had on a green wrapper and a red shawl. she had a most extraordinary face. i canna exact describe it, for she would be lauchin' one second and syne solemn the next. i tell you her face changed as quick as you could turn the pages o' a book. ay, here comes wearywarld to speak up for me." wearyworld entered cheerfully. "this is the local policeman," a tilliedrum officer said; "we have been searching for him everywhere, and only found him now." "where have you been?" asked the sheriff, wrathfully. "whaur maist honest men is at this hour," replied wearyworld; "in my bed." "how dared yon ignore your duty at such a time?" "it's a long story," the policeman answered, pleasantly, in anticipation of a talk at last. "answer me in a word." "in a word!" cried the policeman, quite crestfallen. "it canna be done. you'll need to cross-examine me, too. it's my lawful richt." "i'll take you to the tilliedrum gaol for your share in this night's work if you do not speak to the purpose. why did you not hasten to our assistance?" "as sure as death i never kent you was here. i was up the roods on my rounds when i heard an awfu' din down in the square, and thinks i, there's rough characters about, and the place for honest folk is their bed. so to my bed i gaed, and i was in't when your men gripped me." "we must see into this before we leave. in the meantime you will act as a guide to my searchers. stop! do you know anything of this egyptian?" "what egyptian? is't a lassie wi' rowans in her hair?" "the same. have you seen her?" "that i have. there's nothing agin her, is there? whatever it is, i'll uphaud she didna do't, for a simpler, franker-spoken crittur couldna be." "never mind what i want her for. when did you see her?" "it would be about twal o'clock," began wearyworld unctuously, "when i was in the roods, ay, no lang afore i heard the disturbance in the square. i was standing in the middle o' the road, wondering how the door o' the windmill was swinging open, when she came up to me. "'a fine nicht for the time o' year,' i says to her, for nobody but the minister had spoken to me a' day. "'a very fine nicht,' says she, very frank, though she was breathing quick like as if she had been running, 'you'll be police?' says she. "'i am,' says i, 'and wha be you?' "'i'm just a puir gypsy lassie,' she says. "'and what's that in your hand?' says i. "'it's a horn i found in the wood,' says she, 'but it's rusty and winna blaw.' "i laughed at her ignorance, and says i, 'i warrant i could blaw it,' "'i dinna believe you,' says she. "'gie me haud o't,' says i, and she gae it to me, and i blew some bonny blasts on't. ay, you see she didna ken the way o't. 'thank you kindly,' says she, and she ran awa without even minding to take the horn back again." "you incredible idiot!" cried the sheriff. "then it was you who gave the alarm?" "what hae i done to madden you?" honest wearyworld asked in perplexity. "get out of my sight, sir!" roared the sheriff. but the captain laughed. "i like your doughty policeman, riach," he said. "hie, obliging friend, let us hear how this gypsy struck you. how was she dressed?" "she was snod, but no unca snod," replied weary. world, stiffly. "i don't understand you." "i mean she was couthie, but no sair in order." "what on earth is that?" "weel, a tasty stocky, but gey orra put on." "what language are you speaking, you enigma?" "i'm saying she was naturally a bonny bit kimmer rather than happit up to the nines." "oh, go away," cried halliwell; whereupon weary-world descended the stair haughtily, declaring that the sheriff was an unreasonable man, and that he was a queer captain who did not understand the english language. "can i gae hame now, sheriff?" asked langlands, hopefully. "take this fellow back to his cell," riach directed shortly, "and whatever else you do, see that you capture this woman. halliwell, i am going out to look for her myself. confound it, what are you laughing at?" "at the way this vixen has slipped through your fingers." "not quite that, sir, not quite that. she is in thrums still, and i swear i'll have her before day breaks. see to it, halliwell, that if she is brought here in my absence she does not slip through your fingers." "if she is brought here," said halliwell, mocking him, "you must return and protect me. it would be cruelty to leave a poor soldier in the hands of a woman of thrums." "she is not a thrums woman. you have been told so a dozen times." "then i am not afraid." in the round-room (which is oblong) there is a throne on which the bailie sits when he dispenses justice. it is swathed in red cloths that give it the appearance of a pulpit. left to himself, halliwell flung off his cloak and taking a chair near this dais rested his legs on the bare wooden table, one on each side of the lamp. he was still in this position when the door opened, and two policemen thrust the egyptian into the room. chapter vii. has the folly of looking into a woman's eyes by way of text. "this is the woman, captain," one of the policemen said in triumph; "and, begging your pardon, will you keep a grip of her till the sheriff comes back?" halliwell did not turn his head. "you can leave her here." he said carelessly, "three of us are not needed to guard a woman." "but she's a slippery customer." "you can go," said halliwell; and the policemen withdrew slowly, eyeing their prisoner doubtfully until the door closed. then the officer wheeled round languidly, expecting to find the egyptian gaunt and muscular. "now then," he drawled, "why--by jove!" the gallant soldier was as much taken aback as if he had turned to find a pistol at his ear. he took his feet off the table. yet he only saw the gypsy's girlish figure in its red and green, for she had covered her face with her hands. she was looking at him intently between her fingers, but he did not know this. all he did want to know just then was what was behind the hands. before he spoke again she had perhaps made up her mind about him, for she began to sob bitterly. at the same time she slipped a finger over her ring. "why don't you look at me?" asked halliwell, selfishly. "i daurna." "am i so fearsome?" "you're a sojer, and you would shoot me like a craw." halliwell laughed, and taking her wrists in his hands, uncovered her face. "oh, by jove!" he said again, but this time to himself. as for the egyptian, she slid the ring into her pocket, and fell back before the officer's magnificence. "oh," she cried, "is all sojers like you?" there was such admiration in her eyes that it would have been self-contempt to doubt her. yet having smiled complacently, halliwell became uneasy. "who on earth are you?" he asked, finding it wise not to look her in the face. "why do you not answer me more quickly?" "dinna be angry at that, captain," the egyptian implored. "i promised my mither aye to count twenty afore i spoke, because she thocht i was ower glib. captain, how is't that you're so fleid to look at me?" thus put on his mettle, halliwell again faced her, with the result that his question changed to "where did you get those eyes?" then was he indignant with himself. "what i want to know," he explained severely, "is how you were able to acquaint the thrums people with our movements? that you must tell me at once, for the sheriff blames my soldiers. come now, no counting twenty!" he was pacing the room now, and she had her face to herself. it said several things, among them that the officer evidently did not like this charge against his men. "does the shirra blame the sojers?" exclaimed this quick-witted egyptian. "weel, that cows, for he has nane to blame but himsel'." "what!" cried halliwell, delighted. "it was the sheriff who told tales? answer me. you are counting a hundred this time." perhaps the gypsy had two reasons for withholding her answer. if so, one of them was that as the sheriff had told nothing, she had a story to make up. the other was that she wanted to strike a bargain with the officer. "if i tell you," she said eagerly, "will you set me free?" "i may ask the sheriff to do so." "but he mauna see me," the egyptian said in distress. "there's reasons, captain." "why, surely you have not been before him on other occasions," said halliwell, surprised. "no in the way you mean," muttered the gypsy, and for the moment her eyes twinkled. but the light in them went out when she remembered that the sheriff was near, and she looked desperately at the window as if ready to fling herself from it. she had very good reasons for not wishing to be seen by riach, though fear that he would put her in gaol was not one of them. halliwell thought it was the one cause of her woe, and great was his desire to turn the tables on the sheriff. "tell me the truth," he said, "and i promise to befriend you." "weel, then," the gypsy said, hoping still to soften his heart, and making up her story as she told it, "yestreen i met the shirra, and he tolled me a' i hae telled the thrums folk this nicht." "you can scarcely expect me to believe that. where did you meet him?" "in glen quharity. he was riding on a horse." "well, i allow he was there yesterday, and on horseback. he was on his way back to tilliedrum from lord rintoul's place. but don't tell me that he took a gypsy girl into his confidence." "ay, he did, without kenning. he was gieing his horse a drink when i met him, and he let me tell him his fortune. he said he would gaol me for an impostor if i didna tell him true, so i gaed about it cautiously, and after a minute or twa i telled him he was coming to thrums the nicht to nab the rioters." "you are trifling with me," interposed the indignant soldier. "you promised to tell me not what you said to the sheriff, but how he disclosed our movements to you." "and that's just what i am telling you, only you hinna the rumelgumption to see it. how do you think fortunes is telled? first we get out o' the man, without his seeing what we're after, a' about himsel", and syne we repeat it to him. that's what i did wi' the shirra." "you drew the whole thing out of him without his knowing?" "'deed i did, and he rode awa' saying i was a witch." the soldier heard with the delight of a schoolboy. "now if the sheriff does not liberate you at my request," he said, "i will never let him hear the end of this story. he was right; you are a witch. you deceived the sheriff; yes, undoubtedly you are a witch." he looked at her with fun in his face, but the fun disappeared, and a wondering admiration took its place. "by jove!" he said, "i don't wonder you bewitched the sheriff. i must take care or you will bewitch the captain, too." at this notion he smiled, but he also ceased looking at her. suddenly the egyptian again began to cry. "you're angry wi' me," she sobbed. "i wish i had never set een on you." "why do you wish that?" halliwell asked. "fine you ken," she answered, and again covered her face with her hands. he looked at her undecidedly. "i am not angry with you," he said, gently. "you are an extraordinary girl." had he really made a conquest of this beautiful creature? her words said so, but had he? the captain could not make up his mind. he gnawed his moustache in doubt. there was silence, save for the egyptian's sobs. halliwell's heart was touched, and he drew nearer her, "my poor girl--" he stopped. was she crying? was she not laughing at him rather? he became red. the gypsy peeped at him between her fingers, and saw that he was of two minds. she let her hands fall from her face, and undoubtedly there were tears on her cheeks. "if you're no angry wi' me," she said, sadly, "how will you no look at me?" "i am looking at you now." he was very close to her, and staring into her wonderful eyes. i am older than the captain, and those eyes have dazzled me. "captain dear." she put her hand in his. his chest rose. he knew she was seeking to beguile him, but he could not take his eyes off hers. he was in a worse plight than a woman listening to the first whisper of love. now she was further from him, but the spell held. she reached the door, without taking her eyes from his face. for several seconds he had been as a man mesmerised. just in time he came to. it was when she turned from him to find the handle of the door. she was turning it when his hand fell on hers so suddenly that she screamed. he twisted her round. "sit down there," he said hoarsely, pointing to the chair upon which he had flung his cloak. she dared not disobey. then he leant against the door, his back to her, for just then he wanted no one to see his face. the gypsy sat very still and a little frightened. halliwell opened the door presently, and called to the soldier on duty below. "davidson, see if you can find the sheriff. i want him. and davidson--" the captain paused. "yes," he muttered, and the old soldier marvelled at his words, "it is better. davidson, lock this door on the outside." davidson did as he was ordered, and again the egyptian was left alone with halliwell. "afraid of a woman!" she said, contemptuously, though her heart sank when she heard the key turn in the lock. "i admit it," he answered, calmly. he walked up and down the room, and she sat silently watching him. "that story of yours about the sheriff was not true," he said at last. "i suspect it wasna," answered the egyptian coolly, "hae you been thinking about it a' this time? captains i could tell you what you're thinking now. you're wishing it had been true, so that the ane o' you couldna lauch at the other." "silence!" said the captain, and not another word would he speak until he heard the sheriff coming up the stair. the egyptian trembled at his step, and rose in desperation. "why is the door locked?" cried the sheriff, shaking it. "all right," answered halliwell; "the key is on your side." at that moment the egyptian knocked the lamp off the table, and the room was at once in darkness. the officer sprang at her, and, catching her by the skirt, held on. "why are you in darkness?" asked the sheriff, as he entered. "shut the door," cried halliwell. "put your back to it." "don't tell me the woman has escaped?" "i have her, i have her! she capsized the lamp, the little jade. shut the door." still keeping firm hold of her, as he thought, the captain relit the lamp with his other hand. it showed an extraordinary scene. the door was shut, and the sheriff was guarding it. halliwell was clutching the cloth of the bailie's seat. there was no egyptian. a moment passed before either man found his tongue. "open the door. after her!" cried halliwell. but the door would not open. the egyptian had fled and locked it behind her. what the two men said to each other, it would not be fitting to tell. when davidson, who had been gossiping at the corner of the town-house, released his captain and the sheriff, the gypsy had been gone for some minutes. "but she shan't escape us," riach cried, and hastened out to assist in the pursuit. halliwell was in such a furious temper that he called up davidson and admonished him for neglect of duty. chapter viii. 3 a.m.--monstrous audacity of the woman. not till the stroke of three did gavin turn homeward, with the legs of a ploughman, and eyes rebelling against over-work. seeking to comfort his dejected people, whose courage lay spilt on the brae, he had been in as many houses as the policemen. the soldiers marching through the wynds came frequently upon him, and found it hard to believe that he was always the same one. they told afterwards that thrums was remarkable for the ferocity of its women, and the number of its little ministers. the morning was nipping cold, and the streets were deserted, for the people had been ordered within doors. as he crossed the roods, gavin saw a gleam of red-coats. in the back wynd he heard a bugle blown. a stir in the banker's close spoke of another seizure. at the top of the school wynd two policeman, of whom one was wearyworld, stopped the minister with the flash of a lantern. "we dauredna let you pass, sir," the tilliedrum man said, "without a good look at you. that's the orders." "i hereby swear," said wearyworld, authoritatively, "that this is no the egyptian. signed, peter spens, policeman, called by the vulgar, wearyworld. mr. dishart, you can pass, unless you'll bide a wee and gie us your crack." "you have not found the gypsy, then?" gavin asked. "no," the other policeman said, "but we ken she's within cry o' this very spot, and escape she canna." "what mortal man can do," wearyworld said, "we're doing: ay, and mair, but she's auld wecht, and may find bilbie in queer places. mr. dishart, my official opinion is that this egyptian is fearsomely like my snuff-spoon. i've kent me drap that spoon on the fender, and be beat to find it in an hour. and yet, a' the time i was sure it was there. this is a gey mysterious world, and women's the uncanniest things in't. it's hardly mous to think how uncanny they are." "this one deserves to be punished," gavin said, firmly; "she incited the people to riot." "she did," agreed weary world, who was supping ravenously on sociability; "ay, she even tried her tricks on me, so that them that kens no better thinks she fooled me. but she's cracky. to gie her her due, she's cracky, and as for her being a cuttie, you've said yoursel, mr. dishart, that we're all desperately wicked, but we're sair tried. has it ever struck you that the trouts bites best on the sabbath? god's critturs tempting decent men." "come alang," cried the tilliedrum man, impatiently. "i'm coming, but i maun give mr. dishart permission to pass first. hae you heard, mr. dishart," wearyworld whispered, "that the egyptian diddled baith the captain and the shirra? it's my official opinion that she's no better than a roasted onion, the which, if you grip it firm, jumps out o' sicht, leaving its coat in your fingers. mr. dishart, you can pass." the policeman turned down the school wynd, and gavin, who had already heard exaggerated accounts of the strange woman's escape from the town-house, proceeded along the tenements. he walked in the black shadows of the houses, though across the way there was the morning light. in talking of the gypsy, the little minister had, as it were, put on the black cap; but now, even though he shook his head angrily with every thought of her, the scene in windyghoul glimmered before his eyes. sometimes when he meant to frown he only sighed, and then having sighed he shook himself. he was unpleasantly conscious of his right hand, which had flung the divit. ah, she was shameless, and it would be a bright day for thrums that saw the last of her. he hoped the policemen would succeed in--. it was the gladsomeness of innocence that he had seen dancing in the moonlight. a mere woman could not be like that. how soft--. and she had derided him; he, the auld licht minister of thrums, had been flouted before his people by a hussy. she was without reverence, she knew no difference between an auld licht minister, whose duty it was to speak and hers to listen, and herself. this woman deserved to be--. and the look she cast behind her as she danced and sang! it was sweet, so wistful; the presence of purity had silenced him. purity! who had made him fling that divit? he would think no more of her. let it suffice that he knew what she was. he would put her from his thoughts. was it a ring on her finger? fifty yards in front of him gavin saw the road end in a wall of soldiers. they were between him and the manse, and he was still in darkness. no sound reached him, save the echo of his own feet. but was it an echo? he stopped, and turned round sharply. now he heard nothing, he saw nothing. yet was not that a human figure standing motionless in the shadow behind? he walked on, and again heard the sound. again he looked behind, but this time without stopping. the figure was following him. he stopped. so did it. he turned back, but it did not move. it was the egyptian! gavin knew her, despite the lane of darkness, despite the long cloak that now concealed even her feet, despite the hood over her head. she was looking quite respectable, but he knew her. he neither advanced to her nor retreated. could the unhappy girl not see that she was walking into the arms of the soldiers? but doubtless she had been driven from all her hiding-places. for a moment gavin had it in his heart to warn her. but it was only for a moment. the nest a sudden horror shot through him. she was stealing toward him, so softly that he had not seen her start. the woman had designs on him! gavin turned from her. he walked so quickly that judges would have said he ran. the soldiers, i have said, stood in the dim light. gavin had almost reached them, when a little hand touched his arm. "stop," cried the sergeant, hearing some one approaching, and then gavin stepped out of the darkness with the gypsy on his arm. "it is you, mr. dishart," said the sergeant, "and your lady?" "i--." said gavin. his lady pinched his arm. "yes," she answered, in an elegant english voice that made gavin stare at her, "but, indeed, i am sorry i ventured into the streets to-night. i thought i might be able to comfort some of these unhappy people, captain, but i could do little, sadly little." "it is no scene for a lady, ma'am, but your husband has--. did you speak, mr. dishart?" "yes, i must inf--" "my dear," said the egyptian, "i quite agree witfe you, so we need not detain the captain." "i'm only a sergeant, ma'am." "indeed!" said the egyptian, raising her pretty eyebrows, "and how long are you to remain in thrums, sergeant?" "only for a few hours, mrs. dishart. if this gypsy lassie had not given us so much trouble, we might have been gone by now." "ah, yes, i hope you will catch her, sergeant." "sergeant," said gavin, firmly, "i must--" "you must, indeed, dear," said the egyptian, "for you are sadly tired. good-night, sergeant." "your servant, mrs. dishart. your servant, sir." "but--," cried gavin. "come, love," said the egyptian, and she walked the distracted minister through the soldiers and up the manse road. the soldiers left behind, gavin flung her arm from him, and, standing still, shook his fist in her face. "you--you--woman!" he said. this, i think, was the last time he called her a woman. but she was clapping her hands merrily. "it was beautiful!" she exclaimed. "it was iniquitous!" he answered. "and i a minister!" "you can't help that," said the egyptian, who pitied all ministers heartily. "no," gavin said, misunderstanding her, "i could not help it. no blame attaches to me." "i meant that you could not help being a minister, you could have helped saving me, and i thank you so much." "do not dare to thank me. i forbid you to say that i saved you. i did my best to hand you over to the authorities." "then why did you not hand me over?" gavin groaned. "all you had to say," continued the merciless egyptian, "was, 'this is the person you are in search of.' i did not have my hand over your mouth. why did you not say it?" "forbear!" said gavin, woefully. "it must have been," the gypsy said, "because you really wanted to help me." "then it was against my better judgment," said gavin. "i am glad of that," said the gypsy. "mr. dishart, i do believe you like me all the time." "can a man like a woman against his will?" gavin blurted out. "of course he can," said the egyptian, speaking as one who knew. "that is the very nicest way to be liked." seeing how agitated gavin was, remorse filled her, and she said in a wheedling voice-"it is all over, and no one will know." passion sat on the minister's brow, but he said nothing, for the gypsy's face had changed with her voice, and the audacious woman was become a child. "i am very sorry," she said, as if he had caught her stealing jam. the hood had fallen back, and she looked pleadingly at him. she had the appearance of one who was entirely in his hands. there was a torrent of words in gavin, but only these trickled forth-"i don't understand you." "you are not angry any more?" pleaded the egyptian. "angry!" he cried, with the righteous rage of one who when his leg is being sawn off is asked gently if it hurts him. "i know you are,' she sighed, and the sigh meant that men are strange. "have you no respect for law and order?" demanded gavin. "not much," she answered, honestly. he looked down the road to where the red-coats were still visible, and his face became hard. she read his thoughts. "no," she said, becoming a woman again, "it is not yet too late. why don't you shout to them?" she was holding herself like a queen, but there was no stiffness in her. they might have been a pair of lovers, and she the wronged one. again she looked timidly at him, and became beautiful in a new way. her eyes said that lie was very cruel, and she was only keeping back her tears till he had gone. more dangerous than her face was her manner, which gave gavin the privilege of making her unhappy; it permitted him to argue with her; it never implied that though he raged at her he must stand afar off; it called him a bully, but did not end the conversation. now (but perhaps i should not tell this) unless she is his wife a man is shot with a thrill of exultation every time a pretty woman allows him to upbraid her. "i do not understand you," gavin repeated weakly, and the gypsy bent her head under this terrible charge. "only a few hours ago," he continued, "you were a gypsy girl in a fantastic dress, barefooted--" the egyptian's bare foot at once peeped out mischievously from beneath the cloak, then again retired into hiding. "you spoke as broadly," complained the minister, somewhat taken aback by this apparition, "as any woman in thrums, and now you fling a cloak over your shoulders, and immediately become a fine lady. who are you?" "perhaps," answered the egyptian, "it is the cloak that has bewitched me." she slipped out of it. "ay, ay, ou losh?" she said, as if surprised, "it was just the cloak that did it, for now i'm a puir ignorant bit lassie again. my, certie, but claithes does make a differ to a woman?" this was sheer levity, and gavin walked scornfully away from it. "yet, if you will not tell me who you are," he said, looking over his shoulder, "tell me where you got the cloak." "na faags," replied the gypsy out of the cloak. "really, mr. dishart, you had better not ask," she added, replacing it over her. she followed him, meaning to gain the open by the fields to the north of the manse. "good-bye," she said, holding out her hand, "if you are not to give me up." "i am not a policeman," replied gavin, but he would not take her hand. "surely, we part friends, then?" said the egyptian, sweetly. "no," gavin answered. "i hope never to see your face again." "i cannot help," the egyptian said, with dignity, "your not liking my face." then, with less dignity, she added, "there is a splotch of mud on your own, little minister; it came off the divit you flung at the captain." with this parting shot she tripped past him, and gavin would not let his eyes follow her. it was not the mud on his face that distressed him, nor even the hand that had flung the divit. it was the word "little." though, even margaret was not aware of it, gavin's shortness had grieved him all his life. there had been times when he tried to keep the secret from himself. in his boyhood he had sought a remedy by getting his larger comrades to stretch him. in the company of tall men he was always selfconscious. in the pulpit he looked darkly at his congregation when he asked them who, by taking thought, could add a cubit to his stature. when standing on a hearthrug his heels were frequently on the fender. in his bedroom he has stood on a footstool and surveyed himself in the mirror. once he fastened high heels to his boots, being ashamed to ask hendry munn to do it for him; but this dishonesty shamed him, and he tore them off. so the egyptian had put a needle into his pride, and he walked to the manse gloomily. margaret was at her window, looking for him, and he saw her though she did not see him. he was stepping into the middle of the road to wave his hand to her, when some sudden weakness made him look towards the fields instead. the egyptian saw him and nodded thanks for his interest in her, but he scowled and pretended to be studying the sky. next moment he saw her running back to him. "there are soldiers at the top of the field," she cried. "i cannot escape that way." "there is no other way," gavin answered. "will you not help me again?" she entreated. she should not have said "again." gavin shook his head, but pulled her closer to the manse dyke, for his mother was still in sight. "why do you do that?" the girl asked, quickly, looking round to see if she were pursued. "oh, i see," she said, as her eyes fell on the figure at the window. "it is my mother," gavin said, though he need not have explained, unless he wanted the gypsy to know that he was a bachelor. "only your mother?" "only! let me tell you she may suffer more than you for your behaviour to-night!" "how can she?" "if you are caught, will it not be discovered that i helped you to escape?" "but you said you did not." "yes, i helped you," gavin admitted. "my god! what would my congregation say if they knew i had let you pass yourself off as-as my wife?" he struck his brow, and the egyptian had the propriety to blush. "it is not the punishment from men i am afraid of," gavin said, bitterly, "but from my conscience. no, that is not true. i do fear exposure, but for my mother's sake. look at her; she is happy, because she thinks me good and true; she has had such trials as you cannot know of, and now, when at last i seemed able to do something for her, you destroy her happiness. you have her life in your hands." the egyptian turned her back upon him, and one of her feet tapped angrily on the dry ground. then, child of impulse as she always was, she flashed an indignant glance at him, and walked quickly down the road. "where are you going?" he cried. "to give myself up. you need not be alarmed; i will clear you." there was not a shake in her voice, and she spoke without looking back. "stop!" gavin called, but she would not, until his hand touched her shoulder. "what do you want?" she asked. "why--" whispered gavin, giddily, "why--why do you not hide in the manse garden?--no one will look for you there." there were genuine tears in the gypsy's eyes now. "you are a good man," she said; "i like you." "don't say that," gavin cried in horror. "there is a summer-seat in the garden." then he hurried from her, and without looking to see if she took his advice, hastened to the manse. once inside, he snibbed the door. chapter ix. the woman considered in absence--adventures of a military cloak. about six o'clock margaret sat up suddenly in bed, with the conviction that she had slept in. to her this was to ravel the day: a dire thing. the last time it happened gavin, softened by her distress, had condensed morning worship into a sentence that she might make up on the clock. her part on waking was merely to ring her bell, and so rouse jean, for margaret had given gavin a promise to breakfast in bed, and remain there till her fire was lit. accustomed all her life, however, to early rising, her feet were usually on the floor before she remembered her vow, and then it was but a step to the window to survey the morning. to margaret, who seldom went out, the weather was not of great moment, while it mattered much to gavin, yet she always thought of it the first thing, and he not at all until he had to decide whether his companion should be an umbrella or a staff. on this morning margaret only noticed that there had been rain since gavin came in. forgetting that the water obscuring the outlook was on the other side of the panes, she tried to brush it away with her fist. it was of the soldiers she was thinking. they might have been awaiting her appearance at the window as their signal to depart, for hardly had she raised the blind when they began their march out of thrums. from the manse she could not see them, but she heard them, and she saw some people at the tenements run to their houses at sound of the drum. other persons, less timid, followed the enemy with execrations halfway to tilliedrum. margaret, the only person, as it happened, then awake in the manse, stood listening for some time. in the summer-seat of the garden, however, there was another listener protected from her sight by thin spars. despite the lateness of the hour margaret was too soft-hearted to rouse jean, who had lain down in her clothes, trembling for her father. she went instead into gavin's room to look admiringly at him as he slept. often gavin woke to find that his mother had slipped in to save him the enormous trouble of opening a drawer for a clean collar, or of pouring the water into the basin with his own hand. sometimes he caught her in the act of putting thick socks in the place of thin ones, and, it must be admitted that her passion for keeping his belongings in boxes, and the boxes in secret places, and the secret places at the back of drawers, occasionally led to their being lost when wanted. "they are safe, at any rate, for i put them away some gait," was then magaret's comfort, but less soothing to gavin. yet if he upbraided her in his hurry, it was to repent bitterly his temper the next instant, and to feel its effects more than she, temper being a weapon that we hold by the blade. when he awoke and saw her in his room he would pretend, unless he felt called upon to rage at her for selfneglect, to be still asleep, and then be filled with tenderness for her. a great writer has spoken sadly of the shock it would be to a mother to know her boy as he really is, but i think she often knows him better than he is known to cynical friends. we should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours. on this morning margaret only opened gavin's door to stand and look, for she was fearful of awakening him after his heavy night. even before she saw that he still slept she noticed with surprise that, for the first time since he came to thrums, he had put on his shutters. she concluded that he had done this lest the light should rouse him. he was not sleeping pleasantly, for now he put his open hand before his face, as if to guard himself, and again he frowned and seemed to draw back from something. he pointed his finger sternly to the north, ordering the weavers, his mother thought, to return to their homes, and then he muttered to himself so that she heard the words, "and if thy right hand offend thee cut it off, and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." then suddenly he bent forward, his eyes open and fixed on the window. thus he sat, for the space of half a minute, like one listening with painful intentness. when he lay back margaret slipped away. she knew he was living the night over again, but not of the divit his right hand had cast, nor of the woman in the garden. gavin was roused presently by the sound of voices from margaret's room, where jean, who had now gathered much news, was giving it to her mistress. jean's cheerfulness would have told him that her father was safe had he not wakened to thoughts of the egyptian. i suppose he was at the window in an instant, unsnibbing the shutters and looking out as cautiously as a burglar might have looked in. the egyptian was gone from the summer-seat. he drew a great breath. but his troubles were not over. he had just lifted his ewer of water when these words from the kitchen capsized it:-"ay, an egyptian. that's what the auld folk call a gypsy. weel, mrs. dishart, she led police and sojers sic a dance through thrums as would baffle description, though i kent the fits and fors o't as i dinna. ay, but they gripped her in the end, and the queer thing is--" gavin listened to no more. he suddenly sat down. the queer thing, of course, was that she had been caught in his garden. yes, and doubtless queerer things about this hussy and her "husband" were being bawled from door to door. to the girl's probable sufferings he gave no heed. what kind of man had he been a few hours ago to yield to the machinations of a woman who was so obviously the devil? now he saw his folly in the face. the tray in jean's hands clattered against the dresser, and gavin sprang from his chair. he thought it was his elders at the front door. in the parlour he found margaret sorrowing for those whose mates had been torn from them, and jean with a face flushed by talk. on ordinary occasions the majesty of the minister still cowed jean, so that she could only gaze at him without shaking when in church, and then because she wore a veil. in the manse he was for taking a glance at sideways and then going away comforted, as a respectable woman may once or twice in a day look at her brooch in the pasteboard box as a means of helping her with her work. but with such a to-do in thrums, and she the possessor of exclusive information, jean's reverence for gavin only took her to-day as far as the door, where she lingered half in the parlour and half in the lobby, her eyes turned politely from the minister, but her ears his entirely. "i thought i heard jean telling you about the capture of the--of an egyptian woman," gavin said to his mother, nervously. "did you cry to me?" jean asked, turning round longingly. "but maybe the mistress will tell you about the egyptian hersel." "has she been taken to tilliedrum?" gavin asked in a hollow voice. "sup up your porridge, gavin," margaret said. "i'll have no speaking about this terrible night till you've eaten something." "i have no appetite," the minister replied, pushing his plate from him. "jean, answer me." "'deed, then," said jean willingly, "they hinna ta'en her to tilliedrum." "for what reason?" asked gavin, his dread increasing. "for the reason that they couldna catch her," jean answered. "she spirited hersel awa', the magerful crittur." "what! but i heard you say----" "ay, they had her aince, but they couldna keep her. it's like a witch story. they had her safe in the townhouse, and baith shirra and captain guarding her, and syne in a clink she wasna there. a' nicht they looked for her, but she hadna left so muckle as a footprint ahint her, and in the tail of the day they had to up wi' their tap in their lap and march awa without her." gavin's appetite returned. "has she been seen since the soldiers went away?" he asked, laying down his spoon with a new fear. "where is she now?" "no human eye has seen her," jean answered impressively. "whaur is she now? whaur does the flies vanish to in winter? we ken they're some gait, but whaur?" "but what are the people saying about her?" "daft things," said jean. "old charles yuill gangs the length o' hinting that she's dead and buried." "she could not have buried herself, jean," margaret said, mildly. "i dinna ken. charles says she's even capable o' that." then jean retired reluctantly (but leaving the door ajar) and gavin fell to on his porridge. he was now so cheerful that margaret wondered. "if half the stories about this gypsy be true," she said, "she must be more than a mere woman." "less, you mean, mother," gavin said, with conviction. "she is a woman, and a sinful one." "did you see her, gavin?" "i saw her. mother, she flouted me!" "the daring tawpie!" exclaimed margaret. "she is all that," said the minister. "was she dressed just like an ordinary gypsy body? but you don't notice clothes much, gavin." "i noticed hers," gavin said, slowly, "she was in a green and red, i think, and barefooted." "ay," shouted jean from the kitchen, startling both of them; "but she had a lang grey-like cloak too. she was seen jouking up closes in't." gavin rose, considerably annoyed, and shut the parlour door. "was she as bonny as folks say?" asked margaret. "jean says they speak of her beauty as unearthly." "beauty of her kind," gavin explained learnedly, "is neither earthly nor heavenly." he was seeing things as they are very clearly now. "what," he said, "is mere physical beauty? pooh!" "and yet," said margaret, "the soul surely does speak through the face to some extent." "do you really think so, mother?" gavin asked, a little uneasily. "i have always noticed it," margaret said, and then her son sighed. "but i would let no face influence me a jot," he said, recovering. "ah, gavin, i'm thinking i'm the reason you pay so little regard to women's faces. it's no natural." "you've spoilt me, you see, mother, for ever caring for another woman. i would compare her to you, and then where would she be?" "sometime," margaret said, "you'll think differently." "never," answered gavin, with a violence that ended the conversation. soon afterwards he set off for the town, and in passing down the garden walk cast a guilty glance at the summer-seat. something black was lying in one corner of it. he stopped irresolutely, for his mother was nodding to him from her window. then he disappeared into the little arbour. what had caught his eye was a bible. on the previous day, as he now remembered, he had been called away while studying in the garden, and had left his bible on the summer-seat, a pencil between its pages. not often probably had the egyptian passed a night in such company. but what was this? gavin had not to ask himself the question. the gypsy's cloak was lying neatly folded at the other end of the seat. why had the woman not taken it with her? hardly had he put this question when another stood in front of it. what was to be done with the cloak? he dared not leave it there for jean to discover. he could not take it into the manse in daylight. beneath the seat was a tool-chest without a lid, and into this he crammed the cloak. then, having turned the box face downwards, he went about his duties. but many a time during the day he shivered to the marrow, reflecting suddenly that at this very moment jean might be carrying the accursed thing (at arms' length, like a dog in disgrace) to his mother. now let those who think that gavin has not yet paid toll for taking the road with the egyptian, follow the adventures of the cloak. shortly after gloaming fell that night jean encountered her master in the lobby of the manse. he was carrying something, and when he saw her he slipped it behind his back. had he passed her openly she would have suspected nothing, but this made her look at him. "why do you stare so, jean?" gavin asked, conscience-stricken, and he stood with his back to the wall until she had retired in bewilderment. "i have noticed her watching me sharply all day," he said to himself, though it was only he who had been watching her. gavin carried the cloak to his bed-room, thinking to lock it away in his chest, but it looked so wicked lying there that he seemed to see it after the lid was shut. the garret was the best place for it. he took it out of the chest and was opening his door gently, when there was jean again. she had been employed very innocently in his mother's room, but he said tartly-"jean, i really cannot have this," which sent jean to the kitchen with her apron at her eyes. gavin stowed the cloak beneath the garret bed, and an hour afterwards was engaged on his sermon, when he distinctly heard some one in the garret. he ran up the ladder with a terrible brow for jean, but it was not jean; it was margaret. "mother," he said in alarm, "what are you doing here?" "i am only tidying up the garret, gavin." "yes, but--it is too cold for you. did jean--did jean ask you to come up here?" "jean? she knows her place better." gavin took margaret down to the parlour, but his confidence in the garret had gone. he stole up the ladder again, dragged the cloak from its lurking place, and took it into the garden. he very nearly met jean in the lobby again, but hearing him coming she fled precipitately, which he thought very suspicious. in the garden he dug a hole, and there buried the cloak, but even now he was not done with it. he was wakened early by a noise of scraping in the garden, and his first thought was "jean!" but peering from the window, he saw that the resurrectionist was a dog which already had its teeth in the cloak. that forenoon gavin left the manse unostentatiously carrying a brown-paper parcel. he proceeded to the hill, and having dropped the parcel there, retired hurriedly. on his way home, nevertheless, he was overtaken by d. fittis, who had been cutting down whins. fittis had seen the parcel fall, and running after gavin, returned it to him. gavin thanked d. fittis, and then sat down gloomily on the cemetery dyke. half an hour afterwards he flung the parcel into a tillyloss garden. in the evening margaret had news for him, got from jean. "do you remember, gavin, that the egyptian every one is still speaking of, wore a long cloak? well, would you believe it, the cloak was captain halliwell's, and she took it from the town-house when she escaped. she is supposed to have worn it inside out. he did not discover that it was gone until he was leaving thrums." "mother, is this possible?" gavin said. "the policeman, wearyworld, has told it. he was ordered, it seems, to look for the cloak quietly, and to take any one into custody in whose possession it was found." "has it been found?" "no." the minister walked out of the parlour, for he could not trust his face. what was to be done now? the cloak was lying in mason baxter's garden, and baxter was therefore, in all probability, within four-and-twenty hours of the tilliedrum gaol. "does mr. dishart ever wear a cap at nichts?" femie wilkie asked sam'l fairweather three hours later. "na, na, he has ower muckle respect for his lum hat," answered sam'l; "and richtly, for it's the crowning stone o' the edifice." "then it couldna hae been him i met at the back o' tillyloss the now," said femie, "though like him it was. he joukit back when he saw me." while femie was telling her story in the tenements, mason baxter, standing at the window which looked into his garden, was shouting, "wha's that in my yard?" there was no answer, and baxter closed his window, under the impression that he had been speaking to a cat. the man in the cap then emerged from the corner where he had been crouching, and stealthily felt for something among the cabbages and pea sticks. it was no longer there, however, and byand-by he retired empty-handed. "the egyptian's cloak has been found," margaret was able to tell gavin next day. "mason baxter found it yesterday afternoon." "in his garden?" gavin asked hurriedly. "no; in the quarry, he says, but according to jean he is known not to have been at the quarry to-day. some seem to think that the gypsy gave him the cloak for helping her to escape, and that he has delivered it up lest he should get into difficulties." "whom has he given it to, mother?" gavin asked. "to the policeman." "and has wearyworld sent it back to halliwell?" "yes. he told jean he sent it off at once, with the information that the masons had found it in the quarry." the next day was sabbath, when a new trial, now to be told, awaited gavin in the pulpit; but it had nothing to do with the cloak, of which i may here record the end. wearyworld had not forwarded it to its owner; meggy, his wife, took care of that. it made its reappearance in thrums, several months after the riot, as two pairs of sabbath breeks for her sons, james and andrew. chapter x. first sermon against women. on the afternoon of the following sabbath, as i have said, something strange happened in the auld licht pulpit. the congregation, despite their troubles, turned it over and peered at it for days, but had they seen into the inside of it they would have weaved few webs until the session had sat on the minister. the affair baffled me at the time, and for the egyptian's sake i would avoid mentioning it now, were it not one of gavin's milestones. it includes the first of his memorable sermons against woman. i was not in the auld licht church that day, but i heard of the sermon before night, and this, i think, is as good an opportunity as another for showing how the gossip about gavin reached me up here in the glen school-house. since margaret and her son came to the manse i had kept the vow made to myself and avoided thrums. only once had i ventured to the kirk, and then, instead of taking my old seat, the fourth from the pulpit, i sat down near the plate, where i could look at margaret without her seeing me. to spare her that agony i even stole away as the last word of the benediction was pronounced, and my haste scandalised many, for with auld lichts it is not customary to retire quickly from the church after the manner of the godless u. p.'s (and the free kirk is little better), who have their hats in their hand when they rise for the benediction, so that they may at once pour out like a burst dam. we resume our seats, look straight before us, clear our throats and stretch out our hands for our womenfolk to put our hats into them. in time we do get out, but i am never sure how. one may gossip in a glen on sabbaths, though not in a town, without losing his character, and i used to await the return of my neighbour, the farmer of waster lunny, and of silva birse, the glen quharity post, at the end of the school-house path. waster lunny was a man whose care in his leisure hours was to keep from his wife his great pride in her. his horse, catlaw, on the other hand, he told outright what he thought of it, praising it to its face and blackguarding it as it deserved, and i have seen him when completely baffled by the brute, sit down before it on a stone and thus harangue: "you think you're clever, catlaw, my lass, but you're mista'en. you're a thrawn limmer, that's what you are. you think you have blood in you. you hae blood! gae away, and dinna blether. i tell you what, catlaw, i met a man yestreen that kent your mither, and he says she was a feikie fushionless besom. what do you say to that?" as for the post, i will say no more of him than that his bitter topic was the unreasonableness of humanity, which treated him graciously when he had a letter for it, but scowled at him when he had none. "aye implying that i hae a letter, but keep it back." on the sabbath evening after the riot, i stood at the usual place awaiting my friends, and saw before they reached me that they had something untoward to tell. the farmer, his wife and three children, holding each other's hands, stretched across the road. birse was a little behind, but a conversation was being kept up by shouting. all were walking the sabbath pace, and the family having started half a minute in advance, the post had not yet made up on them. "it's sitting to snaw," waster lunny said, drawing near, and just as i was to reply, "it is so," silva slipped in the words before me. "you wasna at the kirk," was elspeth's salutation. i had been at the glen church, but did not contradict her, for it is established, and so neither here nor there. i was anxious, too, to know what their long faces meant, and so asked at once-"was mr. dishart on the riot?" "forenoon, ay; afternoon, no," replied waster lunny, walking round his wife to get nearer me. "dominie, a queery thing happened in the kirk this day, sic as--" "waster lunny," interrupted elspeth sharply; "have you on your sabbath shoon or have you no on your sabbath shoon?" "guid care you took i should hae the dagont oncanny things on," retorted the farmer. "keep out o' the gutter, then," said elspeth, "on the lord's day." "him," said her man, "that is forced by a foolish woman to wear genteel 'lastic-sided boots canna forget them till he takes them aff. whaur's the extra reverence in wearing shoon twa sizes ower sma?" "it mayna be mair reverent," suggested birse, to whom elspeth's kitchen was a pleasant place, "but it's grand, and you canna expect to be baith grand and comfortable." i reminded them that they were speaking of mr. dishart. "we was saying," began the post briskly, "that--" "it was me that was saying it," said waster lunny. "so, dominie--" "haud your gabs, baith o' you," interrupted elspeth, "you've been roaring the story to ane another till you're hoarse." "in the forenoon," waster lunny went on determinedly, "mr. dishart preached on the riot, and fine he was. oh, dominie, you should hae heard him ladling it on to lang tammas, no by name but in sic a way that there was no mistaking wha he was preaching at, sal! oh losh! tammas got it strong." "but he's dull in the uptake," broke in the post, "by what i expected. i spoke to him after the sermon, and i says, just to see if he was properly humbled, 'ay, tammas,' i says, 'them that discourse was preached against, winna think themselves seven feet men for a while again.' 'ay, birse,' he answers, 'and glad i am to hear you admit it, for he had you in his eye.' i was fair scunnered at tammas the day." "mr. dishart was preaching at the whole clanjamfray o' you," said elspeth. "maybe he was," said her husband, leering; "but you needna cast it at us, for, my certie, if the men got it frae him in the forenoon, the women got it in the afternoon." "he redd them up most michty," said the post. "thae was his very words or something like them. 'adam,' says he, 'was an erring man, but aside eve he was respectable.'" "ay, but it wasna a' women he meant," elspeth explained, "for when he said that, he pointed his finger direct at t'nowhead's lassie, and i hope it'll do her good." "but i wonder," i said, "that mr. dishart chose such a subject today. i thought he would be on the riot at both services." "you'll wonder mair," said elspeth, "when you hear what happened afore he began the afternoon sermon. but i canna get in a word wi' that man o' mine." "we've been speaking about it," said birse, "ever since we left the kirk door. tod, we've been sawing it like seed a' alang the glen." "and we meant to tell you about it at once," said waster lunny; "but there's aye so muckle to say about a minister. dagont, to hae ane keeps a body out o' langour. ay, but this breaks the drum. dominie, either mr. dishart wasna weel, or he was in the devil's grip." this startled me, for the farmer was looking serious. "he was weel eneuch," said birse, "for a heap o' fowk speired at jean if he had ta'en his porridge as usual, and she admitted he had. but the lassie was skeered hersel', and said it was a mercy mrs. dishart wasna in the kirk." "why was she not there?" i asked anxiously. "oh, he winna let her out in sic weather." "i wish you would tell me what happened," i said to elspeth. "so i will," she answered, "if waster lunny would haud his wheesht for a minute. you see the afternoon diet began in the ordinary way, and a' was richt until we came to the sermon. 'you will find my text,' he says, in his piercing voice, 'in the eighth chapter of ezra.'" "and at thae words," said waster lunny, "my heart gae a loup, for ezra is an unca ill book to find; ay, and so is ruth." "i kent the books o' the bible by heart," said elspeth, scornfully, "when i was a sax year auld." "so did i," said waster lunny, "and i ken them yet, except when i'm hurried. when mr. dishart gave out ezra he a sort o' keeked round the kirk to find out if he had puzzled onybody, and so there was a kind o' a competition among the congregation wha would lay hand on it first. that was what doited me. ay, there was ruth when she wasna wanted, but ezra, dagont, it looked as if ezra had jumped clean out o' the bible." "you wasna the only distressed crittur," said his wife. "i was ashamed to see eppie mclaren looking up the order o' the books at the beginning o' the bible." "tibbie birse was even mair brazen," said the post, "for the sly cuttie opened at kings and pretended it was ezra." "none o' thae things would i do," said waster lunny," and sal, i dauredna, for davit lunan was glowering over my shuther. ay, you may scrowl at me, elspeth proctor, but as far back as i can mind, ezra has done me. mony a time afore i start for the kirk i take my bible to a quiet place and look ezra up. in the very pew i says canny to mysel', 'ezra, nehemiah, esther, job,' the which should be a help, but the moment the minister gi'es out that awfu' book, away goes ezra like the egyptian." "and you after her," said elspeth, "like the weavers that wouldna fecht. you make a windmill of your bible." "oh, i winna admit i'm beat. never mind there's queer things in the world forby ezra. how is cripples aye so puffed up mair than other folk? how does flour-bread aye fall on the buttered side?" "i will mind," elspeth said, "for i was terrified the minister would admonish you frae the pulpit." "he couldna hae done that, for was he no baffled to find ezra himsel'?" "him no find ezra!" cried elspeth. "i hae telled you a dozen times he found it as easy as you could yoke a horse." "the thing can be explained in no other way," said her husband, doggedly, "if he was weel and in sound mind." "maybe the dominie can clear it up," suggested the post, "him being a scholar." "then tell me what happened," i asked. "godsake, hae we no telled you?" birse said. "i thocht we had." "it was a terrible scene," said elspeth, giving her husband a shove. "as i said, mr. dishart gave out ezra eighth. weel, i turned it up in a jiffy, and syne looked cautiously to see how eppie mclaren was getting on. just at that minute i heard a groan frae the pulpit. it didna stop short o' a groan. ay, you may be sure i looked quick at the minister, and there i saw a sicht that would hae made the grandest gape. his face was as white as a baker's, and he had a sort of fallen against the back o' the pulpit, staring demented-like at his open bible." "and i saw him," said birse, "put up his hand atween him and the book, as if he thocht it was to jump at him." "twice," said elspeth, "he tried to speak, and twice he let the words fall." "that," says waster lunny, "the whole congregation admits, but i didna see it mysel', for a' this time you may picture me hunting savage-like for ezra. i thocht the minister was waiting till i found it." "hendry munn," said birse, "stood upon one leg, wondering whether he should run to the session-house for a glass of water." "but by that time," said elspeth, "the fit had left mr. dishart, or rather it had ta'en a new turn. he grew red, and it's gospel that he stamped his foot." "he had the face of one using bad words," said the post, "he didna swear, of course, but that was the face he had on." "i missed it," said waster lunny, "for i was in full cry after ezra, with the sweat running down my face." "but the most astounding thing has yet to be telled," went on elspeth. "the minister shook himsel' like one wakening frae a nasty dream, and he cries in a voice of thunder, just as if he was shaking his fist at somebody--" "he cries," birse interposed, cleverly, "he cries, 'you will find the text in genesis, chapter three, verse six.'" "yes," said elspeth, "first he gave out one text, and then he gave out another, being the most amazing thing to my mind that ever happened in the town of thrums. what will our children's children think o't? i wouldna hae missed it for a pound note." "nor me," said waster lunny, "though i only got the tail o't. dominie, no sooner had he said genesis third and sixth, than i laid my finger on ezra. was it no provoking? onybody can turn up genesis, but it needs an able-bodied man to find ezra." "he preached on the fall," elspeth said, "for an hour and twentyfive minutes, but powerful though he was i would rather he had telled us what made him gie the go-by to ezra." "all i can say," said waster lunny, "is that i never heard him mair awe-inspiring. whaur has he got sic a knowledge of women? he riddled them, he fair riddled them, till i was ashamed o' being married." "it's easy kent whaur he got his knowledge of women," birse explained, "it's a' in the original hebrew. you can howk ony mortal thing out o' the original hebrew, the which all ministers hae at their finger ends. what else makes them ken to jump a verse now and then when giving out a psalm?" "it wasna women like me he denounced," elspeth insisted, "but young lassies that leads men astray wi' their abominable wheedling ways." "tod," said her husband, "if they try their hands on mr. dishart they'll meet their match." "they will," chuckled the post. "the hebrew's a grand thing, though teuch, i'm telled, michty teuch." "his sublimest burst," waster lunny came back to tell me, "was about the beauty o' the soul being everything and the beauty o' the face no worth a snuff. what a scorn he has for bonny faces and toom souls! i dinna deny but what a bonny face fell takes me, but mr. dishart wouldna gie a blade o' grass for't. ay, and i used to think that in their foolishness about women there was dagont little differ atween the unlearned and the highly edicated." the gossip about gavin brought hitherto to the schoolhouse had been as bread to me, but this i did not like. for a minister to behave thus was as unsettling to us as a change of government to londoners, and i decided to give my scholars a holiday on the morrow and tramp into the town for fuller news. but all through the night it snowed, and next day, and then intermittingly for many days, and every fall took the school miles farther away from thrums. birse and the crows had now the glen road to themselves, and even birse had twice or thrice to bed with me. at these times had he not been so interested in describing his progress through the snow, maintaining that the crying want of our glen road was palings for postmen to kick their feet against, he must have wondered why i always turned the talk to the auld licht minister. "ony explanation o' his sudden change o' texts?' birse said, repeating my question. "tod, and there is and to spare, for i hear tell there's saxteen explanations in the tenements alone. as tammas haggart says, that's a blessing, for if there had just been twa explanations the kirk micht hae split on them." "ay," he said at another time, "twa or three even dared to question the minister, but i'm thinking they made nothing o't. the majority agrees that he was just inspired to change his text. but lang tammas is dour. tammas telled the session a queer thing. he says that after the diet o' worship on that eventful afternoon mr. dishart carried the bible out o' the pulpit instead o' leaving that duty as usual to the kirk-officer. weel, tammas, being precentor, has a richt, as you ken, to leave the kirk by the session-house door, just like the minister himsel'. he did so that afternoon, and what, think you, did he see? he saw mr. dishart tearing a page out o' the bible, and flinging it savagely into the session-house fire. you dinna credit it? weel, it's staggering, but there's hendry munn's evidence too. hendry took his first chance o' looking up ezra in the minister's bible, and, behold, the page wi' the eighth chapter was gone. them that thinks tammas wasna blind wi' excitement hauds it had been ezra eighth that gaed into the fire. onyway, there's no doubt about the page's being missing, for whatever excitement tammas was in, hendry was as cool as ever." a week later birse told me that the congregation had decided to regard the incident as adding lustre to their kirk. this was largely, i fear, because it could then be used to belittle the established minister. that fervent auld licht, snecky hobart, feeling that gavin's action was unsound, had gone on the following sabbath to the parish kirk and sat under mr. duthie. but mr. duthie was a close reader, so that snecky flung himself about in his pew in misery. the minister concluded his sermon with these words: "but on this subject i will say no more at present." "because you canna," snecky roared, and strutted out of the church. comparing the two scenes, it is obvious that the auld lichts had won a victory. after preaching impromptu for an hour and twenty-five minutes, it could never be said of gavin that he needed to read. he became more popular than ever. yet the change of texts was not forgotten. if in the future any other indictments were brought against him, it would certainly be pinned to them. i marvelled long over gavin's jump from ezra to genesis, and at this his first philippic against woman, but i have known the cause for many a year. the bible was the one that had lain on the summer-seat while the egyptian hid there. it was the great pulpit bible which remains in the church as a rule, but gavin had taken it home the previous day to make some of its loose pages secure with paste. he had studied from it on the day preceding the riot, but had used a small bible during the rest of the week. when he turned in the pulpit to ezra, where he had left the large bible open in the summer-seat, he found this scrawled across chapter eight:-"i will never tell who flung the clod at captain halliwell. but why did you fling it? i will never tell that you allowed me to be called mrs. dishart before witnesses. but is not this a scotch marriage? signed, babbie the egyptian." chapter xi. tells in a whisper of man's fall during the curling season. no snow could be seen in thrums by the beginning of the year, though clods of it lay in waster lunny's fields, where his hens wandered all day as if looking for something they had dropped. a black frost had set in, and one walking on the glen road could imagine that through the cracks in it he saw a loch glistening. from my door i could hear the roar of curling stones at rashiebog, which is almost four miles nearer thrums. on the day i am recalling, i see that i only made one entry in my diary, "at last bought waster lunny's bantams." well do i remember the transaction, and no wonder, for i had all but bought the bantams every day for a six months. about noon the doctor's dog-cart was observed by all the tenements standing at the auld licht manse. the various surmises were wrong. margaret had not been suddenly taken ill; jean had not swallowed a darning-needle; the minister had not walked out at his study window in a moment of sublime thought. gavin stepped into the dogcart, which at once drove off in the direction of rashie-bog, but equally in error were those who said that the doctor was making a curler of him. there was, however, ground for gossip; for thrums folk seldom called in a doctor until it was too late to cure them, and mcqueen was not the man to pay social visits. of his skill we knew fearsome stories, as that, by looking at archie allardyce, who had come to broken bones on a ladder, he discovered which rung archie fell from. when he entered a stuffy room he would poke his staff through the window to let in fresh air, and then fling down a shilling to pay for the breakage. he was deaf in the right ear, and therefore usually took the left side of prosy people, thus, as he explained, making a blessing of an affliction. "a pity i don't hear better?" i have heard him say. "not at all. if my misfortune, as you call it, were to be removed, you can't conceive how i should miss my deaf ear." he was a fine fellow, though brusque, and i never saw him without his pipe until two days before we buried him, which was five-and-twenty years ago come martinmas. "we're all quite weel," jean said apprehensively as she answered his knock on the manse door, and she tried to be pleasant, too, for well she knew that, if a doctor willed it, she could have fever in five minutes. "ay, jean, i'll soon alter that," he replied ferociously. "is the master in?" "he's at his sermon," jean said with importance. to interrupt the minister at such a moment seemed sacrilege to her, for her up-bringing had been good. her mother had once fainted in the church, but though the family's distress was great, they neither bore her out, nor signed to the kirk-officer to bring water. they propped her up in the pew in a respectful attitude, joining in the singing meanwhile, and she recovered in time to look up 2nd chronicles, 21st and 7th. "tell him i want to speak to him at the door," said the doctor fiercely, "or i'll bleed you this minute." mcqueen would not enter, because his horse might have seized the opportunity to return stablewards. at the houses where it was accustomed to stop, it drew up of its own accord, knowing where the doctor's "cases" were as well as himself, but it resented new patients. "you like misery, i think, mr. dishart," mcqueen said when gavin came to him, "at least i am always finding you in the thick of it, and that is why i am here now. i have a rare job for you if you will jump into the machine. you know nanny webster, who lives on the edge of windyghoul? no, you don't, for she belongs to the other kirk. well, at all events, you knew her brother, sanders, the mole-catcher?" "i remember him. you mean the man who boasted so much about seeing a ball at lord rintoul's place?" "'the same, and, as you may know, his boasting about maltreating policemen whom he never saw led to his being sentenced to nine months in gaol lately." "that is the man," said gavin. "i never liked him." "no, but his sister did," mcqueen answered, drily, "and with reason, for he was her breadwinner, and now she is starving." "anything i can give her--" "would be too little, sir." "but the neighbours--" "she has few near her, and though the thrums poor help each other bravely, they are at present nigh as needy as herself. nanny is coming to the poorhouse, mr. dishart." "god help her!" exclaimed gavin. "nonsense," said the doctor, trying to make himself a hard man. "she will be properly looked after there, and--and in time she will like it." "don't let my mother hear you speaking of taking an old woman to that place," gavin said, looking anxiously up the stair. i cannot pretend that margaret never listened. "you all speak as if the poorhouse was a gaol," the doctor said testily. "but so far as nanny is concerned, everything is arranged. i promised to drive her to the poorhouse to-day, and she is waiting for me now. don't look at me as if i was a brute. she is to take some of her things with her to the poorhouse, and the rest is to be left until sanders's return, when she may rejoin him. at least we said that to her to comfort her." "you want me to go with you?" "yes, though i warn you it may be a distressing scene; indeed, the truth is that i am loth to face nanny alone to-day. mr. duthie should have accompanied me, for the websters are established kirk; ay, and so he would if rashie-bog had not been bearing. a terrible snare this curling, mr. dishart"--here the doctor sighed--"i have known mr. duthie wait until midnight struck on sabbath and then be off to rashie-bog with a torch." "i will go with you," gavin said, putting on his coat. "jump in then. you won't smoke? i never see a respectable man not smoking, sir, but i feel indignant with him for such sheer waste of time." gavin smiled at this, and snecky hobart, who happened to be keeking over the manse dyke, bore the news to the tenements. "i'll no sleep the nicht," snecky said, "for wondering what made the minister lauch. ay, it would be no trifle." a minister, it is certain, who wore a smile on his face would never have been called to the auld licht kirk, for life is a wrestle with the devil, and only the frivolous think to throw him without taking off their coats. yet, though gavin's zeal was what the congregation reverenced, many loved him privately for his boyishness. he could unbend at marriages, of which he had six on the last day of the year, and at every one of them he joked (the same joke) like a layman. some did not approve of his playing at the teetotum for ten minutes with kitty dundas's invalid son, but the way kitty boasted about it would have disgusted anybody. at the present day there are probably a score of gavins in thrums, all called after the little minister, and there is one gavinia, whom he hesitated to christen. he made humorous remarks (the same remark) about all these children, and his smile as he patted their heads was for thinking over when one's work was done for the day. the doctor's horse clattered up the backwynd noisily, as if a minister behind made no difference to it. instead of climbing the roods, however, the nearest way to nanny's, it went westward, which gavin, in a reverie, did not notice. the truth must be told. the egyptian was again in his head. "have i fallen deaf in the left ear, too?" said the doctor. "i see your lips moving, but i don't catch a syllable." gavin started, coloured, and flung the gypsy out of the trap. "why are we not going up the roods?" he asked. "well," said the doctor slowly, "at the top of the roods there is a stance for circuses, and this old beast of mine won't pass it. you know, unless you are behind in the clashes and clavers of thrums, that i bought her from the manager of a travelling show. she was the horse ('lightning' they called her) that galloped round the ring at a mile an hour, and so at the top of the roods she is still unmanageable. she once dragged me to the scene of her former triumphs, and went revolving round it, dragging the machine after her." "if you had not explained that," said gavin, "i might have thought that you wanted to pass by rashie-bog." the doctor, indeed, was already standing up to catch a first glimpse of the curlers. "well," he admitted, "i might have managed to pass the circus ring, though what i have told you is true. however, i have not come this way merely to see how the match is going. i want to shame mr. duthie for neglecting his duty. it will help me to do mine, for the lord knows i am finding it hard, with the music of these stones in my ears." "i never saw it played before," gavin said, standing up in his turn. "what a din they make! mcqueen, i believe they are fighting!" "no, no," said the excited doctor, "they are just a bit daft. that's the proper spirit for the game. look, that's the baronbailie near standing on his head, and there's mr. duthie off his head a' thegither. yon's twa weavers and a mason cursing the laird, and the man wi' the besom is the master of crumnathie." "a democracy, at all events," said gavin. "by no means," said the doctor, "it's an aristocracy of intellect. gee up, lightning, or the frost will be gone before we are there." "it is my opinion, doctor," said gavin, "that you will have bones to set before that game is finished. i can see nothing but legs now." "don't say a word against curling, sir, to me," said mcqueen, whom the sight of a game in which he must not play had turned crusty. "dangerous! it's the best medicine i know of. look at that man coming across the field. it is jo strachan. well, sir, curling saved jo's life after i had given him up. you don't believe me? hie, jo, jo strachan, come here and tell the minister how curling put you on your legs again." strachan came forward, a tough, little, wizened man, with red flannel round his ears to keep out the cold. "it's gospel what the doctor says, mr. dishart," he declared. "me and my brither sandy was baith ill, and in the same bed, and the doctor had hopes o' sandy, but nane o' me. ay, weel, when i heard that, i thocht i micht as weel die on the ice as in my bed, so i up and on wi' my claethes. sandy was mad at me, for he was no curler, and he says, 'jo strachan, if you gang to rashie-bog you'll assuredly be brocht hame a corp.' i didna heed him, though, and off i gaed." "and i see you did not die," said gavin. "not me," answered the fish cadger, with a grin. "na, but the joke o't is, it was sandy that died." "not the joke, jo," corrected the doctor, "the moral." "ay, the moral; i'm aye forgetting the word." mcqueen, enjoying gavin's discomfiture, turned lightning down the rashie-bog road, which would be impassable as soon as the thaw came. in summer rashie-bog is several fields in which a cart does not sink unless it stands still, but in winter it is a loch with here and there a spring where dead men are said to lie, there are no rushes at its east end, and here the dog-cart drew up near the curlers, a crowd of men dancing, screaming, shaking their fists and sweeping, while half a hundred onlookers got in their way, gesticulating and advising. "hold me tight," the doctor whispered to gavin, "or i'll be leaving you to drive nanny to the poorhouse by yourself." he had no sooner said this than he tried to jump out of the trap. "you donnert fule, john robbie," he shouted to a player, "soop her up, man, soop her up; no, no, dinna, dinna; leave her alane. bailie, leave her alane, you blazing idiot. mr. dishart, let me go; what do you mean, sir, by hanging on to my coat tails? dang it all, duthie's winning. he has it, he has it!" "you're to play, doctor?" some cried, running to the dog-cart. "we hae missed you sair." "jeames, i--i--. no, i daurna." "then we get our licks. i never saw the minister in sic form. we can do nothing against him." "then," cried mcqueen, "i'll play. come what will, i'll play. let go my tails, mr. dishart, or i'll cut them off. duty? fiddlesticks!" "shame on you, sir," said gavin; "yes, and on you others who would entice him from his duty." "shame!" the doctor cried. "look at mr. duthie. is he ashamed? and yet that man has been reproving me for a twelvemonths because i've refused to become one of his elders. duthie," he shouted," think shame of yourself for curling this day." mr. duthie had carefully turned his back to the trap, for gavin's presence in it annoyed him. we seldom care to be reminded of our duty by seeing another do it. now, however, he advanced to the dog-cart, taking the far side of gavin. "put on your coat, mr. duthie," said the doctor, "and come with me to nanny webster's. you promised." mr. duthie looked quizzically at gavin, and then at the sky. "the thaw may come at any moment," he said. "i think the frost is to hold," said gavin. "it may hold over to-morrow," mr. duthie admitted; "but tomorrow's the sabbath, and so a lost day." "a what?" exclaimed gavin, horrified. "i only mean," mr. duthie answered, colouring, "that we can't curl on the lord's day. as for what it may be like on monday, no one can say. no, doctor, i won't risk it. we're in the middle of a game, man." gavin looked very grave. "i see what you are thinking, mr. dishart," the old minister said doggedly; "but then, you don't curl. you are very wise. i have forbidden my sons to curl." "then you openly snap your fingers at your duty, mr. duthie?" said the doctor, loftily. ("you can let go my tails now, mr. dishart, for the madness has passed.") "none of your virtuous airs, mcqueen," said mr. duthie, hotly. "what was the name of the doctor that warned women never to have bairns while it was hauding?" "and what," retorted mcqueen, "was the name of the minister that told his session he would neither preach nor pray while the black frost lasted?" "hoots, doctor," said duthie, "don't lose your temper because i'm in such form." "don't lose yours, duthie, because i aye beat you." "you beat me, mcqueen! go home, sir, and don't talk havers. who beat you at--" "who made you sing small at--" "who won--" "who--" "who--" "i'll play you on monday for whatever you like!" shrieked the doctor. "if it holds," cried the minister, "i'll be here the whole day. name the stakes yourself. a stone?" "no," the doctor said, "but i'll tell you what we'll play for. you've been dinging me doited about that eldership, and we'll play for't. if you win i accept office." "done," said the minister, recklessly. the dog-cart was now turned toward windyghoul, its driver once more good-humoured, but gavin silent. "you would have been the better of my deaf ear just now, mr. dishart," mcqueen said after the loch had been left behind. "aye, and i'm thinking my pipe would soothe you. but don't take it so much to heart, man. i'll lick him easily. he's a decent man, the minister, but vain of his play, ridiculously vain. however, i think the sight of you, in the place that should have been his, has broken his nerve for this day, and our side may win yet." "i believe," gavin said, with sudden enlightenment, "that you brought me here for that purpose." "maybe," chuckled the doctor; "maybe." then he changed the subject suddenly. "mr. dishart," he asked, "were you ever in love?" "never!" answered gavin violently. "well, well," said the doctor, "don't terrify the horse. i have been in love myself. it's bad, but it's nothing to curling." chapter xii. tragedy of a mud house. the dog-cart bumped between the trees of caddam, flinging gavin and the doctor at each other as a wheel rose on some beech-root or sank for a moment in a pool. i suppose the wood was a pretty sight that day, the pines only white where they had met the snow, as if the numbed painter had left his work unfinished, the brittle twigs snapping overhead, the water as black as tar. but it matters little what the wood was like. within a squirrel's leap of it an old woman was standing at the door of a mud house listening for the approach of the trap that was to take her to the poorhouse. can you think of the beauty of the day now? nanny was not crying. she had redd up her house for the last time and put on her black merino. her mouth was wide open while she listened. if yon had, addressed her you would have thought her polite and stupid. look at her. a flabby-faced woman she is now, with a swollen body, and no one has heeded her much these thirty years. i can tell you something; it is almost droll. nanny webster was once a gay flirt, and in airlie square there is a weaver with an unsteady head who thought all the earth of her. his loom has taken a foot from his stature, and gone are nanny's raven locks on which he used to place his adoring hand. down in airlie square he is weaving for his life, and here is nanny, ripe for the poorhouse, and between them is the hill where they were lovers. that is all the story save that when nanny heard the dog-cart she screamed. no neighbour was with her. if you think this hard, it is because you do not understand. perhaps nanny had never been very lovable except to one man, and him, it is said, she lost through her own vanity; but there was much in her to like. the neighbours, of whom there were two not a hundred yards away, would have been with her now but they feared to hurt her feelings. no heart opens to sympathy without letting in delicacy, and these poor people knew that nanny would not like them to see her being taken away. for a week they had been aware of what was coming, and they had been most kind to her, but that hideous word, the poorhouse, they had not uttered. poorhouse is not to be spoken in thrums, though it is nothing to tell a man that you see death in his face. did nanny think they knew where she was going? was a question they whispered to each other, and her suffering eyes cut scars on their hearts. so now that the hour had come they called their children into their houses and pulled down their blinds. "if you would like to see her by yourself," the doctor said eagerly to gavin, as the horse drew up at nanny's gate, "i'll wait with the horse. not," he added, hastily, "that i feel sorry for her. we are doing her a kindness." they dismounted together, however, and nanny, who had run from the trap into the house, watched them from her window. mcqueen saw her and said glumly, "i should have come alone, for if you pray she is sure to break down. mr. dishart, could you not pray cheerfully?" "you don't look very cheerful yourself," gavin said sadly. "nonsense," answered the doctor. "i have no patience with this false sentiment. stand still, lightning, and be thankful you are not your master today." the door stood open, and nanny was crouching against the opposite wall of the room, such a poor, dull kitchen, that you would have thought the furniture had still to be brought into it. the blanket and the piece of old carpet that was nanny's coverlet were already packed in her box. the plate rack was empty. only the round table and the two chairs, and the stools and some pans were being left behind. "well, nanny," the doctor said, trying to bluster, "i have come, and you see mr. dishart is with me." nanny rose bravely. she knew the doctor was good to her, and she wanted to thank him. i have not seen a great deal of the world myself, but often the sweet politeness of the aged poor has struck me as beautiful. nanny dropped a curtesy, an ungainly one maybe, but it was an old woman giving the best she had. "thank you kindly, sirs," she said; and then two pairs of eyes dropped before hers. "please to take a chair," she added timidly. it is strange to know that at that awful moment, for let none tell me it was less than awful, the old woman was the one who could speak. both men sat down, for they would have hurt nanny by remaining standing. some ministers would have known the right thing to say to her, but gavin dared not let himself speak. i have again to remind you that he was only one-and-twenty. "i'm drouthy, nanny," the doctor said, to give her something to do, "and i would be obliged for a drink of water." nanny hastened to the pan that stood behind her door, but stopped before she reached it. "it's toom," she said. "i--i didna think i needed to fill it this morning." she caught the doctor's eye, and could only half restrain a sob._ "i couldna help that," she said, apologetically. "i'm richt angry at myself for being so ungrateful like." the doctor thought it best that they should depart at once. he rose. "oh, no, doctor," cried nanny in alarm. "but you are ready?" "ay," she said, "i have been ready this twa hours, but you micht wait a minute. hendry munn and andrew allardyce is coming yont the road, and they would see me." "wait, doctor," gavin said. "thank you kindly, sir," answered nanny. "but nanny," the doctor said, "you must remember what i told you about the poo--, about the place you are going to. it is a fine house, and you will be very happy in it." "ay, i'll be happy in't," nanny faltered, "but, doctor, if i could just hae bidden on here though i wasna happy!" "think of the food you will get: broth nearly every day." "it--it'll be terrible enjoyable," nanny said. "and there will be pleasant company for you always," continued the doctor, "and a nice room to sit in. why, after you have been there a week, you won't be the same woman." "that's it!" cried nanny with sudden passion. "na, na; i'll be a woman on the poor's rates. oh, mither, mither, you little thocht when you bore me that i would come to this!" "nanny," the doctor said, rising again, "i am ashamed of you." "i humbly speir your forgiveness, sir," she said, "and you micht bide just a wee yet. i've been ready to gang these twa hours, but now that the machine is at the gate, i dinna ken how it is, but i'm terrible sweer to come awa'. oh, mr. dishart, it's richt true what the doctor says about the--the place, but i canna just take it in. i'm--i'm gey auld." "you will often get out to see your friends," was all gavin could say. "na, na, na," she cried, "dinna say that; i'll gang, but you mauna bid me ever come out, except in a hearse. dinna let onybody in thrums look on my face again." "we must go," said the doctor firmly. "put on your mutch, nanny." "i dinna need to put on a mutch," she answered, with a faint flush of pride. "i have a bonnet." she took the bonnet from her bed, and put it on slowly. "are you sure there's naebody looking?" she asked. the doctor glanced at the minister, and gavin rose. "let us pray," he said, and the three went down on their knees. it was not the custom of auld licht ministers to leave any house without offering up a prayer in it, and to us it always seemed that when gavin prayed, he was at the knees of god. the little minister pouring himself out in prayer in a humble room, with awed people around him who knew much more of the world than he, his voice at times thick and again a squeal, and his hands clasped not gracefully, may have been only a comic figure, but we were oldfashioned, and he seemed to make us better men. if i only knew the way, i would draw him as he was, and not fear to make him too mean a man for you to read about. he had not been long in thrums before he knew that we talked much of his prayers, and that doubtless puffed him up a little. sometimes, i daresay, he rose from his knees feeling that he had prayed well to-day, which is a dreadful charge to bring against anyone. but it was not always so, nor was it so now. i am not speaking harshly of this man, whom i have loved beyond all others, when i say that nanny came between him and his prayer. had he been of god's own image, unstained, he would have forgotten all else in his maker's presence, but nanny was speaking too, and her words choked his. at first she only whispered, but soon what was eating her heart burst out painfully, and she did not know that the minister had stopped. they were such moans as these that brought him back to earth:-"i'll hae to gang... i'm a base woman no' to be mair thankfu' to them that is so good to me... i dinna like to prig wi' them to take a roundabout road, and i'm sair fleid a' the roods will see me... if it could just be said to poor sanders when he comes back that i died hurriedly, syne he would be able to haud up his head ... oh, mither! ... i wish terrible they had come and ta'en me at nicht... it's a dog-cart, and i was praying it micht be a cart, so that they could cover me wi' straw." "this is more than i can stand," the doctor cried. nanny rose frightened. "i've tried you, sair," she said, "but, oh, i'm grateful, and i'm ready now." they all advanced toward the door without another word, and nanny even tried to smile. but in the middle of the floor something came over her, and she stood there. gavin took her hand, and it was cold. she looked from one to the other, her mouth opening and shutting. "i canna help it," she said. "it's cruel hard," muttered the doctor. "i knew this woman when she was a lassie." the little minister stretched out his hands. "have pity on her, o god!" he prayed, with the presumptuousness of youth. nanny heard the words. "oh, god," she cried, "you micht!" god needs no minister to tell him what to do, but it was his will that the poorhouse should not have this woman. he made use of a strange instrument, no other than the egyptian, who now opened the mud-house door. chapter xiii. second coming of the egyptian woman. the gypsy had been passing the house, perhaps on her way to thrums for gossip, and it was only curiosity, born suddenly of gavin's cry, that made her enter. on finding herself in unexpected company she retained hold of the door, and to the amazed minister she seemed for a moment to have stepped into the mud house from his garden. her eyes danced, however, as they recognised him, and then he hardened. "this is no place for you," he was saying fiercely, when nanny, too distraught to think, fell crying at the egyptian's feet. "they are taking me to the poorhouse," she sobbed; "dinna let them, dinna let them." the egyptian's arms clasped her, and the egyptian kissed a sallow cheek that had once been as fair as yours, madam, who may read this story. no one had caressed nanny for many years, but do you think she was too poor and old to care for these young arms around her neck? there are those who say that women cannot love each other, but it is not true. woman is not undeveloped man, but something better, and gavin and the doctor knew it as they saw nanny clinging to her protector. when the gypsy turned with flashing eyes to the two men she might have been a mother guarding her child. "how dare you!" she cried, stamping her foot; and they quaked like malefactors. "you don't see--" gavin began, but her indignation stopped him. "you coward!" she said. even the doctor had been impressed, so that he now addressed the gypsy respectfully. "this is all very well," he said, "but a woman's sympathy--" "a woman!--ah, if i could be a man for only five minutes!" she clenched her little fists, and again turned to nanny. "you poor dear," she said tenderly, "i won't let them take you away." she looked triumphantly at both minister and doctor, as one who had foiled them in their cruel designs. "go!" she said, pointing grandly to the door. "is this the egyptian of the riots," the doctor said in a low voice to gavin, "or is she a queen? hoots, man, don't look so shamefaced. we are not criminals. say something." then to the egyptian gavin said firmly-"you mean well, but you are doing this poor woman a cruelty in holding out hopes to her that cannot be realised. sympathy is not meal and bedclothes, and these are what she needs." "and you who live in luxury," retorted the girl, "would send her to the poorhouse for them. i thought better of you!" "tuts!" said the doctor, losing patience, "mr. dishart gives more than any other man in thrums to the poor, and he is not to be preached to by a gypsy. we are waiting for you, nanny." "ay, i'm coming," said nanny, leaving the egyptian. "i'll hae to gang, lassie. dinna greet for me." but the egyptian said, "no, you are not going. it is these men who are going. go, sirs, and leave us." "and you will provide for nanny?" asked the doctor contemptuously. "yes." "and where is the siller to come from?" "that is my affair, and nanny's. begone, both of you. she shall never want again. see how the very mention of your going brings back life to her face." "i won't begone," the doctor said roughly, "till i see the colour of your siller." "oh, the money," said the egyptian scornfully. she put her hand into her pocket confidently, as if used to well-filled purses, but could only draw out two silver pieces. "i had forgotten," she said aloud, though speaking to herself. "i thought so," said the cynical doctor. "come, nanny." "you presume to doubt me!" the egyptian said, blocking his way to the door. "how could i presume to believe you?" he answered. "you are a beggar by profession, and yet talk as if--pooh, nonsense." "i would live on terrible little," nanny whispered, "and sanders will be out again in august month." "seven shillings a week," rapped out the doctor. "is that all?" the egyptian asked. "she shall have it." "when?" "at once. no, it is not possible to-night, but to-morrow i will bring five pounds; no, i will send it; no, you must come for it." "and where, o daughter of dives, do you reside?" the doctor asked. no doubt the egyptian could have found a ready answer had her pity for nanny been less sincere; as it was, she hesitated, wanting to propitiate the doctor, while holding her secret fast. "i only asked," mcqueen said, eyeing her curiously, "because when i make an appointment i like to know where it is to be held. but i suppose you are suddenly to rise out of the ground as you have done to-day, and did six weeks ago." "whether i rise out of the ground or not," the gypsy said, keeping her temper with an effort, "there will be a five-pound note in my hand. you will meet me tomorrow about this hour at--say the kaims of cushie?" "no," said the doctor after a moment's pause; "i won't. even if i went to the kaims i should not find you there. why can you not come to me?" "why do you carry a woman's hair," replied the egyptian, "in that locket on your chain?" whether she was speaking of what she knew, or this was only a chance shot, i cannot tell, but the doctor stepped back from her hastily, and could not help looking down at the locket. "yes," said the egyptian calmly, "it is still shut; but why do you sometimes open it at nights?" "lassie," the old doctor cried, "are you a witch?" "perhaps," she said; "but i ask for no answer to my questions. if you have your secrets, why may i not have mine? now will you meet me at the kaims?" "no; i distrust you more than ever. even if you came, it would be to play with me as you have done already. how can a vagrant have five pounds in her pocket when she does not have five shillings on her back?" "you are a cruel, hard man," the egyptian said, beginning to lose hope. "but, see," she cried, brightening, "look at this ring. do you know its value?" she held up her finger, but the stone would not live in the dull light. "i see it is gold," the doctor said cautiously, and she smiled at the ignorance that made him look only at the frame. "certainly, it is gold," said gavin, equally stupid. "mercy on us!" nanny cried; "i believe it's what they call a diamond." "how did you come by it?" the doctor asked suspiciously. "i thought we had agreed not to ask each other questions," the egyptian answered drily. "but, see, i will give it to you to hold in hostage. if i am not at the kaims to get it back you can keep it." the doctor took the ring in his hand and examined it curiously. "there is a quirk in this," he said at last, "that i don't like. take back your ring, lassie. mr. dishart, give nanny your arm, and i'll carry her box to the machine." now all this time gavin had been in the dire distress of a man possessed of two minds, of which one said, "this is a true woman," and the other, "remember the seventeenth of october." they were at war within him, and he knew that he must take a side, yet no sooner had he cast one out than he invited it back. he did not answer the doctor. "unless," mcqueen said, nettled by his hesitation, "you trust this woman's word." gavin tried honestly to weigh those two minds against each other, but could not prevent impulse jumping into one of the scales. "you do trust me," the egyptian said, with wet eyes; and now that he looked on her again-"yes," he said firmly, "i trust you," and the words that had been so difficult to say were the right words. he had no more doubt of it. "just think a moment first," the doctor warned him. "i decline to have anything to do with this matter. you will go to the kaims for the siller?" "if it is necessary," said gavin. "it is necessary," the egyptian said. "then i will go." nanny took his hand timidly, and would have kissed it had he been less than a minister. "you dare not, man," the doctor said gruffly, "make an appointment with this gypsy. think of what will be said in thrums." i honour gavin for the way in which he took this warning. for him, who was watched from the rising of his congregation to their lying down, whose every movement was expected to be a text to thrums, it was no small thing that he had promised. this he knew, but he only reddened because the doctor had implied an offensive thing in a woman's presence, "you forget yourself, doctor," he said sharply. "send some one in your place," advised the doctor, who liked the little minister. "he must come himself and alone," said the egyptian. "you must both give me your promise not to mention who is nanny's friend, and she must promise too." "well," said the doctor, buttoning up his coat, "i cannot keep my horse freezing any longer. remember, mr. dishart, you take the sole responsibility of this." "i do," said gavin, "and with the utmost confidence." "give him the ring then, lassie," said mcqueen. she handed the minister the ring, but he would not take it. "i have your word," he said; "that is sufficient." then the egyptian gave him the first look that he could think of afterwards without misgivings. "so be it," said the doctor. "get the money, and i will say nothing about it, unless i have reason to think that it has been dishonestly come by. don't look so frightened at me, nanny. i hope for your sake that her stocking-foot is full of gold." "surely it's worth risking," nanny said, not very brightly, "when the minister's on her side." "ay, but on whose side, nanny?" asked the doctor. "lassie, i bear you no grudge; will you not tell me who you are?" "only a puir gypsy, your honour," said the girl, becoming mischievous now that she had gained her point; "only a wandering hallen-shaker, and will i tell you your fortune, my pretty gentleman?" "no, you shan't," replied the doctor, plunging his hands so hastily into his pockets that gavin laughed. "i don't need to look at your hand," said the gypsy, "i can read your fortune in your face." she looked at him fixedly, so that he fidgeted. "i see you," said the egyptian in a sepulchral voice, and speaking slowly, "become very frail. your eyesight has almost gone. you are sitting alone in a cauld room, cooking your ain dinner ower a feeble fire. the soot is falling down the lum. your bearish manners towards women have driven the servant lassie frae your house, and your wife beats you." "ay, you spoil your prophecy there," the doctor said, considerably relieved, "for i'm not married; my pipe's the only wife i ever had." "you will be married by that time," continued the egyptian, frowning at this interruption, "for i see your wife. she is a shrew. she marries you in your dotage. she lauchs at you in company. she doesna allow you to smoke." "away with you, you jade," cried the doctor in a fury, and feeling nervously for his pipe, "mr. dishart, you had better stay and arrange this matter as you choose, but i want a word with you outside." "and you're no angry wi' me, doctor, are you?" asked nanny wistfully. "you've been richt good to me, but i canna thole the thocht o' that place. and, oh, doctor, you winna tell naebody that i was so near taen to it?" in the garden mcqueen said to gavin:-"you may be right, mr. dishart, in this matter, for there is this in our favour, that the woman can gain nothing by tricking us. she did seem to feel for nanny. but who can she be? you saw she could put on and off the scotch tongue as easily as if it were a cap." "she is as much a mystery to me as to you," gavin answered, "but she will give me the money, and that is all i ask of her." "ay, that remains to be seen. but take care of yourself; a man's second childhood begins when a woman gets hold of him." "don't alarm yourself about me, doctor. i daresay she is only one of those gypsies from the south. they are said to be wealthy, many of them, and even, when they like, to have a grand manner. the thrums people had no doubt but that she was what she seemed to be." "ay, but what does she seem to be? even that puzzles me. and then there is this mystery about her which she admits herself, though perhaps only to play with us." "perhaps," said gavin, "she is only taking precautions against her discovery by the police. you must remember her part in the riots." "yes, but we never learned how she was able to play that part. besides, there is no fear in her, or she would not have ventured back to thrums. however, good luck attend you. but be wary. you saw how she kept her feet among her shalls and wills? never trust a scotch man or woman who does not come to grief among them." the doctor took his seat in the dog-cart. "and, mr. dishart," he called out, "that was all nonsense about the locket." chapter xiv. the minister dances to the woman's piping. gavin let the doctor's warnings fall in the grass. in his joy over nanny's deliverance he jumped the garden gate, whose hinges were of yarn, and cleverly caught his hat as it was leaving his head in protest. he then re-entered the mud house staidly. pleasant was the change. nanny's home was as a clock that had been run out, and is set going again. already the old woman was unpacking her box, to increase the distance between herself and the poorhouse. but gavin only saw her in the background, for the egyptian, singing at her work, had become the heart of the house. she had flung her shawl over nanny's shoulders, and was at the fireplace breaking peats with the leg of a stool. she turned merrily to the minister to ask him to chop up his staff for firewood, and he would have answered wittily but could not. then, as often, the beauty of the egyptian surprised him into silence. i could never get used to her face myself in the after-days. it has always held me wondering, like my own glen quharity on a summer day, when the sun is lingering and the clouds are on the march, and the glen is never the same for two minutes, but always so beautiful as to make me sad. never will i attempt to picture the egyptian as she seemed to gavin while she bent over nanny's fire, never will i describe my glen. yet a hundred times have i hankered after trying to picture both. an older minister, believing that nanny's anguish was ended, might have gone on his knees and finished the interrupted prayer, but now gavin was only doing this girl's bidding. "nanny and i are to have a dish of tea, as soon as we have set things to rights," she told him, "do you think we should invite the minister, nanny?" "we couldna dare," nanny answered quickly, "you'll excuse her, mr. dishart, for the presumption?" "presumption!" said the egyptian, making a face. "lassie," nanny said, fearful to offend her new friend, yet horrified at this affront to the minister, "i ken you mean weel, but mr. dishart'll think you're putting yoursel' on an equality wi' him." she added in a whisper, "dinna be so free; he's the auld licht minister." the gypsy bowed with mock awe, but gavin let it pass. he had, indeed, forgotten that he was anybody in particular, and was anxious to stay to tea. "but there is no water," he remembered, "and is there any tea?" "i am going out for them and for some other things," the egyptian explained. "but no," she continued, reflectively, "if i go for the tea, you must go for the water." "lassie," cried nanny, "mind wha you're speaking to. to send a minister to the well!" "i will go," said gavin, recklessly lifting the pitcher. "the well is in the wood, i think?" "gie me the pitcher, mr. dishart," said nanny, in distress. "what a town there would be if you was seen wi't!" "then he must remain here and keep the house till we come back," said the egyptian, and thereupon departed, with a friendly wave of her hand to the minister. "she's an awfu' lassie," nanny said, apologetically, "but it'll just be the way she has been brought up." "she has been very good to you, nanny." "she has; leastwise, she promises to be. mr. dishart, she's awa'; what if she doesna come back?" nanny spoke nervously, and gavin drew a long face. "i think she will," he said faintly. "i am confident of it," he added in the same voice. "and has she the siller?" "i believe in her," said gavin, so doggedly that his own words reassured him. "she has an excellent heart." "ay," said nanny, to whom the minister's faith was more than the egyptian's promise, "and that's hardly natural in a gaen-aboot body. yet a gypsy she maun be, for naebody would pretend to be ane that wasna. tod, she proved she was an egyptian by dauring to send you to the well." this conclusive argument brought her prospective dower so close to nanny's eyes that it hid the poorhouse. "i suppose she'll gie you the money," she said, "and syne you'll gie me the seven shillings a week?" "that seems the best plan," gavin answered. "and what will you gie it me in?" nanny asked, with something on her mind. "i would be terrible obliged if you gae it to me in saxpences." "do the smaller coins go farther?" gavin asked, curiously. "na, it's no that. but i've heard tell o' folk giving away halfcrowns by mistake for twa-shilling bits; ay, and there's something dizzying in ha'en fower-and-twenty pennies in one piece; it has sic terrible little bulk. sanders had aince a gold sovereign, and he looked at it so often that it seemed to grow smaller and smaller in his hand till he was feared it micht just be a half after all." her mind relieved on this matter, the old woman set off for the well. a minute afterwards gavin went to the door to look for the gypsy, and, behold, nanny was no further than the gate. have you who read ever been sick near to death, and then so far recovered that you could once again stand at your window? if so, you have not forgotten how the beauty of the world struck you afresh, so that you looked long and said many times, "how fair a world it is!" like one who had made a discovery. it was such a look that nanny gave to the hill and caddam while she stood at her garden gate. gavin returned to the fire and watched a girl in it in an officer's cloak playing at hide and seek with soldiers. after a time he sighed, then looked round sharply to see who had sighed, then, absent-mindedly, lifted the empty kettle and placed it on the glowing peats. he was standing glaring at the kettle, his arms folded, when nanny returned from the well. "i've been thinking," she said, "o' something that proves the lassie to be just an egyptian. ay, i noticed she wasna nane awed when i said you was the auld licht minister. weel, i'se uphaud that came frae her living ower muckle in the open air. is there no' a smell o' burning in the house?" "i have noticed it," gavin answered, sniffing, "since you came in. i was busy until then, putting on the kettle. the smell is becoming worse." nanny had seen the empty kettle on the fire as he began to speak, and so solved the mystery. her first thought was to snatch the kettle out of the blaze, but remembering who had put it there, she dared not. she sidled toward the hearth instead, and saying craftily, "ay, here it is; it's a clout among the peats," softly laid the kettle on the earthen floor. it was still red with sparks, however, when the gypsy reappeared. "who burned the kettle?" she asked, ignoring nanny's signs. "lassie," nanny said, "it was me;" but gavin, flushing, confessed his guilt. "oh, you stupid!" exclaimed the egyptian, shaking her two ounces of tea (which then cost six shillings the pound) in his face. at this nanny wrung her hands, crying, "that's waur than swearing." "if men," said the gypsy, severely, "would keep their hands in their pockets all day, the world's affairs would be more easily managed." "wheesht!" cried nanny, "if mr. dishart cared to set his mind to it, he could make the kettle boil quicker than you or me. but his thochts is on higher things." "no higher than this," retorted the gypsy, holding her hand level with her brow. "confess, mr. dishart, that this is the exact height of what you were thinking about. see, nanny, he is blushing as if i meant that he had been thinking about me. he cannot answer, nanny: we have found him out." "and kindly of him it is no to answer," said nanny, who had been examining the gypsy's various purchases; "for what could he answer, except that he would need to be sure o' living a thousand years afore he could spare five minutes on you or me? of course it would be different if we sat under him." "and yet," said the egyptian, with great solemnity, "he is to drink tea at that very table. i hope you are sensible of the honour, nanny." "am i no?" said nanny, whose education had not included sarcasm. "i'm trying to keep frae thinking o't till he's gone, in case i should let the teapot fall." "you have nothing to thank me for, nanny," said gavin, "but much for which to thank this--this--" "this haggarty-taggarty egyptian," suggested the girl. then, looking at gavin curiously, she said, "but my name is babbie." "that's short for barbara," said nanny; "but babbie what?" "yes, babbie watt," replied the gypsy, as if one name were as good as another. "weel, men, lift the lid off the kettle, babbie," said nanny, "for it's boiling ower." gavin looked at nanny with admiration and envy, for she had said babbie as coolly as if it was the name of a pepper-box. babbie tucked up her sleeves to wash nanny's cups and saucers, which even in the most prosperous days of the mud house had only been in use once a week, and gavin was so eager to help that he bumped his head on the plate-rack. "sit there," said babbie, authoritatively, pointing, with a cup in her hand, to a stool, "and don't rise till i give you permission. " to nanny's amazement, he did as he was bid. "i got the things in the little shop you told me of," the egyptian continued, addressing the mistress of the house, "but the horrid man would not give them to me until he had seen my money." "enoch would be suspicious o' you," nanny explained, "you being an egyptian." "ah," said babbie, with a side-glance at the minister, "i am only an egyptian. is that why you dislike me, mr. dishart?" gavin hesitated foolishly over his answer, and the egyptian, with a towel round her waist, made a pretty gesture of despair. "he neither likes you nor dislikes you," nanny explained; "you forget he's a minister." "that is what i cannot endure," said babbie, putting the towel to her eyes, "to be neither liked nor disliked. please hate me, mr. dishart, if you cannot lo--ove me." her face was behind the towel, and gavin could not decide whether it was the face or the towel that shook with agitation. he gave nanny a look that asked, "is she really crying?" and nanny telegraphed back, "i question it." "come, come," said the minister, gallantly, "i did not say that i disliked you." even this desperate compliment had not the desired effect, for the gypsy continued to sob behind her screen. "i can honestly say," went on gavin, as solemnly as if he were making a statement in a court of justice, "that i like you." then the egyptian let drop her towel, and replied with equal solemnity: "oh, tank oo! nanny, the minister says me is a dood 'ittle dirl." "he didna gang that length," said nanny, sharply, to cover gavin's confusion. "set the things, babbie, and i'll make the tea." the egyptian obeyed demurely, pretending to wipe her eyes every time gavin looked at her. he frowned at this, and then she affected to be too overcome to go on with her work. "tell me, nanny," she asked presently, "what sort of man this enoch is, from whom i bought the things?" "he is not very regular, i fear," answered gavin, who felt that he had sat silent and self-conscious on his stool too long. "do you mean that he drinks?" asked babbie. "no, i mean regular in his attendance." the egyptian's face showed no enlightenment. "his attendance at church," gavin explained. "he's far frae it," said nanny, "and as a body kens, joe cruickshanks, the atheist, has the wite o' that. the scoundrel telled enoch that the great ministers in edinbury and london believed in no hell except sic as your ain conscience made for you, and ever since syne enoch has been careless about the future state." "ah," said babbie, waving the church aside, "what i want to know is whether he is a single man." "he is not," gavin replied; "but why do you want to know that?" "because single men are such gossips. i am sorry he is not single, as i want him to repeat to everybody what i told him." "trust him to tell susy," said nanny, "and susy to tell the town." "his wife is a gossip?" "ay, she's aye tonguing, especially about her teeth. they're folk wi' siller, and she has a set o' false teeth. it's fair scumfishing to hear her blawing about thae teeth, she's so fleid we dinna ken that they're false." nanny had spoken jealously, but suddenly she trembled with apprehension. "babbie," she cried, "you didna speak about the poorhouse to enoch?" the egyptian shook her head, though of the poorhouse she had been forced to speak, for enoch, having seen the doctor going home alone, insisted on knowing why. "but i knew," the gypsy said, "that the thrums people would be very unhappy until they discovered where you get the money i am to give you, and as that is a secret, i hinted to enoch that your benefactor is mr. dishart." "you should not have said that," interposed gavin. "i cannot foster such a deception." "they will foster it without your help," the egyptian said. "besides, if you choose, you can say you get the money from a friend." "ay, you can say that," nanny entreated with such eagerness that babbie remarked a little bitterly: "there is no fear of nanny's telling any one that the friend is a gypsy girl." "na, na," agreed nanny, again losing babbie's sarcasm. "i winna let on. it's so queer to be befriended by an egyptian." "it is scarcely respectable," babbie said. "it's no," answered simple nanny. i suppose nanny's unintentional cruelty did hurt babbie as much as gavin thought. she winced, and her face had two expressions, the one cynical, the other pained. her mouth curled as if to tell the minister that gratitude was nothing to her, but her eyes had to struggle to keep back a tear. gavin was touched, and she saw it, and for a moment they were two people who understood each other. "i, at least," gavin said in a low voice, "will know who is the benefactress, and think none the worse of her because she is a gypsy." at this babbie smiled gratefully to him, and then both laughed, for they had heard nanny remarking to the kettle, "but i wouldna hae been nane angry if she had telled enoch that the minister was to take his tea here. susy'll no believe't though i tell her, as tell her i will." to nanny the table now presented a rich appearance, for besides the teapot there were butter and loaf-bread and cheesies: a biscuit of which only thrums knows the secret. "draw in your chair, mr. dishart," she said, in suppressed excitement. "yes," said babbie, "you take this chair, mr. dishart, and nanny will have that one, and i can sit humbly on the stool." but nanny held up her hands in horror. "keep us a'!" she exclaimed; "the lassie thinks her and me is to sit down wi' the minister! we're no to gang that length, babbie; we're just to stand and serve him, and syne we'll sit down when he has risen." "delightful!" said babbie, clapping her hands. "nanny, you kneel on that side of him, and i will kneel on this. you will hold the butter and i the biscuits." but gavin, as this girl was always forgetting, was a lord of creation. "sit down both of you at once!" he thundered, "i command you." then the two women fell into their seats; nanny in terror, babbie affecting it. chapter xv. the minister bewitched--second sermon against women. to nanny it was a dizzying experience to sit at the head of her own table, and, with assumed calmness, invite the minister not to spare the loaf-bread. babbie's prattle, and even gavin's answers, were but an indistinct noise to her, to be as little regarded, in the excitement of watching whether mr. dishart noticed that there was a knife for the butter, as the music of the river by a man who is catching trout. every time gavin's cup went to his lips nanny calculated (correctly) how much he had drunk, and yet, when the right moment arrived, she asked in the english voice that is fashionable at ceremonies, "if his cup was toom." perhaps it was well that nanny had these matters to engross her, for though gavin spoke freely, he was saying nothing of lasting value, and some of his remarks to the egyptian, if preserved for the calmer contemplation of the morrow, might have seemed frivolous to himself. usually his observations were scrambled for, like ha'pence at a wedding, but to-day they were only for one person. infected by the egyptian's high spirits, gavin had laid aside the minister with his hat, and what was left was only a young man. he who had stamped his feet at thought of a soldier's cloak now wanted to be reminded of it. the little minister, who used to address himself in terms of scorn every time he wasted an hour, was at present dallying with a teaspoon. he even laughed boisterously, flinging back his head, and little knew that behind nanny's smiling face was a terrible dread, because his chair had once given way before. even though our thoughts are not with our company, the mention of our name is a bell to which we usually answer. hearing hers nanny started. "you can tell me, nanny," the egyptian had said, with an arch look at the minister. "oh, nanny, for shame! how can you expect to follow our conversation when you only listen to mr. dishart?" "she is saying, nanny," gavin broke in, almost gaily for a minister, "that she saw me recently wearing a cloak. you know i have no such thing." "na," nanny answered artlessly, "you have just the thin brown coat wi' the braid round it, forby the ane you have on the now." "you see," gavin said to babbie, "i could not have a new neckcloth, not to speak of a cloak, without everybody in thrums knowing about it. i dare say nanny knows all about the braid, and even what it cost." "three bawbees the yard at kyowowy's shop," replied nanny, promptly, "and your mother sewed it on. sam'l fairweather has the marrows o't on his top coat. no that it has the same look on him." "nevertheless," babbie persisted, "i am sure the minister has a cloak; but perhaps he is ashamed of it. no doubt it is hidden away in the garret." "na, we would hae kent o't if it was there," said nanny. "but it may be in a chest, and the chest may be locked," the egyptian suggested. "ay, but the kist in the garret isna locked," nanny answered. "how do you get to know all these things, nanny?" asked gavin, sighing. "your congregation tells me. naebody would lay by news about a minister." "but how do they know?" "i dinna ken. they just find out, because they're so fond o' you." "i hope they will never become so fond of me as that," said babbie. "still, nanny, the minister's cloak is hidden somewhere." "losh, what would make him hod it?" demanded the old woman. "folk that has cloaks doesna bury them in boxes." at the word "bury" gavin's hand fell on the table, and he returned to nanny apprehensively. "that would depend on how the cloak was got," said the cruel egyptian. "if it was not his own--" "lassie," cried nanny, "behave yoursel'." "or if he found it in his possession against his will?" suggested gavin, slyly. "he might have got it from some one who picked it up cheap." "from his wife, for instance," said babbie, whereupon gavin suddenly became interested in the floor. "ay, ay, the minister was hitting at you there, babbie," nanny explained, "for the way you made off wi' the captain's cloak. the thrums folk wondered less at your taking it than at your no keeping it. it's said to be michty grand." "it was rather like the one the minister's wife gave him," said babbie. "the minister has neither a wife nor a cloak," retorted nanny. "he isn't married?" asked babbie, the picture of incredulity. nanny gathered from the minister's face that he deputed to her the task of enlightening this ignorant girl, so she replied with emphasis, "na, they hinna got him yet, and i'm cheated if it doesna tak them all their time." thus do the best of women sell their sex for nothing. "i did wonder," said the egyptian, gravely, "at any mere woman's daring to marry such a minister." "ay," replied nanny, spiritedly, "but there's dauring limmers wherever there's a single man." "so i have often suspected," said babbie, duly shocked. "but, nanny, i was told the minister had a wife, by one who said he saw her." "he lied, then," answered nanny turning to gavin for further instructions. "but, see, the minister does not deny the horrid charge himself." "no, and for the reason he didna deny the cloak: because it's no worth his while. i'll tell you wha your friend had seen. it would be somebody that would like to be mrs. dishart. there's a hantle o' that kind. ay, lassie, but wishing winna land a woman in a manse." "it was one of the soldiers," babbie said, "who told me about her. he said mr. dishart introduced her to him." "sojers!" cried nanny. "i could never thole the name o' them. sanders in his young days hankered after joining them, and so he would, if it hadna been for the fechting. ay, and now they've ta'en him awa to the gaol, and sworn lies about him. dinna put any faith in sojers, lassie." "i was told," babbie went on, "that the minister's wife was rather like me." "heaven forbid!" ejaculated nanny, so fervently that all three suddenly sat back from the table. "i'm no meaning," nanny continued hurriedly, fearing to offend her benefactress, "but what you're the bonniest tid i ever saw out o' an almanack. but you would ken mr. dishart's contempt for bonny faces if you had heard his sermon against them. i didna hear it mysel', for i'm no auld licht, but it did the work o' the town for an aucht days." if nanny had not taken her eyes off gavin for the moment she would have known that he was now anxious to change the topic. babbie saw it, and became suspicious. "when did he preach against the wiles of women, nanny?" "it was long ago," said gavin, hastily. "no so very lang syne," corrected nanny. "it was the sabbath after the sojers was in thrums; the day you changed your text so hurriedly. some thocht you wasna weel, but lang tammas--" "thomas whamond is too officious," gavin said with dignity. "i forbid you, nanny, to repeat his story." "but what made you change your text?" asked babbie. "you see he winna tell," nanny said, wistfully. "ay, i dinna deny but what i would like richt to ken. but the session's as puzzled as yoursel', babbie." "perhaps more puzzled," answered the egyptian, with a smile that challenged gavin's frowns to combat and overthrow them. "what surprises me, mr. dishart, is that such a great man can stoop to see whether women are pretty or not. it was very good of you to remember me to-day. i suppose you recognized me by my frock?" "by your face," he replied, boldly; "by your eyes." "nanny," exclaimed the egyptian, "did you hear what the minister said?" "woe is me," answered nanny, "i missed it." "he says he would know me anywhere by my eyes." "so would i mysel'," said nanny. "then what colour are they, mr. dishart?" demanded babbie. "don't speak, nanny, for i want to expose him." she closed her eyes tightly. gavin was in a quandary. i suppose he had looked at her eyes too long to know much about them. "blue," he guessed at last. "na, they're black," said nanny, who had doubtless known this for an hour. i am always marvelling over the cleverness of women, as every one must see who reads this story. "no but what they micht be blue in some lichts," nanny added, out of respect to the minister. "oh, don't defend him, nanny," said babbie, looking reproachfully at gavin. "i don't see that any minister has a right to denounce women when he is so ignorant of his subject. i will say it, nanny, and you need not kick me beneath the table." was not all this intoxicating to the little minister, who had never till now met a girl on equal terms? at twenty-one a man is a musical instrument given to the other sex, but it is not as instruments learned at school, for when she sits down to it she cannot tell what tune she is about to play. that is because she has no notion of what the instrument is capable. babbie's kindheartedness, her gaiety, her coquetry, her moments of sadness, had been a witch's fingers, and gavin was still trembling under their touch. even in being taken to task by her there was a charm, for every pout of her mouth, every shake of her head, said, "you like me, and therefore you have given me the right to tease you." men sign these agreements without reading them. but, indeed, man is a stupid animal at the best, and thinks all his life that he did not propose until he blurted out, "i love you." it was later than it should have been when the minister left the mud house, and even then he only put on his hat because babbie said that she must go. "but not your way," she added. "i go into the wood and vanish. you know, nanny, i live up a tree." "dinna say that," said nanny, anxiously, "or i'll be fleid about the siller." "don't fear about it. mr. dishart will get some of it to-morrow at the kaims. i would bring it here, but i cannot come so far tomorrow." "then i'll hae peace to the end o' my days," said the old woman, "and, babbie, i wish the same to you wi' all my heart." "ah," babbie replied, mournfully, "i have read my fortune, nanny, and there is not much happiness in it."" "i hope that is not true," gavin said, simply. they were standing at the door, and she was looking toward the hill, perhaps without seeing it. all at once it came to gavin that this fragile girl might have a history far sadder and more turbulent than his. "do you really care?" she asked, without looking at him. "yes," he said stoutly, "i care." "because you do not know me," she said. "because i do know you," he answered. now she did look at him. "i believe," she said, making a discovery, "that you misunderstand me less than those who have known me longer." this was a perilous confidence, for it at once made gavin say "babbie." "ah," she answered, frankly, "i am glad to hear that. i thought you did not really like me, because you never called me by my name." gavin drew a great breath. "that was not the reason," he said. the reason was now unmistakable. "i was wrong," said the egyptian, a little alarmed; "you do not understand me at all." she returned to nanny, and gavin set off, holding his head high, his brain in a whirl. five minutes afterwards, when nanny was at the fire, the diamond ring on her little finger, he came back, looking like one who had just seen sudden death. "i had forgotten," he said, with a fierceness aimed at himself, "that to-morrow is the sabbath." "need that make any difference?" asked the gypsy. "at this hour on monday," said gavin, hoarsely, "i will be at the kaims." he went away without another word, and babbie watched him from the window. nanny had not looked up from the ring. "what a pity he is a minister!" the girl said, reflectively. "nanny, you are not listening." the old woman was making the ring flash by the light of the fire. "nanny, do you hear me? did you see mr. dishart come back?" "i heard the door open," nanny answered, without taking her greedy eyes off the ring. "was it him? whaur did you get this, lassie?" "give it me back, nanny, i am going now." but nanny did not give it back; she put her other hand over it to guard it, and there she crouched, warming herself not at the fire, but at the ring. "give it me, nanny." "it winna come off my finger." she gloated over it, nursed it, kissed it. "i must have it, nanny." the egyptian put her hand lightly on the old woman's shoulder, and nanny jumped up, pressing the ring to her bosom. her face had become cunning and ugly; she retreated into a corner. "nanny, give me back my ring or i will take it from you." the cruel light of the diamond was in nanny's eyes for a moment, and then, shuddering, she said, "tak your ring awa, tak it out o' my sicht." in the meantime gavin was trudging home gloomily composing his second sermon against women. i have already given the entry in my own diary for that day: this is his:--"notes on jonah. exchanged vol. xliii., 'european magazine,' for owen's 'justification' (per flying stationer). began second samuel. visited nanny webster." there is no mention of the egyptian. chapter xvi. continued misbehaviour of the egyptian woman. by the following monday it was known at many looms that something sat heavily on the auld licht minister's mind. on the previous day he had preached his second sermon of warning to susceptible young men, and his first mention of the word "woman" had blown even the sleepy heads upright. now he had salt fish for breakfast, and on clearing the table jean noticed that his knife and fork were uncrossed. he was observed walking into a gooseberry bush by susy linn, who possessed the pioneer spring-bed of thrums, and always knew when her man jumped into it by suddenly finding herself shot to the ceiling. lunan, the tinsmith, and two women, who had the luck to be in the street at the time, saw him stopping at dr. mcqueen's door, as if about to knock, and then turning smartly away. his hat blew off in the school wynd, where a wind wanders ever, looking for hats, and he chased it so passionately that lang tammas went into allardyce's smiddy to say-"i dinna like it. of course he couldna afford to lose his hat, but he should hae run after it mair reverently." gavin, indeed, was troubled. he had avoided speaking of the egyptian to his mother. he had gone to mcqueen's house to ask the doctor to accompany him to the kaims, but with the knocker in his hand he changed his mind, and now he was at the place of meeting alone. it was a day of thaw, nothing to be heard from a distance but the swish of curling-stones through water on rashie-bog, where the match for the eldership was going on. around him. gavin saw only dejected firs with drops of water falling listlessly from them, clods of snow, and grass that rustled as if animals were crawling through it. all the roads were slack. i suppose no young man to whom society has not become a cheap thing can be in gavin's position, awaiting the coming of an attractive girl, without giving thought to what he should say to her. when in the pulpit or visiting the sick, words came in a rush to the little minister, but he had to set his teeth to determine what to say to the egyptian. this was because he had not yet decided which of two women she was. hardly had he started on one line of thought when she crossed his vision in a new light, and drew him after her. her "need that make any difference?" sang in his ear like another divit, cast this time at religion itself, and now he spoke aloud, pointing his finger at a fir: "i said at the mud house that i believed you because i knew you. to my shame be it said that i spoke falsely. how dared you bewitch me? in your presence i flung away the precious hours in frivolity; i even forgot the sabbath. for this i have myself to blame. i am an unworthy preacher of the word. i sinned far more than you who have been brought up godlessly from your cradle. nevertheless, whoever you are, i call upon you, before we part never to meet again, to repent of your--" and then it was no mocker of the sabbath he was addressing, but a woman with a child's face, and there were tears in her eyes. "do you care?" she was saying, and again he answered, "yes, i care." this girl's name was not woman, but babbie. now gavin made an heroic attempt to look upon both these women at once. "yes, i believe in you," he said to them, "but henceforth you must send your money to nanny by another messenger. you are a gypsy and i am a minister; and that must part us. i refuse to see you again. i am not angry with you, but as a minister--" it was not the disappearance of one of the women that clipped this argument short; it was babbie singing- "it fell on a day, on a bonny summer day, when the corn grew green and yellow, that there fell out a great dispute between argyle and airly. "the duke of montrose has written to argyle to come in the morning early, an' lead in his men by the back o' dunkeld to plunder the bonny house o' airly." "where are you?" cried gavin in bewilderment. "i am watching you from my window so high," answered the egyptian; and then the minister, looking up, saw her peering at him from a fir. "how did you get up there?" he asked in amazement. "on my broomstick," babbie replied, and sang on- "the lady looked o'er her window sae high, and oh! but she looked weary, and there she espied the great argyle come to plunder the bonny house o' airly." "what are you doing there?" gavin said, wrathfully. "this is my home," she answered. "i told you i lived in a tree." "come down at once," ordered gavin. to which the singer responded "'come down, come down, lady margaret,' he says; 'come down and kiss me fairly or before the morning clear day light i'll no leave a standing stane in airly.'" "if you do not come down this instant," gavin said in a rage, "and give me what i was so foolish as to come for, i--" the egyptian broke in- "'i wouldna kiss thee, great argyle, i wouldna kiss thee fairly; i wouldna kiss thee, great argyle, gin you shouldna leave a standing stane in airly.'" "you have deceived nanny," gavin cried, hotly, "and you have brought me here to deride me. i will have no more to do with you." he walked away quickly, but she called after him, "i am coming down. i have the money," and next moment a snowball hit his hat. "that is for being cross," she explained, appearing so unexpectedly at his elbow that he was taken aback. "i had to come close up to you before i flung it, or it would have fallen over my shoulder. why are you so nasty to-day? and, oh, do you know you were speaking to yourself?" "you are mistaken," said gavin, severely. "i was speaking to you." "you didn't see me till i began to sing, did you?" "nevertheless i was speaking to you, or rather, i was saying to myself what--" "what you had decided to say to me?" said the delighted gypsy. "do you prepare your talk like sermons? i hope you have prepared something nice for me. if it is very nice i may give you this bunch of holly." she was dressed as he had seen her previously, but for a cluster of holly berries at her breast. "i don't know that you will think it nice," the minister answered, slowly, "but my duty--" "if it is about duty," entreated babbie, "don't say it. don't, and i will give you the berries." she took the berries from her dress, smiling triumphantly the while like one who had discovered a cure for duty; and instead of pointing the finger of wrath at her, gavin stood expectant. "but no," he said, remembering who he was, and pushing the gift from him, "i will not be bribed. i must tell you--" "now," said the egyptian, sadly, "i see you are angry with me. is it because i said i lived in a tree? do forgive me for that dreadful lie." she had gone on her knees before he could stop her, and was gazing imploringly at him, with her hands clasped. "you are mocking me again," said gavin, "but i am not angry with you. only you must understand--" she jumped up and put her fingers to her ears. "you see i can hear nothing," she said. "listen while i tell you--" "i don't hear a word. why do you scold me when i have kept my promise? if i dared to take my fingers from my ears i would give you the money for nanny. and, mr. dishart, i must be gone in five minutes." "in five minutes!" echoed gavin, with such a dismal face that babbie heard the words with her eyes, and dropped her hands. "why are you in such haste?" he asked, taking the five pounds mechanically, and forgetting all that he had meant to say. "because they require me at home," she answered, with a sly glance at her fir. "and, remember, when i run away you must not follow me." "i won't," said gavin, so promptly that she was piqued. "why not?" she asked. "but of course you only came here for the money. well, you have got it. good-bye." "you know that was not what i meant," said gavin, stepping after her. "i have told you already that whatever other people say, i trust you. i believe in you, babbie." "was that what you were saying to the tree?" asked the egyptian, demurely. then, perhaps thinking it wisest not to press this point, she continued irrelevantly, "it seems such a pity that you are a minister." "a pity to be a minister!" exclaimed gavin, indignantly. "why, why, you--why, babbie, how have you been brought up?" "in a curious way," babbie answered, shortly, "but i can't tell you about that just now. would you like to hear all about me?" suddenly she seemed to have become confidential. "do you really think me a gypsy?" she asked. "i have tried not to ask myself that question." "why?" "because it seems like doubting your word." "i don't see how you can think of me at all without wondering who i am." "no, and so i try not to think of you at all." "oh, i don't know that you need do that." "i have not quite succeeded." the egyptian's pique had vanished, but she may have thought that the conversation was becoming dangerous, for she said abruptly-"well, i sometimes think about you." "do you?" said gavin, absurdly gratified. "what do you think about me?" "i wonder," answered the egyptian, pleasantly, "which of us is the taller." gavin's fingers twitched with mortification, and not only his fingers but his toes. "let us measure," she said, sweetly, putting her back to his. "you are not stretching your neck, are you?" but the minister broke away from her. "there is one subject," he said, with great dignity, "that i allow no one to speak of in my presence, and that is my--my height." his face was as white as his cravat when the surprised egyptian next looked at him, and he was panting like one who has run a mile. she was ashamed of herself, and said so. "it is a topic i would rather not speak about," gavin answered, dejectedly, "especially to you." he meant that he would rather be a tall man in her company than in any other, and possibly she knew this, though all she answered was-"you wanted to know if i am really a gypsy. well, i am." "an ordinary gypsy?" "do you think me ordinary?" "i wish i knew what to think of you." "ah, well, that is my forbidden topic. but we have a good many ideas in common after all, have we not, though you are only a minis--i mean, though i am only a gypsy?" there fell between them a silence that gave babbie time to remember she must go. "i have already stayed too long," she said. "give my love to nanny, and say that i am coming to see her soon, perhaps on monday. i don't suppose you will be there on monday, mr. dishart?" "i--i cannot say." "no, you will be too busy. are you to take the holly berries?" "i had better not," said gavin, dolefully. "oh, if you don't want them--" "give them to me," he said, and as he took them his hand shook. "i know why you are looking so troubled," said the egyptian, archly. "you think i am to ask you the colour of my eyes, and you have forgotten again." he would have answered, but she checked him. "make no pretence," she said, severely; "i know you think they are blue." she came close to him until her face almost touched his. "look hard at them," she said, solemnly, "and after this you may remember that they are black, black, black!" at each repetition of the word she shook her head in his face. she was adorable. gavin's arms--but they met on nothing. she had run away. when the little minister had gone, a man came from behind a tree and shook his fist in the direction taken by the gypsy. it was rob dow, black with passion. "it's the egyptian!" he cried. "you limmer, wha are you that hae got haud o' the minister?" he pursued her, but she vanished as from gavin is windyghoul. "a common egyptian!" he muttered when he had to give up the search. "but take care, you little devil," he called aloud; "take care; if i catch you playing pranks wi' that man again i'll wring your neck like a hen's!" chapter xvii. intrusion of haggart into these pages against the author's wish. margaret having heard the doctor say that one may catch cold in the back, had decided instantly to line gavin's waistcoat with flannel. she was thus engaged, with pins in her mouth and the scissors hiding from her every time she wanted them, when jean, red and flurried, abruptly entered the room. "there! i forgot to knock at the door again," jean exclaimed, pausing contritely. "never mind. is it rob dow wanting the minister?" asked margaret, who had seen rob pass the manse dyke. "na, he wasna wanting to see the minister." "ah, then, he came to see you, jean," said margaret, archly. "a widow man!" cried jean, tossing her head. "but rob dow was in no condition to be friendly wi' onybody the now." "jean, you don't mean that he has been drinking again?" "i canna say he was drunk." "then what condition was he in?" "he was in a--a swearing condition," jean answered, guardedly. "but what i want to speir at you is, can i gang down to the tenements for a minute? i'll run there and back." "certainly you can go, jean, but you must not run. you are always running. did dow bring you word that you were wanted in the tenements?" "no exactly, but i--i want to consult tammas haggart about--about something." "about dow, i believe, jean?" "na, but about something he has done. oh, ma'am, you surely dinna think i would take a widow man?" it was the day after gavin's meeting with the egyptian at the kaims, and here is jean's real reason for wishing to consult haggart. half an hour before she hurried to the parlour she had been at the kitchen door wondering whether she should spread out her washing in the garret or risk hanging it in the courtyard. she had just decided on the garret when she saw rob dow morosely regarding her from the gateway. "whaur is he?" growled rob. "he's out, but it's no for me to say whaur he is," replied jean, whose weakness was to be considered a church official. "no that i ken," truthfulness compelled her to add, for she had an ambition to be everything she thought gavin would like a woman to be. rob seized her wrists viciously and glowered into her face. "you're ane o' them," he said. "let me go. ane o' what?" "ane o' thae limmers called women." "sal," retorted jean with spirit, "you're ane o' thae brutes called men. you're drunk, rob dow." "in the legs maybe, but no higher. i haud a heap." "drunk again, after all your promises to the minister! and you said yoursel' that he had pulled you out o' hell by the root." "it's himsel' that has flung me back again," rob said, wildly. "jean baxter, what does it mean when a minister carries flowers in his pouch; ay, and takes them out to look at them ilka minute?" "how do you ken about the holly?" asked jean, off her guard. "you limmer," said dow, "you've been in his pouches." "it's a lie!" cried the outraged jean. "i just saw the holly this morning in a jug on his chimley." "carefully put by? is it hod on the chimley? does he stand looking at it? do you tell me he's fond-like o't?" "mercy me!" jean exclaimed, beginning to shake; "wha is she, rob dow?" "let me see it first in its jug," rob answered, slyly, "and syne i may tell you." this was not the only time jean had been asked to show the minister's belongings. snecky hobart, among others, had tried on gavin's hat in the manse kitchen, and felt queer for some time afterwards. women had been introduced on tiptoe to examine the handle of his umbrella. but rob had not come to admire. he snatched the holly from jean's hands, and casting it on the ground pounded it with his heavy boots, crying, "greet as you like, jean. that's the end o' his flowers, and if i had the tawpie he got them frae i would serve her in the same way." "i'll tell him what you've done," said terrified jean, who had tried to save the berries at the expense of her fingers. "tell him," dow roared; "and tell him what i said too. ay, and tell him i was at the kaims yestreen. tell him i'm hunting high and low for an egyptian woman." he flung recklessly out of the courtyard, leaving jean looking blankly at the mud that had been holly lately. not his act of sacrilege was distressing her, but his news. were these berries a love token? had god let rob dow say they were a gypsy's love token, and not slain him? that rob spoke of the egyptian of the riots jean never doubted. it was known that the minister had met this woman in nanny webster's house, but was it not also known that he had given her such a talking-to as she could never come above? many could repeat the words in which he had announced to nanny that his wealthy friends in glasgow were to give her all she needed. they could also tell how majestic he looked when he turned the egyptian out of the house. in short, nanny having kept her promise of secrecy, the people had been forced to construct the scene in the mud house for themselves, and it was only their story that was known to jean. she decided that, so far as the gypsy was concerned, rob had talked trash. he had seen the holly in the minister's hand, and, being in drink, had mixed it up with the gossip about the egyptian. but that gavin had preserved the holly because of the donor was as obvious to jean as that the vase in her hand was empty. who could she be? no doubt all the single ladies in thrums were in love with him, but that, jean was sure, had not helped them a step forward. to think was to jean a waste of time. discovering that she had been thinking, she was dismayed. there were the wet clothes in the basket looking reproachfully at her. she hastened back to gavin's room with the vase, but it too had eyes, and they said, "when the minister misses his holly he will question you." now gavin had already smiled several times to jean, and once he had marked passages for her in her "pilgrim's progress," with the result that she prized the marks more even than the passages. to lose his good opinion was terrible to her. in her perplexity she decided to consult wise tammas haggart, and hence her appeal to margaret. to avoid chirsty, the humourist's wife, jean sought haggart at his workshop window, which was so small that an old book sufficed for its shutter. haggart, whom she could see distinctly at his loom, soon guessed from her knocks and signs (for he was strangely quick in the uptake) that she wanted him to open the window. "i want to speak to you confidentially," jean said in a low voice. "if you saw a grand man gey fond o' a flower, what would you think?" "i would think, jean," haggart answered, reflectively, "that he had gien siller for't; ay, i would wonder--" "what would you wonder?" "i would wonder how muckle he paid." "but if he was a--a minister, and keepit the flower--say it was a common rose--fond-like on his chimley, what would you think?" "i would think it was a black-burning disgrace for a minister to be fond o' flowers." "i dinna haud wi' that." "jean," said haggart, "i allow no one to contradict me." "it wasna my design. but, tammas, if a--a minister was fond o' a particular flower--say a rose--and you destroyed it by an accident, when he wasna looking, what would you do?" "i would gie him another rose for't." "but if you didna want him to ken you had meddled wi't on his chimley, what would you do?" "i would put the new rose on the chimley, and he would never ken the differ." "that's what i'll do." muttered jean, but she said aloud-"but it micht be that particular rose he liked?" "havers, jean. to a thinking man one rose is identical wi' another rose. but how are you speiring?" "just out o' curiosity, and i maun be stepping now. thank you kindly, tammas, for your humour." "you're welcome," haggart answered, and closed his window. that day rob dow spent in misery, but so little were his fears selfish that he scarcely gave a thought to his conduct at the manse. for an hour he sat at his loom with his arms folded. then he slouched out of the house, cursing little micah, so that a neighbour cried "you drunken scoundrel!" after him. "he may be a wee drunk," said micah in his father's defense, "but he's no mortal." rob wandered to the kaims in search of the egyptian, and returned home no happier. he flung himself upon his bed and dared micah to light the lamp. about gloaming he rose, unable to keep his mouth shut on his thoughts any longer, and staggered to the tenements to consult haggart. he found the humourist's door ajar, and wearyworld listening at it. "out o' the road!" cried rob, savagely, and flung the policeman into the gutter. "that was ill-dune, rob dow," wearyworld said, picking himself up leisurely. "i'm thinking it was weel-dune," snarled rob. "ay," said weary world, "we needna quarrel about a difference o' opeenion; but, rob--" dow, however, had already entered the house and slammed the door. "ay, ay," muttered wearyworld, departing, "you micht hae stood still, rob, and argued it out wi' me." in less than an hour after his conversation with jean at the window it had suddenly struck haggart that the minister she spoke of must be mr. dishart. in two hours he had confided his suspicions to chirsty. in ten minutes she had filled the house with gossips. rob arrived to find them in full cry. "ay, rob," said chirsty, genially, for gossip levels ranks, "you're just in time to hear a query about the minister." "rob," said the glen quharity post, from whom i subsequently got the story, "mr. dishart has fallen in--in--what do you call the thing, chirsty?" birse knew well what the thing was called, but the word is a staggerer to say in company. "in love," answered chirsty, boldly. "now we ken what he was doing in the country yestreen," said snecky hobart, "the which has been, bothering us sair." "the manse is fu' o' the flowers she sends him," said tibbie craik. "jean's at her wits'-end to ken whaur to put them a'." "wha is she?" it was rob dow who spoke. all saw he had been drinking, or they might have wondered at his vehemence. as it was, everybody looked at every other body, and then everybody sighed. "ay, wha is she?" repeated several. "i see you ken nothing about her," said rob, much relieved; and he then lapsed into silence. "we ken a' about her," said snecky, "except just wha she is. ay, that's what we canna bottom. maybe you could guess, tammas?" "maybe i could, sneck," haggart replied, cautiously; "but on that point i offer no opinion." "if she bides on the kaims road," said tibbie craik, "she maun be a farmer's dochter. what say you to bell finlay?" "na; she's u. p. but it micht be loups o' malcolm's sister. she's promised to muckle haws; but no doubt she would gie him the go-by at a word frae the minister." "it's mair likely," said chirsty, "to be the factor at the spittal's lassie. the factor has a grand garden, and that would account for such basketfuls o' flowers." "whaever she is," said birse, "i'm thinking he could hae done better." "i'll be fine pleased wi' ony o' them," said tibbie, who had a magenta silk, and so was jealous of no one. "it hasna been proved," haggart pointed out, "that the flowers came frae thae parts. she may be sending them frae glasgow." "i aye understood it was a glasgow lady," said snecky. "he'll be like the tilliedrum minister that got a lady to send him to the college on the promise that he would marry her as soon as he got a kirk. she made him sign a paper." "the far-seeing limmer," exclaimed chirsty. "but if that's what mr. dishart has done, how has he kept it so secret?" "he wouldna want the women o' the congregation to ken he was promised till after they had voted for him." "i dinna haud wi' that explanation o't," said haggart, "but i may tell you that i ken for sure she's a glasgow leddy. lads, ministers is near aye bespoke afore they're licensed. there's a michty competition for them in the big toons. ay, the leddies just stand at the college gates, as you may say, and snap them up as they come out." "and just as well for the ministers, i'se uphaud," said tibbie, "for it saves them a heap o' persecution when they come to the like o' thrums. there was mr. meiklejohn, the u. p. minister: he was no sooner placed than every genteel woman in the town was persecuting him. the miss dobies was the maist shameless; they fair hunted him." "ay," said snecky; "and in the tail o' the day ane o' them snacked him up. billies, did you ever hear o' a minister being refused?" "never." "weel, then, i have; and by a widow woman too. his name was samson, and if it had been tamson she would hae ta'en him. ay, you may look, but it's true. her name was turnbull, and she had another gent after her, name o' tibbets. she couldna make up her mind atween them, and for a while she just keeped them dangling on. ay, but in the end she took tibbets. and what, think you, was her reason? as you ken, thae grand folk has their initials on their spoons and nichtgowns. ay, weel, she thocht it would be mair handy to take tibbets, because if she had ta'en the minister the t's would have had to be changed to s's. it was thoctfu' o' her." "is tibbets living?" asked haggart sharply. "no; he's dead." "what," asked haggart, "was the corp to trade?" "i dinna ken." "i thocht no," said haggart, triumphantly. "weel, i warrant he was a minister too. ay, catch a woman giving up a minister, except for another minister." all were looking on haggart with admiration, when a voice from the door cried-"listen, and i'll tell you a queerer ane than that." "dagont," cried birse, "it's wearywarld, and he has been hearkening. leave him to me." when the post returned, the conversation was back at mr. dishart. "yes, lathies," haggart was saying, "daftness about women comes to all, gentle and simple, common and colleged, humourists and no humourists. you say mr. dishart has preached ower muckle at women to stoop to marriage, but that makes no differ. mony a humorous thing hae i said about women, and yet chirsty has me. it's the same wi' ministers. a' at aince they see a lassie no' unlike ither lassies, away goes their learning, and they skirl out, 'you dawtie!' that's what comes to all." "but it hasna come to mr. dishart," cried rob dow, jumping to his feet. he had sought haggart to tell him all, but now he saw the wisdom of telling nothing. "i'm sick o' your blathers. instead o' the minister's being sweethearting yesterday, he was just at the kaims visiting the gamekeeper. i met him in the wast town-end, and gaed there and back wi' him." "that's proof it's a glasgow leddy," said snecky. "i tell you there's no leddy ava!" swore rob. "yea, and wha sends the baskets o' flowers, then?" "there was only one flower," said rob, turning to his host. "i aye understood," said haggart heavily, "that there was only one flower." "but though there was just ane," persisted chirsty, "what we want to ken is wha gae him it." "it was me that gae him it," said rob; "it was growing on the roadside, and i plucked it and gae it to him." the company dwindled away shamefacedly, yet unconvinced; but haggart had courage to say slowly-"yes, rob, i had aye a notion that he got it frae you." meanwhile, gavin, unaware that talk about him and a woman unknown had broken out in thrums, was gazing, sometimes lovingly and again with scorn, at a little bunch of holly-berries which jean had gathered from her father's garden. once she saw him fling them out of his window, and then she rejoiced. but an hour afterwards she saw him pick them up, and then she mourned. nevertheless, to her great delight, he preached his third sermon against woman on the following sabbath. it was universally acknowledged to be the best of the series. it was also the last. chapter xviii. caddam--love leading to a rupture. gavin told himself not to go near the mud house on the following monday; but he went. the distance is half a mile, and the time he took was two hours. this was owing to his setting out due west to reach a point due north; yet with the intention of deceiving none save himself. his reason had warned him to avoid the egyptian, and his desires had consented to be dragged westward because they knew he had started too soon. when the proper time came they knocked reason on the head and carried him straight to caddam. here reason came to, and again began to state its case. desires permitted him to halt, as if to argue the matter out, but were thus tolerant merely because from where he stood he could see nanny's doorway. when babbie emerged from it reason seems to have made one final effort, for gavin quickly took that side of a tree which is loved of squirrels at the approach of an enemy. he looked round the tree-trunk at her, and then reason discarded him. the gypsy had two empty pans in her hands, for a second she gazed in the minister's direction, then demurely leaped the ditch of leaves that separated nanny's yard from caddam, and strolled into the wood. discovering with indignation that he had been skulking behind the tree, gavin came into the open. how good of the egyptian, he reflected, to go to the well for water, and thus save the old woman's arms! reason shouted from near the manse (he only heard the echo) that he could still make up on it. "come along." said his desires, and marched him prisoner to the well. the path which babbie took that day is lost in blaeberry leaves now, and my little maid and i lately searched for an hour before we found the well. it was dry, choked with broom and stones, and broken rusty pans, but we sat down where babbie and gavin had talked, and i stirred up many memories. probably two of those pans, that could be broken in the hands to-day like shortbread, were nanny's, and almost certainly the stones are fragments from the great slab that used to cover the well. children like to peer into wells to see what the world is like at the other side, and so this covering was necessary. rob angus was the strong man who bore the stone to caddam, flinging it a yard before him at a time. the well had also a wooden lid with leather hinges, and over this the stone was dragged. gavin arrived at the well in time to offer babbie the loan of his arms. in her struggle she had taken her lips into her mouth, but in vain did she tug at the stone, which refused to do more than turn round on the wood. but for her presence, the minister's efforts would have been equally futile. though not strong, however, he had the national horror of being beaten before a spectator, and once at school he had won a fight by telling his big antagonist to come on until the boy was tired of pummelling him. as he fought with the stone now, pains shot through his head, and his arms threatened to come away at the shoulders; but remove it he did. "how strong you are!" babbie said with open admiration. i am sure no words of mine could tell how pleased the minister was; yet he knew he was not strong, and might have known that she had seen him do many things far more worthy of admiration without admiring them. this, indeed, is a sad truth, that we seldom give our love to what is worthiest in its object. "how curious that we should have met here," babbie said, in her dangerously friendly way, as they filled the pans. "do you know i quite started when your shadow fell suddenly on the stone. did you happen to be passing through the wood?" "no," answered truthful gavin, "i was looking for you. i thought you saw me from nanny's door." "did you? i only saw a man hiding behind a tree, and of course i knew it could not be you." gavin looked at her sharply, but she was not laughing at him. "it was i," he admitted; "but i was not exactly hiding behind the tree." "you had only stepped behind it for a moment," suggested the egyptian. her gravity gave way to laughter under gavin's suspicious looks, but the laughing ended abruptly. she had heard a noise in the wood, gavin heard it too, and they both turned round in time to see two ragged boys running from them. when boys are very happy they think they must be doing wrong, and in a wood, of which they are among the natural inhabitants, they always take flight from the enemy, adults, if given time. for my own part, when i see a boy drop from a tree i am as little surprised as if he were an apple or a nut. but gavin was startled, picturing these spies handing in the new sensation about him at every door, as a district visitor distributes tracts. the gypsy noted his uneasiness and resented it. "what does it feel like to be afraid?" she asked, eyeing him. "i am afraid of nothing," gavin answered, offended in turn. "yes, you are. when you saw me come out of nanny's you crept behind a tree; when these boys showed themselves you shook. you are afraid of being seen with me. go away, then; i don't want you." "fear," said gavin, "is one thing, and prudence is another." "another name for it," babbie interposed. "not at all; but i owe it to my position to be careful. unhappily, you do not seem to feel--to recognise--to know--" "to know what?" "let us avoid the subject." "no," the egyptian said, petulantly. "i hate not to be told things. why must you be 'prudent?'" "you should see," gavin replied, awkwardly, "that there is a--a difference between a minister and a gypsy." "but if i am willing to overlook it?" asked babbie, impertinently. gavin beat the brushwood mournfully with his staff. "i cannot allow you," he said, "to talk disrespectfully of my calling. it is the highest a man can follow. i wish--" he checked himself; but he was wishing she could see him in his pulpit. "i suppose," said the gypsy, reflectively, "one must be very clever to be a minister." "as for that--" answered gavin, waving his hand grandly. "and it must be nice, too," continued babbie, "to be able to speak for a whole hour to people who can neither answer nor go away. is it true that before you begin to preach you lock the door to keep the congregation in?" "i must leave you if you talk in that way." "i only wanted to know." "oh, babbie, i am afraid you have little acquaintance with the inside of churches. do you sit under anybody?" "do i sit under anybody?" repeated babbie, blankly. is it any wonder that the minister sighed? "whom do you sit under?" was his form of salutation to strangers. "i mean, where do you belong?" he said. "wanderers," babbie answered, still misunderstanding him, "belong to nowhere in particular." "i am only asking you if you ever go to church?" "oh, that is what you mean. yes, i go often." "what church?" "you promised not to ask questions." "i only mean what denomination do you belong to?" "oh, the--the--is there an english church denomination?" gavin groaned. "well, that is my denomination," said babbie, cheerfully. "some day, though, i am coming to hear you preach. i should like to see how you look in your gown." "we don't wear gowns." "what a shame! but i am coming, nevertheless. i used to like going to church in edinburgh." "you have lived in edinburgh?" "we gypsies have lived everywhere," babbie said, lightly, though she was annoyed at having mentioned edinburgh. "but all gypsies don't speak as you do," said gavin, puzzled again. "i don't understand you." "of course you dinna," replied babbie, in broad scotch. "maybe, if you did, you would think that it's mair imprudent in me to stand here cracking clavers wi' the minister than for the minister to waste his time cracking wi' me." "then why do it?" "because--oh, because prudence and i always take different roads." "tell me who you are, babbie," the minister entreated; "at least, tell me where your encampment is." "you have warned me against imprudence," she said. "i want," gavin continued, earnestly, "to know your people, your father and mother." "why?" "because," he answered, stoutly, "i like their daughter." at that babbie's fingers played on one of the pans, and, for the moment, there was no more badinage in her. "you are a good man," she said, abruptly; "but you will never know my parents." "are they dead?" "they may be; i cannot tell." "this is all incomprehensible to me." "i suppose it is. i never asked any one to understand me." "perhaps not," said gavin, excitedly; "but the time has come when i must know everything of you that is to be known." babbie receded from him in quick fear. "you must never speak to me in that way again," she said, in a warning voice. "in what way?" gavin knew what way very well, but he thirsted to hear in her words what his own had implied. she did not choose to oblige him, however. "you never will understand me," she said. "i daresay i might be more like other people now, if--if i had been brought up differently. not," she added, passionately, "that i want to be like others. do you never feel, when you have been living a humdrum life for months, that you must break out of it, or go crazy?" her vehemence alarmed gavin, who hastened to reply-"my life is not humdrum. it is full of excitement, anxieties, pleasures, and i am too fond of the pleasures. perhaps it is because i have more of the luxuries of life than you that i am so content with my lot." "why, what can you know of luxuries?" "i have eighty pounds a year." babble laughed. "are ministers so poor?" she asked, calling back her gravity. "it is a considerable sum," said gavin, a little hurt, for it was the first time he had ever heard any one speak disrespectfully of eighty pounds. the egyptian looked down at her ring, and smiled. "i shall always remember your saying that," she told him, "after we have quarrelled." "we shall not quarrel," said gavin, decidedly. "oh, yes, we shall." "we might have done so once, but we know each other too well now." "that is why we are to quarrel." "about what?" said the minister. "i have not blamed you for deriding my stipend, though how it can seem small in the eyes of a gypsy--" "who can afford," broke in babbie, "to give nanny seven shillings a week?" "true," gavin said, uncomfortably, while the egyptian again toyed with her ring. she was too impulsive to be reticent except now and then, and suddenly she said, "you have looked at this ring before now. do you know that if you had it on your finger you would be more worth robbing than with eighty pounds in each of your pockets?" "where did you get it?" demanded gavin, fiercely. "i am sorry i told you that," the gypsy said, regretfully. "tell me how you got it," gavin insisted, his face now hard. "now, you see, we are quarrelling." "i must know." "must know! you forget yourself," she said haughtily. "no, but i have forgotten myself too long. where did you get that ring?" "good afternoon to you," said the egyptian, lifting her pans. "it is not good afternoon," he cried, detaining her. "it is goodbye for ever, unless you answer me." "as you please," she said. "i will not tell you where i got my ring. it is no affair of yours." "yes, babbie, it is." she was not, perhaps, greatly grieved to hear him say so, for she made no answer. "you are no gypsy," he continued, suspiciously. "perhaps not," she answered, again taking the pans. "this dress is but a disguise." "it may be. why don't you go away and leave me?" "i am going," he replied, wildly. "i will have no more to do with you. formerly i pitied you, but--" he could not have used a word more calculated to rouse the egyptian's ire, and she walked away with her head erect. only once did she look back, and it was to say-"this is prudence--now." chapter xix. circumstances leading to the first sermon in approval of women. a young man thinks that he alone of mortals is impervious to love, and so the discovery that he is in it suddenly alters his views of his own mechanism. it is thus not unlike a rap on the funny-bone. did gavin make this discovery when the egyptian left him? apparently he only came to the brink of it and stood blind. he had driven her from him for ever, and his sense of loss was so acute that his soul cried out for the cure rather than for the name of the malady. in time he would have realised what had happened, but time was denied him, for just as he was starting for the mud house babbie saved his dignity by returning to him. it was not her custom to fix her eyes on the ground as she walked, but she was doing so now, and at the same time swinging the empty pans. doubtless she had come back for more water, in the belief that gavin had gone. he pronounced her name with a sense of guilt, and she looked up surprised, or seemingly surprised, to find him still there. "i thought you had gone away long ago," she said stiffly. "otherwise," asked gavin the dejected, "you would not have come back to the well?" "certainly not." "i am very sorry. had you waited another moment i should have been gone." this was said in apology, but the wilful egyptian chose to change its meaning. "you have no right to blame me for disturbing you," she declared with warmth. "i did not. i only--" "you could have been a mile away by this time. nanny wanted more water." babbie scrutinised the minister sharply as she made this statement. surely her conscience troubled her, for on his not answering immediately she said, "do you presume to disbelieve me? what could have made me return except to fill the pans again?" "nothing," gavin admitted eagerly, "and i assure you--" babbie should have been grateful to his denseness, but it merely set her mind at rest. "say anything against me you choose," she told him. "say it as brutally as you like, for i won't listen." she stopped to hear his response to that, and she looked so cold that it almost froze on gavin's lips. "i had no right," he said, dolefully, "to speak to you as i did." "you had not," answered the proud egyptian. she was looking away from him to show that his repentance was not even interesting to her. however, she had forgotten already not to listen. "what business is it of mine?" asked gavin, amazed at his late presumption, "whether you are a gypsy or no?" "none whatever." "and as for the ring--" here he gave her an opportunity of allowing that his curiosity about the ring was warranted. she declined to help him, however, and so he had to go on. "the ring is yours," he said, "and why should you not wear it?" "why, indeed?" "i am afraid i have a very bad temper." he paused for a contradiction, but she nodded her head in agreement. "and it is no wonder," he continued, "that you think me a--a brute." "i'm sure it is not." "but, babbie, i want you to know that i despise myself for my base suspicions. no sooner did i see them than i loathed them and myself for harbouring them. despite this mystery, i look upon you as a noble-hearted girl. i shall always think of you so." this time babbie did not reply. "that was all i had to say," concluded gavin, "except that i hope you will not punish nanny for my sins. good-bye." "good-bye," said the egyptian, who was looking at the well. the minister's legs could not have heard him give the order to march, for they stood waiting. "i thought," said the egyptian, after a moment, "that you said you were going." "i was only--brushing my hat," gavin answered with dignity. "you want me to go?" she bowed, and this time he did set off. "you can go if you like," she remarked now. he turned at this. "but you said--" he began, diffidently. "no, i did not," she answered, with indignation. he could see her face at last. "you--you are crying!" he exclaimed, in bewilderment. "because you are so unfeeling," sobbed babbie. "what have i said, what have i done?" cried gavin, in an agony of self-contempt "oh, that i had gone away at once!" "that is cruel." "what is?" "to say that." "what did i say?" "that you wished you had gone away." "but surely," the minister faltered, "you asked me to go." "how can you say so?" asked the gypsy, reproachfully. gavin was distracted. "on my word," he said, earnestly, "i thought you did. and now i have made you unhappy. babbie, i wish i were anybody but myself; i am a hopeless lout." "now you are unjust," said babbie, hiding her face. "again? to you?" "no, you stupid," she said, beaming on him in her most delightful manner, "to yourself!" she gave him both her hands impetuously, and he did not let them go until she added: "i am so glad that you are reasonable at last. men are so much more unreasonable than women, don't you think?" "perhaps we are," gavin said, diplomatically. "of course you are. why, every one knows that. well, i forgive you; only remember, you have admitted that it was all your fault?" she was pointing her finger at him like a schoolmistress, and gavin hastened to answer-"you were not to blame at all." "i like to hear you say that," explained the representative of the more reasonable sex, "because it was really all my fault." "no, no." "yes, it was; but of course i could not say so until you had asked my pardon. you must understand that?" the representative of the less reasonable sex could not understand it, but he agreed recklessly, and it seemed so plain to the woman that she continued confidentially-"i pretended that i did not want to make it up, but i did." "did you?" asked gavin, elated. "yes, but nothing could have induced me to make the first advance. you see why?" "because i was so unreasonable?" asked gavin, doubtfully. "yes, and nasty. you admit you were nasty?" "undoubtedly, i have an evil temper. it has brought me to shame many times." "oh, i don't know," said the egyptian, charitably. "i like it. i believe i admire bullies." "did i bully you?" "i never knew such a bully. you quite frightened me." gavin began to be less displeased with himself. "you are sure," inquired babbie, "that you had no right to question me about the ring?" "certain," answered gavin. "then i will tell you all about it," said babbie, "for it is natural that you should want to know." he looked eagerly at her, and she had become serious and sad. "i must tell you at the same time," she said, "who i am, and then-then we shall never see each other any more." "why should you tell me?" cried gavin, his hand rising to stop her. "because you have a right to know," she replied, now too much in earnest to see that she was yielding a point. "i should prefer not to tell you; yet there is nothing wrong in my secret, and it may make you think of me kindly when i have gone away." "don't speak in that way, babbie, after you have forgiven me." "did i hurt you? it was only because i know that you cannot trust me while i remain a mystery. i know you would try to trust me, but doubts would cross your mind. yes, they would; they are the shadows that mysteries cast. who can believe a gypsy if the odds are against her?" "i can," said gavin; but she shook her head, and so would he had he remembered three recent sermons of his own preaching. "i had better tell you all," she said, with an effort. "it is my turn now to refuse to listen to you," exclaimed gavin, who was only a chivalrous boy. "babbie, i should like to hear your story, but until you want to tell it to me i will not listen to it. i have faith in your honour, and that is sufficient." it was boyish, but i am glad gavin said it; and now babbie admired something in him that deserved admiration. his faith, no doubt, made her a better woman. "i admit that i would rather tell you nothing just now," she said, gratefully. "you are sure you will never say again that you don't understand me?" "quite sure," said gavin, bravely. "and by-and-by you will offer to tell me of your free will?" "oh, don't let us think of the future," answered babbie. "let us be happy for the moment." this had been the egyptian's philosophy always, but it was illsuited for auld licht ministers, as one of them was presently to discover. "i want to make one confession, though," babbie continued, almost reluctantly. "when you were so nasty a little while ago, i didn't go back to nanny's. i stood watching you from behind a tree, and then, for an excuse to come back, i--i poured out the water. yes, and i told you another lie. i really came back to admit that it was all my fault, if i could not get you to say that it was yours. i am so glad you gave in first." she was very near him, and the tears had not yet dried on her eyes. they were laughing eyes, eyes in distress, imploring eyes. her pale face, smiling, sad, dimpled, yet entreating forgiveness, was the one prominent thing in the world to him just then. he wanted to kiss her. he would have done it as soon as her eyes rested on his, but she continued without regarding him-"how mean that sounds! oh, if i were a man i should wish to be everything that i am not, and nothing that i am. i should scorn to be a liar, i should choose to be open in all things, i should try to fight the world honestly. but i am only a woman, and so--well, that is the kind of man i should like to marry." "a minister may be all these things," said gavin, breathlessly. "the man i could love," babbie went on, not heeding him, almost forgetting that he was there, "must not spend his days in idleness as the men i know do." "i do not." "he must be brave, no mere worker among others, but a leader of men." "all ministers are." "who makes his influence felt." "assuredly." "and takes the side of the weak against the strong, even though the strong be in the right." "always my tendency." "a man who has a mind of his own, and having once made it up stands to it in defiance even of--" "of his session." "of the world. he must understand me." "i do." "and be my master." "it is his lawful position in the house." "he must not yield to my coaxing or tempers." "it would be weakness." "but compel me to do his bidding; yes, even thrash if--" "if you won't listen to reason. babbie," cried gavin, "i am that man!" here the inventory abruptly ended, and these two people found themselves staring at each other, as if of a sudden they had heard something dreadful. i do not know how long they stood thus, motionless and horrified. i cannot tell even which stirred first. all i know is that almost simultaneously they turned from each other and hurried out of the wood in opposite directions. chapter xx. end of the state of indecision. long before i had any thought of writing this story, i had told it so often to my little maid that she now knows some of it better than i. if you saw me looking up from my paper to ask her, "what was it that birse said to jean about the minister's flowers?" or, "where was hendry munn hidden on the night of the riots?" and heard her confident answers, you would conclude that she had been in the thick of these events, instead of born many years after them. i mention this now because i have reached a point where her memory contradicts mine. she maintains that rob dow was told of the meeting in the wood by the two boys whom it disturbed, while my own impression is that he was a witness of it. if she is right, rob must have succeeded in frightening the boys into telling no other person, for certainly the scandal did not spread in thrums. after all, however, it is only important to know that rob did learn of the meeting. its first effect was to send him sullenly to the drink. many a time since these events have i pictured what might have been their upshot had dow confided their discovery to me. had i suspected why rob was grown so dour again, gavin's future might have been very different. i was meeting rob now and again in the glen, asking, with an affected carelessness he did not bottom, for news of the little minister, but what he told me was only the gossip of the town; and what i should have known, that thrums might never know it, he kept to himself. i suppose he feared to speak to gavin, who made several efforts to reclaim him, but without avail. yet rob's heart opened for a moment to one man, or rather was forced open by that man. a few days after the meeting at the well, rob was bringing the smell of whisky with him down banker's close when he ran against a famous staff, with which the doctor pinned him to the wall. "ay," said the outspoken doctor, looking contemptuously into rob's bleary eyes, "so this is what your conversion amounts to? faugh! rob dow, if you, were half a man the very thought of what mr. dishart has done for you would make you run past the public houses." "it's the thocht o' him that sends me running to them," growled rob, knocking down the staff. "let me alane." "what do you mean by that?" demanded mcqueen, hooking him this time. "speir at himsel'; speir at the woman." "what woman?" "take your staff out o' my neck." "not till you tell me why you, of all people, are speaking against the minister." torn by a desire for a confidant and loyalty to gavin, rob was already in a fury. "say again," he burst forth, "that i was speaking agin the minister and i'll practise on you what i'm awid to do to her." "who is she?" "wha's wha?" "the woman whom the minister--" "i said nothing about a woman," said poor rob, alarmed for gavin. "doctor, i'm ready to swear afore a bailie that i never saw them thegither at the kaims." "the kaims!" exclaimed the doctor suddenly enlightened. "pooh! you only mean the egyptian. rob, make your mind easy about this. i know why he met her there." "do you ken that she has bewitched him; do you ken i saw him trying to put his arms round her; do you ken they have a trystingplace in caddam wood?" this came from rob in a rush, and he would fain have called it all back. "i'm drunk, doctor, roaring drunk," he said, hastily, "and it wasna the minister i saw ava; it was another man." nothing more could the doctor draw from rob, but he had heard sufficient to smoke some pipes on. like many who pride themselves on being recluses, mcqueen loved the gossip that came to him uninvited; indeed, he opened his mouth to it as greedily as any man in thrums. he respected gavin, however, too much to find this new dish palatable, and so his researches to discover whether other auld lichts shared rob's fears were conducted with caution. "is there no word of your minister's getting a wife yet?" he asked several, but only got for answers, "there's word o' a glasgow leddy's sending him baskets o' flowers," or "he has his een open, but he's taking his time; ay, he's looking for the blade o' corn in the stack o' chaff." this convinced mcqueen that the congregation knew nothing of the egyptian, but it did not satisfy him, and he made an opportunity of inviting gavin into the surgery. it was, to the doctor, the cosiest nook in his house, but to me and many others a room that smelled of hearses. on the top of the pipes and tobacco tins that littered the table there usually lay a death certificate, placed there deliberately by the doctor to scare his sister, who had a passion for putting the surgery to rights. "by the way," mcqueen said, after he and gavin had talked a little while, "did i ever advise you to smoke?" "it is your usual form of salutation," gavin answered, laughing. "but i don't think you ever supplied me with a reason." "i daresay not. i am too experienced a doctor to cheapen my prescriptions in that way. however, here is one good reason. i have noticed, sir, that at your age a man is either a slave to a pipe or to a woman. do you want me to lend you a pipe now?" "then i am to understand," asked gavin, slyly, "that your locket came into your possession in your pre-smoking days, and that you merely wear it from habit?" "tuts!" answered the doctor, buttoning his coat. "i told you there was nothing in the locket. if there is, i have forgotten what it is." "you are a hopeless old bachelor, i see," said gavin, unaware that the doctor was probing him. he was surprised next moment to find mcqueen in the ecstasies of one who has won a rubber. "now, then," cried the jubilant doctor, "as you have confessed so much, tell me all about her. name and address, please." "confess! what have i confessed?" "it won't do, mr. dishart, for even your face betrays you. no, no, i am an old bird, but i have not forgotten the ways of the fledgelings. 'hopeless bachelor,' sir, is a sweetmeat in every young man's mouth until of a sudden he finds it sour, and that means the banns. when is it to be?" "we must find the lady first," said the minister, uncomfortably. "you tell me, in spite of that face, that you have not fixed on her?" "the difficulty, i suppose, would be to persuade her to fix on me." "not a bit of it. but you admit there is some one?" "who would have me?" "you are wriggling out of it. is it the banker's daughter?" "no," gavin cried. "i hear you have walked up the back wynd with her three times this week. the town is in a ferment about it." "she is a great deal in the back wynd." "fiddle-de-dee! i am oftener in the back wynd than you, and i never meet her there." "that is curious." "no, it isn't, but never mind. perhaps you have fallen to miss pennycuick's piano? did you hear it going as we passed the house?" "she seems always to be playing on her piano." "not she; but you are supposed to be musical, and so when she sees you from her window she begins to thump. if i am in the school wynd and hear the piano going, i know you will turn the corner immediately. however, i am glad to hear it is not miss pennycuick. then it is the factor at the spittal's lassie? well done, sir. you should arrange to have the wedding at the same time as the old earl's, which comes off in summer, i believe." "one foolish marriage is enough in a day, doctor." "eh? you call him a fool far marrying a young wife? well, no doubt he is, but he would have been a bigger fool to marry an old one. however, it is not lord rintoul we are discussing, but gavin dishart. i suppose you know that the factor's lassie is an heiress?" "and, therefore, would scorn me." "try her," said the doctor, drily. "her father and mother, as i know, married on a ten-pound note. but if i am wrong again, i must adopt the popular view in thrums. it is a glasgow lady after all? man, you needn't look indignant at hearing that the people are discussing your intended. you can no more stop it than a doctor's orders could keep lang tammas out of church. they have discovered that she sends you flowers twice every week." "they never reach me," answered gavin, then remembered the holly and winced. "some," persisted the relentless doctor, "even speak of your having been seen together; but of course, if she is a glasgow lady, that is a mistake." "where did they see us?" asked gavin, with a sudden trouble in his throat. "you are shaking," said the doctor, keenly, "like a medical student at his first operation. but as for the story that you and the lady have been seen together, i can guess how it arose. do you remember that gypsy girl?" the doctor had begun by addressing the fire, but he suddenly wheeled round and fired his question in the minister's face. gavin, however, did not even blink. "why should i have forgotten her?" he replied, coolly. "oh, in the stress of other occupations. but it was your getting the money from her at the kaims for nanny that i was to speak of. absurd though it seems, i think some dotard must have seen you and her at the kaims, and mistaken her for the lady." mcqueen flung himself back in his chair to enjoy this joke. "fancy mistaking that woman for a lady!" he said to gavin, who had not laughed with him. "i think nanny has some justification for considering her a lady," the minister said, firmly. "well, i grant that. but what made me guffaw was a vision of the harum-scarum, devil-may-care little egyptian mistress of an auld licht manse!" "she is neither harum-scarum nor devil-may-care," gavin answered, without heat, for he was no longer a distracted minister. "you don't understand her as i do." "no, i seem to understand her differently. "what do you know of her?" "that is just it," said the doctor, irritated by gavin's coolness. "i know she saved nanny from the poor-house, but i don't know where she got the money. i know she can talk fine english when she chooses, but i don't know where she learned it. i know she heard that the soldiers were coming to thrums before they knew of their destination themselves, but i don't know who told her. you who understand her can doubtless explain these matters?" "she offered to explain them to me," gavin answered, still unmoved, "but i forbade her." "why?" "it is no business of yours, doctor. forgive me for saying so." "in thrums," replied mcqueen, "a minister's business is everybody's business. i have often wondered who helped her to escape from the soldiers that night. did she offer to explain that to you?" "she did not." "perhaps," said the doctor, sharply, "because it was unnecessary?" "that was the reason." "you helped her to escape?" "i did." "and you are not ashamed of it?" "i am not." "why were you so anxious to screen her?" "she saved some of my people from gaol." "which was more than they deserved." "i have always understood that you concealed two of them in your own stable." "maybe i did," the doctor had to allow. "but i took my stick to them next morning. besides, they were thrums folk, while you had never set eyes on that imp of mischief before." "i cannot sit here, doctor, and hear her called names," gavin said, rising, but mcqueen gripped him by the shoulder. "for pity's sake, sir, don't let us wrangle like a pair of women. i brought you here to speak my mind to you, and speak it i will. i warn you, mr. dishart, that you are being watched. you have been seen meeting this lassie in caddam as well as at the kaims." "let the whole town watch, doctor. i have met her openly." "and why? oh, don't make nanny your excuse." "i won't. i met her because i love her." "are you mad?" cried mcqueen. "you speak as if you would marry her." "yes," replied gavin, determinedly, "and i mean to do it." the doctor flung up his hands. "i give you up," he said, raging. "i give you up. think of your congregation, man." "i have been thinking of them, and as soon as i have a right to do so i shall tell them what i have told you." "and until you tell them i will keep your madness to myself, for i warn you that, as soon as they do know, there will be a vacancy in the auld licht kirk of thrums." "she is a woman," said gavin, hesitating, though preparing to go, "of whom any minister might be proud." "she is a woman," the doctor roared, "that no congregation would stand. oh, if you will go, there is your hat." perhaps gavin's face was whiter as he left the house than when he entered it, but there was no other change. those who were watching him decided that he was looking much as usual, except that his mouth was shut very firm, from which they concluded that he had been taking the doctor to task for smoking. they also noted that he returned to mcqueen's house within half a hour after leaving it, but remained no time. some explained this second visit by saying that the minister had forgotten his cravat, and had gone back for it. what really sent him back, however, was his conscience. he had said to mcqueen that he helped babbie to escape from the soldiers because of her kindness to his people, and he returned to own that it was a lie. gavin knocked at the door of the surgery, but entered without waiting for a response. mcqueen was no longer stamping through the room, red and furious. he had even laid aside his pipe. he was sitting back in his chair, looking half-mournfully, halfcontemptuously, at something in his palm. his hand closed instinctively when he heard the door open, but gavin had seen that the object was an open locket. "it was only your reference to the thing," the detected doctor said, with a grim laugh, "that made me open it. forty fears ago, sir, i--phew! it is forty-two years, and i have not got over it yet." he closed the locket with a snap. "i hope you have come back, dishart, to speak more rationally?" gavin told him why he had come back, and the doctor said he was a fool for his pains. "is it useless, dishart, to make another appeal to you?" "quite useless, doctor," gavin answered, promptly. "my mind is made up at last." chapter xxi. night--margaret--flashing of a lantern. that evening the little minister sat silently in his parlour. darkness came, and with it weavers rose heavy-eyed from their looms, sleepy children sought their mothers, and the gate of the field above the manse fell forward to let cows pass to their byre; the great bible was produced in many homes, and the ten o'clock bell clanged its last word to the night. margaret had allowed the lamp to burn low. thinking that her boy slept, she moved softly to his side and spread her shawl over his knees. he had forgotten her. the doctor's warnings scarcely troubled him. he was babbie's lover. the mystery of her was only a veil hiding her from other men, and he was looking through it upon the face of his beloved. it was a night of long ago, but can you not see my dear margaret still as she bends over her son? not twice in many days dared the minister snatch a moment's sleep from grey morning to midnight, and, when this did happen, he jumped up by-and-by in shame, to revile himself for an idler and ask his mother wrathfully why she had not tumbled him out of his chair? tonight margaret was divided between a desire to let him sleep and a fear of his self-reproach when he awoke; and so, perhaps, the tear fell that roused him. "i did not like to waken you," margaret said, apprehensively. "you must have been very tired, gavin?" "i was not sleeping, mother," he said, slowly. "i was only thinking." "ah, gavin, you never rise from your loom. it is hardly fair that your hands should be so full of other people's troubles." "they only fill one hand, mother; i carry the people's joys in the other hand, and that keeps me erect, like a woman between her pan and pitcher. i think the joys have outweighed the sorrows since we came here." "it has been all joy to me, gavin, for you never tell me of the sorrows. an old woman has no right to be so happy." "old woman, mother!" said gavin. but his indignation was vain. margaret was an old woman. i made her old before her time. "as for these terrible troubles," he went on, "i forget them the moment i enter the garden and see you at your window. and, maybe, i keep some of the joys from you as well as the troubles." words about babbie leaped to his mouth, but with an effort he restrained them. he must not tell his mother of her until babbie of her free will had told him all there was to tell. "i have been a selfish woman, gavin." "you selfish, mother!" gavin said, smiling. "tell me when you did not think of others before yourself?" "always, gavin. has it not been selfishness to hope that you would never want to bring another mistress to the manse? do you remember how angry you used to be in glasgow when i said that you would marry some day?" "i remember," gavin said, sadly. "yes; you used to say, 'don't speak of such a thing, mother, for the horrid thought of it is enough to drive all the hebrew out of my head.' was not that lightning just now?" "i did not see it. what a memory you have, mother, for all the boyish things i said." "i can't deny," margaret admitted with a sigh, "that i liked to hear you speak in that way, though i knew you would go back on your word. you see, you have changed already." "how, mother?" asked gavin, surprised. "you said just now that those were boyish speeches. gavin, i can't understand the mothers who are glad to see their sons married; though i had a dozen i believe it would be a wrench to lose one of them. it would be different with daughters. you are laughing, gavin!" "yes, at your reference to daughters. would you not have preferred me to be a girl?" "'deed i would not," answered margaret, with tremendous conviction. "gavin, every woman on earth, be she rich or poor, good or bad, offers up one prayer about her firstborn, and that is, 'may he be a boy!'" "i think you are wrong, mother. the banker's wife told me that there is nothing for which she thanks the lord so much as that all her children are girls." "may she be forgiven for that, gavin!" exclaimed margaret; "though she maybe did right to put the best face on her humiliation. no, no, there are many kinds of women in the world, but there never was one yet that didn't want to begin with a laddie. you can speculate about a boy so much more than about a girl. gavin, what is it a woman thinks about the day her son is born? yes, and the day before too? she is picturing him a grown man, and a slip of a lassie taking him from her. ay, that is where the lassies have their revenge on the mothers. i remember as if it were this morning a harvie fishwife patting your head and asking who was your sweetheart, and i could never thole the woman again. we were at the door of the cottage, and i mind i gripped you up in my arms. you had on a tartan frock with a sash and diamond socks. when i look back, gavin, it seems to me that you have shot up from that frock to manhood in a single hour." "there are not many mothers like you," gavin said, laying his hand fondly on margaret's shoulder. "there are many better mothers, but few such sons. it is easily seen why god could not afford me another. gavin, i am sure that was lightning." "i think it was; but don't be alarmed, mother." "i am never frightened when you are with me." "and i always will be with you." "ah, if you were married--" "do you think," asked gavin, indignantly, "that it would make any difference to you?" margaret did not answer. she knew what a difference it would make. "except," continued gavin, with a man's obtuseness, "that you would have a daughter as well as a son to love you and take care of you." margaret could have told him that men give themselves away needlessly who marry for the sake of their mother, but all she said was-"gavin, i see you can speak more composedly of marrying now than you spoke a year ago. if i did not know better, i should think a thrums young lady had got hold of you." it was a moment before gavin replied: then he said, gaily-"really, mother, the way the best of women speak of each other is lamentable. you say i should be better married, and then you take for granted that every marriageable woman in the neighbourhood is trying to kidnap me. i am sure you did not take my father by force in that way." he did not see that margaret trembled at the mention of his father. he never knew that she was many times pining to lay her head upon his breast and tell him of me. yet i cannot but believe that she always shook when adam dishart was spoken of between them. i cannot think that the long-cherishing of the secret which was hers and mine kept her face steady when that horror suddenly confronted her as now. gavin would have suspected much had, he ever suspected anything. "i know," margaret said, courageously, "that you would be better married; but when it comes to selecting the woman i grow fearful. o gavin!" she said, earnestly, "it is an awful thing to marry the wrong man!" here in a moment had she revealed much, though far from all, and there must have been many such moments between them. but gavin was thinking of his own affairs. "you mean the wrong woman, don't you, mother?" he said, and she hastened to agree. but it was the wrong man she meant. "the difficulty, i suppose, is to hit upon the right one?" gavin said, blithely. "to know which is the right one in time," answered margaret, solemnly. "but i am saying nothing against the young ladies of thrums, gavin. though i have scarcely seen them, i know there are good women among them. jean says---" "i believe, mother," gavin interposed, reproachfully, "that you have been questioning jean about them?" "just because i was afraid--i mean because i fancied--you might be taking a liking to one of them." "and what is jean's verdict?" "she says every one of them would jump at you, like a bird at a berry." "but the berry cannot be divided. how would miss pennycuick please you, mother?" "gavin!" cried margaret, in consternation, "you don't mean to--but you are laughing at me again." "then there is the banker's daughter?" "i can't thole her." "why, i question if you ever set eyes on her, mother." "perhaps not, gavin; but i have suspected her ever since she offered to become one of your tract distributors." "the doctor," said gavin, not ill-pleased, "was saying that either of these ladies would suit me." "what business has he," asked margaret, vindictively, "to put such thoughts into your head?" "but he only did as you are doing. mother, i see you will never be satisfied without selecting the woman for me yourself." "ay, gavin," said margaret, earnestly; "and i question if i should be satisfied even then. but i am sure i should be a better guide to you than dr. mcqueen is." "i am convinced of that. but i wonder what sort of woman would content you?" "whoever pleased you, gavin, would content me," margaret ventured to maintain. "you would only take to a clever woman." "she must be nearly as clever as you, mother." "hoots, gavin," said margaret, smiling, "i'm not to be caught with chaff. i am a stupid, ignorant woman." "then i must look out for a stupid, ignorant woman, for that seems to be the kind i like," answered gavin, of whom i may confess here something that has to be told sooner or later. it is this: he never realised that babbie was a great deal cleverer than himself. forgive him, you who read, if you have any tolerance for the creature, man. "she will be terribly learned in languages," pursued margaret, "so that she may follow you in your studies, as i have never been able to do." "your face has helped me more than hebrew, mother," replied gavin. "i will give her no marks for languages." "at any rate," margaret insisted, "she must be a grand housekeeper, and very thrifty." "as for that," gavin said, faltering a little, "one can't expect it of a mere girl." "i should expect it," maintained his mother. "no, no; but she would have you," said gavin, happily, "to teach her housekeeping." "it would be a pleasant occupation to me, that," margaret admitted. "and she would soon learn; she would be so proud of her position as mistress of a manse." "perhaps," gavin said, doubtfully. he had no doubt on the subject in his college days. "and we can take for granted," continued his mother, "that she is a lassie of fine character." "of course," said gavin, holding his head high, as if he thought the doctor might be watching him. "i have thought," margaret went on, "that there was a great deal of wisdom in what you said at that last marriage in the manse, the one where, you remember, the best man and the bridesmaid joined hands instead of the bride and bridegroom." "what did i say?" asked the little minister, with misgivings. "that there was great danger when people married out of their own rank of life." "oh--ah--well, of course, that would depend on circumstances." "they were wise words, gavin. there was the sermon, too, that you preached a month or two ago against marrying into other denominations. jean told me that it greatly impressed the congregation. it is a sad sight, as you said, to see an auld licht lassie changing her faith because her man belongs to the u. p.'s." "did i say that?" "you did, and it so struck jean that she told me she would rather be an old maid for life, 'the which,' she said, 'is a dismal prospect,' than marry out of the auld licht kirk." "it is harmless," gavin answered, going to the window. he started back next moment, and crying, "don't look out, mother," hastily pulled down the blind. "why, gavin," margaret said in fear, "you look as if it had struck you." "oh, no," gavin answered, with a forced laugh, and he lit her lamp for her. but it had struck him, though it was not lightning. it was the flashing of a lantern against the window to attract his attention, and the holder of the lantern was babbie. "good-night, mother." "good-night, gavin. don't sit up any later." tammas, though he is so obstinate, has a love for you passing the love of woman. these were her words. jean is more sentimental than you might think." "i wish he would show his love," said gavin, "by contradicting me less frequently." "you have rob dow to weigh against him." "no; i cannot make out what has come over rob lately. he is drinking heavily again, and avoiding me. the lightning is becoming very vivid." "yes, and i hear no thunder. there is another thing, gavin. i am one of those that like to sit at home, but if you had a wife she would visit the congregation. a truly religious wife would be a great help to you." "religious," gavin repeated slowly. "yes, but some people are religious without speaking of it. if a woman is good she is religious. a good woman who has been, let us say, foolishly brought up, only needs to be shown the right way to tread it. mother, i question if any man, minister or layman, ever yet fell in love because the woman was thrifty, or clever, or went to church twice on sabbath." "i believe that is true," margaret said, "and i would not have it otherwise. but it is an awful thing, gavin, as you said from the pulpit two weeks ago, to worship only at a beautiful face." "you think too much about what i say in the pulpit, mother," gavin said, with a sigh, "though of course a man who fell in love merely with a face would be a contemptible creature. yet i see that women do not understand how beauty affects a man." "yes, yes, my boy--oh, indeed, they do," said margaret, who on some matters knew far more than her son. twelve o'clock struck, and she rose to go to bed, alarmed lest she should not waken early in the morning. "but i am afraid i shan't sleep," she said, "if that lightning continues." "it is harmless," gavin answered, going to the window. he started back next moment, and crying, "don't look out, mother," hastily pulled down the blind. "why, gavin," margaret said in fear, "you look as if it had struck you." "oh, no," gavin answered, with a forced laugh, and he lit her lamp for her. but it had struck him, though it was not lightning. it was the flashing of a lantern against the window to attract his attention, and the holder of the lantern was babbie. "good-night, mother." "good-night, gavin. don't sit up any later." chapter xxii. lovers. only something terrible, gavin thought, could have brought babbie to him at such an hour; yet when he left his mother's room it was to stand motionless on the stair, waiting for a silence in the manse that would not come. a house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. ghosts were created when the first man woke in the night. now margaret slept. two hours earlier, jean, sitting on the saltbucket, had read the chapter with which she always sent herself to bed. in honour of the little minister she had begun her bible afresh when he came to thrums, and was progressing through it, a chapter at night, sighing, perhaps, on washing days at a long chapter, such as exodus twelfth, but never making two of it. the kitchen wag-at-the-wall clock was telling every room in the house that she had neglected to shut her door. as gavin felt his way down the dark stair, awakening it into protest at every step, he had a glimpse of the pendulum's shadow running back and forward on the hearth; he started back from another shadow on the lobby wall, and then seeing it start too, knew it for his own. he opened the door and passed out unobserved; it was as if the sounds and shadows that filled the manse were too occupied with their game to mind an interloper. "is that you?" he said to a bush, for the garden was in semidarkness. then the lantern's flash met him, and he saw the egyptian in the summer-seat. "at last!" she said, reproachfully. "evidently a lantern is a poor door-bell." "what is it?" gavin asked, in suppressed excitement, for the least he expected to hear was that she was again being pursued for her share in the riot. the tremor in his voice surprised her into silence, and he thought she faltered because what she had to tell him was so woeful. so, in the darkness of the summer-seat, he kissed her, and she might have known that with that kiss the little minister was hers forever. now babbie had been kissed before, but never thus, and she turned from gavin, and would have liked to be alone, for she had begun to know what love was, and the flash that revealed it to her laid bare her own shame, so that her impulse was to hide herself from her lover. but of all this gavin was unconscious, and he repeated his question. the lantern was swaying in her hand, and when she turned fearfully to him its light fell on his face, and she saw how alarmed he was. "i am going away back to nanny's," she said suddenly, and rose cowed, but he took her hand and held her. "babbie," he said, huskily, "tell me what has happened to bring you here at this hour." she sought to pull her hand from him, but could not. "how you are trembling!" he whispered. "babbie," he cried, "something terrible has happened to you, but do not fear. tell me what it is, and then--then i will take you to my mother: yes, i will take you now." the egyptian would have given all she had in the world to be able to fly from him then, that he might never know her as she was, but it could not be, and so she spoke out remorselessly. if her voice had become hard, it was a new-born scorn of herself that made it so. "you are needlessly alarmed," she said; "i am not at all the kind of person who deserves sympathy or expects it. there is nothing wrong. i am staying with nanny over-night, and only came to thrums to amuse myself. i chased your policeman down the roods with my lantern, and then came here to amuse myself with you. that is all." "it was nothing but a love of mischief that brought you here?" gavin asked, sternly, after an unpleasant pause. "nothing," the egyptian answered, recklessly. "i could not have believed this of you," the minister said; "i am ashamed of you." "i thought," babbie retorted, trying to speak lightly until she could get away from him, "that you would be glad to see me. your last words in caddam seemed to justify that idea." "i am very sorry to see you," he answered, reproachfully. "then i will go away at one," she said, stepping out of the summer-seat. "yes," he replied, "you must go at once." "then i won't," she said, turning back defiantly. "i know what you are to say: that the thrums people would be shocked if they knew i was here; as if i cared what the thrums people think of me." "i care what they think of you," gavin said, as if that were decisive, "and i tell you i will not allow you to repeat this freak." "you 'will not allow me,'" echoed babbie, almost enjoying herself, despite her sudden loss of self-respect, "i will not," gavin said, resolutely. "henceforth you must do as i think fit." "since when have you taken command of me?" demanded babbie. "since a minute ago," gavin replied, "when you let me kiss you." "let you!" exclaimed babbie, now justly incensed. "you did it yourself. i was very angry." "no, you were not." "i am not allowed to say that even?" asked the egyptian. "tell me something i may say, then, and i will repeat it after you." "i have something to say to you," gavin told her, after a moment's reflection; "yes, and there is something i should like to hear you repeat after me, but not to-night." "i don't want to hear what it is," babbie said, quickly, but she knew what it was, and even then, despite the new pain at her heart, her bosom swelled with pride because this man still loved her. now she wanted to run away with his love for her before he could take it from her, and then realising that this parting must be forever, a great desire filled her to hear him put that kiss into words, and she said, faltering: "you can tell me what it is if you like." "not to-night," said gavin. "to-night, if at all," the gypsy almost entreated. "to-morrow, at nanny's," answered gavin, decisively: and this time he remembered without dismay that the morrow was the sabbath. in the fairy tale the beast suddenly drops his skin and is a prince, and i believed it seemed to babbie that some such change had come over this man, her plaything. "your lantern is shining on my mother's window," were the words that woke her from this discovery, and then she found herself yielding the lantern to him. she became conscious vaguely that a corresponding change was taking place in herself. "you spoke of taking me to your mother," she said, bitterly. "yes," he answered at once, "to-morrow"; but she shook her head, knowing that to-morrow he would be wiser. "give me the lantern," she said, in a low voice, "i am going back to nanny's now." "yes," he said, "we must set out now, but i can carry the lantern." "you are not coming with me!" she exclaimed, shaking herself free of his hand. "i am coming," he replied, calmly, though he was not calm. "take my arm, babbie." she made a last effort to free herself from bondage, crying passionately, "i will not let you come." "when i say i am coming," gavin answered between his teeth, "i mean that i am coming, and so let that be an end of this folly. take my arm." "i think i hate you," she said, retreating from him. "take my arm," he repeated, and, though her breast was rising rebelliously, she did as he ordered, and so he escorted her from the garden. at the foot of the field she stopped, and thought to frighten him by saying, "what would the people say if they saw you with me now?" "it does not much matter what they would say," he answered, still keeping his teeth together as if doubtful of their courage. "as for what they would do, that is certain; they would put me out of my church." "and it is dear to you?" "dearer than life." "you told me long ago that your mother's heart would break if----" "yes, i am sure it would." they had begun to climb the fields, but she stopped him with a jerk. "go back, mr. dishart," she implored, clutching his arm with both hands. "you make me very unhappy for no purpose. oh, why should you risk so much for me?" "i cannot have you wandering here alone at midnight," gavin answered, gently. "that is nothing to me," she said, eagerly, but no longer resenting his air of proprietorship. "you will never do it again if i can prevent it." "but you cannot," she said, sadly. "oh, yes, you can, mr. dishart. if you will turn back now i shall promise never to do anything again without first asking myself whether it would seem right to you. i know i acted very wrongly to-night." "only thoughtlessly," he said. "then have pity on me," she besought him, "and go back. if i have only been thoughtless, how can you punish me thus? mr. dishart," she entreated, her voice breaking, "if you were to suffer for this folly of mine, do you think i could live?" "we are in god's hands, dear," he answered, firmly, and he again drew her arm to him. so they climbed the first field, and were almost at the hill before either spoke again. "stop," babbie whispered, crouching as she spoke; "i see some one crossing the hill." "i have seen him for some time," gavin answered, quietly; "but i am doing no wrong, and i will not hide." the egyptian had to walk on with him, and i suppose she did not think the less of him for that. yet she said, warningly-"if he sees you, all thrums will be in an uproar before morning." "i cannot help that," gavin replied. "it is the will of god." "to ruin you for my sins?" "if he thinks fit." the figure drew nearer, and with every step babbie's distress doubled. "we are walking straight to him," she whispered. "i implore you to wait here until he passes, if not for your own sake, for your mother's." at that he wavered, and she heard his teeth sliding against each other, as if he could no longer clench them. "but, no," he said moving on again, "i will not be a skulker from any man. if it be god's wish that i should suffer for this, i must suffer." "oh, why," cried babbie, beating her hands together in grief, "should you suffer for me?" "you are mine," gavin answered. babbie gasped. "and if you act foolishly," he continued, "it is right that i should bear the brunt of it. no, i will not let you go on alone; you are not fit to be alone. you need some one to watch over you and care for you and love you, and, if need be, to suffer with you." "turn back, dear, before he sees us." "he has seen us." yes, i had seen them, for the figure on the hill was no other than the dominie of glen quharity. the park gate clicked as it swung to, and i looked up and saw gavin and the egyptian. my eyes should have found them sooner, but it was to gaze upon margaret's home, while no one saw me, that i had trudged into thrums so late, and by that time, i suppose, my eyes were of little service for seeing through. yet, when i knew that of these two people suddenly beside me on the hill one was the little minister and the other a strange woman, i fell back from their side with dread before i could step forward and cry "gavin!" "i am mr. dishart," he answered, with a composure that would not have served him for another sentence. he was more excited than i, for the "gavin" fell harmlessly on him, while i had no sooner uttered it than there rushed through me the shame of being false to margaret. it was the only time in my life that i for-got her in him, though he has ever stood next to her in my regard. i looked from gavin to the gypsy woman, and again from her to him, and she began to tell a lie in his interest. but she got no farther than "i met mr. dis-bart accid--" when she stopped, ashamed. it was reverence for gavin that checked the lie. not every man has had such a compliment paid him. "it is natural," gavin said, slowly, "that you, sir, should wonder why i am here with this woman at such an hour, and you may know me so little as to think ill of me for it." i did not answer, and he misunderstood my silence. "no," he continued, in a harder voice, as if i had asked him a question, "i will explain nothing to you. you are not my judge. if you would do me harm, sir, you have it in your power." it was with these cruel words that gavin addressed me. he did not know how cruel they were. the egyptian, i think, must have seen that his suspicions hurt me, for she said, softly, with a look of appeal in her eyes-"you are the schoolmaster in glen quharity? then you will perhaps save mr. dishart the trouble of coming farther by showing me the way to old nanny webster's house at windyghoul?" "i have to pass the house at any rate," i answered eagerly, and she came quickly to my side. i knew, though in the darkness i could see but vaguely, that gavin was holding his head high and waiting for me to say my worst. i had not told him that i dared think no evil of him, and he still suspected me. now i would not trust myself to speak lest i should betray margaret, and yet i wanted him to know that base doubts about him could never find a shelter in me. i am a timid man who long ago lost the glory of my life by it, and i was again timid when i sought to let gavin see that my faith in him was unshaken. i lifted my bonnet to the gypsy, and asked her to take my arm. it was done clumsily, i cannot doubt, but he read my meaning and held out his hand to me. i had not touched it since he was three years old, and i trembled too much to give it the grasp i owed it. he and i parted without a word, but to the egyptian he said, "tomorrow, dear, i will see you at nanny's," and he was to kiss her, but i pulled her a step farther from him, and she put her hands over her face, crying, "no, no!" if i asked her some questions between the hill and windyghoul you must not blame me, for this was my affair as well as theirs. she did not answer me; i know now that she did not hear me. but at the mud house she looked abruptly into my face, and said-"you love him, too!" i trudged to the school-house with these words for company, and it was less her discovery than her confession that tortured me. how much i slept that night you may guess. chapter xxiii. contains a birth, which is sufficient for one chapter. "the kirk bell will soon be ringing," nanny said on the following morning, as she placed herself carefully on a stool, one hand holding her bible and the other wandering complacently over her aged merino gown. "ay, lassie, though you're only an egyptian i would hae ta'en you wi' me to hear mr. duthie, but it's speiring ower muckle o' a woman to expect her to gang to the kirk in her ilka day claethes." the babbie of yesterday would have laughed at this, but the new babbie sighed. "i wonder you don't go to mr. dishart's church now. nanny," she said, gently. "i am sure you prefer him." "babbie, babbie," exclaimed nanny, with spirit, "may i never be so far left to mysel' as to change my kirk just because i like another minister better! it's easy seen, lassie, that you ken little o' religious questions." "very little," babbie admitted, sadly. "but dinna ba so waeful about it," the old woman continued, kindly, "for that's no nane like you. ay, and if you see muckle mair o' mr. dishart he'll soon cure your ignorance." "i shall not see much more of him," babbie answered, with averted head. "the like o' you couldna expect it," nanny said, simply, whereupon babbie went to the window. "i had better be stepping," nanny said, rising, "for i am aye late unless i'm on the hill by the time the bell begins. ay, babbie, i'm doubting my merino's no sair in the fashion?" she looked down at her dress half despondently, and yet with some pride. "it was fowerpence the yard, and no less," she went on, fondling the worn merino, "when we bocht it at sam'l curr's. ay, but it has been turned sax times since syne." she sighed, and babbie came to her and put her arms round her, saying, "nanny, you are a dear." "i'm a gey auld-farrant-looking dear, i doubt," said nanny, ruefully. "now, nanny," rejoined babbie, "you are just wanting me to flatter you. you know the merino looks very nice." "it's a guid merino yet," admitted the old woman, "but, oh, babbie, what does the material matter if the cut isna fashionable? it's fine, isn't it, to be in the fashion?" she spoke so wistfully that, instead of smiling, babbie kissed her. "i am afraid to lay hand on the merino, nanny, but give me off your bonnet and i'll make it ten years younger in as many minutes." "could you?" asked nanny, eagerly, unloosening her bonnet-strings. "mercy on me!" she had to add; "to think about altering bonnets on the sabbath-day! lassie, how could you propose sic a thing?" "forgive me, nanny," babbie replied, so meekly that the old woman looked at her curiously. "i dinna understand what has come ower you," she said. "there's an unca difference in you since last nicht. i used to think you were mair like a bird than a lassie, but you've lost a' your daft capers o' singing and lauching, and i take ill wi't. twa or three times i've catched you greeting. babbie, what has come ower you?" "nothing, nanny. i think i hear the bell." down in thrums two kirk-officers had let their bells loose, waking echoes in windyghoul as one dog in country parts sets all the others barking, but nanny did not hurry off to church. such a surprising notion had filled her head suddenly that she even forgot to hold her dress off the floor. "babbie," she cried, in consternation, "dinna tell me you've gotten ower fond o' mr. dishart." "the like of me, nanny!" the gypsy answered, with affected raillery, but there was a tear in her eye. "it would be a wild, presumptious thing," nanny said, "and him a grand minister, but--" babbie tried to look her in the face, but failed, and then all at once there came back to nanny the days when she and her lover wandered the hill together. "ah, my dawtie," she cried, so tenderly, "what does it matter wha he is when you canna help it!" two frail arms went round the egyptian, and babbie rested her head on the old woman's breast. but do you think it could have happened had not nanny loved a weaver two-score years before? and now nanny has set off for church and babbie is alone in the mud house. some will pity her not at all, this girl who was a dozen women in the hour, and all made of impulses that would scarce stand still to be photographed. to attempt to picture her at any time until now would have been like chasing a spirit that changes to something else as your arms clasp it; yet she has always seemed a pathetic little figure to me. if i understand babbie at all, it is, i think, because i loved margaret, the only woman i have ever known well, and one whose nature was not, like the egyptian's, complex, but most simple, as if god had told her only to be good. throughout my life since she came into it she has been to me a glass in which many things are revealed that i could not have learned save through her, and something of all womankind, even of bewildering babbie, i seem to know because i knew margaret. no woman is so bad but we may rejoice when her heart thrills to love, for then god has her by the hand. there is no love but this. she may dream of what love is, but it is only of a sudden that she knows. babbie, who was without a guide from her baby days, had dreamed but little of it, hearing its name given to another thing. she had been born wild and known no home; no one had touched her heart except to strike it, she had been educated, but never tamed; her life had been thrown strangely among those who were great in the world's possessions, but she was not of them. her soul was in such darkness that she had never seen it; she would have danced away cynically from the belief that there is such a thing, and now all at once she had passed from disbelief to knowledge. is not love god's doing? to gavin he had given something of himself, and the moment she saw it the flash lit her own soul. it was but little of his master that was in gavin, but far smaller things have changed the current of human lives; the spider's thread that strikes our brow on a country road may do that. yet this i will say, though i have no wish to cast the little minister on my pages larger than he was, that he had some heroic hours in thrums, of which one was when babbie learned to love him. until the moment when he kissed her she had only conceived him a quaint fellow whose life was a string of sundays, but behold what she saw in him now. evidently to his noble mind her mystery was only some misfortune, not of her making, and his was to be the part of leading her away from it into the happiness of the open life. he did not doubt her, for he loved, and to doubt is to dip love in the mire. she had been given to him by god, and he was so rich in her possession that the responsibility attached to the gift was not grievous. she was his, and no mortal man could part them. those who looked askance at her were looking askance at him; in so far as she was wayward and wild, he was those things; so long as she remained strange to religion, the blame lay on him. all this babbie read in the gavin of the past night, and to her it was the book of love. what things she had known, said and done in that holy name! how shamefully have we all besmirched it! she had only known it as the most selfish of the passions, a brittle image that men consulted because it could only answer in the words they gave it to say. but here was a man to whom love was something better than his own desires leering on a pedestal. such love as babbie had seen hitherto made strong men weak, but this was a love that made a weak man strong. all her life, strength had been her idol, and the weakness that bent to her cajolery her scorn. but only now was it revealed to her that strength, instead of being the lusty child of passions, grows by grappling with and throwing them. so babbie loved the little minister for the best that she had ever seen in man. i shall be told that she thought far more of him than he deserved, forgetting the mean in the worthy: but who that has had a glimpse of heaven will care to let his mind dwell henceforth on earth? love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. it is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. to see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover's privilege. down in the auld licht kirk that forenoon gavin preached a sermon in praise of woman, and up in the mudhouse in windyghoul babbie sat alone. but it was the sabbath day to her: the first sabbath in her life. her discovery had frozen her mind for a time, so that she could only stare at it with eyes that would not shut; but that had been in the night. already her love seemed a thing of years, for it was as old as herself, as old as the new babbie. it was such a dear delight that she clasped it to her, and exulted over it because it was hers, and then she cried over it because she must give it up. for babbie must only look at this love and then turn from it. my heart aches for the little egyptian, but the promised land would have remained invisible to her had she not realized that it was only for others. that was the condition of her seeing. chapter xxiv. new world, and the woman who may not dwell therein. up here in the glen school-house after my pupils have straggled home, there comes to me at times, and so sudden that it may be while i am infusing my tea, a hot desire to write great books. perhaps an hour afterwards i rise, beaten, from my desk, flinging all i have written into the fire (yet rescuing some of it on second thought), and curse myself as an ingle-nook man, for i see that one can only paint what he himself has felt, and in my passion i wish to have all the vices, even to being an impious man, that i may describe them better. for this may i be pardoned. it comes to nothing in the end, save that my tea is brackish. yet though my solitary life in the glen is cheating me of many experiences, more helpful to a writer than to a christian, it has not been so tame but that i can understand why babbie cried when she went into nanny's garden and saw the new world. let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. even love unreturned has its rainbow, and babbie knew that gavin loved her. yet she stood in woe among the stiff berry bushes, as one who stretches forth her hands to love and sees him looking for her, and knows she must shrink from the arms she would lie in, and only call to him in a voice he cannot hear. this is not a love that is always bitter. it grows sweet with age. but could that dry the tears of the little egyptian, who had only been a woman for a day? much was still dark to her. of one obstacle that must keep her and gavin ever apart she knew, and he did not; but had it been removed she would have given herself to him humbly, not in her own longing, but because he wanted her. "behold what i am," she could have said to him then, and left the rest to him, believing that her unworthiness would not drag him down, it would lose itself so readily in his strength. that thrums could rise against such a man if he defied it, she did not believe; but she was to learn the truth presently from a child. to most of us, i suppose, has come some shock that was to make us different men from that hour, and yet, how many days elapsed before something of the man we had been leapt up in us? babbie thought she had buried her old impulsiveness, and then remembering that from the top of the field she might see gavin returning from church, she hastened to the hill to look upon him from a distance. before she reached the gate where i had met her and him, however, she stopped, distressed at her selfishness, and asked bitterly, "why am i so different from other women; why should what is so easy to them be so hard to me?" "gavin, my beloved!" the egyptian cried in her agony, and the wind caught her words and flung them in the air, making sport of her. she wandered westward over the bleak hill, and by-and-by came to a great slab called the standing stone, on which children often sit and muse until they see gay ladies riding by on palfreys--a kind of horse--and knights in glittering armour, and goblins, and fiery dragons, and other wonders now extinct, of which bare-legged laddies dream, as well as boys in socks. the standing stone is in the dyke that separates the hill from a fir wood, and it is the fairy-book of thrums. if you would be a knight yourself, you must sit on it and whisper to it your desire. babbie came to the standing stone, and there was a little boy astride it. his hair stood up through holes in his bonnet, and he was very ragged and miserable. "why are you crying, little boy?" babbie asked him, gently; but he did not look up, and the tongue was strange to him. "how are you greeting so sair?" she asked. "i'm no greeting very sair," he answered, turning his head from her that a woman might not see his tears. "i'm no greeting so sair but what i grat sairer when my mither died." "when did she die?" babbie inquired. "lang syne," he answered, still with averted face. "what is your name?" "micah is my name. rob dow's my father." "and have you no brothers nor sisters?" asked babbie, with a fellow-feeling for him. "no, juist my father," he said. "you should be the better laddie to him then. did your mither no tell you to be that afore she died?" "ay," he answered, "she telled me ay to hide the bottle frae him when i could get haed o't. she took me into the bed to make me promise that, and syne she died." "does your father drina?" "he hauds mair than ony other man in thrums," micah replied, almost proudly. "and he strikes you?" babbie asked, compassionately. "that's a lie," retorted the boy, fiercely. "leastwise, he doesna strike me except when he's mortal, and syne i can jouk him." "what are you doing there?" "i'm wishing. it's a wishing stane." "you are wishing your father wouldna drink." "no, i'm no," answered micah. "there was a lang time he didna drink, but the woman has sent him to it again. it's about her i'm wishing. i'm wishing she was in hell." "what woman is it?" asked babbie, shuddering. "i dinna ken," micah said, "but she's an ill ane." "did you never see her at your father's house?" "na; if he could get grip o' her he would break her ower his knee. i hearken to him saying that, when he's wild. he says she should be burned for a witch." "but if he hates her," asked babbie, "how can she have sic power ower him?" "it's no him that she has haud o'," replied micah. still looking away from her. "wha is it then?" "it's mr. dishart." babbie was struck as if by an arrow from the wood. it was so unexpected that she gave a cry, and then for the first time micah looked at her. "how should that send your father to the drink?" she asked, with an effort. "because my father's michty fond o' him," answered micah, staring strangely at her; "and when the folk ken about the woman, they'll stane the minister out o' thrums." the wood faded for a moment from the egyptian's sight. when it came back, the boy had slid off the standing stone and was stealing away. "why do you run frae me?" babbie asked, pathetically. "i'm fleid at you," he gasped, coming to a standstill at a safe distance: "you're the woman!" babbie cowered before her little judge, and he drew nearer her slowly. "what makes you think that?" she said. it was a curious time for babbie's beauty to be paid its most princely compliment. "because you're so bonny," micah whispered across the dyke. her tears gave him courage. "you might gang awa," he entreated. "if you kent what a differ mr. dishart made in my father till you came, you would maybe gang awa. when lie's roaring fou i have to sleep in the wood, and it's awful cauld. i'm doubting he'll kill me, woman, if you dinna gang awa." poor babbie put her hand to her heart, but the innocent lad continued mercilessly-"if ony shame comes to the minister, his auld mither'll die. how have you sic an ill will at the minister?" babbie held up her hands like a supplicant. "i'll gie you my rabbit." micah said, "if you'll gang awa. i've juist the ane." she shook her head, and, misunderstanding her, he cried, with his knuckles in his eye, "i'll gie you them baith, though i'm michty sweer to part wi' spotty." then at last babbie found her voice. "keep your rabbits, laddie," she said, "and greet no more. i'm gaen awa." "and you'll never come back no more a' your life?" pleaded micah. "never no more a' my life," repeated babbie. "and ye'll leave the minister alane for ever and ever?" "for ever and ever." micah rubbed his face dry, and said, "will you let me stand on the standing stane and watch you gaen awa for ever and ever?" at that a sob broke from babbie's heart, and looking at her doubtfully micah said-"maybe you're gey ill for what you've done?" "ay," babbie answered, "i'm gey ill for what i've done." a minute passed, and in her anguish she did not know that still she was standing at the dyke. micah's voice roused her: "you said you would gang awa, and you're no gaen," then babbie went away. the boy watched her across the hill. he climbed the standing stone and gazed after her until she was but a coloured ribbon among the broom. when she disappeared into windyghoul he ran home, joyfully, and told his father what a good day's work he had done. rob struck him for a fool for taking a gypsy's word, and warned him against speaking of the woman in thrums. but though dow believed that gavin continued to meet the egyptian secretly, he was wrong. a sum of money for nanny was sent to the minister, but he could guess only from whom it came. in vain did he search for babbie. some months passed and he gave up the search, persuaded that he should see her no more. he went about his duties with a drawn face that made many folk uneasy when it was stern, and pained them when it tried to smile. but to margaret, though the effort was terrible, he was as he had ever been, and so no thought of a woman crossed her loving breast. chapter xxv. beginning of the twenty-four hours. i can tell still how the whole of the glen was engaged about the hour of noon on the fourth of august month; a day to be among the last forgotten by any of us, though it began as quietly as a roaring march. at the spittal, between which and thrums this is a halfway house, were gathered two hundred men in kilts, and many gentry from the neighboring glens, to celebrate the earl's marriage, which was to take place on the morrow, and thither, too, had gone many of my pupils to gather gossip, at which girls of six are trustier hands than boys of twelve. those of us, however, who were neither children nor of gentle blood, remained at home, the farmers more taken up with the want of rain, now become a calamity, than with an old man's wedding, and their women-folk wringing their hands for rain also, yet finding time to marvel at the marriage's taking place at the spittal instead of in england, of which the ignorant spoke vaguely as an estate of the bride's. for my own part i could talk of the disastrous drought with waster lunny as i walked over his parched fields, but i had not such cause as he to brood upon it by day and night; and the ins and outs of the earl's marriage were for discussing at a tea-table, where there were women to help one to conclusions, rather than for the reflections of a solitary dominie, who had seen neither bride nor bridegroom. so it must be confessed that when i might have been regarding the sky moodily, or at the spittal, where a free table that day invited all, i was sitting in the school-house, heeling my left boot, on which i have always been a little hard. i made small speed, not through lack of craft, but because one can no more drive in tackets properly than take cities unless he gives his whole mind to it; and half of mine was at the auld licht manse. since our meeting six months earlier on the hill i had not seen gavin, but i had heard much of him, and of a kind to trouble me. "i saw nothing queer about mr. dishart," was waster lunny's frequent story, "till i hearkened to elspeth speaking about it to the lasses (for i'm the last elspeth would tell anything to, though i'm her man), and syne i minded i had been noticing it for months. elspeth says," he would go on, for he could no more forbear quoting his wife than complaining of her, "that the minister'll listen to you nowadays wi' his een glaring at you as if he had a perfectly passionate interest in what you were telling him (though it may be only about a hen wi' the croup), and then, after all, he hasna heard a sylib. ay, i listened to elspeth saying that, when she thocht i was at the byre, and yet, would you believe it, when i says to her after lousing times, 'i've been noticing of late that the minister loses what a body tells him,' all she answers is 'havers.' tod, but women's provoking." "i allow," birse said, "that on the first sabbath o' june month, and again on the third sabbath, he poured out the word grandly, but i've ta'en note this curran sabbaths that if he's no michty magnificent he's michty poor. there's something damming up his mind, and when he gets by it he's a roaring water, but when he doesna he's a despizable trickle. the folk thinks it's a woman that's getting in his way, but dinna tell me that about sic a scholar; i tell you he would gang ower a toon o' women like a loaded cart ower new-laid stanes." wearyworld hobbled after me up the roods one day, pelting me with remarks, though i was doing my best to get away from him. "even rob dow sees there's something come ower the minister," he bawled, "for rob's fou ilka sabbath now. ay, but this i will say for mr. dishart, that he aye gies me a civil word," i thought i had left the policeman behind with this, but next minute he roared, "and whatever is the matter wi' him it has made him kindlier to me than ever." he must have taken the short cut through lunan's close, for at the top of the roods his voice again made up on me. "dagone you, for a cruel pack to put your fingers to your lugs ilka time i open my mouth." as for waster lunny's daughter easie, who got her schooling free for redding up the school-house and breaking my furniture, she would never have been off the gossip about the minister, for she was her mother in miniature, with a tongue that ran like a pump after the pans are full, not for use but for the mere pleasure of spilling. on that awful fourth of august i not only had all this confused talk in my head but reason for jumping my mind between it and the egyptian (as if to catch them together unawares), and i was like one who, with the mechanism of a watch jumbled in his hand, could set it going if he had the art. of the gypsy i knew nothing save what i had seen that night, yet what more was there to learn? i was aware that she loved gavin and that he loved her. a moment had shown it to me. now with the auld lichts, i have the smith's acquaintance with his irons, and so i could not believe that they would suffer their minister to marry a vagrant. had it not been for this knowledge, which made me fearful for margaret, i would have done nothing to keep these two young people apart. some to whom i have said this maintain that the egyptian turned my head at our first meeting. such an argument is not perhaps worth controverting. i admit that even now i straighten under the fire of a bright eye, as a pensioner may salute when he sees a young officer. in the shooting season, should i chance to be leaning over my dyke while english sportsmen pass (as is usually the case if i have seen them approaching), i remember nought of them save that they call me "she," and end their greetings with "whatever" (which waster lunny takes to be a southron mode of speech), but their ladies dwell pleasantly in my memory, from their engaging faces to the pretty crumpled thing dangling on their arms, that is a hat or a basket, i am seldom sure which. the egyptian's beauty, therefore, was a gladsome sight to me, and none the less so that i had come upon it as unexpectedly as some men step into a bog. had she been alone when i met her i cannot deny that i would have been content to look on her face, without caring what was inside it; but she was with her lover, and that lover was gavin, and so her face was to me as little for admiring as this glen in a thunderstorm, when i know that some fellow-creature is lost on the hills. if, however, it was no quick liking for the gypsy that almost tempted me to leave these two lovers to each other, what was it? it was the warning of my own life. adam dishart had torn my arm from margaret's, and i had not recovered the wrench in eighteen years. rather than act his part between these two i felt tempted to tell them, "deplorable as the result may be, if you who are a minister marry this vagabond, it will be still more deplorable if you do not." but there was margaret to consider, and at thought of her i cursed the egyptian aloud. what could i do to keep gavin and the woman apart? i could tell him the secret of his mother's life. would that be sufficient? it would if he loved margaret, as i did not doubt. pity for her would make him undergo any torture rather than she should suffer again. but to divulge our old connection would entail her discovery of me. and i questioned if even the saving of gavin could destroy the bitterness of that. i might appeal to the egyptian. i might tell her even what i shuddered to tell him. she cared for him, i was sure, well enough to have the courage to give him up. but where was i to find her? were she and gavin meeting still? perhaps the change which had come over the little minister meant that they had parted. yet what i had heard him say to her on the hill warned me not to trust in any such solution of the trouble. boys play at casting a humming-top into the midst of others on the ground, and if well aimed it scatters them prettily. i seemed to be playing such a game with my thoughts, for each new one sent the others here and there, and so what could i do in the end but fling my tops aside, and return to the heeling of my boot? i was thus engaged when the sudden waking of the glen into life took me to my window. there is seldom silence up here, for if the wind be not sweeping the heather, the quharity, that i may not have heard for days, seems to have crept nearer to the schoolhouse in the night, and if both wind and water be out of earshot, there is the crack of a gun, or waster lunny's shepherd is on a stone near at hand whistling, or a lamb is scrambling through a fence, and kicking foolishly with its hind legs. these sounds i am unaware of until they stop, when i look up. such a stillness was broken now by music. from my window i saw a string of people walking rapidly down the glen, and waster lunny crossing his potato-field to meet them. remembering that, though i was in my stocking soles, the ground was dry, i hastened to join the farmer, for i like to miss nothing. i saw a curious sight. in front of the little procession coming down the glen road, and so much more impressive than his satellites that they may be put of mind as merely ploughman and the like following a show, was a highlander that i knew to be lauchlan campbell, one of the pipers engaged to lend music to the earl's marriage. he had the name of a thrawn man when sober, but pretty at the pipes at both times, and he came marching down the glen blowing gloriously, as if he had the clan of campbell at his heels. i know no man who is so capable on occasion of looking like twenty as a highland piper, and never have i seen a face in such a blaze of passion as was lauchlan campbell's that day. his following were keeping out of his reach, jumping back every time he turned round to shake his fist in the direction of the spittal. while this magnificent man was yet some yards from us, i saw waster lunny, who had been in the middle of the road to ask questions, fall back in fear, and not being a fighting man myself, i jumped the dyke. lauchlan gave me a look that sent me farther into the field, and strutted past, shrieking defiance through his pipes, until i lost him and his followers in a bend of the road. "that's a terrifying spectacle," i heard waster lunny say when the music had become but a distant squeal. "you're bonny at louping dykes, dominie, when there is a wild bull in front o' you. na, i canna tell what has happened, but at the least lauchlan maun hae dirked the earl. thae loons cried out to me as they gaed by that he has been blawing awa' at that tune till he canna halt. what a wind's in the crittur! i'm thinking there's a hell in ilka highlandman." "take care then, waster lunny, that you dinna licht it," said an angry voice that made us jump, though it was only duncan, the farmer's shepherd, who spoke. "i had forgotten you was a highlandman yoursel', duncan," waster lunny said nervously; but elspeth, who had come to us unnoticed, ordered the shepherd to return to the hillside, which he did haughtily. "how did you no lay haud on that blast o' wind, lauchlan campbell," asked elspeth of her husband, "and speir at him what had happened at the spittal? a quarrel afore a marriage brings ill luck." "i'm thinking," said the farmer, "that rintoul's making his ain ill luck by marrying on a young leddy." "a man's never ower auld to marry," said elspeth. "no, nor a woman," rejoined waster lunny, "when she gets the chance. but, elspeth, i believe i can guess what has fired that fearsome piper. depend upon it, somebody has been speaking disrespectful about the crittur's ancestors." "his ancestors!" exclaimed elspeth, scornfully. "i'm thinking mine could hae bocht them at a crown the dozen." "hoots," said the farmer, "you're o' a weaving stock, and dinna understand about ancestors. take a stick to a highland laddie, and it's no him you hurt, but his ancestors. likewise it's his ancestors that stanes you for it. when duncan stalked awa the now, what think you he saw? he saw a farmer's wife dauring to order about his ancestors; and if that's the way wi' a shepherd, what will it be wi' a piper that has the kilts on him a' day to mind him o' his ancestors ilka time he looks down?" elspeth retired to discuss the probable disturbance at the spittal with her family, giving waster lunny the opportunity of saying to me impressively-"man, man, has it never crossed you that it's a queer thing the like o' you and me having no ancestors? ay, we had them in a manner o' speaking, no doubt, but they're as completely lost sicht o' as a flagon lid that's fallen ahint the dresser. hech, sirs, but they would need a gey rubbing to get the rust off them now, i've been thinking that if i was to get my laddies to say their grandfather's name a curran times ilka day, like the catechism, and they were to do the same wi' their bairns, and it was continued in future generations, we micht raise a fell field o' ancestors in time. ay, but elspeth wouldna hear o't. nothing angers her mair than to hear me speak o' planting trees for the benefit o' them that's to be farmers here after me; and as for ancestors, she would howk them up as quick as i could plant them. losh, dominie, is that a boot in your hand?" to my mortification i saw that i had run out of the school-house with the boot on my hand as if it were a glove, and back i went straightway, blaming myself for a man wanting in dignity. it was but a minor trouble this, however, even at the time; and to recall it later in the day was to look back on happiness, for though i did not know it yet, lauchlan's playing raised the curtain on the great act of gavin's life, and the twenty-four hours had begun, to which all i have told as yet is no more than the prologue. chapter xxvi. scene at the spittal. within an hour after i had left him, waster lunny walked into the school-house and handed me his snuff-mull, which i declined politely. it was with this ceremony that we usually opened our conversations. "i've seen the post," he said, and he tells me there has been a queer ploy at the spittal. it's a wonder the marriage hasna been turned into a burial, and all because o' that highland stirk, lauchlan campbell. waster lunny was a man who had to retrace his steps in telling a story if he tried short cuts, and so my custom was to wait patiently while he delved through the ploughed fields that always lay between him and his destination. "as you ken, rintoul's so little o' a scotchman that he's no muckle better than an englisher. that maun be the reason he hadna mair sense than to tramp on a highlandman's ancestors, as he tried to tramp on lauchlan's this day." "if lord rintoul insulted the piper," i suggested, giving the farmer a helping hand cautiously, "it would be through inadvertence. rintoul only bought the spittal a year ago, and until then, i daresay, he had seldom been on our side of the border." this was a foolish, interruption, for it set walter lunny off in a new direction. "that's what elspeth says. says she, 'when the earl has grand estates in england, what for does he come to a barren place like the spittal to be married! it's gey like,' she says, 'as if he wanted the marriage to be got by quietly; a thing,' says she, 'that no woman can stand. furthermore,' elspeth says, 'how has the marriage been postponed twice?' we ken what the servants at the spittal says to that, namely, that the young lady is no keen to take him, but elspeth winna listen to sic arguments. she says either the earl had grown timid (as mony a man does) when the wedding-day drew near, or else his sister that keeps his house is mad at the thocht o' losing her place; but as for the young leddy's being sweer, says elspeth, 'an earl's an earl however auld he is, and a lassie's a lassie however young she is, and weel she kens you're never sure o' a man's no changing his mind about you till you're tied to him by law, after which it doesna so muckle matter whether he changes his mind about you or no.' ay, there's a quirk in it some gait, dominie; but it's a deep water elspeth canna bottom." "it is," i agreed; "but you were to tell me what birse told you of the disturbance at the spittal." "ay, weel." he answered, "the post puts the wite o't on her little leddyship, as they call her, though she winna be a leddyship till the morn. all i can say is that if the earl was saft enough to do sic a thing out of fondness for her, it's time he was married on her, so that he may come to his senses again. that's what i say; but elspeth conters me, of course, and says she, 'if the young leddy was so careless o' insulting other folks' ancestors, it proves she has nane o' her ain; for them that has china plates themsel's is the maist careful no to break the china plates of others.'" "but what was the insult? was lauchlan dismissed?" "na, faags! it was waur than that. dominie, you're dull in the uptake compared to elspeth. i hadna telled her half the story afore she jaloused the rest. however, to begin again; there's great feasting and rejoicings gaen on at the spittal the now, and also a banquet, which the post says is twa dinners in one. weel, there's a curran ogilvys among the guests, and it was them that egged on her little leddyship to make the daring proposal to the earl. what was the proposal? it was no less than that the twa pipers should be ordered to play 'the bonny house o' airlie.' dominie, i wonder you can tak it so calm when you ken that's the ogilvy's sang, and that it's aimed at the clan o' campbell." "pooh!" i said. "the ogilvys and the campbells used to be mortal enemies, but the feud has been long forgotten." "ay, i've heard tell," waster lunny said sceptically, "that airlie and argyle shakes hands now like christians; but i'm thinking that's just afore the queen. dinna speak now, for i'm in the thick o't. her little leddyship was all hinging in gold and jewels, the which winna be her ain till the morn; and she leans ower to the earl and whispers to him to get the pipers to play 'the bonny house.' he wasna willing, for says he, 'there's ogilvys at the table, and ane o' the pipers is a campbell, and we'll better let sleeping dogs lie.' however, the ogilvys lauched at his caution; and he was so infatuated wi' her little leddyship that he gae in, and he cried out to the pipers to strike up 'the bonny house.'" waster lunny pulled his chair nearer me and rested his hand on my knees. "dominie," he said in a voice that fell now and again into a whisper, "them looking on swears that when lauchlan campbell heard these monstrous orders his face became ugly and black, so that they kent in a jiffy what he would do. it's said a' body jumped back frae him in a sudden dread, except poor angus, the other piper, wha was busy tuning up for 'the bonny house.' weel, angus had got no farther in the tune than the first skirl when lauchlan louped at him, and ripped up the startled crittur's pipes wi' his dirk. the pipes gae a roar o' agony like a stuck swine, and fell gasping on the floor. what happened next was that lauchlan wi' his dirk handy for onybody that micht try to stop him, marched once round the table, playing 'the campbells are coming,' and then straucht out o' the spittal, his chest far afore him, and his head so weel back that he could see what was going on ahint. frae the spittal to here he never stopped that fearsome tune, and i'se warrant he's blawing away at it at this moment through the streets o' thrums." waster lunny was not in his usual spirits, or he would have repeated his story before he left me, for he had usually as much difficulty in coming to an end as in finding a beginning. the drought was to him as serious a matter as death in the house, and as little to be forgotten for a lengthened period. "there's to be a prayer-meeting for rain in the auld licit kirk the night," he told me as i escorted him as far as my side of the quharity, now almost a dead stream, pitiable to see, "and i'm gaen; though i'm sweer to leave thae puir cattle o' mine. you should see how they look at me when i gie them mair o' that rotten grass to eat. it's eneuch to mak a man greet, for what richt hae i to keep kye when i canna meat them?" waster lunny has said to me more than once that the great surprise of his life was when elspeth was willing to take him. many a time, however, i have seen that in him which might have made any weaver's daughter proud of such a man, and i saw it again when we came to the river side. "i'm no ane o' thae farmers," he said, truthfully, "that's aye girding at the weather, and elspeth and me kens that we hae been dealt wi' bountifully since we took this farm wi' gey anxious hearts. that woman, dominie, is eneuch to put a brave face on a coward, and it's no langer syne than yestreen when i was sitting in the dumps, looking at the aurora borealis, which i canna but regard as a messenger o' woe, that she put her hand on my shoulder and she says, 'waster lunny, twenty year syne we began life thegither wi' nothing but the claethes on our back, and an it please god we can begin it again, for i hae you and you hae me, and i'm no cast down if you're no.' dominie, is there mony sic women in the warld as that?" "many a one," i said. "ay, man, it shamed me, for i hae a kind o' delight in angering elspeth, just to see what she'll say. i could hae ta'en her on my knee at that minute, but the bairns was there, and so it wouldna hae dune. but i cheered her up, for, after all, the drought canna put us so far back as we was twenty years syne, unless it's true what my father said, that the aurora borealis is the devil's rainbow. i saw it sax times in july month, and it made me shut my een. you was out admiring it, dominie, but i can never forget that it was seen in the year twelve just afore the great storm. i was only a laddie then, but i mind how that awful wind stripped a' the standing corn in the glen in less time than we've been here at the water's edge. it was called the deil's besom. my father's hinmost words to me was, 'it's time eneuch to greet, laddie, when you see the aurora borealis.' i mind he was so complete ruined in an hour that he had to apply for relief frae the poor's rates. think o' that, and him a proud man. he would tak' nothing till one winter day when we was a' starving, and syne i gaed wi' him to speir for't, and he telled me to grip his hand ticht, so that the cauldness o' mine micht gie him courage. they were doling out the charity in the town's house, and i had never been in't afore. i canna look at it now without thinking o' that day when me and my father gaed up the stair thegither. mr. duthie was presiding at the time, and he wasna muckle older than mr. dishart is now. i mind he speired for proof that we was needing, and my father couldna speak. he just pointed at me. 'but you have a good coat on your back yoursel',' mr. duthie said, for there were mony waiting, sair needing. 'it was lended him to come here,' i cried, and without a word my father opened the coat, and they saw he had nothing on aneath, and his skin blue wi' cauld. dominie, mr. duthie handed him one shilling and saxpence, and my father's fingers closed greedily on't for a minute, and syne it fell to the ground. they put it back in his hand, and it slipped out again, and mr. duthie gave it back to him, saying, 'are you so cauld as that?' but, oh, man, it wasna cauld that did it, but shame o' being on the rates. the blood a' ran to my father's head, and syne left it as quick, and he flung down the siller and walked out o' the town house wi' me running after him. we warstled through that winter, god kens how, and it's near a pleasure to me to think o't now, for, rain or no rain, i can never be reduced to sic straits again." the farmer crossed the water without using the stilts which were no longer necessary, and i little thought, as i returned to the school-house, what terrible things were to happen before he could offer me his snuff-mull again. serious as his talk had been it was neither of drought nor of the incident at the spittal that i sat down to think. my anxiety about gavin came back to me until i was like a man imprisoned between walls of his own building. it may be that my presentiments of that afternoon look gloomier now than they were, because i cannot return to them save over a night of agony, black enough to darken any time connected with it. perhaps my spirits only fell as the wind rose, for wind ever takes me back to harvie, and when i think of harvie my thoughts are of the saddest. i know that i sat for some hours, now seeing gavin pay the penalty of marrying the egyptian, and again drifting back to my days with margaret, until the wind took to playing tricks with me, so that i heard adam dishart enter our home by the sea every time the school-house door shook. i became used to the illusion after starting several times, and thus when the door did open, about seven o'clock, it was only the wind rushing to my fire like a shivering dog that made me turn my head. then i saw the egyptian staring at me, and though her sudden appearance on my threshold was a strange thing, i forgot it in the whiteness of her face. she was looking at me like one who has asked a question of life or death, and stopped her heart for the reply. "what is it?" i cried, and for a moment i believe i was glad she did not answer. she seemed to have told me already as much as i could bear. "he has not heard," she said aloud in an expressionless voice, and, turning, would have slipped away without another word. "is any one dead?" i asked, seizing her hands and letting them fall, they were so clammy. she nodded, and trying to speak could not. "he is dead," she said at last in a whisper. "mr. dishart is dead," and she sat down quietly. at that i covered my face, crying, "god help margaret!" and then she rose, saying fiercely, so that i drew back from her, "there is no margaret; he only cared for me." "she is his mother," i said hoarsely, and then she smiled to me, so that i thought her a harmless mad thing. "he was killed by a piper called lauchlan campbell," she said, looking up at me suddenly. "it was my fault." "poor margaret!" i wailed. "and poor babbie," she entreated pathetically; "will no one say, 'poor babbie'?" chapter xxvii. first journey of the dominie to thrums during the twenty-four hours. "how did it happen?" i asked more than once, but the egyptian was only with me in the body, and she did not hear. i might have been talking to some one a mile away whom a telescope had drawn near my eyes. when i put on my bonnet, however, she knew that i was going to thrums, and she rose and walked to the door, looking behind to see that i followed. "you must not come," i said harshly, but her hand started to her heart as if i had shot her, and i added quickly, "come." we were already some distance on our way before i repeated my question. "what matter how it happened?" she answered piteously, and they were words of which i felt the force. but when she said a little later, "i thought you would say it is not true," i took courage, and forced her to tell me all she knew. she sobbed while she spoke, if one may sob without tears. "i heard of it at the spittal," she said. "the news broke out suddenly there that the piper had quarrelled with some one in thrums, and that in trying to separate them mr. dishart was stabbed. there is no doubt of its truth." "we should have heard of it here," i said hopefully, "before the news reached the spittal. it cannot be true." "it was brought to the spittal," she answered, "by the hill road." then my spirits sank again, for i knew that this was possible. there is a path, steep but short, across the hills between thrums and the top of the glen, which mr. glendinning took frequently when he had to preach at both places on the same sabbath. it is still called the minister's road. "yet if the earl had believed it he would have sent some one into thrums for particulars," i said, grasping at such comfort as i could make. "he does believe it," she answered. "he told me of it himself." you see the egyptian was careless of her secret now; but what was that secret to me? an hour ago it would have been much, and already it was not worth listening to. if she had begun to tell me why lord rintoul took a gypsy girl into his confidence i should not have heard her. "i ran quickly," she said. "even if a messenger was sent he might be behind me." was it her words or the tramp of a horse that made us turn our heads at that moment? i know not. but far back in a twist of the road we saw a horseman approaching at such a reckless pace that i thought he was on a runaway. we stopped instinctively, and waited for him, and twice he disappeared in hollows of the road, and then was suddenly tearing down upon us. i recognised in him young mr. mckenzie, a relative of rintoul, and i stretched out my arms to compel him to draw up. he misunderstood my motive, and was raising his whip threateningly, when he saw the egyptian, it is not too much to say that he swayed in the saddle. the horse galloped on, though he had lost hold of the reins. he looked behind until he rounded a corner, and i never saw such amazement mixed with incredulity on a human face. for some minutes i expected to see him coming back, but when he did not i said wonderingly to the egyptian-"he knew you." "did he?" she answered indifferently, and i think we spoke no more until we were in windyghoul. soon we were barely conscious of each other's presence. never since have i walked between the schoolhouse and thrums in so short a time, nor seen so little on the way. in the egyptian's eyes, i suppose, was a picture of gavin lying dead; but if her grief had killed her thinking faculties, mine, that was only less keen because i had been struck down once before, had set all the wheels of my brain in action. for it seemed to me that the hour had come when i must disclose myself to margaret. i had realised always that if such a necessity did arise it could only be caused by gavin's premature death, or by his proving a bad son to her. some may wonder that i could have looked calmly thus far into the possible, but i reply that the night of adam dishart's home-coming had made of me a man whom the future could not surprise again. though i saw gavin and his mother happy in our auld licht manse, that did not prevent my considering the contingencies which might leave her without a son. in the schoolhouse i had brooded over them as one may think over moves on a draught-board. it may have been idle, but it was done that i might know how to act best for margaret if any thing untoward occurred. the time for such action had come. gavin's death had struck me hard, but it did not crush me. i was not unprepared. i was going to margaret now. what did i see as i walked quickly along the glen road, with babbie silent by my side, and i doubt not pods of the broom cracking all around us? i saw myself entering the auld licht manse, where margaret sat weeping over the body of gavin, and there was none to break my coming to her, for none but she and i knew what had been. i saw my margaret again, so fragile now, so thin the wrists, her hair turned grey. no nearer could i go, but stopped at the door, grieving for her, and at last saying her name aloud. i saw her raise her face, and look upon me for the first time for eighteen years. she did not scream at sight of me, for the body of her son lay between us, and bridged the gulf that adam dishart had made. i saw myself draw near her reverently and say, "margaret, he is dead, and that is why i have come back," and i saw her put her arms around my neck as she often did long ago. but it was not to be. never since that night at harvie have i spoken to margaret. the egyptian and i were to come to windyghoul before i heard her speak. she was not addressing me. here gavin and she had met first, and she was talking of that meeting to herself. "it was there," i heard her say softly, as she gazed at the bush beneath which she had seen him shaking his fist at her on the night of the riots. a little farther on she stopped where a path from windyghoul sets off for the well in the wood. she looked up it wistfully, and there i left her behind, and pressed on to the mud-house to ask nanny webster if the minister was dead. nanny's gate was swinging in the wind, but her door was shut, and for a moment i stood at it like a coward, afraid to enter and hear the worst. the house was empty. i turned from it relieved, as if i had got a respite, and while i stood in the garden the egyptian came to me shuddering, her twitching face asking the question that would not leave her lips. "there is no one in the house," i said. "nanny is perhaps at the well." but the gypsy went inside, and pointing to the fire said, "it has been out for hours. do you not see? the murder has drawn every one into thrums." so i feared. a dreadful night was to pass before i knew that this was the day of the release of sanders webster, and that frail nanny had walked into tilliedrum to meet him at the prison gate. babbie sank upon a stool, so weak that i doubt whether she heard me tell her to wait there until my return. i hurried into thrums, not by the hill, though it is the shorter way, but by the roods, for i must hear all before i ventured to approach the manse. from windyghoul to the top of the roods it is a climb and then a steep descent. the road has no sooner reached its highest point than it begins to fall in the straight line of houses called the roods, and thus i came upon a full view of the street at once. a cart was laboring up it. there were women sitting on stones at their doors, and girls playing at palaulays, and out of the house nearest me came a black figure. my eyes failed me; i was asking so much from them. they made him tall and short, and spare and stout, so that i knew it was gavin, and yet, looking again, feared, but all the time, i think, i knew it was he. chapter xxviii. the hill before darkness fell--scene of the impending catastrophe. "you are better now?" i heard gavin ask, presently. he thought that having been taken ill suddenly i had waved to him for help because he chanced to be near. with all my wits about me i might have left him in that belief, for rather would i have deceived him than had him wonder why his welfare seemed so vital to me. but i, who thought the capacity for being taken aback had gone from me, clung to his arm and thanked god audibly that he still lived. he did not tell me then how my agitation puzzled him, but led me kindly to the hill, where we could talk without listeners. by the time we reached it i was again wary, and i had told him what had brought me to thrums, without mentioning how the story of his death reached my ears, or through whom. "mr. mckenzie," he said, interrupting me, "galloped all the way from the spittal on the same errand. however, no one has been hurt much, except the piper himself." then he told me how the rumor arose. "you know of the incident at the spittal, and that campbell marched off in high dudgeon? i understand that he spoke to no one between the spittal and thrums, but by the time he arrived here he was more communicative; yes, and thirstier. he was treated to drink in several public-houses by persons who wanted to hear his story, and by-and-by he began to drop hints of knowing something against the earl's bride. do you know rob dow?" "yes," i answered, "and what you have done for him." "ah, sir!" he said, sighing, "for a long time i thought i was to be god's instrument in making a better man of rob, but my power over him went long ago. ten short months of the ministry takes some of the vanity out of a man." looking sideways at him i was startled by the unnatural brightness of his eyes. unconsciously he had acquired the habit of pressing his teeth together in the pauses of his talk, shutting them on some woe that would proclaim itself, as men do who keep their misery to themselves. "a few hours ago," he went on, "i heard rob's voice in altercation as i passed the bull tavern, and i had, a feeling that if i failed with him so should i fail always throughout my ministry. i walked into the public-house, and stopped at the door of a room in which dow and the piper were sitting drinking. i heard rob saying, fiercely, 'if what you say about her is true, highlandman, she's the woman i've been looking for this half year and mair; what is she like?' i guessed, from what i had been told of the piper, that they were speaking of the earl's bride; but rob saw me and came to an abrupt stop, saying to his companion, 'dinna say another word about her afore the minister.' rob would have come away at once in answer to my appeal, but the piper was drunk and would not be silenced. 'i'll tell the minister about her, too,' he began. 'you dinna ken what you're doing," rob roared, and then, as if to save my ears from scandal at any cost, he struck campbell a heavy blow on the mouth. i tried to intercept the blow, with the result that i fell, and then some one ran out of the tavern crying, 'he's killed!' the piper had been stunned, but the story went abroad that he had stabbed me for interfering with him. that is really all. nothing, as you know, can overtake an untruth if it has a minute's start." "where is campbell now?" "sleeping off the effect of the blow: but dow has fled. he was terrified at the shouts of murder, and ran off up the west town end. the doctor's dogcart was standing at a door there and rob jumped into it and drove off. they did not chase him far, because he is sure to hear the truth soon, and then, doubtless, he will come back." though in a few hours we were to wonder at our denseness, neither gavin nor i saw why dow had struck the highlander down rather than let him tell his story in the minister's presence. one moment's suspicion would have lit our way to the whole truth, but of the spring to all rob's behavior in the past eight months we were ignorant, and so to gavin the bull had only been the scene of a drunken brawl, while i forgot to think in the joy of finding him alive. "i have a prayer-meeting for rain presently," gavin said, breaking a picture that had just appeared unpleasantly before me of babbie still in agony at nanny's, "but before i leave you tell me why this rumor caused you such distress." the question troubled me, and i tried to avoid it. crossing the hill we had by this time drawn near a hollow called the toad'shole, then gay and noisy with a caravan of gypsies. they were those same wild lindsays, for whom gavin had searched caddam one eventful night, and as i saw them crowding round their king, a man well known to me, i guessed what they were at. "mr. dishart," i said abruptly, "would you like to see a gypsy marriage? one is taking place there just now. that big fellow is the king, and he is about to marry two of his people over the tongs. the ceremony will not detain us five minutes, though the rejoicings will go on all night." i have been present at more than one gypsy wedding in my time, and at the wild, weird orgies that followed them, but what is interesting to such as i may not be for a minister's eyes, and, frowning at my proposal, gavin turned his back upon the toad'shole. then, as we recrossed the hill, to get away from the din of the camp, i pointed out to him that the report of his, death had brought mckenzie to thrums, as well as me. "as soon as mckenzie heard i was not dead," he answered, "he galloped off to the spittal, without ever seeing me. i suppose he posted back to be in time for the night's rejoicings there. so you see, it was no solicitude for me that brought him. he came because a servant at the spittal was supposed to have done the deed." "well, mr. dishart," i had to say, "why should deny that i have a warm regard for you? you have done brave work in our town." "it has been little," he replied. "with god's help it will be more in future." he meant that he had given time to his sad love affair that he owed to his people. of seeing babbit again i saw that he had given up hope. instead of repining, he was devoting his whole soul to god's work. i was proud of him, and yet i grieved, for i could no think that god wanted him to bury his youth so soon. "i had thought," he confessed to me, "that you were one of those who did not like my preaching." "you were mistaken," i said, gravely. i dared not tell him that, except his mother, none would have saw under him so eagerly as i. "nevertheless," he said, "you were a member of the auld licht church in mr. carfrae's time, and you left it when i came." "i heard your first sermon," i said. "ah," he replied. "i had not been long in thrums before i discovered that if i took tea with any of my congregation and declined a second cup, they thought it a reflection on their brewing." "you must not look upon my absence in that light," was all i could say. "there are reasons why i cannot come." he did not press me further, thinking i meant that the distance was too great, though frailer folk than i walked twenty miles to hear him. we might have parted thus had we not wandered by chance to the very spot where i had met him and babbie. there is a seat there now for those who lose their breath on the climb up, and so i have two reasons nowadays for not passing the place by. we read each other's thoughts, and gavin said calmly, "i have not seen her since that night. she disappeared as into a grave." how could i answer when i knew that babbie was dying for want of him, not half a mile away? "you seemed to understand everything that night," he went on; "or if you did not, your thoughts were very generous to me." in my sorrow for him i did not notice that we were moving on again, this time in the direction of windyghoul. "she was only a gypsy girl," he said, abruptly, and i nodded. "but i hoped," he continued," that she would be my wife." "i understood that," i said. "there was nothing monstrous to you," he asked, looking me in the face, "in a minister's marrying a gypsy?" i own that if i had loved a girl, however far below or above me in degree, i would have married her had she been willing to take me. but to gavin i only answered, "these are matters a man must decide for himself." "i had decided for myself," he said, emphatically. "yet," i said, wanting him to talk to me of margaret, "in such a case one might have others to consider besides himself." "a man's marriage," he answered, "is his own affair, i would have brooked no interference from my congregation." i thought, "there is some obstinacy left in him still;" but aloud i said, "it was of your mother i was thinking." "she would have taken babbie to her heart," he said, with the fond conviction of a lover. i doubted it, but i only asked, "your mother knows nothing of her?" "nothing," he rejoined. "it would be cruelty to tell my mother of her now that she is gone." gavin's calmness had left him, and he was striding quickly nearer to windyghoul. i was in dread lest he should see the egyptian at nanny's door, yet to have turned him in another