4 A Christmas Interlude

The road presently entered the hilly country, along Deer Creek, which in this region was a considerable stream, at times too deep for fording. But the hills on either side are highly suitable to the cultivation of tobacco, presenting fertile slopes to the sun, and the three young horsemen came to a wide area of fields, empty of everything, save the significant stalks. In a convenient hollow were large tobacco barns and just beyond was the residence of the owner, a brick building.

Harry recognized the place at once. It was the farm of Dave Strong, whom Wentworth, with Harry’s own aid, had defeated for the Legislature, a much more capable tobacco raiser than politician. Strong was a man of wealth, as wealth went in the Groveton country. Harry was sorry that their ride had brought them to his farm. He did not wish that either Wentworth or himself should have the appearance of rejoicing over a fallen adversary. But the three had taken little note of the direction, and they had come almost unconsciously.

A large, bearded man, walking through one of the fields, stopped when he saw the three horsemen, and came down to the fence abreast of them. It was David Strong, the owner, and Harry felt a deep sense of embarrassment, as well as a sort of defiance that he was able to keep hidden.

“We were merely talking a gallop” he said, “and forgot until we saw you that we were about to pass your place.”

Wentworth and Kidd also spoke courteously, but Strong frowned.

“A farmer is generally forgotten” he said in a surly tone, “after his vote is cast. I’m a farmer myself and that’s the reason I was a candidate this time; a man doesn’t forget his own kind. But you beat me, Mr. Wentworth and that’s an end of the business. ”

“I was fortunate” said Wentworth politely, “beyond my deserts I admit. But I hope to serve the people at Frankfort, Mr. Strong, and if you have any suggestions I shall be glad to have your cooperation.”

Strong looked up, a peculiar light in his intent black eyes.

“What are you going to do for the farmer?” he asked abruptly.

“I don’t know,” replied Wentworth, somewhat surprised, “I shall support all just bills that are for his benefit, but I haven’t had much time yet to think about it.”

“What about this?” said Strong, sweeping his hands toward the empty fields. “How are you going to save him from the trust? How are you going to keep him from being the slave of the manufacturer?”

The man’s manner was extraordinary. His great black eyes were blazing. Harry knew why and despite himself, despite a night that he remembered, he felt a certain sympathy.

“The tobacco raiser?” said Wentworth. “I don’t know. Why, what is to be done?”

“If you’re going to the Legislature you ought to know,” said Strong brusquely, and strode away, without another word, across the field.

The three went on, but more slowly.

They turned presently and rode back to Groveton, their spirits somewhat dampened, until they approached the suburbs. Now the setting sun, a great red globe, glittered on every roof and window. The whole place was illumined, enlarged to many times its size, and made of red gold. It struck upon the minds and hearts of all three.

“Good old Groveton!” exclaimed Harry. “I intend to live and die there.”

“It’s a fine place to hail from,” said Charlie Wentworth.

“It’s a good town, but it will he better when my railroad’s built,” said Tom Kidd.

They galloped into the town, and Harry soon forgot their meeting with Strong. He plunged anew into his work. He made mistakes and he began to realize it, but fortunately the realization did not discourage him; rather it incited him to new efforts. The distinctive quality of the Herald which differentiated it from other newspapers, published in small cities, became more marked. The region of quotation steadily extended, and the great campaign against lawlessness in Kentucky which he never neglected for a single day could not be ignored. Many of his brother editors in the State condemned him, and they did not always use nice words in doing so, but if he replied at all, he replied in a good-humored way, and persisted. The visit of the raiders, and the white-capped warning were almost forgotten.

Early in December when the accounts were balanced at the end of a week he found himself with all debts paid, and one hundred dollars in the cash drawer, ten beautiful green ten dollar bills. The sum looked like a million. Harry did not value money as much perhaps as he should, but he had an especial use for that hundred dollars, and that was why it looked so large.

He folded the ten bills neatly into the inside pocket of his coat, and once more took his way to the First National Bank. He passed the clerks in the outer office, and entered the little inner room in which Christopher Lucas sat, smoking a pipe and thinking. Winter was in full swing now, with the mercury at that low stage, which it can often reach in Kentucky, and the banker was not in his shirt sleeves. Instead he was fully clothed, and he sat close to a small but very hot stove.

“Come in Harry” he said, “and be sure that you shut the door behind you, ”Then you’ll be welcome. I’ve passed the age when I can enjoy cold.”

Harry took forth the roll of bills, and thrust it straight at Christopher Lucas.

“Well you are welcome!” said the banker dryly.

“It’s a hundred,” said Harry. “It’s the first money the Herald has earned, and I want it to go on my note.”

“You don’t have to force me to take it” said Christopher Lucas genially. “It’s a sign Harry, and I like such signs.”

“I hope there’ll be more,” said Harry.

“I wouldn’t have loaned it to you” said Christopher Lucas, “if I hadn’t been sure that you would pay, and it’s the business of a bank to make good loans.”

Although Harry went out of the bank lighter of pocket, he was also much lighter of heart. Income now exceeded outgo, and, to his sanguine mind, it would always do so, becoming cumulative in addition. The coveted new press seemed to him already in sight. He did not know much about presses, but he intended to have a beautiful one that would print with extraordinary speed an edition of the Herald four or five times larger than that at present issued.

But his hopes were dashed almost at once. A bad week promptly succeded the good one, and the margin of profit vanished for the time, at least. Following his custom on such occasions he plunged into work more deeply than ever, for the double purpose of seeking solace, and wooing fortune with greater assiduity.

He took up Tom Kidd’s railroad project again and supported it with great vigor. He was aware that he would invite criticism by such a course. Many would hint that the railroad promoters had been very good to the Herald. He knew how fond people were of scandal, and he understood the great credulity of the public, but he resolved to brave all such talk, because the railroad was a good thing and Groveton ought to have it. He said something in its behalf every day, and all that he foresaw came to pass.

More than once was he called the tool of the railroad, and an enemy of the people, but he persevered. He said that men often opposed their own best interests, and denied themselves profit, because they were afraid somebody else would make a profit yet greater.

Groveton itself was divided on the question. All who knew Harry well had extreme faith in him, but he was making enemies nevertheless; it was one of the penalties that the Herald had to pay for its marked character. But the fact that he did make enemies merely strengthened him in the good graces of his Aunt Emma.

“I wouldn’t give a cent for—what’s the new name I’m hearing? a mollycoddle—oh yes, I wouldn’t give a cent for a mollycoddle,” she said. “Harry has got the blood of the Masons in him, and he ought to say something in his paper about those people who are talking of him behind his back. Why doesn’t he tell them what they are!”

It was on a winter evening that she spoke in this positive manner. Harry had gone to the office, and she and Mr. Beauchamp sat before a crackling wood fire. The room was redolent of comfort. The neat touch of Emma Leroy was visible throughout the house, and she sat now, squarely upright, her knitting in her hand, and her strong face showing ample resolution. Mr. Beauchamp, in an arm chair at the corner of the hearth lifted a protesting hand. It was a fine, white hand, with nervous fingers, the hand of a musician.

“You are usually a wise woman Emma,” he said, “but I hope that Harry will not do so. I do not like this personal journalism, and I do not like the frequent suggestions of violence. I am in constant fear about Harry.”

“Then dismiss your fears,” said Mrs. Leroy serenely, “That boy can take care of himself. I think he’s got some qualities that even his father hasn’t yet discovered. You Europeans—although I will say for you, Henri Beauchamp that you’re a good man and have become one of us—don’t always understand us, and we’re generally stronger than you think we are.”

“I don’t underrate Harry,” said Mr. Beauchamp, “I am proud of him, but I do wish that people would leave the settlement of their grievances to the law.”

“Perhaps then they would never be settled,” said Mrs. Leroy.

Deep snow fell the next day, and then a bitter wind blew out of the east. Groveton shivered, but when the wind died, the little city made ready for a beautiful Christmas. The snow lay to a depth of a foot, and overhead was a shining blue sky, lighted up by a sun all gold. When Harry returned from the office three days before Christmas he was greeted by his Aunt Emma with the announcement that she had news.

“Judge Braxton has invited us all to Christmas dinner,” she said, “and you and your father have accepted. So have I”.

Harry laughed. He was much attached to his masterful aunt.

“When did you accept for father and me?” he asked.

About two hours ago. I’ve decided that it would be a good thing for both of you. The whole Braxton clan will be there, and they will eat up all the Judge has made in the last month at the law, but they’ll have a good time and so will we. Cynthia Braxton has come home from her school in Louisville for the holidays and I hear that she has grown into quite a self-willed creature.”

“That’s strange,” said Harry, “I do not know of any other self-willed woman in Groveton.”

“No impertinence,” said his aunt, “I’m not self-willed at all. I’m merely a woman of firm and independent judgment. It would be better for you men if there were more like me.”

Mr. Beauchamp was pleased with his invitation, and the acceptance that had been made for him. He and Judge Braxton, although, so unlike in origin and temperament, had been good friends for a generation, and he liked too to hear about him the sound of young voices. That they would be abundant at Judge Braxton’s anybody in Groveton knew. Harry was pleased also, but he was preoccupied. He had been deeply absorbed for months in the Herald and public affairs. Now a sudden new thought had come to him, and it was an uncommonly vivid and penetrating thought.

This thought had for its object Cynthia Braxton. She had returned to boarding school in Louisville, and Harry realized that she must be a woman. The thought gave him a certain sadness; they could not be boy and girl together any more, and, as a little girl, he had liked her tremendously. She would have different interests now, and their paths would lie apart. He was sorry for the ending of an old comradeship.

But he arrayed himself with great care, putting on patent leather shoes, light trousers, high collar and a long black frock coat, a much prized relic of his last days at the University. He even dared a tall silk hat, also a relic of the University, but not altogether safe on a youthful head in Groveton, when the snow was on the ground. The dinner was set for 4 P.M., and he and his father and aunt, in their splendor, walked together to Judge Braxton’s house.

The Judge’s house was a big two story brick, standing in the center of a wide lawn, shaded by many kinds of trees, and already numerous feet, leading thither, had made footprints in the snow on the lawn. Judge Braxton’s life always sounded the patriarchal note. He loved to rule, but he loved to rule generously. Had he been able to have a thousand dependents living happily upon him he would never have known an unhappy moment himself.

“A generous high-souled man with all the characteristics of his environment,” said Mr. Beauchamp as they lifted the latch of the front gate.

“And where would you find a better environment than this of the Pennyroyal?” said Mrs. Leroy in a challenging tone.

“Nowhere on earth Emma, nowhere,” quickly said Mr. Beauchamp, “and it has been home to me, as no other place ever could have been.”

“And you are one of us Henri, you have always been one of us” said his sister-in-law softly.

She was thinking of her delicate pretty sister, dead, long ago, to whom that sister’s husband had never spoken an unkind word. Henri Louis Beauchamp’s goodness to his young wife, and his long devotion to her memory had always endeared him to the numerous and powerful Mason clan.

Harry noticed the passage of sympathy between the two and it moved him. Of two bloods, and possibly more like his father than his mother, it was her kindred who were always with him.

The three stopped just inside the gate and looked back upon Groveton. They were softened perhaps by the day, and for all three it was one of these peculiar moments of chastened happiness which come to everyone. A winter sky, soft rather than dark, hung low over Groveton, seeming benignant and kind. The white covering of snow on everything gave back mellow tones from a yellow sun, and many windows blazed with light from the same sun. Harry felt a singular peace, a deep sense of restfulness. His days and nights for a long time had been so arduous, so full of excitement that the moment of calm was welcome. Groveton was very dear to him. He was with his own people.

They started up the brick walk, and, before they had gone three steps, Judge Braxton, standing in his own doorway, welcomed them in thunderous tone. His figure was thrown into relief, and was magnified by a bright woodfire in the room behind him. His snow-white hair lay thick upon his splendid brow. His face was ruddy with health and strength. He stood upright straight as a pine. His sixty years and more were as nothing.

“Come right in!” he shouted in those trumpet tones, famed so far. “Glad to see you Mr. Beachamp and you Mrs. Leroy and you Harry! How fine you’re looking, Mrs. Leroy! I don’t understand how you’ve been able to remain a widow so long!”

“Maybe it’s because the man I’d be willing to take is married already,” replied Mrs. Leroy swiftly.

“Nothing else could hold him,’ said the Judge blandly—there was invariably some such small passage of arms between Mrs. Leroy and him—and they went in together. It was a big house with many big rooms, but it was filled now to overflowing with the Braxton kin, children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins to the fourth degree, and some who were of no kin at all. Children swarmed everywhere.

“Here’s the eggnog,” said Judge Braxton. “That comes first. I made it myself and it’s not too weak. Look out Mrs. Leroy! Caught!”

She had walked unconsciously under the mistletoe, and a young man, a distant cousin had audaciously kissed her. Then, swinging deftly away in time, he had dodged the avenging hand.

“Well done, George,” said Judge Braxton, “A skillful capture and a skillful escape. We old folks will stay here. The young people are in there, Harry.”

After the drink of eggnog, that soothing Kentucky compound of milk, eggs and something stronger, Harry went into the great parlor, whence came the sound of many voices. It was an immense room of the old-fashioned kind, still common in the south. The curtains shut out the winter twilight, which was already coming, and the room was lighted only by a roaring wood fire in a bright fire-place.

Harry felt no hesitancy in entering that room. He would still be among his own people. He would know everyone there. Some of them would be as closely akin to him by blood as they were to the Judge. Hence it was that he entered with a light and easy footstep. He had been too much preoccupied lately. He had been growing old before his time. Now, and all at once, he was a boy again.

He stepped over the threshold, and the moment that he passed it a new and powerful element, the most powerful of all, entered his life. There were many young faces in the room, but the light from the fire was tricky. Now and then a great blaze leaped up, cast a radiant band across the floor, and then disappeared, to reappear again in another place. Harry felt that he was being played with by the firelight. He caught glimpses of well known youthful faces, of eyes sparkling with merriment, and, in a flash, they were gone.

“Harry! Harry Beauchamp!” shouted familiar voices, and the great circle opened wide to receive him. “What have you brought me?” piped one of the Judge’s grandchildren, a very small youth, at his knee, and thoughtful Harry promptly produced a toy from his pocket.

The light still played hide and seek with him. He had been conscious when he passed the door of a presence, not of many presences, but of a presence, one presence. He was looking for that presence now, but in the flickering firelight it seemed to evade him.

The light steadied at last and from the core of it, so it seemed to Harry, stepped Cynthia Braxton, a slender almost delicate figure, but not the Cynthia whom he had known all his life. It was a new Cynthia, like and unlike the old. Her wonderful black hair was piled high upon her head, her eyes showed dark blue in the glow of the blaze, and her cheeks were red from the same glow.

She came straight to him. One reason why he liked her so much was because she had always been so direct and simple. She was never pert or coquettish, and simplicity, the transparent mirror of truth, always appealed to him as the greatest and most convincing quality in man or woman. There was no change in her manner now as she held out her hand, and said the common words of greeting: “Harry, I’m glad to see you.”

Harry felt that there was a change, not in manner, but in spirit, in essence, something intangible and undefined, but deep and significant. It was so important that it made him say “We all welcome you home, Miss Br—” and when he saw her beginning to laugh he hastily corrected himself and said: “We are all happy to welcome you home, Cynthia.” Then a single look passed between them, and, in a way, both understood that a great moment in both their lives had come and gone. For a fleeting instant the color on her cheeks deepened, and then she spoke quite calmly of his newspaper.

“I’ve been proud of you Harry,” she said, “I was the only Grovetonite at the school in Louisville, and they’ve begun to talk of the Herald there. Miss Simpson—she’s our history teacher— says it promises to be the greatest force for righteousness yet to appear in Kentucky.”

Harry smiled with boyish pleasure.

“Miss Simpson is too kind” he said, “I’ve merely tried to say a few things in which I believe, and I’ve said ’em over and over again. Iteration and reiteration have an effect upon people even when you bore ’em. It’s quite simple.”

She led him on. There was no embarrassment. The old easy footing was, in a way, reestablished, and Harry without being quite conscious of it became talkative about himself. The others, absorbed in their own interests, noticed nothing. They would not have thought anything anyhow. He was one of them, the kinsman of some, and everybody knew that the two had been playmates all their lives.

The great fire in the great room roared and crackled now. It was an uncommonly wide fireplace, one of the old type, and the Judge, in honor of Christmas, had built in it a fire of unusual size, mostly of seasoned hickory logs that sent up a fine high blaze, and that crackled like musketry. Now it burned steadily, as if in triumph, and filled the room with a deep mellow glow. The light, the warmth and the presence entered Harry’s soul. Outside the winter twilight was deepening on the snow, and darkness was riding in on its skirts, but here in the defended space all things were alike and bright. He gave himself up to the rapture of the moment. The Herald and its trials floated into nothingness, for the first time since he had become an editor and proprietor.

The dinner was late. It had to be late, and everyone knew that it would be late, because provision must be made for so many. So the young people remained long in the big parlor, playing and talking before the great fire. Someone announced presently that it was snowing again. Harry looked out. Huge flakes were driving down, one fast upon another, and the night had fully come. The wind had risen, and it was roaring about the house. Now and then great gusts of snow dashed against the glass, and all Groveton was lost from view in the storm. It was inexpressibly cold, weird and desolate outside, but inside the brightness and the glow of life were but deepened.

Harry was about to turn away from the window, when he caught a glimpse of something that startled him, for the moment. It was a vision of a wild and hunted face, the desperate face of a man, who stood for an instant among the whirling flakes, staring at the brilliant light in the window, and then was gone, as if a curtain had been dropped between.

It was vivid, photographic, but it vanished so quickly that Harry could scarcely persuade himself it was real. He would not speak of it, as they would laugh at him, and he turned away from the window, soon to forget the swift vision in the absorption of the room.

“Do you have no wish to live in Louisville after your schooldays are over?” he said to Cynthia Braxton. “It’s a big town and livelier than Groveton.”

“Not livelier for me,” she replied with sincerity. “Life in Groveton is, to my mind, full of interest, and think how our town is growing! Yes Father, I’m coming at once!”

Judge Braxton had appeared at the door and called to Cynthia. It seemed to Harry that his voice, at that moment, was lacking in the gay holiday tone so characteristic of it at this festival. But he stood in the doorway only an instant, just long enough for light-footed Cynthia to join him, and then the two disappeared together.

Harry turned back to the fire, which still crackled and leaped, but the core, the intense brilliant light, fairly alive at the heart of it, was gone. He fell into talk with nephews and nieces and cousins and grandchildren, and, in a half hour, Cynthia came back with the announcement that dinner was ready.

Thirty people sat down to the table, quiet Mrs. Braxton at the head of it and the Judge, who was not quiet at all, at the foot. Harry was near the head, and by some lucky chance Cynthia was beside him, perhaps because they had been playmates all their lives. His Aunt Emma, large and erect, but benignant was at the Judge’s right hand, and his father was safely bestowed somewhere near Mrs. Braxton.

Now Judge Braxton was seen at his best. Every patriarchal instinct in him—and they were numberless—was gratified. Upon that bountiful table was outspread every product of Kentucky. Even the mountains had sent down game, deer and wild turkey, and woe to him or her who did not fall to with the avidity thought necessary. The Judge’s eagle eye was at once upon the victim, and his thunderous voice did not hesitate to administer the potent rebuke.

There was not much talk for a while. Most of the people present were young, and the old themselves were not lacking in vigorous appetite. Harry, despite his mental exaltation, was as busy as the others. He glanced at his father, by birth, the one alien figure there, and he saw upon his face a look of content. He fitted into his place like a hand in a glove. Harry uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.

“Why are you sighing?” asked Cynthia who heard.

“Because I noticed something that made me happy,” he replied, “Because we have made such a successful adoption of my father.”

She followed his glance.

“It is true” she said, “but I knew that long ago.”

“If this isn’t the charge of the Hungry Brigade I don’t know what is,” said Mrs. Leroy. It’s lucky that Kentucky has a fruitful soil.”

“They’ve done pretty well” said the Judge, looking around with satisfaction at the charging columns. “And just think Mrs. Leroy! A large part of what you see on the table or rather what was on the table was raised on my own farm.”

“Then,” said Mrs. Leroy, “I’ve got to thank you for one of the most expensive dinners ever set in Groveton. I hear Judge Braxton that you have to work pretty hard at the law to maintain that farm of yours.”

When the laughter subsided Judge Braxton, not at all daunted, came back.

“It’s nothing but professional jealousy, children,” he assured the assembled table. “She claims to be a farmer herself.”

Harry glanced at the window. It was very dark, and the snow was still driving hard. The Christmas seemed to him to be ideal.

The talk now became more lively, and presently they picked up the subject of the Herald, and Harry’s policy in regard to lawlessness in Kentucky.

“Harry is a misguided youth if he is my nephew,” said Mrs. Leroy, “I’ve undertaken the training of him too late. You can’t make all people the same, even in their views of law. A man is a good deal like a tree. What he is depends a lot on the soil in which he grows.”

“I agree with you,” said Judge Braxton, “you are a lady of great common sense Mrs. Leroy, even if you do asperse my farming. We are made not only by our fathers and mothers, but also by our grandfathers and grandmothers, and all our kindred and all the people we have known in childhood and youth. You can’t upset this huge machine of heredity and association in a day. It isn’t wise to try it.”

“It’s the truth,” said Mrs. Leroy, emphatically.

“That is,” said the Judge, “you shouldn’t bite off more’n you can chew as they say in the mountains. It’s pretty sound advice.”

“But we must make a beginning,” said Harry. “We do have a shocking number of killings in this region. Now that last case.”

“You’re thinking of Ed Parker,” interrupted Judge Braxton, “I saw what you said about it in the Herald this morning.”

“Yes,” said Harry with emphasis, “he ought to be punished, and punished promptly.”

They spoke of a killing that had occured a few days before in the next county on the east, the one that ran up into the mountains. A man named Ed Parker had killed another, a Logsdon, and, according to the details that came into Groveton, it was a peculiarly atrocious crime. Parker had escaped, for the time, but a numerous party were in pursuit, and expected to take him, soon.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” said Judge Braxton thoughtfully, “I’ve had more than forty years of the criminal law, and my experience makes me feel very merciful toward human weakness. There may be extenuating circumstances in this case. I go to Randolph county, when I ride the circuit, and I’ve seen Ed Parker more than once. But we won’t be too hard on you, Harry, now that I’ve got you here in my house, and you can’t escape.”

He changed the subject and they talked of lighter matters. After dinner the young people went back to the great parlor, where the big fire still crackled and leaped, and some of the very youngest of them all began to play games of a vigorous character that entailed a lot of running about halls and stairways. The others, perforce, were drawn into them and Harry soon found himself trying with agile foot to evade the pursuit of two or three grandchildren.

In one of the stages of a particularly lively game he and Cynthia fled together up the stairway into the dusk of a long hall. Behind them they heard the swift patter of little feet. Harry took the lead down the hall. Then he remembered a room, used chiefly for storage purposes, in which he had played many a time. The door was fastened with a catch, but he knew the catch.

“Into the store room!” he called to Cynthia, elate with his happy thought, “They won’t think of it for at least five minutes!”

“No! no!” she cried in a sudden strained voice, “Not in there, Harry, not in there!”

It was too late. Harry’s finger was already upon the catch, and the door was swinging open, before he realized that she was in intense earnest. Still carried by his impetus he stepped inside, and quick as a flash she followed; He heard the door close behind them, and the catch spring into place. Then he heard too her strained breathing by his side.

The room was lighted at the end by a large window. The shutter was open at the top. It had stopped snowing now, and the moonlight came in, falling upon a man who stood near the wall. The stranger had the appearance of one, who had risen suddenly, startled by a sound. It was a wild and hunted face, a desperate face that he presented to Harry’s gaze, the face of a tall young man whose clothing was torn and stained. That clothing was homespun, and Harry knew that the man before him was a mountaineer.

The two stood there, staring at each other, and then the stranger’s eyes began to wander uneasily about the room, as if he were looking for a weapon. Harry knew the face to be the one that he had seen at the window.

“Well,” said Cynthia, “You know who he is don’t you?”

“No,” said Harry, sudden knowledge descending upon him, “but I think I could guess.”

“Yes it’s Ed Parker, the man who killed the other in Randolph County. He fled through the hills by night, and he’s come here for my father to defend him. He waited outside the town, until dark, and he crept into the backyard, when we were in the parlor before dinner.”

“Yes” said Harry, “I saw his face at the window. It was when your father came and called you.”

“He wanted me to help hide him. I was the only one whom he would trust,” she spoke proudly, and then she continued defensively. “He told a terrible tale. He said that he had been persecuted, hounded by this man Logsdon, and his friends; that Logsdon undertook to kill him, and that only his quickness in striking back and striking mortally saved him. Then he fled, and Logsdon’s friends have been sending out of Randolph County the reports that we have heard. Oh, Harry it is true! If you had heard this man’s story as I heard it, you would have felt the truth of every word!”

“But a murderer, a fugitive from justice hidden here!” exclaimed Harry.

“Yes, hidden here”—again proudly—“hidden here that he may have justice and a fair trial and not suffer for revenge. He will be surrendered tomorrow, but to the authorities here in Groveton, and when he is tried the true story will be told. My father will defend him. Will the Herald in the morning contain the statement that Ed Parker, the fugitive man-killer from Randolph County is hidden in Groveton in the house of Judge Wiliam Braxton?”

“No, it will not—but I am very much afraid it should!”

The light sound of pattering feet outside had passed on, and in the room itself there was now an intense silence. Harry’s mind was in a ferment. This man-killer here, hidden in Judge Braxton’s own house, and defended by Cynthia Braxton herself! His sense of law and order rebelled at it, but he was helpless. Then he told himself that he had come into that room by chance, that he did not belong there, and the secret was not his. But his mind rebelled again. He knew—no matter how he knew—and to be silent was to help them.

Cynthia took a step forward, and looked straight into his eyes.

“You would like to print it, Harry” she said, “You know you would, in order to carry out your policy.”

Harry put up his hand, as if to defend himself from her.

“Yes Cynthia,” he said, “I would, I admit what you say, but I will not. I cannot! My policy, as you call it, brings me into a pretty thorny path!”

He uttered a little laugh of self-contempt. The man had not yet spoken a word, but he had leaned toward Cynthia as if he saw in her a greater power than himself that would protect him. Now he turned to Harry and cried:

“Before God! all that she says is true! Every word of it! If you had been hunted through the mountains as I’ve been! Ef you’d never knowed what it wuz to be safe a minute day or night you’d a-shot too, ez I did, Mister!”

The deep, strained note in the man’s voice carried conviction. There could be no falsehood in that passionate outcry. Harry felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him. The Mason blood in his veins was speaking.

“I shall say nothing” he said, “I have not seen you.”

He turned to the door and Cynthia followed him quickly

“You’ve done right, Harry, Believe me you have!” she said, “You have not merely sacrificed yourself for your friends?”

“I’m not one to judge,” said Harry, “I’m neither strong enough nor wise enough.”

She gave him her hand, and unconsciously he pressed it until a slight additional color came into her cheeks. Then he dropped the hand, and the two went out. The door closed behind them, and they heard its catch springing into place. A few moments later the children found them in the dusky hall, and a shout of triumph arose.

When the sports were over, those who were grown sat late. Harry’s disturbed mind settled into temporary calm. His father sat before the great roaring fire, his hands clasped over his knees, discussing with Judge Braxton the agitation among the tobacco growers, but Harry did not pay much attention to it. He was conscious now not only of a presence, but of one that could be determined and strong. The hour to go came at last, and the three wrapped themselves up for the short journey.

“We’re glad to thank you for a fine dinner and fine evening, Judge Braxton,” said Mrs. Leroy. “Old Southern hospitality will never die out while you’re alive.”

Judge Braxton smiled. He was infinitely pleased. No other compliment could please him so much.

“You do me too great honor,” he replied. “As I said, Mrs. Leroy, I wonder why the men have permitted you to remain a widow so long, and that wonder steadily grows.”

The three went down the walk. The snow lay deep and gleaming white on the ground. A brilliant moon was out, and it poured down melted silver, the town showing through it the dusky outline of phantom walls and roofs. Here and there lights still twinkled, tiny points of flame, like fire flies.

The three looked back. Judge Braxton and Cynthia still stood in the doorway, the slender young figure and the broad powerful one side by side, their faces outlined in the moonlight like photographs on a plate. Unlike! and yet so like! Harry, at that moment, was startled by the resemblance. Nor was it wholly physical.

“A fine pair,” said Mrs. Leroy.

“Yes,” said Harry absently.

“Both of them!” said Mrs. Leroy with emphasis.

Harry looked up.

“Yes! yes!” he said hurriedly.

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