“not hungry for meat,” the furnace-tender said at last.

“what then? whiskey?” jeered kirby, with a coarse laugh.

wolfe was silent a moment, thinking.

“i dunno,” he said, with a bewildered look. “it mebbe. summat to make her live, i think,—like you. whiskey ull do it, in a way.”

the young man laughed again. mitchell flashed a look of disgust somewhere,—not at wolfe.

“may,” he broke out impatiently, “are you blind? look at that woman's face! it asks questions of god, and says, 'i have a right to know,' good god, how hungry it is!”

they looked a moment; then may turned to the mill-owner:—

“have you many such hands as this? what are you going to do with them? keep them at puddling iron?”

kirby shrugged his shoulders. mitchell's look had irritated him.

“ce n'est pas mon affaire. i have no fancy for nursing infant geniuses. i suppose there are some stray gleams of mind and soul among these wretches. the lord will take care of his own; or else they can work out their own salvation. i have heard you call our american system a ladder which any man can scale. do you doubt it? or perhaps you want to banish all social ladders, and put us all on a flat table-land,—eh, may?”

the doctor looked vexed, puzzled. some terrible problem lay hid in this woman's face, and troubled these men. kirby waited for an answer, and, receiving none, went on, warming with his subject.

“i tell you, there's something wrong that no talk of 'liberte' or 'egalite' will do away. if i had the making of men, these men who do the lowest part of the world's work should be machines,—nothing more,—hands. it would be kindness. god help them! what are taste, reason, to creatures who must live such lives as that?” he pointed to deborah, sleeping on the ash-heap. “so many nerves to sting them to pain. what if god had put your brain, with all its agony of touch, into your fingers, and bid you work and strike with that?”

“you think you could govern the world better?” laughed the doctor.

“i do not think at all.”

“that is true philosophy. drift with the stream, because you cannot dive deep enough to find bottom, eh?”

“exactly,” rejoined kirby. “i do not think. i wash my hands of all social problems,—slavery, caste, white or black. my duty to my operatives has a narrow limit,—the pay-hour on saturday night. outside of that, if they cut korl, or cut each other's throats, (the more popular amusement of the two,) i am not responsible.”

the doctor sighed,—a good honest sigh, from the depths of his stomach.

“god help us! who is responsible?”

“not i, i tell you,” said kirby, testily. “what has the man who pays them money to do with their souls' concerns, more than the grocer or butcher who takes it?”

“and yet,” said mitchell's cynical voice, “look at her! how hungry she is!”

kirby tapped his boot with his cane. no one spoke. only the dumb face of the rough image looking into their faces with the awful question, “what shall we do to be saved?” only wolfe's face, with its heavy weight of brain, its weak, uncertain mouth, its desperate eyes, out of which looked the soul of his class,—only wolfe's face turned towards kirby's. mitchell laughed,—a cool, musical laugh.

“money has spoken!” he said, seating himself lightly on a stone with the air of an amused spectator at a play. “are you answered?”—turning to wolfe his clear, magnetic face.

bright and deep and cold as arctic air, the soul of the man lay tranquil beneath. he looked at the furnace-tender as he had looked at a rare mosaic in the morning; only the man was the more amusing study of the two.

“are you answered? why, may, look at him! 'de profundis clamavi.' or, to quote in english, 'hungry and thirsty, his soul faints in him.' and so money sends back its answer into the depths through you, kirby! very clear the answer, too!—i think i remember reading the same words somewhere: washing your hands in eau de cologne, and saying, 'i am innocent of the blood of this man. see ye to it!'”

kirby flushed angrily.

“you quote scripture freely.”

“do i not quote correctly? i think i remember another line, which may amend my meaning? 'inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me.' deist? bless you, man, i was raised on the milk of the word. now, doctor, the pocket of the world having uttered its voice, what has the heart to say? you are a philanthropist, in a small way,—n'est ce pas? here, boy, this gentleman can show you how to cut korl better,—or your destiny. go on, may!”

“i think a mocking devil possesses you to-night,” rejoined the doctor, seriously.

he went to wolfe and put his hand kindly on his arm. something of a vague idea possessed the doctor's brain that much good was to be done here by a friendly word or two: a latent genius to be warmed into life by a waited-for sunbeam. here it was: he had brought it. so he went on complacently:

“do you know, boy, you have it in you to be a great sculptor, a great man? do you understand?” (talking down to the capacity of his hearer: it is a way people have with children, and men like wolfe,)—“to live a better, stronger life than i, or mr. kirby here? a man may make himself anything he chooses. god has given you stronger powers than many men,—me, for instance.”

may stopped, heated, glowing with his own magnanimity. and it was magnanimous. the puddler had drunk in every word, looking through the doctor's flurry, and generous heat, and self-approval, into his will, with those slow, absorbing eyes of his.

“make yourself what you will. it is your right.

“i know,” quietly. “will you help me?”

mitchell laughed again. the doctor turned now, in a passion,—

“you know, mitchell, i have not the means. you know, if i had, it is in my heart to take this boy and educate him for”—

“the glory of god, and the glory of john may.”

may did not speak for a moment; then, controlled, he said,—

“why should one be raised, when myriads are left?—i have not the money, boy,” to wolfe, shortly.

“money?” he said it over slowly, as one repeats the guessed answer to a riddle, doubtfully. “that is it? money?”

“yes, money,—that is it,” said mitchell, rising, and drawing his furred coat about him. “you've found the cure for all the world's diseases.—come, may, find your good-humor, and come home. this damp wind chills my very bones. come and preach your saint-simonian doctrines' to-morrow to kirby's hands. let them have a clear idea of the rights of the soul, and i'll venture next week they'll strike for higher wages. that will be the end of it.”

“will you send the coach-driver to this side of the mills?” asked kirby, turning to wolfe.

he spoke kindly: it was his habit to do so. deborah, seeing the puddler go, crept after him. the three men waited outside. doctor may walked up and down, chafed. suddenly he stopped.

“go back, mitchell! you say the pocket and the heart of the world speak without meaning to these people. what has its head to say? taste, culture, refinement? go!”

mitchell was leaning against a brick wall. he turned his head indolently, and looked into the mills. there hung about the place a thick, unclean odor. the slightest motion of his hand marked that he perceived it, and his insufferable disgust. that was all. may said nothing, only quickened his angry tramp.

“besides,” added mitchell, giving a corollary to his answer, “it would be of no use. i am not one of them.”

“you do not mean”—said may, facing him.

“yes, i mean just that. reform is born of need, not pity. no vital movement of the people's has worked down, for good or evil; fermented, instead, carried up the heaving, cloggy mass. think back through history, and you will know it. what will this lowest deep—thieves, magdalens, negroes—do with the light filtered through ponderous church creeds, baconian theories, goethe schemes? some day, out of their bitter need will be thrown up their own light-bringer,—their jean paul, their cromwell, their messiah.”

“bah!” was the doctor's inward criticism. however, in practice, he adopted the theory; for, when, night and morning, afterwards, he prayed that power might be given these degraded souls to rise, he glowed at heart, recognizing an accomplished duty.

wolfe and the woman had stood in the shadow of the works as the coach drove off. the doctor had held out his hand in a frank, generous way, telling him to “take care of himself, and to remember it was his right to rise.” mitchell had simply touched his hat, as to an equal, with a quiet look of thorough recognition. kirby had thrown deborah some money, which she found, and clutched eagerly enough. they were gone now, all of them. the man sat down on the cinder-road, looking up into the murky sky.

“'t be late, hugh. wunnot hur come?”

he shook his head doggedly, and the woman crouched out of his sight against the wall. do you remember rare moments when a sudden light flashed over yourself, your world, god? when you stood on a mountain-peak, seeing your life as it might have been, as it is? one quick instant, when custom lost its force and every-day usage? when your friend, wife, brother, stood in a new light? your soul was bared, and the grave,—a foretaste of the nakedness of the judgment-day? so it came before him, his life, that night. the slow tides of pain he had borne gathered themselves up and surged against his soul. his squalid daily life, the brutal coarseness eating into his brain, as the ashes into his skin: before, these things had been a dull aching into his consciousness; to-night, they were reality. he griped the filthy red shirt that clung, stiff with soot, about him, and tore it savagely from his arm. the flesh beneath was muddy with grease and ashes,—and the heart beneath that! and the soul? god knows.

then flashed before his vivid poetic sense the man who had left him,—the pure face, the delicate, sinewy limbs, in harmony with all he knew of beauty or truth. in his cloudy fancy he had pictured a something like this. he had found it in this mitchell, even when he idly scoffed at his pain: a man all-knowing, all-seeing, crowned by nature, reigning,—the keen glance of his eye falling like a sceptre on other men. and yet his instinct taught him that he too—he! he looked at himself with sudden loathing, sick, wrung his hands with a cry, and then was silent. with all the phantoms of his heated, ignorant fancy, wolfe had not been vague in his ambitions. they were practical, slowly built up before him out of his knowledge of what he could do. through years he had day by day made this hope a real thing to himself,—a clear, projected figure of himself, as he might become.

able to speak, to know what was best, to raise these men and women working at his side up with him: sometimes he forgot this defined hope in the frantic anguish to escape, only to escape,—out of the wet, the pain, the ashes, somewhere, anywhere,—only for one moment of free air on a hill-side, to lie down and let his sick soul throb itself out in the sunshine. but to-night he panted for life. the savage strength of his nature was roused; his cry was fierce to god for justice.

“look at me!” he said to deborah, with a low, bitter laugh, striking his puny chest savagely. “what am i worth, deb? is it my fault that i am no better? my fault? my fault?”

he stopped, stung with a sudden remorse, seeing her hunchback shape writhing with sobs. for deborah was crying thankless tears, according to the fashion of women.

“god forgi' me, woman! things go harder wi' you nor me. it's a worse share.”

he got up and helped her to rise; and they went doggedly down the muddy street, side by side.

“it's all wrong,” he muttered, slowly,—“all wrong! i dunnot understan'. but it'll end some day.”

“come home, hugh!” she said, coaxingly; for he had stopped, looking around bewildered.

“home,—and back to the mill!” he went on saying this over to himself, as if he would mutter down every pain in this dull despair.

she followed him through the fog, her blue lips chattering with cold. they reached the cellar at last. old wolfe had been drinking since she went out, and had crept nearer the door. the girl janey slept heavily in the corner. he went up to her, touching softly the worn white arm with his fingers. some bitterer thought stung him, as he stood there. he wiped the drops from his forehead, and went into the room beyond, livid, trembling. a hope, trifling, perhaps, but very dear, had died just then out of the poor puddler's life, as he looked at the sleeping, innocent girl,—some plan for the future, in which she had borne a part. he gave it up that moment, then and forever. only a trifle, perhaps, to us: his face grew a shade paler,—that was all. but, somehow, the man's soul, as god and the angels looked down on it, never was the same afterwards.

deborah followed him into the inner room. she carried a candle, which she placed on the floor, closing the door after her. she had seen the look on his face, as he turned away: her own grew deadly. yet, as she came up to him, her eyes glowed. he was seated on an old chest, quiet, holding his face in his hands.

“hugh!” she said, softly.

he did not speak.

“hugh, did hur hear what the man said,—him with the clear voice? did hur hear? money, money,—that it wud do all?”

he pushed her away,—gently, but he was worn out; her rasping tone fretted him.

“hugh!”

the candle flared a pale yellow light over the cobwebbed brick walls, and the woman standing there. he looked at her. she was young, in deadly earnest; her faded eyes, and wet, ragged figure caught from their frantic eagerness a power akin to beauty.

“hugh, it is true! money ull do it! oh, hugh, boy, listen till me! he said it true! it is money!”

“i know. go back! i do not want you here.”

“hugh, it is t' last time. i'll never worrit hur again.”

there were tears in her voice now, but she choked them back:

“hear till me only to-night! if one of t' witch people wud come, them we heard oft' home, and gif hur all hur wants, what then? say, hugh!”

“what do you mean?”

“i mean money.”

her whisper shrilled through his brain.

“if one oft' witch dwarfs wud come from t' lane moors to-night, and gif hur money, to go out,—out, i say,—out, lad, where t' sun shines, and t' heath grows, and t' ladies walk in silken gownds, and god stays all t' time,—where t'man lives that talked to us to-night, hugh knows,—hugh could walk there like a king!”

he thought the woman mad, tried to check her, but she went on, fierce in her eager haste.

“if i were t' witch dwarf, if i had t' money, wud hur thank me? wud hur take me out o' this place wid hur and janey? i wud not come into the gran' house hur wud build, to vex hur wid t' hunch,—only at night, when t' shadows were dark, stand far off to see hur.”

mad? yes! are many of us mad in this way?

“poor deb! poor deb!” he said, soothingly.

“it is here,” she said, suddenly, jerking into his hand a small roll. “i took it! i did it! me, me!—not hur! i shall be hanged, i shall be burnt in hell, if anybody knows i took it! out of his pocket, as he leaned against t' bricks. hur knows?”

she thrust it into his hand, and then, her errand done, began to gather chips together to make a fire, choking down hysteric sobs.

“has it come to this?”

that was all he said. the welsh wolfe blood was honest. the roll was a small green pocket-book containing one or two gold pieces, and a check for an incredible amount, as it seemed to the poor puddler. he laid it down, hiding his face again in his hands.

“hugh, don't be angry wud me! it's only poor deb,—hur knows?”

he took the long skinny fingers kindly in his.

“angry? god help me, no! let me sleep. i am tired.”

he threw himself heavily down on the wooden bench, stunned with pain and weariness. she brought some old rags to cover him.

it was late on sunday evening before he awoke. i tell god's truth, when i say he had then no thought of keeping this money. deborah had hid it in his pocket. he found it there. she watched him eagerly, as he took it out.

“i must gif it to him,” he said, reading her face.

“hur knows,” she said with a bitter sigh of disappointment. “but it is hur right to keep it.”

his right! the word struck him. doctor may had used the same. he washed himself, and went out to find this man mitchell. his right! why did this chance word cling to him so obstinately? do you hear the fierce devils whisper in his ear, as he went slowly down the darkening street?

the evening came on, slow and calm. he seated himself at the end of an alley leading into one of the larger streets. his brain was clear to-night, keen, intent, mastering. it would not start back, cowardly, from any hellish temptation, but meet it face to face. therefore the great temptation of his life came to him veiled by no sophistry, but bold, defiant, owning its own vile name, trusting to one bold blow for victory.

he did not deceive himself. theft! that was it. at first the word sickened him; then he grappled with it. sitting there on a broken cart-wheel, the fading day, the noisy groups, the church-bells' tolling passed before him like a panorama, while the sharp struggle went on within. this money! he took it out, and looked at it. if he gave it back, what then? he was going to be cool about it.

people going by to church saw only a sickly mill-boy watching them quietly at the alley's mouth. they did not know that he was mad, or they would not have gone by so quietly: mad with hunger; stretching out his hands to the world, that had given so much to them, for leave to live the life god meant him to live. his soul within him was smothering to death; he wanted so much, thought so much, and knew—nothing. there was nothing of which he was certain, except the mill and things there. of god and heaven he had heard so little, that they were to him what fairy-land is to a child: something real, but not here; very far off. his brain, greedy, dwarfed, full of thwarted energy and unused powers, questioned these men and women going by, coldly, bitterly, that night. was it not his right to live as they,—a pure life, a good, true-hearted life, full of beauty and kind words? he only wanted to know how to use the strength within him. his heart warmed, as he thought of it. he suffered himself to think of it longer. if he took the money?

then he saw himself as he might be, strong, helpful, kindly. the night crept on, as this one image slowly evolved itself from the crowd of other thoughts and stood triumphant. he looked at it. as he might be! what wonder, if it blinded him to delirium,—the madness that underlies all revolution, all progress, and all fall?

you laugh at the shallow temptation? you see the error underlying its argument so clearly,—that to him a true life was one of full development rather than self-restraint? that he was deaf to the higher tone in a cry of voluntary suffering for truth's sake than in the fullest flow of spontaneous harmony? i do not plead his cause. i only want to show you the mote in my brother's eye: then you can see clearly to take it out.

the money,—there it lay on his knee, a little blotted slip of paper, nothing in itself; used to raise him out of the pit, something straight from god's hand. a thief! well, what was it to be a thief? he met the question at last, face to face, wiping the clammy drops of sweat from his forehead. god made this money—the fresh air, too—for his children's use. he never made the difference between poor and rich. the something who looked down on him that moment through the cool gray sky had a kindly face, he knew,—loved his children alike. oh, he knew that!

there were times when the soft floods of color in the crimson and purple flames, or the clear depth of amber in the water below the bridge, had somehow given him a glimpse of another world than this,—of an infinite depth of beauty and of quiet somewhere,—somewhere, a depth of quiet and rest and love. looking up now, it became strangely real. the sun had sunk quite below the hills, but his last rays struck upward, touching the zenith. the fog had risen, and the town and river were steeped in its thick, gray damp; but overhead, the sun-touched smoke-clouds opened like a cleft ocean,—shifting, rolling seas of crimson mist, waves of billowy silver veined with blood-scarlet, inner depths unfathomable of glancing light. wolfe's artist-eye grew drunk with color. the gates of that other world! fading, flashing before him now! what, in that world of beauty, content, and right, were the petty laws, the mine and thine, of mill-owners and mill hands?

a consciousness of power stirred within him. he stood up. a man,—he thought, stretching out his hands,—free to work, to live, to love! free! his right! he folded the scrap of paper in his hand. as his nervous fingers took it in, limp and blotted, so his soul took in the mean temptation, lapped it in fancied rights, in dreams of improved existences, drifting and endless as the cloud-seas of color. clutching it, as if the tightness of his hold would strengthen his sense of possession, he went aimlessly down the street. it was his watch at the mill. he need not go, need never go again, thank god!—shaking off the thought with unspeakable loathing.

shall i go over the history of the hours of that night? how the man wandered from one to another of his old haunts, with a half-consciousness of bidding them farewell,—lanes and alleys and back-yards where the mill-hands lodged,—noting, with a new eagerness, the filth and drunkenness, the pig-pens, the ash-heaps covered with potato-skins, the bloated, pimpled women at the doors, with a new disgust, a new sense of sudden triumph, and, under all, a new, vague dread, unknown before, smothered down, kept under, but still there? it left him but once during the night, when, for the second time in his life, he entered a church. it was a sombre gothic pile, where the stained light lost itself in far-retreating arches; built to meet the requirements and sympathies of a far other class than wolfe's. yet it touched, moved him uncontrollably. the distances, the shadows, the still, marble figures, the mass of silent kneeling worshippers, the mysterious music, thrilled, lifted his soul with a wonderful pain. wolfe forgot himself, forgot the new life he was going to live, the mean terror gnawing underneath. the voice of the speaker strengthened the charm; it was clear, feeling, full, strong. an old man, who had lived much, suffered much; whose brain was keenly alive, dominant; whose heart was summer-warm with charity. he taught it to-night. he held up humanity in its grand total; showed the great world-cancer to his people. who could show it better? he was a christian reformer; he had studied the age thoroughly; his outlook at man had been free, world-wide, over all time. his faith stood sublime upon the rock of ages; his fiery zeal guided vast schemes by which the gospel was to be preached to all nations. how did he preach it to-night? in burning, light-laden words he painted jesus, the incarnate life, love, the universal man: words that became reality in the lives of these people,—that lived again in beautiful words and actions, trifling, but heroic. sin, as he defined it, was a real foe to them; their trials, temptations, were his. his words passed far over the furnace-tender's grasp, toned to suit another class of culture; they sounded in his ears a very pleasant song in an unknown tongue. he meant to cure this world-cancer with a steady eye that had never glared with hunger, and a hand that neither poverty nor strychnine-whiskey had taught to shake. in this morbid, distorted heart of the welsh puddler he had failed.

eighteen centuries ago, the master of this man tried reform in the streets of a city as crowded and vile as this, and did not fail. his disciple, showing him to-night to cultured hearers, showing the clearness of the god-power acting through him, shrank back from one coarse fact; that in birth and habit the man christ was thrown up from the lowest of the people: his flesh, their flesh; their blood, his blood; tempted like them, to brutalize day by day; to lie, to steal: the actual slime and want of their hourly life, and the wine-press he trod alone.

yet, is there no meaning in this perpetually covered truth? if the son of the carpenter had stood in the church that night, as he stood with the fishermen and harlots by the sea of galilee, before his father and their father, despised and rejected of men, without a place to lay his head, wounded for their iniquities, bruised for their transgressions, would not that hungry mill-boy at least, in the back seat, have “known the man”? that jesus did not stand there.

wolfe rose at last, and turned from the church down the street. he looked up; the night had come on foggy, damp; the golden mists had vanished, and the sky lay dull and ash-colored. he wandered again aimlessly down the street, idly wondering what had become of the cloud-sea of crimson and scarlet. the trial-day of this man's life was over, and he had lost the victory. what followed was mere drifting circumstance,—a quicker walking over the path,—that was all. do you want to hear the end of it? you wish me to make a tragic story out of it? why, in the police-reports of the morning paper you can find a dozen such tragedies: hints of shipwrecks unlike any that ever befell on the high seas; hints that here a power was lost to heaven,—that there a soul went down where no tide can ebb or flow. commonplace enough the hints are,—jocose sometimes, done up in rhyme.

doctor may a month after the night i have told you of, was reading to his wife at breakfast from this fourth column of the morning-paper: an unusual thing,—these police-reports not being, in general, choice reading for ladies; but it was only one item he read.

“oh, my dear! you remember that man i told you of, that we saw at kirby's mill?—that was arrested for robbing mitchell? here he is; just listen:—'circuit court. judge day. hugh wolfe, operative in kirby & john's loudon mills. charge, grand larceny. sentence, nineteen years hard labor in penitentiary. scoundrel! serves him right! after all our kindness that night! picking mitchell's pocket at the very time!”

his wife said something about the ingratitude of that kind of people, and then they began to talk of something else.

nineteen years! how easy that was to read! what a simple word for judge day to utter! nineteen years! half a lifetime!

hugh wolfe sat on the window-ledge of his cell, looking out. his ankles were ironed. not usual in such cases; but he had made two desperate efforts to escape. “well,” as haley, the jailer, said, “small blame to him! nineteen years' imprisonment was not a pleasant thing to look forward to.” haley was very good-natured about it, though wolfe had fought him savagely.

“when he was first caught,” the jailer said afterwards, in telling the story, “before the trial, the fellow was cut down at once,—laid there on that pallet like a dead man, with his hands over his eyes. never saw a man so cut down in my life. time of the trial, too, came the queerest dodge of any customer i ever had. would choose no lawyer. judge gave him one, of course. gibson it was. he tried to prove the fellow crazy; but it wouldn't go. thing was plain as daylight: money found on him. 't was a hard sentence,—all the law allows; but it was for 'xample's sake. these mill-hands are gettin' onbearable. when the sentence was read, he just looked up, and said the money was his by rights, and that all the world had gone wrong. that night, after the trial, a gentleman came to see him here, name of mitchell,—him as he stole from. talked to him for an hour. thought he came for curiosity, like. after he was gone, thought wolfe was remarkable quiet, and went into his cell. found him very low; bed all bloody. doctor said he had been bleeding at the lungs. he was as weak as a cat; yet if ye'll b'lieve me, he tried to get a-past me and get out. i just carried him like a baby, and threw him on the pallet. three days after, he tried it again: that time reached the wall. lord help you! he fought like a tiger,—giv' some terrible blows. fightin' for life, you see; for he can't live long, shut up in the stone crib down yonder. got a death-cough now. 't took two of us to bring him down that day; so i just put the irons on his feet. there he sits, in there. goin' to-morrow, with a batch more of 'em. that woman, hunchback, tried with him,—you remember?—she's only got three years. 'complice. but she's a woman, you know. he's been quiet ever since i put on irons: giv' up, i suppose. looks white, sick-lookin'. it acts different on 'em, bein' sentenced. most of 'em gets reckless, devilish-like. some prays awful, and sings them vile songs of the mills, all in a breath. that woman, now, she's desper't'. been beggin' to see hugh, as she calls him, for three days. i'm a-goin' to let her in. she don't go with him. here she is in this next cell. i'm a-goin' now to let her in.”

he let her in. wolfe did not see her. she crept into a corner of the cell, and stood watching him. he was scratching the iron bars of the window with a piece of tin which he had picked up, with an idle, uncertain, vacant stare, just as a child or idiot would do.

“tryin' to get out, old boy?” laughed haley. “them irons will need a crow-bar beside your tin, before you can open 'em.”

wolfe laughed, too, in a senseless way.

“i think i'll get out,” he said.

“i believe his brain's touched,” said haley, when he came out.

the puddler scraped away with the tin for half an hour. still deborah did not speak. at last she ventured nearer, and touched his arm.

“blood?” she said, looking at some spots on his coat with a shudder.

he looked up at her, “why, deb!” he said, smiling,—such a bright, boyish smile, that it went to poor deborah's heart directly, and she sobbed and cried out loud.

“oh, hugh, lad! hugh! dunnot look at me, when it wur my fault! to think i brought hur to it! and i loved hur so! oh lad, i dud!”

the confession, even in this wretch, came with the woman's blush through the sharp cry.

he did not seem to hear her,—scraping away diligently at the bars with the bit of tin.

was he going mad? she peered closely into his face. something she saw there made her draw suddenly back,—something which haley had not seen, that lay beneath the pinched, vacant look it had caught since the trial, or the curious gray shadow that rested on it. that gray shadow,—yes, she knew what that meant. she had often seen it creeping over women's faces for months, who died at last of slow hunger or consumption. that meant death, distant, lingering: but this—whatever it was the woman saw, or thought she saw, used as she was to crime and misery, seemed to make her sick with a new horror. forgetting her fear of him, she caught his shoulders, and looked keenly, steadily, into his eyes.

“hugh!” she cried, in a desperate whisper,—“oh, boy, not that! for god's sake, not that!”

the vacant laugh went off his face, and he answered her in a muttered word or two that drove her away. yet the words were kindly enough. sitting there on his pallet, she cried silently a hopeless sort of tears, but did not speak again. the man looked up furtively at her now and then. whatever his own trouble was, her distress vexed him with a momentary sting.

it was market-day. the narrow window of the jail looked down directly on the carts and wagons drawn up in a long line, where they had unloaded. he could see, too, and hear distinctly the clink of money as it changed hands, the busy crowd of whites and blacks shoving, pushing one another, and the chaffering and swearing at the stalls. somehow, the sound, more than anything else had done, wakened him up,—made the whole real to him. he was done with the world and the business of it. he let the tin fall, and looked out, pressing his face close to the rusty bars. how they crowded and pushed! and he,—he should never walk that pavement again! there came neff sanders, one of the feeders at the mill, with a basket on his arm. sure enough, nyeff was married the other week. he whistled, hoping he would look up; but he did not. he wondered if neff remembered he was there,—if any of the boys thought of him up there, and thought that he never was to go down that old cinder-road again. never again! he had not quite understood it before; but now he did. not for days or years, but never!—that was it.

how clear the light fell on that stall in front of the market! and how like a picture it was, the dark-green heaps of corn, and the crimson beets, and golden melons! there was another with game: how the light flickered on that pheasant's breast, with the purplish blood dripping over the brown feathers! he could see the red shining of the drops, it was so near. in one minute he could be down there. it was just a step. so easy, as it seemed, so natural to go! yet it could never be—not in all the thousands of years to come—that he should put his foot on that street again! he thought of himself with a sorrowful pity, as of some one else. there was a dog down in the market, walking after his master with such a stately, grave look!—only a dog, yet he could go backwards and forwards just as he pleased: he had good luck! why, the very vilest cur, yelping there in the gutter, had not lived his life, had been free to act out whatever thought god had put into his brain; while he—no, he would not think of that! he tried to put the thought away, and to listen to a dispute between a countryman and a woman about some meat; but it would come back. he, what had he done to bear this?

then came the sudden picture of what might have been, and now. he knew what it was to be in the penitentiary, how it went with men there. he knew how in these long years he should slowly die, but not until soul and body had become corrupt and rotten,—how, when he came out, if he lived to come, even the lowest of the mill-hands would jeer him,—how his hands would be weak, and his brain senseless and stupid. he believed he was almost that now. he put his hand to his head, with a puzzled, weary look. it ached, his head, with thinking. he tried to quiet himself. it was only right, perhaps; he had done wrong. but was there right or wrong for such as he? what was right? and who had ever taught him? he thrust the whole matter away. a dark, cold quiet crept through his brain. it was all wrong; but let it be! it was nothing to him more than the others. let it be!

the door grated, as haley opened it.

“come, my woman! must lock up for t' night. come, stir yerself!”

she went up and took hugh's hand.

“good-night, deb,” he said, carelessly.

she had not hoped he would say more; but the tired pain on her mouth just then was bitterer than death. she took his passive hand and kissed it.

“hur'll never see deb again!” she ventured, her lips growing colder and more bloodless.

what did she say that for? did he not know it? yet he would not be impatient with poor old deb. she had trouble of her own, as well as he.

“no, never again,” he said, trying to be cheerful.

she stood just a moment, looking at him. do you laugh at her, standing there, with her hunchback, her rags, her bleared, withered face, and the great despised love tugging at her heart?

“come, you!” called haley, impatiently.

she did not move.

“hugh!” she whispered.

it was to be her last word. what was it?

“hugh, boy, not that!”

he did not answer. she wrung her hands, trying to be silent, looking in his face in an agony of entreaty. he smiled again, kindly.

“it is best, deb. i cannot bear to be hurted any more.

“hur knows,” she said, humbly.

“tell my father good-bye; and—and kiss little janey.”

she nodded, saying nothing, looked in his face again, and went out of the door. as she went, she staggered.

“drinkin' to-day?” broke out haley, pushing her before him. “where the devil did you get it? here, in with ye!” and he shoved her into her cell, next to wolfe's, and shut the door.

along the wall of her cell there was a crack low down by the floor, through which she could see the light from wolfe's. she had discovered it days before. she hurried in now, and, kneeling down by it, listened, hoping to hear some sound. nothing but the rasping of the tin on the bars. he was at his old amusement again. something in the noise jarred on her ear, for she shivered as she heard it. hugh rasped away at the bars. a dull old bit of tin, not fit to cut korl with.

he looked out of the window again. people were leaving the market now. a tall mulatto girl, following her mistress, her basket on her head, crossed the street just below, and looked up. she was laughing; but, when she caught sight of the haggard face peering out through the bars, suddenly grew grave, and hurried by. a free, firm step, a clear-cut olive face, with a scarlet turban tied on one side, dark, shining eyes, and on the head the basket poised, filled with fruit and flowers, under which the scarlet turban and bright eyes looked out half-shadowed. the picture caught his eye. it was good to see a face like that. he would try to-morrow, and cut one like it. to-morrow! he threw down the tin, trembling, and covered his face with his hands. when he looked up again, the daylight was gone.

deborah, crouching near by on the other side of the wall, heard no noise. he sat on the side of the low pallet, thinking. whatever was the mystery which the woman had seen on his face, it came out now slowly, in the dark there, and became fixed,—a something never seen on his face before. the evening was darkening fast. the market had been over for an hour; the rumbling of the carts over the pavement grew more infrequent: he listened to each, as it passed, because he thought it was to be for the last time. for the same reason, it was, i suppose, that he strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of each passer-by, wondering who they were, what kind of homes they were going to, if they had children,—listening eagerly to every chance word in the street, as if—(god be merciful to the man! what strange fancy was this?)—as if he never should hear human voices again.

it was quite dark at last. the street was a lonely one. the last passenger, he thought, was gone. no,—there was a quick step: joe hill, lighting the lamps. joe was a good old chap; never passed a fellow without some joke or other. he remembered once seeing the place where he lived with his wife. “granny hill” the boys called her. bedridden she was; but so kind as joe was to her! kept the room so clean!—and the old woman, when he was there, was laughing at some of “t' lad's foolishness.” the step was far down the street; but he could see him place the ladder, run up, and light the gas. a longing seized him to be spoken to once more.

“joe!” he called, out of the grating. “good-bye, joe!”

the old man stopped a moment, listening uncertainly; then hurried on. the prisoner thrust his hand out of the window, and called again, louder; but joe was too far down the street. it was a little thing; but it hurt him,—this disappointment.

“good-bye, joe!” he called, sorrowfully enough.

“be quiet!” said one of the jailers, passing the door, striking on it with his club.

oh, that was the last, was it?

there was an inexpressible bitterness on his face, as he lay down on the bed, taking the bit of tin, which he had rasped to a tolerable degree of sharpness, in his hand,—to play with, it may be. he bared his arms, looking intently at their corded veins and sinews. deborah, listening in the next cell, heard a slight clicking sound, often repeated. she shut her lips tightly, that she might not scream; the cold drops of sweat broke over her, in her dumb agony.

“hur knows best,” she muttered at last, fiercely clutching the boards where she lay.

if she could have seen wolfe, there was nothing about him to frighten her. he lay quite still, his arms outstretched, looking at the pearly stream of moonlight coming into the window. i think in that one hour that came then he lived back over all the years that had gone before. i think that all the low, vile life, all his wrongs, all his starved hopes, came then, and stung him with a farewell poison that made him sick unto death. he made neither moan nor cry, only turned his worn face now and then to the pure light, that seemed so far off, as one that said, “how long, o lord? how long?”

the hour was over at last. the moon, passing over her nightly path, slowly came nearer, and threw the light across his bed on his feet. he watched it steadily, as it crept up, inch by inch, slowly. it seemed to him to carry with it a great silence. he had been so hot and tired there always in the mills! the years had been so fierce and cruel! there was coming now quiet and coolness and sleep. his tense limbs relaxed, and settled in a calm languor. the blood ran fainter and slow from his heart. he did not think now with a savage anger of what might be and was not; he was conscious only of deep stillness creeping over him. at first he saw a sea of faces: the mill-men,—women he had known, drunken and bloated,—janey's timid and pitiful-poor old debs: then they floated together like a mist, and faded away, leaving only the clear, pearly moonlight.

whether, as the pure light crept up the stretched-out figure, it brought with it calm and peace, who shall say? his dumb soul was alone with god in judgment. a voice may have spoken for it from far-off calvary, “father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” who dare say? fainter and fainter the heart rose and fell, slower and slower the moon floated from behind a cloud, until, when at last its full tide of white splendor swept over the cell, it seemed to wrap and fold into a deeper stillness the dead figure that never should move again. silence deeper than the night! nothing that moved, save the black, nauseous stream of blood dripping slowly from the pallet to the floor!

there was outcry and crowd enough in the cell the next day. the coroner and his jury, the local editors, kirby himself, and boys with their hands thrust knowingly into their pockets and heads on one side, jammed into the corners. coming and going all day. only one woman. she came late, and outstayed them all. a quaker, or friend, as they call themselves. i think this woman was known by that name in heaven. a homely body, coarsely dressed in gray and white. deborah (for haley had let her in) took notice of her. she watched them all—sitting on the end of the pallet, holding his head in her arms with the ferocity of a watch-dog, if any of them touched the body. there was no meekness, no sorrow, in her face; the stuff out of which murderers are made, instead. all the time haley and the woman were laying straight the limbs and cleaning the cell, deborah sat still, keenly watching the quaker's face. of all the crowd there that day, this woman alone had not spoken to her,—only once or twice had put some cordial to her lips. after they all were gone, the woman, in the same still, gentle way, brought a vase of wood-leaves and berries, and placed it by the pallet, then opened the narrow window. the fresh air blew in, and swept the woody fragrance over the dead face, deborah looked up with a quick wonder.

“did hur know my boy wud like it? did hur know hugh?”

“i know hugh now.”

the white fingers passed in a slow, pitiful way over the dead, worn face. there was a heavy shadow in the quiet eyes.

“did hur know where they'll bury hugh?” said deborah in a shrill tone, catching her arm.

this had been the question hanging on her lips all day.

“in t' town-yard? under t' mud and ash? t' lad'll smother, woman! he wur born in t' lane moor, where t' air is frick and strong. take hur out, for god's sake, take hur out where t' air blows!”

the quaker hesitated, but only for a moment. she put her strong arm around deborah and led her to the window.

“thee sees the hills, friend, over the river? thee sees how the light lies warm there, and the winds of god blow all the day? i live there,—where the blue smoke is, by the trees. look at me,” she turned deborah's face to her own, clear and earnest, “thee will believe me? i will take hugh and bury him there to-morrow.”

deborah did not doubt her. as the evening wore on, she leaned against the iron bars, looking at the hills that rose far off, through the thick sodden clouds, like a bright, unattainable calm. as she looked, a shadow of their solemn repose fell on her face; its fierce discontent faded into a pitiful, humble quiet. slow, solemn tears gathered in her eyes: the poor weak eyes turned so hopelessly to the place where hugh was to rest, the grave heights looking higher and brighter and more solemn than ever before. the quaker watched her keenly. she came to her at last, and touched her arm.

“when thee comes back,” she said, in a low, sorrowful tone, like one who speaks from a strong heart deeply moved with remorse or pity, “thee shall begin thy life again,—there on the hills. i came too late; but not for thee,—by god's help, it may be.”

not too late. three years after, the quaker began her work. i end my story here. at evening-time it was light. there is no need to tire you with the long years of sunshine, and fresh air, and slow, patient christ-love, needed to make healthy and hopeful this impure body and soul. there is a homely pine house, on one of these hills, whose windows overlook broad, wooded slopes and clover-crimsoned meadows,—niched into the very place where the light is warmest, the air freest. it is the friends' meeting-house. once a week they sit there, in their grave, earnest way, waiting for the spirit of love to speak, opening their simple hearts to receive his words. there is a woman, old, deformed, who takes a humble place among them: waiting like them: in her gray dress, her worn face, pure and meek, turned now and then to the sky. a woman much loved by these silent, restful people; more silent than they, more humble, more loving. waiting: with her eyes turned to hills higher and purer than these on which she lives, dim and far off now, but to be reached some day. there may be in her heart some latent hope to meet there the love denied her here,—that she shall find him whom she lost, and that then she will not be all-unworthy. who blames her? something is lost in the passage of every soul from one eternity to the other,—something pure and beautiful, which might have been and was not: a hope, a talent, a love, over which the soul mourns, like esau deprived of his birthright. what blame to the meek quaker, if she took her lost hope to make the hills of heaven more fair?

nothing remains to tell that the poor welsh puddler once lived, but this figure of the mill-woman cut in korl. i have it here in a corner of my library. i keep it hid behind a curtain,—it is such a rough, ungainly thing. yet there are about it touches, grand sweeps of outline, that show a master's hand. sometimes,—to-night, for instance,—the curtain is accidentally drawn back, and i see a bare arm stretched out imploringly in the darkness, and an eager, wolfish face watching mine: a wan, woful face, through which the spirit of the dead korl-cutter looks out, with its thwarted life, its mighty hunger, its unfinished work. its pale, vague lips seem to tremble with a terrible question. “is this the end?” they say,—“nothing beyond? no more?” why, you tell me you have seen that look in the eyes of dumb brutes,—horses dying under the lash. i know.

the deep of the night is passing while i write. the gas-light wakens from the shadows here and there the objects which lie scattered through the room: only faintly, though; for they belong to the open sunlight. as i glance at them, they each recall some task or pleasure of the coming day. a half-moulded child's head; aphrodite; a bough of forest-leaves; music; work; homely fragments, in which lie the secrets of all eternal truth and beauty. prophetic all! only this dumb, woful face seems to belong to and end with the night. i turn to look at it. has the power of its desperate need commanded the darkness away? while the room is yet steeped in heavy shadow, a cool, gray light suddenly touches its head like a blessing hand, and its groping arm points through the broken cloud to the far east, where, in the flickering, nebulous crimson, god has set the promise of the dawn.

the end