CHAPTER XIII.

        Bot. -- "There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword and kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide."

        Snout. -- "By'r Lakin, a parlous fear!"

Midsummer Night's Dream.

        IN mid-May, near sunset, as John Cranston and Gorm Smallin mounted the rocky apex of Chilhowee Mountain, and turned a corner, so as to overlook Valley Beautiful, a question occurred to the former of these two individuals, which might far more appropriately have commenced his journey than ended it.

        "What the devil," said Cranston, aloud, "have I come here for?"

        He drew rein and sat still on his horse, thoughtfully gazing downward toward where Thalberg hung on the slope like a fruit on a tree.

        "Danged ef I know, bless your heart!" doggedly remarked Gorm Smallin.

        Cranston had early conceived a half disgust for his travelling companion, which, in the irritability of a soul not at ease with itself, had been more than once displayed amid the frets of their journey. Up to this time Mr. Smallin had been too much absorbed by the constant fear of detection and the adoption of precautions thereagainst, to notice this ill-concealed contempt of his employer; but now, when he was out of the long reach of the Confederate provost, when he was upon his native heath, when he had his hundred dollars

in his pocket, and when he was in sight of his triumph, the mountaineer deemed that the circumstances justified him in asserting, at least to a prudent degree, the rights of man.

        "Raälly, now," continued Gorm Smallin, "I cain't see, come to think of it, what in the name o' sense you air agwine back thar fur. Ef a man mought judge from some powerful cur'ous tales that's come to him, a man wouldn't think you'd be gwine back thar in a hurry. Seems as if I recomember havin' hearn 'em tell how" -- Gorm Smallin sent a sidelong glance toward Cranston's face, as a mariner might look into the sky, to find out if the weather-signs would authorize him to proceed farther; and apparently satisfied himself of clear weather -- "how a big fellar thar one night slapped you down in the parlor right afore the women!"

        Cranston's treacherous calm, like that of the great deep, tempted the adventurous Smallin too far.

        "An' how," continued Gorm, "you left thar betwixt two day-lights, and nervver cum back fur yer trunk, even!"

        In a thin, languid, prolonged voice Cranston said only "Ah-h!" Then, quick as lightning, turned and struck Smallin on the cheek such a blow as sent that adventurous individual gyrating to the ground. Cranston's face was of the livid hue that makes the sea-horizon seem deadly, just before a storm. He leapt from his horse, drew his pistol, ran to his prostrate tormentor, and was in the act of firing right into his face, when, as if an invisible hand had dealt him a blow on the forehead, he threw back his head, fired his pistol in the air, glanced undecidedly about him for a moment, then

sprang up the huge boulder that crowns the peak, and sat down, leaning his back against it, looking westward straight into the sun.

        A dun-blue cloud, that seemed like a huge bruise on the pearly cheek of the sky, hung over the distant end of the line of peaks. From behind it, the sun shot crimson streaks like veins up the sky; but presently came down out of the cloud, making its edge an insupportable crimson brilliancy, and like a red, flaming heart, throbbed out infinite, pulsing floods of glittering blood-light over world and heaven.

        And then the cloud moved down on the sun as he touched the far summits, and lay over him like an eyelid, from under which the fierce Polyphemus-eye of the sun glared back into Cranston's eye along the level peak-line.

        It was like the blood-shotten eye of a wild beast, scowling vengeance after you have hurt him, as he retreats to his jungle.

        Suddenly, with a great bound, the red sun leapt into the sea.

        Cranston turned and looked into the eastern heaven, and lo, Brown Dusk, winged o' one side with a sigh and o' t'other with a smile, and whispering her secret to herself, came trailing up and lit a star in the east.

        And then she floated down and walked airily into the valleys, like a kindly, smiling nurse, and whispered the sparrow to sleep on his twig, and put to bed the wren on her sedgy couch. And then she wandered by a curving ravine up the mountain, and came and stood about Cranston on the high rock.

        Bad spirits are charming because they are daring. The

evil ones in Cranston's soul could not resist the temptation to show that they were not afraid even in this exquisite presence of the Dusk. They came out and showed themselves to Cranston clearly, in his soul. They hovered before his soul's eye, and flouted their wickedness in his face. His impurities, his angers, his weaknesses, his bitter passions, marched past him. It was like a field-day down Below there, when the Devil reviews his troops. Their martial music was monotonous. It was the uttered word "Never." From somewhere this word uttered itself in Cranston, -- "Never!" It is impossible that any human soul should confront this idea calmly. Cranston grew sick-hearted. A cascade of "Nevers" kept falling, falling in the hearing of his soul, whose monotony did not lull him but only sated him. Never -- what? Let no man imagine it was the "conviction of sin" which tortured him. He loved Felix Sterling; he knew she was pure and high; he knew he was not. He knew that Felix was queen of herself. He had not been king of his self. Could he be king of her?

        Never!

        His infinite yearning was that his life might have been so white, that he could have stripped the flesh off his soul, and bared that to the sight of men and angels, and sworn in their hearing, while he clasped Felix, "I love her, and I am worth her, and by love! -- the deepest oath -- she is mine forever!"

        "Never, never!" rhymed the evil spirits.

        "Ah, I could not endure now, even if she were mine, to see her head here" -- said Cranston to himself, and smote his breast -- "here, where other heads have lain,

and whence they have been pushed away, by wearied hands. Good God, my soul's all scarred and dented and dulled, and her's is smooth and white as her cheek, and glitters trenchantly as her eye when I played for her! What for? why is it?["]

        Cranston sprang upon his feet and tossed out his arms in a wild questioning gesture over the precipice.

        "Why," said he, with upturned face, "you that made the world and the men in it, whatever they call you, -- God, or Christ, or Jove, or what not, -- why have you made me so? Why did n't you make me strong and unselfish and white-souled like her? Why did n't you stretch out your finger and stop me from the acts which have rendered me incapable of winning this woman, or even of gaining any thing but the bitterness of self-accusation, and the consciousness of a foul imposition of me upon her too worthy -- if I could win her? The world condemned and despised the man who saw his worst enemy sleeping and would not run to save him from a serpent that had coiled round his neck. The serpent was allowed to strike, and the man allowing won universal obloquy. But you -- you, God -- you allow every day your men and women to poison themselves with poisons that seem to them sunshine-wine. You stir not to prevent them, and you smile serenely with your skies and your stars over the convulsions of your children. Why did n't you keep me clean and pure like her?"

        "Why?" he continued, with a crazied iteration, audibly.

        "Why?" shouted he, at the top of his voice, up to the stars.

        "Adzactly." muttered Gorm Smallin to himself. In view of all the circumstances, Mr. Smallin had concluded to waive for the present the rights of man in favor of the mights of man. Pursuing which policy he had arisen, and taking the bridle of his horse in his hand, had walked down the steep road descending the mountain, and was now in a path branching to the right from the road, some distance below the summit. Indistinctly he heard the last wild shout of Cranston. "Adzactly," said he; "ye may call thar till ye rot, for all the comin' back I'll do, to show ye the way. I did think I'd ride with ye clur to Tolberg, and then come back to my cabin by myself; but I'm derned if ye ha'int saved me the trouble! I'm glad enough to git shet of ye any way." With which consolation Mr. Smallin pursued his journey in silence and deep meditation. Through the May woods came upon him, rustling, sweet home-influences, as he neared the spot where, some months before the conscription bore him off, he had cleared some ground, built his cabin, and installed his young wife mistress. Here, and then, he had felt his breast expand with that strange responsibility-idea which crowns us kings when we are young, but bends us into slaves when we are old. He pictured the opening door of the cabin when he should knock presently. Sary, God bless the gal! would rush into his arms. The clasp, the strain, the thrill, -- all these came to him. They would sit, and give and take the news. With lordly air he would deposit on the brackets over the head of his bed the magnificent silver-mounted rifle which Cranston in a generous burst had given him. Lord of the place, -- this idea made Gorm Smallin

straighten up involuntarily, -- 'King of it, -- aye, tittering ladies and gentlemen, -- a mere Hesse Darmstadt of a kingdom, yet nevertheless a veritable kingdom, and I, Gorm Smallin, king of it; a mere log-cabin, yet I
                       "Loved it better than many a better"
house!'

        Thinking in his ruder dialect some such thoughts, Gorm Smallin emerged into the small cleared space that surrounded his cabin.

        Emerged, -- and stood suddenly still as a gravestone. No cabin was there. He walked waveringly forward. A black patch on the ground revealed the spot where his house had stood. He wandered slowly across this black blur on the earth. The melancholy crunch of his feet upon the cinders overcame him. His limbs trembled, he sat falteringly down upon the charred remains of his kingdom, and a tear started from each eye.

        The Devil, who has tact in these matters, embraced this weak moment. "What ho, there, Old Revenge, -- old Trusty," -- said the Devil, in endearing terms, to his grand vizier. "Here's a heart, with gates unbarred. Enter and possess it in my name!"

        It must be confessed, his Satanic Majesty has also administrative talent, and inspires his servants with enthusiasm. The heart was entered and formally possessed. O lithe Temptation, thou swift tropical tiger of most rare exquisite spots, thou art never more dangerous than when thou hast just retired before a human eye into thy jungle, as if the eye-glance had conquered thee; for then, when the man hath twice gratulated himself, and whilst he is stooping to pluck one of thy jungle-flowers to crown his victory withal, then thou leapest!

        Gorm Smallin on this May night had even reproached himself for his vengeful feelings against John Sterling, and abandoned them. To-morrow, other cares and old John's kind face would have dissipated them forever. But listen: --

        "I heered," presently he muttered to himself, -- "I heered as the Yanks had been burnin' the houses of them that went off to the Confed'ate army. An' whose fault was it I went? John Sterling's! An' he's got sons in the Confed'ate army, an' his house is a-standin' yit, for I seed it from the rock back yan; why didn't they burn hit? Because he's rich, an' I'm poor."

        Gorm Smallin rose deliberately to his feet, while it seemed to him as if liquid steel were slowly diffusing itself through his veins.

        "Hit's been a rich man's war an' a poor man's fight long enough. A eye fur a eye, an' a tooth fur a tooth, an' I say a house fur a house, an' a bullet fur a bullet! John Sterlin' 's got my house burnt, I'll get his'n burnt. John Sterlin' 's made me resk bullets, I'll make him resk 'em! An' ef I don't may God-a-mighty forgit me forever and ever, amen!"

        Gorm Smallin entered the woods with his face toward Thalberg, walking slowly at first, as if he meditated, and gradually increasing his pace, as his plans grew definite, until his strides were more like long leaps than steps.

        On the top of his rock lay John Cranston like a chained Prometheus. It was right that vultures should feed on Cranston's heart, as they were now feeding. He had stolen the fire of heaven, to kindle his kitchen-fires

with. He had stolen a woman's love, -- that lambent, lurid, hot-sweet fire of heaven, -- and applied it to mere fleshy purposes. Now, when again he urged his daring head up through the sky to steal once more, in spite of the holier uses he designed for it the flame rebelled, and shot its fire-barbed arrows, and scorched and blinded and repelled him. Here was he, a sitter upon lonely rocks, and a prey to that most terrible vulture, himself.

        The top of Chilhowee is a long, narrow plateau, level, except where the huge rock rises upon which Cranston sat. Along this plateau, at right-angles to the road crossing the mountain, runs an old, blind, grassy path, surrounded by rocks on either side strewn in all fanciful circles and angles. This path winds about the rock and gives into the main road suddenly.

        In the deep twilight Cranston heard hoofs of horses coming along this path toward his rock, and presently began to distinguish the voices of two women in conversation. They quickly ceased, and the women rode on in silence until just under the rock. Felix said, --

        "What are you thinking of, Liebchen?"

        "I was just thinking," replied Ottilie, "that if we were in a city, amongst men, riding alone at this hour, we should be frightened to death; whereas here amongst rocks and wild beasts, we stray in the night with the most charming fearlessness. Strange, is n't it," she continued, meditating half-aloud, "that men should be more dangerous to men than all the tigers and storms?"

        "So," cried Felix, "and women are as dangerous to women. Look! With your German enthusiasm, and

your dear, dainty-hearted German Heine, that you read to me at the spring yonder, you've made me leave my veil and my brooch there. Sit on your horse here, dear, till I gallop back and get it. 'T won't take me ten minutes."

        "Indeed, I'd rather go with you," said Ottilie, half turning her horse.

        "No, you sha'n't. You look pale and tired enough now. Here! see; I've tied your horse! Walk up this winding path to the top of the rock, and see how Valley Beautiful looks by night. Obey me, my darling Ottilie!" said Felix, and kissed her, and galloped away.

        Ottilie dismounted, and walked up the rocky steps.

        Cranston stood erect behind an abruptly rising ledge of the rock, with folded arms.

        It was quite light up there. The white rock reflected the thousand star-rays that fell upon it; and a faint halo, which was more a memory of the sun than a light, yet diffused a mild and mysterious half-twilight around the mountain-top.

        As Ottilie stepped upon a broad, flat plateau, Cranston advanced a pace to meet her. Oh conventionality! He was in the act of extending his hand and saying. "How are you?" when her white face, in which he could almost see the sweet blue veins that in these days began to glimmer through the delicate skin, smote upon him like a sheet of white lightning. In an uncontrollable agony he threw himself on his face and grovelled at her feet.

        Presently he heard her dress rustling, and the long train trailing softly over the rock. He raised his head, Ottilie was standing on the very verge of the ledge,

where the sheer precipice sank straight down many hundred feet, with arms stretched far upward and hands clasped.

        Fearful that a noise would startle her into destruction, Cranston crawled like a snake close to where she stood, and grasped the long train of her thick riding-dress.

        "O God!" she said, in a voice ineffably soft, "I thank thee that this pain in my heart, which so long hath been dull as ashes and yet burnt like fire, which so long hath been leaden and yet cut sharp like steel, which so long hath refused even to throb in its monotonous ache,--O God, I thank thee for even a small variation of it which makes it sharper and hotter and livelier for one moment."

        "O God," she said in a pathetic inquiring tone that went jagged into Cranston's heart,--"O God, hath not sorrow its dandy-moments, hath not sorrow its time when it would prank itself for a show to others? hath not sorrow its whim and its caprice? doth not sorrow, like a maiden, forever regard her image in the clear pool and take her maidenly pretty attitudes; and wilt Thou deny sorrow this little comfort ere it drown itself in the pool of Thine eternity? and have I not yearned that this man whom thou seest grovelling now on the rock should be here when I cast myself from this place, and hast thou not brought him here for this, kind God?"

        "O God," she said, "have I not failed of life, and art Thou not done with me here, and can I do any good thing save maybe to die in this man's sight, and so perhaps strike a new regret into his soul which may save some other from my wretchedness?"

        "And yet," she said, with still softer voice, "perhaps I wrong him,--I erred too; I will not go, with a wrong for my last act; I forgive him, and I throw him this kiss of forgiveness," and she drew down one hand, kissed it, and waved it back to where Cranston lay.

        "Thou star, there," suddenly she cried, "in one second I will be waving my wing in thy sweet fire!" and threw her hands apart, and sprang.

        But Cranston had clasped her about the waist, and in an instant had borne her back, down the irregular declivity. She had closed her eyes in a momentary faintness, but opened them quickly; and, lying in his arms taunted him,--

        "Coward, cruel, cruel coward! how dared you place your false arm around me again? How"--

        "Pity, pity, pity," said Cranston hoarsely, and a great shiver went through his frame.

        "Who asks me for pity?" She raised herself up and stood. "You? you? O,--you?"

        "She is coming. For God's sake collect your strength. Can you sit your horse?" said Cranston, and lifted Ottilie into the saddle; "I cannot meet her, now!" He ran back behind an angle of the rock.

        For one moment the woman's jealousy rose in Ottilie's heart. She looked at his retreating form with a scornful expression, but quickly the tight lip trembled in a bitter smile. "O Heaven!" she said, "a jest, an infinite jest: I jealous! I!"

        "How the little night-breeze groans sometimes through these pines!" said Felix as she cantered up. "I could have sworn I heard a man talking!"

        "Yes, yes. Did you find the brooch?"

        "Oh yes. Let's go home; and get a good rating from father for staying so late! But he'll kiss us twice when it's over, and bless us, and put his hand on our heads; and that's worth a little scolding. Isn't it, you dear white flower-petal?" and Felix leaned over and kissed the cold lips of her friend as they rode off down towards Thalberg.

        Cranston emerged from his hiding-place and followed them, afar off.

        A few yards from the edge of his clearing, Gorm Smallin stumbled and fell over a small long hillock. It was a grave, with a plain head-board. The mountaineer never travels without his tin match-box. He made a light, and read on the board:--

        "S. S."

        "Sary Smallin!" he said to himself. "Wife dead, too?"

        He strode on, with unutterable thoughts straining his soul. Presently Thalberg rose grimly before him. The house was dark on that side. The negroes were gone with the Yankees. "They won't bother me," he said to himself, as he thought of it. He walked round the house. One room was lighted, on the other side. He had but time to jump behind a tree as John Sterling passed into the house.

        "Hear the girls coming down the road, wife!" said the cheery voice. "Let's get 'em some supper ready. They'll eat like young hyenas!"

        Gorm Smallin went back to the dark side. A low window was open. He pulled off his shoes and climbed into it. It was the same by which Cranston had left Thalberg. Disgrace left it; Revenge entered it.

        Revenge is ingenious. Gorm Smallin dug a hole in the plastering with his knife, and cut through a half-dozen laths. In the space between the laths and the inner wall he deposited a charge of powder, upon which he carefully rested the corners of two or three book-leaves which he tore out of Phil Sterling's Carlyle on the table. Upon the other corners of these leaves he deposited a pile of paper, and splinters of laths split off with his knife. He then lit one end of a twig of rotten-wood and placed it in the opening, the other end resting on the powder. Deftly and quietly he locked the door on the inside, and dropped from the window. No danger of any body's seeing the fire from outside,--he said to himself, and grinned. He stole round to the very edge of a lane of light that shot straight out from the window of the music-room, among the black tree-trunks. He selected a tree, and stood behind it: then pointed his gun so that the rifle-sight was in the glare and his eye in the shade. "Mought blind me," he muttered: "shines the bead splendid, though. They 'll likely set thar, a'ter the women's had supper. Hit 'll do!" He took down his rifle, folded his arms upon the muzzle of it, and stood still as a statue.

        Two hours Gorm Smallin stood. His hope began to fail him when John Sterling entered the music-room, Ottilie, Felix, and wife following.

        "Well, girls," said he, "if it is n't too soon after supper, let's have some music."

        John Sterling paced about, noiselessly, while they sang.

        Gorm Smallin's eyes must needs play unceasingly in

all directions. He saw a tall form cross the lane of light from the other window. It placed itself against a tree, and fixed eyes upon Ottilie, and stood, statue-like. It was the poor Indian, Chilhowee, worshipping as he worshipped nightly. Presently another dusky figure appeared on the other side of the light-bar, and took stand, and gazed upon Felix from among the trees. Gorm made it out to be John Cranston; whereat his soul shouted with a hellish exultation.

        "They'll all see Gorm Smallin's revenge!" he said to himself. Nature, probably upon the same principle that her sharks can't bite without turning over and giving time, has ordained that the revengeful man, if deliberate, must always make a little speech, at least to himself, before he commits the fatal act. Gorm Smallin began to gloat, and menace, and taunt, and chuckle, and prematurely triumph.

        John Sterling sat between the girls, and his wife just behind him, with head lovingly over his shoulder. Alternately his tender hand stroked hair and cheek of all three.

        "Wife and daughters," he said, "I feel, somehow, as if the world would end to-night; but I've often felt so before, when the music roused me."

        "And so we need n't pack our trunks?" interposed Felix, with a roguish twinkle of the eyes.

        "No. But listen," continued John with a tender solemnity -- "Listen. God, help us all. Wife and children, life is Force. Now, Force effects motion and resistance. Time and space are measures of resistance, and motion varies inversely to them, so that,

resistance being abolished, Force becomes infinite and time and space nothing. Now, after death they say time and space are abolished; but as our Force does not become infinite, therefore resistance continues. What shall take the place of time and space as its measures? Your young minds may dream of it.

        "Motion is change; science is the observation of the changes or motions of mind and matter. Art effects changes or motions of mind and matter. All men can see, and all men can effect, and therefore all men are savans and all men are artists. The good savant sees correctly what is low and what is high, and the good artist effects higher results from lower ones. There will come times in your life when you will find this generalization not wholly unhelpful to you.

        "Now passing by the million million savans and artists that by day and by night through the world are seeing and doing, I wish to speak to you of some particular artists.

        "Seven motions of matter belong to the painter, and seven motions of matter belong to the musician: these be the seven colors of the spectrum and the seven tones of the scale. And as the prism analyzes light into seven colors, and the string analyzes sound into seven tones, so life analyzes time into seven days of the week.

        "Whereby hangeth a fancy, which being but a fancy, yet will not hurt you to dream upon it. For inasmuch as there be living motes that hover in the seven colors or float in the seven tones; so may we be living motes that hover and float through the seven days, and these seven days may be to some higher folk in the universe but seven colors, and to other higher folk but seven

tones. Aye, this present life may be but a wavering ray, seven-colored, thrown from above. Runs not the spectrum from red up to violet, which is to say, advances not life from red Hades up to violet Heaven?

        "And this present life may be but a seven-toned sound, struck from above. Runs not the scale from Do to Si, -- from a groan to a joy-cry?

        "So, exeunt fancies, all! Enter facts!

        "The facts are: there be five channels through which the artist receives lower effects, and through which he returns forth higher ones. These be taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. Now, by common consent of all men, it is agreed that taste, touch, and smell, poor devils, shall be forever engaged principally as scullions and waiters for humanity, since eating, feeling, and smelling are considered as the (so to speak) mere domestic necessities of the flesh, and their pleasures rank as high only as table-pleasures, and vary according to condiments, sauces, and the quick-waning activity of the said scullions and waiters.

        "But sight and hearing, as they are highest by physical measurement, are also highest by spiritual rank. For while, one moment, the eye and the ear with their less happy brethren, perform the offices of scullions and waiters, yet the next moment they may be performing the offices of genii and angels. For these have power beyond the flesh and the earth, over the spirit of man.

        "As, for instance; in a morning, our ear will bring to as the sound of the breakfast gong, and our eye will cunningly superintend our steps and show us the way to the breakfast-room. Base scullions and waiters, so far, but remarkably useful! Wait, though. We sit at breakfast-table

and read the paper. Eye informs us there will be a concert to-night, and Liszt will play some of Chopin's best music. Bravo, Eye! thou art advancing from thy scullionship and art already a private secretary! And bravo, again; for thou art lending a helping hand to thy poor brother Ear, and arranging fine things for him!

        "Wait, though.

        "Night comes; we go to the concert-room. Liszt plays; we writhe under the music like the old priestess under the divine afflatus, so that our souls prophesy good things; and we shout in glory that the man there with his piano and his wondrous fingers has made conquest over the grim kingdom of the unutterable, -- has spoken the otherwise unspeakable; and as we leave the concert-room, brave Sight flashes up to the skies and lets down the star-beams, upon which, as upon a swaying golden ladder, our souls mount up to the very hem of the garment of God, we hearing, as we pass, the infinite music of the worlds singing while they spin the thread of time. And so, bravissimo, O Eye and Ear! This morning ye were but scullions and waiters; to-night ye have become fair heavenly friends, by whose airy guidance we wander through the morning glades, by the clear rivers, and across the mysterious wonder-chasms of the super-sensuous Unknown Land!

        "This morning ye conducted us to breakfast; to-night ye have wafted us to heaven!

        "And so, dear wife and daughters, eye and ear are ever willing, either as swineherd or as Apollo, to serve and befriend the kings that paint and sing.

        "But it would seem that there will be some difference

of dignity between these two. For surely, the Art of to-day is music! I cannot now talk of photographs, which are in omnium manibus. But the art of painting has not struck its infinite roots into the domestic every-daynesses of life, as the art of music has. There are not many homes in the land where one finds a painter's palette or a camera; but where is the cottage or hovel in which one will not find either a piano, a guitar, a flute, a violin, a banjo, a jew's-harp, a whistling faculty, or a singing faculty? To go to the lowest form at once, do but look at the ten-year-old negro balancing his bucket on his head as he carries it home from spring or pump! Oh never, never would he 'tote' it safely, an he did not whistle all the time! He balanceth his burden safely, as the circus man his iron balls -- to music. Every man might better balance his burden wherewith he is laden, if he kept time to music! Is any here that hath no burden, of water-buckets or of sins? If any, -- forever let him hold his peace, nor whistle nor sing!"

        At this moment a breeze came through the tree-tops, and swelled, and died away; making noise as if the maidenly bosom of the night heaved and panted with some fright of a dream, till the maid woke, and sighed for satisfaction that it was only a dream-fright, and rustled her night-drapery and composed herself to sleep again.

        At this moment Cranston in the dark was devouring with his eyes sweet bending Felix in the light. "My queen, my queen!" he said, and yielded himself to the ecstasy of love and the luxury of gazing.

        And Gorm Smallin even, after all, was growing softer-hearted

each moment, and at the same time nerving himself, with curses and taunts and broodings upon ashes and death, to shoot.

        And the Indian, gazing upon Ottilie with folded arms, had now no soul, but only a mist instead, which was interfused in all its folds with an intense undeveloped lightning of pure worship.

        And the air was full with floating May-balm of buds and young leaves and mountain-flowers, and every moment ten thousand May-germs thrilled into life, and emitted each an odorous sigh in salute to cool bulbous brethren and grave trees and leafy neighbors.

        "And this, dear wife and daughters," continued John Sterling, "brings me to the practical application of my little sermon. Remember now all I have said; especially that the artist's business is to effect higher motions from lower ones. Now, Adam the first man, and Christ the second man, did grieve and grieve. It is to record this that the Bible comes to us. This is the one Fact of humanity. My dearies, let us shoot right up behind the lark, on the brightest morning, and see what we shall see! The hills and mountains first flatten and then vanish, in the common level of the plain; and, exactly so, those moral hills, -- political distinctions, social inequalities, moral superiorities, ethnical disparities, -- all vanish in the common level of humanity.

        "As we go up, first die out the songs of birds and the murmur of brooks; then the roar of seas, the howl of great winds, the grind of polar ice-fields, the stound of earthquakes and volcanoes, faint away into silence; and, exactly so, the din of battles, the iron clangor of

labor, the hum of commerce, the turmoil of life, all mingle, and we hear them not.

        "Let us now leave our lark, whose wings refuse already to bear him in this thin air to which we are arrived, and let us ascend to where the atmosphere is rare enough -- rare enough -- well, rare enough, my girls, for the lungs of spirits to inhale.

        "Here let us pause and look down.

        "Upon the glimmering plain of human life we discern one huge pyramid which overglooms the whole desert.

        "Up from this desert floats to our ears one single sound.

        "This pyramid is a fact: it is suffering; and the sound is a moan!

        "Brave Eye and Ear, therefore, withdrawing themselves to a convenient hearing and seeing point, inform us of suffering, of suffering, of suffering, alone.

        "Now suffering being the result they bring to us, it is our duty, as good artists, to return forth a higher result, through eye and ear.

        "How?

        "Leaving aside Eye, for I have not time to talk of him, specially, -- the great part of this suffering which comes to us is no better than mere physical suffering, mere sensual pain of appetites and disappointments, mere regret for a bad conscience whose principal disturbance is that it keeps us from sleeping well o'nights, mere dyspepticities and humors. All these base metals, music, a magic stone, transmutes into pure gold; into the strange sorrow you spoke of once, Felix. Know ye not the pain of music? It is composed of all other

pains, fused and purified into a great, pure, unanalyzable yearning after God. This is what music does.

        "Details?

        "Well: to make a home out of a household (for instance), given the raw materials, to wit, wife, children, a friend or two, and a house -- two other things are necessary. These are, a good fire, and good music. And inasmuch as we can do without the fire for half the year, I may say music is the one essential. After the evening spent round the piano, or the flute, or the violin, how warm and how chastened is the kiss with which the family all say good night! Ah, the music has taken all the day-cares and thrown them into its terrible alembic, and boiled them and racked them and cooled them, till they are crystallized into one care, which is a most sweet and rare desirable sorrow -- the yearning for God. We all, from little toddler to father, go to bed with so much of heaven in our hearts, at least, as that we long for it unutterably, and believe it.

        "My daughters, ye are both beautiful, and men will love you, and likely some strong hearts will halve a life with you. I wish you to show that the artist-life is not necessarily a Bohemian life, but that it may coincide with and be the home-life.

        "And when ye play to your strong hearts, whether it be daytime music of wheels, needles, and household work, or night-music of pianos and voices, play well; that the listening folk beyond us may detect your note in the grand tone of the day, and may recognize it as a full, clear, round tone, well and featly and strongly struck from life, or from piano, or from voice.

        "Amen!" said John Sterling; and fell instantly dead

upon his wife's shoulder, who fell instantly dead upon his shoulder, both slowly sinking to the floor. For Gorm Smallin's bullet had passed through Sterling's right eye full into the forehead of his wife, which she had just laid lovingly against his temple. Terrified at his own act, Gorm's mind became almost a blank. There was but one definite idea in it -- to keep still.

        Cranston and the Indian, hearing the shot and seeing the deaths, emerged into the light-lanes from the windows and simultaneously became aware of each other.

        "O scoundrel, was it you?" hissed Cranston, and drew his pistol and fired at the Indian. Poor Chilhowee, believing in his turn that Cranston had committed the bloody deed, was in the act of raising his rifle as he received Cranston's ball in his shoulder. He dropped the gun, but continued running to the house, and he and Cranston rushed up the low steps and in at the open balcony window of the music-room together.

        As Cranston, with the Indian just behind, dashed into the room, he stopped a moment to collect his thoughts. Felix had thrown herself upon the two corpses and was alternately pressing the yet-warm lips of her loved ones convulsively to her own. She raised her head a moment, and as she saw the haggard countenance and yet smoking pistol of Cranston, exclaimed, "O murderer! O my darlings!" and fell back upon the corpses, mute, with wild kisses.

        Ottilie, involuntarily shrinking from the wild-eyed face which so suddenly appeared, had knelt near the bodies. She was praying, in a deep, husky voice. "Liebe Gott, liebe Gott," said she, "why dost thou not burn with lightning this fiend who ruins and murders,

and then insults with his presence the living form of the ruined and the dead forms of the murdered?"

        These words conveyed their meaning slowly to Cranston's mind. It was not till he had stooped by the bodies and placed his hand on the hearts and ascertained that no throb was in them, that the still-ringing words of the women flashed upon him the natural mistake into which they had fallen.

        "I left here in disgrace," thought he rapidly; "they have not heard from me since; I reappear, at night, with pistol in hand," -- he dropped it in horror, -- "just after the shot. Ha!" he said aloud in his bitterness, "just as I am on the verge of repentance, the merciful God bans me from my love with this hideous mistake, which every circumstance seems to justify, and which I cannot possibly disprove!" He staggered to a chair, and sat, and clinched his burning forehead in both hands. His reason began to strain and crack; brilliant sparkles commenced to shoot before his closed eyes, -- sparkles known to the delirious. But the necessity for action warned him to dismiss the thoughts that were driving him towards madness.

        A similar reflection had already brought Ottilie to her senses. She was half-aimlessly smoothing the dress and straightening the arms of the dead, when Cranston rose from his chair.

        "Lend a hand," said the latter to Chilhowee. "It is done. Let's carry them where they can be cared for as the dead should be."

        Up the broad stairs the bodies were borne. Ottilie leading the way and Felix following, mute, with stony eyes, blank-faced, broken-hearted, pathetic in her grief

that had grown too scornfully great for demonstration.

        Honest Gretchen, busy as any bee all day, had slept through it all, peacefully. Just as the bodies were being deposited in the apartment of John Sterling, loud screams were heard from the other side the passage, and, a moment afterwards, Gretchen came running in, heedless of night-dress.

        "Thalberg is a-fire!" she said, wringing her hands. "Thalberg is on fire!"

        "Great God, is the whole house doomed? Show me where! Can it be put out?" exclaimed Cranston, dragging Gretchen back in the direction from which she came. A heavy volume of smoke was issuing from the open door of her room; a tongue of flame occasionally licked up through the smoke, and quickly the whole house roared with the angry murmur of the long-smothered fire.

        "Down, all!" cried Cranston, darting back to the death-room. "Can you carry one body, Chilhowee?"

        "Up with it then; follow!" With many a stagger and lurch, they got the dead out, and laid them upon the turf.

        "Where is Felix?" Not doubting but she would follow, all had hastily descended.

        But she had not seemed to hear the commotion. Seated, with hands patiently folded, she was gazing into vacancy, when Cranston returned to look for her.

        "Come Felix!"

        She remained still as a statue.

        There was no time to lose. The pine staircase was already blazing with frightful violence.

        Cranston clasped the unheeding woman, and rushed, half-blinded with smoke, down the flaming stairway. His face was full of a fierce joy. He smiled, tossed back his long black hair, looked upward as he leapt along, and strained unconscious Felix to his bosom. One time, he thought, if never again!

        On the way down, he passed Chilhowee, going up. Practical Gretchen! Just as Cranston had started back for Felix, Gretchen called Chilhowee.

        "You know Ottilie's room?"

        Did he not know it? It was his church. He had spent nights gazing at it.

        "Yes!"

        "Her jewels! She left them to-night on the bureau. Get them!"

        The faithful Indian ran on his mission. As Cranston deposited Felix in Ottilie's arms, they saw him coming. As he neared the group, he staggered. Loss of blood from Cranston's bullet-hole had weakened him. He barely mustered strength to advance and hand the jewel-box to Gretchen, when he reeled and fell. Presently he opened his eyes, and fixed them upon Ottilie, and lay still. Long ago her woman's heart had divined his secret. She laid her hand upon his, and pressed it, in reverence for his long devotion. He smiled; and, ere long, death made rigid the smiling lips and glazed the smiling eyes. "Thou faithful heart!" murmured Ottilie, and leaned over and kissed the dark forehead.

        Burning Thalberg did not long linger. A neighbor or two -- neighbors were scarce in the Beautiful Valley -- had arrived; but each stood in stupid bewilderment

as he gazed at the dead on the ground and the fire leaping aloft.

        The unsparing flames worked their will; and the mansion was gone.

        So, upon the smoke of their home, floated up to heaven the souls of John Sterling and his wife.

        So, in the ashes of this home, fell and was lost utterly, the Hope of John Cranston.

BOOK III.