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From The International Library of Masterpieces, Literature, Art, and Rare Manuscripts, Volume XXX, Editor-in-Chief: Harry Thurston Peck; The International Bibliophile Society, New York; 1901; pp. 11180-11193.

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11180

CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.
(1838-1894)

WOOLSON, CONSTANCE FENIMORE, an American novelist, born at Claremont, N. H., March 5, 1838; died at Venice, Italy, January 24, 1894. She was the daughter of Charles Jarvis Woolson, and a great-niece of James Fenimore Cooper. She was educated at Cleveland and New York. From 1873 to 1878 she resided in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, and in 1879 she went to Europe, where she afterward resided. Her winters were spent in Italy. Her literary field includes sketches, poems, stories, and novels, which appeared in “Harper’s” and other magazines. Her books are “Castle Nowhere: Lake Country Sketches” (1875); “Two Women” (1877); “Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches” (1880); “Anne”” (1882); “”For the Major” (1883); “East Angels” (1886); “Jupiter Lights” (1889); “The Old Stone House” (1893); “Horace Chase” (1894); “The Front Yard, and Other Italian Stories” (1895); “Dorothy” (1896); “Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu” (1896).

PETER THE PARSON.1

(From “Castle Nowhere.”)

REACHING his room, the parson hung up his cloak and hat, and sat down quietly with folded hands. Clad in dressing-gown and slippers, in an easy-chair, before a bright fire, — a revery, thus, is the natural ending for a young man’s day. But here the chair was hard and straight-backed, there was no fire, and the candle burned with a feeble blue flame; the small figure in its limp black clothes, with its little gaitered feet pressed close together on the cold floor as if for warmth, its clasped hands, its pale face and blue eyes fixed on the blank expanse of the plastered wall, was pathetic in its patient discomfort. After a while a tear fell on the clasped hands and startled their coldness with its warmth. The parson brushed the token of weakness away, and rising, threw himself 11181 at the foot of the large wooden cross with his arms clasping its base. In silence for many moments he lay thus prostrate; then, extinguishing the candle, he sought his poor couch. But later in the night, when all Algonquin slept, a crash of something falling was heard in the dark room, followed by the sound of a scourge mercilessly used, and murmured Latin prayers, — the old cries of penitence that rose during night-vigils from the monasteries of the Middle Ages. And why not English words? Was there not something of affectation in the use of these mediæval phrases? Maybe so; but at least there was nothing affected in the stripes made by the scourge. The next morning all was as usual in the little room, save that the picture of Santa Margarita was torn in twain, and the bracket and vase shattered to fragments on the floor below.

At dawn the parson rose, and after a conscientious bath in the tub of icy water brought in by his own hands the previous evening, he started out with his load of prayer-books, his face looking haggard and blue in the cold morning light. Again he entered the chapel, and having arranged the books and dusted the altar, he attired himself in his robes and began the service at half-past six precisely. “From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same,” he read, and in truth the sun was just rising. As the evening prayer was “vespers,” so this was “matins,” in the parson’s mind. He had his “vestments” too, of various ritualistic styles, and washed them himself, ironing them out afterwards with fear and difficulty in Mrs. Malone’s disorderly kitchen, poor little man! No hand turned the latch, no step came across the floor this morning; the parson had the service all to himself, and, as it was Friday, he went through the Litany, omitting nothing, and closing with a hymn. Then, gathering up his books, he went home to breakfast.

“How peaked yer do look, sir!” exclaimed ruddy Mrs. Malone, as she handed him a cup of muddy coffee. “What, no steak? Do, now; for I ain’t got nothin’ else. Well, if yer won’t — But there ’s nothin’ but the biscuit, then. Why, even Father O’Brien himself ’lows meat for the sickly, Friday or no Friday.”

“I am not sickly, Mrs. Malone,” replied the little parson, with dignity.

A young man with the figure of an athlete sat at the lower end of the table, tearing the tough steak voraciously with his 11182 strong teeth, chewing audibly, and drinking with a gulping noise. He paused as the parson spoke, and regarded him with wonder not unmixed with contempt.

“You ain’t sickly?” he repeated. “Well, if you ain’t, then I’d like to know who is, that ’s all.”

“Now, you jest eat your breakfast, Steve, and let the parson alone,” interposed Mrs. Malone. “Sorry to see that little picture all tore, sir,” she continued, turning the conversation in her blundering good-nature. “It was a moighty pretty picture, and looked uncommonly like Rosie Ray.”

“It was a copy of an Italian painting, Mrs. Malone,” the parson hastened to reply; “Santa Margarita.”

“O, I dare say; but it looked iver so much like Rosie, for all that!”

A deep flush crossed the parson’s pale face. The athlete saw it, and muttered to himself angrily, casting surly sidelong glances up the table, and breathing hard; the previous evening he had happened to pass the Chapel of St. John and St. James as its congregation of one was going in the door. . . .

After dinner, which he did not eat, as the greasy dishes offended his palate, the parson shut himself up in his room to prepare his sermon for the coming Sunday. It made no difference whether there would be any one to hear it or not, the sermon was always carefully written and carefully delivered, albeit short, according to the ritualistic usage, which esteems the service all, the sermon nothing. His theme on this occasion was “The General Councils of the Church;” and the sermon, an admirable production of its kind, would have been esteemed, no doubt, in English Oxford, or in the General Theological Seminary of New York City. He wrote earnestly and ardently, deriving a keen enjoyment from the work; the mechanical part also was exquisitely finished, the clear sentences standing out like the work of a sculptor. Then came vespers; and the congregation this time was composed of two, or, rather, three persons, — the girl, the owner of the dog, and the dog himself. The man entered during the service with a noisy step, managing to throw over a bench, coughing, humming, and talking to his dog; half of the congregation was evidently determined upon mischief. But the other half rose with the air of a little queen, crossed the intervening space with an open prayer-book, gave it to the man, and, seating herself near 11183 by, fairly awed him into good behavior. Rose Ray was beautiful; and the lion lay at her feet. As for the dog, with a wave of her hand she ordered him out, and the beast humbly withdrew. It was noticeable that the parson’s voice gained strength as the dog disappeared.

“I ain’t going to stand by and see it, Rosie,” said the man, as, the service over, he followed the girl into the street. “That puny little chap!”

“He cares nothing for me,” answered the girl, quickly.

“He shan’t have a chance to care, if I know myself. You ’re free to say ‘no’ to me, Rosie, but you ain’t free to say ‘yes’ to him. A regular coward! That ’s what he is. Why, he ran away from my dog this very afternoon, — ran like he was scared to death!”

“You set the dog on him, Steve.”

“Well, what if I did? He need n’t have run; any other man would have sent the beast flying.”

“Now, Steve, promise me that you won’t tease him any more,” said the girl, laying her hand upon the man’s arm as he walked by her side. His face softened.

“If he had any spirit he ’d be ashamed to have a girl beggin’ for him not to be teased. But never mind that; I ’ll let him alone fast enough, Rosie, if you will too.”

“If I will,” repeated the girl, drawing back, as he drew closer to her side; “what can you mean?”

“O, come now! You know very well you ’re always after him, — a goin’ to his chapel where no one else goes hardly, —a listenin’ to his preachin’, — and a havin’ your picture hung up in his room.”

It was a random shaft, sent carelessly, more to finish the sentence with a strong point than from any real belief in the athlete’s mind.

“What!”

“Leastways so Mrs. Malone said. I took breakfast there this morning.”

The girl was thrown off her guard, her whole face flushed with joy; she could not for the moment hide her agitation. “My picture!” she murmured, and clasped her hands. The light from the Pine-Cone crossed her face, and revealed the whole secret. Steven Long saw it, and fell into a rage. After all, then, she did love the puny parson!

“Let him look out for himself, that ’s all,” he muttered 11184 with a fierce gesture, as he turned towards the saloon door. (He felt a sudden thirst for vengeance, and for whiskey.) “I ’ll be even with him, and I won’t be long about it neither. You ’ll never have the little parson alive, Rose Ray! He ’ll be found missin’ some fine mornin’, and nobody will be to blame but you either.” He disappeared, and the girl stood watching the spot where his dark, angry face had been. After a time she went slowly homeward, troubled at heart; there was neither law nor order at Algonquin, and not without good cause did she fear.

The next morning, as the parson was coming from his solitary matin service through thick-falling snow, this girl met him, slipped a note into his hand, and disappeared like a vision. The parson went homeward, carrying the folded paper under his cloak pressed close to his heart. “I am only keeping it dry,” he murmured to himself. This was the note: —



“RESPECTED SIR, — I must see you, you air in danger. Please come to the Grotter this afternoon at three and I remain yours respectful,

ROSE RAY.”

The Rev. Herman Warriner Peters read these words over and over; then he went to breakfast, but ate nothing, and, coming back to his room, he remained the whole morning motionless in his chair. At first the red flamed in his cheek, but gradually it faded, and gave place to a pinched pallor; he bowed his head upon his hands, communed with his own heart, and was still. As the dinner-bell rang he knelt down on the cold hearth, made a little funeral pyre of the note torn into fragments, watched it slowly consume, and then, carefully collecting the ashes, he laid them at the base of the large cross.

At two o’clock he set out for the Grotto, a cave two miles from the village along the shore, used by the fisherman as a camp during the summer. The snow had continued falling, and now lay deep on the even ground; the pines were loaded with it, and everything was white save the waters of the bay, heaving sullenly, dark, and leaden, as though they knew the icy fetters were nearly ready for them. The parson walked rapidly along in his awkward, halting gait; overshoes he had none, and his cloak was but a sorry substitute for the blankets and skins worn by the miners. But he did not feel cold when he opened the door of the little cabin which had been built out in front of the cave, and found himself face to face with the 11185 beautiful girl who had summoned him there. She had lighted a fire of pine knots on the hearth, and set the fishermen’s rough furniture in order; she had cushioned a chair-back with her shawl, and heated a flat stone for a foot-warmer.

“Take this seat, sir,” she said, leading him thither.

The parson sank into the chair and placed his old soaked gaiters on the warm stone; but he said not one word.

“I thought perhaps you ’d be tired after your long walk, sir,” continued the girl, “and so I took the liberty of bringing something with me.” As she spoke she drew into view a basket, and took from it delicate bread, chicken, cakes, preserved strawberries, and a little tin coffee-pot which, set on the coals, straightway emitted a delicious fragrance; nothing was forgotten, — cream, sugar, nor even snowy napkins.

The parson spoke not a word.

But the girl talked for both, as with flushed cheeks and starry eyes she prepared the tempting meal, using many pretty arts and graceful motions, using in short every power she possessed to charm the silent guest. The table was spread, the viands arranged, the coffee poured into the cup; but still the parson spoke not, and his blue eyes were almost stern as he glanced at the tempting array. He touched nothing.

“I thought you would have liked it all,” said the girl at last, when she saw her little offerings despised. “I brought them all out myself — and I was so glad thinking you ’d like them — and now —” Her voice broke, and the tears flowed from her pretty soft eyes. A great tenderness came over the parson’s face.

“Do not weep,” he said, quickly. “See, I am eating. See, I am enjoying everything. It is all good, nay, delicious.” And in his haste he partook of each dish, and lifted the coffee-cup to his lips. The girl’s face grew joyous again, and the parson struggled bravely against his own enjoyment; in truth, what with the warm fire, the easy-chair, he delicate food, the fragrant coffee, and the eager, beautiful face before him, a sense of happiness came over him in long surges, and for the moment his soul drifted with the warm tide.

“You do like it, don’t you?” said the girl with delight, as he slowly drank the fragrant coffee, his starved lips lingering over the delicious brown drops. Something in her voice jarred on the trained nerves and roused them to action again.

“Yes, I do like it, — only too well,” he answered; but the 11186 tone of his voice had altered. He pushed back his chair, rose, and began pacing to and fro in the shadow beyond the glow of the fire.

“Thou glutton body!” he murmured. “But thou shalt go empty for this.” Then, after a pause, he said in a quiet, even tone, “You had something to tell me, Miss Ray.”

The girl’s face had altered; but rallying, she told her story earnestly, — of Steven Long, his fierce temper, his utter lawlessness, and his threats.

“And why should Steven Long threaten me?” said the parson. “But you need not answer,” he continued in an agitated voice. “Say to Steven Long, — say to him,” he repeated in louder tones, “that I shall never marry. I have consecrated my life to my holy calling.”

There was a long silence; the words fell with crushing weight on both listener and speaker. We do not realize even our own determination, sometimes, until we have told them to another. The girl rallied first; for she still hoped.

“Mr. Peters,” she said, taking all her courage in her hands and coming towards him, “is it wrong to marry?”

“For me — it is.”

“Why?”

“Because I am a priest.”

“Are you a Catholic, then?”

“I am a Catholic, although not in the sense you mean. Mine is the true Catholic faith which the Anglican Church has kept pure from the errors of Rome, and mine it is to make my life accord with the high office I hold.”

“Is it part of your high office to be cold — and hungry — and wretched?”

“I am not wretched.”

“You are; now, and at all times. You are killing yourself.”

“No; else I had died long, long ago.”

“Well, then, of what use is your poor life as you now live it, either to yourself or any one else? Do you succeed among the miners? How many have you brought into the church?”

“Not one.”

“And yourself? Have you succeeded, so far, in making yourself a saint?”

“God knows I have not,” replied the parson, covering his face with his hands as the questions probed his sore, sad heart. “I have failed in my work, I have failed in myself, I am of all men most miserable! — most miserable!”

11187

The girl sprang forward and caught his arm, her eyes full of love’s pity. “You know you love me,” she murmured; “why fight against it? For I — I love you!”

What did the parson do?

He fell upon his knees, but not to her, and uttered a Latin prayer, short but fervid.

“All the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them,” he murmured, “would not be to me so much as this!” Then he rose.

“Child,” he said, “you know not what you do.” And, opening the door, he went away into the snowy forest. But the girl’s weeping voice called after him, “Herman, Herman.” He turned; she had sunk upon the threshold. He came back and lifted her for a moment in his arms.

“Be comforted, Rosamond,” he said, tenderly. “It is but a fancy; you will soon forget me. You do not really love me, — such a one as I,” he continued, bringing forward, poor heart! his own greatest sorrow with unpitying hand. “But thank you, dear, for the gentle fancy.” He stood a moment, silent; then touched her dark hair with his quivering lips and disappeared.

Sunday morning the sun rose unclouded, the snow lay deep on the ground, the first ice covered the bay; winter had come. At ten o’clock the customary service began in the Chapel of St. John and St. James, and the little congregation shivered, and whispered that it must really try to raise money enough for a stove. The parson did not feel the cold, although he looked almost bloodless in his white surplice. The Englishwoman was there, repentant, — the sick child had not rallied under the new ministration; Mrs. Malone was there, from sheer good-nature; and several of the villagers and two or three miners had strolled in because they had nothing else to do, Brother Saul having returned to the mine. Rose Ray was not there. She was no saint, so she stayed at home and wept like a sinner.

The congregation, which had sat silent through the service, fell entirely asleep during the sermon on the “General Councils.” Suddenly, in the midst of a sentence, there came a noise that stopped the parson and woke the sleepers. Two or three miners rushed into the chapel and spoke to the few men present. “Come out,” they cried, — “come out to the mine. The thief’s caught at last! and who do you think it is? Saul, 11188 Brother Saul himself, the hypocrite! They tracked him to his den, and there they found the barrels and sacks and kegs, but the stuff he ’s made away with, most of it. He took it all, every crumb, and us a starving!”

“We ’ve run in to tell the town,” said another. “We ’ve got him fast, and we ’re going to make a sample of him. Come out and see the fun.”

“Yes,” echoed a third, who lifted a ruffianly face from his short, squat figure, “and we ’ll take our own time, too. He ’s made us suffer, and now he shall suffer a bit, if I know myself.”

The women shuddered as, with an ominous growl, all the men went out together.

“I misdoubt they ’ll hang him,” said Mrs. Malone, shaking her head as she looked after them.

“Or worse,” said the miner’s wife.

The the two departed, and the parson was left alone. Did he cut off the service? No. Deliberately he finished every word of the sermon, sang a hymn, and spoke the final prayer; then, after putting everything in order, he too left the little sanctuary; but he did not go homeward, he took the road to the mine.

“Don’t-ee go, sir, don’t!” pleaded the Englishwoman, standing in her doorway as he passed. “You won’t do no good, sir.”

“Maybe not,” answered the parson, gently, “but at least I must try.”

He entered the forest; the air was still and cold, the snow crackled under his feet, and the pine-trees stretched away in long white aisles. He looked like a pygmy as he hastened on among the forest giants, his step more languid than usual from sternest vigil and fasting.

“Thou proud, evil body, I have conquered thee!” he had said in the cold dawning. And he had; at least, the body answered not again.

The mine was several mile away, and to lighten the journey the little man sang a hymn, his voice sounding through the forest in singular melody. It was an ancient hymn that he sang, written long ago by some cowled monk, and it told in quaint language of the joys of “Paradise! O Paradise!” He did not feel the cold as he sang of the pearly gates.

In the late afternoon his halting feet approached the mine; 11189 as he drew near the clearing he heard a sound of many voices shouting together, followed by a single cry, and a momentary silence more fearful than the clamor. The tormentors were at work. The parson ran forward, and, passing the log-huts which lay between, came out upon the scene. A circle of men stood there around a stake. Fastened by a long rope, crouched the wretched prisoner, his face turned to the color of dough, his coarse features drawn apart like an animal in terror, and his hoarse voice never ceasing its piteous cry, “Have mercy, good gentlemen! Dear gentlemen, have mercy!”

At a little distance a fire of logs was burning, and from the brands scattered around it was evident that the man had served as a target for the fiery missiles; in addition he bore the marks of blows, and his clothes were torn and covered with mud as though he had been dragged roughly over the ground. The lurid light of the fire cast a glow over the faces of the miners; behind rose the Iron Mountain, dark in shadow; and on each side stretched out the ranks of the white-pine trees, like ghosts assembled as silent witnesses against the cruelty of man. The parson rushed forward, broke through the circle, and threw his arms around the prisoner at the stake, protecting him with his slender body.

“If ye kill him, ye must kill me also,” he cried, in a ringing voice.

On the border, the greatest crime is robbery. A thief is worse than a murderer; a life does not count so much as life’s supplies. It was not for the murderer that the Lynch law was made, but for the thief. For months these Algonquin miners had suffered loss; their goods, their provisions, their clothes, and their precious whiskey had been stolen, day after day, and all search had proved vain; exasperated, several times actually suffering from want, they had heaped up a great store of fury for the thief, — fury increased tenfold when, caught at last, he proved to be no other than Brother Saul, the one man whom they had trusted, the one man whom they had clothed and fed before themselves, the one man from whom they had expected better things. An honest, bloodthirsty wolf in his own skin was an animal they respected; indeed, they were themselves little better. But a wolf in sheep’s clothing was utterly abhorrent to their peculiar sense of honor. So they gathered around their prey, and esteemed it rightfully theirs; whiskey had sharpened their enjoyment.

11190

To this savage band, enter the little parson. “What! are ye men?” he cried. “Shame, shame, ye murderers!”

The miners stared at the small figure that defied them, and for the moment their anger gave way before a rough sense of the ludicrous.

“Hear the little man,” they cried. “Hurrah, Peter! Go ahead!”

But they soon wearied of his appeal and began to answer back.

“What are clothes or provisions to a life?” said the minister.

“Life ain’t worth much without ’em, Parson,” replied a miner. “He took all we had, and he knowed it. And all the time we was a giving him of the best, and a believing his praying and his preaching.”

“If he is guilty, let him be tried by the legal authorities.”

“We ’re our own legal ’thorities, Parson.’

“The country will call you to account.”

“The country won’t do nothing of the kind. Much the country cares for us poor miners, frozen up here in the woods! Stand back, Parson. Why should you bother about Saul? You always hated him.”

“Never! never!” answered the parson, earnestly.

“You did too, and he knowed it. ’T was because he was dirty, and could n’t mince his words as you do.”

The parson turned to the crouching figure as his side. “Friend,” he said, “if this is true, — and the heart is darkly deceitful and hides from man his own worst sins, — I humbly ask your forgiveness.”

“O come! None of your gammon,” said another miner, impatiently. Saul did n’t care whether you liked him or not, for he knowed you was only a coward.”

“’Fraid of a dog! ’Fraid of a dog!” shouted half a dozen voices; and a frozen twig struck the parson’s cheek, and drew blood.

“Why, he ’s got blood!” said one. “I never thought he had any.”

“Come, Parson,” said a friendly miner, advancing from the circle, “we don’t want to hurt you, but you might as well understand that we ’re the masters here.”

“And if ye are the masters, then be just. Give the criminal 11191 to me; I will myself take him to the nearest judge, the nearest jail, and deliver him up.”

“He ’ll be more likely to deliver you up, I reckon, Parson.”

“Well, then, send a committee of your own men with me —”

“We’ve got other things to do besides taking long journeys over the ice to ’commodate thieves, Parson. Leave the man to us.”

“And to torture? Men, men, ye would not treat a beast so!”

“A beast don’t steal our food and whiskey,” sang out a miner.

“Stand back! Stand back!” shouted several voices. “You’re too little to fight, Parson.”

“But not too little to die,” answered the minister, throwing up his arms towards the sky.

For an instant his words held the men in check; they looked at each other, then at him.

“Think of yourselves,” continued the minister. “Are ye without fault? If ye murder this man, ye are worse than he is.”

But here the minister went astray in his appeal, and ran against the views of the border.

“Worse! Worse than a sneaking thief! Worse than a praying hypocrite who robs the very men that feed him! Look here, we won’t stand that! Sheer off, or take the consequences.” And a burning brand struck the parson’s coat, and fell on the head of the crouching figure at his side, setting fire to its hair. Instantly the parson extinguished the light flame, and drew the burly form closer within his arms, so that the two stood as one. “Not one, but both of us,” he cried.

A new voice spoke next, the voice of the oldest miner, the most hardened reprobate there. “Let go that rascal, Parson. He ’s the fellow that lamed you last spring. He set the trap himself; I seen him a doing it.”

Involuntarily, for a moment, Herman Peters drew back; the trap set at the chapel door, the deliberate, cruel intention, the painful injury, and its lifelong result, brought the angry color to his pale face. The memory was full of the old bitterness.

But Saul, feeling himself deserted, dragged his miserable body forward, and clasped the parson’s knees. With desperate 11192 hands he clung, and he was not repulsed. Without a word the parson drew him closer, and again faced the crowd.

“Why, the man ’s a downright fool!” said the old miner. “That Saul lamed him for life, and all for nothing, and still he stands by him. The man ’s mad!”

“I am not mad,” answered the parson, and his voice rang out clear and sweet. “But I am a minister of the great God, who has said to men, ‘Thou shalt do no murder.’ O men! O brothers! look back into your own lives. Have ye no crimes, no sins to be forgiven? Can ye expect mercy when ye give none? Let this poor creature go, and it shall be counted unto you for goodness. Ye, too, must some time die; and when the hour comes, as it often comes, in lives like yours, with sudden horror, ye will have this good deed to remember. For charity — which is mercy — shall cover a multitude of sins.”

He ceased, and there was a momentary pause. Then a stern voice answered, “Facts won’t alter, Parson. The man is a thief, and must be punished. Your talk may do for women-folks, not for us.”

“Women-folks!” repeated the ruffian-faced man who had made the women shudder at the chapel. “He ’s a sly fox, this parson! He did n’t go out to meet Rosie Ray at the Grotter yesterday, O no!”

“Liar!” shouted a man, who had been standing in the shadow on the outskirts of the crowd, taking, so far, no part in the scene. He forced himself to the front; it was Steven Long, his face dark with passion.

“No liar at all, Steve,” answered the first. “I seen ’em there with my own eyes; they had things to eat and everything. Just ask the parson.”

“Yes, ask the parson,” echoed the others; and with the shifting humor of the border, they stopped to laugh over the idea. “Ask the parson.”

Steven Long stepped forward, and confronted the little minister. His strong hands were clinched, his blood was on fire with jealousy. The bull-dog followed his master, and smelled around the parson’s gaiters, — the same poor old shoes, his only pair, now wet with melted snow. The parson glanced down apprehensively.

“’Fraid of a dog! ’Fraid of a dog!” shouted the miners, again laughing uproariously. The fun was better than they had anticipated.

11193

“Is it true?” demanded Steven Long, in a hoarse voice. “Did you meet that girl at the Grotter yesterday?”

“I did meet Rosamond Ray at the Grotto yesterday,” answered the parson; “but —”

He never finished the sentence. A fragment of iron ore struck him on the temple. He fell, and died, his small body lying across the thief, whom he still protected even in death.




The murder was not avenged; Steven Long was left to go his own way. But as the thief was also allowed to depart unmolested, the principles of border justice were held to have been amply justified.

The miners attended the funeral in a body, and even deputed one of their number to read the Episcopal burial service over the rough pine coffin, since there was no one else to do it. They brought out the chapel prayer-books, found the places, and followed as well as they could; for “he thought a deal of them books. Don’t you remember how he was always carrying ’em backward and forward, poor little chap!”

The Chapel of St. John and St. James was closed for the season. In the summer a new missionary arrived; he was not ritualistic, and before the year was out he married Rosamond Ray.

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FOOTNOTE

1  Copyright, 1875, by James R. Osgood & Co. By permission of Harper & Brothers.









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