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0 | 'Let us stay here,' she exclaimed. 'The one room is as good as the other for what we have to talk about.' She removed a bundle of papers from a high-backed easy-chair, placed herself in it, and motioned to Gregers to sit down also. The sun was shining brightly through the window, the soft breeze was swaying the branches of a large elm-tree, with their fresh light-green leaves, backwards and forwards outside, the sparrows were chirping under the roof; farther off was heard the song of the larks as they soared over old Bugge's Hald,[2] the ruins of which were to be seen from the window, and were glittering in the sun. Presently the lady spoke. 'I come to you, general, on the same errand, relative to which you lately called on me, and I bring you my entire acceptance of the proposal you did me the honour to make respecting a marriage between you and my daughter. Gregers Daa's tall figure drew itself up in military style; he bowed, and said: 'You have, then, communicated my wishes to your daughter, dear madam?' 'I did so on the very same day that you called on us.' 'And she has no objection to pass her future life with an old man such as I am?' 'On the contrary,' replied the Baroness, quietly, and without the slightest hesitation, 'she has many objections to it.' Gregers looked thunderstruck; he fancied he had not heard aright. 'My dear general!' said the Baroness, with an insinuating smile, 'the principal duty you and I owe to each other is sincerity, and I shall, therefore, venture to speak candidly to you. My daughter likes another--stay, do not interrupt me--I mean that she feels a great kindness for, and much interest in, a poor relation, who, so to speak, has grown up with her, and who has been the only one, until now, who could realize the visions every young girl's fancy is prone to create. But, good Heavens! what does that signify? At her age one loves the whole world, or rather, we really love only our own selves in every object which pleases our inclination. I have impressed on my daughter the necessity of giving up her foolish dreams, and of forsaking the world in which she has hitherto lived, to enter into another by your side. 'And was she willing to obey you?' asked Gregers, anxiously. The Baroness's cheerful smile partially chased away his fears: 'Willing!' she exclaimed. 'Do you really think, my dear general, that I would wish to see you united to a lady who could not prove, by her obedience to her parent, that she would be able to obey her husband?' 'But as she already loves another, a younger man than I am, who, doubtless, is more able than I to comprehend and to share her sympathies, how can I expect her to love me?' 'Love you!' exclaimed the Baroness, in evident surprise. 'No--at least not at the present moment; she cannot be expected to do so, since she has, as yet, hardly the honour of knowing you. In regard to the future, it will altogether rest with yourself to call forth this love. Your superior character, and the mildness of manners I have remarked in you, will indubitably lead the dear child to the goal you desire. I say lead, not mould, because I know that a husband may easily lead his wife, but not easily gain his wishes by coercion. From my experience of the feelings of my own sex, I can affirm that, in most cases, gentlemen may obtain as much affection as they can desire; but they understand less how to awaken this affection than to retain it when once bestowed. It is an acknowledged fact, that though the man begins by showing the woman the first attention, it generally ends in her showing him the last.' Thus commenced a conversation, during the course of which the Baroness succeeded in removing all the general's scruples. They afterwards proceeded to discuss the matter in question under another point of view--a view which appeared to the lady of very much more consequence than anything wherein feelings were concerned. The marriage settlements were skilfully introduced by the Baroness, who evinced as much practical sense in this second portion of the conversation as in the first; while Gregers Daa, on his side, showed a degree of high-minded liberality which quite surpassed her most exaggerated expectation. And thus was this marriage determined on, this bargain concluded, in which was bartered away a young girl's future happiness, to secure for her some insignificant worldly advantages. The sacrifice was accomplished with festive pomp, with flowers, smiles, and songs on one side, with smothered sighs and suppressed tears on the other. The same wedding-bells that rang to announce Gregers Daa's happiness rang Jeanne's freedom of soul and happiness into the grave. The first few weeks after the wedding were spent in society, visiting, and all the round of amusements which it was more the fashion to offer to newly-married people at that period than in our days. Gregers objected to this dissipation in vain, the Baroness insisted on it, and the complaisant son-in-law allowed her to take her own way. The Baroness Ryse hoped, by these means, to procure her daughter some diversion, which might lead her to _forget_: she had herself never felt any other than these small sorrows that vanish amidst wax-lights and noise in a ball-room; she could not, therefore, conceive that Jeanne might, indeed, be stupified by all the entertainments provided for her, but that solitude is the only comfort in deep sorrow, and the great physician for suffering. Betwixt the mother and daughter, these such opposite characters, the principal difference was simply this--that the Baroness thought only of marriage, and Jeanne of love. As to the general, he found, to his great surprise, that all those feelings, so new to him, which had begun to be so softening and so pleasant, had suddenly changed their nature. That love, which had wiled his heart out of its accustomed torpor, which had come like a sunbeam on a late day in autumn, unexpectedly, and all of a sudden, had been as hastily enjoyed as if its loss were feared. He tried in vain to acquire the affection he coveted; but how could he think that an old man's measured and bashful love could be able to chase away the clouds of lassitude and grief which rested on Jeanne's beautiful but pale brow, or dislodge the remembrance of what she had lost by what she had won? When at last, after long and fruitless struggles, he perceived the impossibility of attaining the desired object, which seemed always to draw back from him like the obscure and misty images on a wide heath, he shut himself up in his own study--but not with his former peace of mind; and he bore the marks of his internal battles in his hollow sunken cheeks and whitened hair. From this time forward Gregers endured his sorrows in silence, as Jeanne did hers: the only difference between them was--the cause of the unhappiness of each. Thus passed some years: Gregers Daa felt that no blessing had attended his marriage. He was childless. There lay a little embalmed corpse in his family vault in the cathedral of Viborg, with an inscription full of grief on the lid of the coffin--that was his only child; it had died soon after its birth. The only person who never appeared to remark the cold and comfortless terms on which Gregers and Jeanne lived was the Baroness. She resided for some months every summer in her son-in-law's house at Hald, drove about in his carriage, received visits from all her acquaintances; in short, she seemed to be the real mistress of the mansion, exactly as on every alteration and improvement at Rysensteen she showed herself to have unlimited command over the general's money. War at length broke out again, after the short and enforced peace Denmark had been obliged to put up with. King Frederick IV. had secretly entered into an alliance with Poland and Saxony against Sweden. Reventlow was fighting in Scania; shortly after was heard, for the first time, that one of the most ancient and most honoured names among the Danish nobility was coupled with a lost battle--a name from which heroism and victory, until then, had appeared to be inseparable. Joergen Ranzau was defeated by Steenbock on the outside of the gates of Helsingborg, and the scene of war after that was removed into Germany. Gregers Daa was ordered to join the army. One evening in the month of November this intelligence reached Hald. II. THE FAREWELL. Gregers Daa received the letter when he was sitting in the same room as Jeanne. His pale cheeks flushed as he read it; Jeanne remarked his emotion. She sat working near the fireplace, and at a little distance from her was a third person, a guest that evening--this person was Captain Kruse. After Jeanne's marriage he had often visited her at Hald, Gregers himself encouraged him to come, when he perceived that she seemed pleased to see him. He had not then the most remote idea of the engagement which had formerly existed between them. 'That letter seems to interest you,' said Jeanne, turning towards the general. 'Yes--certainly!' replied Gregers. 'I am called away to-morrow.' 'Called away!' exclaimed at the same moment Jeanne and Kruse. There was something in the tone of the captain's exclamation which seemed to displease the general; he knitted his brow, while he answered, 'I ought to have said that _we_ are called away. I have just received an order for our regiment to join the army in Holstein immediately.' Jeanne uttered no exclamation. During the last two or three years she had acquired complete command over her feelings; her countenance remained calm, and did not betray the slightest sign of agitation. Gregers relapsed into his former silence; he had returned to the place where he had before been sitting, by a table in a corner of the room, at a little distance from Jeanne, because, he said, the lights on her table hurt his eyes; from that place his look seemed to be fastened steadily upon the two others. During the uncomfortable silence which now reigned in the drawing-room, were distinctly heard the wailing of the stormy wind, and the screech of the owls amidst the elm-trees on the outside of the windows. Shortly after Gregers arose, took a candle, and left the room. Those who remained behind heard his steps becoming fainter and fainter as he traversed the long corridor which led to his study. When they were alone Jeanne let her work fall, and bending over the table covered her eyes with her hand. On raising her head again in a little time, she uttered a low cry, for Kruse was lying at her feet! She made a motion of her hand as if to bid him go, but the captain seized that soft white hand and pressed it to his lips, while he cast an indescribably beseeching look up at her. 'You have heard it,' he whispered; 'we must go--we shall part, for ever, perhaps--I must say a few words to you first. Meet me down yonder--only this once, this once--for the first and the last time!' 'No, no!' cried Jeanne, vehemently: 'I have already refused this. Oh, go!--it would be wrong!' 'Oh, I pray you,' he continued, in a still more touching and trembling voice, 'do not refuse my petition! Are you afraid of me, Jeanne, though in all these long years I have shown you how safe you are near me? Or are you afraid that your glance will fall on yonder wood, where, one afternoon, you promised to love me, where the sun shone, and the birds sang, while God received those vows which have since been so cruelly broken?' Jeanne burst into tears. 'But go--only go, unhappy one! Do you not hear? There is some one coming--it is my husband.' 'Let him come, he is not my worst enemy at this moment.' Jeanne cast on him a sorrowful and reproachful look, but at the same time held out her hand to him. Kruse sprang up. 'Then you have some pity for all that I have suffered,' he said; 'and you will not let me go without one kind word at parting?' She bowed her head almost imperceptibly, and yet it was sufficient for him; his eyes shone, his lips trembled, in his deep emotion. When Gregers returned to the room, they were both sitting quietly and in perfect silence. A few minutes afterwards, Kruse took leave, and rode away. Within an hour from that time, a youthful figure stole softly out of one of the side-doors which led from the apartments of the lady of the house down to the garden. She was wrapped in a large shawl, and moved slowly, and, as if unwillingly, onwards. Kruse hastened to meet her as she entered the garden. Jeanne received him more coldly than she need have done after having consented to the interview. But he knew her so well, he had expected nothing else. 'You desired me yesterday,' he began, in a low and unsteady voice, 'not to come up often to Hald, and were vexed at me this evening because I venture to disobey your injunction. God is my witness, Jeanne, that it was my intention to have been guided by your commands.' 'Why, then, did you come this evening?' she asked. 'Because I knew before the general did that we were to be ordered on immediate service, and I could not resist seeing you once more ere our departure.' 'Would to God we had never met each other!' she whispered in a low sad voice. 'It would have been better for us both.' 'Oh, I entreat you,' he said, with that irresistible tenderness which had always found its way to Jeanne's heart, 'do not say that. I am going far away now, and your wish will be fulfilled; but why should you give me so sad a souvenir to take with me? It is probable, Jeanne, that I shall never return--indeed, it is almost certain, for on what account, or for whom need I seek to save my life?--but if I _do_ return, should I be fated to live, will you then be less merciful than God, and deny me permission to visit you as hitherto? If you will only grant me leave to see you again, I shall never misuse that kindness by a word or a look of which you might disapprove; no sigh, no complaint shall betray to you what I suffer.' 'Oh Heavens!' whispered Jeanne, 'do _I_ not suffer too myself, and do you not perceive that your presence here only prolongs a struggle under which it is certain that we shall both sink? What can you wish to know that you do not already know? What can you see here except that I am Gregers Daa's wife?' 'Yes, it is true--too true!' he replied, scarcely above his breath. 'Farewell! It is best that we should never meet again.' 'Farewell!' replied Jeanne, in the same heartbroken tone. 'But you will not thrust yourself needlessly in the way of danger. Do you hear?--you will not do that? Oh, you must not--you dare not!' 'I am weary of battling with my fate!' 'And I, too!' exclaimed Jeanne, bursting into tears. There was a confession as well as a depth of sorrow in these words; he raised his head, grasped her hand, and carried it to his lips. 'Farewell!' he said--'farewell! God be with you, Jeanne!' She left her hand in his, and whispered, 'Farewell, until we meet again!' 'I may come, then!' he exclaimed joyfully. 'Since you threaten to throw your life away. But go now--leave me. Let me beg this of you.' Kruse knelt before her, whilst he kissed her hand and said: 'Put up a prayer for me, then I shall, perhaps, come back, and God may have compassion upon us both.' He sprang up and left her; a minute or two after, the clatter of his horse's hoofs was heard upon the other side of the garden fence. Jeanne stood and listened. At that moment Jeanne felt her hand seized, and the following words were uttered in a low, sad, scarcely audible tone: 'Put up also a prayer for me, Jeanne!' She started back, and uttered a piercing shriek. A man stood before her, in whom she recognized Gregers Daa, whose countenance in the bluish moonlight looked even paler than usual, and whose smile was sweet, placid, and resigned as it had ever been. Jeanne thought herself lost; she fell at his feet, and stretched out her clasped hands towards him, while she exclaimed: 'Oh, forgive me! Do not condemn me. I am not so guilty as you must think--if you only understood me--if you only knew all--' 'Hush, my dear child!' whispered Gregers, in a voice that was full of grief, but mild and consoling. 'Do not weep so bitterly; I know all, and it is you who do not understand me. You have never understood me aright. Let us go in now.' He assisted the pale, trembling young woman up to her apartment, and then retired to his own study. The next morning, Gregers, attended by his servant, had started on his journey before Jeanne was awake. III. THE BATTLE. One dark December evening, about a month after the general's departure from home, the Danish army had encamped in the vicinity of Gadebusk. In spite of the darkness and the rough weather, there seemed to be an unusual stir and activity in the camp that evening, which betokened that something of importance was about to happen. Shortly before it had become dark, a reconnoitring expedition which had been sent out returned with the intelligence that General Steenbock, the commander-in-chief of the Swedish army, had approached until within three miles of the Danish camp, and that, according to all appearances, he was preparing to attack the Danes at dawn of day. Messengers were sent in various directions. A few of these were to summon the general officers to a council of war, others to take orders to the different portions of the infantry who lay in cantonments in the nearest villages. King Frederick IV. had arrived at the camp two days previously from Oldeslobe. He had taken up his quarters at the little country town of Wakenstadt, whither the officers who had been commanded to assist at the council of war that evening repaired. There was a striking contrast between the appearance of these gentlemen, who, on account of the presence of the king, wore their embroidered and dashing uniforms, and the low, dirty, peasants' parlour, where the meeting was to be held. A peat fire was smoking and blazing in the open chimney; its lurid glare fell on the plastered clay walls, to which time and damp had imparted a greenish hue. Two small windows, whose panes of glass the storm raging without caused to shake in their leaden frames, had no curtains. The floor was of clay, the furniture consisted of a long bench and three straw chairs, which were arranged around a deal table that stood in the middle of the room, covered with maps and drawings, and the apartment was illuminated by two or three tallow candles. The moment, however, was too critical for any of those present to waste a thought upon the chattels around them. The discussions in this council of war were long and stormy. Immediately after the king had communicated the intelligence brought by the scouts, there arose a difference of opinion between him and Reventlow, the commander-in-chief. The count thought that it would be unwise to accept battle at the place where the army then was, because the infantry either could not be assembled before the following morning, or, at any rate, they would be fatigued after their forced march, which it would be necessary to undertake very early to arrive in time. To this was to be added that the Saxon auxiliaries, thirty-two squadrons of cavalry, happened that evening to be at eighteen miles' distance from the rest of the army. The king did not see the force of the argument; he entirely differed from the count. Full of confidence in the continuance of the good luck which had placed in his power the most important of the German provinces of Sweden, he declared the position of the army to be excellent, covered as it was by hills, woods, and morasses. He hoped that the forthcoming battle would crown all his previous victories. The shrewd courtier only adhered to his opinion until he saw that the king was determined not to give up his own. Thereupon he pretended to have been reasoned over to his majesty's views. He bowed smilingly, and exclaimed: 'I also agree that we should remain here. If we conquer, to your majesty will belong the whole glory of the victory. The whole glory, but above all the whole responsibility,' he added, in a whisper to his neighbour, as he took his place again on the wooden bench at the table. Reventlow's yielding to the king's wishes was a sign to all his party to act in the same spirit. One alone still contended that it would be wrong to accept battle under their circumstances--one alone, and he was Major-General Gregers Daa. He stood in that circle somewhat paler and more suffering than usual, cold, stiff, and stern as ever. He would not swerve from his opinion, gave reason after reason, and did not seem to remark that his coadjutors had by degrees changed their ground and had become his adversaries. 'But, by the Lord, Major-General Daa!' exclaimed the king, angrily, and evidently provoked at the general's cold, calm, but determined opposition, 'you must undoubtedly have stronger reasons for contending with us all than those you please to name? From the time that you joined the army last you have been prevented by illness from taking any part in the earlier actions, and now that you appear to be well again, you are the only one who maintains that we ought to retreat. ARE YOU AFRAID OF BEING KILLED?' A general silence followed this insulting question. All present looked by turns at the king and at the general. Gregers's face became deadly pale, his eyes flashed, and his lips trembled as if from cold, while he rose and replied: 'I shall answer your majesty's question to-morrow. I beg to say that I now quite agree with all the rest.' With these words he bowed and left the room. The king saw the terrible effect his insult had produced, and he called to Gregers to come back, but the latter seemed not to hear him. He hastened out, closing the door after him. When Gregers had gone a little way beyond the village, where the camp commenced, he stopped for a few moments, as if in earnest thought; he cast a glance of deep distress up towards the heavens, and pressed his hand upon his breast. He then walked quickly back to the camp. Here all was movement and noise. The sutlers had a rich harvest that evening. Crowds of soldiers lay around the watch-fires, chattering together, or playing at throwing dice on the top of the drums. They sang, they drank, or prepared themselves for the coming dangers by relating the wonderful heroic exploits that had been performed during those that were past. The report of the enemy's approach had already reached every one. Gregers continued his walk until he had reached one of the farthest-off tents. Here he came to a stand, listened for a moment, and then entered it. Captain Kruse was sitting at a table, which stood near his camp-bed; he was supporting his head with both his hands, and was so intently gazing on an open letter, so absorbed in its contents, that he did not observe the general's entrance until the latter was standing by the table. He then quickly concealed the letter, and rose. 'Do I interrupt you?' asked Gregers. 'No,' replied Kruse, evidently much confused. 'You have received a letter?' 'No!' 'It appeared to me, though, that you were reading one when I came in.' 'The letter I was reading is six years old,' said Kruse. 'Indeed! And at such a length of time after its date does it retain sufficient interest to carry it with you to your tent and read it on such an evening as _this?_' 'It is the memento of a loss--of a death; and you know, general, that the heart does not value its memories by their age, but by the estimation in which we hold those to whom they are traceable.' 'No,' said the general, 'I am not aware of any such feeling, for _I_ have no souvenirs, no cherished remembrances.' Kruse looked up in amazement at the bitter and almost despairing meaning which lay in these words. Gregers continued: 'I came to ask you to visit me this evening. There is a subject on which I wish to have some conversation with you. Have you time to spare?' 'Yes, general.' 'Very well, come then to me in my tent, near the forest of firs, within an hour--not later, pray observe.' 'I shall be punctual,' said Kruse. Gregers took leave, but, before doing so, he cast a glance towards the table, where Kruse had concealed the letter. The captain remained behind, musing: he could not fathom the cause of this visit. Latterly, Gregers seemed to have avoided his society. During the foregoing conversation, it struck him that there was something harsh and unfriendly in the expression of his countenance, which betokened a dark and hostile mood. An hour later Kruse entered the general's tent. He found him sitting at a table, on which lay two pistols and a sealed letter. Gregers beckoned to him to come forward, and, pointing to a straw chair a little way from the table, requested him to be seated. 'Have you heard the news?' he began abruptly. 'We are to fight to-morrow.' 'Yes,' replied Kruse. 'So much the better!' 'I also would have thought the same at your age. I would, most likely, have thought the same now, if I, like you, were single, and had not bound another to my fate.' 'You allude to the amiable lady yonder, at Hald?' 'Yes; and perhaps you are surprised that I should be thinking of her just this evening?' asked Gregers sharply. 'No--certainly!' replied Kruse, somewhat astounded at the question. 'What is there to surprise me in your doing so?' 'You are not speaking the truth, captain. Among all living creatures, you are the only one who could dare to conceive a doubt on this subject. You,' he continued, in a hollow and moaning tone of voice, as if the words he were uttering could with difficulty pass his lips--'you, who love her, and whom--she loves in return.' Kruse was speechless for a moment, while Gregers was making visible and violent efforts to regain his composure. 'Now I understand him,' he thought; 'he has found everything out, and intends to murder me.' This thought had scarcely entered his mind when it took the shape of a conviction. In the deep silence now reigning in the tent, he heard the general's suppressed groans as he drew his breath heavily, and saw the arm by which he supported himself as he leaned it on the table, tremble. 'What answer have you to give me?' inquired the general. Kruse raised his head: 'It is true what you say, general. I do love her.' The admission did not make the slightest alteration in the expression of the general's countenance, as Kruse had expected it would have done. 'How long ago did your love for her commence?' he asked. 'I have loved Jeanne Ryse since my childhood. She was the first, the only one I ever loved--the only one I ever will love. And now, general! After this confession, I wait to hear what further you have to say to me. I see that you have prepared for what was to happen,' he added, glancing towards the pistols which lay on the table. 'I have been long expecting it, and, when you came into my tent, I anticipated that what sooner or later must end thus was close at hand.' Gregers remained silent for a few seconds, and then said: 'You are mistaken, captain! I was not thinking of killing you when I asked you to come here this evening. If such had been my intention, it would have been carried out long ago. For three years, Kruse, I have known that you loved her, but I saw, at the same time, how little guilt there was in this secret love.' He held out his hand to Kruse. 'Poor fellow!' he continued, 'how could you help that you loved her? You, who were young, and whom God had destined for her. The error was, that no one gave me any idea of this until it was too late. I was a witness to the grief you both evinced; I heard the last words, the last sighs with which you parted from each other! I know it all. What you, on the contrary, do not know is--that I also loved Jeanne.' 'You!' cried Kruse. 'Yes; you are surprised at that, are you not?' continued Gregers, with a melancholy smile. 'An old man, who had no other right to that girl's love than what chance and authority bestowed. But I loved her, nevertheless, with an affection that in strength and devotion quite equalled your own. She was the only one, the last who bound me to life; my heart grew young again under the influence of this love, which, in spite of a husband's claims, preserved a lover's first timidity.' 'You loved her!' cried Kruse, as if he must have the words repeated, in order that he might take in the possibility of their truth. 'But Jeanne never suspected this.' 'Nay, do not think that I could betray my feelings when I so soon perceived that she was not able to return them! From the garden below have I, like you, often and often gazed up at her windows, until her shadow and her light disappeared; I have felt myself intoxicated at inhaling the perfume she scattered around her; in short, I have been more easily contented than you, for you told her that you loved her, while I hardly dared to confess so much to myself. Nor will she ever know it until I have ceased to live.' Gregers stopped speaking for a few minutes, while he fixed his gaze on the empty space before him within the tent Kruse could not find words to answer him, he felt so much moved by what he had just heard. A little after, Gregers continued: 'To-morrow we go to battle, or rather accept it, since the enemy offers it to us. It is possible that I shall not outlive the day; it is, indeed, almost certain.' 'Certain!' exclaimed Kruse. 'Yes, my friend!' replied Gregers quietly. 'As you said lately, one has one's presentiments in this world, let us suppose that mine will be fulfilled. In case this should happen, I have written a letter, which I now give into your keeping; take care of it, for it contains my last will. My first intention was that you should have remained for a time ignorant of its contents, but I have thought better of it. When I am dead, go back to Hald, its doors will open to you, not as heretofore, to receive your sighs and complaints--no, you will enter Hald as its master, Jacob Kruse! I give Jeanne to you, and when I have done that I have given you all, for my property shall belong to you both, since I am a childless man and the last of my race. Raise your head, my son! Why do you bend over the table in this manner? She shall be yours, as a reward for her fidelity and your sufferings! You must love each other. I bequeath her to you, and it is my wish and my prayer that you will make up for all the sorrow I have caused her.' Gregers placed his hand on the young officer's drooping head. Kruse sank to the ground, and knelt before him! As Gregers raised him, he flung his arms round his neck and burst into tears. There was something very strange in this scene between the husband and the lover! 'Oh my God!' cried Kruse, 'I see it all; you will let yourself be killed.' 'No, certainly not that, my friend!' replied the general. 'But I shall be killed, that is all. I believe, as I told you, in presentiments, and I owe you both this reparation--you and her. Go, now! Go and take the letter with you. I wish to be alone a little time.' So saying, the general opened the tent, and motioned to Kruse to leave it. The next day, about mid-day, the battle near Gadebusk commenced. Twice during the morning Kruse had gone to Gregers's tent, but the general had declined receiving him either time, upon the plea of having much business to attend to. The drums and the trumpets shortly after called the soldiers to muster in their ranks, and the captain was obliged to hurry to his duty. When Gregers Daa rode past Reventlow, to the head of the division he commanded, he stopped his horse, and turning to the commander-in-chief, said in a low tone, so as not to be overheard by those near, 'General! I have a request to make to you.' 'To me!' cried Reventlow, much surprised. 'Yes!' continued Gregers; 'and I beseech of you, for the sake of that friendship of which you have given me so many proofs, to grant it.' 'It is already granted, my dear general, if even only on this account, that within another hour I may not be in a condition to accede to anyone's wishes.' 'With the third national regiment, on the left wing of the army, there is one Captain Kruse in command of a company. I particularly wish that his life may be saved, if possible. Will you, therefore, kindly place him accordingly?' 'Colonel Eifeler,' cried Reventlow, beckoning to one of the nearest officers, 'be so good as to order a portion of the third national regiment, under Captain Kruse, to serve as cover for the height, on which his majesty has determined to take the command.' The colonel touched his cap, put spurs to his horse, and galloped off. Gregers Daa thanked Reventlow with a long and warm pressure of the hand, and then went on to join his own men. The Danish army was drawn up on a hill, behind a morass; its left wing was protected by a river, its right by a large and thick forest of firs. Two hours before the commencement of the action the Saxon cavalry had arrived, and had united with the Danish. The Swedes commenced the battle with a brisk cannonade, and stormed the hill under their watchword, '_Mit Gott and Jesu Huelfe!_' Shortly after all was enveloped in smoke, which the wind drove over against the enemy. The fire of musketry mingled with the louder booming of the cannon; the signal trumpets sounded; the drums rolled, and men were falling in the agonies of death. An old chronicle says that the battle, 'with great effusion of blood, lasted until five o'clock. As no one on either side would give any quarter, there were fewer prisoners made; officers fought each other as in a duel, and such were the individual combats, that the Danish and Swedish officers were generally found dead, lying close to each other on the field of slaughter.' The same chronicle tells us that the Swedes stormed the hill three times. The last time they were so fortunate as to be able to take up their position at the foot of the hill, without the Danes having the power to hinder them. Two attempts had been made in vain. The Danes were beaten back, the Saxon cavalry gave way, and fled in disorder; Steenbock followed up his good fortune, and sent troops to pursue them. The Danes, too, were beginning to give way, for the enemy's cannon, loaded with grape, and discharged from a short distance, was making terrible havoc among them. At that moment a squadron of Danish horse, led by a tall, thin officer, came dashing down the hill, and for the third time made an attempt to drive back the enemy. The spirited horsemen dropped on all sides, but others, who had escaped unharmed, continued their onset, and fell upon their foes, their brave leader charging at their head. The cannons were silent, while musket and pistol shots flew hotly around. Shouts of triumph--groans from the wounded horses--prayers--the moans of the dying--and wild cries of encouragement, issued from that confused multitude, immersed in dust and smoke, amidst which were to be seen sabres flashing and sinking, and in the hottest of the fight the tall officer, who seemed invulnerable himself though he dealt destruction around. From a height at a little distance King Frederick had witnessed the whole. He had seen the two unsuccessful attempts to drive the enemy back, and the dragoons who had galloped down the hill to make the third effort. Gregers Daa's name was in the mouth of everyone around. It was he who was speeding on to fulfil his promise. This furious attack took the Swedes by surprise, and they began at length to draw back. It was in vain that Steenbock sent them reinforcements; before these reached the battlefield he beheld his troops, as if panic-struck, take wildly to flight, and heard the noise made by the dragoons as they spiked the Swedish cannon. In the midst of the field, among heaps of the wounded and dying on both sides of him, lay their commander, the heroic Gregers, struck by a pistol-ball, while he was trying to wrest the colours from a Swedish officer. This episode--the gallant conduct of the dragoons--had given the Danes time to recover themselves, and the battle was resumed with fury at another place. Some of the dragoons jumped from their horses, and bore their wounded general away from the field. Gregers was carried to the village, and into the very same room in which, the evening before, he had been so humbled and insulted. King Frederick soon after entered the chamber, went up to the bed, and leaning over him, took his hand, while he exclaimed: 'How this disaster goes to my heart, my dear general! I have sent for my own surgeon; he will be here presently, and he will do all that he can to preserve to our fatherland a life so invaluable as yours.' 'You are mistaken, my liege,' replied Gregers. 'The surgeon will be of no use, and I am only fulfilling my destiny. Had your majesty been unequal, yesterday evening when you put upon me the humiliation of doubting my courage, I would have killed you; _that_ being impossible, there was nothing for it but to let myself be killed. The ball is in my breast. It will realize my wish.' The king uttered in a low voice some words full of admiration of a heroism that sought death on account of a hasty and inconsiderate expression from his lips. When Gregers had finished speaking to the king, he turned his head away from him. His eyes met those of Kruse, who was kneeling on the other side of the bed. A sweet and happy smile stole over the pale countenance of the dying man, as he held out his hand to the captain. 'You see that my presentiments were correct,' he whispered, in a weak and failing voice. 'Now she will be happy, and you also; now you may love each other freely--for ever. And when you are happiest, sometimes spare a thought to me--an old man, who was ignorant that it was he who hindered your happiness--who went away when he discovered it. Farewell, my son. Be kind to her, whom we both love!' Gregers drew a deep sigh, clasped his feeble hands, and his spirit fled to other worlds!' * * * A month later, two persons were sitting in one of the drawing-rooms at Hald; the one was Jeanne, the other Captain Kruse, who the same day had arrived with the general's body from Holstein. Gregers Daa had been buried in his family vault in the cathedral at Viborg. Jeanne had read the letter he had addressed to her in his tent the evening before the battle. Kruse related to her, word for word, what had passed the same evening between them. Jeanne wept bitterly while he spoke, and when he had finished there was a long and unbroken silence in the room. A little after, Jeanne held out her hand to him, and said, 'Leave me, now, my friend. I wish to be alone.' There was something of decision and earnestness in the tone in which she spoke that alarmed the captain.' He held her hand in his while he asked: 'And when may I come back?' 'Never! Never come back!' replied Jeanne, with the utmost composure, 'for I no longer love you!' Kruse stood petrified. Then he whispered in accents which betrayed the deepest despair: 'And your vows, and your assurance that if you did not belong to _him_, no living creature should separate us?' 'I have not forgotten all that,' she replied; 'but I now belong to him more than ever I did. Go, Jacob Kruse, I beseech of you. It is not the living which separates us, but the dead!' Having thus spoken she left the room. What strange contradictions there are in a woman's heart! Jeanne kept her word, and remained until her death a lonely and sorrowing widow. The following year Kruse fell at the siege of Toenning. HERR SINCLAIR. BY E. STORM. Herr Sinclair o'er the briny wave His course to Norway bent; 'Midst Guldbrand's rocks he found his grave; There, his last breath was spent. Sinclair pass'd o'er the billows blue For Swedish gold to fight; He came, alas! he little knew Norwegian dust to bite. Bright beams that night the pale moon flung-- The vessel gently roll'd-- A mermaid from the ocean sprung And Sinclair's fate foretold. 'Turn back, turn back, thou Scottish chief! Hold'st thou thy life so cheap? Turn back, or give my words belief, Thou'lt ne'er repass this deep!' 'Light is thy song, malicious elf! Thy theme is always ill! Could I but reach thy hated self That voice should soon be still!' He sail'd one day--he sail'd for three-- With all his vassal train; On the fourth morn--see--Norway--see! Breaks on the azure main. By Romsdal's coast he steers to land, On hostile views intent; The fourteen hundred of his band Were all on evil bent. With lawless might, where'er they go They slaughter and they burn; They laugh to scorn the widow's woe: The old man's pray'r they spurn. The infant in its mother's arms, While smiling there--they kill. But rumours strange, and wild alarms Soon all the country fill. The bonfires blazed--the tidings flew-- And far and wide they spread The valley's sons that signal knew; From foes _they_ never fled. 'We must ourselves the country save; Our soldiers fight elsewhere. And cursed be the dastard knave Who now his blood would spare!' From Vaage, Lessoe, and from Lom, With axes sharp and strong; In one great mass the peasants come-- To meet the Scots they throng. There runs a path by Lide's side, Which some the Kringell call; And near it Lauge's waters glide: In them the foe shall fall. Now weapons, long disused, are spread Again that bloody day. The merman lifts his shaggy head And waits his destined prey. Brave Sinclair, pierced with many a ball, Sinks groaning on the field. The Scots behold their leader fall, And rank on rank they yield. 'On peasants! on--ye Normand men! Strike down beneath your feet!' For home and peace the Scots wish'd then; But there was no retreat. With corpses was the Kringell fill'd; The ravens were regaled. The youthful blood which there was spill'd The Scottish girls bewail'd. No living soul went home again Their countrymen to tell The hope to conquer those how vain, 'Midst Norway's hills who dwell. They raised a column on that spot, To bid their foes beware; And evil be that Normand's lot Who coldly passes there! THE AGED RABBI. A Jewish Tale. BY B. S. INGEMANN. * * * I. 'Is thy day of persecution to return, lost, unhappy Israel?' exclaimed the old rabbi, Philip Moses, sadly shaking his venerable grey head, as one evening in the autumn of 1819 stones were thrown in through the windows of the house in which he resided, whilst the rabble of Hamburg shouted in the street in derision the first words of the Jew's lament for Jerusalem. 'Yes! ye are right,' he continued mournfully; 'Jerusalem is demolished and laid waste. Ye could not stone us against Jehovah's will! But His wrath is sore kindled against us. His patience was great, but His people have forgotten Him in the midst of their banishment; they have forsaken the Law and the Prophets amidst the dwellings of strangers; they have mingled their blood with the blood of the unbeliever; and lo! therefore God's people are thrust forth from the earth, and blotted out from among the living.' 'Oh, grandfather, grandfather!' cried his weeping grandchildren, clinging to him in their terror, 'protect us from the fearful Christians!' 'If ye be still the children of Israel,' answered the old man calmly, 'fold your hands and bow your knees, turn your faces towards the east--towards the ruins of God's holy city--and pray to Jehovah, the God of your fathers! While thus engaged in prayer, what if these stones crush your heads and dash out your brains? Praise Jacob's God with me, and die in the name of the Lord God of Sabaoth! Then shall His cherubim bear ye in peace to our father Abraham's bosom!' 'Is that the only comfort you can bestow, simple old man?' said his son Samuel, the father of the children. He was the richest jeweller in Hamburg, and now saw his valuable shop exposed to be ransacked and plundered by the furious mob. 'Can you give us no better advice than to pray? _I_ know something better. We will all let ourselves be baptized to-morrow.' 'Would you renounce the faith of your fathers on account of your anxiety about your jewellery, my son?' said the old man, casting a contemptuous glance on the wealthy, trembling Israelite, who, overcome with fear, was rushing from keeping-place to keeping-place, gathering together and packing up his most valuable articles. 'Truly it is indifferent to me whether they call me Jew or Christian,' replied Samuel, 'so I can save my goods and my life. When the question is, whether I shall be a rich man to-morrow or a beggar--whether I shall walk the streets, and go to the Exchange in peace, or if I am to be pelted in open day by the very children, and risk my health, my limbs, my life itself--when my jewels, my furniture, my wife, my children, and my windows are in question--I should be a great ass if I hesitated to let a handful of cold water be thrown upon me. It is only a stupid ceremony; but I daresay it is just as good as our own crotchets. Now-a-days that is the best creed which gives security and advantages in trade and commerce.' 'Miserable being!' cried old Philip Moses, drawing himself up to his full length, 'accursed be the spirit that speaks by your mouth! It is that pestilential spirit which has wrought evil among God's people, and caused them to become a byword to the nations of the earth, and an abomination to the Lord of Heaven! Accursed be those goods and that life for which you would barter the faith of your forefathers, and mock even the altar of the strangers, to which you would fly in your abject cowardice! Accursed be the security and the advantages for which you would betray Jehovah! Accursed be the trade and the commerce that have enticed God's people to become the slaves of Mammon, and frantic worshippers of the golden calf!' 'You talk wildly, old man!' replied Samuel. 'You do not know how to accommodate yourself to the times. You are aged, and cling to old notions; but the days of your prophets are gone by.' 'Their words shall stand to the last of days,' said the old man, raising his head proudly; 'and be it my care to proclaim them among ye, even if the earth should burn around me, and sink beneath my feet! Is it not enough that we are a stricken and dispersed race, cast forth into the wide world, and condemned to live despised in the land of the stranger? Shall we add humiliation to humiliation, and despicably constrain ourselves to laud and call those just who scorn us and trample us in the dust?' The jeweller's handsome saloon was full of fugitive Israelites, who sought refuge and protection at the abode of the wealthy Samuel; whilst the police and the watchmen _pretended_ to be endeavouring to quiet and disperse the mob outside. The assembled Jews loudly deplored their misfortunes, and some of them gazed with astonishment on the aged Philip Moses, who stood there firmly and fearlessly, like a prophet among them, and poured forth words of wisdom and instruction to his trembling fellow-believers. Two or three of the old rabbis, with long beards and black silk _talars_, or robes, alone listened attentively and with calm seriousness to him, the most ancient of their community. But the young beardless Israelites uttered cries of lamentation, bewailing the conduct of the people of Hamburg, bewailing their broken windows, and all the damage that would accrue to their trades or business in consequence of this new persecution. 'Ah! if my mother had not been so over-faithful to my father,' said a conceited young Jew, 'I might have gone with comfort to the theatre, and seen that pretty Ma'amselle Wrede, without being recognized as a Jew, and abused accordingly; and running the risk of getting my head broken to boot.' 'Oh! that we had never been circumcised!' cried another; 'our lives are actually not safe in the streets.' 'Would that we were all baptized!' groaned a third. 'Ay, with some philter that would turn our dark hair to red, and remove the too apparent marks with which Jehovah has signalized us and cast us out among our foes.' 'Oh!--woe--woe!' shrieked the women and children--'whither shall we fly in our great distress and misery? Ah! were it but morning, and this dreadful night were past!' 'Leave off your lamentations, ye foolish and untoward ones!' cried Philip Moses. 'The Lord has struck ye with imbecility, and with blindness, and with corruption of heart. He has scattered ye abroad among all the tribes of the earth, because of your perversity; he has given thee a timorous heart, oh Israel! so that the sole of thy foot cannot find rest, and thou feelest that thy life is in jeopardy, and goest about groaning night and day; and in the morning thou sayest, Would that it were evening! and in the evening, Would that it were morning! because of the terror of thy heart, and the visions that are before thine eyes. But hearken what the Lord declares unto you by the mouth of His servants from the tabernacle in your foreign synagogue. If your affliction and your humiliation be greater than your transgressions, shake the dust from your feet, and go forth from the place where ye are treated with ignominy and oppression. Leave the iniquitous Mammon in the hands of the evildoers, and take only with you that to which there cleaves no curse in the sight of Jehovah! Come! I will lead ye from city to city, and from land to land, until we find some spot on earth where Jehovah may veil our disgrace and grant us freedom among the children of mankind, or else, like our fathers of old, among the wild beasts of the wilderness!' 'What are you dreaming of, old man?' exclaimed his rich kinsmen, in dissatisfied chorus. 'Should we leave our hard-won gains, and go forth like beggars into the world, with old sacks on our shoulders? Where shall we find a more commercial town than this? And in what part of the world would we not be exposed to annoyances and persecutions? No path leads back to the promised land, and were we to be guided by your dreams, we should neither be able to feed our wives and our little ones, nor to gather golden pieces and silver ducats.' 'If ye believed in Jehovah,' replied Philip Moses, 'ye would also believe that there is a way to the promised land; but that thought is too grand for your contracted souls. The flesh-pots of Egypt are dearer to you than the manna from heaven in the wilderness; and if the Lord God were to call up Moses among you, ye would stone him as your fathers stoned the prophets.' 'What avails all this long discourse, poor, foolish old man?' said his son, the rich jeweller, interrupting him. 'Sit down there in your comfortable arm-chair, and amuse yourself with the children, Moses, while the rest of us consult together what is best to be done. He is going into his dotage,' added he, turning to the other Jews, 'and sometimes he is not quite in his right senses, he has quarrelled with all his family, and I keep him here, out of charity, in my house, as you see; but for all that I have to put up with many hard words, and much abuse from him.' Then there commenced a mumbling in the room, and a buzzing sound as in a bee-hive, everyone giving his opinion as to the best way of quieting the people of Hamburg, and making up matters with them. Some proposed that a deputation should be sent to the Senate to demand the protection of the military for their houses. 'It would be of no use,' said others. 'These mean, abominable members of the Hanseatic League are our worst enemies; these stupid, paltry, petty dealers, who envy our cleverness in business, and covet our profits--it is just they themselves who set the populace against us.' 'Then let us remove to Altona,' cried some. 'Those Danish blockheads will at least have sense enough to be willing to receive us with all our riches; and they will be glad to have an opportunity of causing a loss to the impudent Hamburgers, in return for their "_Schukelmeier_" _cry_. '[3] 'But when the worst part of the storm is over, we will repent having gone,' argued others; 'for there is not so much business done, or so much money to be made there, as here. It is better for us to put up with rudeness and with temporary annoyances, than to run the risk of seriously injuring our business, and lessening our gains.' 'If the worst happens, we can but let ourselves be baptized,' said Samuel, 'and then we can no more be called Jews than the Hamburgers themselves.' 'What good would that do?' exclaimed a shabby-looking Jew, with a long beard. 'It is not on account of our religion that they persecute us; it is only our wealth and the luxuries we can afford, that excite their envious dislike. Our handsome houses are our misfortune, and our splendid equipages; our beautiful villas on the Elbe and the Alster, and all the braggadocio of our young <DW2>s. Go about like me, with a matted beard and tattered garments. Live well in the privacy of your own houses, but let not your abundance be seen by anyone. You will then find that no one will envy you, or persecute you. Let the children in the street point at us, and abuse us. Is it not for being what it should be our pride to be called? If they even treated us as if we were lepers, they could not prevent us from being God's chosen people. We are blessed in our affairs, and in our wedlock; we multiply, and fill all lands, and devour the marrow thereof; we are _really_ the lords of the people, though we do not blush to seem their slaves.' This advice was rejected by the richer and more modern Israelites, who had no inclination to array themselves in sackcloth and ashes, and to relinquish the ostentatious display of that wealth which, in the midst of so many humiliations, and with so many equivocal acts, and little tricks in trade, they had amassed. 'No, no! I know a much better plan,' said one of the richest men present, who had originally been a sort of pedlar, and sold tapes and ribbons. 'We will take it by turns to give turtle-feasts; we will invite all the young men, the sons of the merchants, to our tables; our wives and our daughters must show all manner of kindness and complaisance to them, and not keep them at such a cold distance as they do now; let them lay aside their reserve, and try to please them. It is better, far better, even to marry among the Christians, than to have them as enemies, now-a-days.' On hearing these words, old Philip Moses arose; he could no longer endure to listen to his people humbling themselves, as he thought, so basely. He tore his clothes, and anathematized the tongue that spoke last. He then tried, with all the eloquence of which he was master, to touch the hearts and rouse the spirits of those who were the best among the assembly, by setting forth to them the misery and degradation which their own selfishness and cupidity had brought upon them. He characterized their present persecution as a just punishment from Jehovah for their degeneracy, and their being so absorbed in the pursuit of money. He condemned their indifference to the faith and the customs of their forefathers; their neglect of the Sabbath, and of its holy rites; their shaving off their beards, and their being ashamed to be known to be what they were. He inveighed against their connection with Christians, and more especially their marriages with them, by which two of his own sons had disgraced him. And he denounced their excessive keenness in the pursuit of gold, as likely to be ruinous to them, as being certain to have an injurious effect on their settling happily in any and every country in the world. But this was too much for his fellow Jews to harken to in silence. They all attacked him vehemently, calling him a crazy old traitor, who only wished their destruction. Loudly, however, as swelled their chorus of abuse, still more loudly arose the voice of the old man, as he, in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, reproved them: 'O Israel! thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee. I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed; how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God. Your sons have withholden good things from me. For among my people are found wicked men; they lay wait as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit, therefore they are become great and waxen rich. They are waxen fat--they shine; yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked. They judge not the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? Go ye upon her walls and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements, for they are not the Lord's!' Scarcely had he uttered these last words than a shower of stones, hurled against the closed window-shutters, demolished them, and dashed in, while this new attack was followed by shouts of triumph and derisive laughter from the streets. 'Away with him--away with the old prophet!' cried several of the Jews. 'His imprecations are bringing fresh evil and persecution upon us.' 'This is not a time to be preaching all that old twaddle to us about our sins,' said his son, the rich Samuel. 'I will not listen to another word; and if you expect to remain longer in my house, you must keep your tongue to yourself, I can tell you. It would be more to the purpose if you went to your room, and shaved off that beard of yours, that you might look like other men. We must howl with the wolves we are among, and if the mob were to catch a glimpse of your long beard, which is just like that of an old he-goat, and your masquerade garb, they would pull the house down about our ears.' 'Oh, grandfather, grandfather!' exclaimed the youngest of his grandchildren, starting away from him, 'how your eyes are blazing! You are not going to hurt my father?' 'For _your_ sakes, I will not curse him,' said the old man, in a low, tremulous voice; 'but accursed be the spirit which influences him, and my unfortunate, perverted people! I shall shake the dust from my feet at the threshold of your door, my son, and never more shall you behold my countenance in this world; but, in your last moments, you will remember _this_ hour. I will wander defenceless among our enemies; I will bare this grey head to their insults, stand amidst their showers of stones, and peradventure be torn asunder by their violent hands, before my own child shall pluck out the beard from my aged cheeks, or turn me out of his house as a beggar.' 'Stay!--are you mad?' cried Samuel; 'you will not pass alive through that mob outside. Hold him, some one!' he exclaimed to those around. 'He is deranged, as you see, and is going into his dotage. I should be sorry if anything were to happen to him, or he were to meet with any injury.' But old Philip Moses went away, like Lot, from the doomed Sodom, and never once looked back. No one attempted to detain him, for his denunciations, and his terrible look, had frightened them all. With his snow-white locks uncovered, and in his torn dark silk _talar_, alone, and without his staff, he went forth, and shook the dust from his feet as he stepped from the door. When the Hamburg populace perceived him, a group of children began to abuse him, but no one took up the cry, and not a hand was lifted against the silent, venerable-looking old man. 'Let him go in peace!' said one to the other; 'it is old Philip Moses. He is a good man; it would be a sin to hurt _him_, or to scoff at him.' 'But if we had his son Samuel in our clutches,' said others, 'he should not get off so easily; he is the greatest bloodsucker among them all!' II. It was late at night--the tumult in the streets had ceased. No more carriages rolled along from the theatre, or from parties at the houses of the rich Hamburg merchants. The promenade on the 'Jungfernstieg' had been over long before, and the pavilions were locked up. Lights glimmered faintly from the upper windows of the large hotels, and only here and there a solitary reveller was to be seen, humming an air, as he was wending his way homewards from the 'Salon d'Apollon,' or was stopped by some straggling night-wanderer of the female sex. The moon was shining calmly on the Alster, and the watchman had just called the hour by St. Michael's clock; but two strange-looking figures still walked up and down the 'Jungfernstieg,' and seemed to have no thought of home, though the sharp wind scattered the leaves of the trees around them, and the flitting clouds often obscured the moon on that cold September night. A dark-haired young girl walked, shivering with cold, alongside of an old Jew, and seemed to be speaking words of comfort to him, in a low, sweet voice; and that Jew was the aged Philip Moses! 'You are freezing, my child,' said the old man, as he threw the skirt of his torn talar around her shoulders. 'Let me take you back to the house of your mother's brother; but _I_ will not cross his threshold again. I made that vow the day he was seduced into wedding the artful Christian girl. On this day has my third son closed his door against me, and I have no more daughters on this earth. But yes, I have _you_ still--you, the daughter of my dear and excellent Rachel! Come, let me take you home. It is hard enough upon you to be an orphan--fatherless and motherless--and a servant to your Christian aunt; you shall not become houseless for my sake. Poor Benjamina!' he exclaimed, as a bright beam from the moon, that was unclouded for a minute, enabled him to see her lovely youthful face distinctly, and to observe how tears were gathering in her long dark eyelashes. 'Poor Benjamina! you are indeed kind to care so much for your rough old grandfather, and not to be afraid to come and wander about with him, in our day of persecution, when he was thrust out alone among our foes!' 'Ah, dear, good grandfather!' replied Benjamina, 'how could my uncle Samuel behave so ill to you! But all my uncles are not so bad as he is. I am tolerably comfortable at uncle Daniel's every other week, and they are kind to me now at uncle Isaac's, since I have grown stronger, and am able to assist my aunt in the kitchen. Do go with me to one of them. Their wives and new connections do not hate us as the other Christians do; and you must go somewhere. Since uncle Samuel has become so rich, he disdains all his poorer relations, and will not associate with them. Why did you choose to live with him, rather than with either of your other sons? I am sure neither of them could have found it in his heart to have treated you as Samuel has done to-day. You never took a vow not to enter Isaac's house, therefore do go with me to it. I shall reside there with you, and attend upon you: and the pretty children will become fond of you. They can learn from you the history of Joseph and his brethren, and hear about little Benjamin, my namesake. You can teach them as you taught me at my poor mother's, when I was a little girl. Come, dear grandfather, come!--before day dawn, and our persecutors awake. In these times of tribulation we must cherish each other--we unfortunate and persecuted fugitives.' 'It is five years since I have entered my son Isaac's house,' said the old man, slowly. 'How many children has he now?' 'Ah, you do not know that, dear grandfather, and yet he is your own son! His fifth boy is an infant in its cradle.' 'Is his Christian wife kind to him? and does she not turn his feeble spirit from Jehovah, and the faith and the customs of our forefathers? I have not seen him lately at the synagogue, but he never misses going to the Exchange.' 'Only come with me to him, grandfather, and you will see that he is better than Samuel, though he may not go to the synagogue, and only puts the shop-door on the latch on Saturday, instead of shutting it up. You will like his nice little boys, though my aunt rather spoils the eldest. They have all light hair and pretty blue eyes, like their mother. Many Christians visit the house; and the good Mr. Veit, who is a painter, sometimes teaches me to draw when I am there. You do not hate _all_ Christians, do you, grandfather, because some of them treat us cruelly? You do not condemn them all so much as these--our uncharitable persecutors?' 'No, my child,' replied the old man. 'I admit the general philanthropy of the Christians, which they believe they learned from their wise but unfortunate prophet; though, in their present conduct towards us, they give no proof of it. Yet far be it from me to blame them for this. Our law tells us to make our own hearts clean before we judge others; that so we may find forgiveness in the day of atonement. But stay not out here longer, so late, my daughter; your good name may be made the prey of the tongue of the backbiter and the slanderer, although it is only in a work of mercy and of love in which you are engaged, and for which the Lord God of Sabaoth will bless you in future days. Leave me to wander out into the solitary paths! The Lord can send to me--even to me--a raven in the desert, if he think fit. My tent is now the great Temple of the Lord, where the sun and the moon are lights in the high altar, and the four corners of the earth are the pillars of the tabernacle. Hark! from thence shall it seem to me that His mighty cherubs are singing praises to His name, when the wild storms of nature are playing around my head. Let me go, my child, and weep not because I am a lonely wanderer! I would rather roam, houseless, through the world, than seek a refuge under the roof where I am an unwelcome intruder. I would rather be stoned by the Christians than be disdained as a pauper by my own kindred--my own children--and perhaps hear that I am so, when the infirmities of age compel me to listen in silence.' 'Well, then, so be it, dear grandfather, and I will remain with you. The Christians may stone me in your arms if they will.' The old man was silent for a time, and he appeared to be fighting a hard battle in his heart. 'Come then, my child,' said he at length, seizing Benjamina by the hand, 'for your sake will I endure disgrace, and ask shelter from a son, who cared more for a strange woman than for his father's blessing.' They then proceeded in silence to the 'Hopfenmarkt,' and rang at the clothier Isaac's door. 'Is that any of our people?' whispered an anxious voice from a window. Philip Moses answered in Hebrew, and a little while after the outer door was opened. Isaac received his deserted old father, who had thus taken refuge with him, with sincere pleasure; yet this pleasure was damped by the perplexed and uneasy feelings which came over him when he thought of the daily reproaches which he foresaw he would have to encounter, and the many disturbances in his domestic life which he feared the unbending rabbi would occasion. But their common grievances and danger drew their hearts together. Though Isaac's house was, at present, exempt from all damage (since, through his marriage with a Christian, and his frequent intercourse with Christians, he seemed almost separated from his own people), he lived still in constant terror, on account of the inimical disposition evinced towards the Jews, which had now actually broken out in open persecution of them; and he sought in vain to conceal from those with whom he associated the interest he secretly took in the fate of his unhappy nation. He was extremely indignant when he heard how his rich brother, Samuel, had behaved to the old man: and he begged his father to forget all the past, and make himself at home in his house. But he resolved, at the same time, not to permit his domestic peace to be disturbed, or the habits of his daily life to be disarranged, by the old man's prejudices--such at least as could not be borne with easily, and might not give cause of complaint. 'He must accommodate himself, as my guest, to the ways of the house,' thought he to himself. 'He will be accustomed to them in time, and there would be no use in beginning as we could not go on.' 'Your brother Samuel has not honoured his father, and he cannot succeed in worldly matters,' said Philip Moses, as he seemed endeavouring to read in the countenance of his son what was passing in his mind. 'But may the Almighty give him, and all our people, grace to repent, and let not His angry countenance be turned upon us to our ruin! _My_ days will not be many,' he added, earnestly; 'but had it not been for my faithfully attached Benjamina's sake, I would rather have gone forth to wander over the wide world than have exposed your heart, my son, to a trial which, I fear, is beyond your strength.' Isaac's wife was quite out of humour when Benjamina went to her bedroom to tell her what had taken place. 'It will never answer,' said she, 'to have that old instigator of strife here in our house. He hates me already, because I am not one of your nation. It was on my account that he has never hitherto chosen to put his foot within our doors.' 'No, my grandfather does not hate the Christians,' replied Benjamina, cheerfully. 'If he lives here, he will bring good luck and a blessing to the house. Dearest aunt, may I not get the little blue chamber ready for him? I did not dare to go near him when he was with my uncle Samuel, and yet he was so kind to me when I was a child.' 'Well, I suppose I can't help his staying, for the present at least,' replied the aunt, peevishly, 'so you can put the blue chamber in decent order for him, Benjamina. But if you make too much fuss about him, or give me any additional trouble with this new pest, I will send you back to Daniel. You may stay for the present; but keep him as much as possible away from the children and the rest of us. We shall have quite annoyance enough with him at the dinner-table.' 'Poor, poor grandfather!' sighed Benjamina, as weeping silently she left her unkind aunt, who had often before spoken harshly to her, but had never wounded her feelings so deeply as now. Isaac had afterwards an unpleasant matrimonial scene, and a sharp battle of words with his wife, in reference to the old man, to whom he could not deny an asylum in his house, however many scruples he himself had as to keeping him. III. The next day was Saturday. Philip Moses kept the sabbath in his own room, and prayed for his unhappy people; but he often started, and a look of pain seemed to contract his features when he overheard his son talking loudly to his customers in the shop, and rattling the money in the till; while his wife, in the other apartments, was engaged in various household duties, in all of which Benjamina was obliged to assist her. He frequently heard her aunt scolding her, and she had scarcely been able to snatch more than a minute to carry her grandfather's breakfast to him, and affectionately to bid him good morning. On that short visit he perceived that she had been weeping; but he would not deprive her of the comfort of fancying she had concealed her tears from him, by letting her know that he had observed them. Philip Moses was lying with his old head literally bowed into the dust, and was engaged in prayer, when Benjamina returned and called him to dinner. His daughter-in-law had slightly hoped he would be able to put up with such accommodation as their house afforded, but she was neither able nor willing to conceal her ill-humour; and the old man sat silently at table without tasting any of the dishes placed on it, for these consisted of the very things that the Mosaic law particularly forbade. His son did not seem to notice all this; but poor Benjamina did, and fasted also, though she was very hungry. The tumult of the preceding night was talked of, and it was told that there had not been one window left unbroken in Samuel's residence, nor in many of the handsomest houses belonging to the Jews; also, that a couple of Jew old-clothesmen, who were perambulating the streets, had been very ill-used by the mob. 'Why do the rich make so much useless display?' said Isaac, 'and why do the poor seek, by their needless oddity, to draw public observation upon themselves?' 'Have you become a Christian, my son?' demanded the old man; 'or perhaps this is not the Sabbath-day?' 'I adhere to the doctrines of my forefathers,' replied his son, 'in what I consider to be of consequence, and in what is applicable to the age in which we live, and to the ideas of what is holy and unholy that my reason and my senses can acknowledge. I wish my father would do the same, and not be scandalized at what is really quite innocent.' 'My father-in-law must try to put up with our fare,' said the mistress of the house, handing him, with thoughtless indifference, a plate of roast pork. 'Our house is quite in disorder to-day,' she added, by way of apology, when he silently handed her back the plate, 'and I really did not bethink me of our guest; but I shall have something else another time, when I am accustomed to remember what he will not eat.' A gloomy silence then followed at table, and Isaac cast a reproachful look at his wife, which she did not omit to notice. The old man made a movement as if he were about to rise, but at that moment his eye fell on Benjamina; he remained silent and reseated himself. What Benjamina read, however, in her grandfather's countenance, drew unbidden tears to her beautiful eyes--tears which she quickly brushed away, while in her embarrassment she, unwittingly, broke up her bread into small crumbs on the tablecloth. For this act of extravagance she received a sharp reprimand from her aunt, with a rude reminder that these were not times to waste bread, and that 'those who had nothing of their own should think themselves lucky to get anything to put in their mouths.' 'Wife!' whispered Isaac, to his better half, as they rose from table, 'that was not according to our agreement.' When old Philip Moses was alone with his son afterwards, he looked long and earnestly at him, and then said, in a dejected tone of voice: 'My son, speak out the truth freely--the grey-haired, antiquated Jew is an unbidden guest; you are ashamed to close your doors against him, but not to give him wormwood in his cup of welcome; and my poor Benjamina is looked on as a mendicant here, to whom you have not many crumbs of bread to spare.' 'How so--my father?' stammered Isaac. 'If my wife--forgive her!--I myself remarked a degree of thoughtlessness in her, which pained me.' 'Isaac--Isaac!' exclaimed the old man, 'why does your voice tremble, and why do your eyes avoid mine? But I will still call you my son, and will tarry awhile to see if you can free yourself. Your heart is not bad, Isaac; but, alas! it has been with you, as with the sons of Israel, who, captivated by the daughters of a strange people, forgot father and mother, and that Lord who brought them out of Egypt--they never beheld the promised land.' 'Let not my marriage offend you so much, my dear father,' said Isaac, gathering courage to speak out, 'and be not shocked at my way of living. Remember, I came into the world half a century later than you did. Opinions alter with time and with circumstances, and I have learned to see much in our religion, and our position as regards the rest of the world, in a very different light to what you do. I should indeed be blind, if I did not perceive that our people are the most remarkable on the face of the earth, and the least subject to change, even in their ruin, and their dispersion among all the nations in the world. But I do not think that we are, therefore, called upon eternally to separate ourselves from all other living beings. Inwardly we may, indeed, feel our distinction from them; and let this secret knowledge strengthen us to support our humiliations, and teach us to rise superior to our oppressors and persecutors, even when we are condemned to crawl in the dust before them; _inwardly_ we may despise them, but _outwardly_ we must amalgamate with the great masses of mankind, who will otherwise crush us in our stubbornness.' 'If I understand you aright, my son, you mean that we may continue to be Israelites, while we accept Christian customs and fashions; and that our race might be preserved, notwithstanding that we put an end to it ourselves by mingling our blood with that of the stranger.' 'As a people and as a nation we are already lost,' replied his son; 'and with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem has the outward structure of our religion fallen to the ground. Do you not believe that if our great lawgiver had lived in these times, and in this land, he would not have prescribed very different rules for our conduct?' 'Would he have changed the commandments to fear and serve the God of Sabaoth, and to honour father and mother?' asked the old man. Some persons came in at that moment, and the conversation was broken off. In the evening Isaac was not at home, but some of his wife's relations came to visit her, along with a couple of foppish young men, who looked in from a party in the neighbourhood. No one seemed to notice old Philip Moses; he sat quietly in a remote corner of the room, and listened to the jokes, with which some of the gentlemen entertained the company about the rising against the Jews, at which they laughed very heartily; also telling, with great glee, that they were to be attacked again. Amongst the visitors was a handsome young man, with long fair hair falling over his white collar. He was the young painter Veit, who had lately returned from Rome, and who still wore the peculiar costume adopted there by artists. The two <DW2>s seemed inclined to turn his dress into ridicule, for they were afraid that he intended introducing the fashion into Hamburg; but he took no notice of them. He was the son of the physician who attended Isaac's family, and who resided on the 'Hopfenmarkt.' His attraction to the house was Benjamina's beautiful face, which was very interesting to him as an artist. He had hitherto taken no share in the general conversation, but had been standing apart in a window with Benjamina, talking to her about her reverend-looking grandfather, whom he had saluted with the respect which his age and patriarchal appearance demanded. He now remarked the tenour of the conversation that was going on, and turned quickly from Benjamina to try to stop it, by introducing some other subject. But the thoughtless and unfeeling young men soon resumed their ridicule of the Jews, and indulged in witticisms at the expense of their sufferings during the riot, without at all being checked by the remembrance of whose house they were in, or who was present. At length Veit thought it necessary to remind them where they were; and he did this in so pointed and stinging a manner, that, ashamed and enraged, they immediately took their departure, but not until they had whispered him that he would find them the next morning near the Obelisk. No one overheard the challenge, but Veit vowed to himself that he would chastise them severely, and that _that_ meeting should be a blacker hour to them than any which had occurred during the tumult they had considered so amusing. But _their_ exit did not put an end to strife. Some elderly wholesale dealers thought fit to take up the defence of their friends who had just gone, and seemed at least not to disapprove of the chastisement inflicted on the privileged Hebrew usurers for their long-practised extortions. Veit again became the champion of the Jews, and descanted with warmth on the hateful, unchristian spirit which could impel Christians so shamefully to break the peace, and maltreat a fugitive, defenceless race, to whom the state had promised its protection. 4 We complain that they hate us and defraud us,' said he. 'Do we show love to them when we stone them? Do we not betray them, when we infringe our own laws in order to break faith with them, and withdraw the security on which we told them they might rely, when they settled among us? If we were to show more justice and Christian feeling, we might induce them to like us; but hatred, scorn, and persecution, never yet won either proselytes or friends.' |
1 | These lobsters don't realize that Jonesy's fast one would pass right through a batter without pausing perceptibly if it should hit him, and so they toddle forth without qualms, whatever they are, and take a slam at the globule. Next round I'll have to get out there on the turf and warn them; I'll put the fear of death into their hearts. Get them to quaking and they won't touch the horsehide." But such a program didn't suit Locke. "If all Jones has is his speed and the fear it inspires, he won't travel far in fast company. You ought to know that, Wiley. Big League batters will knock the cover off the fast one unless a pitcher puts something else on it. Sit still once, to please me, and let's see what Jones can do without the assistance of your chatter." "It's hardly a square deal," objected the Marine Marvel. "The jinx has been keeping company with us ever since we struck Fernandon. From that occasion up to the present date, Anno Domino, we haven't won a single consecutive game. Such bad luck has hurt my feelings; it has grieved me to the innermost abscess of my soul." "Do you mean to say that these country teams have been trimming you, with Jones in the box?" "Alas and alack! I can't deny it unless I resort to fabrication, which I never do. The Euray Browns tapped Jonesy for seventeen heart-breaking bingles, and the Pikeville Greyhounds lacerated his delivery even more painfully. My own brilliant work in the box has been sadly insufficient to stem, the tide of disaster." Locke frowned. What success, or lack of it, Wiley had had as a pitcher was a matter of no moment; but the statement that amateur teams of no particular standing had found Mysterious Jones an easy mark was disturbing. Was it possible that he had been led, with undue haste, to fritter away good money for a pitcher who would prove worthless in the Big League? True, the mute had seemed to show something in the Fernandon game, but in similar contests Lefty had seen many a pinheaded, worthless country pitcher give a fine imitation of Walter Johnson in top-notch form. The test of the bush was, in reality, no test at all. Throughout five innings the southpaw succeeded in restraining Wiley, and during that portion of the game the Viennas found Jones for nine singles and two doubles, accumulating four runs. Only for bad judgment on the paths they might have secured twice as many tallies. In the same period the local pitcher, using a little dinky slow curve, held the visitors to one score. The mute seemed to be trying hard enough, but he could not keep his opponents from hitting. With the opening of the sixth, Wiley broke the leash of restraint. "I've got to get out and get under," he declared. "You can't expect me to sit still and watch my barkentine go upon the rocks. Here's where we start something. Get into 'em, Schepps! Begin doing things! We'll back you up, for in onion there is strength." Schepps led off with a hit, and immediately the Wind Jammers, encouraged by Wiley, leaped out from the bench, dancing wildly and tossing the bats into the air. Locke smiled as he watched them. He had seen Big League teams do the same thing in an effort to drive away the jinx and break a streak of bad luck. But although Lefty smiled, he was not wholly happy. "If Jones is a quince," he thought, "I've wasted my time trying to brace up our pitching staff. Even Mit Skullen will have the laugh on me." His anxiety had led him to come straight from New York to Vienna, without stopping at Fernandon. He had sent a message to Janet telling her that he would be home the following day. The Wind Jammers kept after the local twirler, and succeeded in pounding two men round to the registry station. Then Wiley did some wigwagging to Jones, and the gloomy mute nodded assurance. After which he walked out and fanned three batters in a row. "You see, Lefty!" exulted the Marine Marvel. "That's what he needs. Give him proper encouragement, and he's there with the damsons." "Temperamental or yellow, which?" speculated the southpaw. "Either sort of a pitcher is worthless in pinches." The visitors failed to continue their hitting streak in the seventh. Whether or not Jones was disheartened by this, he let down in the last half of the inning, and Vienna added another score, Wiley's warnings having no impression upon them. Nor did the mute show any remarkable form in the remainder of the game, which terminated with the score six to four in favor of the locals. "The old jinx is still with us," lamented the dejected manager of the Wind Jammers. "Wouldn't it congeal your pedal extremities!" "It is enough to give one cold feet," admitted Locke. "But with Jones doing any real pitching to-day four tallies would have been sufficient for you." Picking up his overcoat and traveling bag, he started to follow the well-satisfied crowd from the field. As he approached the gate, Mit Skullen stood up on the bleachers and singled him out. Mit's face wore a leering grin. "You're welcome to that lemon, Locke!" he cried. "I wouldn't take him now for a gift. You've got stung good and proper." Lefty walked on without replying. CHAPTER XXIII ALL WRONG When Locke reached Fernandon, he found, as he expected, a furious message from Weegman awaiting him. In it he was savagely reprimanded, and warned under no circumstances to make any further deals without consulting Collier's private secretary. He was also commanded to report at the office of the Blue Stockings baseball club without unnecessary delay. Lefty merely smiled over this, but he did not smile over a long telegram from Franklin Parlmee, stating that he had not seen Virginia Collier nor heard anything further from her. Parlmee averred that he could not believe Virginia was in New York; he expressed the conviction that Locke had not seen her in the limousine with Bailey Weegman, but had been deceived by a resemblance. But if she were not in New York, where was she? And why had he received no word from her? Janet watched Lefty frowning and biting his lip over Parlmee's message. Her own face showed the anxiety she felt. "What do you think?" she asked. "It doesn't seem possible that Virginia could have been with that man, as you thought. You must have been mistaken." He shook his head. "I'm positive, Janet. I would be willing to wager anything that I made no mistake." "Then what does it mean? I can't imagine Virginia being in New York without letting Frank know." "It's got me guessing," Locke admitted. "There's a snarl that needs to be untangled." She grabbed his arm. "You don't suppose--" "What?" he asked, as she hesitated. "You don't suppose anything terrible could have happened to Virginia? Perhaps that villain has carried her off--shut her up somewhere! Perhaps she is helpless in his power this minute. He may be trying to force her into marrying him." Lefty laughed. "That sounds too much like a dime novel, my dear. Scoundrel though he is, Weegman would scarcely have the nerve to try anything like that with the daughter of Charles Collier. That's not the answer." "But something's wrong," insisted Janet. "No doubt about that," her husband replied. "A lot of things seem to be wrong. Somebody is dealing the cards under the table." "I know," said Janet, "that Virginia didn't care for Mr. Weegman, and the more her father sought to influence her the less she thought of him. She was proud of Franklin because he had proved his business ability, and she thought Mr. Collier would give in soon. But I can't understand why she stopped writing to me. She hasn't written since arriving on this side." "We're not getting anywhere by speculating like this," said Lefty. "Can you be ready to go North with me to-morrow?" "You are going back so soon?" "Just as soon as we can start. I'm thinking I ought to have remained there. I only came South at all in order to make sure of Mysterious Jones, and now it looks as though I wasted both time and money by doing so. Perhaps I would have been better off if Skullen had succeeded in getting Jones away from me." "But the cottage--our lease runs another full month." "It can't be helped. We'll have to pay the rental and give it up." "And your arm--you thought another month down here might give you time to work it back into condition." "I've got plenty to worry about besides my arm. I've been told plainly that I've been picked to be the goat by a set of scoundrels who are trying to put over a dirty piece of work, and, if I fool them, I'll have to do it with my head, not my arm. I'm going to stake everything on my ability to put the kibosh on their crooked game, and to stand any chance of succeeding I must be on the field of battle. So we must leave Fernandon to-morrow, my dear." To accomplish this necessitated no small amount of hustling, but Janet did her part. With the assistance of her maid and a <DW52> man, the work was speedily done. There were tears in Janet's eyes when she looked back at the deserted little cottage, as they drove away in a carriage to catch the train. "It has been pleasant here," she said. "I'll never forget it. We were so quiet and so happy. Now, somehow, I have a feeling that there's nothing but trouble ahead of us. You've taken a big contract, Phil." "Are you afraid?" he asked. She looked up at him and smiled proudly. "Not a bit. You are not the sort of man who fails. I know you'll win out." His cheeks glowed and a light leaped into his eyes. "After hearing you say that, I couldn't fail, Janet, dear," he said quietly but earnestly. "It's going to be some fight, but let it come--I'm ready." The journey northward was uneventful. Locke had wired both Kennedy and Parlmee when he would arrive in New York, asking them to meet him at the Great Eastern. He did not stop off at the home town of the Blue Stockings, choosing to disregard for the present Weegman's imperative order for him to report at once at the office of the club. By mail he had formally notified the secretary of the club of the trade with Frazer and the purchase of Mysterious Jones, directing that checks be sent immediately to the manager of the Wolves and to Cap'n Wiley. He had done this as a matter of formality, but he felt sure that Weegman would interfere and hold up the payments, even though they could, sooner or later, be legally enforced. Delay matters as he might, the rascal could not bring about the repudiation of business deals entered into by the properly authorized manager of the team. Locke hoped to have the situation well in hand before he should find it necessary to beard the lion in all his fury. The showdown must come before long, but ere that time the southpaw hoped to fill his hand on the draw. When he had sent out the players' contracts from Indianapolis he had instructed the men, after signing, to mail them directly to him in New York. He had made this request emphatic, warning each man not to return his signed contract to the office of the Blue Stockings. He had Kennedy to thank for suggesting this procedure. "If the contracts go back to the club office," old Jack had said, "Weegman may get hold of them and hold out on you. That would leave you in the dark; you wouldn't know who had signed up and who hadn't, and so you couldn't tell where you stood. It would keep you muddled so you wouldn't know what holes were left to be plugged. If you undertook to find out how the land lay by wiring inquiries to the players, you'd make them uneasy, and set them wondering what was doing. Some of them might even try belated dickering with the Feds, and, while you could hold them by law, it would complicate things still more. If the newspapers got wise and printed things, the stock of the club would slump still more, which would help the dirty bunch that's trying to knock the bottom out of it." Beyond question, Kennedy was foxy and farseeing, and Locke looked forward expectantly to another heart-to-heart talk with the old man at the Great Eastern. A big bundle of mail was delivered to Lefty after he registered at the hotel. Immediately on reaching his rooms he made haste to open the letters. "Look, Janet!" he cried exultantly, after he had torn open envelope after envelope. "Here are the contracts--Grant, Welsh, Hyland, Savage, Dillon, Reilley, and Lumley all have signed, as well as the youngsters who didn't attract special attention from the Feds. Not a man lost that the outlaws hadn't gobbled up before Weegman so kindly forced the management upon me. We've got the makings of a real team left. Some of the deadwood has been cleared away, that's all." With scarcely an exception, the players had sent, along with their contracts, brief, friendly letters congratulating Locke and expressing confidence in his ability to manage the Blue Stockings successfully. He had won the regard of them all; in some cases that regard fell little short of genuine affection. With him as their leader they would fight with fresh spirit and loyalty. "It's fine, Lefty!" exclaimed Janet, as she read some of those cheery letters. "There was a time when I could not have believed professional ball players were such a fine lot of men." "I might have had some doubts myself before I was associated with them," he admitted; "but experience has taught me that they measure up in manhood as well as any other class. Of course, black sheep may be found in every business." As he spoke, he hurriedly opened a letter that had just attracted his attention among those remaining. He read it aloud: MY DEAR HAZELTON: I am writing in haste before sailing for Liverpool on the _Northumberland_. As I thought, you were wrong about having seen Virginia in New York. She is in London, and in trouble. I've had a cablegram from her which, however, explains very little. She needs me, and I am going to her at once. If you should wish to communicate with me, my address will be the Cecil. As I know that both you and Mrs. Hazelton feel some anxiety about Virginia, I shall let you hear from me as soon as I have any news. Wishing you the success and good fortune you deserve as a baseball manager, I remain, sincerely yours, FRANKLIN PARLMEE. When he had finished reading, he stood staring at the letter in surprise. CHAPTER XXIV WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS "Well, now, what do you know about that?" cried Lefty. "Sailed for Liverpool! The man's crazy!" "But he says he has had a cable message from Virginia," said Janet. "She is in trouble in London. You were mistaken." "Was I?" queried the southpaw, as if not yet convinced. "You must have been. All along I have thought it likely, but you persisted--" "I saw her distinctly in that passing limousine, which was brightly lighted. True, I obtained only one passing glance at her, but it was enough to satisfy me." "You are so persistent, Phil! That's your one fault; when you think you're right, all the argument and proof in the world cannot change you." "In short, I'm set as a mule," he admitted, smiling. "Well, there are worse faults. A mistake may prove costly or humiliating to an obstinate person who persists in his error, but, when he is right, such a person is pretty well qualified to win over all opposition. If I did not see Virginia Collier in that car, she has a perfect double in New York. I have great confidence in the reliability of my eyes." Janet, however, thoroughly convinced that her husband had been deceived by a resemblance, made no reply. Lefty had looked for some word from Kennedy, but had found nothing from him in his bundle of mail. It was possible, of course, that old Jack had found it inconvenient to make the trip to New York just then; but, naturally, if he could not come on he would have let Locke know. Lefty and Janet had not dined on the train, preferring to do so after reaching their destination. As they were passing the desk on their way to the dining room, Locke stopped short, staring at the back of a slender, well-dressed young man who was talking to one of the clerks. Then the southpaw sprang forward and clapped a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Jack Stillman!" he exclaimed impulsively. The man turned quickly. "If it isn't Lefty Locke!" he cried, grabbing the pitcher's hand. "And you're the one man I've been palpitating to get hold of. You're like the nimble flea. But I've got you now!" "Murder!" said the southpaw. "My joy at spotting you caused me to forget. I should have passed you by, old man. For the moment I completely forgot your profession, and your knack of digging a column or so of sacred secrets out of any old ball player who knows anything he shouldn't tell." Stillman was the baseball man of the _Blade_, a newspaper with a confirmed habit of putting over scoops. With the exception of Phil Chatterton, who was more of a special writer than reporter, Stillman was almost universally acknowledged to be the best informed pen pusher who made a specialty of dealing with the national game. He possessed an almost uncanny intuition, and was credited with the faculty of getting wise in advance to most of the big happenings in the baseball world. "So you would have ducked me, would you?" said the reporter reprovingly. "Well, I didn't think that of you!" "I believe I should, if I'd stopped to figure out the proper play in advance," confessed Lefty. "I don't care to do much talking for the papers--at present." "Hang you for an ungrateful reprobate!" exclaimed Stillman, with a touch of earnestness, although he continued to laugh. "Why, I made you, son! At least, I'm going to claim the credit. When you first emerged from the tangled undergrowth I picked you for a winner and persistently boosted you. I gave you fifty thousand dollars' worth of free advertising." "And made my path the harder to climb by getting the fans keyed up to look for a full-fledged wonder. After all that puffing, if I'd fallen down in my first game, Rube Marquard's year or two of sojourning on the bench would have looked like a brief breathing spell compared to what would have probably happened to me." "But you didn't fall down. I told them you wouldn't, and you didn't. Let the other fellows tout the failures; I pick the winners." "Modest as ever, I see," said Locke. "Here's Mrs. Hazelton waiting. We're just going to have a late dinner. Won't you join us?" Janet knew Stillman well, and she shook hands with him. "Mrs. Hazelton!" he said, smiling. "By Jove! I looked round to see who you meant when you said that, Lefty. Somehow I've never yet quite got used to the fact that your honest-and-truly name isn't Locke. I'll gladly join you at dinner, but a cup of coffee is all I care for, as I dined a little while ago. Shan't want anything more before two or three o'clock in the morning, when I'm likely to stray into John's, where the night owls gather." When they had seated themselves at a table in the almost deserted dining room, Lefty warned Janet. "Be careful what you say before him, my dear," he said. "He's looking for copy every minute that he's awake, and nobody knows when he sleeps." Stillman became serious. "Locke," he said, "I've never yet betrayed a confidence. Oh, yes, I'm a reporter! But, all the same, I have a method of getting my copy in a decent fashion. My friends don't have to be afraid of me, and close up like clams; you should know that." "I do," declared the southpaw promptly. "I didn't think you were going to take me quite so seriously. You have been a square friend to me, Jack." "Then don't be afraid to talk. I'll publish only what you're willing I should. You can tell me what that is. And if you've seen the _Blade_ right along you must be aware that it's the one paper that hasn't taken a little poke at you since you were tagged to manage the Blue Stockings. Nevertheless, here to your face I'm going to say that I'm afraid you've bitten off more than you can chew." Lefty shrugged his shoulders. "As to that, time will tell. For once your judgment may be at fault." "I don't mean that you couldn't manage the team successfully if you were given a half-decent show," the reporter hastened to make clear. "I think you could. But I'm afraid you're going to find yourself in a mess that no man living could crawl out of with credit to himself." The southpaw gave the waiter the order. Then he turned to Stillman. "I thought I might hear something new from you, Jack," he said, "but you're singing the same old song. To be frank with you, it's getting a bit tiresome. If I were dull enough not to know I'd been picked for a fall guy, I could have obtained an inkling of it from the newspapers. It's plain every baseball scribe knows the fact that there's a put-up job, although none of them has had the nerve to come out flat and say so." "They've said all they really dared to--without absolute proof of a conspiracy. If you know so much, take my advice, hand me the proof, and give me permission to publish it. But it must be real proof." "I can't do it yet. Perhaps, when the time comes, I'll pass you what you're asking for. Just now, considering your statement that you never double cross a friend, I'm going to talk freely and tell you how much I know." Sipping his coffee, Stillman listened to Locke's story. That there was sufficient interest in it the attention of the reporter attested. Janet watched the newspaper man closely, and once or twice she caught the flicker of an incredulous smile that passed over his face, giving her the impression that Stillman had a notion that there were holes in Lefty's narrative. "Do you mind if I smoke?" asked the reporter, when dinner was over, and the dessert had been placed on the table. Having received Janet's permission, Stillman lit a cigarette, and for a few moments said nothing, being apparently engrossed with his thoughts. Presently he said: "I wonder." "Wonder what?" Lefty wanted to know. "What I've told you is the straight fact. Weegman's the crook. Kennedy knew it. I knew it when I took the position of manager. Garrity's behind Weegman. What ails Collier, and why he was crazy enough to run away and bury himself while his team was wrecked, is the unexplained part of the mystery. But if we can block Weegman we may be able to put the whole game on the fritz." "I wonder," repeated Stillman, letting the smoke curl from his mouth. Locke felt a touch of irritation. "What are you wondering over? I've talked; now I'm ready to listen." The reporter gave Locke a steady look. "Evidently the possibility hasn't occurred to you that you may not even suspect the real crook who is at the bottom of the affair." "Weegman conceived it," replied Lefty. "He knew Garrity's reputation. He was sure Garrity would jump at the chance to help, and to grab a fat thing at the same time, by stepping in and gobbling the Stockings when the moment came. Of course, Weegman will get his, for without his undermining work in our camp the thing couldn't be pulled off. And Weegman's looking to cop the big chief's daughter when he gets the chief pinched just where he wants him." "Wheels within wheels," said Stillman, "and Weegman only one of the smallest of them. He's one of those egotistical scoundrels who can easily be flattered and fooled into doing scurvy work for a keener mind." "You mean Garrity?" "I wasn't thinking of him when I spoke." "Then who--" "I had a man named Parlmee in mind," stated the reporter. CHAPTER XXV HIDDEN TRACKS His lips parted, his eyes wide and incredulous, Locke sat up straight on his chair and stared at Stillman. Janet, who had been listening attentively, gave a little cry, and leaned forward, one slim, protesting hand uplifted. The reporter drew his case from his pocket and lit another cigarette. Presently Lefty found his voice. "You're crazy, Jack!" he declared resentfully. "Am I?" inquired Stillman. "Oh, it's impossible!" exclaimed Janet. "Absolutely ridiculous!" affirmed the southpaw. "Very likely it seems so to you both," admitted the newspaper man, his calm and confident manner proclaiming his own settled conviction. "I listened to Lefty's story, and I know he's wise to only a small part of what's been going on." "But Parlmee--Oh, it's too preposterous! For once in your career, at least, you're way off your trolley, Jack." "Prove it to me." "Why, it isn't necessary. Franklin Parlmee is a white man, as square as there ever was, and as honest as the day is long." "There are short days in midwinter." "But his object--he couldn't have an object, even if he were scoundrel enough to contemplate such a thing." "Couldn't he?" asked Stillman, in that odd, enigmatical way of his. "Why not?" "Why, he's practically engaged to Virginia Collier." "But without the consent of her father." "Yes, but--" "Bailey Weegman is said to have a great liking for Miss Collier. It was your theory that part of his object in seeking to wreck the Blue Stockings was to get old man Collier in a tight place and force his hand. Why couldn't Parlmee make the same sort of a play?" The persistence of the reporter began to irritate Locke, who felt his blood growing hot. Was his life beginning to tell on Stillman? Was it possible the pace he had traveled had begun to weaken his naturally keen judgment? "Even if Parlmee had conceived such a foolish scheme, he was in no position to carry it out, Jack. On the other hand, Weegman was. Furthermore, it's perfectly impossible to imagine Weegman acting as the tool and assistant of his rival, whom he hates bitterly. Forget it!" Unmoved, Stillman shook his head. "Didn't I say that Weegman was an egotistical dub, and an easy mark? He is naturally a rascal, and he thinks himself very clever, and so is just the sort to fall for a still cleverer rascal." Janet's cheeks were hot and her eyes full of resentful anger. It was difficult for her to sit there and hear Parlmee maligned, and she was confident that that was what she was doing. She could not remain quiet. "I know Frank Parlmee, Mr. Stillman," she asserted, "and Lefty is right about him. There's not a squarer man living." "How is it possible for Parlmee to use Weegman as a tool?" asked Locke. "Through Garrity," answered the reporter without hesitation. "But I don't see--" Stillman leaned forward. "Listen: I am not at liberty to disclose the sources of my information, but it has come to me that this idea of wrecking the Blue Stockings originated in Parlmee's brain. He saw himself losing out in the fight for Virginia Collier, and he became desperate. Conditions were ripe. Collier had hit the toboggan, financially and otherwise. A man of considerable strength of will, he had begun to break down. Parlmee knew of his plan to go abroad for his health, and of the arrangement to leave Bailey Weegman in charge of affairs. Collier had a great deal of confidence in Weegman's ability, and this would now be put to the test. If Weegman should make a grand failure, as Parlmee intended he should, Collier would lose all faith in him; and probably, in his disappointment, he would hand him the g.b. That, above all things, was most to be desired by Parlmee, as it would get out of the way the rival who threatened to defeat him. How to put the thing across was the question. I am willing to give Parlmee the credit of a long-headed piece of work. He knew Weegman must be kept in the dark, must never be permitted to suspect that he was being used as a tool by his hated enemy." "It sounds altogether too impossible," said Locke. But, to his annoyance, in spite of his persistently expressed faith, a shadowy uncertainty, a tiny, nagging doubt, was creeping into his mind. Stillman seemed so absolutely confident of his ground. "Through his long association with Miss Collier," the reporter pursued calmly, "Parlmee had learned much about inside conditions in baseball. He had plenty of opportunities to get at things entirely hidden from, or merely suspected by, the general public. He knew Garrity was a grasping scoundrel, who had long regarded the Blue Stockings with a covetous eye, and that, being utterly unscrupulous, he would do anything, as long as he could keep in the background, to break Collier's grip and get his own soiled paws on the property. Therefore, Garrity was the man to deal with, and to Garrity Parlmee went. They met under cover in Chicago, and the deal was fixed up between them. Then Garrity got at Weegman, the real stool pigeon and the fall guy of the whole plot." Locke was listening without protest now. In spite of his desire not to believe, Stillman's theory seemed possible; he would not yet admit, even to himself, that it was probable. Janet, too, was silent. The color had left her face, and beneath the table her hands were tightly clenched. "Weegman was just ass enough to fall for it," continued Stillman contemptuously. "What Garrity promised him I can't say, but certainly it must have been a satisfactory percentage of the loot--maybe an interest in the team when Garrity got control; and Weegman would sell his soul for money. The moment Collier was out of the way he got to work. You know as well as I do what success he's had. In order to cover his tracks as far as possible, he has picked you for the goat, and he'll try to shunt all the blame on you." Lefty's face was grim. He was endeavoring to look at the matter fairly and without bias. To himself he was compelled to admit that his knowledge of Parlmee had been obtained through casual association with the man, not through business dealings, and in no small degree, he, as well as Janet, had doubtless been influenced by the sentiments of Virginia Collier. A girl in love may be easily deceived; many girls, blinded by their own infatuation, have made heroes of thoroughbred scoundrels. It was practically impossible, however, for Locke to picture Parlmee as a scoundrel. "You have made a statement, Jack," he said, "without offering a particle of corroborating proof. How do you know all this to be true?" "I have the word of a man I trust that Parlmee and Garrity had that secret meeting in Chicago, just as I have stated. A few days ago Parlmee made a flying trip to Indianapolis, and--" "I know that," interrupted Lefty. "I was in Indianapolis at the time. I met him there and had a brief talk with him." "On his way back," resumed Stillman, "he stopped off at Cleveland to see Garrity, who happened to be in that city." "How do you know that?" "My own business chanced to call me out to Cleveland at that time, and I saw Parlmee and Garrity together at the American House." Locke took a long breath, recalling the fact that Parlmee, although professing to be in great haste when in Indianapolis, had not returned to his New York office as soon as expected. "That may have been an accidental meeting," said the southpaw. "Your proof has holes in it." The reporter lighted a fresh cigarette. "How does it happen," he asked, "that Parlmee is buying up all the small blocks of the club stock that he can get hold of?" Lefty started as if pricked by the point of a knife. Parlmee, an automobile salesman, a man who had found it necessary to get out and show that he could make good in the business world, buying the stock of the club! "Is he?" asked the pitcher. "He is," asserted Stillman positively. "I know of three lots that he has purchased, and in each instance he has paid a little more than it was supposed to be worth." "He--he may have bought it as an investment," faltered Janet. The reporter smiled at her. "As far as I can learn, Franklin Parlmee is not situated, financially, to invest much money in stock of any kind. With his stock depreciating, and bound to go lower in value, he would be a chump to purchase it as an investment. The man who pays more than its market value in order to get hold of it knows something about the doings behind the scenes that is not known to the general public. Apparently that man is Parlmee. Who's furnishing him the money to buy the stock? My own guess is that it is the man who's looking to get control of the club, and that man is Garrity." Still Janet protested that it was impossible, but she looked questioningly at Lefty, the doubt that she was fighting against was now beginning to creep into her eyes. "Parlmee," said the southpaw, "has gone to Europe. I have a message from him stating that he would sail on the _Northumberland_. If he's behind the plot to wreck the Blue Stockings, why should he leave the field of action at this time?" "If I've got his number," returned Stillman, "he's a liar in various ways. Perhaps he has sailed for Europe; perhaps he hasn't. His message may be nothing more than a little dust for your eyes. But if he has sailed, there's only one answer to that." "Out with it!" urged Locke. "Of course, you think it another move in the rotten game?" "Sure as death and taxes. He believes the time is ripe to get at Collier. He's gone across to get at him and twist the control of the club out of his hands. Probably he'll appear before Collier in the guise of a friend anxious to save him from complete financial disaster. He's got just about enough time to make the trip comfortably, get that business through with, and return before the regular meeting of the league magnates here in New York. Then, at the meeting, Tom Garrity will bob up serenely as the real owner of the Blue Stockings." CHAPTER XXVI NOT MUCH SHOW Tired out, Janet went to bed shortly after Stillman left, but Locke, knowing he could not sleep, sat up to think the situation over. The difficulties and problems of his own position seemed greater than ever. If the plot was as deep and intricate as the reporter believed, and if the men behind it were moving with haste and certainty to the accomplishment of their designs, there seemed scarcely a ghost of a chance for him, practically alone and unaided, to block them. For Lefty now felt that, in a way, he was standing alone. Even Kennedy, having no power, could do little more than offer advice. And where was Kennedy? The southpaw had fancied that he would be given more time to muster his opposing forces for the battle. He had even imagined, at first, that the man he would need to contend against and defeat was Weegman. But now Weegman, the blind tool of craftier creatures, looked insignificant and weak. In order to defeat him it would be necessary to strike higher. How was he to strike? That was the question. Locke had suggested to Stillman complete exposure of the plot by newspaper publicity. And right there the reporter, who had seemed so confident of his ground, had betrayed that, after his usual method, he was working by intuition, and had no positive and unassailable verification of his conclusions. It would not do for his paper to charge criminal conspiracy without proper evidence to back up such an indictment. Recalling this, Lefty remembered that Stillman, having heard all the southpaw could tell, had ended by giving his own theory, and had offered proof to substantiate it. And then he had been compelled to acknowledge that the proof he had to offer was not sound enough to base exposure and open action upon. If Stillman were right, doubtless Parlmee had gone abroad with full knowledge of Charles Collier's whereabouts. That knowledge being denied Lefty, he could not warn Collier, and the plot would be carried through as arranged. Then, as the reporter had predicted, at the annual meeting of the magnates, shortly to be held, Garrity would appear as owner of the Blue Stockings. When that happened, the fight would be over, and the conspirators would be triumphant. With the door to Janet's chamber closed, Locke walked the floor, striving for a clear conception of what ought to be done. He felt like a man bound hand and foot. Of course, he could go on with his project to strengthen the team, but the harvest of his success would be reaped by the plotters, if they, too, were successful. There was little uncertainty about what would happen to him, for he knew that his conscience would not permit him to become an understrapper for Garrity. He had left Fernandon with courage and high hope to do battle; but now the helplessness of the situation threatened to appall him. If there were only some way to get into communication with Collier. Again he thought of his somewhat shaken conviction that Virginia was in New York. If that were true, some of her family or friends must know it, and, of course, Virginia would know how to communicate without delay with her father. With this thought came the conviction that in Virginia lay his only hope. If he had been mistaken, and she were not in the United States, his chance of doing anything to foil the conspirators was not one in a thousand. His work for the morrow was cut out for him; he must learn positively if Charles Collier's daughter was on American soil, and, if so, he must find her. The telephone rang, and when he answered it he was informed that Kennedy was calling. The faithful old veteran had come, after all! Lefty said that he was to be sent up at once. "Well, son," said old Jack, as he came in, "how are things moving?" "None too well," answered Lefty, shaking his hand. "So?" grunted Kennedy. "I wondered just what was up, and I came right along in answer to your call, but my train was delayed. What are the new developments?" "Sit down," said Locke, "and I'll tell you. Since I sent you that message I've heard something that's got me guessing--and worried." "The contracts?" questioned old Jack, sitting down. "The boys signed up, didn't they?" "Every one of them. That's not the trouble. I've had a talk with Jack Stillman." "The only reporter I know with a noodle screwed on right," said Kennedy. "His bean's packed with sound sense. When he gets an idea it's generally correct." "In that case, unless he's made a bobble this time, the situation's worse than we suspected, Jack." "Give me the dope," urged Kennedy. The old man listened to Locke without comment, and when Lefty had finished, he sat thoughtfully plucking at his under lip with his thumb and forefinger. "Well," he said, after a time, "Stillman usually puts them in the groove when he shoots." "Then you think he's hit it right in this case?" "I haven't said so. If anybody else had passed this one up, I'd have said it missed the plate by a rod. With Stillman doing the pitching, I'm not so ready to give a decision against him. But you say he finished a lot more confident than he began?" "Yes. Instead of seeking information, he finished up by giving it." "Just as though he had talked himself into a settled conviction as he went along?" "That's it." "Then we won't accept his statement as fact until he gets some kind of proof, son. You know more about Parlmee than I do, and you've always figured that gent on the level, haven't you?" "Yes; but I'm compelled to admit that I haven't had sufficient dealings with him to feel certain that my estimation of his character is correct. Furthermore, my first impression was unfavorable." "First impressions are sometimes the best." "But at that time, as you know, my judgment could hardly be unprejudiced. It was when Collier first took over the team and I had trouble with Carson, the manager he put in your place. Everything seemed going wrong then." A grin broke over Kennedy's face, and he chuckled softly, a reminiscent expression in his keen old eyes. "Those were some stirring times, boy," he said. "Collier fired me for Al Carson, and Carson made a mess of it. He's managing a dub league team now. He thought he could get along without you, just as Collier reckoned he could dispense with me; but at the finish it was you and me that came back and saved the day for the Stockings. You pitched the game of your life that last day of the season. Now it's up to you to come back again, and I've got a hunch that you will. You'll return, better than ever. You're going to make the wiseacres that think you're down and out look foolish." Locke shook his head. "Knowing what I do, do you suppose I could do that if Garrity got hold of the team? I wouldn't have the heart to work for that scoundrel. Back in the time we're speaking of, it was Stillman's cleverness that straightened things out. Not another newspaper man got wise to the real situation. With his usual uncanny intuition, he saw through it all, and, as usual, he made no mistake." "Right you are," admitted old Jack. "All the more reason to suppose he is right now. We can't dodge that fact. To-morrow I'm going to make every effort to find some method of getting into communication with Charles Collier. It's my only play in this game. If it fails--good night!" Again Lefty began pacing the floor; it seemed that he could not wait patiently for the coming day; he was burning with a desire to get to work at once. It had been his purpose to seek Kennedy's advice on other matters, but these now seemed secondary and unimportant for the time being. His talk with Stillman had led him to alter completely his plan of immediate action. To prevent the control of the team from falling into the clutches of the conspirators was now his sole purpose, as the problem of rebuilding it and restoring it to its former strength and prestige could be solved later. Kennedy sat thinking, plucking at his under lip, as was the old man's habit when perplexed. "Yes, son," he said, after a time, "that's what you're up against. Old P. T. Barnum had a show; but it doesn't look like you have." CHAPTER XXVII THE SUSPENDED AX All the next forenoon, Locke kept the wires hot. He 'phoned and telegraphed to every one he could think of who might be able to give him the information he desired so desperately. He met with one disappointment after another. In each instance the reply came back that both Charles Collier and his daughter were somewhere in Europe, but no one appeared to know just where. If his efforts established anything at all, it seemed to be the fact that Lefty had been mistaken in thinking he had seen Virginia in New York; for if she were there, surely some of these people would know of it. The feeling of helplessness, of fighting against greedy and remorseless forces too strong for him to checkmate, pressed upon him heavily. It was a little after noon when he called the office of the _Blade_. He wanted to talk to Stillman again. If anybody in New York could find a person wanted, the reporter was the man to do it, and Locke believed that for friendship's sake Stillman would attempt it. Near the telephone switchboard in the hotel were two long shelves, situated a little distance apart, at which patrons could consult the different directories. At one of these, several persons were looking up numbers, so Locke took his book to the other shelf and found the call for the editorial rooms of the _Blade_. A man at the next shelf turned, saw the pitcher, and listened when Lefty gave the number to the operator. Instead of giving his own number, which he had found, the man noted down the southpaw's call on a card. It was the fourth time during the day that this same man had made a record of a number asked for by Locke. Returning the card to his pocket, the man pretended to busy himself again over one of the directories, keeping his back partly turned toward the pitcher. Soon he heard the switchboard girl repeat Lefty's number, and direct him to booth No. 1. The man closed his book and turned round slowly. The southpaw was disappearing into a booth at the end of one of the rows, and, in closing the door behind him, he unintentionally left it slightly open. The watching man moved quietly forward until he was close to this booth, through the glass of which he could see that Lefty's back was partly turned toward him. There he paused, taking some letters and papers from his pocket and running them over as if searching for something. While appearing to be absorbed in his own affairs, he could hear every word that the pitcher spoke into the receiver. Getting the editorial rooms of the _Blade_, Locke asked for Stillman. After a slight delay, he was informed that the reporter was not there. No one could say just when he would be in. "This is important," stated Lefty; "a matter in which he is greatly interested. I must talk with him as soon as possible. Will you ask him, as soon as he comes in, to call Philip Hazelton at the Great Eastern? Yes, Hazelton; that's right. Why, yes, I'm Lefty Locke. All right; don't fail to tell him immediately he arrives." The man outside slipped the letters and papers into his pocket, and turned away after the manner of a person who has suddenly decided upon something. He had not walked ten steps, however, before he turned back. The southpaw was paying for the call. The man watched him now without further effort to avoid notice, and when the pitcher turned from the switchboard he stepped forward deliberately to meet him. "Hello!" said the man in a voice distinctly husky and unpleasant. "How are you, Locke?" Lefty stopped short and stared. It was Garrity, coarse, complacent, patronizing. The owner of the Rockets grinned, showing the numerous gold fillings in his teeth. His features were large, and his jaw was square and brutal. His clothes were those of a common race-track follower. "Quite well, thank you," answered Lefty coldly, thinking of the pleasure it would be to tell Garrity his private opinion of him. "Seems to me you look worried. I don't wonder, though, considering the job they've handed you. Some job piecing together the tattered remnants, hey? It's going to make you a busy little manager." "I'm busy now," said the southpaw, moving as if to pass on; but Garrity detained him. "You've got some positions to fill. The Feds got at you hard. Shame to see a team like the Stockings shot to pieces. You've got three or four bad holes, and I'd like to help you." "_You_ would?" "Sure. I've got the very lads you need, too--Mundy and Pendexter. Both fast men. They work together like two parts of a machine. Mundy covers the short field like Maranville, and Pendexter sure can play that keystone cushion. They're the boys for you." "How's it happen you are willing to let go of them?" asked Locke, feeling some curiosity to know what lay behind this particular proposition. "Well, this is between us, mind? I'd just about as soon give up an eye as part with either Mundy or Pendexter, but it's easier to lose them than dispense with Pressly, my third sacker. That's been the trouble with my team. Pressly loves Mundy and Pendexter as he loves aconite, and they reciprocate. You know what a feud like that means. It knocks the bottom out of any team. I can't fill Pressly's place, but I've got a couple of youngsters that I can work in at short and second. I'm not going through another season with those three scrapping. You need the very players I'm willing to part with, and there we are." Locke knew the man was not honest, and that he was holding something up his sleeve. In order to make him show his hand, the southpaw asked: "What do you want for Mundy and Pendexter?" Garrity considered for a minute. "Well," he answered slowly, "I'll trade them with you for Spider Grant--and cash." Lefty stared at him in amazement. Was it possible the man could think he was such a soft mark? He laughed loudly. "You don't want much, do you, Garrity? The 'and cash' was a capper! Man, I wouldn't trade you Spider Grant for your whole team--and cash!" The owner of the Rockets scowled, glaring at Locke, the corners of his thick-lipped mouth drooping. "Oh, you wouldn't, hey?" he growled huskily. "I suppose you think that's a joke?" "Not at all; it's serious. I couldn't use the players you offer, anyhow. Mundy does cover the short field like Rabbit Maranville--sometimes; but he's got a yellow streak, and he quits. Pendexter knows how to play second, and at the beginning of last season he hit like old Sockalexis when the Indian first broke into the league. But the pitchers all got wise to his weak spot, close and across the knees, and from a three-hundred-and-sixty batter he slumped into the two-hundred class. You were thinking of asking for waivers on him. Spider Grant--and cash--for that pair! I didn't imagine that even you could think me such a boob." As he listened, Garrity's face showed his anger; his breath came short and quick; his eyes were blazing with the fury of a wild animal. "Have you got that all out of your system?" he asked, when Lefty stopped. "You're a wise gazabo, ain't you? You know all about baseball and players and such things! You've got a head bigger than a balloon. But it'll shrink, give it time. It's plain you think you really know how to manage a team. By the middle of the season, and maybe considerable before that, your head will be about the size of a bird shot. And you'll know a lot more then than you do now, believe me!" The southpaw laughed in his face. "Don't lose your temper," he advised, "just because you couldn't put a raw one over on me. Go ahead and ask waivers on Pendexter. You'll get mine. I wouldn't carry him on my team if you agreed to pay his season's salary for me. My trade with Frazer gave you the notion that you could pick another good man off me, and weaken the Stockings still more. You fooled yourself that time, Garrity. Perhaps you'll find out before long that you are fooling yourself in other ways." "What do you mean by that?" "I'll let you guess. But just remember what Bobby Burns said about 'the best-laid plans o' mice and men.'" With this, Locke passed on, leaving the wrathy owner of the Rockets glaring after him. "You poor fool!" muttered Garrity. "I'll have you whimpering like a whipped dog before I'm done with you. Your head's liable to roll into the basket before the season opens. When the time comes, I'll lift my finger, and the ax'll fall." CHAPTER XXVIII THE GAGE OF WAR Janet had let some friends know that she was in the city, and had been invited out to a matinee performance at one of the theaters. Lefty urged her to go. "That's better than sitting around the rooms alone," he said, "and I'll be so busy that I can't be with you." So when, shortly after lunch, her friends appeared in a comfortable limousine, they had little trouble in persuading her to join them. Kennedy dropped in a little later, and Locke told him of Garrity's proposed trade. "He sure did pick you for a mark," said the ex-manager. "You handed it to him straight about Mundy and Pendexter. You're going to need a pair of fast boys to stop the holes, but there's better men in the minors than those two. You've got better ones on the reserve list. Besides that, I'm doin' a little free scouting on my own hook. I've got friends scattered all over the country. Whenever an old player, gone to the scraps, has touched me up for a five or a ten, I've stood for the touch, asking him to keep his eyes open for anything good he might run across in the sticks. That way I've got a good deal of inexpensive scouting done for me. Maybe it'll be worth something in this pinch. I'm going to interview an old friend over in Jersey this afternoon." "I'm not worrying over players just now," said Lefty. "I'm anxious to get hold of Stillman." "You'll hear from him in time--and Weegman, too. What Garrity knows Weegman knows, and so he's wise that you're right here. Be ready for him when he shows up." Kennedy had only just gone when Weegman appeared. He laughed when he saw Locke, but it was an ugly laugh. "What do you think you're trying to do?" he demanded. "Didn't you get my telegram ordering you to report at the office of the club?" "Yes." "Well, why didn't you obey? What did you mean by coming right through without even sending me word?" "I had immediate business here in New York." "Business! I had business for you to attend to. You've been doing a lot of things without consulting me. Why didn't you wait until I gave you the contracts for the old players?" "There had been too much waiting, and time was precious. Kennedy had plenty of blanks, so I got them from him, filled them out, and sent them to the boys without further delay. It was the proper thing to do." "Don't tell me what's proper to do! I'll tell you. That was the distinct understanding, and you know it. Sent out the contracts, did you? Well, some of them ought to be coming back by this time." "They've all come back." "What?" "Every one of them. The Federals'll get no more players off us this year." Weegman choked, and the sound that came from his lips was not a laugh. "I haven't seen anything of them. They didn't come to the office." "No, certainly not." "Certainly not! Then where--where are they?" "I have them in my pocket." Lefty said it quietly, not at all disturbed by the wrath of the outraged schemer. It gave him much satisfaction to see Bailey Weegman shake and squirm. "In your pocket!" spluttered the rascal. "You had them returned to a different address? Confound your crust! How'd you ever have the nerve to do a thing like that? Let's see them. Hand them over!" Locke made no move to obey. "I think I'll keep them a while," he answered coolly. "I'll deliver them personally to be locked in the club safe." For a moment it seemed that Weegman would lose all control of himself and attack the southpaw. "You fool!" he raged. "Do you think you're going to get by with this stuff?" "I've made a pretty fair start at it." "So you never meant to stand by the private agreement between us when you signed as manager? That's it, eh?" "There never was any private agreement between us. I signed to handle the team, but I did not agree to become your puppet." "You did. You said that--" "That I understood the conditions you had proposed, but I did not say that I consented to them. I had no intention of letting you dictate to me." "Fool! Fool!" snarled Weegman. "How long do you think you'll last? And you made that crazy trade with Frazer! Do you know what I've done? Well, I've notified Frazer that the deal was irregular, and won't be recognized by the club. Not a dollar of that five thousand will he ever get." "You know better than that. The trade was legitimate, and it will stand. Frazer can collect by law. Any other deal that I make will go through, too, whether you are aware of it at the time or not. Until Charles Collier himself takes away my authority, I'm manager of the team with the legal right to carry out my own plans, and I intend to do so. I shall ask no advice from you, and any suggestion you may make I shall look upon with distrust." They fought it out, eye to eye, and presently Weegman's gaze wavered before that of the unawed southpaw. The man he had sought to make his blind tool was defying him to his face. "I see your finish!" he declared. "And I see yours," countered Locke. "You think you're a clever crook. You're merely an instrument in the hands of a bigger and cleverer scoundrel who doesn't care a rap what happens to you if he can put his own miserable scheme over. Your partnership with him will be your ruin, anyhow. If you had half the sense you think you possess, you'd break with him without losing any time." "What are you talking about? I've only planned to do my best to save a team that has been raided by the Feds. You're killing the last chance for the Blue Stockings." "Tell it to Sweeny!" exclaimed Lefty. "You're trying to deliver the team into the hands of Tom Garrity. Deny it if you wish, but it isn't necessary to lie. You've played Judas with Collier." "Be careful! Better take that back!" Lefty laughed. "I'm ready to add more to it. I haven't told you half what I know. If I were to do so, you'd realize what a dumb fool you have made of yourself. You think you're wise to all that was planned, but you've been let in on only a very little of it. You'll tear your hair when you get a squint at the foundation stone of this neat little conspiracy." "I--I don't know what you mean." "That's right, you don't; but you will know in time. You'll be kept in the dark as long as it suits Tom Garrity." "What's Garrity got to do with it?" Locke smiled on him pityingly. "Don't be childish, Weegman. That sort of a bluff is too thin. I was wise when I signed to manage the team." In vain the man stormed, threatened, coaxed, cajoled; he could not bend Lefty in the least, and at last he realized that he had made a big blunder in estimating the character of the southpaw. "So it's war between us, is it?" he finally asked. "I have looked for nothing else," answered the pitcher. Weegman snapped his fingers in Locke's face. "All right!" he cried. "You would have it! Just you wait! You're going to regret it! We'll see how long you last!" And, turning round, he strode away, muttering to himself. CHAPTER XXIX THE JAWS OF THE TRAP Lefty had defied Weegman. Henceforth it was to be open war, and he was glad of it. What the rascal would attempt to do he did not know, and cared less. It did not seem likely that he could do much, if anything, that he had not already made preparations to do. Of course, he might call Collier into the affair, and that, should it bring the owner of the Blue Stockings back to his own country, was something earnestly to be desired. Could he but get Collier in private for twenty minutes, Locke felt sure he could make him realize that he was the victim of a conspiracy, and that his trusted private secretary had sought to sell him out into the hands of a rival owner. The telephone rang, and, thinking Stillman was calling at last, he hastened to answer. It was not the reporter's voice that he heard, but he was informed that some one was speaking from the office of the _Blade_, and that, after making a fruitless effort to get Locke on the wire, Stillman had found it necessary to hustle away to keep an important appointment. "But where can I find him?" asked the disappointed pitcher. "How can I get hold of him?" "He wants to talk to you as much as you do to him," was the answer. "Said it was absolutely necessary. That's why he had me call you. Says he has something to tell you, personally and privately. He'll try to be at Mike's saloon, Thompson Street, near Broome, at three o'clock. If you get there first, wait for him. And don't fail to come, for he'll have important information. Got that straight?" "Yes, but--" "All right. I've done my duty. Good-by." There was a click, and the wire was silent. Lefty looked at his watch as he left the phone. It was twenty-two minutes to three. "Just about time enough to make it comfortably," he decided. "Stillman must be on the track of something." The subway being convenient, he chose it instead of a taxi, getting off at Spring Street. Five minutes ahead of time, he found Mike's saloon, a somewhat disreputable-looking place when viewed from the exterior. The neighborhood, likewise, seemed sinister. However, a reporter's business, thought Locke, carried him into all sorts of places. Within the saloon a single patron, who looked like a vagrant, was picking at the crumbs of a sickly free lunch in a dark corner. A husky-looking, red-headed bartender was removing an emptied beer schooner and mopping up the counter. He surveyed the southpaw from head to foot with apparent interest. "I'm looking for a man named Stillman who made an appointment to meet me here at three," explained Lefty. "I was to wait for him if I got here first." "Jack's here," stated the man behind the bar, in a manner that bespoke considerable familiarity with the reporter. "Came in three or four minutes ago. Reckon you're Lefty Locke?" "That's right." "He told me you might come round. He's in the back room. Walk right in." The speaker jerked a heavy thumb toward a closed door at the far end of the bar. At the sound of Locke's name the vagrant, who had been picking at the free lunch, turned to look the famous pitcher over with apparent curiosity and interest. "Lefty Locke," he mumbled huskily. "Lemme shake han's. Ruther shake han's with Lefty Locke than any man livin'." Locke pushed past him and placed his hand on the knob of the door. The fellow followed, insisting upon shaking hands, and, as Lefty opened the door, the vagrant staggered, lurched against the pitcher, and thrust him forward, the door closing behind him with the snap of a spring lock. It is remarkable how seldom any one ever heeds premonitions. Even as he opened that door, Lefty was aware that ever since the telephone call had come to him some subtle intuition, thus far wholly disregarded, had been seeking to sound a warning. It had caused him to hesitate at last. Too late! The push delivered by the vagrant had pitched him forward into the snare, while the sound of the clicking spring lock notified him that his retreat was cut off. Through a dirty skylight above another door that probably opened upon a back alley some weak and sickly rays of daylight crept into the room. A single gas jet, suspended from the center of the cracked and smoky ceiling, gave a feeble, flickering light, filling the corners with fluttering shadows. The furniture in the room consisted of a table and a few chairs. At the table three men were sitting, drinking and smoking. Locke, recovering from the push he had received, stepped back against the closed door, and looked at them. "Hello!" said Mit Skullen. "Don't hurry away, Lefty. Folks that come in by that door sometimes go out by the other one." He was grinning viciously, triumphantly. The look upon his face was one of satisfaction and brutal anticipation, and amply proclaimed his purpose. Skullen's companions were tough characters, fit associates and abettors of such a man. That they were thugs of the lowest type, who would not hesitate at any act of violence, there could be no question. One looked like a prize fighter who had gone to the bad, his drink-inflamed face and bleary eyes advertising the cause of his downfall. The other had the appearance of a "coke" fiend, and the criminally bent habitual user of that drug has neither scruples nor fear of consequences. Locke regarded them in silence. His pulses were throbbing somewhat faster, yet he was cool and self-possessed, and his brain was keenly active. He knew precisely what he was up against. Slipping one hand behind him, he tried the knob of the door; but, as he had expected, the door held fast. Skullen continued to grin gloatingly, fancying that Locke's inactivity was evidence that he was practically paralyzed by amazement and fear. "Your friend Stillman was too busy to come," he said, "and so I kept the appointment for him. Maybe I'll do just as well. Anyhow, I'll do--for you!" He had risen to his feet, and the light of the flickering gas jet played over his evil face. Lefty flashed another look around, taking in the surroundings. To his ears came the distant, muffled sound of an elevated train rumbling along the trestle. Behind him, in the front of the saloon, all was still. Probably the door leading to the street was now also locked to prevent any one from entering and hearing any disturbance that might take place in the back room. The jaws of the trap held him fast. "Oh, it ain't any use to think about runnin' away, Lefty," croaked Mit. "Not a chance in the world. I fixed it so's we could have our little settlement without any one buttin' in to bother us. You remember I told you I had a score to settle with you?" As Locke spoke, his voice was calm and steady. "And you engaged a pair of worthy pals to assist you! You're a brave man, Skullen!" "Aw, these lads are only here to see fair play, that's all. They won't mix in. They won't have to. Last time we met you reckoned you put it all over me, didn't you? Maybe I ought to thank you for keepin' me from gettin' a rotter on me hands, for that's what you got in Dummy Jones. You're welcome to that piece of cheese." The southpaw made no retort. He was measuring his chances against all three of the ruffians, having no doubt that he must soon find himself pitted against such odds. "Some baseball manager, that's what you are!" scoffed Mit, taking keen delight in prolonging the suspense that he fancied must be getting the nerve of the intended victim. "You're rattlin' around like a buckshot inside a bass drum. A busy little person, you are, but you won't be so busy after I finish with you. You'll find it convenient to take a nice long rest in a hospital." "You fight a lot with your mouth, Mit," said Locke contemptuously. "Go ahead an' sail inter him, Skully," urged the ruffian who looked like a broken-down prize fighter. "You been itchin' fer him to show up so you could get inter action. Go to it!" "Plenty of time, Bill. I enjoy seein' him try to push that door down with his back. Wasn't he a mut to walk right into this? I'm goin' to change the look of his face so that his handsome wife won't know him when she sees him next." He began to remove his coat, and Lefty knew the time for action had come. For an instant his imagination had sought to unnerve him by presenting a vivid picture of himself as he would appear, battered, bleeding, beaten up, if the trio of thugs carried out their evil design; but he put the vision aside promptly. In cases where a smaller force is compelled to contend with a greater, the advantage is frequently obtained through swift and sudden assault. Knowing this, Locke did not wait to be attacked. He hurled himself forward with the spring of a panther and the force of a catapult. CHAPTER XXX ONE AGAINST THREE Skullen, in the act of removing his coat, was caught unprepared. Before he could fling the garment aside Locke was upon him, aiming a well-meant blow for the point of Mit's jaw. Skullen realized that it was no trifling thing to stop such a blow as that, and he jerked his head aside, as he dropped his coat. The blow caught him glancingly and sent him staggering, upsetting the chair from which he had recently risen. Locke grabbed the edge of the table and pitched it against the ruffian's two companions, who had hastily started to get up. They fell over, with the table on top of them. Lefty followed up his advantage, and kept right on after Skullen. Uttering a snarl of astonished rage, the latter sought to grapple, but the southpaw knew that he could not afford to waste time in that sort of a struggle. Whatever he did must be done swiftly, effectively, and thoroughly. Delay meant only disaster to him. Avoiding the clutching hands of his antagonist, he struck Mit on the neck, below the ear, staggering him again. Skullen had not looked for such a whirlwind assault. He had fancied the trapped man would wait until set upon, and he had believed he would have little trouble in beating Lefty to the full satisfaction of his revengeful heart. He was strong and ponderous, and he could still strike a terrible blow, but years had slowed him down, his lack of exercise had softened his muscles, his eye had lost its quickness, while indulgence in drink and dissipation had taken the snap and ginger out of him. He had not realized before how much he had deteriorated, but now, witnessing the lightning-like movements of Lefty Locke, he began to understand, and sudden apprehension overcame him. "Bill! Snuff!" he roared. "Get into it! Get at him, you snails! Soak him!" His appeal to his companions was an unintentional admission that he suddenly realized he was no match for the man he had attempted to beat. The flickering gaslight had given him a glimpse of a terrible blazing look in Locke's eyes. Once, in the ring, he had seen a look like that in the eyes of an opponent who had apparently gone crazy. And he had been knocked out by him! Scrambling up from beneath the capsized table, Bill and Snuff responded. Lefty knew that in a moment they would take a hand in the fight, and then the odds would be three against one, and none of the three would hesitate at any brutal methods to smash the one. Once he was beaten down, they would kick and stamp him into insensibility; and later, perhaps, he would be found outside somewhere in the back alley, with broken bones, possibly maimed and disfigured for life. The knowledge of what would happen to him, if defeated, made him doubly strong and fierce. He endeavored to dispose of Skullen first, believing that by doing so he would have half the battle won. Skullen's howls to his companions came to an abrupt termination. Like an irresistible engine of destruction, Locke had smashed through the defense of the ruffian, and, reaching him with a terrible blow, sent him spinning and crashing into a corner of the room. At the same instant, Bill, joining in, was met by a back kick in the pit of his stomach, and, with a grunt, he doubled up, clutching at his middle with both hands. This gave the southpaw a chance to turn on Snuff, who had not, so far, shown any great desire to help his pals. The creature had seemed physically insignificant, sitting at the table, but now, in action, he moved with the quickness of a wild cat, in great contrast to the ponderousness of Skullen. And he had a weapon in his hand--a blackjack! The southpaw realized that, of his three antagonists, the creature springing at him like a deadly tarantula was the most to be dreaded. Insanity blazed in the fellow's eyes. He struck with the blackjack, and Lefty barely avoided the blow. Locke snapped out his left foot, and caught the toe of the man plunging past him, sending him spinning to the floor. Snuff's body struck a leg of the overturned table and broke it off short, but the shock of the fall seemed to have absolutely no effect upon him; for he rebounded from the floor like a rubber ball, and was on his feet again in a flash, panting and snarling. "Get him, Snuff--get him!" urged Skullen, coming up out of the corner where he had been thrown. Bill, recovering his breath, was straightening up. All three of the thugs would be at the southpaw again in another jiffy. Lefty darted round the table, avoiding the blackjack, but realizing what a small chance he had with his bare hands. He could not keep up the dodging long. Then he saw the broken table leg, and snatched it up. With an upward swing, he landed a blow on Snuff's elbow, breaking his arm. The blackjack flew to the smoky ceiling, and then thudded back to the floor. Feeling sure he had checked his most dangerous antagonist, Lefty turned, swinging the table leg, and gave Skullen a crack on the shoulder that dropped him to his knees. He had aimed at Mit's head, but the fellow had partially succeeded in dodging the blow. Another blow, and the cry of alarm that rose to Bill's lips was broken short. Bill went down, knocked senseless. But Snuff, in spite of his broken arm, was charging again. He was seeking to get at the southpaw with his bare left hand! The pitcher, however, had no compunction, and he beat the madman down instantly. Groaning and clinging to his injured shoulder, Skullen retreated hastily to the wall, staring in amazement and incomprehension at the breathless but triumphant man he had lured into this trap. In all his experience he had never encountered such a fighter. There being no one to stop him now, Lefty walked to the door leading into the alley, found the key in the lock and turned it. One backward look he cast at the two figures on the floor and the man who leaned against the wall, clutching at his shoulder. Policemen seemed to be scarce in that neighborhood, and Locke found one with difficulty. The officer listened incredulously to Lefty's story. "Mike's is a quiet place," he said. "Didn't make a mistake about where this happened, did you? Well, come on; we'll go round there and see about it." The saloon was open when they reached it. The red-headed bartender was serving beer to an Italian and a Swede. The vagrant had vanished. The man behind the bar listened with a well-simulated air of growing indignation when the policeman questioned him. He glared at the pitcher. "What are you tryin' to put across, bo?" he demanded fiercely. "You never were in here before in your life. Tryin' to give my place a bad name? Nothin' like what you say ever happened around here. Nice little yarn about bein' decoyed here by some coves that tried to beat you up! Say, officer, is this a holdup?" "I've told you what he told me," said the policeman. "In my back room!" raged the barkeeper. "There ain't been nobody in there for the last two hours. Come here an' have a look." He walked to the door and flung it open. Skullen and his partners were gone. Even the broken table had been removed. There was nothing to indicate that a desperate encounter had taken place there a short time before. "You cleaned up in a hurry," said Lefty. At this the barkeeper became still more furious, and was restrained by the officer, who scowled at the pitcher even as he held the other back. "You don't look like you'd been hitting the pipe, young feller," growled the representative of the law; "but that yarn about being attacked by three men looks funny. Don't notice any marks of the scrap on you. They didn't do you much damage, did they? Say, you must have had a dream!" Locke saw the utter folly of any attempt to press the matter. "As long as you insist upon looking at it in that way, officer," he returned, with a touch of contempt that he could not repress, "we'll have to let it go at that. But I'll guarantee that there are three men somewhere in this neighborhood who'll have to have various portions of their anatomies patched up by a doctor as the aftermath of that dream." CHAPTER XXXI LIGHT ON A DARK SPOT Janet returned from the matinee in a state of great excitement. "She's here!" she cried, bursting in on Lefty. "You were right about it! I've seen her!" The southpaw gazed in surprise at the flushed face of his charming wife. "You mean--" "Virginia! I tell you I've seen her!" "When? Where?" "As we were leaving the theater. The lobby was crowded, and we were in the back of the jam. Suddenly I saw her over the heads of the people. She was just getting into an auto that was occupied by a handsome woman with snow-white hair. I wasn't mistaken; it was Virginia. I couldn't get to her. I tried to call to her, but she didn't hear me. I'll never say you were mistaken again, Lefty. Somehow you seem always to be right." Locke scarcely heard these final words. He was thinking rapidly. A sudden ray of hope had struck upon him. Confound it! Where was Stillman? He sprang to the telephone and called the _Blade_ office again. "Jack is the one best bet in this emergency," he said, as he waited for the connections to be made. He got the reporter on the wire, and Stillman stated that he had not been in the office ten minutes, and was about to call Lefty. Could he come up to the Great Eastern right away? Sure. The feeling of depression and helplessness that had threatened to crush Locke began to fall away. The door he had sought, the one door by which there seemed any chance of passing on to success, appeared to be almost within reach of his hand. In her excitement at the theater, Janet had not possessed the presence of mind to call the attention of her friends to the snowy-haired woman, but he knew that she could describe her with some minuteness. "Stillman knows everybody," Lefty said. "It may be clew enough for him." There was a rap on the door. A messenger boy appeared with a telegram. Locke ripped it open and read: Jones sick. Team busted. I'm busted. Signal of distress. How about that five hundred? I knead the dough. Don't shoot! Wire cash. WILEY. "Trouble in another quarter," muttered Lefty, handing the message over to Janet. "How am I going to send him that money? I can't force Weegman to do it. Wiley has a right to demand it. If I don't come across, he'll have a right to call the deal off." "But Jones is sick," said Janet. "Still it was a square bargain, and I mean to stand by it. Jones is sick. He was sick that day in Vienna; that was what ailed him. He showed flashes of form when he braced up, but he was too ill to brace up long. I've wondered what was the explanation, now I have it. Get him on his feet again, and he'll be all right. I've got to hold my grip on Jones somehow." Kennedy and Stillman appeared at the Great Eastern together. First, Lefty showed them the message from Cap'n Wiley. Over it the former manager screwed up his face, casting a sharp look at his successor. "If you can trust this Wiley," he said, "send him two hundred, and tell him to bring Jones north as soon as Jones can travel. Don't worry. Wiley's outfit didn't come under the national agreement, and Jones' name on a Stockings contract ties him up." "But without drawing money from the club I haven't the two hundred to spare now. I can't draw." "I'll fix that. I've got two hundred or more that you can borrow. After the training season opens, you'll pretty soon find out whether or not you've picked a dill pickle in your dummy pitcher." Janet told Stillman about seeing Virginia Collier, and gave him a fairly minute description of the woman Virginia was with. The reporter smoked a cigarette, and considered. "I think I can find that lady with the snow-white hair," he said, after a time. "Leave it to me. You'll hear from me just as soon as I have something to tell." With a promising air of confidence, he took his departure, leaving Kennedy and Locke to attend to the matter of Wiley and Mysterious Jones. Of course, the southpaw told the old manager all about Skullen's attempt at revenge, but he did not do so within the hearing of Janet, whom he did not care to alarm. The veteran chuckled over the result of the encounter in the back room of Mike's saloon. "Right from the first," he said, "you was picked for something soft and easy. I knew you was a fighter, son, but Weegman and his gang didn't know it. Mebbe they'll begin to guess the fact pretty soon." A few minutes after eight that evening, Stillman returned to the hotel and found Locke waiting with what patience he could command. The reporter wore a smile, but he declined to answer questions. "Mrs. James A. Vanderpool's private car is waiting for us at the door," he said. "Bring Mrs. Hazelton, Lefty. We're going to make a call." "Mrs. Vanderpool? The widow of the traction magnate? Why, what--" "Now don't waste time! Somebody else can gratify your curiosity a great deal better than I. In fact, I know so little about the facts at the bottom of this queer business that any explanations I'd make would be likely to ball things up." The magnificent residence of the late James Vanderpool was on upper Fifth Avenue. They were ushered into a splendid reception room. In a few minutes an aristocratic-looking woman with white hair entered, her appearance bringing an involuntary exclamation to Janet's lips. "It's the very one!" she breathed excitedly, her fingers gripping Lefty's arm. Stillman introduced them to Mrs. Vanderpool, who met them graciously. "Virginia will be down in a minute or two," said the lady. "For reasons, she has been staying with me since she returned from abroad. I'll let her tell you about it." She regarded Locke with frank interest, yet in a manner that was not at all embarrassing, for it plainly contained a great deal of friendliness. "Virginia has told me much about you," she stated. "It has never before been my good fortune to meet a professional baseball player. My niece is very fond of Mrs. Hazelton." "Your niece!" exclaimed Lefty. "Virginia is my niece, although I have scarcely seen her since she was a very small child. Here she is now." Virginia ran, laughing, to meet Janet. After the manner of girl friends, they hugged and kissed each other. "Really," said Virginia, "I should give you a good shaking for not answering all my letters!" "Your letters!" cried Janet. "I've received only two letters from you in goodness knows how long! I answered them; and wrote you a dozen to which I got not a word of reply." They gazed at each other in blank uncertainty for a minute or two, and every trace of laughter died from Miss Collier's face. Her blue eyes began to flash. "Then," she said, "our letters were intercepted. I can't remember whether I posted any of mine or not, but I was so worried over father that it is doubtful if I did. I let my maid attend to that. She nearly always brought the mail to me, too. When I obtained positive proof that she was dishonest, I discharged her. Even now it's hard to believe she was so treacherous." "But why should she intercept our letters? I don't understand, Virginia." "There has been a dreadful plot to ruin my father. You'll hardly believe it when I tell you. I find it difficult to believe, even now." She shivered, some of the color leaving her face. "It was necessary to cut us off from any true information of what was happening to his business interests. Letters from you might have given me an inkling, Janet, and so they were secured and destroyed before they ever reached my hands. Other letters met the same fate. Mr. Weegman declared he wrote several which I know my father never got." "Weegman!" exclaimed Locke incredulously. "Why, he--" "Doctor Dalmers warned Mr. Weegman that father must not be disturbed or excited in the least over business matters. He said such a thing might have a fatal effect on his heart. Still Weegman says he wrote guardedly several times, mildly hinting that things were not going right." "The liar!" whispered Lefty to himself. A bit in the background, Jack Stillman was listening with keen interest, thinking what a sensational special article the truth regarding this affair would make. "We were surrounded by wretches who had no compunction," declared Virginia Collier. "It was I who first suspected them. My father was too ill, and the doctor kept him under opiates almost all the time, so that his mind was dulled. After I discharged Annette I became suspicious of the nurse. I spoke to Doctor Dalmers about her, but he insisted that she was all right. He insisted too earnestly. I began to watch him without letting him realize I was doing so. Once or twice I found a chance to change father's medicine for harmless powders and clear water, and it seemed to me that he was better than when he took the medicine. He was very weak and ill, but his mind seemed clearer. I kept the medicine away from him for two days in succession, and got an opportunity to talk to him alone. I succeeded in convincing him that the change of climate, the baths, and the stuff the doctor had given him were doing him no good at all. In London there was a physician whom he knew and in whom he had confidence, Doctor Robert Fitzgerald. I urged him to go to Doctor Fitzgerald, but not to tell Doctor Dalmers of his intention, and I begged him to refuse to take any more of Doctor Dalmers' medicine. We were in Luchon, and all the way to London I had to watch like a hawk to keep that medicine from father, but I succeeded, although I became extremely unpopular with Doctor Dalmers. The minute we reached London, I went to Doctor Fitzgerald and told him all that I suspected. Although he could not believe such a thing possible, he accompanied me at once to our hotel. Doctor Dalmers was taken by surprise, for he had not anticipated this move. When I discharged both him and the nurse, he gave me a terrible look. Of course, I could not have carried this through, had not Doctor Fitzgerald been a close friend of my father. Dalmers called Fitzgerald's action unprofessional, and made threats, but we got rid of him." Despite the fact that she was such a mere slip of a girl, it was evident that she possessed brains and the courage and resourcefulness to use them. Mrs. Vanderpool seemed very proud of her. Lefty expressed his admiration. "I knew," Virginia continued, "that there must be something behind such a plot. I did not believe Dalmers had put it through merely to bleed my father while keeping him ill. I was worried over the fact that we knew so very little concerning how father's affairs were going over here. What information we could get by cable or otherwise might be unsatisfactory. So I determined to come home and investigate for myself. I got father's consent, and I left him in Doctor Fitzgerald's care. I intended to sail by the _Victoria_, but there was a misunderstanding about accommodations, and I was forced to take a later ship. I find father's affairs involved, and I've sent a statement of conditions as they appear to be. "Of course," she concluded, smiling a little, "I was greatly relieved to learn from Mr. Weegman that he felt sure he had blocked the contemptible efforts to smash the Blue Stockings. He felt highly elated over signing Lefty Locke as manager." "Miss Collier," said the pitcher, "did Weegman offer an explanation of the raid on the team? Did he say who was at the bottom of it?" Instantly a little cloud came to her face, and an expression of regret appeared in her eyes. "Yes," she answered. "He told me. At first I could not believe it." Stillman leaned forward, listening, his lips slightly parted. Locke turned toward him, but turned back quickly, with another question on his lips. Virginia was speaking again, however. "I can scarcely believe it now," she said sadly. "It seems too utterly impossible! I can't imagine any one being such a scoundrel--much less him! But Weegman has made sure; he has the proof. Of course, he has told you all about it, Lefty; it was necessary that you should know." Her manner had grown deeply dejected. "What did Weegman tell you?" asked the southpaw. "Who did he say was responsible for what had happened to the Blue Stockings?" With an effort the girl answered: "Franklin Parlmee!" CHAPTER XXXII ONE CHANCE It was like a staggering blow. While it confirmed Stillman's theory that Parlmee was the chief rascal of the conspiracy, it shattered the supposition that Weegman, a blind dupe, wholly unaware of the truth, was being cleverly manipulated as an unconscious tool. The foundation of that hypothesis melted away like sand before hydrolytic force. Locke turned again and looked at the reporter. The latter, standing like an image of stone, was staring questioningly and incredulously at Virginia Collier. He, too, realized that this confirmation of his belief had brought a portion of the postulation fluttering down like a house of cards, and he was seeking a mental readjustment. Janet, frozen with lips slightly parted and eyes wide, was aware of it also. She was about to speak impulsively when Lefty detected her and made a repressing gesture. Miss Collier felt that she knew the reason for the sudden silence that had fallen on every one, and a faint flush crept back into her cheeks. She appeared to be humiliated and ashamed, as well as sorrowful. "I understand," she said, in a low tone, "how it must seem to you to hear me say such a thing about Mr. Parlmee. I have trusted him. I believed in him, even when my father was losing faith and confidence. I clung to my own faith, and it hasn't been easy to abandon it, even in the face of proof. My conscience or something taunts me occasionally. I--I've cried over it, and I've fought against it. I haven't dared see him since my return--since I found out the truth--for I knew I should listen to him and believe in him in spite of everything. I wanted to face him and accuse him, but Weegman persuaded me to wait. He said it would merely hasten the crash if we let the scoundrels know they were suspected." "The scoundrels!" exclaimed Locke. "Then he told you that more than one was concerned?" "He claims that a man named Garrity is operating in conjunction with Franklin Parlmee." Another staggerer. To Virginia, Weegman had accused Garrity. Mutely the southpaw appealed to Stillman. The reporter's forehead was puckered in a puzzled manner; he caught Lefty's glance, and shook his head slowly. "When did he name Garrity, Miss Collier?" he asked. "When he called on me to-day--this afternoon," was the answer. "He has been at work trying to get at the truth." Locke improved the opportunity to whisper in Janet's ear: "Keep still! Don't say a word--now." Although she did not understand why he wished her to keep silent, she nodded. He had been right in other matters; it was best to let him have his way in this. "My niece has been very much upset," said Mrs. Vanderpool. "It has practically made her ill. She hasn't felt much like seeing people, and therefore Mr. Weegman's advice to keep quiet was easy to follow." Weegman had urged Virginia to remain in obscurity, not to let her friends know she was in New York; that was evident. He had convinced her that by doing so she could best assist him in his pretended task of trapping the conspirators. And while she kept quiet, those conspirators were hastening to carry through the work they had planned. "Miss Collier," said Lefty, "do you think it would be possible for your father to come home at once? Do you think he is strong enough to stand the voyage? If he can do so, he had better come. He should be here now." "I don't know," she replied. "Give me his address and let me communicate with him," Locke urged. "He should know something of the truth, at least." Virginia was persuaded, for Mrs. Vanderpool agreed that it was the best course to pursue. The southpaw was elated; he felt that at last he was getting a grip that would enable him to accomplish something. If he could baffle the rascals now, it would be a feat worth while. Mrs. Vanderpool was called away to the telephone. "Auntie has been very kind to me, in spite of her quarrel with father," said Virginia, when the lady had left the room. "They have not spoken to each other for years. It is so ridiculous, so childish, for a brother and sister who have been devoted! Both are stubborn. And yet Aunt Elizabeth is the kindest, gentlest woman in the world. She lost an only daughter, and she says I seem to fill the vacant place. She has made me feel very much at home." Then she began chatting with Janet about things of mutual interest. Locke joined Stillman, who had walked to the far end of the room. "This Weegman is either a fool or much cleverer than we thought him," said the reporter swiftly, in a low tone. "I don't believe he's a fool." "How have you figured it out?" Lefty questioned. "It was a mistake to think him not wise to Parlmee. And why, if he is hand in glove with Garrity, did he tell her that Garrity was concerned in the miserable business?" "He told her that to-day?" "Yes." "Why didn't he tell her before? Weegman is in town. Have you seen him?" The pitcher told of his meeting with both Weegman and Garrity, and how he had defied them. Stillman's face cleared a little. "Look here, Locke, that fellow Weegman will double cross any one. You put him next to the fact that you were wise to Garrity. The whole bunch must know that Collier has fired his crooked doctor. Of course, Dalmers notified them. After talking with you, Weegman began to realize that the whole plot might fall through. He lost no time in beginning to hedge his bets. He's trying to fix it so that he'll fall safe if the business blows up." "But why did he tell her of Parlmee? We thought he didn't know about that." "I'm not as sure about Parlmee as I was," admitted the reporter frankly. "Weegman has been trying to blacken him to her right along. I'll own up now that it was an anonymous communication that first put me on the track of Parlmee. There have been others of the same sort tending to incriminate him. I've wondered where they came from. Now I think I know. Weegman is the answer." "By Jove!" exclaimed Lefty. "You believe it was he who directed suspicion toward Parlmee in the first place?" "You've got me. That being the case, instead of being a dupe, this Weegman has put something over that we didn't suspect him of. He's after Collier's daughter, and it would help him if he could turn her against his rival." Locke's face cleared. His relief was evident. "This is all speculation," said the reporter hastily. "Don't be too quick to accept it as a settled fact. Parlmee's behavior has been suspicious enough to require some explaining from him. Perhaps he can clear it up. We know Weegman has tried to put the Blue Stockings on the blink, and we're dead certain he hasn't knowingly done so as the assistant of Parlmee. |
2 | "It certainly was not relief that he felt on discovering that she was paying no attention whatever t(...TRUNCATED) |
3 | "Down to 1765 the duty imposed was only one penny, but as newspapers grew in influence the restraini(...TRUNCATED) |
4 | "And what was, perhaps, more extraordinary, though interrupted in the progress of his calculations, (...TRUNCATED) |
5 | "Oh, remember prayer is the great means of spiritual improvement, and guard as you would against a w(...TRUNCATED) |
6 | "Bonaparte could not well afford another direct attack, with its attendant losses, and strove to tur(...TRUNCATED) |
7 | "I must confess, I thought of nothing. And let that encourage the next bride, who will imagine herse(...TRUNCATED) |
8 | "THAT WE SHOULD NOT BE TOO SOLICITOUS FOR ACTUAL AND SENSIBLE DEVOTION, BUT DESIRE RATHER THE UNION (...TRUNCATED) |
9 | "came in muffled tones from the first mask, and \"Death!\" echoed the next, and the next, until all (...TRUNCATED) |
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