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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 John Starnbaugii 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 2514.044 
 
 The old gentleman of the black stock. 
 
 3 1924 022 500 213 
 
 ill 
 
The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022500213 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF 
 THE BLACK STOCK 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BLACK STOCK 
 
 BY 
 THOMAS NELSON PAGE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY 
 
 tUrilf»i tiu^i: 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1900 
 
 Cmtyrigia, 189T, 1900, by Charles SorOmer's Sons 
 
TO MY DAUGHTERS 
 
 MINNA FIELD 
 
 AND 
 
 FLORENCE FIELD 
 
 MY TWO MOST CONSTANT 
 
 AND 
 
 INDULGENT HEADERS 
 
PREFACE 
 
 /^ T the suggestion of friends who have 
 Ji \. expressed a wish to know more of 
 the history of Elizabeth Dale than has been 
 told, I have availed myself of the opportunity 
 offered by the publication of this new edition 
 of "The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock,"" 
 illustrated by Mr. Christy'' s gifted pencil, to 
 enlarge the story. 
 
 I hope those who have done me the honor 
 to accept the Old Gentleman of the Black 
 Stock and Elizabeth Dale among their friends 
 mil feel thai I have tried to add to their his- 
 tory in more ways than one. 
 
 It has been a grateful task. For the old 
 
 section of that Ancient Town through which 
 
 the Old Gentleman of the Black Stock moved 
 
 gravely in the years when the lover-scarred 
 
 [ vii ] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Beech shaded his tangled yard, and which 
 Elizabeth Dale lighted with her presence, has 
 
 Cinderella's Coach comes along only in the 
 Fairy-time of Youth. 
 
 T. N. P. 
 
 [ "^ ] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 /. A Primeval Relic 1 
 
 II. The Hill-and-Dak Carriage 11 
 
 III. Basham Miles SO 
 
 IF. An Old Man's Intimates 41 
 
 V. Of the Fragrance of Rosemary 68 
 
 VI. Basham Miles' s History 63 
 
 VII. In which Basham Miles loses his Hat 71 
 
 VIIL OfaMakerofMudPies 75 
 
 IX. The Carved Heart 88 
 
 X. Showing that Love is still a Native of 
 
 the Rocks 96 
 
 XI. A Warning and an Example ISS 
 XII. Elizabeth Dale makes Tea for Two 
 
 Lone Men US 
 
 XIII. Basham Miles's Will 164 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FROM DRAWINGS IN COLOR BY HOWARD 
 CHANDLER CHRISTY 
 
 Vignette Title-Page 
 
 "My son, when you want a wife, 
 stop a carriage like that and pick 
 one out of it" Facing page H 
 
 She made one of the prettiest pictures in the 
 world 18 
 
 It was as different from the nerv houses near 
 it as its master himself was from the other men 
 on the street 44 
 
 She reached up and wrapped it deftly about 
 him herself 72 
 
 "Why, Burton! Where on earth have you 
 been?" 84 
 
 In a little while she was holding the old man's 
 hand 156 
 
 She did not take her hand away from me 162 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 I 
 A PRIMEVAL RELIC 
 
 HE was one of my first acquaintances 
 when I came up to town to live ; 
 for I met him almost immedi- 
 ately after I gave up my country identity and 
 melted into the sea of the city, though I did 
 not learn his name for some time afterwards, 
 and therefore knew him, as I found many 
 others did, simply as, "the Old Gentleman of 
 the Black Stock." 
 
 Why I spoke to him that summer morning 
 on the shaded street I can readily understand; 
 but why he spoke to me I did not know until 
 long afterwards. I was lonely and homesick. I 
 had not yet met any one except my cousin, 
 who had given me a place in his law ofBce, 
 [1 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 and was most kind to me, but was too busy a 
 man to talk much ; the two or three gentle- 
 men, all older than myself, who had offices on 
 our floor ; and the few people who lived at the 
 little private boarding-house in the old part of 
 the town, where I had taken the tiny hall room 
 on the third floor and furnished it with dreams. 
 All of these last, too, were older than I, and 
 seemed so very much older. At twenty-one a 
 few years make such a great difference ! More- 
 over, all the young people of my own age 
 whom I saw on the street appeared to know 
 each other so well, — just as I had known my 
 own friends in the country, — and to be so en- 
 tirely all-sufficient to each other, that it made 
 me feel pushed out and shut off from all the 
 rest of the world. 
 
 So, I remember that as I walked that morn- 
 ing down the shaded, quiet street with the old 
 square houses on either side set back amid 
 trees in their big yards, I had forgotten my 
 [2 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 dreams of the future, which had hitherto 
 gilded my lone little room and peopled my 
 quiet office, and was back among the over- 
 grown fence-rows and fields of my country 
 home. 
 
 It was then that I met for the first time the 
 Old Gentleman of the Black Stock, and he 
 spoke to me. 
 
 Of course, then, I spoke to him. I was ready 
 to speak to any one ; would have spoken to any 
 one in the world. 1 had, indeed, not yet gotten 
 over the strange feeling I had at not speaking 
 to every one I met, in accordance with the 
 civil country custom which made passing any 
 one on the road without a bow a breach of 
 manners. 
 
 This was the way of it : 
 
 I was strolling along the street that morn- 
 ing, looking at the old yards full of fine trees 
 and shrubbery in a tangled and somewhat neg- 
 lected state, which reminded me of the yard 
 [3 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 at home, and I had only half taken in the fact 
 that just ahead of me out of the largest and 
 most tangled of the yards, surrounding, per- 
 haps, the oldest and most retired house on the 
 street, had come some one — an old gentleman, 
 who had paused just outside his broken gate, 
 and turning half around, was now standing 
 looking back at the trees behind him. I insen- 
 sibly followed his eye, and glanced up at the 
 trees myself as I walked along. There were 
 three or four big locusts, two wide-branching 
 elms, and one beech, all large and very old, 
 and the beech quite gigantic. It was, perhaps, 
 the sole relic of the primeval forest which 
 once had clad these hills, and some tawny 
 Tityrus might well have blown his wild pipe 
 beneath its spreading shade. At least, it had 
 known of other times far back ; for on its 
 massive trunk the scars stood thick teUing of 
 gentler strifes long past of which lovers had 
 graved the histories deep in its hoary bark. 
 [4] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 The beech had a seat under it, and it was at 
 this that the old gentleman's gaze seemed to 
 be particularly directed. 
 
 The trees, too, reminded me of the country, 
 — everything did, — and I suppose I must have 
 had that in my face; for when I brought my 
 gaze down to the ground again I was only a 
 few paces from the old gentleman at the gate, 
 and when I glanced at him I caught his eye. 
 
 I looked away; glanced at him again, for 
 there was something about him which was un- 
 usual — quite as unusual as that square of old 
 houses and shady yards in a growing city, and 
 he attracted me. 
 
 He seemed just to fit in with them, and to 
 be separated from the rest of the people I 
 had seen : almost as separate as myself. So, 
 when I looked at him again I tried to do it 
 as if quite casually, and at the same time en- 
 deavored to take in as much of him as I could 
 in my glance. 
 
 [5 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 The principal features which I noted were 
 a tall, slender figure neatly clad in the manner 
 in which an old gentleman of his age should 
 be clad, with a black broadcloth frock-coat, 
 somewhat, however, more flowing than usual, 
 and a black stock up to the chin, with a high, 
 white, unstarched collar falling over it, such 
 as I remembered very old gentlemen used to 
 wear years before, when I was a child, but 
 such as I had not seen for some time. 
 
 This was all that I. took in of his dress; for I 
 caught his eye again as my glance reached his 
 thin, high-bred, and somewhat careworn face, 
 clean-shaven except for a white, carefully 
 trimmed mustache. His eyes were gray and 
 keen and were set back very deep under some- 
 what heavy brows, and I looked into them in- 
 voluntarily. 
 
 He did not give me time to look away 
 again, but spoke to me: 
 
 "Good-morning, sir:" — easily, pleasantly, — 
 [6] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 quite so much, indeed, as if he had known me, 
 that it flashed across my mind, in the half-sec- 
 ond which passed before I returned his saluta- 
 tion, that he had mistaken me for some one else. 
 
 I replied, however, "Good-morning, sir," 
 and as a sort of apology for my stare, said, 
 "You have some fine old trees there, sir," and 
 was passing on with a somewhat quickened 
 step, when he said : 
 
 "Yes, sir, they were very fine once, and 
 would be so now, if they could escape the uni- 
 versal curse of Age. — You are fond of trees.''" 
 he added, as I paused to avoid the rudeness 
 of leaving him while he was speaking. 
 
 "Yes, sir ; I was brought up amongst them." 
 
 I was going on to say that they carried me 
 back to my home, but he did not give me time. 
 
 "They are worth loving: they last! — How 
 long have you been from the country.''" His 
 deep eyes were resting on my face. 
 
 I was a little taken aback, for, apart from 
 [7] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 the fact that his abrupt question implied that 
 he knew at a glance I was not a city man, I 
 was sufficiently conscious of a certain differ- 
 ence between myself and the smooth young 
 city fellows I met, to think that he meant to 
 remark on my countrified appearance. So, with 
 a half-formed idea that he might, if given the 
 opportunity, explain himself differently, I sim- 
 ply replied: 
 
 "Sir?" 
 
 "How long have you been in the city?" 
 
 "Oh ! about three weeks," I said, with as- 
 sumed indifference, and still feeling a little 
 uncomfortable over the meaning I assigned 
 him ; and gradually getting somewhat warm 
 over it, I moved to go on. 
 
 "Where are you from ?" he asked. 
 
 I told him the county. 
 
 "Oh, I thought so!" He scanned me so 
 boldly, and I fancied, rudely, that I said, quite 
 shortly : 
 
 [8] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 "Good-moming, sir." 
 
 He bowed : 
 
 "Good-morning, sir.'' 
 
 It was only when I went over in my mind 
 afterwards all the circumstances of the inter- 
 view to see if I could find anything to soothe 
 my wounded spirit that I recalled how gracious 
 his manner was, and how courteous his tone as 
 he returned my parting salute, and decided 
 that he could not have meant to insult or 
 wound me. 
 
 I found that he had made quite an impres- 
 sion on me. His appearance, his voice, his air, 
 all remained with me, distinguished from those 
 of the men I was now meeting. 
 
 I asked my cousin who he was, and at- 
 tempted to describe him, but though I went into 
 some detail and gave, I thought, a faithful por- 
 traiture of him, my cousin, who was a man about 
 town as well as a lawyer in extensive practice, 
 failed to recognize him from my description. 
 [9] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 In time I made acquaintances, and in fur- 
 ther time yet, I secured practice enough to 
 justify me in selecting more commodious quar- 
 ters than those I had at first in my little hall 
 room. And as I fell into city ways I began to 
 visit about in society more and more, until I 
 became quite as much of a city man, and, in- 
 deed, of a society man, as a still very modest 
 income, coupled with some ambition to increase 
 it, would allow. Yet I never met my Old Gen- 
 tleman of the Black Stock in any of the bright 
 houses I visited, or, indeed, anyTvhere else ex- 
 cept on the street, and there only very rarely : 
 perhaps two or three times at most in the two 
 years which went by before I ever did more 
 than acknowledge with a bow his passing and 
 pleasant salutation. 
 
 [10] 
 
II 
 
 THE HILL-AND-DALE 
 CARRIAGE 
 
 TWO years or so after the summer morn- 
 ing when I met the Old Gentleman of 
 the Black Stock coming out of the shady yard 
 on that old street — ^It was, I remember, in the 
 month of May — I was passing down a busy 
 street one morning, when a vehicle coming 
 along attracted my attention. It was only one 
 of a number of carriages that were coming 
 down the principal driving street from the 
 fashionable residence quarter of the town, and 
 were turning into the chief shopping street of 
 the city. But of all the number this one at- 
 tracted my attention the most. For whilst the 
 others were shining city equipages, with showy 
 teams, and fashionable women lolling back in 
 the easy and pretendedly indifferent style of 
 ladies of fashion when they honor the trading 
 [" ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 section at the change of the seasons, who, if 
 they knew me, condescended to acknowledge 
 my bow with cold superciliousness, this vehi- 
 cle, though I had never seen it before, was 
 familiar to my mind and challenged my inter- 
 est at once. 
 
 It was an old country carriage, — and as I 
 walked along through the balmy spring-time 
 air, which felt like feathers on my cheek, 
 I had just been thinking before I saw it, of 
 the country and of the little, willow-shaded 
 stream with its deep pools, where I used to 
 fish in spring when the leaves were tender 
 like those above me, before I became a lawyer 
 and a man of affairs. Just then the old car- 
 riage came swinging down the hill. 
 
 It was antiquated and high-swung and 
 "shackling"; as muddy as a country wagon, 
 and drawn by two ill-matched, though not 
 Ul-bred horses, spattered with mud to their 
 ear tips, their long tails tied up in knots. 
 [12] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 It was driven by an old, gray-headed darkey 
 wearing a low beaver hat, a high white collar, 
 and a pair of yellow buckskin gloves. 
 
 It reminded me of the old carriage, with its 
 old driver. Uncle Balla, at home. 
 
 But what struck me more than anything else 
 as the vehicle passed me was that it was filled 
 to the brim with fresh, young, country girls, 
 who, oblivious of the restraining requirements 
 of fashion, were poking their pretty heads 
 out of the windows, three at a time, to look 
 at everything on the street that struck their 
 fancy, and with glowing cheeks and dancing 
 eyes were chattering to each other in the 
 highest spirits, showing their white teeth and 
 going off into fits of laughter over the fun they 
 were making for themselves. Whilst on the 
 back seat a sweet-faced lady, with gray, smooth 
 hair and a patrician profile, smiled softly and 
 happily upon them, well content with their 
 
 gayety and joy. 
 
 [13] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 They caught my eye, for I never saw 
 more roses gathered in one carriage, and I 
 had stopped and was staring at them open- 
 mouthed, with a warm glow curling about my 
 heart, and a growing tenderness coming over 
 me as I gazed. 
 
 I suppose I must have shown this somehow, 
 i may even have sighed, for I thought again 
 of my fishing days and of laughing country 
 girls I knew whom these were so much like. 
 
 One of them particularly struck me, and I 
 was sure I had caught her gaze on me, when 
 a hand was laid firmly on my shoulder, and a 
 voice just beside me said: 
 
 "My son, when you want a wife, stop a car- 
 riage like that and pick one out of it. You 
 might almost do it at random : you could hardly 
 go amiss." 
 
 I turned, and there was my Old Gentleman 
 of the Black Stock. He was clad in white 
 linen, as immaculate as iresh snow. I smiled 
 [14 J 
 
# 
 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 my thanks to him and passed on, whilst he 
 walked up the street. 
 
 I had not gone over two steps when some 
 one touched me on the arm, and a gentleman, 
 evidently a stranger in the town, said to me, 
 "I beg your pardon; can you tell me who that 
 old gentleman is ?" 
 
 I turned, and he indicated my old friend, 
 for at that moment I felt him to be such. 
 
 He was walking up the street quite slowly, 
 with his head a little bowed, and his hands, 
 holding his ivory-headed cane, clasped behind 
 his back, — as lonely as an obelisk in a desert. 
 
 "No, I am very sorry, but I cannot," I said. 
 
 "Oh! I thought I saw you speak to him?" he 
 said, with some disappointment in his tone. 
 
 "I did, but I do not know his name." 
 
 "I have rarely seen a more striking-looking 
 man. He might have walked out of the pages 
 of Plutarch," said he, meditatively, as he went 
 on. 
 
 [15 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 I do not know just how it was, but I found 
 myself shopping all that day. As soon as I had 
 gotten through with whatever I was doing, I 
 went back up the street and began to search 
 diligently among the throng of vehicles there 
 for an old carriage with a pair of wiry country 
 horses and an old negro driver wearing gaunt- 
 lets. I went up square after square looking for 
 it among the shining equipages with their 
 pompous coachmen and glossy teams, and then, 
 not finding it, went through the second shop- 
 ping street. 
 
 But all was in vain. 
 
 It was plain that the driver was feeding his 
 horses somewhere at a livery stable. So I went 
 even so far as to enter three or four of the 
 larger and more frequented dry-goods stores on 
 the street in hopes of catching a glimpse once 
 more of a pink face and a pair of laughing eyes 
 which I had caught smiling at me out of the 
 window of the old coach. 
 [16] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 I had wandered fruitlessly through several 
 long floors, between aisles of women's backs of 
 every shape and species of curve or stiffness, 
 with attentive clerks or tired-eyed women 
 standing over against them on the other side 
 of the counters, and had just given up my 
 search in despair and was returning somewhat 
 downcast to my office, when I passed a mil- 
 liner's window and happened to glance in. 
 There were my rose-buds clustered together 
 in front of a large mirror, my special one in 
 the midst of the groiip, with a great broad- 
 brimmed straw hat covered with roses on top 
 of her little brown head, shading her fresh 
 face, — making, as she stood before the mirror 
 pensively turning her little person from side to 
 side, one of the prettiest pictures in the world. 
 
 Fool that I was ! I might have known that a 
 girl would go first for a bonnet ! 
 
 She must have received a compliment just 
 then, though whether it was from one of her 
 [17] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 sisters or from the glass only, I do not know ; 
 for, at the same moment that she turned 
 to her sisters, she suddenly smiled (thank 
 Heaven ! the sister stood on the side toward 
 the window. I just loved her for it!) — a smile 
 which lit up her face so that even the over- 
 sheltering hat with its lovely roses could not 
 shadow it, but seemed only a bower for the 
 lovelier roses beneath. — Lit up her face? It 
 lit up the world ! 
 
 I had become so engrossed with the pretty 
 tableau that I had forgotten I might be seen 
 from within quite plainly, and I stood staring 
 at my young beauty through the window, 
 open-eyed and open-mouthed, until I became 
 suddenly aware that she was looking through 
 the glass past her sister, and straight into my 
 eyes. Then I gave quite a jump at my rude- 
 ness and rushed away. The look of embarrass- 
 ment, almost bordering on horror, which was 
 on her face as our eyes met, was all that I 
 [ 18] 
 

OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 saw, and I almost fled toward my office. 
 
 I learned afterwards that had I waited a 
 second longer I should have seen her confu- 
 sion give way to uncontrollable amusement 
 over my flight. And I learned later that her 
 mimicry of my sudden agitation was long the 
 entertainment of her special circle. 
 
 If I fled, however, it was only a momen- 
 tary stampede, which my growing ardor soon 
 checked, and I stopped at the next comer, 
 and crossing over the street took my post and 
 waited to watch from a more secure quarter 
 the exodus from that blessed Goshen. 
 
 I had not long to wait, for soon from the 
 door sallied all together the three young 
 n3Tmphs, each under a new, very wide, and — 
 I have no doubt — very beautiful straw hat. 
 But only one hat now filled my eye — the wide- 
 brimmed creation which served as setting for 
 the charming flower-garden above the yet 
 more charming flower-garden below, which 
 [ 19] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 even at that distance I could see glowing in 
 the cheeks of the youngest, and possibly the 
 tallest, of the three sisters. 
 
 They passed down the street arm in arm, 
 laughing heartily, especially my little lady in 
 the middle, at something — I learned afterwards 
 it was at my sudden consternation and unex- 
 pected flight — and turned in at a dry-goods 
 store, — one which I had already threaded that 
 morning in my vain search for my unknown 
 little lady. 
 
 If there was any common though unwritten 
 law against a man's going into a millinery 
 shop, there was, thank Heaven ! none against 
 his going into a dry-goods store ; at least, if he 
 could devise seme want which he might possi- 
 bly get supplied there. I had the want beyond 
 doubt : that shop now held what within the last 
 few hours I had come to want more than any- 
 thing else on earth. But a sweetheart, if she 
 were wholly unknown, as happened to be the 
 [20] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 case with me, would palpably not do; I could 
 not ask for her. So I cudgelled my brains for 
 something that I might demand if I were 
 halted within. 
 
 I finally hit on neckties. Neckties have a 
 sort of halfway place between a woman's wear 
 and a man's gear, and besides, give time in 
 the examination and selection. So, having made 
 this resolution, I ventured in, and found the 
 same rows of feminine backs — augmented 
 somewhat since my last exploration by new 
 additions — bending over piles of every con- 
 ceivable stuff; and the same assiduous clerks 
 and tired women standing as before on the 
 other side of the counters engaged in a task 
 as hopeless as telling Belshazzar his dream — 
 telling women what they wanted when they 
 did not know themselves. 
 
 As I passed on I heard many criticisms and 
 not a few complaints — some harsh, some only 
 petulant — from the women with backs, re- 
 [21 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 ceived, for the most part in silence, by the 
 women without backs. 
 
 Suddenly I was startled to find myself quite 
 close to the large hat with the roses which I 
 now knew so well. It was forming a bower for 
 the pretty head, at that moment bending over 
 several pieces of some lawny, white stuff. The 
 young lady's gloves were off, and the slender 
 little hands were feeling the texture of the 
 fabric with a touch as soft as if it had been a 
 baby's cheek. Her face, which I could see in 
 profile, was deeply serious. 
 
 "It is beautiful — beautiful. I wish I could 
 get it," she almost sighed, "but I am afraid it 
 is too dear for me ; I have only so much to 
 spend. Do you think you could possibly find 
 anything a little lower and — almost as pretty, 
 that you could show me?" She glanced up at 
 the shop-girl before her with a little smile — I 
 was going to say, almost pitiful ; but the ex- 
 pression which came on her face as she looked 
 [ 22 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 into the tired eyes above her banished that. 
 
 "Aren't you very tired?" she asked sud- 
 denly, with the sweetest, tenderest tone in 
 the world. "I should think you would be." 
 
 "Oh, it 's a pleasure to wait on you," said 
 the older woman, sincerely, her face lighting 
 up as she turned away to her shelves, pleased 
 at the tone of sympathy. 
 
 And who would not have thought so ! I, at 
 least, did ; and overcome by a sudden feehng, 
 as my young rose-nymph, whose face had lit 
 up at the praise, turned to take a sui-vey of 
 the crowd about her, I, abandoning my idea 
 of neckties, turned and hurried out of the 
 store. 
 
 It was a strange feeling, delicious to me. I 
 knew that I must be in love. I did not even 
 know her name ; but I knew her eyes, her 
 voice, her heart, and they were enough. 
 
 As I came out on the street, there was the 
 old carriage coming slowly along down, with 
 [23] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 the old driver leaning forward, looking anx- 
 iously to one side, as if to recognize some 
 given sign. 
 
 "If you want a wife, stop a carriage like 
 that, and take one out of it. Even taking one 
 at random you can hardly go amiss," had said 
 my Old Gentleman of the Black Stock, and I 
 believed him. 
 
 I could, not resist the temptation to go up 
 and render my first act of assistance to the 
 family. I signed to the driver, and he stopped. 
 
 "You are looking for your young mistress.'" 
 
 "Yes, suh; mlstis tell me to come and stop 
 right by two big rocks in front of a red sto'. 
 Dyah 's de sto', but I b'lieve dee done move 
 dem rocks. I see 'em heah dis mornin' when I 
 went by!" He leant forward and gave another 
 look. 
 
 "They are there still," I said, recognizing 
 the two carriage-stones by his description ; 
 "but those carriages hide them." 
 [24] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 "Yes, suh ; I never see sich folks in my life. 
 Dee ain' got no manners in de worl' ! Dee 'U 
 put dee kerridge right in yo' way, don' keer 
 what you do! And dee won' git out to save 
 yo' life. Mistis told me to be here by three, 
 an' — " 
 
 "Why, it 's only half-past one now," I said. 
 
 "Yes, suh ; but I likes to be sort o' promp- 
 tual in town ! See dem kerridges by dem rocks 
 now ! I jes want to git in dyah once, an' I 
 boun' dee oon git me out agin b'fo' my mis- 
 tises come. I don' like dese city ways, an' I 
 never did like a citified nigger nohow ! I got 
 a right good ways to go, too." 
 
 "How far do you live from town?" I asked 
 him. I was growing guileful. 
 
 "In and about eighteen miles, suh. I start 
 b'fo' light dis mornin'. I comes from Colonel 
 Dale's ole place. 'Hill-an'-Dale' dee calls it." 
 
 I knew at once then who my wild rose was. 
 The Dales were among the best old families in 
 [25] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 the State, and "Hill-and-Dale" was as well 
 known to our people as the capital city : one of 
 the famous country places celebrated for gen- 
 erations as the home of hospitality and refine- 
 ment. 
 
 Colonel Dale had died not very long after 
 the war, from a wound received at Gaines's 
 Mill, and had left a widow and a family of 
 young daughters, whose reputation for beauty 
 had reached me even before I left my country 
 home, though I had never seen any of them, 
 as "Hill-and-Dale" was in the farthest end of 
 the county, quite fifty miles away from us. 
 
 "Well, they are in that store now," I said, 
 to put the old coachman's mind at rest. "At 
 least, one of them is." 
 
 "Is dee.'" he asked, much relieved. The 
 next second he gave a bow over my head. 
 
 "Dyah 's Miss Lizbeth now!" he said in some 
 excitement, trying to attract her attention. 
 
 "Miss Lizbeth, Miss Lizbeth," he called. 
 [26] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 "Heah me^ heah me.'' But it was in vain. 
 
 I turned in some confusion ; but she was 
 standing under her big straw hat just outside 
 the door, looking alternately up and down the 
 street, evidently expecting some one who had 
 promised to come and had not. 
 
 My resolution was taken in a second, though 
 to do it set my heart to thumping against my 
 ribs. 
 
 "Wait," I said. "I will tell her for you." 
 And I actually walked up to her, and taking 
 off my hat, said, "I beg your pardon, but I 
 think your driver is there, trying to attract 
 your attention." 
 
 "Is he? Thank you. Where?" she said so 
 sweetly that my already bumping heart began 
 to bound. Then, as I indicated the direction, 
 and she caught the old man's eye, her face lit 
 up with that charming smile, which I can Uken 
 to nothing else but sunlight breaking forth on 
 an already sweet and lovely prospect. 
 [27] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 "Oh, thank you,'' she said again, tripping 
 away, whilst I passed on to make it appear 
 that I had only happened accidentally to see 
 her driver's signal. 
 
 I turned, however, a few rods farther on, as 
 if quite casually, to get another peep at her. 
 
 She stood on the very edge of the curb- 
 stone, bending forward, talking very earnestly 
 to her driver out in the street ; but just as I 
 turned she caught up her dress with a quick, 
 graceful motion and tripped on tiptoe over to 
 the carriage, showing as she did so just a 
 glimpse of the daintiest pair of ankles in the 
 world. Then the intervening carriages shut her 
 out from view, and I went on. 
 
 So the name of my prize was Elizabeth 
 Dale, and I had spoken to her! 
 
 I did not fail to pass along the street again 
 
 — -quite indifferently — a few minutes before 
 
 three, and again at frequent intervals, until 
 
 more than many minutes after that hour ; but 
 
 [28] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 though "them two rocks" were there, a stand- 
 ing monumentj and "the red store," hallowed 
 by her having entered it, was there, and many 
 other carriages came and went, the old coach 
 from Hill-and-Dale came not, and neither did 
 its pretty rose-and-sunshine mistress. 
 
 The street seemed quite deserted. The town 
 was suddenly empty. 
 
 I went home to my boarding-house with new 
 sensations, and if I was in love, I set all rules 
 at defiance, for I ate like a ploughman, and 
 slept that night like a log. 
 
 [29 ] 
 
Ill 
 
 BASHAM MILES 
 
 I DID not meet my young lady again for a 
 long time, nor shall I pretend that all this 
 while I cherished no other image than hers in 
 my heart. I certainly carried hers there im- 
 pressed with great clearness for quite a period 
 — for, I should say, several weeks, at least — 
 and I always bore a sweet and pleasant picture 
 of her, never wholly effaced, however much 
 softened by the steadily intervening months. 
 But I found after a time that there were 
 other eyes besides hers, and that other girls 
 wore roses in their hats and roses under them 
 too. So that although at first I formed all sorts 
 of plans, romantic and otherwise, to meet her, 
 and even carried one idea so far into execu- 
 tion as to purchase a handsomely bound set of 
 Tennyson to send her anonymously, and mark 
 one or two passages which described her aptly, 
 [30] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 and should compel her curiosity to penetrate 
 my almost invulnerable anonymity, yet courage 
 failed me in face of the questionable act of 
 sending anything anonymously to a young lady 
 whom I did not know, and after a few weeks 
 I made another disposition of the poems, send- 
 ing them without change of marked passages, 
 and with a note which I considered quite fetch- 
 ing, to a girl whom I did know. 
 
 Still, no serious results came from any part 
 of this, and I applied myself somewhat more 
 faithfully to what I was now pleased to call 
 "my practice," and never wholly forgot the 
 old Hill-and-Dale carriage, with the pretty 
 faces laughing together out of the windows, 
 nor became entirely indifferent to the memory 
 of the little HUl-and-Dale lady of the big 
 summer hat and the large sunny eyes. If I 
 ever saw a pretty face with a rose-garden 
 above it, it was very apt to call up a picture 
 of a milliner's window on a May morning. Or if 
 [ 31 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 I caught a glimpse of a pair of pretty ankles, 1 
 thought of a daintier pair, and a slender, girlish 
 figure tripping with them out into the street. 
 
 And once or twice things occurred to re- 
 mind me strongly of her. Once when I saw in 
 a paper a notice headed, "A pretty Country 
 Wedding at Hill-and-Dale," my heart gave 
 quite a jump into my throat, and when I read 
 that it was the eldest daughter who was mar- 
 ried and not the youngest, I was sensible of a 
 feeling of relief. 
 
 The sister had married an Episcopal clergy- 
 man, whom I knew by reputation as a fine, 
 earnest fellow and a good preacher. 
 
 The notice went on to speak of the "well- 
 known beauty" of the sisters, all of whom had 
 acted as bridesmaids, and it mentioned partic- 
 ularly "the charming appearance of the young- 
 est. Miss Elizabeth," whose character, it stated, 
 was as lovely as her personal beauty might lead 
 one to infer. 
 
 [32] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 The notice evidently was written by a friend. 
 It went on to say that there was a rumor that 
 "another fair sister" would soon follow the 
 example of the eldest. 
 
 My heart had another flutter and sinking 
 at this, and I could have cursed the vague 
 writer for not giving some intimation as to 
 which sister the report concerned. 
 
 Another occasion when I was reminded of 
 the young lady was when I saw the published 
 notice in a newspaper, of the sale of the HUl- 
 and-Dale estate under a Chancery Decree. It 
 seemed that the old place had finally gone to 
 satisfy long-standing mortgages and later debts 
 accumulated through the years. 
 
 This was later on though. I had been re- 
 minded of Miss Dale occasionally in the interim. 
 
 During the two or three years which had 
 passed since my coming to town I had formed 
 many new acquaintances in the city, and made 
 some friends. 
 
 [33] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 I had, of coursBj in this time, not only 
 learned the name of my Old Gentleman of 
 the Black Stock, but had also come to know 
 him personally. His speech to me on the street 
 corner that May morning, when, with my heart 
 in my eyes, I was looking into the old Hill-and- 
 Dale carriage, had excited me enough to make 
 me take the trouble to follow him up and learn 
 his name before my interest in the incident 
 subsided. Indeed, my office-boy, William Kemp, 
 proved to be one of his old servants, and still 
 waited on him. 
 
 I found that he was Mr. Basham Miles, one 
 of the old residents of the city, and owner of 
 the ancient house and tangled yard at the 
 gate of which I had first encountered him, and 
 where he still resided when he was in town. 
 
 He had once been a member of the Bar, and 
 had had the reputation of being very clever, 
 very eccentric, and very proud. 
 
 He lived alone when in the city, and took 
 [34] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 his meals at the house of one of his neighbors, 
 an old lady, who lived next door but one to 
 him. But he was away from town a good part 
 of his time, both winter and summer, either 
 visiting old friends in the country, summering 
 at some of the smaller and more unfashionable 
 watering-places, or travelling, — no one of my 
 informants knew just where. 
 
 He had had a brilliant opening at the Bar ; 
 for he was the son of one of the big lawyers of 
 his day, a man ■who had stood at the head of 
 his profession and had died with what was 
 deemed even better than a national reputa- 
 tion — a State reputation. And he himself had 
 been in partnership with one of the leading 
 lawyers of his own time, a man who had died 
 the recognized head of the local Bar. 
 
 Old lawyers still told juicy stories of the 
 ability and skill of Miles and Thompson. But 
 he had suddenly given up practice, abandoned 
 the Bar, gone abroad, and — "dropped out." 
 [35 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 No one of ray informants knew anything 
 further about him, even if they knew this ; for 
 it was only by piecing together bits of recol- 
 lection and of old tradition at second hand, or 
 Heaven knows at how many hands! that I got 
 this much from the men of my own time. 
 
 Of course, there were other stories, border- 
 ing on or even touching the scandalous : echoes 
 of old gossip so plainly pieced out and distorted 
 that I will not even give them the currency of 
 a denial. 
 
 There was one unvarying suggestion that 
 seemed to occur often enough in the reports 
 of my informants to reach the dignity of what is 
 known to the Law as General Reputation. This 
 was, that it was "something about a woman." 
 Some said about one woman ; some said two ; 
 some hinted at even more. Some thought it 
 was a scandal; others said that it was a slander; 
 some only had an idea that he was crossed in 
 love, and gave up, soured and disheartened. 
 [36 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 The more numerous part credited the first 
 story. Men are always ready to believe a vague 
 scandal of a man, though they may deny a 
 specific charge. 
 
 I was interested enough to investigate far- 
 ther, for, somehow, the idea of associating the 
 base life of a fribble or a debauche with my 
 fine Old Gentleman of the Black Stock, with 
 his thin, high-bred face, soft and spotless 
 linen, and kindly, firm, gentle voice, seemed 
 too repugnant to entertain. 
 
 His countenance was grave, it was true, but it 
 was the gravity of one who had faced sorrow, 
 not shame ; his eye was melancholy, but it was 
 calm, and his gaze direct ; and his voice, which 
 as much as either the face or the eye tells the 
 true history that lies deep and unchangeable 
 within, was grave and sad, but bore the unmis- 
 takable ring of sincerity and command. 
 
 So, unwilling to leave one who was some- 
 what linked in my mind with the object who 
 [37 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 at that moment engrossed my meditation (for 
 I am speaking of the days succeeding the in- 
 cident of the rose-filled carriage), I applied 
 myself to the further and more careful investi- 
 gation of these compromising echoes of vague 
 tradition. And I learned that there was not 
 one grain of truth in any story which imputed 
 to the old gentleman the least act of dishonor 
 or cast the faintest shadow on his history. 
 
 The two or three old members of the Bar 
 to whom I applied answered my opening ques- 
 tion in almost the same words. 
 
 I would ask them, "Tell me something of 
 old Mr. Miles.?" 
 
 "Miles? Old Mr. Miles? Basham Miles? 
 What about him ? He used to be a member of 
 the Bar, and the best lawyer at it. He argued 
 the case of Calthorp against Brown. Have you 
 ever read his argument ? It 's the greatest ex- 
 position of — Where's the report? Give me 
 that book, will you?" etc. 
 [38] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 "No. But why did he leave the Bar? Was 
 there ever anything — ah, — out of the way 
 about him — any story of — ah — ?" 
 
 "About Miles? Old Mr. Miles? Basham 
 Miles ? Why, no! Who says there was ? He was 
 one of the highest men who was ever at the 
 Bar. He left the Bar because — [Hunting 
 through the book.] He gave it up because — 
 Which? — Ah! here it is! — Listen to this. — 
 Why, he gave it up because he didn't need 
 it — had plenty of money without it. I 'd have 
 done the same thing if I had been in his fix. 
 I believe there was a woman had something 
 to do with it — jilted him or something, and 
 he never got over it. — Ah! here it is! [Read- 
 ing.] 'Calthorp's Executor against Brown's Ad- 
 ministrator and others.' — Listen to this!" 
 
 And then would follow page after page of 
 clear, lucid argument, which only a lawyer 
 would appreciate fully. 
 
 "Why, sir, John Marshall could not have 
 [39] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 beat that ! He made the Court reverse itself 
 by that argumentj and established that for the 
 law ! And I want to tell you that 's not the 
 easiest thing in the world to do, young man." 
 
 This was what I got from three or four of 
 the oldest men at the Bar, and I stopped, sat- 
 isfied. I had established the fact, which I had 
 already believed, that if my old gentleman had 
 "dropped out," it was his own choice. 
 
 [40 ] 
 
IV 
 
 AN OLD MAN'S INTIMATES 
 
 NOT long afterwards I met Mr. Miles. It 
 was at the house of one of the old resi- 
 dents of the city, where I had become an occa- 
 sional visitor, and where he had come that 
 evening according to a weekly custom to play 
 whist. He remembered me as his street ac- 
 quaintance, and spoke of our first meeting at 
 his gate, and our talk about the trees. 
 
 He made no reference, however, to the 
 incident from which my chief interest in 
 him then sprang. He evidently did not know 
 I was the one to whom he had given the 
 advice about stopping a country carriage for 
 a wife. 
 
 The absence of some member of the family 
 with whom he usually played whist seemed to 
 cause him keen disappointment, and he ap- 
 peared to regard it as so much of a misfortune 
 [41] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 that, partly through vanity and partly through 
 complaisance, I was induced to take a hand. 
 
 I quickly found that I was "outclassed," 
 and that the haphazard, "according-to-myself " 
 game which I then played was worse than 
 nothing. I misled him ; forced his hand ; lost 
 him tricks, and finally lost him the rubber. 
 This was more than he could stand. He would 
 not play any more. 
 
 With a reference to "the rigor of the game," 
 he rose from the table. 
 
 The rest of the time he stayed he talked 
 about his health. 
 
 I was feeling a little aggrieved over his 
 strictures on my game ; but when he had left, 
 my host spoke of him with so much affection, 
 and my hostess with so much pity, that I was 
 quite mollified, and meeting him on the street 
 next day I stopped and spoke to him, asking 
 him about his health, and taking occasion to 
 apologize to him for my wretched performance 
 [42 J 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 the evening before, and the annoyance I had 
 caused him. 
 
 He appeared not only pleased at my atten- 
 tion, but gratified at my inquiry as to his 
 health, and not only expressed regret for giv- 
 ing an exhibition of what he termed his "con- 
 stitutional irascibility," but invited me to call 
 and see him, excusing himself for "proposing 
 so dull a duty" to a young man as a visit to an 
 old one, by suggesting that he had a few old 
 books and some other things, all old like him- 
 self, he said, which I might find of interest 
 for a half-hour. 
 
 I went as I had promised, more from a sense 
 of duty, I must admit, than from any other 
 motive, even that of curiosity to see his old 
 books. 
 
 But I found, as he had said, that he had a 
 rare collection both of books and of other 
 things, — -the rarest I had ever seen, — and he 
 himself seemed just a part of it. 
 [43 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 His liouse itself was a rare one : an example 
 of the fine old double houses^ buUt on a simple 
 and dignified plan^ almost square, with that ad- 
 herence to the simple, classic models, adapted 
 for room, sunshine, and air, which we now call 
 "Colonial," perhaps because it is so long since 
 we departed from them in the vain endeavor 
 to be showy and fine. It was as difierent from 
 the new houses near it as its master himself 
 was from the other men on the street. 
 
 A handsome portico with Doric columns, 
 once white, but now a soft gray, dignified its 
 front. The fine door, with a large fan-shaped, 
 leaded transom above and a brass lock strong 
 enough to have secured the Bastile, was itself 
 a feature, and admitted you to the ample hall, 
 which ran entirely through the house to where 
 the rear door and a long back double portico 
 beyond it looked out on a tangled garden. 
 
 A stairway sufficiently wide to suggest am- 
 pleness in the rooms above led winding up on 
 [ 44 ] 
 

 ■-A*- 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 one side of the hall to the upper floor. 
 
 The front door was not only equipped with a 
 bell, which, when I pulled the handle, jangled 
 for more than a minute somewhere to the rear 
 outside the house, but it was garnished with a 
 handsome, highly polished, old brass knocker 
 of a classical design. Everything was solid, and 
 had once been handsome, but struck me now 
 as sadly out of repair. Indeed, an air of neglect 
 and loneliness seemed to pervade the whole 
 place. 
 
 It was not until I had both rung and 
 knocked several times that an elderly negro 
 woman came around the side of the house and, 
 after looking at me with an air of inspection, 
 asked whom I wanted to see. 
 
 I found things much the same way within 
 that they were without. The walls were hung 
 with paintings, some of which seemed to me 
 fine, but they were dim and blistered, and the 
 frames were all dingy and old. 
 [45 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 The room I was shown into was furnished 
 with old mahogany furniture rich with age 
 and was filled with handsome things ; but 
 everything appeared to me to be placed with- 
 out regard either to fitness or comfort. The 
 chairs were all ranged back stiffly against the 
 wall, and vases and other bric-a-brac were 
 scattered around in a pell-meU, hopeless fash- 
 ion that was distressing. 
 
 The library, into which I was at length 
 shown, was the only exception to this condi- 
 tion. It was large and airy and was evidently 
 a living-room, and the fine old books, many of 
 them in rich binding, redeemed everything. 
 
 Yet here likewise were the signs of neglect 
 which spoke from every spot : books piled on 
 tables and chairs, and even on the floor, in a 
 confusion which nobody but one long familiar 
 to it could have understood. 
 
 My host, however, who met me most gra- 
 ciously when I was at length shown into the 
 [46 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 library, seemed to divine where things were 
 in that room, at least, and made my visit so 
 agreeable that instead of passing one half- 
 hour with him I spent the evening. He lived 
 almost entirely in the past. 
 
 "An old man like myself," he said, "has to 
 live in the past. My friends are all there." 
 
 He possessed a knowledge of books which 
 appeared to me rare, and what was more, he 
 had that delightful art of endowing books 
 of which he talked with a certain personality 
 which made them seem like living beings. He 
 did not quote books so much as he made them 
 speak for themselves. In his mouth they were 
 not books, but the men who wrote them. He 
 had evidently lived with them much. He 
 brought their authors in and made them talk 
 with you. 
 
 He appeared particularly fond of the Poets 
 and the Essayists, though he declared there were 
 very few of either nowadays who were sincere. 
 [47] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 "They are the true philosophers/' he de- 
 clared. "When you find a sincere man in a 
 book, sir, cherish him. He is like a sincere man 
 in life : you know him at once, and he is rara 
 avis. The old ones were sincere. There was 
 something in the time that made men sincere. 
 Shakespeare, of course" (I remember he said), 
 "because he knew the Human Soul, and could 
 not help it. It was as if he had stood face to face 
 with God, and dared not tell anything but Truth. 
 
 "Milton was sincere, because he was a fana- 
 tic; Bacon, because he was too wise not to be." 
 
 Of the moderns, he said, old Johnson was 
 almost the only Essayist who was always sin- 
 cere, and that was his value. You could always 
 count on him. He was, moreover, "a man of 
 heart ; a clear, vigorous man who saw straight, 
 and told it as he saw it." 
 
 The others were: "Nearly all posing, writing 
 either for popularity or for some other miser- 
 able end." 
 
 [48 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 "Why, sir," he said, "I have piles of them 
 there I will not even put on my shelves ; I will 
 not admit them to the companionship of gen- 
 tlemen. The poets, at least, try to do some- 
 thing; some of them do. Goldsmith, for all his 
 fopperies, was sincere, because he was a poet. 
 His pen inspired him. It was the key that 
 turned on the divine fluid. Johnson said of 
 him, you know, that no man was more fooUsh 
 till he took up his pen, or more wise when he 
 took it up. Wordsworth was always sincere for 
 the same reason. They had a high idea of their 
 profession, as poets and preachers must have." 
 
 I asked him about Carlyle and Emerson, for 
 I was just then discovering them. He admitted 
 the sincerity of both; but Carlyle he did not 
 like. 
 
 "He is always ill-tempered and sour, and 
 
 is forever sneering at others. He is Jeremiah, 
 
 without his inspiration or his occasion," he 
 
 said of him. " He is not a gentleman, sir, and 
 
 [49] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 has never forgiven either the world or himself 
 for it." 
 
 "Do you not think he writes well?" I de- 
 manded. 
 
 "YeSj sir, he writes vigorously, — I suppose 
 you mean that, — but it is not English. I do not 
 know just what to term it. It was a trick with 
 him, a part of his pedantry. But when I want 
 acerbity I prefer Swift." 
 
 Emerson he put on a much higher plane 
 than Carlyle; but though he admitted his sin- 
 cerity, and ranked him as the first American 
 literary man, he did not read him much. 
 
 "He is a kindly man," he said, "and has 
 'wrought in a sad sincerity.' But he preaches 
 too much for me, and he is all texts. When I 
 want preaching I go to church. 
 
 "At least, I do when I can find it," he said 
 after a pause. "That is not so often these days." 
 
 His eyes kindled. 
 
 "The Pulpit has lost its power, sir: thrown 
 [50] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 away its best prerogative — the gift of preach- 
 ing. The Clergy no more preach with power, 
 because they no more beheve with strength. 
 They find many of the old dogma undermined 
 and worthless, and think the whole structure 
 is tottering. So they set to work to build up 
 the entire fabric anew. They waste their puny 
 strength laying a few sticks about the founda- 
 tion. They do not apprehend that deep down 
 lies the solid rock unshaken, and that on this 
 alone Man's spiritual nature craves to rest. The 
 Roman Church knows this. It is wise, for it is 
 the gamer house of experience. 
 
 "Why should I go to hear a young man, of 
 far less knowledge than myself, holding forth 
 to worldly people worldly considerations to in- 
 duce them to embrace a religion of which the 
 founder preached the blessedness of Sorrow! 
 The poorest preacher, sir, is impressive so long 
 as he believes himself the Minister of God. I 
 may not accept his message, but if he believes 
 [51 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 in his mission I shall respect him. If, however, 
 he questions his own credentials I will not lis- 
 ten to him. 
 
 "But I am getting to preaching myself," he 
 said, with a smile. "We were speaking of the 
 Essapsts .'' 
 
 "After all," he said, "the best of these 
 Essayists to me is the first, Plutarch; and 
 next to him the second, Montaigne. Plutarch 
 is as modem as if he had just written, because 
 he knew Human Nature. Human Nature is al- 
 ways the same. Montaigne drew from Plutarch, 
 and the others from Montaigne. They have all 
 been pillaging him ever since he wrote. He 
 was a man who knew himself as he was, and 
 had the wit and the courage to be truthfiil. 
 Montaigne was not so great as Plutarch, be- 
 cause he was less spiritual. His time was not so 
 great. But he knew the Human Mind, as Shake- 
 speare knew both the Mind and the Heart. 
 Why, sir," he added, with unwonted enthusi- 
 [52 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 asm, "I am enough like Montaigne to be his 
 embodied spirit. When I read Montaigne I feel 
 as if I were reading myself. It is a pleasure to 
 me to know that they are the two which we 
 have some grounds to believe Shakespeare read. 
 
 "You cannot get a man nowadays to tell 
 you what he really feels or thinks. Feeling has 
 gone out of fashion. Every one is trying to 
 repress his feeling, and he does not think at 
 all. Convention has taken the place of Origi- 
 nality. Why, sir, we are all trying to say what 
 we think our neighbor thinks." 
 
 It does not seem to me now, recalling it, 
 that what he said was altogether sound, but 
 there was something about his manner in say- 
 ing it which impressed me. He appeared to be 
 in strong opposition to the rest of the world, 
 and to hold a correct position, but to have a 
 tendency to push his views to extremes. He 
 did not see things precisely as they were, but 
 through a medium or atmosphere of some kind 
 [53] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 which threw them a little out of line, as if a 
 man might look at objects through a pane of 
 old, uneven glass. 
 
 I observed the same tendency when he 
 spoke of old times and things. His talk of 
 old days was delightful, but even this was 
 critical, his reminiscences being, I thought, 
 all a little tinged by something — I would not 
 call it sourness, but just a bit off from the 
 sweet savor of perfect mellowness, — as if at 
 some period he had been shut off a little too 
 much from the sun, and had ripened under the 
 shadow of Disappointment. 
 
 When I came away he accompanied me to 
 the door, and his last words surprised me: 
 
 "Young man, Domestic happiness is worth 
 all the Fame in the world !" 
 
 It was a cry out of the dark. 
 
 I left him with something of sadness, pass- 
 ing out of the wide, cheerless hall and through 
 the old weather-blistered door, and I was not 
 [ 54 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 aware until I got into the sunshine without, 
 how chilly I had been within. I had an inde- 
 scribable feeling of half sorrow, half pity for 
 the old gentleman, which did not change until 
 I met him again out-of-doors, calm, dignified, 
 and serene, with his courtly manner. 
 
 I also had a feeling of sadness for myself. I 
 came out of his presence half in love with a 
 picture of a young girl in a flower-trimmed hat 
 — half in love with a memory. 
 
 I met the old gentleman occasionally after 
 that, and always with a feeling of mingled re- 
 gard and sympathy. I could hardly tell why 
 I had this feeling ; for I set him down as one 
 of the most self-contained and fortunate of 
 men — a man who, with enough means to grat- 
 iiy his tastes and follow his own bent, chose 
 to live just as he pleased. 
 
 In fact, I think I began rather to envy him, 
 for my Uttle affair in which the missent Tenny- 
 son figured had not ended very satisfactorily 
 [55 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 to me: the vicarious recipient of the volumes 
 had smiled more kindly than I liked on a 
 smooth-cheeked young man who had an un- 
 deniable advantage over me in the silkiness of 
 his mustache, the freshness of his complexion, 
 and the nimbleness of his heels, not to men- 
 tion the matter of income, in which he proba- 
 bly quadrupled mine. But I not only believed 
 these were the only advantages he had over 
 me, but was conceited enough to have even 
 a mild contempt for him, which, nevertheless, 
 did not prevent my young lady from at first 
 openly 'favoring him, and afterwards bestow- 
 ing on him not only herself, but my Tennyson 
 as well, side-marked passages and all. 
 
 I had not even the poor consolation of 
 thinking that he would see the passages and 
 be jealous, for I do not believe he ever opened 
 the book, or, for that matter, any book in his 
 life. Yet when I saw them together they were 
 happier than two turtle doves. 
 [56] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 Anyhow, the affair left me with a certain 
 feeling of diseontentj not only with the world 
 at large, but — a much harder thing to bear! — 
 with myself also, and I rather envied my Old 
 Gentleman of the Black Stock his quiet, un- 
 troubled life. 
 
 About this time the vision of the little 
 country girl with the big rose-covered hat 
 began to come back to me again, and took 
 its place once more in my recollection. 
 
 [57] 
 
V 
 
 OF THE FRAGRANCE OF 
 
 ROSEMARY 
 
 DURING these years I had come to know 
 many elderly people in the town besides 
 the old lawyers and Mr. Miles, — among them 
 several old ladies. I have always had a fancy 
 for old ladies. I was brought up in the house 
 with a number of them, and as I am fonder of 
 little girls than I am of boys, so old ladies ap- 
 peal to me more than old men. They, fill a 
 place in life that would be quite bare without 
 them. There is a certain something about them 
 quite indescribable. They make much of the 
 mellowness of life, and not a little of its fra- 
 grance. Some of them have a beauty with 
 which the beauty of the most radiant belle 
 can hardly compare. 
 
 But it is not of this beautiful class only that 
 I speak. Even when they are faded and worn, 
 [ 58 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 when all tints have vanished and all lines have 
 subsided^ with Age which is content to ac- 
 knowledge itself graciously as Age, and does, 
 not pretend to a belated Adolescence, there 
 is a charm all its own. There is a fragrance of 
 rue and of rosemary, as well as of roses and 
 violets, and thyme and lavender have their 
 sweetness no less than heart's-ease and lilies. 
 
 There were more of these old ladies in my 
 city than anywhere else I ever knew, and I 
 had come quite naturally to know a number 
 of them. They seemed to be found fittingly in 
 the older and cheaper part of the town, where 
 the ancient, once comfortable houses stUl lin- 
 gered, though it was no longer fashionable, or 
 most convenient, and as my practice had not 
 yet enabled me to emigrate to the desirable 
 new quarter, I had quite naturally met a num- 
 ber of them. 
 
 There are certain characteristics which are 
 common to them all. They all dress in black; 
 [59] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 they all live in the past, and talk of your 
 grandmother as if she were your aunt, com- 
 pletely forgetting your mother; and they all 
 smile on the little children they pass Ln the 
 street. 
 
 I am rather fond of children myself, and 
 have always followed a habit of making friends 
 with those on my street, a practice from which 
 I have at times found certain conveniences 
 to follow. There are some inconveniences, of 
 course, — for instance, in seasons of snow, and 
 also at other times, — but they are inconsider- 
 able. 
 
 Occasionally at those recurring seasons when 
 tops come like winged ants on warm days in 
 swarms out of the ground, or from somewhere 
 else, I had to submit to the ignominy of being 
 stopped on the corners, and compelled to dis- 
 play my inability to make a top do anything 
 except flop around on its side Uke a headless 
 chicken, before a party of young ruffians, every 
 [60] 
 
or THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 one of whom could "plug" a top with diaboli- 
 cal accuracy, or could "whip" it high in air 
 and bring it down whirling hke a buzz-saw. 
 
 Or I would be held up on the sidewalk by 
 a gang of curly-haired footpads and compelled, 
 against my strongest protests, to jump a rope 
 held by two of a group of pestilent little crea- 
 tures, who would shout with laughter as they 
 knocked my hat off in the dirt, threw sand 
 into my eyes, and on my retreat pursued me 
 down the street with jeers of derision. 
 
 Or I would have to play a game of marbles, 
 while I lost, or stood the chance of losing, a 
 client as well as the game. 
 
 But, on the whole, I think this had its com- 
 pensations, and my acquaintance with the old 
 ladies and the children in my quarter played 
 an accidental part in my knowledge of the 
 history of the Old Gentleman of the Black 
 Stock. 
 
 Oftener than once, indeed, as I was plapng 
 [61 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 with the children, he came along and stopped 
 to look at us. 
 
 "Lucky dog!" he said to me once as he 
 passed. "I would rather be able to play mar- 
 bles than to play monarch." And he went on 
 his way rather slowly. 
 
 [62] 
 
VI 
 BASHAM MILES'S HISTORY 
 
 BUT this was the way I came to hear of 
 his history. 
 I was calling one evening on an old lady, 
 whom I knew as a friend of my mother's, and 
 who had been good enough to call on me when 
 I was sick once, and another old lady happened 
 to come to see her whilst I was there. Her visit, 
 as I recollect, was to tell her friend of some old 
 schoolmate of theirs from whom she had lately 
 had a letter, and who had sent Mrs. Gray a 
 message in it. She had brought the letter with 
 her, and the two friends read it, and talked 
 about the writer, — who they both agreed must 
 be older than either of them by several years, 
 — and about her family and history. And then 
 they drifted back to their girlhood, when they 
 all three had been together at the Springs one 
 summer. It was forty odd years before ; yet 
 [63] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 they went over it all, recalled incidents, got 
 them straight between them, discussed and 
 enjoyed them again, down to the partners 
 they had, the flowers they had been given by 
 them, and the dresses they wore at the ball: 
 ail as if it had been yesterday. 
 
 They had grown young again. 
 
 In the course of their discussion the name 
 of Basham Miles occurred more than once. 
 
 One of them declared that some incident 
 occurred "the summer Basham Miles was so 
 attentive to Betsey Green." The other thought 
 not, but that it was the summer after; and she 
 tried to refresh her friend's memory by remind- 
 ing her of two immense bouquets their friend 
 Betsey Green had had, one of which they 
 thought Basham Miles had given her, whilst 
 they could not make out who had given the 
 other. And then it had turned out that Basham 
 Miles had given her neither, but had given his 
 to Anita Robinson, whom he had just met, and 
 [64] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 whom he danced with that night ; and one of 
 Betsey's had been given her by an old gentle- 
 man from South Carolina, for whom she had 
 sung, and Burton Dale had "come back'' and 
 given her the other. "And that was the be- 
 ginning of his success," she said. 
 
 The circumstance was remembered, but it 
 failed to fix the year in my friend's memory. 
 
 Then the other said : 
 
 "Why, don't you remember, that night I had 
 on a lilac mull, and you had on a white em- 
 broidered muslin ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, to be sure !" 
 
 This fixed it. The girl's white muslin recalled it, 
 with all its long attendant train of circumstances, 
 after nearly fifty years of activity and change. 
 
 " My ! my ! How long ago that was ! — And yet 
 it seems only yesterday ! " said my friend quietly, 
 softly passing herthinhands over her black dress. 
 
 Her eyes were no longer looking before her, 
 but back at the Past. 
 
 [65 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 I wondered as I observed her^ what she was 
 thinking of in that forty odd years where lay 
 embalmed and folded away so many things, — 
 love-making, marriage, wifehood, motherhood, 
 widowhood, age; — perhaps (for the thin hands 
 still smoothed softly the old black dress) of 
 the girl's embroidered muslin, and the young 
 girl it held in its fresh folds that night. Her 
 thoughts were not painful, whatever they were, 
 for a pleasant and placid air rested on her face, 
 and when she at length emerged from her rev- 
 erie it was with a gentle smile. 
 
 "Yes, it was a long time ago !" 
 
 Her friend, too, had been looking back into 
 the Past. 
 
 "What a handsome man Basham Miles was 
 then!" she said, reflectively. 
 
 "I never thought so; there was always a 
 self-consciousness about him which marred his 
 looks to me," said my friend. 
 
 "Oh, I think he was a perfect Adonis! I won- 
 [66] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 der if he has ever regretted not raarrjdng ? I 
 think he was really in love with Betsey.'' 
 
 "No, not he!" said my friend. "He was too 
 well satisfied with himself. I am very sure Bet- 
 sey never thought he was in love with her. I 
 would n't give Burton Dale, with his kind old 
 heart, for a hundred of hun, with all his clever- 
 ness." 
 
 The conversation had interested me, and I 
 had sat still, putting off my departure, and 
 feeling a certain interest in their talk and the 
 train of reflections it had called up in me. Still, 
 I did not put the parts together ; I simply felt 
 vaguely rather than saw anything which con- 
 cerned me personally. I had certainly never 
 thought of old Mr. Basham Miles as an Ado- 
 nis, or as a careless and arrogant heart-breaker, 
 and I followed the novel idea off into reverie 
 and vacancy. 
 
 I was recalled by the mention of the name 
 "Hill-and-Dale." 
 
 [67 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 The old lady who had worn the "lilac mull/' 
 and who was much the haler of the two, was 
 speaking softly, and I had lost a part of the 
 conversation. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "her health has been very 
 poor ever since the birth of her last infant, and 
 then her mother's death, just after Hill-and- 
 Dale was sold, told greatly on her ; so she does 
 not get to see me as often as she did when she 
 first came to live here, last spring." 
 
 "I must go and see her," said my friend, 
 softly. "I will try and get there to-morrow." 
 She looked away out of the window. 
 
 "I would have been before, but I walk so 
 badly now, I find myself putting things off. She 
 brought her youngest sister to see me not very 
 long ago — very like Betsey! I could almost 
 have thought it was Betsey herself as she sat 
 by me and talked to me. You remember that 
 way Betsey had of stroking your hand when 
 she was sitting by yoxi talking earnestly?" 
 [68] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 "Elizabeth ? Yes, she is Hke Betsey. But not 
 so pretty," said the other old lady, putting up 
 her spectacles with elaborate care and rising 
 to leave. 
 
 "I thought she was rather prettier; but then 
 I see so badly these days. Good-bye; you must 
 come again. Don't wait for me to come; I can't 
 walk much, and — " 
 
 "Oh, pshaw! Malviny Gray, you have been 
 trading on those three months of superior age 
 to me ever since we went to school to old Mr. 
 Persico when you were twelve years old, and 
 I am not going to put up with it any longer. 
 You are as arrogant about it as Basham Miles 
 used to be about his intellect! Good-bye." And 
 they kissed, laughing at their pleasantry and 
 going over many new things and some old 
 ones, and starting to take leave of each other, 
 and beginning again over and over, as is the 
 way with their sex of every age. 
 
 I myself was leaving; so I handed the visitor 
 [69] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 down the steps, and asked to see her home ; 
 but she positively declined this attention, de- 
 claring smilingly that I would think her "as 
 old and helpless as Malviny Gray.'' 
 
 I, however, insisted, declaring guilefully that 
 my way lay in the same direction with hers, 
 though I had not the least notion where she 
 lived. And she finally yielded, and I learned 
 afterwards was much pleased at my attention. 
 In fact, I have found that it is the small inci- 
 dents not the great ones that make up life. 
 
 As I went home I saw Basham Miles turn 
 in at his gate a little before me. His great- 
 coat collar was turned up, and he had a com- 
 forter around his neck, although the air seemed 
 to me quite bracing, and as he slowly climbed 
 his broad steps and let himself in at his old 
 stained door, I thought he appeared more 
 than usually feeble. 
 
 [70] 
 
VII 
 
 IN WHICH BASHAM MILES 
 
 LOSES HIS HAT 
 
 I DID not meet the old gentleman or see 
 him again on the street for some little 
 time. But one day as I turned into a new 
 streetj which had been cut through and built 
 up recently, I saw a figure some distance ahead 
 of me all muffled up and walking with the slow 
 and painful steps of an old man. 
 
 When I was still about half a block from 
 him his hat blew off and was caught in a sud- 
 den gust of wind and whirled out into the 
 street. 
 
 He stepped slowly down after it, but before 
 he could reach it a young girl, who had evi- 
 dently seen him through a window, opened 
 the door and ran down from one of the little 
 new tidy houses on the opposite side, tripped 
 out into the street and caught the truant hat 
 [71 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 and restored it to its owner. And then, as he 
 attempted to wrap his comforter, which had 
 become disarranged, more closely around his 
 neck, she reached up and wrapped it deftly 
 about him herself, tucking it in with great 
 care, and, as he thanked her warmly, — which 
 I could see even at a distance, — she turned, 
 laughing, and tripped back across the street, 
 her brown hair blown about her little head, 
 and ran up the steps into her house, giving 
 me just a glimpse of dainty ankles, which re- 
 minded me of Elizabeth Dale- that sunny day 
 so long ago. 
 
 I had recognized old Mr. Basham Miles at a 
 distance as his hat blew off, but I did not rec- 
 ognize the young lady who had rendered him 
 the kindly service. Indeed, I did not see her 
 face. I was sure, however, that she was a stran- 
 ger, for I knew every girl on the street, by 
 sight at least. 
 
 I was so busy speculating as to who the 
 [72 ] 
 
-,j--..,..(i t )-,,■ )>.,■ i n^-zi ^ .' , 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 graceful stranger was, and looking at her win- 
 dows as I passed, that I forgot my intention to 
 overtake old Mr. Miles, who might have told 
 me, and he turned the comer before I could 
 catch up to him, and went down a cross street, 
 so that I did not get a chance to speak to him. 
 He was walking more rapidly than I had 
 thought. 
 
 As I was late, I thought it was just as well, 
 for I had observed that when I met him on 
 the street now he talked more and more about 
 his health; and my chief regret at not having 
 caught him was that I did not learn who the 
 dainty-looking girl was. 
 
 As it turned out, I discovered later that he 
 did not know her. 
 
 The next time I met him he referred to the 
 episode himself and asked me to find out who 
 she was, and let him know. 
 
 "She reminded me strongly of some one I 
 knew once — of an old friend of mine," he said, 
 [73 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 half reflectively. "These resemblances are very 
 curious." He was speaking now more to himself 
 than to me. 
 
 I suggested that I might find some difficulty 
 in discovering her. 
 
 "Difficulty?" he said. "Why, sir, when I 
 was your age I knew eveiy pretty girl in 
 town ! " He looked at me keenly. 
 
 "Was she pretty.''" I asked. "I did not see 
 her face." 
 
 "Pretty! She was a beauty, sir! She looked 
 like an angel. And she is a lady. I don't know 
 that a man is a judge of the beauty of a person 
 who runs after and catches his hat for him," 
 he added, his deep eyes lighting faintly with 
 a little half-gleam of amusement. "What be- 
 tween rage and gratitude he is not in a very 
 judicial temper. But she seemed to me a beauty; 
 and she resembled one who was a beauty. Yes, 
 sir, she was a beauty." And he sighed and 
 
 turned away. 
 
 [74] 
 
VIII 
 OF A MAKER OF MUD PIES 
 
 ONLY a day or two after this conversation 
 — I am not sure that it was not the next 
 day — I happened to be passing along a little 
 street out in the same direction with, but several 
 blocks beyond, the quarter where my old friend 
 and I had our residences on the border of re- 
 spectability. The ground was so broken there 
 that the street was not half built up, and such 
 houses as there were were of the poorest class. 
 
 As I passed along my attention was attracted 
 by a little crowd gathered around some object 
 in the middle of the street. They were shouting 
 with laughter, and my curiosity prompted me 
 to go up and look to see what amused them. 
 
 I found it to be a very small and dirty lit- 
 tle boy, who certainly presented an amusing 
 enough spectacle. 
 
 He was so little that it was wonderful how 
 [75] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 so much dirt could have found lodgment on 
 so small a person. His clothes were good, — 
 better than those of the children around him, 
 — but were covered with mud from top to 
 bottom, as if he had been making mud pies 
 — which, indeed, he had been doing — and 
 had proposed to bake them on himself. His 
 hands were caked with mud, and his round 
 face also was plentifully streaked with it. 
 Where it showed through, the skin looked fair 
 and the face delicate and refined. He might 
 have been a muddy Cupid. 
 
 He did not seem at all disturbed or even dis- 
 concerted by the crowd about him, or the amuse- 
 ment he was causing, or the questions put to 
 him. All of them he answered promptly and 
 with perfect coolness. The only difficulty was in 
 understanding him ; he was so small that he 
 could not talk plainly. And, besides, he was very 
 busy with a most attractive pile of wet sand. 
 
 There is something in wet sand which no 
 [76] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 man-child can resist. I wonder if it is not a 
 shred of our heredity, from the time when we 
 burrowed in the ground. 
 
 "What is your name?" they were asking him. 
 
 "Urt'n Ale Avith," — indifferently; for lie 
 was much engaged. 
 
 "What.?" 
 
 "Urt'n Ale Avith," — in a different key, 
 while he gave a swipe across his face which 
 left new streaks. 
 
 "What.?— Urt'n Ale Avith.?" 
 
 "Nor! Urt'n — Ale — Avith!" — with some 
 impatience. 
 
 They changed the question. 
 
 "Where do you live.?" 
 
 "At 'ome.'' He returned to his task, the 
 boring of a small tunnel with one little black 
 finger. 
 
 "Where is that?" 
 
 "At 'ome!" — evidently struck with their 
 denseness. 
 
 [77] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 "What street?" asked some one. 
 
 "Witchen Cheat." 
 
 "Witchin Street.?" 
 
 "Nor! Witchen Cheet!" 
 
 "Where is that?" the crowd inquired of 
 each other. No one knew. 
 
 "What did you leave home for, honey?" 
 asked a woman, stooping over him and putting 
 her hand on him. 
 
 "Wunned away!" he answered promptly, 
 with a reawakening of interest, and a sparkle 
 in his blue eyes at the recollection. 
 
 "Runned away?" 
 
 "Mh — hmh," with a nod of satisfaction, and a 
 dimple at the corner of his little muddy mouth. 
 
 "What did you run away for?" 
 
 "I d'n' know." 
 
 He stood up. 
 
 At this a child who had worked its way into 
 the inner circle about him gave a shrill explo- 
 sion of laughter. Little Mudpie's face flushed 
 [78 J 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 suddenly, and he walked up, and doubling his 
 dirty fist, struck the child as hard a blow as he 
 could, which caused a universal shout, and set 
 the children to whirling in the street, scream- 
 ing with laughter. 
 
 For the first time the boy showed signs of 
 distress; his little dirty mouth began to pucker 
 and his Uttle round chin to tremble, and he dug 
 one chubby black fist in his eye. 
 
 "Warn do 'ome," he said, in a low voice. 
 
 "Yes, you shall go. Don't cry, honey." And 
 several women, pressing around him, began to 
 pet him. One of them asked: "Don't you want 
 somethin' to eat ? Ain't you hungry.?" 
 
 "Mh — hmh — Yes, ma'am," he said, with a 
 little whimper and correction of his manners. 
 
 "All right: I'll give you something. Come 
 along, and then we '11 take you home." 
 
 On this several women with motherly kind- 
 ness began to talk as to which could give him 
 something quickest. 
 
 [79 1 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 "Which way is your home, little man?" I 
 asked, taking advantage of the break in the 
 crowd. 
 
 He turned and waved his little arm, taking 
 in half the horizon. 
 
 "Dat way." 
 
 At least, it was the half of the horizon to- 
 ward which I was going, so I said to the 
 women that if they would give him something 
 to eat, I would undertake to get him home 
 safely. This division of labor was acceptable, 
 and the woman who had first suggested feed- 
 ing him having given him two large slices of 
 bread covered thick with jam, and others hav- 
 ing contributed double as much more, I took 
 the little stray's wrist in default of a hand, — 
 both of those members being engaged trying to 
 hold his store of bread, — and having taken 
 leave of his friends, we started out westward to 
 find his home. 
 
 We had not gone more than fifty steps when 
 [80] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 he said, "I tired," or something as near that 
 as a mouth filled with bread and jam would 
 allow. 
 
 This was a new phase of the case. I had not 
 counted on this. But as there was no help for 
 it, when he had repeated the statement again, 
 and added the request, "Pee tote me," I 
 picked him up, dirt and all, and marched on. 
 
 It was a little funny anyhow to find myself 
 carrying such a bundle of boy and mud, to 
 which was added the fact that every now and 
 then lumps of blackberry jam were being 
 smeared over my clothes and face and stuck 
 in my hair, a process to which the wai-mth of 
 the day did not fail to contribute its part; but 
 it was only when I got into my own section 
 of the town that I fully appreciated the hu- 
 morousness of the figure I must cut. 
 
 I would gladly have put my little burden 
 down, but he would not be so disposed of. 
 
 Prosperity is the nurse of Arrogance, and 
 [81 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 under prosperity my little man had grown a 
 tyrant, and whenever I proposed putting him 
 down, he said so firmly, "No, no; I tired! pee 
 tote me," that I was forced to go on. 
 
 The first person I met that I knew was old 
 Mr. Miles. He was muflled up, but yet was 
 walking somewhat more vigorously than when 
 I last saw him on the street. He stopped, in 
 apparent doubt as to my identity, and looked 
 rather pleased as well as amused over my ap- 
 pearance, but expressed no surprise when I 
 made a half-explanation. 
 
 The child, possibly touched by his pale, thin 
 face, but more probably sensible of his sym- 
 pathy, suddenly held out his chubby, black 
 hand with a piece of jam-smeared bread in it, 
 and said, "Warn tome ?" 
 
 It manifestly pleased the old fellow, for he 
 actually bent over and made a pretence of bit- 
 ing off a piece. 
 
 When I left him I took a side street. 
 [82] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 I was going to a police station to learn if 
 any notice had been left there of a lost child, 
 but as I passed through a rather retired street, 
 to avoid observation from people I might know, 
 I heard a musical voice behind me exclaim : 
 
 "Why, Burton ! Where on earth have you 
 been?" 
 
 Something about the voice struck me like 
 a memory from the past. Turning, I stood face 
 to face with Elizabeth Dale. Had she been an 
 angel I could not have been more overcome. 
 
 The three or four years since I had seen her 
 in the milliner's shop had added to her beauty; 
 had filled out her slim, girlish figure, and had 
 given thoughtfulness to her rosy face and 
 made it gracious as well as sweet. 
 
 She was too much engrossed with the child, 
 whom I quickly discovered to be her nephew, 
 to notice me at first, and I found myself 
 abandoned by my charge, who immediately 
 deserted me, leaving, however, abundant traces 
 [83] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 of himself on my person, and climbed into the 
 outstretched arms of his pretty aunt without a 
 word, and began to hug and kiss her with all 
 his might. Nor did I blame him. In fact, I 
 should have liked to be as small as he, to have 
 enjoyed the same blessed privilege. 
 
 As she turned half away from me, with the 
 boy in her arms, I recognized her on the in- 
 stant as the handsome girl who had picked up 
 old Mr. Miles's hat for him that day in the 
 street. 
 
 The joyousness of her nature was testified 
 to in her peals of laughter over her Little 
 nephew's extraordinary appearance, and her 
 loveliness of character was proven both by the 
 aflFection with which the child choked and 
 kissed her, and the sweetness with which she 
 received his embraces, muddy and jam-be- 
 smeared as he was. All she said was: "Oh, 
 Burton! isn't that enough.' You'll ruin aunty's 
 nice dress." 
 
 [84] 
 
r !V" 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 But Burton only choked and kissed her the 
 harder. 
 
 I offered to take him and relieve her, but 
 she declined this, and Mudpie would not have 
 come even if she would have let him. He knew 
 when he was well off. He just climg the closer 
 to her, patting her with his chubby hand, and 
 rubbing his dirty cheek against her pretty one 
 with delightful enjoyment, saying, "I 'ove my 
 aunty, — I 'ove my aunty." 
 
 And as she smiled and thanked me with her 
 gracious air for my part in his rescue, I be- 
 gan to think that, faith! I more than half did 
 so, too. 
 
 The next day I met Elizabeth Dale on the 
 street, entirely by accident — on her part. I 
 may almost say, it was accidental on my part 
 also, for I had been walking up and down and 
 around blocks for two hours before she added 
 her light to the sunshine without. 
 
 She was gracious enough to stop and give 
 [85] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 me a message of thanks frpm her sister, Mrs. 
 Davis, for my kindness to her young prodigal, 
 and she added that if he had not eaten of the 
 husks of the swine, he had, at least, looked as 
 if he had played with them. 
 
 It was a memorable interview for me ; for it 
 was the first time I ever had what might be 
 called a real conversation with Elizabeth Dale. 
 I was guileful and stretched it out, claiming, I 
 remember, a much closer acquaintance with 
 the Reverend Peterkin Davis than I had ever 
 thought before of doing. She even said her sis- 
 ter had written and posted me her thanks, but 
 had commissioned her if she saw me again, to 
 say she would be very glad to have me call 
 and give her "the privilege of thanking me in 
 person"; so she was pleased to express it. 
 
 After that, of course, I felt I could do no 
 less than call, and I was so gracious about giv- 
 ing her sister "the privilege" she requested, 
 that I called that very evening; and as her sis- 
 [86] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 ter happened to have a headache, and I saw 
 only the younger sister, I called again only a 
 few evenings afterward. For by this time Miss 
 Elizabeth Dale and I were friends, and I now 
 think I was almost beginning to be more. 
 
 I became suddenly a somewhat regular at- 
 tendant on the Reverend Dr. Davis's church. 
 
 [87] 
 
IX 
 THE CARVED HEART 
 
 I DID not see old Mr. Miles, to tell him that 
 I had discovered his young benefactress, for 
 Youth is forgetful in the sunshine of prosper- 
 ity, and I did not call on him immediately. 
 
 One afternoon as I passed along his street 
 he was sitting out on the seat under the old 
 beech tree, all mufHed up in his overcoat; but 
 I was going to pay a call on " Witchen Cheet," 
 and was in something of a hurry, so did not 
 stop, and when I was thinking of getting ready 
 to call on him some time afterward, William 
 Kemp told me he had left town for the sum- 
 mer. 
 
 I did not think of him again for a long time. 
 My thoughts were so occupied ; for I was not 
 the only person that stayed in town that sum- 
 mer. Miss Elizabeth Dale was there also, and 
 though she went off once, to my great discon- 
 [88] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 tent, to visit some relatives in the country for 
 a few weeks, she was in the city most of the 
 summer. 
 
 It was astonishing how completely her ab- 
 sence depopulated the town and how equally 
 her presence filled it. I heard other men speak 
 of the city being deserted, but after she re- 
 turned I did not find it so. 
 
 I do not think that I ever thought of being 
 in love with her as a practical matter. I never 
 dreamed of the possibility of her being in love 
 with me. She was far too beautiful and too 
 popular ever to think of a poor young lawyer 
 like myself. In fact, marriage was something 
 on which I might dream, but I had never se- 
 riously contemplated it. I thought I should 
 marry some day, as I thought I should die 
 some day, but I certainly had never thought 
 as yet of marrying Elizabeth Dale. My dream 
 then was rather of an heiress and a large man- 
 sion, as it had formerly been of a princess and 
 [89] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 a palace; and meantime I lived in the third 
 floor of a small boarding-house, and never 
 dreamed that Elizabeth Dale would think of 
 me for a minute. As far as I went was timor- 
 ously to send her flowers, or worship her beauty 
 and hate furiously every man who had the im- 
 pertinence to look at her. 
 
 But Summer is a dangerous time in a South- 
 ern city. The true life of the South comes out 
 only in Summer. Then it flowers. Then the 
 verandas become drawing-rooms, and recep- 
 tions are held on the front steps. It is one of 
 the reasons why life in a Southern city is easier 
 than in a Northern one. It is no groundless 
 superstition that gives the Moon a power to 
 affect the Mind. The Providence that tempers 
 the wind to the shorn lamb, made the Summer 
 for the portionless girl. Given soft white rai- 
 ment and the moonlight of a Summer night, 
 the Summer girl need ask no favors of her 
 satin-clad winter sister. 
 
 [90] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 How I blessed that summer for the ease 
 with which I met Elizabeth Dale ! If I used to 
 see her almost every evening, stroll with her 
 on the shady streets, row on the placid river, 
 read to her, think of her and plan for her a 
 great deal more than I did of my practice, ^ — 
 which of late had really grown, as was quite 
 fortunate for the little florist at the corner 
 above me, though it was still far below the 
 large and lucrative business which was to be 
 my stepping-stone to the chief-justiceship, — it 
 was only as of a beautiful being whose mere 
 smile was more than all other rewards, and 
 all that I dared aspire to. It was enough for 
 me to live in the same town with her. 
 
 As will be seen then, I was not at this time 
 in love with Miss Elizabeth Dale; I only ad- 
 mired her, and hated those who were. 
 
 Almost the only time I thought of old Mr. 
 Miles that summer was one evening when 
 Elizabeth Dale and I were strolling through 
 [91 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 the old street on which his house stood. She 
 was arrayed in a simple white dress, as angels 
 and young girls should be, and she carried a 
 large pink rose, which I had selected with some 
 care for her at my little florist's. I had hoped 
 that she would wear the rose, but she did not; 
 she only carried it in her hand. 
 
 As we passed slowly along, exchanging the 
 pleasant trivialities which two young people 
 deal in in such cases, the old yard stretching 
 back looked cool and inviting under its big 
 trees. The seat under the old beech looked 
 convenient and sequestered, and an air of 
 quietude and calm seemed to rest on every- 
 thing. I suggested going in, which surprised 
 her, but I told her the owner was a friend of 
 mine, and was absent from the city, and then 
 informed her that he was the old gentleman 
 whose hat she had picked up in the street. 
 
 The gate was tied up, and I was about to cut 
 the fastening, when she said she would climb 
 [92 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 over it, which she did, with my aid, with the 
 agihty of a fawn. 
 
 She must have seen the look of surprised 
 admiration on my tell-tale face, for she said, 
 with mounting color in her cheeks: 
 
 "Country training. I fear I never shall get 
 used to city ways." 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" I said. 
 
 We wandered about for a whUe, and then 
 came to a stop under the old beech, which 
 showed on its gray, scarred trunk the rough 
 traces of many a schoolboy's pride or lover's 
 devotion. As we looked at it, she gently stuck 
 my rose in her dress. 
 
 Most of the carving on the trunk was old, 
 for few entered that secluded yard of late, and 
 much was indecipherable. 
 
 One pair of broad initials, high up, enclosed 
 
 in a large heart, I made out as "B. M." and 
 
 "E. G." ; but my companion did not entirely 
 
 agree with me. The «B. M." she thought I 
 
 [93 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 was probably correct about, but as to the 
 "E. G." I was only possibly so. 
 
 "Those letters would stand for my moth- 
 er," she said softly. "Only she was always 
 Betsey." 
 
 "Or they might stand, 'For Example,'" said 
 I, with the light wit of a young man. "Now, 
 if I just cut 'D.' after that, and change the 
 'B. M.,' it would be all right. I should have 
 followed the example." 
 
 "Why, it would be like sacrilege !" she said, 
 her large eyes resting on the tracing above us. 
 "Whoever they were, they were, no doubt, two 
 lovers, and that old scar may be the only trace 
 left of them on earth." 
 
 I wished, as I glanced at her, I could have 
 caused the look in her eyes as they rested on 
 those relics of that far-off romance. 
 
 I do not know whether it was that our con- 
 versation began to grow a little too grave after 
 that, but she suddenly decided that we had 
 [94] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 better be going home, and notwithstanding my 
 protests, she rose and started. 
 
 This was the only time she went with me 
 into the old yard, though I often pressed her 
 to go again, and it was the only time I re- 
 member that we ever spoke of old Mr. Miles. 
 
 I mentioned to William Kemp that I had 
 visited the grounds, as he was in some sort 
 their custodian. 
 
 "Yes, suh, I see you," he said. "Jes' mek 
 yo'self at home." 
 
 This was all he said, but it suddenly made 
 me feel as if William were my confidant. 
 
 [95 ] 
 
X 
 
 SHOWING THAT 
 
 LOVE IS STILL A NATIVE 
 
 OF THE ROCKS 
 
 AS the summer passed and the autumn 
 J. \. came, I began to grow restless and un- 
 happy. The trees had lost their greenness, and 
 the town was taking on its autumn look. And 
 my happy summer evenings, with strolls along 
 the moonlit summer streets, or drifting out 
 on the river, were gone with the greenness 
 of the leaves, and something had come like 
 a frost over me and my happiness. 
 
 I could not tell just what it was, unless it 
 were the frequent visits to town of a young 
 man, named Goodrich, who lived in another 
 State and a larger city. 
 
 I had met Mr. Goodrich once or twice in 
 the early summer, and had thought nothing 
 of him: not as much as I thought of several 
 [96 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 others who used to sit on Mrs. Davis's front 
 porch on "Witchin Cheet" and interfere with 
 my enjoyment there ; but now he was back in 
 the city, stajring at one of the biggest hotels, 
 and spending most of his time — all of it, I de- 
 clared — at Mrs. Davis's. 
 
 I never knew before what Diogenes felt when 
 Alexander came between him and the sun. 
 
 I met this Alexander every time I went 
 there, and though I do not think I would ever 
 have been base enough to murder him, I would 
 cheerfully have seized and dropped him into 
 some far-off dungeon to pass the rest of his 
 natural life in painful and unremitted solitude. 
 
 My hostility to him was not at all tempered 
 by the fact that he was very good-looking, had 
 good manners, and was reported to be exceed- 
 ingly rich; nor even by the further fact that 
 Miss Dale was going off somewhere to teach 
 that year, her scholastic term beginning a 
 month or two later than usual, on account of 
 [97 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 the absence in Europe of the lady who had 
 engaged her. 
 
 I gave myself so many airs about Mr. Good- 
 rich's "continued business" (for such was the 
 cause assigned for his protracted stay among 
 us), and made myself so generally disagreeable, 
 —a faculty which I possess in a high degree 
 of development on occasion,— that finally Miss 
 Dale, on some exceptional outbreak, gave me 
 clearly to understand that she would put up 
 with no more of my arrogance, and sent me 
 about my business. 
 
 The exact cause of our rupture was as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 I had for some time, whenever I called on 
 Miss Dale, either found Mr. Goodrich settled 
 comfortably in the little veranda— "Planted 
 like a tree!" I termed it,— or soon after I had 
 taken my post, he appeared with the regularity 
 of a sidereal body.' 
 
 I would not have admitted that I was jeal- 
 [98] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 ous of him to save his life, and in my present 
 frame of mind, hardly to save my own. But 
 jealous! I was jealous of the wind for toying 
 with her hair and of the sun for bathing her in 
 its light. 
 
 Naturally, as I know now, — perversely, as I 
 thought then, certain members of Miss Dale's 
 family threw no obstacles in Mr. Goodrich's 
 way. I asserted that they brazenly pursued 
 him, and I always sat lance-in-rest for them, a 
 course which came near being my undoing. 
 
 Heaven, however, after some chastening, 
 was good to me. 
 
 My rival, like most young men, was full of 
 himself. He had travelled, and he loved to talk 
 of his experiences and was not unappreciative 
 of his possessions. He would spend lavishly 
 on some personal gratification and then skimp 
 over some little thing which instinct should 
 have made him do generously. I saw the joints 
 in his harness and aimed my shafts dexterously. 
 [99 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 I viewed with inward rage his deliberate in- 
 vestment of what I now deemed my especial 
 prize ; but I treated him outwardly with ma- 
 lignant courtesy. 
 
 I avow this deceitfulness now, because I 
 found him afterwards a good fellow. 
 
 It was only occasionally that I treated my- 
 self to the luxury of a direct thrust. 
 
 One evening, one of the members of Miss 
 Dale's household, who I thought espoused my 
 rival's side too warmly, and was too much 
 given to talking of him in Miss Dale's pres- 
 ence, was telling of his experience with Lon- 
 don tailors. Mr. Goodrich had, according to 
 this faithful historian, had some clothes made 
 in London, during "his last visit there," which 
 had fitted him perfectly there; but on his ar- 
 rival here, strange to relate, he had unaccount- 
 ably found them too small for him. The lady 
 could not account for it. I, whose excursions 
 had hardly been ever more than "from the 
 [ 100 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 blue bed to the brown," using another's wit, 
 hazarded the conjecture that possibly Mr. 
 Goodrich was not as big a man in London as 
 he appeared to be here. 
 
 This, after a moment, served to change the 
 subject. 
 
 I was not, however, always as happy as this. 
 
 In Love, as in Diplomacy, a blunder is some- 
 times worse than a crime. I had committed the 
 grave blunder of falling too deeply in love to 
 act with judgment. Like "the shepherd in 
 Virgil," I had "become acquainted with Love 
 and found him a Native of the Rocks." 
 
 I was, in fact, much more deeply sunk in 
 that tenacious soil than I was aware of; and all 
 the while that I fancied I was angling for my 
 young lady, she had me securely hooked on 
 her silken line, and having wit enough to 
 know it, amused herself with me to her heart's 
 content. 
 
 A woman's heart is a strange anatomy. 
 [101 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 "He little kens, I ween, a woman's breast, 
 Who thinks that wanton thing is won hy sighs." 
 
 So wrote one who knew something of the 
 subject. 
 
 We learn, however, only from experience, 
 and though I knew Byron, I did not know my 
 young lady's heart until I had had experience 
 of it. So seeing how tender it was towards all 
 animate things, I vainly fancied it would be 
 tender towards one who would have put his 
 heart under her feet. But I found it adamant. 
 And until the magic spell was called that could 
 open it, it remained fast shut with all its hid 
 treasures. She walked serenely through all my 
 worship, and I devoured my heart in secret, 
 and cursed the one I deemed the cause of my 
 misery. 
 
 For any sign she gave, she might never have 
 
 had an idea that I cared for her, more than for 
 
 the Statue of Liberty which adorned the arms 
 
 of the State. 
 
 [ 102] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 Having no means to outshine my rival in 
 any material way, I determined to eclipse him 
 by display of my Intellect. 
 
 I had at times written to my young lady 
 what I was pleased to call "poems." I now 
 polished up one of these and sent it to her. 
 But as I wished to derive the full benefit that 
 surprise would bring when she should discover 
 the identity of her poet, and also, perhaps, a 
 little because I was a trifle shy, as all true 
 lovers are, I wrote the copy of verses in a dis- 
 guised hand and sent them to her anony- 
 mously They were as follows : 
 
 LINES TO CLAUDIA: 
 
 U is not, Claudia, thai thine eyes 
 
 Are sweeter unto me. 
 Than is the light of Summer skies 
 
 To captives just set free. 
 
 It is not that the setting sun 
 Is tangled in thy hair, 
 [ 103 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 And recks not of the course to run. 
 In such a silken snare. 
 
 Nor for the music of thy words. 
 
 Fair Claudia, love I thee. 
 Though sweeter than the songs of birds 
 
 That melody to me. 
 
 It is not that rich roses rare 
 
 Within thy garden grow. 
 Nor that the fairest lilies are 
 
 Less snowy than thy brow. 
 
 Nay, Claudia, 't is that every grace 
 
 In thy dear self I find ; 
 That Heaven itself is in thy face. 
 
 And also in thy mind. 
 
 When I called on her next evening I fully 
 expected her to make some allusion to my 
 poem which would lead me after a little to 
 avow my authorship. She did nothing of the 
 kind. At length I deftly introduced the sub- 
 [ 104 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 ject of poetry; but not even then did she be- 
 tray the least idea that I had sent her a poem. 
 I was in some doubt whether she had re- 
 ceived it ; until she asked me suddenly, why I 
 supposed men sent things anonymously. 
 
 I said I supposed they did it because they 
 wanted the person to whom they sent them to 
 have them and it was pleasure enough to know 
 that they had received them. 
 
 On this she asked me if I knew Mr. Good- 
 rich's handwriting. 
 
 I said I did not ; but I thought she ought to 
 know it. 
 
 She reflected a moment, and then with her 
 eyes far away on the horizon, said she would 
 have thought so too ; but what she referred to 
 was in a disguised hand and so she could not 
 be sure. 
 
 "What is it.?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh ! just a copy of verses ; and very pretty 
 verses they are." 
 
 [ 105 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 I said, "I did not know he was a poet. But 
 perhaps he was inspired ?" 
 
 "Oh ! no ;'' she laughed, "1 would not go so 
 far as that, though they remind me a little of 
 a poem of Sir Charles Sedley's : 
 
 'Not Celia that Ijuster am. 
 Or better than the rest — ' 
 
 "You remember that poem ?" 
 
 I said I remembered it. 
 
 And this was all the thanks I received for a 
 poem into which I had poured my melted 
 heart. 
 
 Yet she possessed one gifl which I can call 
 little less than a sixth sense. She divined with 
 fatal instinct the exact moment at which to 
 vouchsafe me a kindly word, a sympathetic 
 glance, a sunny flash. And Minerva never 
 dealt her grains of balm with more divine 
 precision. 
 
 A thousand times I swore to myself that 
 [106] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 summer that I 'd put up with no more of her 
 caprice, and on each occasion, just when I pre- 
 pared to put my resolution in force, she shat- 
 tered it with a single shaft. 
 
 I told her once that had she lived in past 
 times, she must have been burnt as a witch, 
 unless haply I had been there to rescue her. 
 Whereat she laughed in that musical way she 
 had, which a sidelong flash of her eye always 
 sent home. And after pretending that I had 
 paid her a very left-handed compliment, tUl 
 I was almost pushed to make it broader, she 
 said: 
 
 "Even had I been a witch, sir, you would 
 never have rescued me. You would have be- 
 gun to bluster at the door and offer to fight 
 all comers, and so would have been over- 
 whelmed at once and never even have known 
 my true friends who might have planned my 
 rescue." 
 
 I knew she meant Goodrich, and I was all 
 [ 107 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 in a heat at once, and, no doubt, glowered. I 
 know I sniffed, though I did not know it until 
 I saw the twinkle of delight in her eye. 
 
 Wild tribes give victims to their squaws to 
 torture. Civilization, after all, has not made such 
 vast strides ! It is the method rather than the 
 motive that has changed. Human Nature does 
 not change much. My witch practised upon one 
 of her victims with exquisite ingenuity, though 
 Truth compels me to say he was a fair mark. 
 
 I fancied about this time that my favored 
 rival was engaged successfully in planning the 
 witch's rescue, and I was in what might be 
 termed "a state of mind." He was always on 
 hand. 
 
 I began to give myself airs, which no doubt 
 were mighty amusing to my young lady till 
 they touched her nearly. 
 
 At length, I became quite intolerable. 
 
 Having failed all through the Harvest Moon 
 — that amber moon which makes more harvests 
 [ 108 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 than those gleaned in the fields of com — to 
 secure even a moment of her undivided com- 
 pany, I grevr at first morosCj then actually sav- 
 age, and on the first opportunity I had, took 
 my lady to task : brought her to book. 
 
 It was a moonlit night — just such a night as 
 that must have been in which young Lorenzo 
 and pretty Jessica, in the Belmont glades, tried 
 to "outnight" each other with all the classic 
 tales of lovers' histories they could recall, from 
 Troilus down, making the final poem on moon- 
 light for all time. 
 
 The moon as on that night shone bright. 
 
 "... The sweet wind did gently kiss the trees 
 And they did make no noue." 
 
 And as I walked beneath the moon-bathed, 
 wind-kissed trees toward the spot where my 
 Jessica waited, my soul was filled with love for 
 her, and I vowed, if Heaven vouchsafed me the 
 chance, that very night to swear I loved her 
 [ 109 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 well and steal her soul with many vows of faith, 
 and every one a true one. 
 
 When I arrived, the coast was clear, and possi- 
 bly there was hope that it might remain so. The 
 other members of the family were not at home, 
 and my hated rival for that night, at least, was 
 out of the way, for he had been riding with Miss 
 Jessica Dale that evening and had gone off. 
 
 Jessica, in a white muslin, looked divine. 
 As she took her seat at the darkened end of 
 the balcony she mentioned casually, in reply 
 to some observation of mine at my unwonted 
 good fortune, that Mr. Goodrich had left im- 
 mediately after tea : "He has some very impor- 
 tant business." 
 
 Her air was that of possession. 
 
 It was this air that inflamed me. 
 
 "His business is doubtless very important.?" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 She was so quiet that I took her silence for 
 confusion and grew more bold. Even then, had 
 [110] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 Prudence but tipped Reason a winkj I might 
 have been saved; but finding the way so easy, 
 my Boldness became Insolence, and I forgot 
 myself and overstepped all bounds. 
 
 I suddenly found that I had committed the 
 fatal blunder of attacking my rival. I had 
 driven her to defend him. 
 
 This was bad enough ! But I made it worse. 
 'T is said that against Stupidity the gods them- 
 selves are powerless. I demanded to know why 
 Mr. Goodrich was always there. 
 
 "Mr. Goodrich has business here," she said 
 again, with a little lift of her head which I 
 might well have heeded. 
 
 "Important business ! and he seems veiy 
 successful in it." 
 
 "Yes — I hope so." 
 
 "Doubtless!" 
 
 A pause followed this, during which I gath- 
 ered steam. She sat in sUence in the dusk. 
 I took it for conviction. 
 
 [Ill] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 I determined to fire one more shot to make 
 sure of victory and then I would be magnanimous. 
 
 "It is not only the Poor, but the Rich we 
 seem to have always with us." 
 
 She rose without a word and walked slowly 
 into the house. 
 
 Had she moved rapidly I might have hoped. 
 I knew, however, as she passed in at the win- 
 dow that my hopes were dead, slain by my 
 own foUy. 
 
 I was ready to follow and seize her and oflPer 
 amends, my life, my contritions — everything. 
 But she gave me no time. She did not pause. 
 She passed through the room and out of the 
 door, and the next moment I saw her chmbing 
 the stair slowly, but with the graduated mo- 
 tion of a piece of machinery. 
 
 I sat for a moment and pondered, and then, 
 with a revulsion at the empty chair and empty 
 room behind me, rose and walked out of the 
 gate and down the street. 
 [ 112 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 The sounds of jollity and of happy family 
 life came to me from moon-bathed yards and 
 shadowed verandas. Children flitted about, 
 chasing each other with subdued laughter and 
 with little cries of ecstasy; young couples 
 strolled by under the maples, their voices low- 
 ered to soft murmurings. 
 
 "How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night." 
 
 I alone was in darkness ; I only was alone. 
 
 The world was happy, but for folly I was 
 banished — banished by my own folly! For me 
 there was "no world without Verona-walls." 
 
 As I passed by old Mr. Miles's house, the 
 yard with its great trees lay bathed in the 
 moonlight; but it was empty and silent. A dim 
 light in one of the up-stairs windows alone 
 showed that the house was the habitation of 
 life. But it appeared only to emphasize the 
 loneliness. 
 
 I wandered about the streets until the life 
 [113] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 all withdrew and vanished within doors, and 
 only I was left. I even went back and trav- 
 ersed the street on which stood the little 
 house where I had been so happy a few hours 
 before. As I looked at it from the opposite 
 side, it was dark and silent like all the rest. 
 The chairs we had occupied were still on the 
 balcony, but they were empty effigies of life. 
 
 It was a strange feeling, as I thought how 
 for blocks and blocks, covering miles, in those 
 sealed brick boxes lay hushed and unconscious 
 as in their tombs all the thousands who but 
 a few hours before made the teeming city 
 alive. I only was awake, — unless it were some 
 night-prowler threading his way like a fox 
 through tombs; some watchman keeping vigil 
 like a watcher by the dead; some sick person 
 tossing on a bed of languor. It suddenly made 
 me feel closer to the Ul and desolate than ever 
 before. I seemed like a lonely sentinel on a soli- 
 tary outpost guarding the slumbers of the world. 
 [ 114 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 The moon began to redden as it sank lower 
 in the sky, and it disappeared in a long bank 
 of cloud before it set. The morning broke rainy 
 and dismal. 
 
 With the daylight, however, my spirit re- 
 turned, and after breakfast I began to think 
 there might be hope. I decided that I had 
 been treated badly and she must apologize. I 
 waited all day for a note. But none came. Every 
 step on my stair set my heart to beating. But 
 there were no notes. 
 
 About noon I decided that I would go a 
 little further. I would give her an opportunity 
 to apologize. So I was weak enough to go 
 around to that part of the town, as if casually, 
 on the chance of seeing her. I did see her, at 
 a distance. She was driving with Goodrich ! 
 This gave me a revulsion. She was a heartless 
 creature ! 
 
 I went back to my office and to gloom. 
 
 Next day the light again inspirited me. I 
 [115] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 would meet her halfway. So after writing a 
 dozen notes, conveying every shade of disap- 
 probation, and consigning them to the waste- 
 basket, I started out to play my new game. 
 
 I had, however, counted without my cost. 
 Miss Elizabeth Dale was not to be thus toyed 
 with. I had struck too deep, and the arrow 
 rankled. My first overture met a rebuff so seri- 
 ous that I was completely floored. When I 
 called she was excused. 
 
 I freely confess that even after this I would 
 have been mean enough to tumble down in 
 the dirt and eat ever so much humble pie, if I 
 had thought it would have done any good. The 
 young lady, however, was so inexorable in her 
 indignation that I found not the sUghtest 
 ground for hope that she would relent and 
 accept my apologies, though I sought one 
 with the diligence of Esau. I was, accord- 
 ingly, forced to assume the "High horse" as 
 my sole salvation ; which I did with what out- 
 [116] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 ward grace I mightj though I was inwardly 
 consumed between consternation, regret, and 
 rage, and cursed Mr. Goodrich heartily. 
 
 The "High horse" is sometimes, perhaps, a 
 successful steed, but it is mighty poor riding ; 
 and I spent an autunui as wretched as my 
 summer had been delightful, passing my time 
 meditating insults to my successful rival and 
 punishment for my young lady. It was a sad 
 autumn. 
 
 Sorrow is somehow related to Religion, and in 
 my gloom I began to think of becoming good. 
 
 Providence helped me once. 
 
 I heard one evening of a poor woman who, 
 with a house full of little children, had been 
 left destitute by the death of her husband in a 
 railroad accident. He had been an engineer, 
 and had run into a "washout," one night after 
 a heavy rain. He had seen the danger ahead, 
 and had had time to jump, his fireman, who es- 
 caped, reported; but after reversing his lever 
 [117] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 and appljring the breaks, he had stuck to his 
 engine, "to put sand on,'' and had gone down 
 under it. The only "sand" in that engine was 
 not in the box. 
 
 Hall came from my county, and that was al- 
 ways a tie with me. So, though I was not much 
 in the way of charity work, and though the 
 weather was what Basham Miles would have 
 called "inclement," I went down to see if the 
 woman was in as great need as I had heard 
 she was in. 
 
 I had some difficulty in finding the little 
 frame house in the street which was full of 
 such houses, all as much alike as those which 
 the maid had to pick between in Ali Baba's 
 history. 
 
 It was, by the way, the same street in which 
 I had foimd my little mudpie-maker making 
 his pies that day so long ago. 
 
 At length, however, a poor woman, whose 
 face instantly grew sympathetic when I men- 
 [118 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 tioned the name of the widow, pointed me to 
 the house. I found the family not destitute, 
 indeed, of food, for Hall had been "a. saving 
 man," but yet in a sad plight, as might have 
 been expected. I recognized the widow at the 
 first glance as the woman who had fed the 
 mudpie-maker with bread and jam that sum- 
 mer day: though grief had sorely changed her 
 appearance. 
 
 Every one was kind, she said. At the men- 
 tion of my name her countenance lightened, 
 and she said she had heard of me, and had 
 meant to write to me, as a lady had told her 
 to place her case in my hands, and maybe I 
 could get some money for her from the Com- 
 pany. 
 
 I told her I would look into the matter; but, 
 regretfully, I had to inform her that she had 
 no case in law against the railroad. 
 
 I went again, however, and was enabled to 
 take her a small fund which two or three sjfm- 
 [119] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 pathetic friends, moved by the story of her sor- 
 row, had contributed. When I knocked, the 
 door was opened by Elizabeth Dale. 
 
 I should not have been more surprised had 
 I walked into a new sphere. But the ways of 
 women are wonderful. She was as calm and 
 self-possessed as though she had proof that my 
 post was always on Mrs. Hall's front door step. 
 She shook hands with me as naturally as if she 
 had expected to meet me there, and we had 
 parted only the evening instead of the autumn 
 before. 
 
 "How do you do.''" Then looking back into 
 the dim little room behind her : 
 
 "Mrs. Hall, here is a gentleman to see you. 
 Can he come in.''" 
 
 I heard an affirmative answer, and she 
 stepped aside. 
 
 "Won't you walk in ?" 
 
 As I entered she said, "I am glad Mrs. HaU 
 has so good a friend." And before I could 
 [ 120 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 reply, she had passed out of the door and 
 closed it behind her. 
 
 I felt suddenly as if I were shut up in a 
 cave. My visit was a hurried one. When I 
 opened the door a minute later I caught a 
 glimpse of her at the top of the street, and 
 just as I looked, she disappeared. She was 
 walking rapidly. 
 
 Mrs. Hall's praises of her cost me aU the 
 money I had in my pocket, and a night's sleep 
 in the bargain. 
 
 It was she who had recommended me as a 
 lawyer. 
 
 Though after that I obeyed the Scriptural 
 injunction and visited the widow and the 
 fatherless more than once, and though Miss 
 Dale visited them frequently, as I heard from 
 her charges, yet I never met her there again. 
 
 Truly the ways of a woman are past finding 
 out. 
 
 [m] 
 
XI 
 
 A WARNING AND AN 
 
 EXAMPLE 
 
 "^>|WEET are the uses of Adversity," no 
 
 \<J doubt. But for all that, it does not com- 
 mend itself to a young man, if Adversity hap- 
 pen to take the form of a particularly pretty 
 girl's refusal to see him when he happens to 
 think her the one girl in all the world for him. 
 
 I was enabled to make this observation from 
 experience. 
 
 I tried "Adversity's sweet milk. Philoso- 
 phy"; but to no purpose. I found it crabbed 
 and hard, as ever the roughest pagan found it. 
 
 I summoned Reason to my aid, and plainly 
 proved how foolish my view was. Women 
 could not be so unlike each other, I argued. 
 I pointed out the folly of ruining my happiness 
 and my life because, forsooth, one woman of 
 all the countless myriads in the world refused 
 [ 122 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 to be my mate, — a girl whom only two or 
 three, or, at most, a half-dozen men thought 
 in any way superior to the rest, and in whom 
 all the others saw no more than in any fair 
 face, soft voice, gentle air, and kindly ways. 
 The chances were — I clearly showed — that I 
 was wrong, the rest of Mankind right. 
 
 All to no purpose. My coolest summing up 
 of judgment went down hke straw before my 
 heart's advocacy in the simple reply, "I love 
 her." 
 
 I was bewitched. I knew it, and yet I could 
 not stir. 
 
 Although at times I raged against myself 
 like a poor beast tangled in a net, I knew I 
 was hopelessly caught, and for the most part 
 submitted dumbly. 
 
 Unfortunately for me there was no war then 
 
 in progress, or I should probably have gone 
 
 and left the obdurate creature to repine for 
 
 having missed the imperishable laurels I should 
 
 [ 123 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 gaiiij and mourn too late the fatal madness of 
 driving such a Paladin of courage to despair. 
 
 I thought of going West, and reaping there 
 the large rewards of my abilities; but I doubted 
 whether civic spoils would touch her, and I 
 hesitated to take a step which would proclaim 
 my defeat. 
 
 I knew enough of war to know that after a 
 battle he that sleeps on the field is held the 
 victor, though he may have suffered most. 
 
 So, though stricken sorely, I held the field, 
 and faced the world. 
 
 Adversity winnows one's friends like a sieve. 
 I first lost happiness, then appetite, then sleep. 
 They follow each other like the numerals, 1, 2, 
 3. I, who had never known what it was to be 
 conscious of an hour between the time I went 
 to bed and that when my alarm clock awoke 
 me, any more than if I had crossed the bed 
 from night to day, now thrashed around for 
 hours and vainly waited with stout resolution 
 [ 124 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 and firmly closed eyes the coming of Sleep. I 
 never knew before how stealthy is Sleep, or 
 how coy. My friends began to remark to me 
 on my changed appearance; at least, those 
 whom I might term my second-best friends 
 did so, to my annoyance. My closest friends 
 only looked anxious and tried in secret, easily 
 discoverable ways to divert me. 
 
 Some of them went so far as to try to find 
 another girl for me. But "surely in vain the 
 net is spread in the sight of any bird." I could 
 not be caught even with so fair a bait as they 
 proposed. "Thisbe" was "a gray eye or so; but 
 not to the purpose." I felt that my case was 
 different from all the others in their lexicon of 
 experience. Like the man in the grammar, I 
 would be destroyed, no one should help me. 
 
 Time, however, is the great helper. He 
 works with a secrecy that steals through our 
 alertest watch and overcomes our stoutest de- 
 fences. He gives the buried seed help to burst 
 [ 125 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 its shell and make its way up to the Ught. He 
 lends his aid to soothe the sorest hurt. And, 
 as he helps to knit the lacerated flesh, so he 
 helps to heal the deeper wounds of the spirit. 
 
 In time my pride awoke, and did what my 
 friends had not been able to effect. Then acci- 
 dent helped me even against my will. 
 
 Among my friends was one in whose society 
 I had always found a great deal of pleasure. 
 She was no more like Elizabeth Dale with her 
 extremes of cruelty and sympathy, her pitfalls 
 of sauciness, her unexpectednesses, her infinite 
 variety and unvarjdng charm, than I was Uke 
 St. Francis of Assisi. But she was clever, intel- 
 ligent, and high-minded. And she was very sym- 
 pathetic with me. I saw a great deal of her, 
 and was aware that my friends were associating 
 our names. 
 
 As Miss Elizabeth Dale was now off teach- 
 ing, I had no fear of her hearing too much of 
 my consolement. 
 
 [126] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 Winter had now come to the rest of the 
 world, as well as to my heart, and Winter al- 
 ways gives courage. Christmas was approach- 
 ing. A freeze gave us the coveted opportunity 
 to skate, and I took my Mend skating. As we 
 were returning across the fields and reached a 
 fence on the roadside, she complained that one 
 of her hands was quite numbed by the cold, 
 and I undertook to warm it by rubbing it, 
 though it was cold work. I was engaged in the 
 dismal task when she gave a little exclamation 
 and quietly drew her hand away. I glanced up 
 just in time to see Elizabeth Dale look away 
 as she came down the lull. The next second 
 she turned her eyes our way and gave us a 
 smiling greeting. She had just come home for 
 the holidays. My friend laughed at my discom- 
 fiture. It was just my luck. 
 
 In my time of tribulation I began to think 
 of many persons and things that I had rather 
 forgotten in the times of my prosperity, and 
 [ 127 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 among them was old Mr. Basham MQes. I had 
 not seen him on the street during the whole 
 fall, as I generally did at that season of the 
 year, and one day I asked William about him. 
 He told me that he was at home ill; he had 
 come back from the country sick, and had been 
 confined to his room ever since. 
 
 "Fact is, suh, I 's mighty troubled 'bout 
 him," said the old servant. "He ain't gittin' 
 no better : jes gittin' punier an' punier. I don' 
 b'lieve he 's gwine to last much longer." 
 
 This was serious, and I questioned him as to 
 what the old gentleman did. 
 
 "He don' do nuttin' sep' set dyah all day 
 in de big cheer," he said. "He use' to read — 
 read all de time, night an' day, but he don' 
 eben do dat no longer ! " 
 
 "Who is with him ?" 
 
 "D'airi' no-body wid him, suh. He won' 
 have no-body. He never wuz no han' for 
 havin' folks 'bout him pesterin' him, no-how, 
 [ 128 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 — strange . folks expressly; he would n' even 
 have a doctor to come to see him, after old 
 Dr. Thomas die. He used to come sometimes. 
 Since den he would n' have no-body; but me 
 and Jane got him to le' me go and ax Dr. Will- 
 iams to come an' see him, an' he say he pretty 
 sick, an' gi' him some physic. But he would n' 
 teck it, suh ! He say he gwine die anyhow, an' 
 he ain't gwine take no nasty physic. He got 
 de bottle dyah now in he room, an' it jes full 
 as 'twas when I bring it from de drug-sto' !" 
 
 I said that I would go and see him. 
 
 "Yes, suh, wish you would; maybe he would 
 see yo', and maybe he won't. He mighty fond 
 o' you. He won' see many folks. Several ladies 
 been to inquire after him, and Mrs. Miller, she 
 and annur' lady too, sen' him things ; but he 
 won' see no-body, an' he won' eat nuttin'. I 's 
 right smartly troubled about him, suh." 
 
 I was troubled, too, and repeated my inten- 
 tion of calling to see him. 
 [ 129] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 "I tell you, suh," the old servant said sud- 
 denly, "a man ought to have wife and chillem 
 to take keer on him when he git ole, any'ow! " 
 
 I had not thought of this view of the case 
 before, but it did not strike me as wholly un- 
 reasonable. 
 
 When I called to see Mr. Miles that even- 
 ing, he received me. 
 
 I was shocked to find what a change there 
 was in him since I had seen him last. 
 
 I was shown through the cold and dark hall, 
 and by the vacant library, — the door of which 
 stood open as I passed, and the fireplace of 
 which showed empty and black, — and up the 
 wide stairs to the room Mr. Miles occupied. 
 
 He was sitting up in his old arm-chair by 
 the fire which was the only cheerful thing I 
 had seen in the house. 
 
 If I had thought the old man lonely when I 
 was there before, much more he seemed so 
 now : he was absolutely solitary. A row of 
 [ 130 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 books was on the table beside him, but their 
 very number was an evidence that he had no 
 appetite for them, and had them but to taste. 
 
 The only volume that looked as if he had 
 been using it was an old Bible. It lay nearest 
 him on his table, and had a marker in it. 
 
 He was only partly dressed, and had on an 
 old, long, flowered dressing-gown and slippers, 
 presenting a marked contrast to his general 
 neatness of apparel, whilst a beard, which he 
 had allowed to grow for a month or more, 
 testified to his feebleness and added to the 
 change in his appearance. 
 
 I never saw a picture of dejection greater 
 than he presented as I entered. His head was 
 sunk on his breast, and loneliness seemed to 
 encircle him round almost palpably. 
 
 I think my visit cheered him a little, though 
 he was strangely morose, and spoke of the 
 world with unwonted bitterness. He was, how- 
 ever, manifestly pleased at my coming to see 
 [131 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 him, though he dwelt on the regret he felt at 
 the trouble he caused me. 
 
 I tried to interest him in books and engage 
 him in talking of them. But he declared that 
 they were like people, they interested only 
 when one was strong and vigorous, and de- 
 serted you when you were ill or unfortunate. 
 
 "They fail you at the crucial time, sir," he 
 said bitterly. "They forsake you or bore you." 
 
 I said I hoped they were not so bad as 
 that. 
 
 "Yes, sir, they are!" he asserted testily. "I 
 esteemed them my friends ; lived with them, 
 cultivated them, and at the very moment when 
 I needed them most they failed me !" 
 
 He reached over and took up the old Bible 
 from his table. 
 
 "This book alone," he said, "has held out. 
 This has not deserted me. I have read some- 
 thing of all the philosophies, but none has the 
 spirituality and power that I find in certain 
 [ 132 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 parts of this. No wonder Scott said, 'There is 
 but one book.'" 
 
 He laid the book down again, and I picked 
 it up idly and opened it at the place where his 
 paper was. A marked passage caught my eye. 
 
 "As one whom his mother comforteth." 
 
 I laid the book back from where I had taken 
 it. 
 
 "That volume was my mother's," said the 
 old man, softly. "She died with it on her pil- 
 low, as she had lived with it in her heart." 
 
 I persuaded him before I left to let me send 
 a doctor to see him ; and coming away, I went 
 by and saw Dr. Williams, one of the leading 
 physicians in the town, who said he would go 
 to him at once. 
 
 I called to see the doctor next day to ask 
 about the old fellow, and he said he was a very 
 ill man. 
 
 "He is going to die," said the doctor, calmly. 
 [ 133 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 "Well, Doctor, ought not he to have some 
 one to stay with him?" I asked. 
 
 "Of course he ought," said the doctor; "and 
 I have told him so. But he is a very difficult 
 man to deal with. What can you do with him ? 
 He is going to die anyhow, and knows it, and 
 he says the idea of any one staying in the 
 house with him makes him nervous. I have 
 told his man Wilham to stay in the house to- 
 night, but I don't know that he will let him 
 do it." 
 
 I went to see Mr. Miles that night, for I 
 was very anxious about him, and found Will- 
 iam much stirred up, and sincerely glad to see 
 me. He had proposed to stay with him as the 
 doctor had directed, but the old gentleman 
 had positively forbidden it. 
 
 "He won' have no-body roun' him 'tall, 
 
 suh," said the old servant, hopelessly. "Two 
 
 or three people been heah to see him to-day, 
 
 but he won' see none on 'em ; he '11 hardly see 
 
 [ 134] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 me, an' he tell me when bedtime come, jes to 
 shet up as ushal, an' let him 'lone. 
 
 "But I'm gwine to stay in dat house to- 
 night, don' keer what he say!" said the old 
 servant, positively. 
 
 I asked if he thought the old gentleman 
 would see me. And we agreed that the best 
 thing for me to do was to go right up and an- 
 nounce myself. 
 
 So I did it, and found him sitting up as be- 
 fore. He looked, if anything, feebler than he 
 had done the evening before. He talked in a 
 weaker voice, and was more drowsy. He said 
 he could not lie down. I made up my mind to 
 sit up with him that night if he did not actu- 
 ally drive me out of the house ; so after a time, 
 as he seemed sleepy, I settled myself comfort- 
 ably in an arm-chair, which I emptied of a 
 score of books. 
 
 I think my presence comforted him, for he 
 said little, and simply drowsed on. Toward 
 [ 135 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 miduight he roused up, and having taken a 
 stimulant which the doctor had left him, 
 seemed stronger and rather inclined to talk. 
 
 The first question he asked surprised me. 
 He said suddenly, "Is your mother living ?" 
 
 I told him that she was. 
 
 "That is the greatest blessing a man can 
 have," he said. "Mine died when I was ten 
 years old, and I have never gotten over the 
 loss. I have missed her every hour since. Had 
 she lived, my life might have been difTerent. 
 It might not then have been the failure which 
 it has been.'' 
 
 I was surprised to hear him speak so of him- 
 self, for I had always thought of him as one of 
 the most self-contained of men, and I made 
 some polite disavowal of his remark. He turned 
 on me almost fiercely: 
 
 "Yes, sir, it has been a complete and utter 
 failure!" He spoke bitterly. "I was a man of 
 parts, and look at me now! A woman's influ- 
 [136] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 ence might have changed me." 
 
 As he appeared inclined to talk, I prepared 
 to listen. He seemed to find a grim pleasure in 
 talking of himself and reviewing his life. His 
 mother's death he continued to dwell on. 
 
 "She used to sit out on that seat under the 
 beech tree," he told me. "And I love that tree 
 better than almost anything in the world. It is 
 associated with almost every happy moment I 
 have ever spent. 
 
 "Young man/' he said, sitting up in the 
 energy of his speech, "marry — marry. I do 
 not say marry for your own happiness, — though 
 Heaven knows I am a proof of the truth of my 
 words, djdng here alone and almost friendless ! 
 — but marry for the good you may accomplish 
 in the world and the happiness you may give 
 others." 
 
 Not to marry, he said, was the extreme of 
 selfishness, for if a man does not marry, gen- 
 erally it is because he is figuring for something 
 [ 137] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 more than love. He then told me that his great 
 fault was selfishness. 
 
 "I made one mistake, sir," he said, "early 
 in life, and it has lasted me ever since. I 
 put Brains before everything. Intellect before 
 Heart. It was all selfishness : that was the rock 
 on which I split. I was a man of parts, sir, and 
 I thought that with my intellect I could do 
 everything. But I could not." 
 
 I began to think of my own life. 
 
 "Young man, were you ever in love .''" he 
 asked. 
 
 Under the sudden question I stammered, 
 and finally said, I did not know; I believed 
 I had been, but it was over now, anyhow. 
 
 "Young man," he said, "treasure it — treas- 
 ure it as your life. I was in love once — really 
 in love only once — and I believed I had my 
 happiness in my own hands, and I flung it 
 away, and wrecked my life." 
 
 He then proceeded to tell me the story of 
 [ 138 J 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 his love-affair, and how, instead of being eon- 
 tent with the affection of the lovely and beau- 
 tiful girl whose heart he had won, he had 
 wanted to excel with every one, and to shine 
 in all eyes. 
 
 "And I simply flung away salvation!" he 
 said. 
 
 "I am not speaking groundlessly," he as- 
 serted ; "for I was not even left the poor con- 
 solation of doubt as to whether I should have 
 succeeded. When at last I awoke from my be- 
 sotted condition my chance was gone. The 
 woman for whom I had given up the one I 
 loved, because I thought she would advance 
 me in life, proved as shallow and heartless as 
 I was myself, and, after I had made my plans 
 and prepared my house for her, threw me over 
 remorselessly for what she deemed a better 
 match, and married a rich fool ; and when at 
 length I went back to the woman I loved and 
 offered her my heart, which, indeed, had al- 
 [ 139 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 ways been hers, she had given hers to another. 
 
 "Heaven knows I did not blame her, for 
 though I had been fool enough to despise him, 
 he was a thousand times worthier of her them. 
 I was, and made her a thousand times happier 
 than I should have done with my selfishness. 
 
 "She told me that she had cared for me 
 once, and might have married me had I spoken; 
 but that time was long past, and she now loved 
 another better than she had ever loved me. 
 
 "My pride was stung ; but I fell back on my 
 intellect, and determined again to marry brill- 
 iantly. I might have done so, perhaps, but I 
 could not forget the woman I loved, and I 
 was not quite base enough to offer again an 
 empty heart to another woman, and so the time 
 passed by. 
 
 "I had means enough to obviate the neces- 
 sity of working for my support, and so did not 
 work as I should have done had I been de- 
 pendent on my profession, and men who had 
 [ 140 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 less than half my intellect outstripped me. At 
 lengthj having no incentive to labor, I threw 
 up my profession and travelled abroad. In time 
 that failed me, and I returned to my beech 
 tree only to find that I had dropped out of the 
 current of life, and had exchanged the happi- 
 ness of a home for the experiences of a wan- 
 derer. 
 
 "I had lost the universal touch in all the 
 infinite little things which make up the sum 
 of life, and even my friends, with few excep- 
 tions, were not just what they had been. If 
 they were necessary to me, I was no longer 
 necessary to them. They had other ties ; had 
 married, had children, and new interests formed 
 in my absence. I found myself alone ; every- 
 where a visitor ; welcomed at some places — 
 because I was agreeable when I chose to be — 
 tolerated at others, but still only a visitor, an 
 outsider, an alien. 
 
 "Then I fell back on my books. They lasted 
 [ 141 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 me for a while, and I read omnivorously; but 
 only for amusement, and in time my appetite 
 was satiated and my stomach turned. I had 
 not the tastes of a scholar, nor even of a stu- 
 dent, but only those of a dilettante. I was too 
 social to enjoy long alone even books, and I 
 did not read for use. 
 
 "So I turned to the world again, to find it 
 even worse than it had been before. I was as 
 completely alone as if I had been on a desert 
 island, and it was too late for me to re-enter 
 life." 
 
 I do not mean to give this as a connected 
 speech, for it was not : it was what he said at 
 times through the long night, as he dwelt on 
 the past and felt like talking. 
 
 Finally he broke in suddenly: 
 
 "Cultivate the affections, young man : culti- 
 vate the aflfections. Take an old man's word 
 for it, that the men who are happy are those 
 who love and are loved. Better love the mean- 
 [ 142 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 est thing that lives than only yourself. Even as 
 a matter of policy it is best. I had the best in- 
 tellect of any young man of my time and set^ 
 and I have seen men with half my brains^ un- 
 der the inspiration of love and the obligations 
 and duties it creates, go forward to success 
 which I could never achieve. Whilst I was nar- 
 rowing and drjdng up, they were broadening 
 and reaching out in every direction. Often I 
 have gone along the street and envied the 
 poorest man I met with his children on their 
 holiday stroUs. My affections had been awak- 
 ened, but too late in life ; and I could not win 
 friendship then. That child that you had in 
 your arms the day I met you was the first 
 child I had seen in years who looked at me 
 without either fear or repugnance." 
 
 He sat back in a reverie. 
 
 The old man had, of course, mentioned no 
 names ; but I had recalled the conversation of 
 the two ladies that evening, and now under 
 [ 143] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 his earnestness I was drawn to admit that I 
 had been in love, and feared I was yet. 
 
 He was deeply interested, and when I told 
 him that he had already had his part in my 
 affair, he was no less astonished. 
 
 Then I recalled to him the advice he had 
 given me on the street comer on that May 
 morning several years before. He remembered 
 the incident of the carriage, with its biu-den of 
 young girls, but he had had no idea I was the 
 young man. He was evidently pleased at the 
 coincidence. 
 
 "So you took my advice and picked a girl 
 out of that very carriage, did you .''" His wan 
 face lit with the first smile I had seen on it 
 since I had been with him. 
 
 "Whose carriage was it, and what was her 
 name, if you do not mind telling an old man?" 
 he asked. Then, as I hesitated a little, he said 
 gently: 
 
 "Oh, no matter; don't feel obliged to tell me." 
 [ 144 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 "No," I said; "I was only thinking. It was 
 the ' Hill-and-Dale ' carriage, and her name is 
 'Elizabeth Dale.'" 
 
 "Elizabeth Dale.'" he said, his eyes opening 
 wide as they rested on my face ; and then, as 
 he turned to the fire and let them fall, he said 
 to himself, "How strange!" 
 
 "Has she beauty?" he inquired, presently, 
 after a reverie, in which he repeated to him- 
 self, softly, over and over, "Very strange." 
 
 "I think she has," I said, "and others think 
 so, too. I believe you do yourself." 
 
 "How is that ? I have never seen her." 
 
 "Yes, you have," I said. "Do you remember 
 your hat blowing off one day last spring on 
 Richardson Street, and a young girl running 
 out of a house, bareheaded, and catching it for 
 you .'' Well, that was Elizabeth Dale." 
 
 "Was it, indeed ?" he said; and then added: 
 "I ought to have known it, she looked so like 
 her ! Only I thought it was simply her beauty 
 [ 145 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 which made the resemblance. All youth and 
 beauty coupled with sweetness have brought 
 up Elizabeth Green to me through the years," 
 he said gently. 
 
 "And the child who olTered you the bread 
 and jam that day was her nephew." 
 
 But he was now past further surprise, and 
 simply said, 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 "Do you think she would come and see 
 me .''" he asked me presently, after a long rev- 
 erie, in which he had been looking into the 
 fire. 
 
 I said I was sure she would if she knew he 
 wished it ; and then I went off into a reverie, 
 too. 
 
 "Cannot you bring her .''" he asked. 
 
 "Why, I do not know — Yes, I suppose she 
 would come with me, — only — only — . Why, 
 yes, I could see if she would." 
 
 "Ask her to come and see an old man who 
 [ 146 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 has not long to stay here, and who wishes to 
 see the girl whom you' are going to marry." 
 
 "But I am not going to marry her," I said. 
 "We barely speak now." 
 
 "Then the girl to whom you 'barely speak 
 now,'" he said, with something of a smile, and 
 then added gravely: "the girl who picked up 
 his hat for him, — an old man who knew her 
 mother." 
 
 I promised to do my best to get Miss Dale 
 to come and see him, and then the old fellow 
 dropped off into a doze, which soon became a 
 sounder sleep than he had had at all. 
 
 [ 147 ] 
 
XII 
 ELIZABETH DALE MAKES 
 TEA FOR TWO LONE MEN 
 
 THE next day, after a long contention 
 with myself, I called on Miss Dale to 
 propose the visit which the Old Gentleman of 
 the Black Stock had requested. 
 
 As I mounted the steps I felt as if I were 
 charging a battery. But the servant said she 
 had gone to drive with Mr. Goodrich. The 
 woman gave me a look which I would have 
 given much to interpret. Having screwed my 
 courage, or whatever it was, up to the point of 
 visiting Miss Dale at all, I found it stuck there ; 
 and even in the face of this last outrage to my 
 feelings, — going to ride with the man about 
 whom I had quarrelled with her, — I called on 
 her again that afternoon, late enough to insure 
 her return home and her presence in the house. 
 
 I will not undertake to describe my sensa- 
 [ 148 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 tions as I sat in the little darkened parlor, hat 
 in hand and overcoat still on, to indicate that 
 I had not called socially, but on business, and 
 business alone. 
 
 I awaited the return of the servant who an- 
 nounced me, in some doubt, if not apprehen- 
 sion, for I was not absolutely sure that Miss, 
 Dale would see me. So when the maid returned 
 and said Miss Elizabeth would be down di- 
 rectly, and proceeded to light the gas in the 
 parlor, I found my heart beating impleasantly. 
 
 Then the servant disappeared, and left me 
 in solitude. 
 
 I looked over the photographs and into the 
 old books with which I was once so familiar, 
 and listened to the movement going on up- 
 stairs. Then I sat down. But the glare was so 
 oppressive that I rose and turned down the 
 light a little. 
 
 Presently I heard some one — or something — 
 coming down the stairs, a step at a time, and 
 [ 149 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 when it reached the point where I could see it 
 through the door, it proved to be Burton. 
 
 "I tummin' to see you/' he said to me 
 through the banisters, calling me by my name, 
 for we had been famous friends that summer. 
 "I dot on bitches !" 
 
 "Come on." I felt cheered by the boy's 
 friendhness. 
 
 He came in and showed himself off, pointed 
 out his pockets, stuck his hands in them, and 
 strutted around, and rode "a. cock-horse" with 
 all a boy's delight. I was just feeling some- 
 thing of my old easiness when he stopped sud- 
 denly, and striking an attitude, said : 
 
 "I dot a horse." 
 
 "What ! Who gave it to you ?" 
 
 "Mist' Oodrich." 
 
 This was a blow. 
 
 "Mist' Oodrich dave me dis too," diving a 
 hand into one of his pockets and tugging at 
 something. 
 
 [ 150] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 But I did not learn what it was^ for just 
 then I heard another step coming slowly down 
 the stair. The boy heard it, too, and with a 
 shout ran out to meet his aunt. 
 
 Fortunately, I was sitting somewhat behind 
 the door, so I was screened from observation 
 and could not see what went on outside. But 
 I could hear. The first thing was Burton's an- 
 nouncement that I was there in the parlor, 
 giving me by my first name. 
 
 "Yes, aunty knows it," in an undertone. 
 
 Then I heard her say something to him in 
 an even lower undertone, and he answered : 
 
 "No, no!" 
 
 After that I heard her low voice in a sort of 
 subdued murmur, as she talked to him to try 
 to persuade him to do something,^ in a tone 
 Circe might well have used to wUe Ulysses, — 
 and his replies : 
 
 "No, no, don't want to do up tairs." The 
 little monster ! 
 
 [151 J 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 Then she grew more positivCj and he started, 
 with a little whimper as he went up. 
 
 I heard her say, "If you don't cry, I will let 
 you ride my horse the first time I go to ride." 
 This soothed him. 
 
 "Awe jdte !" And he went on up as rapidly 
 as one step at a time would take him. 
 
 There was a pause while she waited to see 
 him pass up beyond the chance of return, and 
 then I heard her begin to descend again. 
 
 As she approached the door I tried to appear 
 natural, but I felt myself decidedly discomposed. 
 
 She came in with a great deal of dignity, 
 and, I must say, ease of manner. I, however, 
 was not to be put at my ease. I hardly waited 
 for her to make her little apology for keeping 
 me waiting. She had "just come in from a 
 ride, and had to take off her hat." 
 
 It was not necessary to acquaint me with 
 her having been to ride ! I knew that quite as 
 well as she ! 
 
 [ 152 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 Ij without delay, therefore, explained my 
 call, and relieved her mind of any misappre- 
 hension she might be under as to the object 
 of my visit. I was still stiff and ungracious 
 enough. Heaven knows, and she was evidently 
 a little surprised at my manner, for she be- 
 came more formal herself. But I had made 
 myself plain, and had set forth the old man's 
 loneliness with some skill. I saw her eyes soften 
 and her face grow tender. 
 
 And though she had stiffened a little, she 
 said she would go as soon as she could put on 
 her hat — if I would wait. If not, she would 
 get her brother-in-law to take her after tea. 
 
 I said I would wait, and she left me. 
 
 I joined her in the little hall as she came 
 down-stairs again, and ceremoniously opened 
 the door for her and followed her into the 
 street. 
 
 The only thing we talked of was the old 
 gentleman she was going to see, and I was 
 [ 153 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 aware that my voice sounded very unnatural. 
 Hers seemed as soft as usual, but a little pen- 
 sive. 
 
 I stole a glance at her now and then and 
 thought that, as well as I could tell in the 
 waning light, she was a little thinner than 
 when I saw her last. This gave me a certain 
 base satisfaction. 
 
 The trees on the street were leafless, and 
 the air was chilly and a bit raw as the dusk of 
 the winter evening fell. The tree tops looked 
 like an etching against the steely sky. 
 
 I led the way to the next street, and let her 
 in at the old gate where I had first met Mr. 
 Basham Miles several years before, and which 
 I had helped her over that summer evening 
 when we read her mother's initials on the 
 beech tree. 
 
 We went up the long, uneven walk, through 
 the old yard towards the now dark house, and 
 I remember the mournful way the white, dry 
 [ 154 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 leaves on the lower boughs of the old beech 
 rustled in the chilly wind. 
 
 William Kemp opened the door after my 
 second knock, and looked with unfeigned sur- 
 prise at my companion. He said the old gen- 
 tleman was much the same, and he would find 
 out whether he could see us. 
 
 I determined to take no chances ; so, whilst 
 WiUiam lit the gas in the dark, cold library, I 
 "tipped" up-stairs and went to the old gentle- 
 man's door. 
 
 I found him glad to see me, and as ready as 
 he could be to receive his visitor. So, without 
 giving him time to think much about it, I 
 acted on his half consent, and a moment later 
 showed Elizabeth Dale into his room. 
 
 She paused for a moment at the threshold 
 and then advanced, and as the old gentleman 
 tried to rise to greet her, quickened her step, 
 giving a little exclamation of protest against 
 his getting up. 
 
 [ 155 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 I have never forgotten the picture they pre- 
 sented. She sat by his sidCj and he held her 
 hand, so white and slender and fine, his wrin- 
 kled long fingers clasped tremulously around 
 hers, as he begged her pardon for the trouble 
 he had given her, and thanked her for the 
 favor she had granted him. 
 
 He had more strength than I had seen him 
 show. 
 
 The fine, old-fashioned courtliness of the one 
 and the sweet graciousness of the other were 
 counterparts, whilst the grayness and feeble- 
 ness of the invalid and the roses and health of 
 the young girl set each other off in strong con- 
 trast. 
 
 They might have sat for Immortal Age and 
 Immortal Youth. 
 
 In a little while she was holding the old 
 man's hand, not he hers, and as he mentioned 
 my name in terms of kindness, I drew some- 
 what apart and left them together, he doing 
 [156] 
 
„• rY< 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 most of the talking, and she listening and 
 stroking his hand as if she had been his 
 daughter. 
 
 Presently — he had been talking of his youth 
 in that house, and of the appearance that part 
 of the town used to present when the hill was 
 erowned with houses embowered in trees — he 
 said : 
 
 "My dear, did you ever hear your mother 
 speak of me ?" His voice was so gentle that I 
 scarcely caught it. 
 
 I could see her embarrassment. She said, 
 very slowly, after trying to recollect : 
 
 "I — cannot remember that I ever did." 
 
 And then, as if distressed that she might 
 have given him pain, she said kindly, leaning 
 forward and stroking his hand softly: 
 
 "She may have done it, you know, without 
 my recollecting it, for I was a heedless young 
 thing." 
 
 How sweet her voice sounded, and what 
 [157] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 sorrow was in her eyes, — sorrow that she must 
 have given that old man sorrow, though she 
 sacrificed all to Truth ! 
 
 He did not speak immediately; but pres- 
 ently he said gravely: 
 
 "I am not surprised." And then he added 
 quietly : 
 
 "My dear, I used to be in love with your 
 mother, and I never loved any one else. I was 
 most unworthy of her. But I have carried her 
 image in my heart all these years." 
 
 Without a word the young girl rose and 
 leant over and kissed him. 
 
 Just then WiUiam opened the door and 
 brought in a waiter with tea-things for his 
 master's tea. It was not very inviting, though 
 it was the best the faithful William and his 
 wife could do. 
 
 Without a word of apology the young girl 
 stepped forward and took the tray, and then, 
 with no more explanation than if she had done 
 [ 158 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 it every evening of her life for him, she set to 
 work to prepare the old man's tea. 
 
 It was marvellous to see what a woman's 
 hands could do. Her touch was as deft as 
 an enchantress' wand. Out of the somewhat 
 crowded and unappetizing waiter came an or- 
 der and daintiness which were miraculous. 
 And when she handed Mr. MUes his tea in 
 the old blue china cup I knew that he could 
 not help taking it. 
 
 The same instinct seemed to teach her what 
 was needed in the room. She flitted hither 
 and thither, a touch here, a touch there — 
 and when she arose to leave a half-hour later, 
 the room was transformed ; she left behind her 
 comfort and something like order where before 
 there had been only confusion. She left more 
 than that — she left an old man cheered and 
 comforted as he had not been in years. 
 
 As she rose to go she said : 
 
 "I want you now to grant me a favor — I 
 [ 159 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 want you to let me come again? — To-morrow? 
 —Will you?" 
 
 No one could have resisted that appeal, 
 least of all, Basham Miles ; for she was leaning 
 over him, arranging a pillow for him as he had 
 never had one arranged before in all his life. 
 
 He could not answer her question ; he 
 merely took her hand in both his, and raising 
 it to his lips, said tremulously: 
 
 "God bless you!" 
 
 The young girl bent over and kissed him 
 good-night — kissed him twice, as she might 
 have kissed her father. 
 
 He said again, "God bless you!" and again, 
 when she was at the door, he repeated, "God 
 bless you ! " 
 
 We came down the stairs without a word, 
 and William let us out of the door. 
 
 We were down on the walk when I remem- 
 bered that I had not told him that I would re- 
 turn later, and I went back to the door. 
 [160] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 When I came down the steps again my 
 companion was standing a little way down the 
 walk waiting for me, and I found she had her 
 hand to her eyes. I said — I do not remember 
 just what I said, but she turned a little way 
 oflF the walk, and sat down on a seat under the 
 nearest tree. It was the old Beech tree which 
 Basham Miles treasured so. 
 
 "That poor old man ! " she sobbed, and fell 
 to weeping as if her heart would break. 
 
 I never could see either a man or a woman 
 weep and remain unmoved. I dropped down 
 by her, hardly knowing what I was doing, ex- 
 cept that Elizabeth Dale was there weeping 
 and needed comforting, and I was at her side. 
 And before I knew it, I had forgotten my 
 pride, my jealousy, everjrthing, and had told 
 her all that was in my heart. It was much. But 
 it was all in one word. I loved her. 
 
 She did not stop crying immediately, and 
 she did not say a word. But before I was 
 [161 ] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 through she was sobbing on my shoulder, and 
 she did not take her hand away from me. And 
 when I came out of Basham Miles's broken 
 gate I did not hate Hamilton Goodrich any 
 more. In fact, I was rather sorry for him ; for 
 I had learned that he had received his final, 
 though by no means his first, refusal that after- 
 noon. 
 
 I do not remember just how we got home, 
 but I suppose we walked. I only know that it 
 was through a new town and a new life. 
 
 We were too late for tea, but I went in, and 
 Elizabeth Dale made tea for the second time 
 that evening, though it was her first time for 
 me. 
 
 The other members of the family were all 
 out of the way, and as I sat opposite Elizabeth 
 at the shining old mahogany table, with its 
 odd pieces of old silver, which I knew must 
 be bits of salvage from Hill-and-Dale, I felt 
 as a sea-beaten mariner might feel who has 
 [ 162 ] 
 
1-.J i:i,..:3|iff:u„^, 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 reached home after long voyaging. I had been 
 tossed on many seas, but had reached haven 
 at last. 
 
 The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock had 
 proved a good pilot. 
 
 [163] 
 
XIII 
 BASHAM MILES'S WILL 
 
 WHEN I went back to Mr. MUes's, 
 which I did not do, I beUeve, until 
 Elizabeth Dale sent me off, William told me 
 that he had gone to bed and was asleep, and 
 had told him he might stay in his room that 
 night, and I must not come until next day. 
 
 This I acceded to, and the next evening I 
 took Elizabeth Dale to make tea for him again. 
 He seemed really better : his eye had a new 
 light in it, and his voice a new tone. 
 
 Elizabeth Dale went to see him every day 
 after that, twice a day, and sat with him, took 
 him flowers, and made tea for him. Other 
 friends came too, and he saw them and en- 
 joyed them. 
 
 One afternoon Elizabeth took her little 
 nephew to see him, and he enjoyed the child 
 and took him on his knee and played with 
 [ 164 ] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 him. In factj the old gentleman appeared so 
 much better that we were all talking about his 
 being out again — aU except himself. There- 
 fore, I was much shocked one morning when 
 William Kemp knocked at my door and told 
 me he was dead. He had retired that night, 
 "about as usual," and when WiUiam went to 
 him in the morning he found him dead in his 
 bed. 
 
 "He's layin' dyah, jes same's he 'sleep," 
 said the old servant, mournfully. 
 
 "He tol' me when he die he want me to 
 send for you to come — an' dat's de reason I 
 come." 
 
 I went around immediately and found sev- 
 eral neighbors there already, for he had more 
 friends than he had known of. 
 
 By common consent it appeared that I was 
 the person to take charge of arrangements. 
 William had told them what his old master 
 had said. 
 
 [165] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 "An' dere 's a letter for you, suh," he said to 
 me. "Somewhar in he ole secketary. He writ 
 it not long ago, an' he tole me he had put it in 
 dyah for you, and I wuz to tell you 'bout it when 
 he died. He said dat would tell all 'bout de 
 'rangements for de funeral an' ev'thing. He 
 knowed he wuz gwine, suh, better 'n we aU." 
 
 Thus notified, some time during the day, 
 after I had telegraphed to his relatives, none 
 of whom were very near or bore his name, I 
 looked for and found the letter. 
 
 It was a large envelope, addressed to me 
 and sealed with his crest, and on opening it I 
 found a letter in it couched in most affection- 
 ate terms, and giving explicit directions as to 
 his funeral, which he said he did to save me 
 and others trouble. 
 
 He requested that he might be buried in 
 the simplest manner and with the least ex- 
 pense possible, and that his grave should be 
 beside his mother's. 
 
 [166] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 There was one singular request : that a car- 
 riage should be provided especially for William 
 Kemp and his wife, and that William should 
 be one of the men to lower him into the grave. 
 
 There was in the envelope another envelope, 
 also sealed and addressed to me, and on the 
 back was endorsed: 
 
 "Holograph Will of Basham Miles. 
 To he opened only after his funeral." 
 
 The relatives (there were only one or two 
 of them to come) arrived next day. And that 
 afternoon, as the winter sun sank below the 
 horizon, the little funeral procession crept out 
 to the old and now almost disused cemetery 
 looking towards the west, and in the soft after- 
 glow of the evening the remains of Basham 
 Miles were laid to rest beside those of his 
 mother, over which rose a beautiful white 
 marble monument with a touching inscription, 
 which I knew was written by him. 
 [167] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 There were not a great many people in the 
 church, and they were nearly all old people, in 
 black. Among them I observed my two old 
 ladies who had told me of Basham Miles when 
 he was young. They came together in their 
 old, black dresses, the younger helping her 
 three months senior quietly and pensively 
 along. 
 
 The relatives, of course, walked first. But of 
 all there, I was sure that there was no sincerer 
 mourner than the young girl who came last. 
 With her dark veil drawn close about her Uttle 
 head she sat far back in the church alone. But 
 I knew that it was that she might weep unob- 
 served. 
 
 The will was opened in the presence of wit- 
 nesses that night, as the relatives had to re- 
 turn home. It was all in Basham MUes's hand- 
 writing, and covered only a single sheet. It 
 left a certain sum to his "faithful servants, 
 William Kemp and Jane, his wife, to buy them 
 [168] 
 
OF THE BLACK STOCK 
 
 a house and lot of their own" ; bequeathed 
 small amounts to two or three distant rela- 
 tives ; left me his library; left his watch to 
 "Burton Dale Davis." 
 
 And then gave, "The old Bible, once my 
 sainted mother's, together with all the rest of 
 my property, of every kind whatsoever, to 
 Elizabeth Dale, youngest daughter of Eliza- 
 beth Dale, formerly Elizabeth Green, now de- 
 ceased." 
 
 I was appointed executor. 
 
 The sole condition he proposed to Elizabeth 
 Dale was that she should try to have the old 
 beech tree in his yard spared as long as was 
 practicable. Even this, however, was particu- 
 larly stated to be but a request. 
 
 But I feel sure that the Old Gentleman of 
 the Black Stock knew it would be as binding 
 on my wife as if it had been in the form of an 
 express condition, and that so long as Eliza- 
 beth Dale should live, the old beech tree, 
 [169] 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 under which Basham Miles remembered his 
 mother sitting, in his childhood, and on which 
 he had carved her mother's name in his youth, 
 would stand in proof that Basham Miles was 
 not forgotten. 
 
 FINIS 
 
D. B. Updike 
 
 The Merryjnount Press 
 
 Boston