повторение

On the night which closed the third day the prince approached the door
of the sealed room. To the officer of the secret police, who stood on
guard, he said: "Nothing has been heard."

"Early this afternoon there were two shots, I think."

"Nonsense. There are carpenters doing repair work on the floor above.
You mistook the noise of their hammers."

He waved the man away, and as he fitted the key into the lock he was
laughing softly to himself: "Now for the revelation, the downward head,
the shame. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

He opened the door and flashed on his electric lantern. They lay upon a
couch wrapped in each other's arms. He had shot her through the heart
and then turned the weapon on himself; his last effort must have been to
draw her closer. About them was wrapped the chain, idle and loose.
Surely death had no sting for them and the grave no victory, for the
cold features were so illumined that the prince could hardly believe
them dead.

He turned the electric torch on the painter. He was a man about fifty,
with long, iron-gray hair, and a stubble of three days' growth covering
his face. It was a singularly ugly countenance, strong, but savagely
lined, and the forehead corrugated with the wrinkles of long, mental
labor. But death had made Bertha beautiful. Her eyes under the shadow
of her lashes, seemed a deep-sea blue, and her loose, brown hair,
falling across the white throat and breast, seemed almost golden under
the light of the torch. A draft from the open door moved the hair and
the heart of the prince stirred in him.

He strove to loosen the arms of the painter, but they were frozen stiff
by death.

"She was a fool, and the loss is small," sighed the prince. "After all,
perhaps God was nearer than I thought. I bound them together with a
chain. He saw my act and must have approved, for see! He has locked them
together forever. Well, after all--_le Dieu, c'est moi!_"




THIRD TALE

PLUMB NAUSEATED

BY E. K. MEANS


I.

"Yes, suh, I feels plum' qualified to take on a wife."

The black negro blushed to a darker hue and his face shone like polished
ebony in the blazing August sun. In his embarrassment he twisted his
shapeless wool hat into a wad, thrust it under his arm like a bundle,
turned his back upon the white man's quizzical eyes, and sat down upon
the lowest step of the porch.

At the feet of the white man lay half a dozen pairs of handcuffs. He
stooped and picked up a pair which showed rusty in the bright light,
rubbed the rust off with sand-paper, squirted some oil into the
mechanism from a little can, and busied himself for a few minutes seeing
that his police hardware was in good condition.

The sheriff remained silent for so long that the negro imagined he had
been forgotten. Then Flournoy fired a question so unexpectedly that the
black man winced: "What's your name?"

"Dey calls me Plaster Sickety."

"Gosh!" the sheriff exploded. "Can any woman be induced to exchange a
perfectly decent name for a smear like that?"

"Suttinly," the negro grinned. "Dat gal's name ain't so awful cute. Dey
calls her Pearline Flunder."

"Plaster Sickety and Pearline Flunder--help, everybody! What sort of
children will issue from a matrimonial alliance of such names?"

"I reckin our chillun will all be borned Huns, Marse John; but I cain't
he'p it."

Under his manipulation the sheriff's worn handcuffs took on a polish
like new. At intervals he glanced up from his task to see the sunlight
spraying from the pecan-trees like water and the heat rising from the
ground, visible as a boiling cloud. Once he heard an eagle scream, and
glanced toward the Little Mocassin swamp to behold a black speck sail
into the haze that hung like a curtain of purple and gold upon the
horizon. The negro sat motionless except for glowing black eyes
restless as mercury and all-perceiving.

Suddenly the bear-trap mouth of the big sheriff twisted into a little
smile.

"How'd you like to give your girl one of these things for a
wedding-present, Plaster?" he asked, as he tossed a polished pair of
handcuffs on the step beside the negro.

"I's kinder pestered in my mind 'bout gittin' a fitten weddin'-present,
Marse John, but--" Plaster rose to his feet and returned the manacles
without completing his sentence.

"How much money have you got?" Flournoy asked.

"I ain't got none till yit."

"How you going to buy the license? How you going to pay the preacher?"
Flournoy asked.

"Dat's whut I come to git a view from you about, Marse John. All de
cullud folks gives you a rep dat you is powerful good to niggers an' I
figgered dat you an' me mought fix up some kind of shake-down so I could
git married 'thout costin' me nothin'."

"Don't you ever read the Bible?" Flournoy growled. "Even Adam's wife
cost him a bone."

"Yes, suh," the negro grinned. "But I figger ef Sheriff Flournoy had
been aroun' anywheres at dat time, maybe Adam would 'a' got off a whole
lot cheaper."

"Have you got a job to support your wife?" Flournoy asked.

"Naw, suh."

"Have you got a house to live in?"

"Naw, suh."

"Where are you going to live with her--in a hollow sycamore-tree?"

"Yes, suh, I reckin so--dat is, excusin' ef you don't he'p us none."

"Where are you two idiots going to derive your sustenance--from the
circumambient atmosphere?"

"Dat's de word, Marse John--dat is, excusin' ef you don't loant us a
hand in our troubles," the negro murmured, wondering what the sheriff's
big talk meant.

"Do you love this black girl very much?" the sheriff asked with that odd
turn of tone with which every man speaks of love when he is in love with
love.

"Boss," the black man answered in a voice which throbbed, "I been lovin'
dat gal ever since she warn't no bigger dan--dan--dan a June-bug whut
had visited accidental a woodpecker prayer-meetin'."

"Is she good to look at, Plaster?" Flournoy smiled.

"Well, suh, I cain't lie to no white man, Marse John; an' I tells you
honest--she looks a whole heap better at night in de dark of de moon."

"If she ain't a good-looker, why do you love her?" Flournoy asked
without a smile.

"She's good sense an' jedgment, Marse John," the black man answered
earnestly. "An'--an'--I jes' nachelly loves her."

Flournoy studied a moment, twisting a pair of steel handcuffs in his
giant hands. Finally he spoke:

"Plaster, I have a cabin down on the Coolie Bayou which I have given to
three young married couples in succession on the condition that they
live there in peace and amity one year."

"Yes, suh."

"Every couple broke up and got a divorce within nine months."

"Too bad, Marse John, dat's mighty po' luck."

"You niggers think you love each other until you get hitched and then
you don't stay hitched."

"Some shorely don't--dey don't fer a fack."

"Now I make you and Pearline Flunder this offer. I will buy your
marriage license, pay Vinegar Atts to marry you, bear all the expense of
a church wedding, give you a job so you can support your wife, and I
will make you a present of that cabin down on the Coolie Bayou if you
and your wife will live together for three days without busting up in a
row."

"Three days, Marse John!" the negro howled. "Boss, I motions to make it
thurty years!"

"No!" Flournoy snapped. "Three days!"

"I's willin', Marse John," the negro laughed, cutting a caper on the
grass.

"All right!" the sheriff said as he stooped and picked up a pair of
handcuffs. "Now listen: I intend to cut the little chain on these two
manacles and attach each cuff to a ten-foot chain. When you and Pearline
are married, I am going to put one of these manacles around her wrist
and one around your wrist"--the negro showed the whites of his
eyes--"and bind you two honey-loves together with a ten-foot chain."
The negro looked behind him toward the gate and the public highway, took
a tighter grip upon his hat, and made a furtive step backward. "You are
to remain bound together for three days." The negro smiled and stepped
forward. "At the end of that time you are to come here and report, and
if you agree to spend the remainder of your life together, the cabin is
yours!"

"Make it a two-feets chain, Marse John, so us kin git clost to each
yuther," Plaster pleaded.

"What I have spoken I have spoken," Flournoy proclaimed autocratically.
"Now, go tell your sweetheart all about it."


II.

The Big Four of Tickfall sat around a much bewhittled pine table in the
Hen-Scratch saloon. The room was hazy with their tobacco smoke.
Conversation languished. The session was about to adjourn until
to-morrow at the same hour. Figger Bush laid his cigarette upon the edge
of the table, lifted his head like a dog baying the moon, and chanted:

    "O you muss be a lover of de landlady's daughter
    Or you cain't git a secont piece of pie!"

Before the other could catch the tune, the green-baize doors of the
saloon were thrown open and a white man entered. Every negro looked up
into that granite face with its deep-set eyes, iron jaw, and rugged
lines of strength and purpose, and smiled a joyful welcome:

"Mawnin', Marse John. 'Tain't no use to come sheriffin' down dis way. No
niggers ain't done nothin'."

"I am hunting for a Methodist clergyman of color," Flournoy grinned.

"Boss," Vinegar Atts chuckled as he rose to his feet, "I's de blackest
an' best nigger preacher whut is, an' I b'lieves in de Mefdis doctrine
of fallin' from grace an' grease. Ef you misdoubts my words, ax my wife.
Dat ole woman admits dat fack herse'f."

"I want you to perform a wedding ceremony at the Shoofly Church to-night
at seven o'clock," the sheriff announced.

Instantly the Rev. Vinegar Atts thrust both hands into the pockets of
his trousers and brought his hands out, turning out the pockets and
showing them empty.

"Dar now, Figger Bush!" Vinegar bellowed. "I tole you dat de good Lawd
would pervide a way fer me to pay fer dem near-booze grape-juices I been
guzzlin' in yo' sinful saloom! Five dollars will sottle wid you an'
leave a few change over fer seegaws."

"Who's cormittin' mattermony, Marse John?" Mustard Prophet wanted to
know. "Is it one of dese here shotgun weddin's?"

"Plaster Sickety wishes to wed Pearline Flunder."

"I knows 'em," Hitch Diamond rumbled from his big chest. "De good Lawd
will shore got to pervide fer dem coons like He do fer Vinegar
Atts--nary one is got git-up enough to make a livin'."

"Those young colored honey-birds are under my special care and
protection," Flournoy announced, smiling. "I intend to house them and
take care of them and get them work. They are an experiment."

"De trouble wid experiments is dis, Marse John," Mustard chuckled,
"sometimes dey bust in yo' face."

"My plan is this," Flournoy told them. "I am going to tie those two
negroes together with a ten-foot chain and they are to live in peace and
amity for three days."

"Lawdymussy, Marse John!" the Rev. Vinegar Atts bellowed. "Did you ever
tie two cats to each yuther an' hang 'em over de limb of a tree?"

"Yes."

"Does you recommember how quick dem cats got tired of each yuther's
sawsiety an' fell out wid theirselves?"

"Certainly."

Vinegar jerked a yellow bandana handkerchief from the tail of his coat
and mopped the top of his bald head.

"You mought care fer dem niggers ef you ties em togedder, Marse John.
But you ain't gwine be able to pertection 'em--not from each yuther,"
Vinegar announced as he slapped at his face with his kerchief. "I
wouldn't be tied to my nigger wife wid a telephone-wire long enough to
conversation de man in de moon. Naw, suh! Dat ole gal would be yankin'
on dat line a catfish all de time. Whoosh!"

"I agrees wid dem religium sentiments," Hitch Diamond rumbled. "Now you
example Goldie, my own wife. Dat little yeller gal's maw is a lunatic,
an' Goldie ain't no lunatic, but she ain't got her right mind. I
wouldn't mind bein' a Dandylion in de lion's den, like de Bible tells
about--dat would gib me a chance to fight fer my gizzard. But chained up
to Goldie--"

Hitch broke off, shook his head in earnest negation, rubbed one giant
hand around his iron-thewed wrist as if he could feel the holy bonds of
matrimony and gave utterance to one expressive word: "Gawd!"

"Hol' on, niggers!" Figger Bush exclaimed. "I don't foller you-alls in
dem sentiments. Now I been married to Scootie gwine on two year an' I
ain't never got too much of dat gal yit. I cherishes de opinion dat
Marse John could tie our heads togedder an' I wouldn't complain none."

"I sides wid Figger Bush," Mustard Prophet grinned. "I been livin' off
an' on wid Hopey fer twenty year, an' dat gal is busted stovewood over
my head off an' on plenty of times, but I don't bear her no grouch. She
kin always make peace by givin' me some hot biskits an' a few sirup."

"You four niggers talk too much," Flournoy grinned. "I want you to get
busy and decorate that Shoofly Church and pull the biggest Tickfall
church wedding ever seen in the social sets of our colored circles. I'll
pay for everything."

"Us fo' niggers will git our wifes an' pull some kind of nice stunt
ourselfs, too, Marse John," Vinegar howled. "We'll fix up a good
send-off fer 'em."

At seven o'clock that evening the Flournoy automobile conveyed the happy
pair to the Shoofly Church. The Rev. Vinegar Atts proceeded with the
ceremony until the bride sported a new ring and the two were pronounced
man and wife with the solemn admonition:

"Whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!"

Thereupon Sheriff Flournoy stepped forward and with the ease of long
practice slipped a manacle upon the right wrist of the bride and another
upon the left wrist of the groom and snapped the handcuffs shut.

Figger Bush stooped and lifted a long bottle from a bucket of ice. There
was a loud pop, the cork struck against the ceiling, ricochetted around
the walls of the room and caused a commotion by falling on Vinegar's
bald head. Figger advanced with a tray containing three glasses and the
sheriff toasted the bride and groom.

The ten-foot chain rattled as the bride raised her manacled hand to
drink.

When they marched out of the church the entire congregation formed a
procession and accompanied them to their cabin on the Coolie Bayou. They
noticed that Plaster Sickety picked up the chain and wrapped a turn
around his bride's neck and one about his own, thus shortening the bond
and bringing them close together. They clamped their arms around each
other's waists, and plodded solemnly through the deep dust of the
crooked highway.

"Dat nigger cain't park his wife like a new automobile an' walk off an'
leave her," Vinegar chuckled.

"He ain't actin' anxious to git away--now," Hitch rumbled
pessimistically.

"Not yit, but soon," Vinegar agreed.

Approaching the cabin, Plaster Sickety's voice broke into exultant song,
and through the negro's wonderful gift of improvisation, he produced
this neat bit:

    "Dar's a Pearline pearl of price untold,
    An' dat Pearline pearl cain't be bought wid gold;
    An' dat Pearline pearl am good to see,
    Fer dat Pearline pearl b'longs to me!"

"Listen to dat fool!" Hitch Diamond chuckled. "He's singin' like a
little black angel whut had swiped de pearliest pearl offen de pearly
gates!"

The bride and groom entered their cabin and softly closed the door.

Good night!


III.

"Looky here, Pearline, I ain't used to totin' dis ole steel band on my
wrist an' it hurts my feelin's," Plaster complained as he sat at the
breakfast-table before a meal which had been left on the door-step a few
minutes before by Hitch Diamond.

"Don't begin to howl an' pull back like a dawg tied under a wagin,
Plaster," Pearline urged prettily, as she helped herself to liberal
portions of the breakfast prepared in Sheriff Flournoy's kitchen. "You
won't kick about wearin' it as long as you loves me, will you?"

"No'm," Plaster said, as he lifted the chain to a more comfortable place
upon the dining-table. "But I shore wish dat white man hadn't choosed
such a heavy chain."

"Dis chain ain't heavy, Plaster," Pearline protested. "You hadn't
oughter talk dat way. Excusin' dat, I likes dis chain--it ties us to
each yuther. Don't you like it?"

"Yes'm, I shore does."

"How come you complains about it fer?"

"I ain't got no lament, Pearline--dat is, I ain't mean it dat way."

The bridegroom filled his mouth with food and for the next ten minutes
ate voraciously. One watching him would draw the inference that he was
not eating to enjoy the food so much as to find some occupation for his
mouth beside speech.

Pearline reached out with her free hand and toyed with the chain,
twisting it about her fingers lovingly, a dreamy light in her coal-black
eyes.

"Us had de biggest weddin' in cullud circles, Plaster," she murmured.

"I ain't no cullud circle," Plaster mumbled, his mouth full of food.
"But I reckin I got to run circles aroun' you 'slong as dis ole chain
stays on. Don't rattle dat chain so loud, Pearly! Gosh! It makes a heap
of racket fer its little size."

"You jes' now said it wus a big, heavy chain fer its size," his wife
reminded him in a sweetly argumentative tone.

"Yes'm, it am--dis chain is bofe little an' big--fer its size," the
groom amended hastily. "Stop talkin' about dis chain!"

"You started dis talk," she reminded him reproachfully. "You said it
hurted yo' wrist."

There was a loud knock upon the door. Plaster sprang up to answer. The
chain jerked at his wrist.

"Good gawsh!" he snorted. "Come to de door wid me, honey, so I kin open
up."

"I cain't, Plaster," the bride exclaimed in a panic. "I ain't dressed
fer comp'ny dis soon in de mawnin."

"You's got on all de clothes you owns," the groom reminded her.

"Suttinly, but I ain't got no white powder on my black nose," she
giggled. "Come back in de nex' room an' let me fresh up befo' we opens
de door."

"I stayed in dar a plum' hour while you wus freshin' up fer yo'
viteles," Plaster grumbled.

"Don't git grumped up, Plaster," Pearline urged. "You ack like yo' love
is commenced to wilt aroun' de edges."

Meekly the man followed her to the bedroom and stood for fifteen minutes
while the bride primped her hair, powdered her nose, adjusted her
collar, fiddled with her belt, put pins in her shirt-waist, took them
out and deposited them in her mouth, put them back into her waist,
turned around and looked at herself in the mirror, hunted for a fresh
handkerchief and could not find it, located it at last in the bosom of
her waist, wondered where she had left her chewing-gum, found it on top
of the box of face-powder, and finally said:

"Come on--less hurry up. Dat comp'ny will git tired waitin' fer us!"

"Dat comp'ny is gone done it," Plaster sighed. "I peeped through de
crack in de door an' seed 'em. Hitch Diamond knocked fo' times, den
opened de door an' picked up dem breakfast-dishes an' trod out."

"Dat's too bad," Pearline remarked with no interest whatever. She was
looking at herself in the mirror. "I'd like to seen Hitchie. He use to
be one of my ole sweethearts."

"Come out an' set under de tree wid me an' mebbe dat ole sweetheart of
yourn will come back," Plaster suggested.

"I don't like to git out in de sunshine," the girl replied. "Dar's too
much glare."

"Too much--which?" Plaster asked.

"Glare."

"Yes'm."

Plaster stood looking at her helplessly, wondering where they were going
from there.

"Does you love me, Plaster?" the girl asked, siding up to him and
stepping on the chain.

"Yes'm," Plaster answered as he pulled the chain from under her feet and
rubbed his wrist. "Don't step on dat chain no mo'. You might break it."

"How come you don't tell me you loves me?"

"I done tole you 'bout fawty times dis mawnin'," Plaster reminded her.

"But you ain't never tole me onless I axed you."

"Less go somewhar an' set down an' I'll tell you a millyum times,"
Plaster said eagerly.

"Bless Gawd, I knows you loves me a plum' plenty, but I likes to hear
you tell dem words. Wait a minute till I puts--er--I b'lieve I oughter
change de collar on dis dress. A clean one would make me look mo'
fresher."

Plaster lingered until the woman was dressed to her fancy, resting his
weight first on one impatient leg, then upon the other.

"You wastes a heap of time fixin' yo'se'f, Pearly," he sighed at last.
"I hopes you'll soon git dressed up fer de day."

"You wants yo' wife to look nice, don't you?" she asked reproachfully.

"Yes'm."

"How kin I look nice 'thout takin' de time to dress?"

They went out and sat down under the pecan-tree in the "glare." Pearline
seemed to have forgotten the glare. Plaster lighted a cigarette, smoked
it to the end, lighted another, smoked it to the end, and lighted
another. Then Pearline remarked:

"Honey, does you love me more dan you loves dem cigareets?"

"I shore does"--with moderate fervor.

"Does you love me a millyum times mo' dan you loves cigareets?"

"Suttinly."

"Den, fer gossake, throw dem cigareets away! Dey smells like some kind
o' fumigate."

"I cain't do that, Pearly. Dese here smokes costes money. An' I couldn't
affode to buy 'em ef I had to wuck fer de money. Dey's a weddin'
present."

"Is you gwine smoke all yo' married life?"

"Yes'm."

"But you ain't gwine smoke no mo' fer de nex' three days, is you?"

"No'm."

Pearline thrust her hand into Plaster's pocket and brought forth his
precious smokes. She concealed them in the mysterious recesses of her
attire and Plaster sighed deeply.

Ten minutes later the girl straightened up with a fierceness that nearly
snapped her spinal column.

"Fer mussy sake, Plaster Sickety! Whut is you got in yo' mouf?"

"I's nibblin' a few crumbs of terbacker, honey," Plaster said
apologetically.

"My gawsh! You aim to tell me dat you _chaws_?"

"Yes'm. I chaws a little bit now an' den. It kinder helps my brains to
think an' sottles my stomick."

There was a long silence. Plaster stared straight ahead of him, his
jaws moving with the regularity of a ruminant cow, his eyes counting
the leaves on the trees, the pickets on the broken-down fence, and
estimating the number of ants crawling out of a hill. Then,
unconsciously, he reached into his pocket for another cigarette.
He did not find it.

He heard a suspicious sound beside him and looked at Pearline.

"Whut you cryin' about honey?"

"You tole me you loved me more dan cigareets, an' yit you cain't set by
me a minute 'thout chawin' terbacker," she wailed. "You is blood kin
brudder to a worm an' a goat--nothin' else chaws!"

"Lawd!" Plaster sighed in desperation. "I sees now dat I'm got to learn
how to suck eggs an' hide de shells."

Suddenly a loud whoop was heard near at hand and out of the swamp came
Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, Mustard Prophet and Hitch Diamond.

"Hey, niggers!" Plaster bawled. "Come up an' set down. Lawd, I nefer wus
so glad to see nobody in my whole life."

"Good mawnin', Sister Pearline!" Vinegar chuckled. "How is yo'-alls
enjoyin' mattermony life by now?"

"Fine," the bride smiled, with a suspicion of tears still in her eyes.

"Praise de Lawd!" exclaimed Vinegar. "I wus skeart you niggers would be
fightin' by now, an' mebbe one of yous would be draggin' de yuther on de
end o' dat chain--dead!"

"Naw, suh!" Plaster howled, as he snatched a cigar out of Hitch
Diamond's pocket and stuck it in his mouth. "Us is gittin' along
puffeckly."

Plaster snatched his cigar from his lips with his manacled hand and
flourished it with a motion of broad contentment. Pearline gave the
chain a quick jerk and the smoke flew from Plaster's fingers and fell
over in the high grass.

"You two idjits look like a holy show to me," Figger Bush cackled. "How
come you don't charge admissions to de show an' git rich?"

"Us wouldn't git rich quick," Pearline giggled. Hitch Diamond had
retrieved the cigar, and Pearline had taken it from him and stuck it in
her hair. "You-all is de onlies' comp'ny we is had till yit."

"I hopes you niggers will stay wid us all day, brudders," Plaster
exclaimed earnestly. "We wus feelin' kinder--er--me an' Pearline wus
feelin' sorter--er--"

"Uh-huh," Hitch Diamond grunted knowingly. "Dat's a fack. We ole married
folks onderstan's dem feelin's. I'd feel dat way mese'f ef I wus in yo'
fix. I'd whet up my teeth on a brick-bat an' bite myse'f in my own
gizzard an' die."

"Not me!" Figger Bush howled. "Ef I wus chained to dat little gal, I'd
git me a plow-line an' wrop it aroun' our necks."

"I would, too," Vinegar bellowed. "But I'd tie de yuther eend of dat
plow-line to a tree an' jump off de worl'."

"I bet Pearline don't hanker to jump offen no worl'," Mustard Prophet
proclaimed. "Look at her--she's jes' as happy as ef she had sense."

The eyes of the four men turned upon the girl appraisingly. Then
Pearline remembered that a few moments before she had been sniffling and
shedding tears. She was sure her eyes were red, and she knew the tears
had washed all the white powder off her black nose. Quickly she rose to
her feet, giving the ten-foot chain a sharp jerk.

"I hates to take you from yo' frien's, Plaster," she exclaimed, "but I'm
got to go in. I cain't stand de glare."

Side by side they entered the cabin and the chain rattled as they shut
the door.

And the evening and the morning were the first day.


IV.

"Stop scatterin' dem shavin's all over de floor, Plaster," Pearline
commanded. "Ef folks comes to see us, I don't want dis house all
literated up wid trash."

"I got to whittle while you sews, honey," Plaster said patiently. "I
wanted to sot out in the yard, but you kep' me in de house all yistiddy
afternoon because you said you had de headache from de glare."

"You kin whittle 'thout messin' up dis room," Pearline snapped.

"I likes a messy room," the man declared. "It looks like folks lived in
it an' wus tol'able comfer'ble."

"You cain't mess up my house ef I got to come atter you an' clean up,"
the woman replied in a tone of finality.

A hound-dog stuck his wistful face into the door, seeking an invitation
to enter.

"Dar's a frien' in need," the bridegroom proclaimed happily. "Come here,
dawg!"

"Git out o' here!" the woman shrieked, kicking at the hound and sending
him out with a howl. "I don't want dat houn' in dis house scratchin' his
fleas all over de rooms. Look at de mud dat dawg tracked in. Come wadin'
through de bayou an' den come trackin' through de house!"

"Dar's some advantages in livin' a dawg's life, Pearline," Plaster
sighed. "Even excusin' de fleas, dar's plenty advantage. A dawg, even a
married dawg, he ain't tied up all de time an' kin run aroun' some."

"You aims to say you's gittin' tired stayin' here wid me?" Pearline
snapped.

"No'm. Nothin' like dat. I's happy as a mosquiter on a pickaninny's
nose."

"Ef you feels tied up like a houn'-dawg in de middle of de secont day,
how does you expeck to feel in de middle of de secont year?"

Plaster thought it best not to venture a reply. He looked through the
open door at the hound, lying under the china-berry tree in the glare,
placidly scratching fleas, bumping the elbow of his hind leg on the soft
ground as he scratched.

"Don't you never answer no 'terrogations when I axes you?" Pearline
asked sharply. "How you gwine feel in de middle of de secont year?"

Out of sheer perversity Plaster was disposed to tell her that he would
feel dead and buried for at least a year before the time she mentioned,
but instead he swallowed hard three times. His throat was dry and his
tongue rasped his mouth like sandpaper. His answer, finally, was a song:

    "She'll be sweeter as de days go by;
    She'll git sweeter as de moments fly;
    She'll git sweeter an' be dearer
    As to me she draws mo' nearer--
    Sweeter as de days go by."

Thereupon Pearline jumped from her chair, got strangle-hold upon her
husband, sat down on him, and impressed him forcibly in the next
half-hour that his wife was a heavyweight and the day was extremely
warm.

Plaster made such a hit with his improvised song that he repeated it
three times, then gradually eased his wife off his lap and onto a chair.

"Don't you never shave yo' face, Plaster?" the lady asked when the love
scene ended. "You feels like a stubby shoe-brush."

"No'm, my whiskers don't pester me none."

"But dey looks so bad," the woman urged.

"I cain't see 'em," Plaster grinned.

"I wants you to shave eve'y day while you is married to me."

"Huh," Plaster grunted.

"An I wants you to brush up yo' clothes, Plaster," the woman told him.
"You looks scandalous dusty."

"I looks as good as you does," Plaster retorted. "I's got powdered dirt
on my clothes an' you's got powdered chalk on yo' nose. You looks to
dang dressy fer me anyhow. I favors bein' dusty an' easy-feelin'."

The discussion ended by the appearance of three women who came to the
open door from the highroad.

"Look at dat, now!" Plaster exclaimed. "Here comes three ole gals of
mine. I co'ted 'em all servigerous but it didn't git me nothin'."

"Whut dey buttin' in here fer?" Pearline asked in sharp tones.

"Mebbe dey'll tell us when dey comes in," Plaster chuckled.

The three women were the wives of Hitch Diamond, Figger Bush, and
Vinegar Atts. When they entered they came straight to the point.

"Plaster, us ladies wants to talk to Sister Pearline Flunder Sickety in
privut."

"Dat cain't be did, sisters," Plaster answered, looking them over
suspiciously. "Whut does you want to tell my wife in privut?"

"Dat's a secret," Scootie Bush giggled.

Plaster looked at the women with an earnest effort to read their
intentions. He recalled certain incidents in his association with the
three in the old days of happy courtship that he preferred his wife
should not know. He thought he saw mischief in the eyes of each of the
women, especially Scootie and Goldie, and he shook his head.

"Nothin' ain't told in privut, sisters," he announced. "Leastwise, not
till after de third day."

"Does you aim to say dat I cain't conversation in privut wid my
frien's?" Pearline snapped.

"No'm not perzackly dat," Plaster hastened to explain. "But it looks
kinder onpossible to me as long as I'm tied up wid you on dis chain."

"Git over again dat wall while dese ladies whispers to me," Pearline
replied, giving him a push.

Plaster sat down and strained his ears to hear. What he heard was
spasmodic giggles. He saw mischievous glances directed to himself. Once
he saw his wife look straight at him reproachfully, as if she suspected
that he was trying to overhear. There was half an hour of this, then the
three giggling women took their departure.

"Whut did dem nigger women want, Pearline?" Plaster demanded.

"Dat's a fambly secret," Pearline giggled.

"Does you think you oughter hab any secrets from yo' cote-house
husbunt?" Plaster demanded belligerently.

"Naw, suh. Not no secrets dat stays secrets, but dis here little myst'ry
will git public powerful soon."

Coming through the medium of Plaster's troubled conscience, this answer
sounded ominous. Pearline picked up some sewing and Plaster reached for
his unwhittled stick. He spent one half-hour in deep thought. He was
sorry he had told Pearline that those three women were old sweethearts
of his. He recalled that his courtship of each woman had broken up in a
row and a fist-fight. It had been one-sided, the women conducting the
row and doing all the fighting while Plaster endeavored to escape. Now
Plaster had no other idea than that they were hot on his trail. They
were planning to make his life miserable through the jealousy of his
wife.

There was a loud knock on the front door. The two arose and the door
opened to Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, and Hitch Diamond.

"Sister Sickety, us three niggers is a cormittee of three app'inted to
wait in privut on Brudder Plaster Sickety an' hol' a secret confab wid
him," Vinegar announced pompously.

"I don't allow my husbunt to hab no secrets from me," Pearline answered
looking suspiciously at her old sweetheart, Hitch Diamond.

"Dis am a man's pussonal bizzness, Pearline," Hitch Diamond rumbled. "A
nigger woman is got to butt out."

"But I's chained up wid Plaster," Pearline protested.

"Git over agin dat wall while dese gen'lemens whispers to me," Plaster
remarked, giving her a push toward the chair which he had occupied under
similar circumstances a short time before.

The three committeemen walked up close to Plaster, draped their arms
over his shoulders, and talked in whispers, but guffawed out loud.
Because Pearline was present their eyes irresistibly sought hers,
especially when they laughed--what man can keep from looking at the
woman in a room?--and Pearline inferred that they were talking and
laughing about her. She strained her ears to hear, but not a word
enlightened her ignorance. Then with a loud laugh the three men
patted Plaster on the back and took themselves off.

"Whut did them niggers want, Plaster?" Pearline demanded in irate tones.

"Dat's a fambly secret," Plaster quoted mockingly.

"I felt like a fool wid dem mens lookin' at me an' snickerin'," the
woman complained. "Wus dey talkin' about me?"

"Yes'm," the man chuckled.

This remark set Pearline to thinking about certain incidents. Hitch had
been an old sweetheart, Figger Bush and Vinegar Atts had paid her
courtly attentions, and some things had happened that she would rather
not have to explain to her husband. There was a dismal depthless gulf of
painful silence between the honeymooners for a long time. Then Pearline
said with difficulty:

"I don't like de nigger mens you 'socheates wid. Dem three niggers ain't
fitten comp'ny fer my husbunt."

"Dat's whut I thinks about dem three womens dat come to see you,"
Plaster answered. "Ef you runs wid dat color of petticoats I shore will
disrespeck you mo' dan I does now."

"I runs wid anybody I chooses," Pearline snapped.

"Me, too," Plaster retorted.

They pulled apart and the chain rattled.

They stepped back from the entrance and closed the door.

And the evening and the morning were the second day.


V.

By sleeping until the noon-hour the two love-captives shortened the
third day by half.

In the two days past they had exhausted every theme of conversation, had
wearied of every kind of amusement they could devise, and had pumped
their hearts dry of language to proclaim and protest their affection for
each other to lubricate the machinery of existence amid the friction of
their disposition and temperament.

The day before Plaster had made a hit with a song, so he decided to fill
every moment of that day until the sun sank below the horizon with vocal
music, for song banishes conversation and song is not provocative of
difference of opinion and argument--so he thought. While he and his wife
were dressing, Plaster began:

    "Does you know dat I am dyin'
      Fer a little bit of love?
    Everywhar dey hears me sighin'
      Fer a little bit of love.
    Fer dat love dat grows mo' strong,
      Fills de heart wid hope and song,
    I has waited--oh, so long--
      Fer a little bit of love."

"Whut makes you sing so dang loud, Plaster?" Pearline asked wearily, as
she rested her head upon her hands. "You sounds like a brayin' jackace
mournin' because he done tumbled down a open well."

"One time you said you liked my singin'," Plaster retorted.

"I couldn't tell you whut I really thought about it in dem sad days,"
Pearline remarked.

They ate their noon meal in silence because neither could think of
anything to say. Plaster had got the hook at the very beginning of his
musical career, and the things he thought of to say were not fit for
utterance or publication.

As they rose from the table, they looked with surprise out of the
window.

A long procession of negroes approached the cabin. All were dressed in
their best clothes and the Rev. Vinegar Atts was in the lead.

The bridal pair suddenly remembered something, and they stepped out on
the porch to receive them as they filled the space in front of the
house.

Vinegar took his famous preaching attitude in front of the porch,
inflated his lungs and began:

"Brudder an' Sister Sickety, us is all rejoiced dat you two honey-loves
is got mighty nigh through wid yo' honey-tower widout no fuss or fight.
We welcomes you back to our sawsiety wid glad arms. We hopes dat you
will love each yuther mo' or less an' off an' on ferever! We knows dat
you has well earnt dis house an' lot dat Marse John Flournoy has gib you
an' we cullud folks wants to make you a present of a few change so you
kin buy some nice house-furnicher an' start out fresh an' new."

Thereupon Vinegar laid his stove-pipe hat upside down upon the floor of
the porch, turned and surveyed the assembly while he mopped his bald
head with a yellow bandana handkerchief.

"Walk right up, brudders an' sisters, an' drap yo' few change in dis
stove-pipe preachin'-hat!"

They came up one by one, laughingly depositing their money, and pausing
to shake hands with the bride and groom.

When the ceremony ended, Vinegar emptied his hat upon the floor of the
porch, placed it upon his head with a farewell flourish, and led the
negroes out of the yard.

"Dis money is de fambly secret dem three nigger womens whispered to me,
honey," Pearline giggled.

"Dat's de myst'ry dem three committee fellers tole me," Plaster
chuckled.

The two sat down and counted the money--twenty-five dollars and thirty
cents!

"Dat thuty cents is yourn to spend foolish, Pearline," Plaster said
generously as he pushed three dimes toward her and clutched with both
hands at the rest.

"Hol' on nigger!" Pearline snapped. "I ain't no bayou minnow to git jes'
a little nibble of dat money--half of dat cash spondulix is mine."

"Yes'm, but I is de man of de fambly an' I oughter keep it an' han' it
out to you as you needs it."

"I needs my half right now," Pearline snapped, placing both her hands
upon the clutching paws of Plaster Sickety.

"Whut you gwine do wid twelve dollars an' fo' bits?" Plaster demanded in
irate tones.

"Buy me a hat!" Pearline told him.

"You's a fool!" Plaster informed her. "Female hats ain't furnicher."

"Dis money furnishes me wid a hat," she announced positively.

Then they sat for a few minutes in silence, both keeping their hands
spread out over the money.

"Whut you gwine do wid yo' twelve dollars an' fo' bits?" Pearline
demanded at last.

"I figgers on buyin' a fiddle," Plaster told her. "Plenty money kin be
made playin' fiddles, an' I b'lieves I could learn to fiddle ef I had a
good chance."

"I ain't gwine hab no fiddlin' nigger in my house," Pearline snorted.
"I's druther be married to a phoneygraft."

"You ain't gwine be married to nothin' very long ef you don't leggo dis
money, nigger!" Plaster snarled.

"I is."

"You ain't."

"Don't gimme no sass."

"You sassed me fust."

The woman raised one hand from the money and made an unexpected
sideswipe at Plaster's jaw with her open palm. The blow landed with a
smack that jarred the very marrow of his bones and keeled him over the
edge of the porch to the ground. As he fell sprawling, the chain
tightened and jerked Pearline off her perch and she fell to the ground
with a squall. Then for ten minutes there was a Kilkenny cat scrap on
the front lawn.

Pearline bit and scratched and pulled hair and tore clothes. She had
decidedly the best of the rookus until her unusual activities caused her
to get a twist of the chain around her neck. Plaster thanked the Lord
and choked her into inaction and submission by the simple process of
pretending to escape from her and thus tightening the chain.

When she was choked almost to suffocation, he edged her to the porch,
lifted the twenty-five dollars and thirty cents into his own pockets,
and released the chain.

[Illustration: "THE BLOW LANDED WITH A SMACK THAT JARRED THE VERY MARROW
OF HIS BONES AND KEELED HIM OVER THE EDGE OF THE PORCH TO THE GROUND."]

When Pearline recovered her breath she dropped flat upon the ground at
her feet and howled like a Comanche until the going down of the sun.

Plaster did not attempt to console or quiet her. When he spoke again, he
reached out and touched the bawling woman with his foot.

"Git up idjit!" he exclaimed. "Marse John expecks us to come an' repote
to him an' git dese here handcuffs tuck off."

Sheriff John Flournoy was waiting for them as they came across his lawn
to the porch where he sat.

Then for half an hour he listened to a tirade of crimination and
recrimination which crackled with profane expletives like thorns under a
pot. When Plaster paused to breathe, Pearline took up the complaint.
When Pearline stopped from exhaustion, Plaster resumed his lamentations.

When the storm of vituperation subsided, Flournoy sat in his chair like
a man who had been pounded over the head with a brick. It was some time
before he could formulate his ideas. Then he spoke with difficulty.

"I judge from what I have heard that your three days' experience
together has convinced you that your tastes are entirely dissimilar and
your natures incompatible."

"Yes, suh, dat's c'reck."

"The information you offer conveys to me the impression that a woman
loves shadows, but a man loves sunshine and glare; a woman loves dress,
but a man loves tobacco; a woman desires daintiness and neatness
attended with any degree of discomfort, but a man prefers comfort with
no matter how much litter and mess; a woman loves indoor sports, like
sewing, and a man loves outdoor sports, like whittling sticks and making
the acquaintance of a hound-dog with fleas on his body and mud on his
feet; a man loves to sing and hear himself sing, and the woman prefers
to hear some other man sing; a woman wants her female companions with
their confidences and their secrets, and a man desires his male
companions and their secrets, but neither party to the matrimonial
alliance is willing that the partner should keep a secret. Am I right as
far as I've gone?"

"Dat's right!" they said in positive tones.

"But de fuss part, Marse John, is de money!" the woman shrieked.

"Certainly," Flournoy agreed softly. "Matrimony is always a matter of
money."

Then Flournoy took a key from his pocket and opened the bracelets on
their wrists. The chain fell at their feet. The bride and bridegroom
looked away, each ignoring the presence of the other.

Plaster Sickety thrust both hands into his pockets, brought out
twenty-five dollars and thirty cents and laid it into the open palm of
the sheriff.

"Fer Gawd's sake, git me a deevo'ce!" he pleaded.

"Make it two, Marse John," the girl urged. "I's plum' nauseated wid dat
nigger man."

The bride and bridegroom turned and walked away, choosing different
paths and going in opposite directions. They did not look back.

The sheriff stooped and picked up the rattling chain.

Then he went into the house and slammed the door.

The evening and the morning were the third day, and--




FOURTH TALE

PRINCESS OR PERCHERON

BY PERLEY POORE SHEEHAN


I.

Some queer things had taken place in this same hall--some very queer
things; but there were indications that this present affair was going to
be queerer yet.

The old duke always had been a worthy descendant of his ancestors; like
them, a little mad, with flashes of genius, very fine, very brutal, a
murderer at heart, with a love for poetry and philosophic speculation.

The guests were already in a smiling tremor of curiosity when they
arrived. Some of them whispered among themselves:

"It's on account of the Princess Gabrielle."

"They say the duke is furious."

"Not astonishing. But--a marriage! How can there be a marriage?"

Yet it looked as if a marriage there would be. Manifestly, the hall had
been prepared for some such event.

It was a chamber long, lofty and broad, walled and floored with the
native Burgundy rock, richly carpeted, hung with tapestry. And down a
portion of the length of this ran a wide table already spread with the
viands of a wedding-feast--huge cold pasties, hams and boarheads
beautifully jellied, fresh and candied fruits from Spain and Sicily,
flagons and goblets of crystal, silver, and gold.

What aroused curiosity and conjecture to the highest point, however, was
the discovery that the immense fireplace of the hall had been
transformed into a forge. It was a forge complete--bellows and hearth,
anvil and tub, hammers and tongs. There was even a smutty-faced imp
there to tend the forge fire, which already hissed and glowed as he
worked the bellows.

"Aha! So there _was_ a smith mixed up in the affair, after all!"

"_Mais oui!_ Gaspard, the smith, whose forge is down there on the banks
of the Rhone."

"But what does the duke intend to do?"

It was a question which more than one was asking. There was never any
forecasting what a whim of the duke might lead him to do even in
ordinary circumstances--declare war on France, call a new Crusade. And
now, with this menace of scandal in his family!

There in front of the fireplace where the forge had been set up, the
valets had placed the ducal chair. All the same, the arrangements had
something sinister about them. There fell a period of silence touched
with panic. But not for long. Curiosity was too acute and powerful to be
long suppressed. The whispering resumed:

"The duke surprised them together--the princess and her smith."

"It looks like the torture for one or both."

"They say the fellow's an Apollo, a Hercules."

"You wait until the duke--"

"Silence! He comes."

One of the large doors toward the farther end of the hall was thrown
open, and through this there came a surge of music--hautboys, viols, and
flutes. Two guardsmen came in, helmeted, swords drawn, and took up their
stations at either side of the door.

There entered the duke.

He looked the philosopher, perhaps, if not the student--tall, bent,
bony; a brush of white hair bristling over the top of his high and
narrow head; a fleshless face, sardonic and humorous. The guests were
pleased to see that his mood was amiable. He came forward smiling, waved
his musicians into retreat; and half a dozen valets were assisting him
into his chair as he greeted his guests. They all bent the knee to him.
Some kissed his hand--and some he kissed, especially those who were fair
and of the opposite sex.

If Princess Gabrielle had shown herself fragile in the matter of her
affections, well, she had come by her failing honestly.

Seated in his chair, the duke delivered himself of a little pun which
convulsed his audience--something about "court and courtship": "_Je
fais--la cour._"

And with no other preliminary he spoke to a page:

"Summon _mademoiselle_."

Then to another:

"Fetch in the smith."

There was a bitter smile on his face as he sank back into his chair and
studied the forge set up in the fireplace. The imp went white under his
smudge and worked the bellows until the fire on the hearth was spouting
like a miniature Vesuvius.

The wait was brief.

Once more the musicians struck into the royal march of Burgundy, and
there was the Princess Gabrielle.

Every one who looked at her must have experienced some thrill of the
heart--envy, desire, pure admiration. It was impossible to look at her
without some emotion; for she was eighteen, slender, white and
passionate; with dusky, copper-colored hair hanging in two heavy curls
forward over her brilliantly tender shoulders; and she had a broad, red
mouth, and slightly dilated nostrils; dark eyes, liquid and heavily
fringed, with disquieting shadows under them.

She came forward with a number of maidens in her train, but she so
dominated them that she appeared to be alone. She took her time. She was
a trifle rebellious, perhaps. But she was brave, not to say bold. She
tossed her head slightly. She smiled. She and her maidens, familiar with
the duke's intentions, grouped themselves at one side of the improvised
forge. Every one present was still looking at her when there came a
rough command:

"Stand aside!"

A good many of the guests were not in the habit of hearing orders except
from the duke himself; but the command came again:

"Stand aside! Let me pass--me and my people!"

At that there was a rapid shifting of the crowd and a whispered cry:

"The smith! It's Gaspard the smith!"

And he attracted even more attention than the princess had done; for,
manifestly, here was not only a man who could play the game of love, but
could play the game of life and death as well--to shout out like this,
and come striding like this into the presence of his ruler.

But he looked the part.

He was all of six feet tall, blond and supple and beautifully fleshed.
He was wearing his blacksmith's outfit of doeskin and leather, but he
was scoured and shaven to the pink. His great arms were bare; and the
exquisitely sculptured muscles of these slipped and played under a skin
as white as a woman's.

He stood there with his shoulders back, his arms folded, feet apart.
But, curiously, there was no insolence in the posture. Insolence is a
quality of the little heart, the little soul, and shows itself in the
eyes. Gaspard the smith had gentle blue eyes, large, dark, fearless, and
with a certain brooding pride in them. There may have been even a hint
of virgin bashfulness in them as well, during that moment he glanced at
the Princess Gabrielle. Then he had looked at the duke, and all his
courage had come back to him, perhaps also a suggestion of challenge.

But neither had the smith come into the ducal presence alone.

There were two old people--a man and a woman, peasants, both of them
very poor, very humble, so frightened that they could breathe only with
their mouths open; and so soon as they were inside the circle of guests,
they had dropped to their knees. The other member of the smith's party
would have done the same had he permitted. This was a girl of twenty or
so, likewise a peasant, healthy, painfully abashed, but otherwise not
notable. To her the smith had given a nudge and a word of encouragement,
so that now she stood close to him and back of him.

"Our friends," said the duke, with studied nonchalance, "we are about to
present to you the initial operation of scientific experiment. Like all
scientific research, this also should be judged solely by its possible
contribution to the advancement of human happiness. Ourself, we feel
that this contribution will be great. God knows it is concerned with a
problem that is both elusive and poignant."

All this was rather above Gaspard's head. He turned to the imp at the
bellows.

"Stop blowing that fire so hard," he whispered. "You're wasting
charcoal."

The duke smiled grimly.

"The problem," he continued, "is this: Can any man and woman, however
devoted, continue to love each other if they are too closely held
together?"

There was a slight movement among some of the younger gentlemen and
ladies present--a few knowing smiles.

"There have always been those who answered _No_; there have always been
those who answered _Yes_," the duke went on. "Which were right?" No
answer. "My granddaughter here, while having her horse shod some weeks
ago, became enamored of this worthy subject of mine." He nodded toward
the smith. "She would have him. She would have no one else. We knew how
hopeless would be any attempt to impose our will--in an affair of the
heart." He smiled gallantly. "We are familiar with the breed."

"Long live the House of Burgundy," cried the chivalrous young Vicomte de
M;con. But the duke silenced him with a look.

"And now," said the duke, "we wish to test this so great passion of
hers--test it under conditions that while apparently extraordinary are
none the less classical and scientific. Our experiment is this--"

For the first time since he began to speak the duke now leaned forward,
and both his face and his voice took on that quality which made his name
a source of trembling from Spain to Denmark.

"Our experiment is this:

"_To have the princess and her smith, whom she is so sure she loves,
handcuffed and linked together by a ten-foot chain._"


II.

There was a gasp from the audience. Every one stared at the princess.
Even the duke himself. Without turning his head he took her in with his
furtive eyes.

"_Mlle. la Princess_," he said icily, "was good enough to insist upon
the sacrifice."

At this, a stain of richer color slowly crept up the throat of the
Princess Gabrielle; there came a touch of extra fire to her eyes.
Perhaps she would have spoken. But the duke hadn't finished yet.

"We'll see whether she loves him so much or not," said the duke. "We'll
give them three days of it--three days to go and come as they wish--and
to do as they wish--together--always together--bound to each other by
their ten-foot chain."

But while the excitement caused by the duke's announcement was still
crisping the nerves of every one present, the smith had cast one more
glance in the direction of the Princess Gabrielle. And this time their
eyes met. There were those who saw a glint of terror--of delicious
terror--in the eyes of the princess; and in the eyes of Gaspard a look
intended to be reassuring.

Then the smith had unfolded his arms, thrust them forward.

"Wait," he cried.

At that there was a fresh sensation.

For it was seen that one of his wrists--his left--was already encircled
by a bracelet of shining steel, forged there of a single piece, and that
to the bracelet itself there was forged a link, fine but powerful, and
that other links ran back over his shoulder.

"Ha!" snarled the duke. "So you've come prepared!"

"By the grace of God!" replied Gaspard the smith, unafraid. He cast a
look about him, brought his eyes back to the duke. "_Moi_, Gaspard," he
said, "I forge my own chains--always! I'm a smith, I am."

The two old people kneeling just back of him began to sob and to groan.
Gaspard turned and looked down at them.

"Shut up," he ordered; "I'm talking."

He smiled at the duke. He explained.

"You see, they're frightened," he said. "When I found out what your
highness and your highness's lady-granddaughter were planning up here
in the castle, why, I went to these old folks and told them that I
wanted their daughter Susette."

"I suppose you loved her," the duke put in with ironical intent.

But the smith saw no reason for irony.

"Eh, _bon Dieu_!" he ejaculated. "And save your highness's respect,
we've loved each other ever since we were out of the cradle, we have. So
I made the old folks consent. I'm a smith, I am. I forge my own chains.
Stand around, Susette! His highness won't hurt you. Look!"

He stepped aside. He gave a gentle thrust to the girl who had been
sheltering back of him. The chain rattled.

And there was another cry of surprise.

One of the girl's wrist's also was ornamented with a steel handcuff
tightly welded. Not only that, but to this also was attached a chain.
The smith threw up his arm. It was the same chain that was welded to his
own handcuff--ten feet of it, glistening steel, unbreakable.

"There's your ten-foot chain, highness," cried Gaspard. "And it's no
trick-chain, either," he added. "It's a chain that will hold. You bet
it will. I forged it myself, and I know. It's a chain you couldn't buy.
Why? Because--because the iron of it's mixed with love. Nor can it be
cut, nor filed, nor broken. I'm a smith, I am. And each link of it I
tempered myself--with sweat and blood."

There for a time it was a question--possibly a question in the mind of
the duke himself--just how many minutes the smith still had to live.
Many a valet had been executed for less. During a period of about thirty
seconds the duke's face went black. Then the blackness dispersed. He
slowly smiled.

After all, he wasn't to be cheated of his experiment.

But he answered the question that was in his own mind and the minds of
all the others there as he looked at the smith and said:

"Fool, you'll be sufficiently punished--by your own device."

He let his eyes drift again to the Princess Gabrielle.

"And thou," he said, "art sufficiently punished already."


III.

It happened to be a day of late spring; and as Gaspard and this
strangely wedded bride of his and her parents came out of the castle,
both fed and forgiven, it must have seemed to all of them that this was
the most auspicious moment of their lives. The old folks, who had
partaken freely of the generous wines pressed upon them, had now passed
from their trembling terror to a spirit of frolic. Arm in arm, their
sabots clogging, they did a rigadoon down the winding road. It was a
spirit of tender elation, though, that dominated Gaspard and Susette.
They were like two beings distilled complete from the mild and fragrant
air, the sweet mistiness of the verdant valley, the purpling solemnity
of the Juras.

"What did he mean, his highness?" asked Susette as she pressed the
smith's arm closer to her side. "What did he mean that you'd be punished
by your own device?"

Gaspard looked down at her, pressed her manacled wrist to his lips, took
thought.

"I don't know," he answered gently. "He must be crazy. It's like calling
it punishment when a true believer receives the reward of paradise."

"You love me so much as that?"

"_Pardi!_" he ejaculated. "And thou?"

"So much," she palpitated, "so much that when you looked at the princess
like that--I wished you were blind!"

At the bottom of the hill, the old folks, Burgundians to the souls of
them, happily bade the young couple to be off about their own affairs.
They knew how it was with young married people. The old were
obstacles--so they themselves well recalled--albeit that was more than
twenty years ago.

Said Gaspard fondly: "This business has put me back in my work; but
we'll call this a holiday. Shall we go to my cottage or into the forest?
I know of a secret place--"

"Into the forest," whispered Susette. "I don't like the forge. It makes
me think--think of that cursed princess--and of the work that almost
lost you to me." Her blue eyes filmed as she looked up at him. "Oh,
Gaspard, I also have dreamed so much--of love--a life of love with
thee!"

There was no one there to see. Some day, perhaps, in the far distant
future, this part of the world would be thickly populated. But this was
not yet the case. Gaspard brought his bride close to his breast, smiled
gravely into her upturned face. He kissed her tears away. Sweet Susette!
She was such a child! How little she knew of life!

And yet what was that fragile, fluttering, elusive, tiny suggestion of a
regret in the back of his brain? Now he saw it; now it was gone--a
silver moth of a thought, yet one, some instinct warned him, was there
to gnaw a hole in his happiness.

He said nothing about this to Susette, of course; he chased it from his
own joy. And this joy was a beautiful, tumultuous thing.

"It's like the source of the Rhone, which I saw one time--this joy of
ours," he said with placid rapture. "All sparkling it was, and wild
cataracts, and deep places, clean and full of mystery."

"Ah, I want it to be always like this," said Susette.

Gaspard let himself go in clear-sighted thought. They were seated on a
grassy shelf that overhung the great river. The forest hemmed them in
on three sides like a wedding-bower fashioned to order; but here they
could follow the Rhone for miles--with its drifting barges, its
red-sailed shallops, its hamlets, and villages.

"Yes, ever like the Rhone," he said; "but growing, like the Rhone, until
it's broad and majestic and strong to carry burdens--"

Susette interrupted him.

"Kiss me," she said. "Kiss me again. No--not like that; like you did a
while ago."

And Gaspard, laughing, did as he was bidden. But what was that silver
glint of something like a regret, something like a loss, that came
fluttering once more across the atmosphere of his thought? Susette,
though, kept him diverted. She was forever popping in upon his
reflections with innocent, childish questions; and he found this
infinitely amusing.

"Did you desire me--more than the princess?"

"Beloved, I have desired you for years."

"Did you think me more beautiful--than she?"

Again Gaspard laughed; but it set him to thinking. He liked to think. He
thought at his forge, at his meals, nights when he happened to be
awake.

"Love and beauty," he said, "these are created by desire. As a
stone-cutter desires what is hidden in the rock, and hews it out and
loves the thing he shapes, though it be as ugly as a gargoyle, because
of the desire that brought it forth--"

"Do you think that I'm a gargoyle?" queried Susette hastily.

"Certainly not."

"Then, why did you call me one?"

So he had to console her again, and took a certain joy in it, although
she protracted the dear, silly dispute by telling him that he had
chained her to him simply so that he could torture her, and that he had
wanted to spare the princess such suffering, and that therefore it was
clear that he loved the princess more.

"Why, no," said Gaspard; "as for that, she's really in love with that
young Sieur de M;con."

But thereupon Susette wanted to know how he came to be so well informed
as to the contents of the lady's heart. So the smith gave over any
attempt to reason, except in the silences of his brain; and just
confined his outer activities to cooings and caresses, as Susette would
have him do.

Yet his thought would persist.

That was the trail of a great truth he had almost stated back there,
about the place held by desire in the origins of love and beauty. He had
watched a certain Italian named Botticelli do a mural painting in the
duke's private chapel. Lord, there was a passion! He had helped in the
building of the cathedral at Sens. Lord, what fervor the builders put
into their work! They were all like young lovers.

The smith sat up. It was almost as if he had cornered that glinting moth
of doubt.

Yes, they had been like young lovers--Sieur Botticelli, in pursuit of
the beautiful; the church-builders in pursuit of God. But--and here was
the point--what if their desire had been satisfied? The quest would have
stopped. The vision of the artist would have faded. The steeple would
have fallen down. For desire would have ceased to exist.

"I'm hungry and I'm thirsty," said Susette.

He kissed her pensively. They started home.


IV.

"Gaspard! Gaspard!"

The smith sat up swiftly on his couch.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

All the same, in spite of certain disquieting dreams, it struck him as
sweet and curious to be awakened like that by Susette. But he perceived
that she was alarmed.

"Some one hammers at the door," she said.

Then he heard it himself, that thing he had already been hearing
obscurely in his sleep.

"Coming!" he yelled. And he smilingly explained to Susette: "It's my
old friend, Joseph, the carter. He'd bring his work to me if he had
to travel five leagues." And he was for jumping up and running to
the door.

"Wait," cried Susette. "I'll have to go with you, and I can't be seen
like this."

"That's right," said Gaspard. "That confounded chain! I'd forgotten all
about it." So he called out again to his friend, and the two of them
held quite a conversation while Susette tried to make herself
presentable. But Gaspard turned to her as she shook her hair out for the
third time, starting to rearrange it. "Quick!" he urged. "He's in a
hurry. One of his horses has cast a shoe."

"You can't show yourself like that, either," cried Susette, playing for
time.

"Me?" laughed Gaspard. "I'm a smith. I'd like to see a smith who
couldn't show himself in singlet and apron!"

"You look like a brigand."

But he merely laughed: "Joseph won't mind."

And, indeed, Joseph the carter did appear to have but little thought for
anything except the work in hand. For that matter, neither, apparently,
did Gaspard. After the first few brief civilities and the inevitable
jests about the chain, their attention was absorbed at once by the
horses. There were four of these--Percherons, huge monsters with shaggy
fetlocks and massive feet; yet Joseph and Gaspard went about lifting
these colossal hoofs, and considering them as tenderly as if the two had
been young mothers concerned with the feet of babes.

At last Susette let out a little cry, and both men turned to look at
her.

"I faint," she said weakly.

And Gaspard sprang over and caught her in his arms. He was filled with
pity. He was all gentleness.

"Are you sick?" he asked.

"It was the odor of the horses," Susette replied in her small voice.

Joseph the carter seemed to take this as some aspersion on himself.
"Those horses don't smell," he asserted stoutly.

But Gaspard signaled him to hold his place. "You'll be all right in a
second or so," he told his wife. He spoke gently; although, as a matter
of fact, he himself could find nothing about those magnificent animals
to offend the most delicate sensibility. "You'll be all right. You can
come into the forge and sit down while I shoe the big gray."

"That will be worse than ever," wailed Susette.

Joseph the carter was an outspoken man, gruff and honest.

"And there's a woman for you," he said, "to be not only wed but welded
to a smith! _Nom d'un tonnerre!_ Say, then, Gaspard, I'm in a hurry.
Shall we start with the gray?"

"Yes," Gaspard answered softly, as he continued to support Susette.

"No, no, no!" cried Susette. "Not to-day! I'm too sick."

"_Mais, ch;rie_," Gaspard began.

"You love your work better than you do me," sobbed Susette.

"_Nom d'un pourceau!_" droned Joseph.

"But this work is important," Gaspard argued desperately. "The gray has
not only cast a shoe, but the shoes on the others are loose. They've got
to be attended to. It's work that will bring me in a whole _;cu_."

"I don't care," said Susette. "I can't stand the smell of those horses,
and I could never, never bear the smell of the hot iron on their hoofs."

"But I'm a smith," argued Gaspard.

It was his ultimate appeal.

"I told you that you loved your work more than you did me," whimpered
Susette, beginning to cry. "'_I'm a smith; I'm a smith_'--that's all
you've talked about since you got me in your power."

Joseph the carter went away. He did so shaking his head, followed by his
shining Percherons, which were as majestic as elephants, but as gentle
as sheep. There was a tugging at Gaspard's heart as he saw them go.
Such horses! And no one could shoe a horse as could he. He looked down
at Susette's bowed head as she lay there cuddled in his arms. That
despairing cry was again swelling in his chest: "But I'm a smith." He
silenced it. He stroked the girl's head.

As he did so, he was mindful as never before of the clink and jangle of
the chain.


V.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked that afternoon as they lay out in
the shade of the poplars along the river bank.

"I want you to love me," she answered.

"I do love you. But we can't live on love--can we, Susette?--however
pleasant that would be. I've got to work."

"Ah, your _sacr;_ work!"

"Still, you'll admit that you can't pick up _;cus_ in the road."

"You're thinking still of that miserable carter."

"No; but I'm thinking of his horses. Somebody's got to shoe them. You
can't let them go lame--or be lamed by a bungler. I could have done
that job as it should have been done."

"But I tell you," declared Susette, pronouncing each word with an
individual stress, "I can't support the grime and the odors and the
racket of your forge. You ought to find some work that I do like. We
could collect wild salads together--pick wild-flowers and sell
them--something like that."

Gaspard sighed.

"But a man's work is his work," he averred.

"There you go again," said Susette, and the accusation was all the more
damning in that it was spoken not in anger, but in grief. "Now that I've
given myself to you--done all that you wished--you want to get rid of
me; you want me to die."

"Haven't I told you a thousand times," cried Gaspard softly and
passionately, "that I love you more than any man has ever loved any
woman? Haven't I spent whole days and nights--yes, years--of my life
desiring you? Haven't I proven it? Come into my arms, Susette. Ah, when
I have you in my arms like this--"

"And it's only like this that I know happiness, my love," breathed the
girl. "Yes; I'm jealous! Jealous of everything that can take you from
me, body or spirit, if even for a moment. All women are like that. We
live in jealousy. What's work? What's ambition, honor, duty, gold as
compared with love?"

But late that night Gaspard the smith roused himself softly from his
couch. He lay there leaning on his elbow and stared out of the window of
his cottage. Susette stirred at his side, undisturbed by the metallic
clinking. Otherwise the night was one of engulfing, mystical silence.

Just outside the cottage the great river Rhone flowed placid and free in
the light of the young moon. Up from the river-bottoms ran the vine-clad
slopes of Burgundy as fragrant as gardens. There was no wind. It was all
swoon and mystery.

"Lord God!" cried Gaspard the smith in his heart.

It was a prayer as much as anything--an inspiration that he couldn't get
otherwise into words.

He was of that race of artist-craftsmen whose forged iron and fretted
steel would continue to stir all lovers of beauty for centuries to come.

"It's true," that inner voice of his spoke again, "that desire is the
driving force of the world. 'Twas desire in the heart of God that led to
creation. 'Tis so with us, His creatures--desire that makes us love and
embellish. But when desire is satisfied, then desire is dead, and
then--and then--"

And yet, as he lay there, buffeted by an emotion which he either would
not or could not express, his eyes gradually focused on the castle of
the great Duke of Burgundy up there on top of the hill--washed in
moonlight, dim and vast; and it was as if he could see the Princess
Gabrielle at her casement, kneeling there, communing with the night as
he was doing.

Did she weep?

He had caught that message in her eyes as she had looked at him up there
in the castle hall--had seen the same message before.

But never had she looked so beautiful--or as she looked now in
retrospect--skin so white, mouth so tender, shape so stately, yet so
slim and graceful. Oddly enough, thought of her now filled him with a
vibrancy, with a longing.

And brave! Hadn't she shown herself to be brave though--to stand up like
that there before her grandfather, him whom all Europe called Louis the
Terrible, and declare herself ready to be welded to the man of her
choice! She wouldn't faint in the presence of horses! And where couldn't
a man go if led by a guardian angel like that? Slaves had become
emperors; blacksmiths had forged armies, become the architects of
cathedrals.

His breathing went deep, then deeper yet. The sweat was on his brow. He
sat up. He seized the chain in his powerful hands, made as if he were
going to tear it asunder.

But after that moment of straining silence he again lifted his face.

"_Seigneur-Dieu_," he panted; "if--if I only had it to do over again!"


VI.

"It's Gaspard the smith," said the frightened page. "He craves the honor
of an interview."

The duke looked up from his parchment.

"Gaspard the smith?"

The duke was seated before the fireplace in the hall. The forge had
been removed; and instead there were some logs smoldering there, for the
morning was cool. But his glance recalled the circumstances of his last
encounter with the smith. The watchful page was quick to seize his cue.

"He comes alone," the page announced.

The duke gave a start, then began to chuckle.

"_Tiens! Tiens!_ He comes alone! 'Tis true, this is the time limit I
set. Send the creature in."

And his highness continued to laugh all the time that the page was gone.
But he laughed softly, for he was alone. Presently he heard a subdued
clinking of steel. He greeted his subject with a sly smile.

Most subjects of Louis the Terrible would have been overjoyed to be
received by their sovereign so graciously. But Gaspard the smith showed
no special joy. He wasn't nearly so proud, either, as he had been that
other time he had appeared before his lord. He bent his knee. He
remained kneeling until the duke told him to get up. The duke was still
smiling.

"So my three days were enough," said his highness.

"Enough and sufficient," quoth the smith.

Now that he was on his feet again he was once more the man. He and the
duke looked at each other almost as equals.

"Tell me about it," said Louis.

"Well, I'll tell you," Gaspard began; "you see, I'm a smith."

"But incapable of forging a chain strong enough to hold a woman."

"I'm not so sure," Gaspard replied. "It was a good chain."

He put out his left wrist and examined it. The steel handcuff was still
there. Up and back from it ran the chain which the smith had been
carrying over his shoulder. He hauled the chain down. He displayed the
other end of it, still ornamented by the companion bracelet.

"What happened? How did she get out of it?" queried the duke.

"She got thin," Gaspard responded with melancholy. "She didn't want me
to work. She wanted the money that I could earn. Yes. She even wanted me
to work. But it had to be her kind of work; something--something--how
shall I say it?--something that wouldn't interfere with our love."

"And you didn't love her?"

"Sure I loved her," flared the smith. "Eh--_bon Dieu_! I wouldn't have
coupled up with her if I hadn't loved her; but, also, I loved something
else. I loved my work. I'm a smith. I'm a shoer of horses, a forger of
iron, a worker in steel. I'm what the good God made me, and I've the
good God's work to do!

"So after a certain amount of honeymoon I had to get back to my forge.
Joseph the carter, his Percherons; who could shoe them but me?"

"And she didn't like that?"

"No. When I made her sit in my forge she pined and whined and refused to
eat. I was crazy. But I did my work. And this morning when I awoke I
found that she had slipped away."

"You were already enchained," said his highness, "by your work."

The smith misunderstood.

"You can see it was no trick chain," he said, holding up the chain he
himself had forged and playing with the links.

"Aye," said the duke, for he loved these philosophic disquisitions, when
he was in the mood for them. "Aye, chains are the nature of the
universe. The planets are chained. The immortal soul is chained to the
mortal body. The body itself is chained to its lusts and frailties."

"I'm a smith," said Gaspard, "and I want to work."

"We're not happy when we are chained," the duke continued to reflect
aloud. "But I doubt that we'd be happier were our chains to disappear.
No matter." He regarded Gaspard the smith with real benignancy. "At
least you've proven the fatal quality of one particular chain--the
thing I wanted to prove. And--you've saved the princess."

"'Twas of her I wanted to speak," Gaspard spoke up. "This is a good
chain. I forged it myself."

"Yes, I know you're a smith," said the duke.

"Well, then," said Gaspard, "I've been thinking. Suppose--now that I've
still got it on me--that we try it on the princess, after all." He
noticed the duke's look of amazement. "I'm willing," said Gaspard. "I'm
willing to have another try--"

"_Dieu de bon Dieu!_" quoth the duke. "Never content!" He recovered
himself. He felt kindly toward the smith. "Haven't you heard?" he
demanded. "The princess has forged a chain of her own. She eloped with
that young Sieur de M;con the same day you declined to chain her to
yourself."




Transcriber's Note:

Spelling, punctuation and grammar have been retained except as follows:

    Page 18
    bear of leaves _changed to_
    bare of leaves

    Page 36
    enternal laws of logic _changed to_
    eternal laws of logic

    Page 47
    what has love to _changed to_
    what has love to do

    Page 56
    completely locked the hall _changed to_
    completely blocked the hall

    Page 76
    borne a thousand times _changed to_
    born a thousand times

    Page 78
    but the were frozen _changed to_
    but they were frozen

    Page 85
    Flourney studied a moment _changed to_
    Flournoy studied a moment

    Page 86
    "No!" Flourney snapped _changed to_
    "No!" Flournoy snapped

    Page 111
    enlightened her igorance _changed to_
    enlightened her ignorance

    Page 116
    I ain't no bayou _changed to_
    "I ain't no bayou

    Page 145
    Its my old friend _changed to_
    It's my old friend

    Page 158
    No, matter. _changed to_
    No matter.