A Man's Conscience

Chapter I

A level plain of waving grain stretched westward to the setting sun ; a monotonous grey-green illimi table expanse, with few trees to shade or bushes to break the even surface. Scarcely an undulation in the green plain served to vary the tiresome stretch. One could believe that the sea of bearded stalks bent and raised their heads again without limit all the way between the wheat farm of Sandy Alistair and the ocean hundreds of miles away. Yet where the horizon dipped to meet the dim distance of the plain there might have been dis cerned, on a clear day, deeper shadows and an irregular line. There the earth rose in varying vistas that betokened shadowy hills and open wide valleys lying between. But at that distance from the farm the outline was indistinct, and melted into what could easily have been mistaken for low-lying clouds.

L A low-roofed frame bouse, with rambling out buildings, stood somewhere near the centre of vast wheatfields, and served as a focus for the eye in all that waste of waving green. A few stunted trees stood behind the house — possibly an offshoot of one of the pine-belts that intersect the State at irregular intervals. But that was before civilization bad marched so far and marched so rapidly with its plough and pruning-hook; to-day there scarce re mains an unmolested glade to whisper of what that Western world was before man hewed and sowed and reaped its broad lands. Much of the primitive grandeur has departed with the introduction of modern cultivation; the mechanical tilling of the soil, the throbbing plough, and whirling reaper have almost obliterated the memory of those past silent days.

Besides the dwarfed growth — now for the most part represented by stumps or skeleton branches — that stood at no great distance from the dwelling, there was also a young plantation of hardy trees, planted and coaxed into comparative thriftiness by Sandy's fostering care; but aside from this there was little attempt at variety in the culture of the soil. Approaching to the very threshold itself there was, to be sure, a field of rapidly growing potato vines ; in a limited space to the left some of the commoner sorts of garden vegetables throve, the long runners of beans predominating, either from some latent faith in their ultimate yield, or because they had the habit of growing without asking attention or exacting care. Everywhere else the long shafts of the heavy-headed grain grew almost to the very door of the house.

Even the road that led to the grassy plain beyond had been made by trampling down the young wheat and cutting a way through its broken blades of tender springing green. Each separate stalk bad its equivalent in coveted "cash," as Sandy Alistair was wont to remark; and so there could be no sentiment wasted in improving and extending the clearing around the house. In deed, it seemed possible that sentiment had stopped short at that wooden structure itself. No slower of fancy had been allowed to adorn its severe construction. It closely resembled in outline some of the first efforts at representation that Sandy remembered to have essayed in those far-off days in New England, when with slate and pencil be bad labori ously acquired the rudiments of what he was pleased to term his education. Happily education in its broader sense is not confined to Murray or the higher mathematics, else Sandy perhaps would have fallen short of any standard upheld by the schools.

Albeit be had not in those days drawn on his smudgy slate to no pur pose four straight walls, with an outlined door set impartially in the centre, equally well-planned windows of four panes each, all surmounted by a peaked roof that had a tendency to lean threaten ingly from the perpendicular. As near as memory could reproduce this childish effort in architecture the house had risen in the midst of the boundless plain, leaving the cabin which Sandy had first reared to fulfil the utilitarian office of washhouse or other adjunct. An unexpected improvement to the severe sim plicity of his first plan bad of late been added to the frame building, fundamentally the result of the exigencies of the climate, but more directly the outgrowth of unceasing importunity on the part of Sandy's only child, Millicent.

She had pleaded in every tone known to wheedling womanhood that a "piazza" was necessary to her further equable existence; that, indeed, she urged, there was at present no place fit to sit in ; that the kitchen was intolerable ; that her bedroom was hot and stuffy ; and that their joint living-room, which also answered the requirements of her father's nightly repose, was no longer to be endured. Sandy sighed. This possibly was the outcome of sending his daughter to a boarding-school in their nearest large city, where she had passed the greater part of the last three years. These presumably were the ideas instilled by those purveyors of learn ing and polish to whom he had intrusted the education of his child. It was lamentable the false notions of life and luxury that were imbibed along with Smith's Geography and a rudimentary know ledge of the use of the pianoforte.

This instrument, the epitome of freehanded indulgence, Sandy had purchased at great outlay on the occasion of a visit to St. Paul's to fetch his daughter home after her last term at school. He looked upon the selection and removal of Millicent's piano to their distant home as an event worthy a place in the State chronicles. The ways and means for its accomplishment had cost him several sleepless nights, but bad at length been achieved. The piano now stood in a corner of the large front room, covered with a black indiarubber covering, and con veying in outward appearance about the same idea of cheer that the contemplation of an undertaker's window suggests. The question of adding a verandah to the house had been raised by Milly soon after her return from school, but the consideration of further outlay had not met with any very pronounced approval on the part of her father.

" Y' were born in this house and brung up here, and never see the necessity of settin' anywhars but in the kitchen or the big room or the doorstep. What notion's got inter your pretty head down to St. Paul's as to make you discontented with your old home ? " he asked, with a questioning look at his daughter, as though longing to penetrate this new phase of her development. She did not answer directly, but on her way through the room she stooped — with one arm thrown round his thin shoulders, clothed with the loose-throated flannel shirt be wore — and kissed him. " I sw'ar," he ejaculated after she had gone, " if that thai* golden-headed, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed baby hasn't al'ays had her own way with me ! I've never held my own with her, never since the fust streak of light fell across her blessed face lyin' in the cradle I hollered out for her 'fore she was born.

And when her mother was took so soon, it did seem to me that no baby's fiugers in all this world ever got such a tight grip on a man's heart as them little pink ones did." Sandy got up and changed to another hard wooden chair, while he exclaimed impatiently — " Psha' ! she'll have her own way ; that piazza is as good as built, so far as I can jedge. I might as well ride over and get Smithies to come and lend a hand. The sooner it's done the sooner I'll forget what a blame fule that girl makes o' me with her wheedlin' ways and her 'Please, daddy,' and her kisses, and the Lor' knows what ! " Sandy shook himself impatiently, and strode out through the kitchen. Seeing Milly standing on the threshold, tall, graceful, shapely, his intent took the form of resolve; as he passed her be remarked a bit shamefacedly — " I guess I'll ride over to the Cross Roads 'fore it gets any hotter.

Want anything ? " She again did not answer him directly, but this time put both her arms around his neck, saying softly, " You dear old daddy ! " Soon after, as be was tightening the girth about Winona, the strains of an inspiriting waltz were borne out to him through the open wiudow, awaken ing a pleased smile of inward satisfaction that lighted bis faded eyes and softened the many deep-set lines of his thin bronzed face. Millicent played on ; she was enjoying the piazza in prospective,andalso, with characteristic femininity, the small triumph of her well-conceived plan. That evening, as Sandy threw himself out of the saddle, flinging the bridle to a boy standing lazily watching his return, he forgot to give the customary instructions regarding the mare's fodder and stabling. His mind was evidently preoccupied with some train of thought that excluded even the expected reference to the lad's good-for-nothing habits of supreme laziness.

Rarely did Jim escape some good-natured gibe from his master on such occasions. "Lor'," the boy ejaculated, as Sandy left him abruptly, " what's ever come to the boss ? 'Tain't of'en he lets a fellar off's light's this. He must 'a heerd some news or 'nother to make him in sech a bustle." But whatever mi-jlit have been the cause of Sandy's abstraction, it did not wear off at once — not when be had kissed his daughter, nor when Hannah, the housekeeper and valuable woman of all work, bad placed before him bis supper of cold boiled beef and the good-sized loaf, whose quality she greatly prided herself upon. "'Pears like as tho' y'd lost yer appetite," she remarked sententiously, glancing at the table, and observing the food scarcely tasted. "Hope you hev'n't been sp'ilin' yer stummick with them nasty dram-drinkin's the settlement's beset with.

The Lord'll snatch up the Cross Roads or burn it with brimstone 'fore long, jest to keep the plague from spreadin'," Hannah continued. Her view of the omnipotence of Providence was, it cannot be denied, a somewhat material one, and had little in common with more advanced theories of natural development. If He saw fit to make an example of the Cross Roads by wiping it out of existence with one clean stroke of supernatural power, Hannah was not the one to deny the lesson implied in the miracle. The temptations that rendered the small settlement attractive to many of the dwellers in the scattered houses of the farmers were all in her eyes dangerous, if not damning. She did not believe that any visitor to that region escaped without yielding A MAN'S CONSCIENCE. to its allurements, even if escaping actual con tamination.

Although she would have answered with her life for Sandy's sound judgment and consequent well doing, she could not nevertheless resist using upon him the lash of her suspicions when commenting on his rare visits to the little hamlet. " Like as not you felt kinder tuckered out arter yer ride, and visited them s'loons rutber too of'en," she remarked. Sandy had no thought of rebuking the woman as she cleared away the meal and tidied the room. He was too well accustomed to her pessimistic views of humanity in general, and of his own shortcomings in particular, to attempt any defence or give more than a passing word in reply. He sat for some time in silence, smoking his pipe, with his chair tilted back against the wall, and his chip hat pulled well down over his ears. A few straggling locks of grey hair showed beneath the broad-brimmed bat, and some fell forward at the sides, mingling with the unkempt beard and whiskers.

His features were well defined, and not without a certain attraction of form and outline. But they, like the whole man, had been modified and altered during his life of toil in a climate of quickly vary ing extremes. Deep lines furrowed his brow and sat in well-defined wrinkles about bis thin lips, which even bis unshaven beard failed altogether A MAN'S CONSCIENCE. to conceal ; his eyes were so light in shade that it would have been difficult to define their original colour, but the expression was pleasing, and often caught some fire from the quizzical smile that lighted them. Like many persons who pass the greater part of life separated from ready intercourse with men and their requirements, his face held a reserved passivity that was well-nigh impenetrable. Where a nature is left to almost exclusive self communing, few passions chase one another through the slow-moving brain, leaving the impress of what we term expression.

One thought gives place to another with sluggish deliberation, showing no sign of conflict. Physical changes leave their mark in time on all flesh, but their inroad, as in the case of Sandy Alistair, comes rather from without than from within. The rain and the frost and the sun had more to do with the ploughing of deep lines in his impassive countenance than any quickly varying emotions of inward consciousness. He would sometimes sit for hours in his daughter's company without exchanging half a dozen words with her. Not that this precluded an absorbing interest on his part in her lightest word, nor a cheerful unrestrained confidence on hers. When one is eighteen, with a perfect physical organization, no very marked ambitions and few cares, it is easy to find subjects for endless monologues.

On this occasion there was the much-anticipated alteration in the house which demanded a running commentary from Milly. There was also the description of Jim's accident with the reaping machine, which had in some way caught his hand and left him the worse by the top of a finger. Then, too, there was the "buggy," Millicent's especial property, which needed revarnishing. " It was now not fit to be seen," she explained, but to be seen by whom was not explained; for except to carry her to the nearest railway-station, or on very infrequent visits to the store at the Cross Roads, or now and then to visit a neighbour at a distance, the light waggon in question rarely was seen of men. Indeed, the buggy was almost the sole outlay that Sandy had made for his daughter that he genuinely regretted. " Her scboolin' had come heavy," he often reflected, but then there was some evidence of gain to be observed in this use of his hardly-won dollars.

"He had had bis day for l'arnin', and 'twasn't no more'n right that Milly should have hers." And then he liked, although he didn't confess it, the little superior young-lady airs which she had taken on in the distant city. Even the modish gowns she wore, and the towering pile of her befrizzed blonde hair, were all a source of silent pride to the man who had built all bis hopes and expended all his love upon this exacting young daughter. The piano, as be well knew, was an extravagance ; but he bad himself in former days performed on the accordion, and even now would upon occasion draw from its wind-expanded sides some strained notes suggestive of his lasting lament for "Lily Dale." "The Soldier's Joy," too, had proved his own on more than one occasion, when its notes had served to banish Hannah with her grumbling com ments concerning the things of this world and her gloomy forebodings regarding those of a future one.

Yes; he knew the power of music, and did not regret yielding to Milly's demand for an expensive pianoforte. But the buggy was a different matter. There were several acres of wheat thrown to the dogs, he metaphorically reflected. " What was the use of spendin' money to set that light-topped consarn up in the barn for the chickens to roost on?" But it was characteristic of his self-denying love for his daughter that he never bad expressed this opinion in her bearing, nor bad she the least idea of her father's estimate of his investment. To-night Sandy did not rouse himself to answer directly the question of renewed varnish, but con tented himself with an occasional punctuation of assent to his daughter's prolonged dissertation. Finally he rose, shaking the ashes from his pipe, and saying with a yawn that be guessed be would " turn in."

This was a signal for Milly's retirement; but before she left the room her father turned to her, looking over bis shoulder as he still idly tapped the empty pipe against the chimney-piece, and observed — " I'm thinkin' some of ridin' over to Sydney's farm to-morrow mornin' ; I hear thar's a new feller took persession. I'd like to take a look round, and see what's in the w7ind. Guess I'll be off 'fore you're up, little 'un. Good night." " All right," Milly comprehensively assented, and, adding a sleepy " Good night," disappeared up the steep stairs that led to her own small room above.

Chapter II

One morning a few weeks later, Milly sut in the full enjoyment of the desired verandah. She had placed her rocking-chair in the shadiest angle of its extent, and now was swaying herself backwards and forwards in the uninterrupted possession of its solitude. Her father had summed up his contempt for such modern luxury by calling the verandah " a new fangled fixin'." When not employed away from the house, he spent his time as usual sitting on the back-door step smoking. The waves of green that had stretched in monotonous expanse when Hilly had returned to the farm in June were now turned to golden billows that filled the landscape as far as the eye could reach. A shimmering veil of heat obscured the distance, and shut out the slight undulation in the line of the horizon that on a clear day served to rest the vision.

It seemed to Milly, as she rocked and fanned herself, gazing out on the broad waste, as though she dwelt, enchained by some mystical enchantment, alone on a tiny island in the midst of this golden sea. She felt that a spell bad been woven around her whose power she was conscious of, and yet whose magic she was unable to resist. With her eyes half closed, and the dreamy drowsiness of the day creeping over her, she lost all realization of her surroundings. The unpainted floor, with the " lean to " roof above, melted and merged into something more beautiful than she had ever seen except in dreams. The plain of ripening grain became an enchanted sea that broke noiselessly at her feet, inviting her to venture the small craft in which she rocked on its alluring vastness. Who knew what lay beyond ?

A prince or a kingdom, perhaps. Who could tell ? The thin veil of the atmosphere grew denser ; she could not penetrate its meshes or see behind the fairy film that limited the view and shut her in with shimmering softness. In half-consciousness she realized that this was a day-dream, but ah, how beautiful! She settled herself again with partly closed eyes, hoping that other visions might be revealed if she but yielded herself to the beckoning dream. But the spell was broken almost with the thought. She could see nothing now except so many acres of wheat ready for the reaping. As she beheld again the unadorned uprights that held the slanting roof above her, she was no longer deluded as to the rough execution of even this her most cherished desire. Her rocking-chair, a real "Boston," and hitherto a treasured possession, sank to the level of a "common painted chair with an ugly calico cushion."

Her own cool dress of pale blue print looked con temptible as she remembered the costumes of costly materials worn by expensively dressed women in that ideal city of her remembrance. The sound of Hannah's heavy tread as she moved about her household toil, her deep-toned nasal intonation as she reproved Jim or bustled the cat, seemed by contrast to Milly's awakened senses many degrees more aggravating than ever before. Was she doomed for ever to the farm ? she asked herself. What did her present life promise but deadening monotony and unendurable solitude ? Whom had she to exchange a word with from week's end to week's end except her father, whose interests revolved around the probable number of bushels to the acre, and the fluctuation of the wheat market in Chicago ? To be sure, he was always kind and affectionate, yielding unselfishly to her slightest whim, and in dulging her far beyond what she deserved or had a right to expect.

She loved him, she said, dear old man! But what bad they in common? Even his appearance was grotesque in the extreme if she compared him with the well-dressed fathers of her school-friends. And as to his speech, it was certainly far from correct according to the rules laid down in grammar. She repeated again that he was a dear old father, and that she loved him above all things. But the spell was broken. The earth was no longer an enchanted place, where miles of prosaic wheat changed to gold at the touch of magic imagi nation. It was only a crop ready for the harvest, and brought endless inconveniences. During the next few weeks the bouse would be overrun with " hands " from the Cross Roads, hired to assist in reaping and threshing the grain. These were coarse, often brutal, men, with un couth manners, whose speech from habit was punc tuated with ingenious oaths of constant repetition.

Even the presence of the "boss's" daughter did not always serve to hold them in check. No ; the life here was certainly very uninteresting. Ah— she stretched her clasped hands above her head — where was the good fairy who by a touch of her wand could change all this ? She smiled at the remembrance of her dream, and wished with all ber heart that she might blot out ber dull surroundings by a return to that congenial life of imagined beauty. Her half-whimsical imagery had nevertheless somewhat prepared ber for the unexpected. As she let her hands drop again listlessly in ber lap, she was scarcely astonished at hearing an unknown voice speaking at a little distance, and asking in a pleasant tone if the person to whom the voice belonged "had the honour of addressing Miss Alistair ? " The speaker stood at the corner of the verandah.

As Milly rose he advanced towards her, holding his hat in his hand. He had a pleasant face, she thought, different from any she had seen before. She had learned from her father some time before that the new-comer at Sydney's was a young Englishman ; and now, although she had heard no description of him, she at once decided that her visitor was their neighbour on the adjoining farm. He was tall, with broad shoulders and well developed physique, singularly unlike any one she remembered to have met. His shapely bead was set on a well-formed throat, left exposed by the open collar of his flannel shirt. His face was burned as a fair skin will burn until long-repeated C exposure has tanned it to an even brown. But bis brow was fair as an infant's, and almost as devoid of lines. His blue eyes were well set, and looked out smilingly from under straight brows, while bis closely-cut beard and blonde moustache failed to hide the pleasant smile that came readily to his lips.

Milly had never seen such an embodiment of perfectly developed manhood. Her types, to be sure, had not been varied. They included for the most part the familiar thin and wiry make of which her father was the acknow ledged example. Besides this, she had known one or two well-dressed, keen-faced youths with restless eyes, and an eagerness of expression that indicated a cause for their somewhat angular outline. Hitherto this irreproachably dressed young man, with im maculate gloves and the latest novelty in walking sticks, bad filled the place of Milly 's ideal hero. During the few moments in which she stood silently contemplating her visitor, the ideal of her girlish fancy faded, never to be revived again. As Milly bad made no reply to the question con cerning her identity, unless it were the slightest possible inclination of her pretty bead, the young man proceeded without embarrassment to introduce himself.

" I am Godfrey Alleyne," he explained pleasantly, "your new neighbour. You might, perhaps, have beard your father speak of me ? I live at Sydney's, don't you know. I've come over to manage my farm myself, and see a little of life in the West." " Yes, I've heard of you," Milly replied briefly ; but as the blue eyes of the young man seemed to find pleasaut occupation in resting upon her, with out recourse to further speech, she asked somewhat abruptly, " Do you like it ? " "Yes, very much," Godfrey replied, still smiling; but be made no attempt to enumerate the reasons for his enjoyment of what he designated the West. " My father has spoken of you," Milly began. " He said there was a young Englishman who had come out to try fancy farming, but be guessed " She stopped abruptly, the colour rising quickly to her fresh young face.

" What did he guess ? " asked Godfrey, amusedly. " I should be immensely pleased if you would tell me Mr. Alistair's opinion of my venture. Tell me," be urged, leaning nearer to her as be placed one foot on the low floor of the verandah, while the other still kept its place on the dry grass. She looked at him mischievously as she finished her interrupted sentence. " He said he guessed — you'd go back." " Ab, possibly. I'm not so sure. Some things I like awfully out here. Not the heat," be added, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, which he suggestively passed across his brow. " It's the hottest place I ever was in," he continued. "I wouldn't have believed there was such a burning, drying, scorching heat to be found anywhere — where I want to go." "Ah," rejoined Milly, mockingly, "you think yourself very good, I suppose.

You probably have never committed any sins that may not be expiated by coming to Minnesota." "Ah, I don't say that! I deserve worse than this, I assure you," Godfrey replied. "But there are punishments of cold as well as beat, you must remember," continued Milly, re membering something she bad once read. " Wait till the winter comes, and you are literally frozen in your house, and unable to stir an inch from home on account of the drifts. When the snow reaches to the second-story windows, and for forty days the mercury never rises above zero — when the wind blows the fine snow into every crevice, and no covering, even of furs, will keep it out — then you'll have added something, maybe, to your experience of what you deserve." Godfrey laughed outright. This at least was a new experience. He had not hitherto known what it was to be confronted by a fairfaced girlish mentor, who met him with the outspoken frankness of a child, but united therewith a dignity of manner and grace of person wholly unique in his experience.

His estimate of the gentler sex had sustained a distinct modification since his acquaintance with his new home, and an association with what appeared to him a distinctly novel type. There was some thing unexpected in recognizing as equals the hardworking thrifty class that seemed the very stamina of womankind in the neighbourhood. He had been inclined at first to take an amused, if not a supercilious, view of the matrons and maids with whom he came in contact. Their entire disregard of bis superior attitude or their half-gibing recog nition of his unexpressed opinion had done much to throw a truer light on their self-denying lives. He had learned more clearly than his easy-going life had hitherto shown that a rough exterior does not always indicate indifference to finer feelings, nor does ignorance always go hand in hand with un cultured speech.

Godfrey had had much to learn in the few weeks since bis arrival. His present attitude of interested scrutiny was, he thought, but another endeavour to better comprehend the various phases of the New World. To be sure, he acknowledged to himself that there was more pleasure to be found in the study of this exceptionally pleasing young girl than be had yet experienced in like investigations. She certainly was not of the type left behind by his predecessor at Sydney's, and described by that personage " as a right slap-down smart gurl for all kinds of work," nor did he find any suggestion of the varied though pronounced types met with on bis journey westward. A number of thoughts passed through his mind in the moment of silence that had fallen between them — all more or less poetic, and as a rule far removed from his usual practical comparisons.

The delicate tint of a sea-shell, the heavenly blue of corn-flowers, nodding fields of ripened corn — all rose in his mind and united themselves as fitting suggestions of the girl's beauty. Even the quaint phraseology of her simplest speech seemed to him becoming, and to be expected in this treasure of the prairie. It would have spoiled her quite, he thought, had she spoken with the commonplace accuracy of ordinary women. Something piquant in the turn of her full red lips, something indescribable in her deprecatingly lifted brows, lent point to her half-uttered questions and interest to her simplest replies. Godfrey felt inclined to prolong the interview. The primary cause of his visit bad, indeed, quite escaped him. The important advice he had intended to solicit from Mr. Alistair had by this time lost some of its importance.