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head was resting upon the stone mullion, its white lids opening and drooping by turns between sleep and wonder, its cheeks and brow tinted a roseate hue with the reflection caught from the burning midnight sky. The height was steep. There was no stepping-stone or foothold in the wall. What then? The Chevalier cast about him almost in despair. Suddenly he caught sight of a sturdy vine that sprang from the foot of a neighboring tower. It had been growing higher and higher, even to the embrasure of the fatal window, thrusting its wiry tentacles deeper and deeper into the stone and wood for centuries. Its trunk was like a goodly tree. Its branches knotted and intertwined like a tangled net of iron. He gripped it with his slender fingers, and essayed its strength. It yielded not. Then, with heaven-born power, he swung himself aloft, and rose, clutching his way among the green foliage as fearlessly and surely as upon the stoutest ladder. In a moment more he had reached the casement and gently lifted the child upon his shoulder. Her soft arms were wound about his neck, she cooed and gurgled in contentment at finding herself in the embrace of a protector. Lightly as he had mounted he descended with his tender burden, and when he reached the earth once more, old Jacques was there waiting to bear them both away.

The old vine had yearly been growing stronger, and the Chevalier had been wasting day by day, that, through the inscrutable ways of Providence this thing might be accomplished.

At daybreak the seigniory was in ruins, and Monsieur du Marais and his family had been captured and made prisoners. None but the mother knew that the little one lay at that hour asleep beneath the Chevalier's humbler roof.

And now the ruffians were satiated of their ghoulish revelry for a time, VOL. VIII. 418

LIVING AGE.

and sought no further mischief to do in the name of sweet liberty. Yet we were in a very net of fretfulness the while, not knowing who might be pinioned next.

But the child Madeleine, unconscious of all the strife, dwelt with the Chevalier. Her inquiries and perplexities concerning the great change that had so suddenly come into her young life were answered and soothed with words but little short of a parent's tenderness. Between her and the good Chevalier there sprang, like a flower in the night, the sympathy that comes of a common heart-grief. Out of that sympathy there grew a still more beauteous flower, the love betwixt a little child and a noble man, than which there is nothing purer or more sacred.

Some days later the vanguards of public safety, once more athirst for the blood of innocence with which to lave their own guilt, betook themselves to the precincts of Les Tourelles. There were, perhaps, not more than a dozen of them, but these were among the most rabid. They scaled the walls and would have broken into the little châlet, even as a wolf might into a sheepfold, if some invisible hand had not stayed them. I have already told you how the very air of that kindly dwelling breathed of peace and piety. I think that even those crazed, misguided wretches must have felt something of it in their wicked hearts. For, ere they had gone many steps they halted in their mad pursuit, arrested by a sight that would have melted a heart of bronze.

In the dusk of early evening a little group knelt around an altar in a quiet chamber-the child, her baby hands clasped and her eyes turned heavenward; on one side of her the young Chevalier, with a look of earnest entreaty on his delicate, saintly countenance, and on the other side old Jacques, with silvery head bowed in prayer.

Thus they had gathered at the close of each day to beseech the grace of heaven for the safety of their beloved ones. They rose as the men entered the room, and the little one clung to the Chevalier as she met the grim stare of the invaders.

"What manner of game have we here?" cried one of the leaders in a surly voice; but he laid not hand upon any one. He seemed to shrink like a snail within its shell as the Chevalier de la Brête turned upon him.

"But poor game, indeed," responded he, "for such as you, who value your prey according to the feathers of the victims. We are but humble people with just this roof over our heads, and no power on earth save that which God gives us to succor one another."

"Ha, ha, thou art a fine! a fine! I know thee by thy white hands and thy sleek tongue!" shouted several angry voices.

"A fine, if thou wilt have it so," rejoined the Chevalier; "we are not here to deny you. But think not that we shrink from paying the penalty of be ing born with an escutcheon. Noblesse oblige."

"Art thou not, then, afraid of death?" asked the Jacobin, marvelling at his serenity.

"Wherefore should we fear? Behold these three lives. This," and he laid his hand on the fair head at his side, "hath scarce had time to learn the full value of it. And yonder gray head hath well-nigh run its course. Mine, hanging by so slender a thread, is hardly worth the living. Hast thou not thought, man, that to souls free from perjury death is but the gateway to a

brighter and sinless world? It comes to us all, soon or late. And may thou and thy fellows meet it as calmly when your own hour is near. We were but this moment commending our souls to God, and are prepared. Little one," he said, bending over to her, "thou wilt follow me gladly to Paradise, wilt thou not?"

The child nestled to him and covered his face with caresses.

"Thou art my La Brête; I will go with thee everywhere," she said, not comprehending the meaning of his

words.

His spiritual strength at length yielded to his bodily weakness. He fell into his chair. The light of the half-burnt tapers shed a flickering glow upon the frail reclining figure, with its white transparent face, and upon the rosy healthful child bending over him and still holding him close. There fell a deep silence for an instant. Then a stifled sob from the heart of old Jacques broke it.

"To the cart with them!" cried oue of the hardened wretches.

"Hold thy tongue, thou infernal!" commanded the chief among them. This man, who had been a leader in so many brutal deeds, felt a cold pressure about his heart. For one short second a gleam of celestial light penetrated his soul, and he was moved to human compassion.

"Turn your ways from this place," he said; "it is the abode of a saint. And the wrath of heaven be upon us if but a hair of his head perish!"

And they departed in silence from the home of the Chevalier.

THE SMOOTH BORE.*

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Josiah was again an owner of oxen, also of cows and a horse, and a flock of long-legged, bare-bellied sheep that ranged the woods as untamed as deer except when fear of wolves and bears became more terrible than fear of man, or deep snow and starvation made shed, fold, and fodder more desirable than freedom. The sheep and the young cattle were turned out to range the budding and blossoming woods, and their owner was out one day with his rifle to look after their welfare, when he heard the scared bleating of the flock, mingled with the spasmodic jangle of the leader's bell. As they came tearing down the mountain path, close upon the heels of the hindermost, the cause of their flight, a gaunt she-bear, galloped at top speed, her faded, ragged coat fluttering like the tatters of a beggar. The sheep swerved aside to pass

From A Danvis Pioneer. By Rowland E. Robinson. Copyright, 1900, by Houghton, Mimin & Co. Price $1.25.

Josiah when they saw him, but she held straight on, and when he fired, inflicting a slight wound in her head, she charged furiously upon him. He swung the gun aloft and brought it down with all his might. By good luck that he was truly thankful for he struck the beast a blow on the skull that checked her onslaught. Another brought her down quite stunned, so that he had no trouble to dispatch her, but it was the last service of the rifle. The barrel was bent, the stock broken past mending, so that it was only a question of a new gun of some sort.

Arguing the question with himself, his wife the audience, he said: "If I got tu be sech a blunderin' ol' numbskull I can't git a bead on a bear's head three rod off, I better git me su'thin' I can shoot buckshot in-a' ol' Queen's arm or a 'pateraro', mebby. By the Lord Harry, she wa'n't three rod, an' a-comin' stret at me! But she was a-bobbin' up an' down, ju' loke a sawmill gate. It don't signify, though. I'd ort tu ha' fetched her. Fact on't is, I guess I can't shoot a rifle no more-don't practyce none. Guess I'll git me a smooth-bore-it'll be handy for pigins, an' shoot a ball well 'nough for what bear an' deer an' varmints I run on tu naowerdays. If the' was any sech thing as fixin' up ol' 'Sartin Death' I wouldn't think o' nothin' else, but she's past prayin' for," he sighed ruefully, regarding the bent barrel, the broken lock, and splintered stock.

The result was that after fully setting forth the case of each weapon, he made a pilgrimage to the shop of Thomas Hill in Charlotte, the most famous gunsmith of the region; and after long consultation with that cunning craftsman, he ordered the building of a sixteen-gauge smooth-bore, with four

foot barrel, brass mountings, curled maple stock of rifle pattern, with patch box. He awaited the appointed time of completion with the degree of patience that usually attends the gun lover while he waits possession of a new weapon, and, knowing the value of a craftsman's promise, added a week's grace thereto.

Then he haltered the two-year-old heifer that was to be the price, trade being chiefly conducted by barter, and, set forth on foot, leading the heifer.

The gun proved to be all that was promised and more than was expected. It was a beauty, according to the fashion of the day; it made a target almost as good as a rifle at twenty rods, and patterns with both coarse and fine shot that were all that could be desired. Josiah Hill was pleased enough with the gun to give it ungrudged praise, and proud to have so skilful and honest a workman as its maker for a namesake. So treading more lightly with this easiest of burdens on his shoulder, he set forth on his homeward journey, now making a target of a white patch on a beech trunk, now of an unwary crow, now of a pigeon just arrived from so far south that it had green wild grapes in its crop, while in Danvis woods the vines were but just in bloom.

He was at the beginning of the last mile, when he brought down one of these travellers from afar, and debating a moment whether he should reload with shot or ball, decided on the latter, so that he might, as soon as he reached home, show Ruby how well the new smooth-bore could fill the place of the rifle. As he was returning the ramrod to its pipes, his roving eyes caught the movement of some animal where the next turn of the road closed the forest vista. His first thoughts were that it was a deer, and that it was out of season. Then he saw that, though it was of the color, it was not ot the form of a deer. It was a panther

sneaking along at a loose-jointed, catlike trot, halting now and then to look backward with intent, alert eagerness; then resuming its slouching advance.

Josiah brought the gun to his shoulder, but could not find a certain aim at the distance, though that was not more than twenty rods. So he waited, with his head a little raised and gun muzzle lowered, for the animal to come within closer range. At fifteen rods it halted and looked backward again, and then as Josiah aimed at the curved side just behind the shoulder, it sprang lightly to the roadside, faced about, and swiftly climbed the trunk of a great maple to the first large limb that stretched out above the road, upon which it crouched, eagerly watching in the direction from which it had come.

"A-layin' for suthin'-one o' my idgit y'erlin's mebby," Josiah whispered to himself, the eye and aim following every movement, only diverted for an occasional quick glance down the road. The last of these revealed a glimpse of a checkered blue and white sunbonnet and the flutter of a brown homespun gown, and then Ruby appeared in full view, picking her way along the edge of a muddy road, not thirty yards beyond the tree where the panther crouched, watching her with cruel eager eyes-ears pricked, the end of the tail twitching nervously, and hinder paws nestling under the belly for the leap.

"Ruby! Ruby! Stand still where you be, for God's sake!" he cried out in a sharp, strained voice that compelled her to stand stock still before she comprehended whose it was or whence it came.

The panther turned the glare of its yellow eyes full upon him at the sound; the long barrel trembled a little as it was brought to an aim, then became steady as a rock under the strain of the tense muscle, and obedient to the flash of priming spat out its shaft of

fire. A yell of pain and rage shot through the boom of the report and echo as the panther, pierced through the heart, lurched aimlessly from its perch and came down a-sprawl and half-lifeless midway between Josiah and his wife.

Still calm and collected, he began reloading as he stepped forward a pace, closely watching the great cat blindly biting and clawing the earth, and writhing and rebounding in all the contortions of feline death throes. The last snarling gasp went out, and the muscular limbs stiffened, quivered and relaxed, but he did not go nearer the motionless tawny form until his piece was reloaded. Then, with thumb on the cock and finger on the trigger he advanced and stirred it with his foot. Not a muscle gave a responsive twitch,

and he went over to Ruby, sitting in a dumb gaze, clutching the leaves with rigid hands, never moving until, when she saw her husband so near the terrible beast, she made an involuntary warning gesture.

"Thank the good Lord, Ruby!" he cried, all of a tremble now, and his voice shaking as he knelt down beside her; and she, with her head on his shoulder, fell to weeping.

"I do' know what made me, but I consaited you'd be a-coming; an' I was a-comin' aout tu meet you."

"An' I was a-comin' jest in the nick o' time, an' blessed be this gun, for she saved ye. We'll call her 'Deliverance.' Ju' look what a beauty she be! There don't ye cry ontu her-salty tears'll rust her."

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