xt7m3775tw27 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7m3775tw27/data/mets.xml Page, Thomas Nelson, 1853-1922. 190618  books b92-230-31280747v6 English C. Scribner's sons, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Novels, stories, sketches, and poems of Thomas Nelson Page (vol. 6) text Novels, stories, sketches, and poems of Thomas Nelson Page (vol. 6) 1906 2002 true xt7m3775tw27 section xt7m3775tw27 











PLANTATION



EDITION



.bt



VOLUME VI

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She was the first to break the silence.
              (PAGE 134)

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+ THE NOVELS, STORIES,
SKETCHES AND POEMS OF
THOMAS NELSON PAGE ,



  GORDON KEITH










  I
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEWYORK, 4    4 4 + 1906



I



I



1



-

 





























Copyright, 1903, 1906, by
CHARLES SCBIBNEB'S SONS

  AU Rights Reserved

 




























          TO
  A GRANDDAUGHTER
OF ONE LOIS HUNTINGTON

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CONTENTS



CHAPTER                                       PAGE
   I GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY. . . . .  . . .  I
   11 GENERAL KEITH BECOMES AN OVERSEER  . . . . 28
   III THE ENGINEER AND THE SQUIRE  . . . . . . . 51
 IV Two YOUNG MEN   . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
 v THE RIDGE COLLEGE   ..   . . . . . . . . 98
 VI ALICE YORKE. . .    . . . . . . . . . . 117
 VII MRS. YORKE FINDS A GENTLEMAN . . . . . . . 144
 VIII MR. KEITH'S IDEALS... . . . . . . . . . 156
 IX MR. KEITH IS UNPRACTICAL.. . . . . . . . 166
 X MRS. YORKE CUTS A KNOT . . . . . . . . . 188
 XI GUMBOLT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
 XII KEITH DECLINES AN OFFER.. . . . . . . . 246
 XiI KEITH IN NEW YORK . . . . . . . . . . . 270
 XIV THE HOLD-UP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
 XV MRS. YORKE MAKES A MATCH . . . . . . . . 338
 XVI KEITH VISITS NEW YORK. AND MRS. LANCASTER
       SEES A GHOST . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
XVII KEITH MEETS NORMAN  . . . . . . . . . . 388
XVIII MRS. LANCASTER . . . . . . . . . . . . 408



vii

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                 ILLUSTRATIONS
                      VOLUME I

             From Drawings by George Wright


SHE WAS THE FIRST TO BREAK THE SILENCE . . . Frontispiece
                                            FACING PAGE
'IF YOU DON'T GO TO YOUR SEAT I'LL DASH YOUR
    BRAINS OUT,- SAID KEITH. . . .. . . . .. . . . 109

SPRANG OVER THE LEDGE OF THE ROAD INTO THE
   THICK BUSHES BELOW .............. . 333



is

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GORDON KEITH
    VOL I.

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       GORDON KEITH


               CHAPTER I
               INTRODUCTORY
         GORDON KEITH 'S PATRIMONY

G ORDON KEITH was the son of a gentle-
CX   man. And this fact, like the cat the honest
miller left to his youngest son, was his only
patrimony. As in that case also, it stood to the
possessor in the place of a good many other
things. It helped him over many rough places.
He carried it with him as a devoted Romanist
wears a sacred scapulary next to the heart.
  His father, General McDowell Keith of "El-
phinstone," was a gentleman of the old kind,
a type so old-fashioned that it is hardly accepted
these days as having existed. He knew the Past
and lived in it; the Present he did not under-
stand, and the Future he did not know. In his
latter days, when his son was growing up, after
war had swept like a vast inundation over the
land, burying almost everything it had not borne
  VOL. I.

 

             GORDON KEITH
away, General Keith still survived, unchanged,
unmoved, unmarred, an antique memorial of the
life of which he was a relic. His one standard
was that of a gentleman.
  This idea was what the son inherited from the
father along with some other old-fashioned
things which he did not know the value of at
first, but which he came to understand as he
grew older.
  When in after times, in the swift rush of life
in a great city, amid other scenes and new man-
ners, Gordon Keith looked back to the old life
on the Keith plantation, it appeared to him as if
he had lived then in another world.
  Elphinstone was, indeed, a world to itself:
a long, rambling house, set on a hill, with white-
pillared verandahs, closed on the side toward
the evening sun by green Venetian blinds, and
on the other side looking away through the lawn
trees over wide fields, brown with fallow, or
green with cattle-dotted pasture-land and wav-
ing grain, to the dark rim of woods beyond. To
the westward "the Ridge" made a straight,
horizontal line, except on clear days, when the
mountains still farther away showed a tenderer
blue scalloped across the sky.
  A stranger passing through the country prior
                     2

 
    GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
to the war would have heard much of Elphin-
stone, the Keith plantation, but he would have
seen from the main road (which, except in sum-
mer, was intolerably bad) only long stretches of
rolling fields well tilled, and far beyond them
a grove on a high hill, where the mansion rested
in proud seclusion amid its immemorial oaks
and elms, with what appeared to be a small
hamlet lying about its feet. Had he turned in
at the big-gate and driven a mile or so, he would
have found that Elphinstone was really a world
to itself, almost as much cut off from the outer
world as the home of the Keiths had been in the
old country. A number of little blacks would
have opened the gates for him; several boys
would have run to take his horse, and he would
have found a legion of servants about the house.
He would have found that the hamlet was com-
posed of extensive stables and barns, with shops
and houses, within which mechanics were plying
their trades with the ring of hammers, the clack
of looms, and the hum of spinning-wheels-all
for the plantation; whilst on a lower hill farther
to the rear were the servants' quarters laid out
in streets, filled with children.
  Had the visitor asked for shelter, he would
have received, whatever his condition, a hospi-
                     3

 
              GORDON KEITH
tality as gracious as if he had been the highest
in the land; he would have found culture with
philosophy and wealth with content, and he
would have come away charmed with the gra-
ciousness of his entertainment. And yet, if from
any other country or region than the South, he
would have departed with a feeling of mystifica-
tion, as though he had been drifting in a coun-
ter-current and had discovered a part of the
world sheltered and to some extent secluded
from the general movement and progress of life.
  This plantation, then, was Gordon's world.
The woods that rimmed it were his horizon, as
they had been that of the Keiths for genera-
tions; more or less they always affected his hori-
zon. His father appeared to the boy to govern
the world; he governed the most important part
of it-the plantation-without ever raising his
voice. His word had the convincing quality of
a law of nature. The quiet tones of his voice
were irresistible. The calm face, lighting up
at times with the flash of his gray eyes, was
always commanding: he looked so like the big
picture in the library of a tall, straight man,
booted and spurred, and partly in armor, with
a steel hat over his long curling hair, and a grave
face that looked as if the sun were on it. It was
                     4

 
    GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
no wonder, thought the boy, that he was given
a sword by the State when he came back from
the Mexican War; no wonder that the Governor
had appointed him Senator, a position he de-
clined because of his wife's ill health. Gor-
don's wonder was that his father was not made
President or Commander-in-Chief of the army.
It no more occurred to him that any one could
withstand his father than that the great oak-
trees in front of the house, which it took his out-
stretched arms six times to girdle, could fall.
  Yet it came to pass that within a few years an
invading army marched through the plantation,
camped on the lawn, and cut down the trees;
and Gordon Keith, whilst yet a boy, came to see
Elphinstone in the hands of strangers, and his
father and himself thrown out on the world.
  His mother died while Gordon was still a
child. Until then she had not appeared remark-
able to the boy: she was like the atmosphere,
the sunshine, and the blue, arching sky, all-per-
vading and existing as a matter of course. Yet,
as her son remembered her in after life, she
was the centre of everything, never idle, never
hurried; every one and everything revolved
about her and received her light and warmth.
She was the refuge in every trouble, and her
                     5

              GORDON KEITH
smile was enchanting. It was only after that
last time, when the little boy stood by his mo-
ther's bedside awed and weeping silently in the
shadow of the great darkness that was settling
upon them, that he knew how absolutely she had
been the centre and breath of his life. His fa-
ther was kneeling beside the bed, with a face
as white as his mother's, and a look of such
mingled agony and resignation that Gordon
never forgot it. As, because of his father's
teaching, the son in later life tried to be just
to every man, so, for his mother's sake, he re-
membered to be kind to every woman.
  In the great upheaval that came just before
the war, Major Keith stood for the Union, but
was defeated. When his State seceded, he raised
a regiment in the congressional district which
he had represented for one or two terms. As
his duties took him from home much of the time,
he sent Gordon to the school of the noted Dr.
Grammer, a man of active mind and also active
arm, named by his boys, from the latter quality,
"Old Hickory."
  Gordon, like some older men, hoped for war
with all his soul. A great-grandfather an of-
ficer of the line in the Revolution, a grandfather
in the navy of 1812, and his father a major in
                     6

 
     GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
the Mexican War, with a gold-hilted sword pre-
sented him by the State, gave him a fair pedi-
gree, and he looked forward to being a great
general himself. He would be Julius Caesar or
Alexander the Great at least. It was his prefer-
ence for a career, unless being a mountain stage-
driver was. He had seen one or two such beings
in the mountains when he accompanied his fa-
ther once on a canvass that he was making for
Congress, enthroned like Jove, in clouds of oil-
coats and leather, mighty in power and speech;
and since then his dreams had been blessed at
times with lumbering coaches and clanking
teams.
  One day Gordon was sent for to come home.
When he came down-stairs next morning his
father was standing in the drawing-room,
dressed in full uniform, though it was not near
as showy as Gordon had expected it to be, or as
dozens of uniforms the boy had seen the day
before about the railway-stations on his journey
home, gorgeous with gold lace. He was con-
scious, however, that some change had taken
place, and a resemblance to the man-in-armor
in the picture over the library mantel suddenly
struck the boy. There was the high look, the
same light in the eyes, the same gravity about
                    7

 
             GORDON KEITH
the mouth; and when his father, after taking
leave of the servants, rode away in his gray uni-
form, on his bay horse "Chevalier," with his
sword by his side, to join his men at the county-
seat, and let Gordon accompany him for the first
few miles, the boy felt as though he had suddenly
been transported to a world of which he had
read, and were riding behind a knight of old.
Ah ! if there were only a few Roundheads formed
at the big-gate, how they would scatter them!
  About the third year of the war, Mr. Keith,
now a brigadier-general, having been so badly
wounded that it was supposed he could never
again be fit for service in the field, was sent
abroad by his government to represent it in Eng-
land in a seini-confidential, semi-diplomatic po-
sition. He had been abroad before-quite an
unusual occurrence at that time.
  General Keith could not bring himself to leave
his boy behind him and have the ocean between
them, so he took Gordon with him.
  After a perilous night in running the blockade,
when they were fired on and escaped only by
sending up rockets and passing as one of the
blockading squadron, General Keith and Gordon
transferred at Nassau to their steamer. The
vessel touched at Halifax, and among the pas-
                     8

 
     G(OUDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
sengers taken on there were an American lady,
Mrs. Wickersham of New York, and her son
Ferdy Wickersham, a handsome, black-eyed boy
a year or two older than Gordon. As the two
lads were the only passengers aboard of about
their age, they soon became as friendly as any
other young animals would have become, and
everything went on balmily until a quarrel arose
over a game which they were playing on the
lower deck. As General Keith had told Gordon
that he must be very discreet while on board
and not get into any trouble, the row might have
ended in words had not the sympathy of the
sailors been with Gordon. This angered the
other boy in the dispute, and he called Gordon
a liar. This, according to Gordon's code, was
a cause of war. He slapped Ferdy in the
mouth, and the next second they were at it ham-
mer-and-tongs. So long as they were on their
feet, Ferdy, who knew something of boxing, had
much the best of it and punished Gordon se-
verely, until the latter, diving into him, seized
him.
  In wrestling Ferdy was no match for him, for
Gordon had wrestled with every boy on the plan-
tation, and after a short scuffle he lifted Ferdy
and flung him flat on his back on the deck, jar-
                     9

              GORDON KEITH
ring the wind out of him. Ferdy refused to
make up and went off crying to his mother, who
from that time filled the ship with her abuse of
Gordon.
  The victory of the younger boy gave him
great prestige among the sailors, and Mike
Doherty, the bully of the forecastle, gave
him boxing lessons during all the rest of
the voyage, teaching him the mystery of the
"side swing" and the "left-hand upper-cut,"
which Mike said was "as good as a belaying-
pin. "
  "With a good, smooth tongue for the girlls
and a good upper-cut for thim as treads on your
toes, you are aall right," said Mr. Doherty;
"you're rigged for ivery braize. But, boy, re-
mimber to be quick with both, and don't forgit
who taaught you. "
  Thus, it was that, while Gordon Keith was still
a boy of about twelve or thirteen, instead of
being on the old plantation rimmed by the great
woods, where his life had hitherto been spent,
except during the brief period when he had been
at Dr. Grammer's school, he found himself one
summer in a little watering-place on the shores
of an English lake as blue as a china plate, set
amid ranges of high green hills, on which nes-
                    10

 
     GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
tied pretty white or brown villas surrounded
by gardens and parks.
  The water was a new element for Gordon.
The home of the Keiths was in the high coun-
try back from the great watercourses, and Gor-
don had never had a pair of oars in his hands,
nor did he know how to swim; but he meant to
learn. The sight of the boats rowed about by
boys of his own age filled him with envy. And
one of them, when he first caught sight of it,
inspired him with a stronger feeling than envy.
It was painted white and was gay with blue
and red stripes around the gunwale. In it sat
two boys. One, who sat in the stern, was about
Gordon's age; the other, a little larger than
Gordon, was rowing and used the oars like an
adept. In the bow was a flag, and Gordon was
staring at it, when it came to him with a rush
that it was a "Yankee" flag. He was conscious
for half a moment that he took some pride in
the superiority of the oarsman over the boys
in the other boats. His next thought was that
he had a little Confederate flag in his trunk. He
had brought it from home among his other
treasures. He would show his colors and not
let the Yankee boys have all of the honors. So
away he put as hard as his legs could carry him.
                    11

 
             GORDON KEITH
When he got back to the waterside he hired a
boat from among those lying tied at the stairs,
and soon had his little flag rigged up, when, tak-
ing his seat, he picked up the oars and pushed
off. It was rather more difficult than it had
looked. The oars would not go together. How-
ever, after a little he was able to move slowly,
and was quite elated at his success when he
found himself out on the lake. Just then he
heard a shout:
  "Take down that flag!"
  Gordon wished to turn his boat and look
around, but could not do so. However, one of
the oars came out of the water, and as the boat
veered a little he saw the boys in the white boat
with the Union flag bearing down on him.
  The oarsman was rowing with strong, swift
strokes even while he looked over his shoulder,
and the boat was shooting along as straight as
an arrow, with the clear water curling about its
prow. Gordon wished for a moment that he
had not been so daring, but the next second his
fighting blood was up, as the other boy called
imperiously:
  "Strike that flag!"
  Gordon could see his face now, for he was al-
most on him. It was round and sunburnt, and
                    12

 
     GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
the eyes were blue and clear and flashing with
excitement. His companion, who was cheering
him on, was Ferdy Wickersham.
  "Strike that flag, I say," called the oarsman.
  "I won't. Who are you Strike your own
flag."
  " I am Norman Wentworth. That's who I
am, and if you don't take that flag down I will
take it down for you, you little nigger-driving
rebel. "
  Gordon Keith was not a boy to neglect the
amenities of the occasion.
  "Come and try it then, will you, you nigger-
stealing Yankees!" he called. "I will fight both
of you." And he settled himself for defence.
  "Well, I will," cried his assailant. " Drop
the tiller, Ferdy, and sit tight. I will fight fair. "
Then to Gordon again: "I have given you fair
warning, and I will have that flag or sink you."
  Gordon's answer was to drop one oar as
useless, seize the other, and, steadying him-
self as well as he could, raise it aloft as a
weapon.
  "I will kill you if you try it," he said between
clinched teeth.
  However, the boy rowing the other boat was
not to be frightened. He gave a vigorous stroke
                     13

 
              GORDON KEITH
of his oars that sent his boat straight into the
side of Gordon's boat.
  The shock of the two boats coming together
pitched Gordon to his knees, and came near
flinging him into the water; but he was up again
in a second, and raising his oar, dealt a vicious
blow with it, not at the boy in the boat, but at
the flag in the bow of the boat. The unsteadi-
ness of his footing, however, caused him to miss
his aim, and he only splintered his oar into frag-
ments.
  "Hit him with the oar, Norman," called the
boy in the stern. "Knock him out of the boat. "
  The other boy made no answer, but with a
quick turn of his wrist twisted his boat out of
its direct course and sent it skimming off to
one side. Then dropping one oar, he caught up
the other with both hands, and with a rapid,
dexterous swing swept a cataract of water in
Gordon 's face, drenching him, blinding him, and
filling his eyes, mouth, and ears with the unex-
pected deluge. Gordon gasped and sputtered,
and before he could recover from this unlooked-
for flank movement, another turn of the wrist
brought the attacking boat sharp across his bow,
and, with a shout of triumph, Norman wrenched
the defiant flag out of its socket.
                     14

 
     GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
  Gordon had no time for thought. He had time
only to act. With a cry, half of rage, half of
defiance, he sprang up on the point of the bow
of his boat, and with outstretched arms launched
himself at the bow of the other, where the cap-
tor had flung the flag, to use both oars. His
boat slipped from under his feet, and he fell
short, but caught the gunwale of the other, and
dragged himself up to it. He held just long
enough to clutch both flags, and the next second,
with a faint cheer, he rolled off and sank with
a splash in the water.
  Norman Wentworth had risen, and with blaz-
ing eyes, his oar uplifted, was scrambling to-
ward the bow to repel the boarder, when the
latter disappeared. Norman gazed at the spot
with staring eyes. The next second he took in
what was happening, and, with an exclamation
of horror, he suddenly dived overboard. When
he came to the top, he was pulling the other boy
up with him.
  Though Norman was a good swimmer, there
was a moment of extreme danger; for, half-un-
conscious, Gordon pulled him under once. But
fortunately Norman kept his head, and with a
supreme effort breaking the drowning boy's
hold, he drew him to the top once more. Fortu-
                     15

 
             GORDON KEITH
nately for both, a man seeing the trouble had
brought his boat to the spot, and, just as Nor-
man rose to the surface with his burden, he
reached out and, seizing him, dragged both him
and the now unconscious Gordon aboard his
boat.
  It was some days before Gordon was able to
sit up, and meanwhile he learned that his assail-
ant and rescuer had been every day to make in-
quiry about him, and his father, Mr. Wentworth,
had written to Gordon's father and expressed
his concern at the accident.
  " It is a strange fate, " he wrote, "that should
after all these years have arrayed us against
each other thus, and have brought our boys face
to face in a foreign land. I hear that your boy
behaved with the courage which I knew your
son would show."
  General Keith, in turn, expressed his grati-
tude for the promptness and efficiency with
which the other's son had apprehended the dan-
ger and met it.
  "My son owes his life to him," he said. "As
to the flag, it was the fortune of war," and he
thought the incident did credit to both combat-
ants. He "only wished," he said, "that in
every fight over a flag there were the same
                     16

 
    GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
ability to restore to life those who defended
it."
  Gordon, however, could not participate in this
philosophic view of his father's. He had lost
his flag; he had been defeated in the battle. And
he owed his life to his victorious enemy.
  He was but a boy, and his defeat was gall and
wormwood to him. It was but very little sweet-
ened by the knowledge that his victor had come
to ask after him.
  He was lying in bed one afternoon, lonely and
homesick and sad. His father was away, and no
one had been in to him for, perhaps, an hour.
The shrill voices of children and the shouts of
boys floated in at the open window from some-
where afar off. He was not able to join them.
It depressed him, and he began to pine for the
old plantation-a habit that followed him
through life in the hours of depression.
  Suddenly there was a murmur of voices out-
side the room, and after a few moments the door
softly opened, and a lady put her head in and
looked at him. She was a stranger and was
dressed in a travelling-suit. Gordon gazed at
her without moving or uttering a sound. She
came in and closed the door gently behind her,
and then walked softly over to the side of the
   VOL. L  .17

              GORDON KEITH
bed and looked down at him with kind eyes.
She was not exactly pretty, but to Gordon she
appeared beautiful, and he knew that she was
a friend. Suddenly she dropped down on her
knees beside him and put her arm over him
caressingly.
  "I am Norman's mother," she said, "and I
have come to look after you and to take you
home with me if they will let me have you. " She
stooped over and kissed him.
  The boy put up his pinched face and kissed
her.
  "I will go," he said in his weak voice.
  She kissed him again, and smiled down at him
with moist eyes, and talked to him in tender
tones, stroking his hair and telling him of Nor-
man's sorrow for the trouble, of her own un-
happiness, and of her regret that the doctors
would not let him be moved. WVhen she left,
it was with a promise that she would come back
again and see him; and Gordon knew that he
had a friend in England of his own kind, and a
truth somehow had slipped into his heart which
set at odds many opinions which he had thought
principles. He had never thought to feel kindly
toward a Yankee.
  When Gordon was able to be out again, his
                     18

 
     GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
father wished him to go and thank his former
foe who had rescued him. But it was too hard
an ordeal for the boy to face. Even the memory
of Mrs. Wentworth could not reconcile him to
this.
  "You don't know how hard it is, father,"
he said, with that assurance with which boy-
hood always draws a line between itself and the
rest of the world. "Did you ever have to ask
pardon of one who had fought you "
  General Keith's face wore a singular expres-
sion. Suddenly he felt a curious sensation in
a spot in his right side, and he was standing in
a dewy glade in a piece of woodland on a Spring
morning, looking at a slim, serious young man
standing very straight and still a few paces off,
with a pistol gripped in his hand, and, queerly
enough, his name, too, was Norman Wentworth.
But he was not thinking of him. He was think-
ing of a tall girl with calm blue eyes, whom he
had walked with the day before, and who had
sent him away dazed and half maddened. Then
some one a little to one side spoke a few words
and began to count, "One, two-" There was
a simultaneous report of two pistols, two little
puffs of smoke, and when the smoke had cleared
away, the other man with the pistol was sinking
                    19

 
             GORDON KEITH
slowly to the ground, and he himself was tot-
tering into the arms of the man nearest him.
  He came back to the present with a gasp.
  "My son, " he said gravely, "I once was called
on and failed. I have regretted it all my life,
though happily the consequences were not as
fatal as I had at one time apprehended. If
every generation did not improve on the follies
and weaknesses of those that have gone before,
there would be no advance in the world. I want
you to be wiser and stronger than I. "
  Gordon's chance of revenge came sooner than
he expected. Not long after he got out of doors
again he was on his way down to the lake, where
he was learning to swim, when a number of boys
whom he passed began to hoot at him. In their
midst was Ferdy Wickersham, the boy who had
crossed the ocean with him. He was setting the
others on. The cry that came to Gordon was:
"Nigger-driver! Nigger-driver!"  Sometimes
Fortune, Chance, or whatever may be the deity
of fortuitous occurrence, places our weapons
right to hand. What would David have done
had there not been a stony brook between him
and Goliath that day Just as Gordon with
burning face turned to defy his deriders, a pile
of small stones lay at his feet. It looked like
                    20

 
    GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
Providence. He could not row a boat, but he
could fling a stone like young David. In a mo-
ment he was sending stones up the hill with such
rapidity that the group above him were thrown
into confusion.
  Then Gordon fell into an error of more noted
generals.  Seizing a supply of missiles, he
charged straight up the hill. Though the group
had broken at the sudden assault, by the time
he reached the hill-top they had rallied, and
while he was out of ammunition they made a
charge on him. Wheeling, he went down the hill
like the wind, while his pursuers broke after him
with shouts of triumph. As he reached the
stone-pile he turned and made a stand, which
brought them to a momentary stop. Just then
a shout arose below him. Gordon turned to see
rushing up the hill toward him Norman Went-
worth. He was picking up stones as he ran.
Gordon heard him call out something, but he did
not wait for his words. Here was his arch-
enemy, his conqueror, and here, at least, he was
his equal. Without wasting further time with
those above him, Gordon sprang toward his
new assailant, and steadying himself, hurled his
heaviest stone. Fortunately, Norman Went-
worth had been reared in the country and knew
                     21

 
             GORDON KEITH
how to dodge as well as to throw a stone, or his
days might have ended then and there.
  "Hold on! don't throw!" he shouted; "I am
coming to help you," and, without waiting, he
sent a stone far over Gordon's head at the party
on the height above. Gordon, who was poising
himself for another shot, paused amazed in the
midst of his aim, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.
  "Come on," cried Norman. "You and I to-
gether can lick them. I know the way, and we
will get above them." So saying, he dashed
down a side alley, Gordon close at his heels, and,
by making a turn, they came out a few minutes
later on the hill above their enemies, who were
rejoicing in their easy victory, and, catching
them unprepared, routed them and scattered
them in an instant.
  Ferdy Wickersham, finding himself defeated,
promptly surrendered and offered to enlist on
their side. Norman, however, had no idea of
letting him off so easy.
  "I am going to take you prisoner, but not
until I have given you a good kicking. You
know better than to take sides against an Ameri-
can. "
  "He is a rebel, " said Ferdy.
  "He is an American," said Norman. And he
                     22

 
     GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
forthwith proceeded to make good his word,
and to do it in such honest style that Ferdy,
after first taking it as a joke, got angry and
ran away howling.
  Gordon was doubtful as to the wisdom of this
severity.
  " He will tell, " he said.
  " Let him," said Norman, contemptuously.
"He knows what he will get if he does. I was
at school with him last year, and I am going to
school with him again. I will teach him to fight
with any one else against an American!"
  This episode made the two boys closer allies
than they would have been in a year of peace.
  General Keith, finding his mission fruitless,
asked leave to return home immediately, so that
Gordon saw little more of his former foe and
new ally.
  A few days before their departure, Gordon,
passing along a road, came on a group of three
persons, two children and a French governess
with mnuch-frizzled hair, very black eyes, and
a small waist. One of the children was a very
little girl, richly dressed in a white frock with
a blue sash that almost covered it, with big
brown eyes and yellow ringlets; the other child
was a ragged girl several years older, with tan-
                     23

 

              GORDON KEITH
gled hair, gray eyes, and the ruddy, chubby
cheeks so often seen in children of her class.
The governess was in a state of great excite-
ment, and was talking French so fast that it was
a wonder any tongue could utter the words.
The little girl of the fine frock and brown eyes
was clutching to her bosom with a defiant air
a large doll which the governess was trying to
get from her, while the other child stood by,
looking first toward one of them and then to-
ward the other, with an expression divided be-
tween timidity and eagerness. A big picture of
a ballet-dancer with a gay frock and red shoes
in a flaring advertisement on a sign-board had
something to do with the trouble. Now the girl
drew nearer to the other child and danced a few
steps, holding out her hand; now she cast a look
over her shoulder down the hill, as if to see that
her retreat were not cut off.
  "Mais, c'est ii moi-it's my doll. I will have
it," insisted the little girl, backing away and
holding it firmly; at which the governess began
again almost tearing her hair in her desperation,
though she ended by giving it a pat to see that
it was all right.
  The approach of Gordon drew her attention to
him.
                     24

 
     GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY
   " Oh," she exclaimed in desperation, "c 'est
6pouvantable-it ees terr-e-ble! Dese young
ladie weel give de doll to dat meeseerable crea-
ture!"
  "She is not a 'meeseerable creature'!" in-
sisted the little girl, mocking her, her brown eyes
flashing. "She danced for me, and I will give
it to her-I like her."
  "Oh, ciel! What shall I do! Madame weel
abuse me-weel keel me!"
  "Mamma will not mind; it is mny doll. Aunt
Abby gave it to me. I can get a plenty more, and
I will give it to her, " insisted the little girl
again. Then suddenly, gaini