Alexander Keith

“ Where are you staying? How long are you going to be in town?" demanded Mrs. Lancaster, turning to Keith.
"Mining.--At the Brunswick.--Only a day or two," said Keith, laughing.
"Mining? Gold-mining?"
"No; not yet."
"Where?"
"Down South at a place called New Leeds. It's near the place where I used to teach. It's a great city. Why, we think New York is jealous of us."
"Oh, I know about that. A friend of mine put a little money down there for me. You know him? Ferdy Wickersham?"
"Yes, I know him."
"Most of us know him," observed Mr. Stirling, turning his eyes on Keith. ”

“ When they rose from the table, Keith, as he afterwards told Norman, felt like a squeezed orange. The friendliest man to him was Mr. Yorke, whom Keith found to be a jovial, sensible little man with kindly blue eyes and a humorous mouth. His chief cross-examiner was a Mr. Kestrel, a narrow-faced, parchment-skinned man with a thin white moustache that looked as if it had led a starved existence on his bloodless lip.
"Those people down there are opposed to progress," he said, buttoning up his pockets in a way he had, as if he were afraid of having them picked. ”

“ There were few men of Keith's age in Gumbolt who did not attend its sessions and pay their tribute over the green tables that stretched along the big, low room.
In fact, Miss Terpsichore was not of that class that forget either friends or foes; whatever she was she was frankly and outspokenly. Mr. Plume informed Keith that she was "down on him."
"She's got it in for you," he said. "Says she's goin' to drive you out of Gumbolt."
"Well, she will not," said Keith, with a flash in his eye.
"She is a good friend and a good foe," said the editor. "Better go and offer a pinch of incense to Diana. ”

“ When Keith left that study, quaint and old-fashioned as were it and its occupant, he felt as though he had been in a rarer atmosphere. He had not dreamed that such a man could be found in a great city. He seemed to have the heart of a boy, and Keith felt as if he had known him all his life. He asked Gordon to return and dine with him, but Gordon had a vision of sitting beside Alice Yorke at dinner that evening and declined.
CHAPTER XIII KEITH IN NEW YORK
Keith and Norman Wentworth had, from time to time, kept up a correspondence, and from Dr. ”

“ Death! it was death everywhere! his aching eyes rested on nothing but what was typical of death. Even the heat waves seemed fantastic, grotesque, assuming spectral forms, as though ghosts beckoned and danced in the haze, luring him on to become one of themselves. Keith was not a dreamer, nor one to yield easily to such brain fancies, but the mad delirium of loneliness gripped him, and he had to struggle back to sanity, beating his hands upon his breast to stir anew the sluggish circulation of his blood, and talking to the horse in strange feverishness. ”

“ There were no names on the locket, no marks of identification of any kind, yet realizing the sacredness of it, Keith slipped the fragile gold chain about his neck, and securely hid the trinket beneath his shirt.
It was noon by this time, the sun high overhead, and his horse, with dangling rein, still nibbling daintily at the short grass. There was no reason for his lingering longer. He swept his gaze the length and breadth of the desolate valley, and across the river over the sand hills. All alike appeared deserted, not a moving thing being visible between the bluffs and the stream. ”

“ Mrs. Wentworth, immediately after presenting Keith to one or two ladies who were receiving, had been met and borne off by Ferdy Wickersham, and was in the throng at the far end of the great apartment, and some one had stopped Norman on the stairway. So Keith was left for a moment standing alone just inside the door. He had a sense of being charmed. Later, he tried to account for it. Was it the sight before him? Even such perfect harmony of color could hardly have done it. It must be the dazzling radiance of youth that almost made his eyes ache with its beauty. ”

“ A small cavil might make a great quarrel, and pistols would flash as quick as light.
The first visit that Keith received was from J. Quincy Plume, the editor of the Gumbolt Whistle. He had the honor of knowing his distinguished father, he said, and had once had the pleasure of being at his old home. He had seen Keith's name on the book, and had simply called to offer him any services he or his paper could render him. "There are so few gentlemen in this ---- hole," he explained, "that I feel that we should all stand together." ”

“ Keith came down from the clouds. He remembered, with compunction, Nan sitting in the armchair, the lateness of the hour, his own fatigue.
"You should hear Mr. Keith's new song, Charley," said Mrs. Morrell. "It's the most wonderful thing! The 'Bedouin Love Song,' You must surely sing it at the Firemen's Ball. It will make a great hit. No, you surely must. With a voice like yours it is selfish not to use it for the benefit of all. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Keith?"
"I'll sing it, if you will play my accompaniment," said Keith.
On their way home Keith's enthusiasm bubbled up again. ”

“ Men were hurrying at a quicker pace than the rapid gait which was always noticeable in that thoroughfare. Groups occasionally formed and, after a word or two, dispersed. Newsboys were crying extras and announcing some important news in an unintelligible jargon. Messengers were dashing about, rushing in and out of the big buildings. Something unusual was evidently going on. As Keith, on his way to the bank of which Mr. Creamer was president, passed the mouth of the street in which Norman's office was situated, he looked down and saw quite a crowd assembled. The street was full. ”

“ On the adjournment of court Keith generally drifted over to the El Dorado or the Empire, where he spent an hour or so loafing with some of his numerous acquaintances. He was of the temperament that makes itself quickly popular, the laughing, hearty sort, full of badinage, and genuinely liking most men with whom he came in contact. There was always much joking in the air, but back of it was a certain reserve, a certain wariness, for every second man was a professed "fire-eater," given to feeling insulted on the slightest grounds, and flying to the duel or the street fight instanter. ”

“ When in after times, in the swift rush of life in a great city, amid other scenes and new manners, 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 waving grain, to the dark rim of woods beyond. ”

“ Keith telegraphed that he would join them, and two days later turned his face to the South. Twenty-four hours afterwards he was stepping up the gangway and being welcomed by as gay a group as ever fluttered handkerchiefs to cheer a friend. Among them the first object that had caught his eye as he rowed out was the straight, lithe figure of Mrs. Lancaster. A man is always ready to think Providence interferes specially in his, case, provided the interpretation accords with his own views, and this looked to Keith very much as if it were Providence. ”

“ I will say to them, 'Oh yes, he was the handsomest of all my six lads; and he had the proudest heart, too; but I kept him at home—and what came of it all?' Would it not be better now that he was lying buried in the jungle of the Gold Coast, or at Koniggratz, or in the Crimea?"
"Oh, surely not, auntie! Keith will come back to us soon; and when you see him well and strong again, and when you hear his laugh about the house, surely you will not be wishing that he was in his grave? ”

“ KEITH, the name of an old Scottish family which derived its name from the barony of Keith in East Lothian, said to have been granted by Malcolm II., king of Scotland, to a member of the house for services against the Danes. The office of great marishal of Scotland, afterwards hereditary in the Keith family, may have been conferred at the same time; for it was confirmed, together with possession of the lands of Keith, to Sir Robert Keith by a charter of King Robert Bruce, and appears to have been held as annexed to the land by the tenure of grand serjeanty. ”

“ I'd buy a cow and I'd offer a man half as much again as she was worth if he'd sell me the mineral rights at a fair price, and he'd do it. He never had no use for 'em, an' I didn't know as I should either; but that young engineer o' yourn talked so positive I thought I might as well git 'em inside my pasture-fence." He sat back and looked at Keith with quizzical complacency.
"Come a man to see me not long ago," he continued; "Mr. Halbrook--black-eyed man, with a face white and hard like a tombstone. ”

“ Take the goods the gods provide, and while you live, live. The epicurean is the only true philosopher. Come over and have a cocktail? No? Do you happen to have a dollar about your old clothes? I have not forgotten that I owe you a little account; but you are the only man of soul in this--Gehenna except myself, and I'd rather owe you ten dollars than any other man living."
Keith's manner more than his words shut up most of his teasers. Nothing would shut up J. Quincy Plume.
Keith always treated Terpsichore with all the politeness he would have shown to any lady. ”

“ He is very good, and very handsome, and most people count him perfect. I don't think I do. And the sort of liking that I have wouldn't make me the least unhappy if he went away to-morrow and never came back again. For I should have Mother still—and Nellie,—and my dear writing,—and a great many delightful things besides. And yet Sir Keith is a real friend of ours, and he certainly means to be as kind as possible to everybody all round. ”

“ Keith shook his head. "No!"
"Why, look here. He cannot be hard up. He has kept up my allowance and met every demand--almost every demand--I have made on him." She was grasping at straws.
"And Ferdy Wickersham has spent it in Wall Street."
"What! No, he has not! There, at least, you do him an injustice. What he has got from me he has invested securely. I have all the papers--at least, some of them."
"How has he invested it?"
"Partly in a mine called the 'Great Gun Mine,' in New Leeds. Partly in Colorado.--I can help Norman with it." Her face brightened as the thought came to her. ”

“ Keith is very much liked and admired. She has lightened her mourning and looks much better; but, as she says, she will never be herself till she gets back to pink. As for me, I wear pink and blue and every color of the rainbow. It appears that everything suits me; there is no spoiling me. Of course, I am out,—a thousand miles out. I came out six weeks ago at the great ball of the Princess X. How the Princess X.—poor lady!—came to serve my turn, is more than I can say; but Mrs. Keith is a fairy godmother; she shod me in glass slippers and we went. ”

“ Plume, who was always very friendly with Keith, declared that it was not Bluffy, but Keith, who had run him off the track. "It's a case where virtue has had its reward," he said to Keith. "You have overthrown more than your enemy, Orlando. ”

“ I thought of that, last Sunday evening, when father and Sir Keith were talking. They do look upon some things so differently, you know. Only Sir Keith is such a thorough gentleman, he never gets angry in argument, or tries to thrust his opinions down other people's throats, and he always lets other people have their say too. But still, of course one could see that they didn't think just alike. If father were not so fond of Sir Keith, he would mind it more. He doesn't like people not to think exactly the same as he does, generally. ”

“ Keith was on his way back to his office from his final interview with the representative of the syndicate that had bought the properties. He was conscious of a curious sensation, partly of exhilaration, partly of almost awe, as he walked through the crowded streets, where every one was bent on the same quest: gold. At last he had won. He was rich. He wondered, as he walked along, if any of the men he shouldered were as rich as he. Norman and Ferdy Wickersham recurred to him. Both had been much wealthier; but Wickersham, he knew, was in straits, and Norman was in some trouble. ”

“ Having failed with Keith, Mrs. Nailor, the next afternoon, called on Miss Huntington. Lois was in, and her aunt was not well; so Mrs. Nailor had a fair field for her research. She decided to test the young girl, and she selected the only mode which could have been successful with herself. She proposed a surprise. She spoke of Keith and noticed the increased interest with which the girl listened. This was promising.
"By the way," she said, "you know the report is that Mr. Keith has at last really surrendered?"
"Has he? I am so glad. If ever a man deserved happiness it is he. Who is it?" ”

“ After a brief discussion of recent events, he pushed a card across to his visitor and asked casually:
"What do you know about that man?"
"Gordon Keith!" exclaimed the younger man, in surprise. "Is he in New York, and I have not seen him! Why, I know all about him. He used to be an old friend of mine. We were boys together ever so long ago."
He went on to speak warmly of him.
"Well, that was long ago," said Mr. Creamer, doubtfully. "Many things have happened in that time. He has had time to change."
"He must have changed a good deal if he is not straight," declared Norman. ”