Duff Salter

“ Duff Salter arose and spoke with that lost voice, like one in a vacuum, while he folded his tablet.
"Agnes," he said, "it has been cruel to a man of such a sceptical soul as mine to educate him back from the faith he had acquired to the unfaith he had tried to put behind him. Why did you do it? The suppression of the truth is never excusable. The secret you might have scattered with a word, when suspicion started against you, is now diffused through every family and rendezvous in Kensington." ”

“ The two men looked at each other silently a few minutes, Duff Salter in profound astonishment, Calvin Van de Lear with an impudent smile.
"And so religious!" wrote Duff Salter.
"That is always incidental to the condition," answered Calvin.
"It must be a great blow to your affection?"
"Not at all," scrawled the minister's son. "It gives me a sure thing."
"Explain that!"
"I will throw the marriage mantle over her. She will need me now!"
"But you would not take a wife out of such a situation?"
"Oh! yes. She will be as handsome as ever, and only half as proud." ”

“ There is a baby at our house."
"Girl?"
"Just that!"
"I thought so," exclaimed Duff Salter. "It was truly mother's labor, and ought to have been like Agnes. We will give her a toast."
"In nothing but water," spoke Andrew soberly. "I hope I have sown my wild oats."
"I will imitate you," heartily responded Duff Salter; "for it occurred to me in Arkansas that people shot and butchered each other so often because they threw into empty stomachs a long tumbler of liquor and leaves. You are well started, Andrew. Your father's and his partner's estate will give you an income of $10,000. ”

“ At almost every house she felt a kindness speak for her, except mankind; a recollection of nursing, comforting, praying with some one, but all forgotten now. "Via Crucia, Via Crucia," her thorn-torn feet seemed to patter in the echoes of her ears and mind, and there arose upon her spirit the sternest curse of women, direful with God's own rage, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception."
Thus she reached the magistrate's little office, around the door of which was a little crowd of people, and Duff Salter led her in the private door to the residence itself. ”

“ I have had a detective on his track; too late to arrest the rascal, but the identity of a sailor man who penetrated into the house by the coal-hole is established by the discovery of the clothing he exchanged for that disguise—it was Andrew Zane. Concealment of that fact from the law will make her an accessory."
"Jericho! Jericho!" sneezed Duff Salter, but with a pale face, and said:
"That fact established would be serious; but it would be a gratuitous and vile act for you, who profess to love her."
"It is love that prompts me—love and pain! A divine anger, I may call it. ”

“ How much money do you get for school teaching?"
"Five hundred dollars."
"Is that all? What do you do with it?"
"Support my mother and brother."
"And yourself also?"
"Oh! yes."
"She can't do it!" exclaimed Duff Salter inwardly; "that director comes in the case. Miss Podge, how old is your brother?"
"Twenty-four. He's my junior," she said archly. "I'm old."
"Why do you support a man twenty-four years old? Did he meet with an accident?"
"He was taken sick, and will never be well," answered Podge warily.
"Excuse me!" exclaimed Duff Salter, "was it constitutional disease? You know I am interested." ”

“ Since I stopped sneezing I have no way to disguise my sensibilities, and am more an object of suspicion than ever."
Duff Salter peeped at the beautiful mother and hung a chain of gold around the baby's neck, and was about slipping out when Podge Byerly appeared. She made a low bow and shrank away.
"Follow her," whispered Andrew Zane. "If she is cool now she will be cold hereafter, unless you nurse her confidence." ”

“ Whenever she is concerned I am for the defence."
"Yes!" exclaimed the magistrate. "Salter, have you a witness?"
"Mike Donovan!" called Duff Salter.
A red-haired Irishman, with one eyebrow higher than the other, and scars on his face, walked into the alderman's court from the private room, and was sworn.
"Donovan," spoke Duff Salter, standing up, "relate the occurrences of a certain night when you rowed [Pg 242] the prisoner, Andrew Zane, and certain other persons, from Treaty Island to an uncertain point in the River Delaware."
"Stop! stop!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, rising. ”

“ Andrew Zane."
"Very good," said Duff Salter soothingly. "You are the wife of Andrew Zane; wedded how long ago, madam?"
"Eight months."
"Do you see any person in this court-room, Mrs. Zane, that you wish to identify? Let all be seated."
Poor Agnes looked timidly around the place, and saw [Pg 250] a person, at whom all were gazing, rise and reach his arms toward her.
"Gracious God!" she whispered, "is it he?"
"It is, dear wife," cried Andrew Zane. "Come to my heart." ”

“ I want you to make me a visit this evening after dark at my quarters in my brother, Knox Van de Lear's house, on Queen Street nearly opposite your place of lodging. If Mars crosses the orbit of Venus to-night, as I expect—there being signs of it in the milky way,—you will assist me in an observation that will stagger you on account of its results. Do not come out until dark, and ask at my brother's den for
Cal."
"I will not be in to-night, Mike," exclaimed Duff Salter a little while afterward. "You can have all the evening to yourself. Where do you spend your spare time?" ”

“ This made him the most popular actor with the stage director.
In Silverton, before we went to Portland, Duff did more tricks than I could tell you of in a day’s talk. He carried in stove wood; he rode up on the hay fork holding to a sack; he sat on the cowcatcher of the locomotive; he was the retriever, the bird dog, the shepherd, the clown. He could catch a coin or a baseball that was laid on the top of his nose. He would turn a back somersault just for the asking. What is more, he understood any plain language, the kind we used in Silverton. ”

“ But Saltren was not a man who could restrain himself under an over-mastering conviction, and he burst forth in a torrent of words, and as he spoke his sombre eyes gleamed with excitement, and sparks lit up and flashed in them. Soft they usually were, and dreamy, but now, all at once they kindled into vehement life.
"I tell you, Tubb, the Lord hath spoken. The last days are at hand. I read my Bible and I read my newspaper, and I know that the aristocracy are a scandal and a burden to the country. Now the long-suffering of heaven will not tarry. ”

“ John looked across at him, smiling faintly.
"You'll come, Jim?"
"I would go anywhere with ye, sir."
"And what about that little girl at Fittering?"
Salter blushed and stammered hopelessly.
"My dear fellow, since when have I been blind? Did you think I did not know?"
"Why, sir—well, sir—er—yes, sir!"
"Of course I knew! Can you leave her to come with me?"
"I couldn't leave ye to stay with her, sir."
"Are you sure? I do not want you to come against your inclinations."
"Women ain't everything, sir."
"Are they not? I think they are ... a great deal," said my lord wistfully. ”

“ I've not been a perfect boy myself. Many little tempers I've had that you didn't know anything about."
Mr. Duff leaned against the old lichen-covered boulder and laying one hand on it said, "Old rock, I confess to you, since my boy won't let me confess to him, that I've been forty-five years in the world learning how not to live."
"And you, too, love 'rocks and rills and wooded hills,'" exclaimed the boy in delight.
"I have always loved them," said the man. "The root of all evil does not flourish in Dame Nature's garden." ”

“ Saltren, and dropped her hands in her lap.
"It does seem almost wicked for a man at his time of life and crippled. But he and Joan Melhuish have been keeping company a long time, and now he has come in for some money. I hope," said the captain, "that the childer, if there come any, mayn't come into this world with half their fingers blowed off through poaching, and a bad life through drunkenness."
Mrs. Saltren said nothing.
"There's another thing," pursued Captain Tubb. "The new quarry is running out, and we're thinking of reopening the old one." ”

“ Saltash's eyes were no longer derisive; they held something that very few had ever seen there.
Toby made a quick gesture of the hands, and dropped them flat at his sides. "I'll get rid of myself—then, sir," he said, with sudden chill pride. "That won't be very difficult. And I'll do it—so that you won't even know."
Saltash stood up abruptly. "Toby, you are quite unique!" he said. "Superb too in your funny little way. Your only excuse is that you're young. Does it never occur to you that you've attached yourself to the wrong person?" ”

“ It might be. Sir Karl might be paying these stealthy visits to Mrs. Grey, and yet be totally ignorant that any such person as Salter was at the Maze. They would hardly dare to tell him; and Salter would take care to conceal himself when Sir Karl was there. At any rate, he--Mr. Strange--must try and put the matter to rest with all speed, one way or the other. Perhaps, however, that resolution was more easy to make than to carry out. As a preliminary step he took a walk to the police station at Basham, and was seen in the street there by Sir Karl Andinnian. ”

“ Palmer took the trouble," said Saltars coolly. "My movements seem to interest her, and this Mrs. Merry and Cain. I'll break that young man's head if he spies on me."
"You'll have to reckon with Signor Antonio if you do, and, as he's the Strong Man of our show, you'll get the worst of it."
"Great strength doesn't usually mean science. And I think I can put up my flippers with any man."
"You're a brute," said Miss Lorry, with an admiring glance at Saltars' sullen strength, which was what attracted her; "no one would take you to be a nobleman." ”

“ In the evening Manuel, pallid with horror at the events of that awful day, took Madame de Staël back to her own house, through streets of which the obscurity was only relieved at moments by the lurid glare of torches. He told her that he had procured a new passport for herself and her maid alone; and that she was to be escorted to the frontier by a gendarme.
The next day Tallien arrived, appointed by the Commune to accompany her to the barriers. Several suspected aristocrats were present when he was announced. Most people under such circumstances [68] would have taken care to be found alone ”

“ I said humbly.
"I've asked him over to dine on the day our fishing-boat will be launched," said Father Letheby, after a pause. "Some of the brethren are coming; and you'll come, sir? Duff is very anxious to meet you."
"Of course," I replied. "I never refuse so delightful an invitation. But why should Duff be anxious to meet me?"
"I really don't know, except that you are, as you know yourself, sir, a celebrity. He thinks a great deal of you." ”

“ She certainly liked to absorb a great deal of her friends' affections, and was avowedly displeased when they married. Her sentiments towards Baron de Staël, full of a sweet and fresh cordiality at first, seems rapidly to have changed to aversion. As far as it is possible to judge, she unhesitatingly sacrificed him on all occasions to her filial love or her intellectual aims. When he was in Paris she left him in order to console M. Necker in his mournful retirement at Coppet. When he was at Coppet she remained in Paris, there to form and electrify a constitutional salon. ”

“ After quitting Sweden Madame de Staël went to England. Some eighteen years or so had passed since she had wept in the lanes at Mickleham at the thought of separating from the charming colony at Juniper Hall. Her heart was still almost as young as in those days; the vivid flame of enthusiasm for all that was good still burnt as brightly in her soul. If her spiritual horizon had widened, and a fervent if rather vague religious sentiment had succeeded to her unquestioning faith in men—that was almost all the change in her. ”

“ Captain Stephen Saltren, master of the manganese mine, was a tall man, rather gaunt and thin, and loosely compacted at the joints, with dark hair, high cheek-bones and large, deeply-sunken eyes. His features were irregular and ill cut—yet it was impossible to look at his face without being impressed with the thought that he was no ordinary man. His hands, though roughened and enlarged by work, had long fingers, the indication of a nervous temperament. He had, moreover, one of those flexible voices which go far towards making a man an orator. ”

“ John Salter was a vain, vulgar, selfish fool; in natural clumsiness a caricature of John Bull personified, yet so determined to be French and Frenchified, and so proud of his travels to and through Boulogne, that the young men about the rooms, to whom he afforded infinite amusement, called him the Marquis. Sir William Orm, though he had long since cut the other members of the Salter family, sometimes did the young man the honour to win his money; while Geoffery Arden, and several other fashionables, granted him the privilege of a limited portion of their acquaintance on the same liberal terms. ”

“ In cases of such vital importance, thought Miss Salter, people mustn't stick at trifles. She then ran up stairs again and in breathless haste, with the assistance of a housemaid changed her dress, and throwing on all the gold chains and bracelets she could muster, made her appearance in the drawing-room, looking however, as might have been expected, after so much exertion both mental and corporeal, not quite so cool as she could have wished. ”