Seems like the wind is changin', fetchin' chill an' storm!"

Sandy, with the superstition of The Hollow responding in his blood, went to the window overlooking The Way. Just turning into the trail leading up to the cabin a tall, lithe form swung in sight. Well dressed, carrying a modern suitcase, and whistling, gayly came the stranger. At the moment of recognition Sandy felt a cold aloofness overpower him. He spoke, as if to convince a doubting listener: "I--I reckon that is Lans Treadwell! Treadwell, of all people!"

But Sandy pulled himself together and went to greet his visitor with characteristic warmth and cordiality. He believed it was only surprise that had swayed him earlier. Lans, somehow, could not easily be fixed into place in the rough hill life. Lans, always at his ease in Boston, seemed oddly out of tune in Lost Hollow. But try as he might, Sandy could not feel like himself, with Treadwell's cheerful laugh and big-hearted, patronizing jollity resounding through the cabin. He was too desperately and determinedly bent upon being "one of them" to be comfortable.

"By Jove! Morley," he exclaimed, when Sandy had drawn him into the living room; "this is a place. You've worked wonders here. I have always wanted to see you in your family--is that your--your mother?"

For Sally Taber could be seen and heard through the half-open door leading to the kitchen.

"No. My mother has been long dead. My father will return by evening meal time. Come in here, Lans--you see I have unoccupied quarters----"

He led him to Levi's apartments. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll start a fire on the hearth in this bedroom and the adjoining sitting-room."

"Well, I'll be"--Treadwell glanced about at the plain luxury--"eternally flambusted! If you are not a----" Then he laughed.

It was after the evening meal which Sally served in silent, morose dignity, that the three men went to Sandy's study. The shed-rooms were attached to the main cabin by a narrow hallway and this passage was dark and cold. Coming from it into the warmth and glow of the room filled with books and pictures, Treadwell paused to glance about and exclaim before he took the easiest chair by the hearth and accepted pipe and tobacco. Martin was ill at ease and looked helplessly now and again to his son for leadings with this stranger who laughed so constantly and regarded him as if he were a person of inferiority and lack of intelligence who must, nevertheless, be treated with kindness and tolerance.

"I suppose," Treadwell remarked when the three had finally settled into some kind of comfort, "I suppose, Sand, you wonder how I found you out?"

Sandy had wondered but had restrained his curiosity. He looked now at the big, handsome fellow and again was seized with the sense of chill that he had felt in the afternoon.

"It sounds like a fairy story--a best seller or what you will. By and by"--he glanced at Martin as though to suggest a time when he would be absent--"I've got a lot to tell you, but something turned turtle in my affairs and got on to my nerves. Aunt Olive made me consult Doctor Travers, he's my uncle's pet aversion, you know, because he wanted Aunt Matilda to go into his sanatorium and Uncle Levi considered it an insult. Well, I saw Travers and he advised a vacation. 'Get to the hills,' he suggested, 'and browse a bit. Why don't you go up to that place--a hole in the ground,' he called it, 'where your uncle has sent--Morley?' And then it all came out, and by Jove! I found out that you hailed from the place of my forefathers!"

At this Martin dropped his pipe on the hearth and fixed his dim eyes on the stranger's face. Back rolled the years that had been but stagnant pools in poor Martin Morley's life; into focus came the simple hates and injustices that had brought him where he was.

"Your--forefathers!" he gasped, while a weird familiarity and resemblance to--he knew not what--made Treadwell something tangible and actual at last.

"Yes. We still own a good bit of land over beyond the place called The Forge. I've been having a look at it. It's run wild and rank, but it might be reclaimed, I suppose. There is a depraved old squatter on the place; lives in an old smoke-house. He actually remembered my grandfather and what do you think, Morley"--Lans had turned his back upon Martin, whose fixed stare and rigid pose disturbed him--"the old codger actually told me half of a story the other half of which Aunt Olive and I have often laughed over. Oddly enough it is a new and another connecting link between you and me. We're throw-backs, old fellow! Throw-backs and neither of us realizing it, but just naturally coming together."

Sandy was looking at his father. Martin was pale and haggard and his bony hands clutched his thin knees until the knuckles were strained and white.

"Hertford!" whispered Martin; "Hertford!"

"Sure thing!" Lans gave a laugh. "See, I'm discovered even in this disguise." He nodded toward the old man as one might toward an imbecile who had shown a gleam of intelligence. "Lansing Hertford is my real name; named for a grandfather just as you are, Sandy Morley.

You see I've patched the scraps together. It was your grandfather and mine who were good pals way back in the musty ages. Some one played a practical joke on them and the friendship went up in thin air. It's left for you and me to pick up the pieces and--cement them together. I wonder if you ever heard about the bottle of stuff my grandfather gave your grandfather to bring home from--from Turkey, I think it was. Our forebears were globe trotters in a day when to trot meant to make history."

"I--I've heard it," Sandy muttered, his eyes still fixed on his father's rigid face.

"Did you ever hear the--joke?"

"Joke? No! Was there a joke?"

"Yes. Your relative stopped in Paris--he was a jolly old buck according to reports--and he hugged that everlasting bottle so close to him that some fellows--sounds beastly frivolous to refer to those dignified shades as fellows--but, anyway, some chaps from round about here were doing gay Paree just then and they caught on to your grandsire's devotion to that phial; they called it his Passion, his mistress, and one night when he had left it hidden in his room they found it, emptied out the contents--some kind of cologne it was--and filled it with water! They never heard the outcome, but Aunt Olive and I have often wondered how--some mountain girl probably enjoyed her smelling salts, or perfume, or whatever it was!"

Sandy could not move. He was spellbound, but Martin struggled to his feet and stood towering over Lans Treadwell, shaking as with ague.

"I reckon I can tell you how it--turned out," he said, while his poor old chin quivered as if the effort was almost more than he could endure. "It war this-er-way. He came home to The Hollow, Sandy's grandfather, an' he brought the bottle of--water! Oh! my God--and them as opened the bottle--found out and began--to whisper! They all whispered an' nudged ole Sandford Morley out of life an' inter his grave. They-all hinted that he war a thief, a betrayer of his friend, but he war that upright and clean that he war deaf to whispers an'

he--he didn't know the language of dirty slurs and off looks from them as war once his friends! He went to his grave without knowing what had edged him outer the respect of his neighbours. Then the lie grew an'

grew an' took the life an' souls outer us-all an' made us po'

whites--us as war as good an' better than your kin!"

A terrible fury was rising in Martin, and Sandy, unable to clarify the situation, paused before entering the fray.

"Then Sandy here, he got his call an' rose up to save us-all. Out in the world he found--you. You've come here--for what? for what?"

"Father!" At last Sandy was beside the old man. "Father, remember he is our guest! He has come to clear--can you not see--he has cleared--our name!"

Exultation and joy flooded Sandy; and his touch on his father's arm, the thrill in his voice had power to calm the old man.

"Good God!" Treadwell exclaimed, rising and facing the two; "is it out of such stuff, such dreams, such grudges, such shabby jokes, the life of the hills is made?"

"Yes." Sandy whispered, "out of such stuff we come--or remain! You can never know what you have done for us, Lans. Father will realize it later--he's nearer the past than I am. For myself I--thank you! You have, well, you cannot understand, but it's like you had put a broad, wide window in our lives, letting in sunshine and sweet air where mould and rot had once been."

He stretched his hand out frankly and tried to push his father forward to do the same, but Martin turned away, the tears streaming from his eyes. Sandy was looking to the future; Martin to the past; and Lansing Treadwell stood between the two with a light laugh upon his lips and a vague, contemptuous wonder in his eyes.

CHAPTER XX

They had tramped the hills together, Sandy and Lans. They had gone carefully over the plans for the factory and Home-school, had seen the growing building of the former and revelled in the dreams of the latter.

"It proves my liking for you, old chap," Lans had said, "when I can look at all this and not envy you. You see, Uncle Levi wanted to train me in the way I should go, but I got a twist in the wrong direction and--well! I never squeal. That's about all the philosophy or religion I have--I never squeal! Live your life; take your chances and squeal not! Then you remember I used to tell you that I was a big bungling giant? You've got the vision and the leading. But to think of Uncle Levi putting the reins in your hands! I can imagine him letting any one he likes hold the _end_ of the reins--but he's leaned back and is letting you drive."

"Yes--but only because his big, wise head and loving heart tell him this is a safe road to travel."

"Oh! I don't know. Who's going to be any the better for--all this?

There's a lot of Tommyrot about charity. If I were going to splurge I'd do it in the middle of the stage and make an advertisement of it at the same time. It's cheaper and more sensible. Why, if Uncle Levi would spend in Boston what he's spending up here--he'd have the world talking about his mills."

Sandy turned away. He was thinking of what Levi had said to him a few weeks before as he was ending his visit in Bretherton.

"Son"--he was "son" to the old brother and sister after that trip abroad--"son, go back to your hills and see in every ragged boy--Sandy Morley! In every little lass--your sister Molly! Gather them in, son, gather them in, and let us help them as we helped you to--come out cleaner and better. Work up there, son, as if God Almighty's eye alone was upon you. Men have forgotten the hill people, but God called you to lead them out of bondage."

"It pays to advertise," Lans was remarking.

"Yes," Sandy returned; "and Mr. Markham advertises in a most original and picturesque way."

Through all the walks and drives round about The Hollow, Sandy inwardly prayed that Cynthia might not materialize. Why he so strongly desired this he could not tell. He liked Lans; enjoyed his visit and companionship, but he hoped he would leave before Cynthia appeared. He grew restless at times and found himself longing to tell Treadwell that the Markhams were coming to The Hollow for Christmas, and the rooms occupied by Lans would be needed. But the days went by and Cynthia kept from sight. The truth was, Sally Taber had gone to Trouble Neck and spread the news and warning.

"You-all bes' stay away," she said; "dis yere Yank be right triflin'

and polite. He makes us-all feel like we war dirt under his feet. I clar' I'd like to work an evil charm on him! Ole Mr. Morley he don'

take naturally to the woods an' leaves them young gem'men to themselves. I keep the do' closed 'twixt them an' me--he makes me feel like there was traps set fo' my feet."

"You must be having a real gay time up there!" Marcia Lowe replied, laughing at poor old Sally's indignation.

"Well, I'se cookin' mo' an' mo' monstrous every day. If that Yank can stan' what I have in store fo' him from now on, I reckon he don' got a stummick like a beast o' burden."

"Ah! poor Sandy," Cynthia cried; "you'll kill him, too. I reckon I'll come up and bring him food at night and put it in his study."

"Not just yet, little Cyn," Marcia Lowe replied, putting a protecting arm about the girl. "Cynthia's a bit run down," she explained to Sally; "off her feed a little. We're going to have a holiday. What do you think?--Mr. Greeley is going to take us 'over the hills and far away'--about twenty-five miles away! He's going over to make a will for an old man who is dying and he's invited us to share his carriage.

Take good care of the Morleys, Sally, and let's hope the stranger will leave before we return. I'm getting real Southern in my tastes and am positively suspicious of Northerners!"