“But pardon the digression.  Let us return.  I was to have married her.  The day was set.  Then I found accidentally that she was engaged to my brother Samuel, a young man with better manners than mind.  She made him believe that she was only making a butt of me.  But I think she really loved me more than she knew.  When I had discovered her treachery, I shipped on the first flat-boat.  I came near committing suicide, and should have jumped into the river one night, only that I thought it might flatter her vanity.  I came back here and ignored her.  She broke with Samuel and tried to regain my affections.  I scorned her.  I trod on her heart!  I stamped her pride into the dust!  I was cruel.  I was contemptuous.  I was well-nigh insane.  Then she went back to Samuel, and made him marry her.  Then she forced my imbecile old father, on his death-bed, to will all the property to Samuel, except this piece of rough hill-land and one thousand dollars.  But here I built this castle.  My thousand dollars I put in books.  I learned how, to weave the coverlets of which our country people are so fond, and by this means, and by selling wood to the steamboats, I have made a living and bought my library without having to work half of my time.  I was determined never to leave.  I swore by all the arms of Vishnu she should never say that she had driven me away.  I don’t know anything about Julia.  But I know whose daughter she is.  My young friend, beware!  I pray you take good heed!  The Backwoods Philosopher warns you!”

CHAPTER VII.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

If the gentleman is not born in a man, it can not be bred in him.  If it is born in him, it can not be bred out of him.  August Wehle had inherited from his mother the instinct of true gentlemanliness.  And now, when Andrew relapsed into silence and abstraction, he did not attempt to rouse him, but bidding him goodnight, with his own hands threw the rope-ladder out the window and started up the hollow toward home.  The air was sultry and oppressive, the moon had been engulfed, and the first thunder-cloud of the spring was pushing itself up toward the zenith, while the boughs of the trees were quivering with a premonitory shudder.  But August did not hasten.  The real storm was within.  Andrew’s story had raised doubts.  When he went down the ravine the love of Julia Anderson shone upon his heart as benignly as the moon upon the waters.  Now the light was gone, and the black cloud of a doubt had shut out his peace.  Jule Anderson’s father was rich.  He had not thought of it before!  But now he remembered how much woodland he owned and how he had two large farms.  Jule Anderson would not marry a poor boy.  And a Dutchman!  She was not sincere.  She was trifling with him and teasing her parents.  Or, if she were sincere now, she would not be faithful to him against every tempting offer.  And he would have to drive on the rocks, too, as Andrew had.  At any rate, he would not marry her until he stood upon some sort of equality with her.