The Debtor | Page 8

Mary Wilkins Freeman

ways than one. He had come out of the strife shorn in his fleece of
worldly wealth and mutilated as to his body. He limped stiffly on a
wooden leg, and his fine buildings had gone up in fire and smoke. But
during the years since the war he had retrieved his fortunes. People said
he was worth more than before; everything he had handled had
prospered. He was one of those men whose very touch seems to
multiply possessions. He was a much younger man than Arthur's father,
and robust at the time of his death. He explained to Arthur that he was
doing him an incalculable service in purchasing his patrimonial estate,
when he announced his decision so to do, after taking several weeks to
conceal his alacrity.
"It is not everybodee would take a propertee, with such a condeetion
attached, Arthur, boy," he said. He had at times a touch of the Scotch in
his accent. His father had been straight from the old country when he
married the planter's daughter. "Not everybodee, with such a
condeetion," he repeated, and the boy innocently believed him. He had
been used, ever since he was a child and could remember anything, to
seeing a good deal of the man. The Southern wife had died early and
the man had been lonely and given to frequent friendly meetings with

Mr. Carroll, who had valued him.
"He's the right sort, Arthur," he had often told the boy; "you can depend
on him. He has given his gold and his flesh and blood for the South,
although he came on one side of another race and might have sided
against us. He's the right sort."
So the Scotch-Southern planter had been one of the bearers at the old
Carroll's funeral, and the son, when he had formulated his business
schemes, had gone to this friend with them, and with his proposal for
the sale of the Carroll property. The boy, who was honorable to the
finish, had been loath to ask, in the then reduced state of the property,
for a loan on mortgage to the extent which he would require; therefore
he proposed this conditional sale as offering rather better, or at least
more evident, security, and he regarded it in his own mind as
practically amounting to the same thing. He was as sure of his being
able to purchase back his own, should he secure the necessary funds, as
he would have been of paying up the mortgage. The advance price
would about twice cover the interest at a goodly rate, had the affair
been conducted on the mortgage basis. Arthur himself had proposed
that, and "I will of course pay for any improvements you may have
made in the mean time," he said. There was nothing in the least mean
or ungenerous about Arthur Carroll. He meant, on the whole, rather
more squarely to his fellow-men than to himself.
Then with the money obtained from the sale of his patrimony he went
to work on his coal-mine. A very trifle of a beginning had been made
on it before the war, so he had not actually to break the first ground.
The previous owner had died bankrupt from lack of capital, and his
minor daughter had inherited it. It was from the minor daughter that the
elder Carroll had purchased it, partly with a view to assisting the child,
who had been left penniless except for the mine, at the death of her
father, who was of a distant branch of Carroll's own family. With the
proceeds of the sale the girl was supported and educated; then she lost
the remainder through the dishonesty of her guardian. That was the
year after young Carroll began to work the mine. Then he married her.
She was a beautiful girl, and helpless as a flower. He married her

without a cent to support her except the old coal-mine, and he worked
as hard and bravely as a man could. And he prospered, to the utter
amazement of everybody who watched him, and who had prophesied
failure from the start. In four years he was looked upon with respect.
People said he was fast getting rich. He went to the man who had
bought the Carroll place, at the end of the four years, with the money in
his hand and proposed purchasing it. He had not a doubt, such was his
trust in the friendliness of the man, that he would gladly consent and
pat him on the back with fatherly affection for his success; but, to his
amazement, he was refused, although still under the guise of the purest
philanthropy.
"No, Arthur, boy," he said. "It is best for you to keep the money in your
business awhile longer. It will
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