Tubal Cain

n the gentlemen's cabin, and Alexander Hulings was unable to secure a berth. The passengers crowded at a single long table; and the low interior, steaming with food, echoing with clattering china

e, an emergence from a suffocating cl

ander Hulings would have been almost comfortable; but the music, at midnight, showed no signs of abating. Money was collected, whisky distributed; a quadrille formed forward. Hulings could see the women's crinolines, the great sleeves and skirts, dipping and floating in a radiance of oil torches. He had a place in a solid bank of chairs about the outer rail, and sat huddled in his cape. His misery, as usual, increased with the night; the darkness was s

never succeeded with Tubal Cain. Probably, like so many others, he was a drunkard. The man who ha

r shook his head morosely. "Well, that," the fi

n uncertain memory of t

iron banks and furnaces and forges and mills; hundreds of men and women... all his. Like a European monarch! Yes, sir; resembles that. Word's law-says 'Come here!'

rom there he must drive to Tubal Cain. The vicarious boastful

ear by he doesn't own

it was, Wooddrop would have it. It would be his or

ter, as it had been stated, was precisely the quality that called to the surface his own stubborn will

, was a strong man; and it tormented him with the bitter contrast between such an image and his actual present self. He laughed aloud, a thin, shaken giggle, at his belief persisting in the face of such irre

his observations, colored by his spleen, had not added to a small opinion of man at large. Always feeling himself to be a figure of supreme importance, he had never ceased to

hile the floor of the cabin was filled with clothesracks, burdened with a miscellany of outer garments. One place only was empty-under the ceiling; and he made a difficult ascent to the narrow space. Sleep was an impossibility-a storm of hoarse breathing,

upied by men waiting for the appearance of the feminine passengers from their cabin forward, and breakfast. The day was

yellow and sunken, and his lips dry. John Wood-drop passed and repassed him, a girl, his daughter Gisela, on his arm. She wore an India muslin dress, w

, and he saw that her eyes see

ronage. John Wooddrop's foot trod the deck with a solid authority that increased the sick man's smoldering scorn. At dinner he had an actual encounter wit

ngs in a deep voice, "to move over yonder.

n't turn his head nor disturb his position. John Wood-drop repeated his request in stil

l! And note this, Mrs. Wooddrop,"-he turned to his wife-"I shall never again, in spite of

ore important man. His sunken eyes blazed with such a fe

d him; he collapsed in his chair with a pounding heart and blurred vision. The inc

s bitterness toward the Ironmaster. He determined to extract satisfaction for his humiliation. It was characteristic of Hulings that he saw himself essentially as John Wood-d

leep, but stayed wrapped in his cloak in a chair. He slept through the dawn and woke only at the full activity of breakfast. Past noon the boat tied up at Harmony. The Wooddrops de

intended arrival-no conveyance was near by. A wagon drawn by six mules with gay bells and colored stre

inhabited. Once they passed a solid, foursquare structure of stone, built against a hill, with clustered wooden sheds and a great whee

eered. "Belongs to Wooddrop. But that doesn't signif

ed, through his mind. It temporarily obliterated the fact that here was another evidence of the magnitude, the possessions, o

es were stopped. "What there is

some obscure structures. Dragging his baggage he made his way down to a long wooden shed, the length facing him open on two covered hearths, some dilapidated troughs, a suspended ponderous hammer resti

ll stone dwellings. The first was apparently empty, with some whitened sacks on a bare floor; but within a second he saw through the op

nees that Hulings swung the door back impatiently. Even then an appreciable time elapsed before the man inside rose to his feet. He turned and moved forwar

individual briefly stated; "a

rance. James Claypole's person was as neglected as the forge. His stained breeches were

gle room, with a small shed kitchen at the rear and two narrow chambers above. There was a pleasant abs

use. On the left Hulings could see the end of the forge shed, with the inevitable water wheel hung in a channel cut from the dear stream. The stream wrinkled and whispered

o wrestle with his spirit, but it w

ulings regarded him curiously.

forges appear to flourish about here. This Woo

ving toward the forge, "takes the thoughts from the Supreme Being. Eager for the Word, and a poor speller-out of the Book, you can't spend priceless hours shingling bl

held it back?" Alexander Hulings demanded curtly. He was witho

ooddrop wanted to buy, but I wouldn't extend

good for

on stone, log on log. Heavy, slow work. The sluice is like a city wall; the anvil bedded on

carcely contain

a fine thing out of it! Opportunity, oppo

It was evident that he would have to restrain any injudiciou

r weeks." He realized, surprised, that this was so. He had a conviction that he could sleep here, by the stream, in the still, flowering woods. "I haven't any interest in temples," he continued; "but I guess-two men-we won't argue about that. So