told _him_, the tears he had found her shedding upon her knees when
first he had been drinking, the money he had never given her out of
his salary but had spent with idlers, his ruined soul which to that
mother's thought was pure as a baby's still, and watched by all the
angels of God: these were admonitions from the green meadows of
childhood. Before was the barren field of honor.

How short is the struggle betwixt youth and selfishness, that sum of
all diseases and crimes; that selfishness out of which wars arise and
hell is habitated!

A poor, overworked Christian negro, a slave in the tavern, hearing the
sobbing of Robert Utie and aware that one of the duellists occupied
that room, lifted the latch, and wakened the wretched boy from his
remorse.

"Young moss," he said, "doan you fight no juels! Oh! doan do it, for
de bressed Lord's sake! It's nuffin but pride and sin. Yo's only a
pore, spilt boy, but you got a soul, young moss! Doan you go git kilt
in dat ar bloody gully wha' so many gits hurt amoss to deff!"

Utie arose from the dream of home, and kicked the poor slave out of
the room. He then drank, speculated upon his chances, practised with
an imaginary pistol at the wall, and meditated running away,
alternately, until Tiltock's business-step rang in the hall.

"Bob," he said, "we've picked you a beautiful piece of ground, and the
other party's waiting. It's the most popular juel of the season."

They walked up the sandy village street, under the old hip-roofed