e
West, created by a pretty and refined-looking woman. She made an
opportunity for asking me if it were true that the gentleman with me
was "Mountain Jim," and added that so very gentlemanly a person could
not be guilty of the misdeeds attributed to him.

When we returned, the kitchen was much quieter. It was cleared by
eight, as the landlady promised; we had it to ourselves till twelve,
and could scarcely hear the music. It was a most respectable dance, a
fortnightly gathering got up by the neighboring settlers, most of them
young married people, and there was no drinking at all. I wrote to you
for some time, while Mr. Nugent copied for himself the poems "In the
Glen" and the latter half of "The River without a Bridge," which he
recited with deep feeling. It was altogether very quiet and peaceful.
He repeated to me several poems of great merit which he had composed,
and told me much more about his life. I knew that no one else could or
would speak to him as I could, and for the last time I urged upon him
the necessity of a reformation in his life, beginning with the giving
up of whisky, going so far as to tell him that I despised a man of his
intellect for being a slave to such a vice. "Too late! too late!" he
always answered, "for such a change." Ay, TOO LATE. He shed tears
quietly. "It might have been once," he said. Ay, MIGHT have been. He
has excellent sense for every one but himself, and, as I have seen him
with a single exception, a gentleness, propriety, and considerateness
of manner surprising in any man, but especially so in a man associating
only with the rough men of the West. As I looked at him, I felt a pity
such as I never before felt for a human being.

My thought at the moment was, Will not our Father in heaven, "who
spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all," be far more
pitiful? For the time a desire for self-respect, better aspirations,
and even hope itself, entered his dark life; and he said, suddenly,
that he had made up his mind to give up whisky and his reputation as a
desperado. But it is "too late." A little before twelve the dance was
over, and I got to the crowded little bedroom, which only allowed of
one person standing in it at a time, to sleep soundly and dream of
"ninety-and-nine just persons who need no repentance." The landlady
was quite taken up with her "distinguished guest." "That kind, quiet
gentleman, Mountain Jim! Well, I never! he must be a very