Jabel thought in one instant of the inquiries which should be addressed to him on his return, the prying curiosity of the hamlet, the strictures of his neighbors and laborers, the exultation of his enemies, the lost chance of his cherished village to become the mart of its locality and dispense from its exchequer enterprise and aid to farms and mines and mills.

“The good God may make it up to my children some day,” he said; “but the bank is never to be in the life of old Jabel Blake!”

So Jabel went home and met with all obtuseness the flying rumors of the country.  His worst enemies said that he had fallen from grace while in Washington, and “bucked” with all his bonds against a faro bank.  His best friends obtained no explanation of his losses.  He kept his counsel, grew even sterner and thriftier than he had ever been, and only at the Presbyterian church, where he prayed in public frequently at the evening meetings, were glimpses afforded of his recollections of Washington by the resonant appeals he made that the money-changers might be lashed out of the temples there, and desolation wrought upon them that sold doves.

There was no bank at Ross Valley, but people began to say that old Jabel Blake had particles of gold in the flinty composition of his life, and that his trip to Washington had made him gentler and wider in his charities.  He was attentive to young children.  He encouraged young lovers.  He lifted many errant people to their feet, and started them on their way to a braver life of sacrifice.  And fortune smiled upon him as never before.  His mills went day and night, stopping never except on Sabbaths.  The ground seemed to give forth iron and lime wherever he dug for it.  The town became the thriftiest settlement in the Allegheny valleys, and Jabel Blake was the earliest riser and the hardest delver in the State.

It happened at the end of two years that rheumatism and an overstrained old age brought Jabel Blake to bed, and a flood, passing down the valley, aroused him, despite advice, to his old indomitable leadership against its ravages.  He returned to his rest never to arise; for now a fever laid hold upon the old captain, and he talked in his delirium of Judge Dunlevy and his bank, and he was attended all the while by Arthur MacNair.

One night, in a little spell of relief, Jabel Blake opened his eyes and said,

“Arty, I dreamed old Jabel Blake was in heaven, and that he had founded a bank there!”

“Jabel,” said the young Congressman, “you must have some treasure laid up there, old friend.  And not only in heaven, but in this world also.  Look on this happy family redeemed by your sacrifice!”

Jabel Blake opened his eyes wider, and they fell upon Judge Dunlevy.

“This is a great honor,” he said; “Ross Valley brings her great citizen back.”

“No!” cried the Judge, “it is you, Jabel, who have brought us all to your bedside to do ourselves honor.  Here are Elk MacNair and my daughter, who owe all their fortune to your fatherly kindness, and who have come to repay you the uttermost farthing.  Providence has appreciated your sacrifice.  They bring for your blessing, my grandson, and the name they have given him is Jabel Blake.”