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diff --git a/2281.txt b/2281.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3b13d58 --- /dev/null +++ b/2281.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5811 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales, by +Bret Harte + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales + +Author: Bret Harte + +Posting Date: October 28, 2008 [EBook #2281] +Release Date: August, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH and Other Tales + + +by + +Bret Harte + + + + +CONTENTS. + + THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH + A KNIGHT-ERRANT OF THE FOOT-HILLS + A SECRET OF TELEGRAPH HILL + CAPTAIN JIM'S FRIEND + + + +THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH. + +I. + +The sun was going down on the Dedlow Marshes. The tide was following +it fast as if to meet the reddening lines of sky and water in the west, +leaving the foreground to grow blacker and blacker every moment, and to +bring out in startling contrast the few half-filled and half-lit pools +left behind and forgotten. The strong breath of the Pacific fanning +their surfaces at times kindled them into a dull glow like dying +embers. A cloud of sand-pipers rose white from one of the nearer +lagoons, swept in a long eddying ring against the sunset, and became a +black and dropping rain to seaward. The long sinuous line of channel, +fading with the light and ebbing with the tide, began to give off here +and there light puffs of gray-winged birds like sudden exhalations. +High in the darkening sky the long arrow-headed lines of geese and +'brant' pointed towards the upland. As the light grew more uncertain +the air at times was filled with the rush of viewless and melancholy +wings, or became plaintive with far-off cries and lamentations. As the +Marshes grew blacker the far-scattered tussocks and accretions on its +level surface began to loom in exaggerated outline, and two human +figures, suddenly emerging erect on the bank of the hidden channel, +assumed the proportion of giants. + +When they had moored their unseen boat, they still appeared for some +moments to be moving vaguely and aimlessly round the spot where they +had disembarked. But as the eye became familiar with the darkness it +was seen that they were really advancing inland, yet with a slowness of +progression and deviousness of course that appeared inexplicable to the +distant spectator. Presently it was evident that this seemingly even, +vast, black expanse was traversed and intersected by inky creeks and +small channels, which made human progression difficult and dangerous. +As they appeared nearer and their figures took more natural +proportions, it could be seen that each carried a gun; that one was a +young girl, although dressed so like her companion in shaggy pea-jacket +and sou'wester as to be scarcely distinguished from him above the short +skirt that came halfway down her high india-rubber fishing-boots. By +the time they had reached firmer ground, and turned to look back at the +sunset, it could be also seen that the likeness between their faces was +remarkable. Both, had crisp, black, tightly curling hair; both had +dark eyes and heavy eyebrows; both had quick vivid complexions, +slightly heightened by the sea and wind. But more striking than their +similarity of coloring was the likeness of expression and bearing. +Both wore the same air of picturesque energy; both bore themselves with +a like graceful effrontery and self-possession. + +The young man continued his way. The young girl lingered for a moment +looking seaward, with her small brown hand lifted to shade her eyes,--a +precaution which her heavy eyebrows and long lashes seemed to render +utterly gratuitous. + +"Come along, Mag. What are ye waitin' for?" said the young man +impatiently. + +"Nothin'. Lookin' at that boat from the Fort." Her clear eyes were +watching a small skiff, invisible to less keen-sighted observers, +aground upon a flat near the mouth of the channel. "Them chaps will +have a high ole time gunnin' thar, stuck in the mud, and the tide goin' +out like sixty!" + +"Never you mind the sodgers," returned her companion, aggressively, +"they kin take care o' their own precious skins, or Uncle Sam will do +it for 'em, I reckon. Anyhow the people--that's you and me, Mag--is +expected to pay for their foolishness. That's what they're sent yer +for. Ye oughter to be satisfied with that," he added with deep sarcasm. + +"I reckon they ain't expected to do much off o' dry land, and they +can't help bein' queer on the water," returned the young girl with a +reflecting sense of justice. + +"Then they ain't no call to go gunnin', and wastin' Guv'nment powder on +ducks instead o' Injins." + +"Thet's so," said the girl thoughtfully. "Wonder ef Guv'nment pays for +them frocks the Kernel's girls went cavortin' round Logport in last +Sunday--they looked like a cirkis." + +"Like ez not the old Kernel gets it outer contracts--one way or +another. WE pay for it all the same," he added gloomily. + +"Jest the same ez if they were MY clothes," said the girl, with a +quick, fiery, little laugh, "ain't it? Wonder how they'd like my +sayin' that to 'em when they was prancin' round, eh, Jim?" + +But her companion was evidently unprepared for this sweeping feminine +deduction, and stopped it with masculine promptitude. + +"Look yer--instead o' botherin' your head about what the Fort girls +wear, you'd better trot along a little more lively. It's late enough +now." + +"But these darned boots hurt like pizen," said the girl, limping. "They +swallowed a lot o' water over the tops while I was wadin' down there, +and my feet go swashin' around like in a churn every step." + +"Lean on me, baby," he returned, passing his arm around her waist, and +dropping her head smartly on his shoulder. "Thar!" The act was +brotherly and slightly contemptuous, but it was sufficient to at once +establish their kinship. + +They continued on thus for some moments in silence, the girl, I fear, +after the fashion of her sex, taking the fullest advantage of this +slightly sentimental and caressing attitude. They were moving now +along the edge of the Marsh, parallel with the line of rapidly fading +horizon, following some trail only known to their keen youthful eyes. +It was growing darker and darker. The cries of the sea-birds had +ceased; even the call of a belated plover had died away inland; the +hush of death lay over the black funereal pall of marsh at their side. +The tide had run out with the day. Even the sea-breeze had lulled in +this dead slack-water of all nature, as if waiting outside the bar with +the ocean, the stars, and the night. + +Suddenly the girl stopped and halted her companion. The faint far +sound of a bugle broke the silence, if the idea of interruption could +have been conveyed by the two or three exquisite vibrations that seemed +born of that silence itself, and to fade and die in it without break or +discord. Yet it was only the 'retreat' call from the Fort two miles +distant and invisible. + +The young girl's face had become irradiated, and her small mouth half +opened as she listened. "Do you know, Jim," she said with a +confidential sigh, "I allus put words to that when I hear it--it's so +pow'ful pretty. It allus goes to me like this: 'Goes the day, Far +away, With the light, And the night Comes along--Comes along--Comes +along--Like a-a so-o-ong.'" She here lifted her voice, a sweet, fresh, +boyish contralto, in such an admirable imitation of the bugle that her +brother, after the fashion of more select auditors, was for a moment +quite convinced that the words meant something. Nevertheless, as a +brother, it was his duty to crush this weakness. "Yes; and it +says:'shut your head, Go to bed,'" he returned irascibly; "and YOU'D +better come along, if we're goin' to hev any supper. There's Yeller +Bob hez got ahead of us over there with the game already." + +The girl glanced towards a slouching burdened figure that now appeared +to be preceding them, straightened herself suddenly, and then looked +attentively towards the Marsh. + +"Not the sodgers again?" said her brother impatiently. + +"No," she said quickly; "but if that don't beat anythin'! I'd hev +sworn, Jim, that Yeller Bob was somewhere behind us. I saw him only +jest now when 'Taps' sounded, somewhere over thar." She pointed with a +half-uneasy expression in quite another direction from that in which +the slouching Yellow Bob had just loomed. + +"Tell ye what, Mag, makin' poetry outer bugle calls hez kinder muddled +ye. THAT'S Yeller Bob ahead, and ye orter know Injins well enuff by +this time to remember that they allus crop up jest when ye don't expect +them. And there's the bresh jest afore us. Come!" + +The 'bresh,' or low bushes, was really a line of stunted willows and +alders that seemed to have gradually sunk into the level of the plain, +but increased in size farther inland, until they grew to the height and +density of a wood. Seen from the channel it had the appearance of a +green cape or promontory thrust upon the Marsh. Passing through its +tangled recesses, with the aid of some unerring instinct, the two +companions emerged upon another and much larger level that seemed as +illimitable as the bay. The strong breath of the ocean lying just +beyond the bar and estuary they were now facing came to them salt and +humid as another tide. The nearer expanse of open water reflected the +after-glow, and lightened the landscape. And between the two wayfarers +and the horizon rose, bleak and startling, the strange outlines of +their home. + +At first it seemed a ruined colonnade of many pillars, whose base and +pediment were buried in the earth, supporting a long parallelogram of +entablature and cornices. But a second glance showed it to be a +one-storied building, upheld above the Marsh by numberless piles placed +at regular distances; some of them sunken or inclined from the +perpendicular, increasing the first illusion. Between these pillars, +which permitted a free circulation of air, and, at extraordinary tides, +even the waters of the bay itself, the level waste of marsh, the bay, +the surges of the bar, and finally the red horizon line, were +distinctly visible. A railed gallery or platform, supported also on +piles, and reached by steps from the Marsh, ran around the building, +and gave access to the several rooms and offices. + +But if the appearance of this lacustrine and amphibious dwelling was +striking, and not without a certain rude and massive grandeur, its +grounds and possessions, through which the brother and sister were +still picking their way, were even more grotesque and remarkable. Over +a space of half a dozen acres the flotsam and jetsam of years of tidal +offerings were collected, and even guarded with a certain care. The +blackened hulks of huge uprooted trees, scarcely distinguishable from +the fragments of genuine wrecks beside them, were securely fastened by +chains to stakes and piles driven in the marsh, while heaps of broken +and disjointed bamboo orange crates, held together by ropes of fibre, +glistened like ligamented bones heaped in the dead valley. Masts, +spars, fragments of shell-encrusted boats, binnacles, round-houses and +galleys, and part of the after-deck of a coasting schooner, had ceased +their wanderings and found rest in this vast cemetery of the sea. The +legend on a wheel-house, the lettering on a stern or bow, served for +mortuary inscription. Wailed over by the trade winds, mourned by +lamenting sea-birds, once every year the tide visited its lost dead and +left them wet with its tears. + +To such a spot and its surroundings the atmosphere of tradition and +mystery was not wanting. Six years ago Boone Culpepper had built the +house, and brought to it his wife--variously believed to be a gypsy, a +Mexican, a bright mulatto, a Digger Indian, a South Sea princess from +Tahiti, somebody else's wife--but in reality a little Creole woman from +New Orleans, with whom he had contracted a marriage, with other +gambling debts, during a winter's vacation from his home in Virginia. +At the end of two years she had died, succumbing, as differently +stated, from perpetual wet feet, or the misanthropic idiosyncrasies of +her husband, and leaving behind her a girl of twelve and a boy of +sixteen to console him. How futile was this bequest may be guessed +from a brief summary of Mr. Culpepper's peculiarities. They were the +development of a singular form of aggrandizement and misanthropy. On +his arrival at Logport he had bought a part of the apparently valueless +Dedlow Marsh from the Government at less than a dollar an acre, +continuing his singular investment year by year until he was the owner +of three leagues of amphibious domain. It was then discovered that +this property carried with it the WATER FRONT of divers valuable and +convenient sites for manufactures and the commercial ports of a noble +bay, as well as the natural embarcaderos of some 'lumbering' inland +settlements. Boone Culpepper would not sell. Boone Culpepper would +not rent or lease. Boone Culpepper held an invincible blockade of his +neighbors, and the progress and improvement he despised--granting only, +after a royal fashion, occasional license, revocable at pleasure, in +the shape of tolls, which amply supported him, with the game he shot in +his kingfisher's eyrie on the Marsh. Even the Government that had made +him powerful was obliged to 'condemn' a part of his property at an +equitable price for the purposes of Fort Redwood, in which the adjacent +town of Logport shared. And Boone Culpepper, unable to resist the act, +refused to receive the compensation or quit-claim the town. In his +scant intercourse with his neighbors he always alluded to it as his +own, showed it to his children as part of their strange inheritance, +and exhibited the starry flag that floated from the Fort as a flaunting +insult to their youthful eyes. Hated, feared, and superstitiously +shunned by some, regarded as a madman by others, familiarly known as +'The Kingfisher of Dedlow,' Boone Culpepper was one day found floating +dead in his skiff, with a charge of shot through his head and +shoulders. The shot-gun lying at his feet at the bottom of the boat +indicated the 'accident' as recorded in the verdict of the coroner's +jury--but not by the people. A thousand rumors of murder or suicide +prevailed, but always with the universal rider, 'Served him right.' So +invincible was this feeling that but few attended his last rites, which +took place at high water. The delay of the officiating clergyman lost +the tide; the homely catafalque--his own boat--was left aground on the +Marsh, and deserted by all mourners except the two children. Whatever +he had instilled into them by precept and example, whatever took place +that night in their lonely watch by his bier on the black marshes, it +was certain that those who confidently looked for any change in the +administration of the Dedlow Marsh were cruelly mistaken. The old +Kingfisher was dead, but he had left in the nest two young birds, more +beautiful and graceful, it was true, yet as fierce and tenacious of +beak and talon. + + +II. + +Arriving at the house, the young people ascended the outer flight of +wooden steps, which bore an odd likeness to the companion-way of a +vessel, and the gallery, or 'deck,' as it was called--where a number of +nets, floats, and buoys thrown over the railing completed the nautical +resemblance. This part of the building was evidently devoted to +kitchen, dining-room, and domestic offices; the principal room in the +centre serving as hall or living-room, and communicating on the other +side with two sleeping apartments. It was of considerable size, with +heavy lateral beams across the ceiling--built, like the rest of the +house, with a certain maritime strength--and looked not unlike a saloon +cabin. An enormous open Franklin stove between the windows, as large +as a chimney, blazing with drift-wood, gave light and heat to the +apartment, and brought into flickering relief the boarded walls hung +with the spoils of sea and shore, and glittering with gun-barrels. +Fowling-pieces of all sizes, from the long ducking-gun mounted on a +swivel for boat use to the light single-barrel or carbine, stood in +racks against the walls; game-bags, revolvers in their holsters, +hunting and fishing knives in their sheaths, depended from hooks above +them. In one corner stood a harpoon; in another, two or three Indian +spears for salmon. The carpetless floor and rude chairs and settles +were covered with otter, mink, beaver, and a quantity of valuable +seal-skins, with a few larger pelts of the bear and elk. The only +attempt at decoration was the displayed wings and breasts of the wood +and harlequin duck, the muir, the cormorant, the gull, the gannet, and +the femininely delicate half-mourning of petrel and plover, nailed +against the wall. The influence of the sea was dominant above all, and +asserted its saline odors even through the spice of the curling +drift-wood smoke that half veiled the ceiling. + +A berry-eyed old Indian woman with the complexion of dried salmon; her +daughter, also with berry eyes, and with a face that seemed wholly made +of a moist laugh; 'Yellow Bob,' a Digger 'buck,' so called from the +prevailing ochre markings of his cheek, and 'Washooh,' an ex-chief; a +nondescript in a blanket, looking like a cheap and dirty doll whose +fibrous hair was badly nailed on his carved wooden head, composed the +Culpepper household. While the two former were preparing supper in the +adjacent dining-room, Yellow Bob, relieved of his burden of game, +appeared on the gallery and beckoned mysteriously to his master through +the window. James Culpepper went out, returned quickly, and after a +minute's hesitation and an uneasy glance towards his sister, who had +meantime pushed back her sou'wester from her forehead, and without +taking off her jacket had dropped into a chair before the fire with her +back towards him, took his gun noiselessly from the rack, and saying +carelessly that he would be back in a moment, disappeared. + +Left to herself, Maggie coolly pulled off her long boots and stockings, +and comfortably opposed to the fire two very pretty feet and ankles, +whose delicate purity was slightly blue-bleached by confinement in the +tepid sea-water. The contrast of their waxen whiteness with her blue +woolen skirt, and with even the skin of her sunburnt hands and wrists, +apparently amused her, and she sat for some moments with her elbows on +her knees, her skirts slightly raised, contemplating them, and curling +her toes with evident satisfaction. The firelight playing upon the +rich coloring of her face, the fringe of jet-black curls that almost +met the thick sweep of eyebrows, and left her only a white strip of +forehead, her short upper lip and small chin, rounded but resolute, +completed a piquant and striking figure. The rich brown shadows on the +smoke-stained walls and ceiling, the occasional starting into relief of +the scutcheons of brilliant plumage, and the momentary glitter of the +steel barrels, made a quaint background to this charming picture. +Sitting there, and following some lingering memory of her tramp on the +Marsh, she hummed to herself a few notes of the bugle call that had +impressed her--at first softly, and finally with the full pitch of her +voice. + +Suddenly she stopped. + +There was a faint and unmistakable rapping on the floor beneath her. +It was distinct, but cautiously given, as if intended to be audible to +her alone. For a moment she stood upright, her feet still bare and +glistening, on the otter skin that served as a rug. There were two +doors to the room, one from which her brother had disappeared, which +led to the steps, the other giving on the back gallery, looking inland. +With a quick instinct she caught up her gun and ran to that one, but +not before a rapid scramble near the railing was followed by a cautious +opening of the door. She was just in time to shut it on the extended +arm and light blue sleeve of an army overcoat that protruded through +the opening, and for a moment threw her whole weight against it. + +"A dhrop of whiskey, Miss, for the love of God." + +She retained her hold, cocked her weapon, and stepped back a pace from +the door. The blue sleeve was followed by the rest of the overcoat, +and a blue cap with the infantry blazoning, and the letter H on its +peak. They were for the moment more distinguishable than the man +beneath them--grimed and blackened with the slime of the Marsh. But +what could be seen of his mud-stained face was more grotesque than +terrifying. A combination of weakness and audacity, insinuation and +timidity struggled through the dirt for expression. His small blue +eyes were not ill-natured, and even the intruding arm trembled more +from exhaustion than passion. + +"On'y a dhrop, Miss," he repeated piteously, "and av ye pleeze, quick! +afore I'm stharved with the cold entoirely." + +She looked at him intently--without lowering her gun. + +"Who are you?" + +"Thin, it's the truth I'll tell ye, Miss--whisth then!" he said in a +half-whisper; "I'm a desarter!" + +"Then it was YOU that was doggin' us on the Marsh?" + +"It was the sarjint I was lavin', Miss." + +She looked at him hesitatingly. + +"Stay outside there; if you move a step into the room, I'll blow you +out of it." + +He stepped back on the gallery. She closed the door, bolted it, and +still holding the gun, opened a cupboard, poured out a glass of +whiskey, and returning to the door, opened it and handed him the liquor. + +She watched him drain it eagerly, saw the fiery stimulant put life into +his shivering frame, trembling hands, and kindle his dull +eye--and--quietly raised her gun again. + +"Ah, put it down, Miss, put it down! Fwhot's the use? Sure the +bullets yee carry in them oiyes of yours is more deadly! It's out here +oi'll sthand, glory be to God, all night, without movin' a fut till the +sarjint comes to take me, av ye won't levil them oiyes at me like that. +Ah, whirra! look at that now! but it's a gooddess she is--the livin' +Jaynus of warr, standin' there like a statoo, wid her alybaster fut put +forward." + +In her pride and conscious superiority, any suggestion of shame at thus +appearing before a common man and a mendicant was as impossible to her +nature as it would have been to a queen or the goddess of his simile. +His presence and his compliment alike passed her calm modesty +unchallenged. The wretched scamp recognized the fact and felt its +power, and it was with a superstitious reverence asserting itself +through his native extravagance that he raised his grimy hand to his +cap in military salute and became respectfully rigid. + +"Then the sodgers were huntin' YOU?" she said thoughtfully, lowering +her weapon. + +"Thrue for you, Miss--they worr, and it's meself that was lyin' flat in +the ditch wid me faytures makin' an illigant cast in the mud--more +betoken, as ye see even now--and the sarjint and his daytail thrampin' +round me. It was thin that the mortial cold sthruck thro' me mouth, +and made me wake for the whiskey that would resthore me." + +"What did you desert fer?" + +"Ah, list to that now! Fwhat did I desart fer? Shure ev there was the +ghost of an inemy round, it's meself that would be in the front now! +But it was the letthers from me ould mother, Miss, that is sthruck wid +a mortial illness--long life to her!--in County Clare, and me sisthers +in Ninth Avenue in New York, fornint the daypo, that is brekken their +harruts over me listin' in the Fourth Infanthry to do duty in a haythen +wilderness. Av it was the cavalry--and it's me own father that was in +the Innishkillen Dthragoons, Miss--oi wouldn't moind. Wid a horse +betune me legs, it's on parade oi'd be now, Miss, and not wandhering +over the bare flure of the Marsh, stharved wid the cold, the thirst, +and hunger, wid the mud and the moire thick on me; facin' an illigant +young leddy as is the ekal ov a Fayld Marshal's darter--not to sphake +ov Kernal Preston's--ez couldn't hold a candle to her." + +Brought up on the Spanish frontier, Maggie Culpepper was one of the few +American girls who was not familiar with the Irish race. The rare +smile that momentarily lit up her petulant mouth seemed to justify the +intruder's praise. But it passed quickly, and she returned dryly: + +"That means you want more drink, suthin' to eat, and clothes. Suppose +my brother comes back and ketches you here?" + +"Shure, Miss, he's just now hunten me, along wid his two haythen +Diggers, beyond the laygoon there. It worr the yellar one that +sphotted me lyin' there in the ditch; it worr only your own oiyes, +Miss--more power to their beauty for that!--that saw me folly him +unbeknownst here; and that desaved them, ye see!" + +The young girl remained for an instant silent and thoughtful. + +"We're no friends of the Fort," she said finally, "but I don't reckon +for that reason my brother will cotton to YOU. Stay out thar where ye +are, till I come to ye. If you hear me singin' again, you'll know he's +come back, and ye'd better scoot with what you've already got, and be +thankful." + +She shut the door again and locked it, went into the dining-room, +returned with some provisions wrapped in paper, took a common wicker +flask from the wall, passed into her brother's bedroom, and came out +with a flannel shirt, overalls, and a coarse Indian blanket, and, +reopening the door, placed them before the astonished and delighted +vagabond. His eye glistened; he began, "Glory be to God," but for once +his habitual extravagance failed him. Nature triumphed with a more +eloquent silence over his well-worn art. He hurriedly wiped his +begrimed face and eyes with the shirt she had given him, and catching +the sleeve of her rough pea-jacket in his dirty hand, raised it to his +lips. + +"Go!" she said imperiously. "Get away while you can." + +"Av it vas me last words--it's speechless oi am," he stammered, and +disappeared over the railing. + +She remained for a moment holding the door half open, and gazing into +the darkness that seemed to flow in like a tide. Then she shut it, and +going into her bedroom resumed her interrupted toilette. When she +emerged again she was smartly stockinged and slippered, and even the +blue serge skirt was exchanged for a bright print, with a white fichu +tied around her throat. An attempt to subdue her rebellious curls had +resulted in the construction from their ruins of a low Norman arch +across her forehead with pillared abutments of ringlets. When her +brother returned a few moments later she did not look up, but remained, +perhaps a little ostentatiously, bending over the fire. + +"Bob allowed that the Fort boat was huntin' MEN--deserters, I reckon," +said Jim aggrievedly. "Wanted me to believe that he SAW one on the +Marsh hidin'. On'y an Injin lie, I reckon, to git a little extra +fire-water, for toting me out to the bresh on a fool's errand." + +"Oh, THAT'S where you went!" said Maggie, addressing the fire. "Since +when hev you tuk partnership with the Guv'nment and Kernel Preston to +hunt up and take keer of their property?" + +"Well, I ain't goin' to hev such wreckage as they pick up and enlist +set adrift on our marshes, Mag," said Jim decidedly. + +"What would you hev done had you ketched him?" said Maggie, looking +suddenly into her brother's face. + +"Given him a dose of snipe-shot that he'd remember, and be thankful it +wasn't slugs," said Jim promptly. Observing a deeper seriousness in +her attitude, he added, "Why, if it was in war-time he'd get a BALL +from them sodgers on sight." + +"Yes; but YOU ain't got no call to interfere," said Maggie. + +"Ain't I? Why, he's no better than an outlaw. I ain't sure that he +hasn't been stealin' or killin' somebody over theer." + +"Not that man!" said Maggie impulsively. + +"Not what man?" said her brother, facing her quickly. + +"Why," returned Maggie, repairing her indiscretion with feminine +dexterity, "not ANY man who might have knocked you and me over on the +marshes in the dusk, and grabbed our guns." + +"Wish he'd hev tried it," said the brother, with a superior smile, but +a quickly rising color. "Where d'ye suppose I'D hev been all the +while?" + +Maggie saw her mistake, and for the first time in her life resolved to +keep a secret from her brother--overnight. "Supper's gettin' cold," +she said, rising. + +They went into the dining-room--an apartment as plainly furnished as +the one they had quitted, but in its shelves, cupboards, and closely +fitting boarding bearing out the general nautical suggestion of the +house--and seated themselves before a small table on which their frugal +meal was spread. In this tete-a-tete position Jim suddenly laid down +his knife and fork and stared at his sister. + +"Hello!" + +"What's the matter?" said Maggie, starting slightly. "How you do skeer +one." + +"Who's been prinkin', eh?" + +"My ha'r was in kinks all along o' that hat," said Maggie, with a +return of higher color, "and I had to straighten it. It's a boy's hat, +not a girl's." + +"But that necktie and that gown--and all those frills and tuckers?" +continued Jim generalizing, with a rapid twirling of his fingers over +her. "Are you expectin' Judge Martin, or the Expressman this evening?" + +Judge Martin was the lawyer of Logport, who had proven her father's +will, and had since raved about his single interview with the +Kingfisher's beautiful daughter; the Expressman was a young fellow who +was popularly supposed to have left his heart while delivering another +valuable package on Maggie in person, and had "never been the same man +since." It was a well-worn fraternal pleasantry that had done duty +many a winter's evening, as a happy combination of moral admonition and +cheerfulness. Maggie usually paid it the tribute of a quick little +laugh and a sisterly pinch, but that evening those marks of approbation +were withheld. + +"Jim dear," said she, when their Spartan repast was concluded and they +were reestablished before the living-room fire. "What was it the +Redwood Mill Kempany offered you for that piece near Dead Man's Slough?" + +Jim took his pipe from his lips long enough to say, "Ten thousand +dollars," and put it back again. + +"And what do ye kalkilate all our property, letting alone this yer +house, and the driftwood front, is worth all together?" + +"Includin' wot the Gov'nment owes us?--for that's all ours, ye know?" +said Jim quickly. + +"No--leavin' that out--jest for greens, you know," suggested Maggie. + +"Well nigh onter a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, I reckon, +by and large." + +"That's a heap o' money, Jim! I reckon old Kernel Preston wouldn't +raise that in a hundred years," continued Maggie, warming her knees by +the fire. + +"In five million years," said Jim, promptly sweeping away further +discussion. After a pause he added, "You and me, Mag, kin see +anybody's pile, and go 'em fifty thousand better." + +There were a few moments of complete silence, in which Maggie smoothed +her knees, and Jim's pipe, which seemed to have become gorged and +apoplectic with its owner's wealth, snored unctuously. + +"Jim dear, what if--it's on'y an idea of mine, you know--what if you +sold that piece to the Redwood Mill, and we jest tuk that money +and--and--and jest lifted the ha'r offer them folks at Logport? Jest +astonished 'em! Jest tuk the best rooms in that new hotel, got a hoss +and buggy, dressed ourselves, you and me, fit to kill, and made them +Fort people take a back seat in the Lord's Tabernacle, oncet for all. +You see what I mean, Jim," she said hastily, as her brother seemed to +be succumbing, like his pipe, in apoplectic astonishment, "jest on'y to +SHOW 'em what we COULD do if we keerd. Lord! when we done it and spent +the money we'd jest snap our fingers and skip back yer ez nat'ral ez +life! Ye don't think, Jim," she said, suddenly turning half fiercely +upon him, "that I'd allow to LIVE among 'em--to stay a menet after +that!" + +Jim laid down his pipe and gazed at his sister with stony deliberation. +"And--what--do--you--kalkilate--to make by all that?" he said with +scornful distinctness. + +"Why, jest to show 'em we HAVE got money, and could buy 'em all up if +we wanted to," returned Maggie, sticking boldly to her guns, albeit +with a vague conviction that her fire was weakened through elevation, +and somewhat alarmed at the deliberation of the enemy. + +"And you mean to say they don't know it now," he continued with slow +derision. + +"No," said Maggie. "Why, theer's that new school-marm over at Logport, +you know, Jim, the one that wanted to take your picter in your boat for +a young smuggler or fancy pirate or Eyetalian fisherman, and allowed +that you'r handsomed some, and offered to pay you for sittin'--do you +reckon SHE'D believe you owned the land her schoolhouse was built on. +No! Lots of 'em don't. Lots of 'em thinks we're poor and low +down--and them ez doesn't, thinks"-- + +"What?" asked her brother sharply. + +"That we're MEAN." + +The quick color came to Jim's cheek. "So," he said, facing her +quickly, "for the sake of a lot of riff-raff and scum that's drifted +here around us--jest for the sake of cuttin' a swell before +them--you'll go out among the hounds ez allowed your mother was a +Spanish nigger or a kanaka, ez called your father a pirate and +landgrabber, ez much as allowed he was shot by some one or killed +himself a purpose, ez said you was a heathen and a looney because you +didn't go to school or church along with their trash, ez kept away from +Maw's sickness ez if it was smallpox, and Dad's fun'ral ez if he was a +hoss-thief, and left you and me to watch his coffin on the marshes all +night till the tide kem back. And now you--YOU that jined hands with +me that night over our father lyin' there cold and despised--ez if he +was a dead dog thrown up by the tide--and swore that ez long ez that +tide ebbed and flowed it couldn't bring you to them, or them to you +agin! You now want--what? What? Why, to go and cast your lot among +'em, and live among 'em, and join in their God-forsaken holler +foolishness, and--and--and"-- + +"Stop! It's a lie! I DIDN'T say that. Don't you dare to say it!" +said the girl, springing to her feet, and facing her brother in turn, +with flashing eyes. + +For a moment the two stared at each other--it might have been as in a +mirror, so perfectly were their passions reflected in each line, shade, +and color of the other's face. It was as if they had each confronted +their own passionate and willful souls, and were frightened. It had +often occurred before, always with the same invariable ending. The +young man's eyes lowered first; the girl's filled with tears. + +"Well, ef ye didn't mean that, what did ye mean?" said Jim, sinking, +with sullen apology, back into his chair. + +"I--only--meant it--for--for--revenge!" sobbed Maggie. + +"Oh!" said Jim, as if allowing his higher nature to be touched by this +noble instinct. "But I didn't jest see where the revenge kem in." + +"No? But, never mind now, Jim," said Maggie, ostentatiously ignoring, +after the fashion of her sex, the trouble she had provoked; "but to +think--that--that--you thought"--(sobbing). + +"But I didn't, Mag"--(caressingly). + +With this very vague and impotent conclusion, Maggie permitted herself +to be drawn beside her brother, and for a few moments they plumed each +other's ruffled feathers, and smoothed each other's lifted crests, like +two beautiful young specimens of that halcyon genus to which they were +popularly supposed to belong. At the end of half an hour Jim rose, +and, yawning slightly, said in a perfunctory way: + +"Where's the book?" + +The book in question was the Bible. It had been the self-imposed +custom of these two young people to read aloud a chapter every night as +their one vague formula of literary and religious discipline. When it +was produced, Maggie, presuming on his affectionate and penitential +condition, suggested that to-night he should pick out "suthin' +interestin'." But this unorthodox frivolity was sternly put aside by +Jim--albeit, by way of compromise, he agreed to "chance it," i. e., +open its pages at random. + +He did so. Generally he allowed himself a moment's judicious pause for +a certain chaste preliminary inspection necessary before reading aloud +to a girl. To-night he omitted that modest precaution, and in a +pleasant voice, which in reading was singularly free from colloquial +infelicities of pronunciation, began at once: + +"'Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the +inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to +the help of the Lord against the mighty.'" + +"Oh, you looked first," said Maggie. + +"I didn't now--honest Injin! I just opened." + +"Go on," said Maggie, eagerly shoving him and interposing her neck over +his shoulder. + +And Jim continued Deborah's wonderful song of Jael and Sisera to the +bitter end of its strong monosyllabic climax. + +"There," he said, closing the volume, "that's what I call revenge. +That's the real Scripture thing--no fancy frills theer." + +"Yes; but, Jim dear, don't you see that she treated him first--sorter +got round him with free milk and butter, and reg'larly blandished him," +argued Maggie earnestly. + +But Jim declined to accept this feminine suggestion, or to pursue the +subject further, and after a fraternal embrace they separated for the +night. Jim lingered long enough to look after the fastening of the +door and windows, and Maggie remained for some moments at her casement, +looking across the gallery to the Marsh beyond. + +The moon had risen, the tide was half up. Whatever sign or trace of +alien footprint or occupation had been there was already smoothly +obliterated; even the configuration of the land had changed. A black +cape had disappeared, a level line of shore had been eaten into by +teeth of glistening silver. The whole dark surface of the Marsh was +beginning to be streaked with shining veins as if a new life was +coursing through it. Part of the open bay before the Fort, encroaching +upon the shore, seemed in the moonlight to be reaching a white and +outstretched arm towards the nest of the Kingfisher. + + +III. + +The reveille at Fort Redwood had been supplemented full five minutes by +the voice of Lieutenant George Calvert's servant, before that young +officer struggled from his bed. His head was splitting, his tongue and +lips were dry and feverish, his bloodshot eyes were shrinking from the +insufferable light of the day, his mind a confused medley of the past +night and the present morning, of cards and wild revelry, and the +vision of a reproachfully trim orderly standing at his door with +reports and orders which he now held composedly in his hand. For +Lieutenant Calvert had been enjoying a symposium variously known as +"Stag Feed" and "A Wild Stormy Night" with several of his brother +officers, and a sickening conviction that it was not the first or the +last time he had indulged in these festivities. At that moment he +loathed himself, and then after the usual derelict fashion cursed the +fate that had sent him, after graduating, to a frontier garrison--the +dull monotony of whose duties made the Border horse-play of dissipation +a relief. Already he had reached the miserable point of envying the +veteran capacities of his superiors and equals. "If I could drink like +Kirby or Crowninshield, or if there was any other cursed thing a man +could do in this hole," he had wretchedly repeated to himself, after +each misspent occasion, and yet already he was looking forward to them +as part of a 'sub's' duty and worthy his emulation. Already the dream +of social recreation fostered by West Point had been rudely dispelled. +Beyond the garrison circle of Colonel Preston's family and two +officers' wives, there was no society. The vague distrust and civil +jealousy with which some frontier communities regard the Federal power, +heightened in this instance by the uncompromising attitude the +Government had taken towards the settlers' severe Indian policy, had +kept the people of Logport aloof from the Fort. The regimental band +might pipe to them on Saturdays, but they would not dance. + +Howbeit, Lieutenant Calvert dressed himself with uncertain hands but +mechanical regularity and neatness, and, under the automatic training +of discipline and duty, managed to button his tunic tightly over his +feelings, to pull himself together with his sword-belt, compressing a +still cadet-like waist, and to present that indescribable combination +of precision and jauntiness which his brother officers too often +allowed to lapse into frontier carelessness. His closely clipped light +hair, yet dripping from a plunge in the cold water, had been brushed +and parted with military exactitude, and when surmounted by his cap, +with the peak in an artful suggestion of extra smartness tipped forward +over his eyes, only his pale face--a shade lighter than his little +blonde moustache--showed his last night's excesses. He was +mechanically reaching for his sword and staring confusedly at the +papers on his table when his servant interrupted: + +"Major Bromley arranged that Lieutenant Kirby takes your sash this +morning, as you're not well, sir; and you're to report for special to +the colonel," he added, pointing discreetly to the envelope. + +Touched by this consideration of his superior, Major Bromley, who had +been one of the veterans of last night's engagement, Calvert mastered +the contents of the envelope without the customary anathema of +specials, said, "Thank you, Parks," and passed out on the veranda. + +The glare of the quiet sunlit quadrangle, clean as a well-swept floor, +the whitewashed walls and galleries of the barrack buildings beyond, +the white and green palisade of officers' cottages on either side, and +the glitter of a sentry's bayonet, were for a moment intolerable to +him. Yet, by a kind of subtle irony, never before had the genius and +spirit of the vocation he had chosen seemed to be as incarnate as in +the scene before him. Seclusion, self-restraint, cleanliness, +regularity, sobriety, the atmosphere of a wholesome life, the austere +reserve of a monastery without its mysterious or pensive meditation, +were all there. To escape which, he had of his own free will +successively accepted a fool's distraction, the inevitable result of +which was, the viewing of them the next morning with tremulous nerves +and aching eyeballs. + +An hour later, Lieutenant George Calvert had received his final +instructions from Colonel Preston to take charge of a small detachment +to recover and bring back certain deserters, but notably one, Dennis +M'Caffrey of Company H, charged additionally with mutinous solicitation +and example. As Calvert stood before his superior, that distinguished +officer, whose oratorical powers had been considerably stimulated +through a long course of "returning thanks for the Army," slightly +expanded his chest and said paternally: + +"I am aware, Mr. Calvert, that duties of this kind are somewhat +distasteful to young officers, and are apt to be considered in the +light of police detail; but I must remind you that no one part of a +soldier's duty can be held more important or honorable than another, +and that the fulfilment of any one, however trifling, must, with honor +to himself and security to his comrades, receive his fullest devotion. +A sergeant and a file of men might perform your duty, but I require, in +addition, the discretion, courtesy, and consideration of a gentleman +who will command an equal respect from those with whom his duty brings +him in contact. The unhappy prejudices which the settlers show to the +military authority here render this, as you are aware, a difficult +service, but I believe that you will, without forgetting the respect +due to yourself and the Government you represent, avoid arousing these +prejudices by any harshness, or inviting any conflict with the civil +authority. The limits of their authority you will find in your written +instructions; but you might gain their confidence, and impress them, +Mr. Calvert, with the idea of your being their AUXILIARY in the +interests of justice--you understand. Even if you are unsuccessful in +bringing back the men, you will do your best to ascertain if their +escape has been due to the sympathy of the settlers, or even with their +preliminary connivance. They may not be aware that inciting enlisted +men to desert is a criminal offence; you will use your own discretion +in informing them of the fact or not, as occasion may serve you. I +have only to add, that while you are on the waters of this bay and the +land covered by its tides, you have no opposition of authority, and are +responsible to no one but your military superiors. Good-bye, Mr. +Calvert. Let me hear a good account of you." + +Considerably moved by Colonel Preston's manner, which was as paternal +and real as his rhetoric was somewhat perfunctory, Calvert half forgot +his woes as he stepped from the commandant's piazza. But he had to face +a group of his brother officers, who were awaiting him. + +"Good-bye, Calvert," said Major Bromley; "a day or two out on grass +won't hurt you--and a change from commissary whiskey will put you all +right. By the way, if you hear of any better stuff at Westport than +they're giving us here, sample it and let us know. Take care of +yourself. Give your men a chance to talk to you now and then, and you +may get something from them, especially Donovan. Keep your eye on +Ramon. You can trust your sergeant straight along." + +"Good-bye, George," said Kirby. "I suppose the old man told you that, +although no part of a soldier's duty was better than another, your +service was a very delicate one, just fitted for you, eh? He always +does when he's cut out some hellish scrub-work for a chap. And told +you, too, that as long as you didn't go ashore, and kept to a +dispatch-boat, or an eight-oared gig, where you couldn't deploy your +men, or dress a line, you'd be invincible." + +"He did say something like that," smiled Calvert, with an uneasy +recollection, however, that it was THE part of his superior's speech +that particularly impressed him. + +"Of course," said Kirby gravely, "THAT, as an infantry officer, is +clearly your duty." + +"And don't forget, George," said Rollins still more gravely, "that, +whatever may befall you, you belong to a section of that numerically +small but powerfully diversified organization--the American Army. +Remember that in the hour of peril you can address your men in any +language, and be perfectly understood. And remember that when you +proudly stand before them, the eyes not only of your own country, but +of nearly all the others, are upon you! Good-bye, Georgey. I heard the +major hint something about whiskey. They say that old pirate, +Kingfisher Culpepper, had a stock of the real thing from Robertson +County laid in his shebang on the Marsh just before he died. Pity we +aren't on terms with them, for the cubs cannot drink it, and might be +induced to sell. Shouldn't wonder, by the way, if your friend +M'Caffrey was hanging round somewhere there; he always had a keen +scent. You might confiscate it as an "incitement to desertion," you +know. The girl's pretty, and ought to be growing up now." + +But haply at this point the sergeant stopped further raillery by +reporting the detachment ready; and drawing his sword, Calvert, with a +confused head, a remorseful heart, but an unfaltering step, marched off +his men on his delicate mission. + +It was four o'clock when he entered Jonesville. Following a +matter-of-fact idea of his own, he had brought his men the greater +distance by a circuitous route through the woods, thus avoiding the +ostentatious exposure of his party on the open bay in a well-manned +boat to an extended view from the three leagues of shore and marsh +opposite. Crossing the stream, which here separated him from the +Dedlow Marsh by the common ferry, he had thus been enabled to halt +unperceived below the settlement and occupy the two roads by which the +fugitives could escape inland. He had deemed it not impossible that, +after the previous visit of the sergeant, the deserters hidden in the +vicinity might return to Jonesville in the belief that the visit would +not be repeated so soon. Leaving a part of his small force to patrol +the road and another to deploy over the upland meadows, he entered the +village. By the exercise of some boyish diplomacy and a certain +prepossessing grace, which he knew when and how to employ, he became +satisfied that the objects of his quest were not THERE--however, their +whereabouts might have been known to the people. Dividing his party +again, he concluded to take a corporal and a few men and explore the +lower marshes himself. + +The preoccupation of duty, exercise, and perhaps, above all, the keen +stimulus of the iodine-laden salt air seemed to clear his mind and +invigorate his body. He had never been in the Marsh before, and +enjoyed its novelty with the zest of youth. It was the hour when the +tide of its feathered life was at its flood. Clouds of duck and teal +passing from the fresh water of the river to the salt pools of the +marshes perpetually swept his path with flying shadows; at times it +seemed as if even the uncertain ground around him itself arose and sped +away on dusky wings. The vicinity of hidden pools and sloughs was +betrayed by startled splashings; a few paces from their marching feet +arose the sunlit pinions of a swan. The air was filled with +multitudinous small cries and pipings. In this vocal confusion it was +some minutes before he recognized the voice of one of his out-flankers +calling to the other. + +An important discovery had been made. In a long tongue of bushes that +ran down to the Marsh they had found a mud-stained uniform, complete +even to the cap, bearing the initial of the deserter's company. + +"Is there any hut or cabin hereabouts, Schmidt?" asked Calvert. + +"Dot vos schoost it, Lefdennun," replied his corporal. "Dot vos de +shanty from der Kingvisher--old Gulbebber. I pet a dollar, py +shimminy, dot der men haf der gekommt." + +He pointed through the brake to a long, low building that now raised +itself, white in the sunlight, above the many blackened piles. Calvert +saw in a single reconnoitring glance that it had but one approach--the +flight of steps from the Marsh. Instructing his men to fall in on the +outer edge of the brake and await his orders, he quickly made his way +across the space and ascended the steps. Passing along the gallery he +knocked at the front door. There was no response. He repeated his +knock. Then the window beside it opened suddenly, and he was +confronted with the double-muzzle of a long ducking-gun. Glancing +instinctively along the barrels, he saw at their other extremity the +bright eyes, brilliant color, and small set mouth of a remarkably +handsome girl. It was the fact, and to the credit of his training, +that he paid more attention to the eyes than to the challenge of the +shining tubes before him. + +"Jest stop where you are--will you!" said the girl determinedly. + +Calvert's face betrayed not the slightest terror or surprise. Immovable +as on parade, he carried his white gloved hand to his cap, and said +gently, "With pleasure." + +"Oh yes," said the girl quickly; "but if you move a step I'll jest blow +you and your gloves offer that railin' inter the Marsh." + +"I trust not," returned Calvert, smiling. + +"And why?" + +"Because it would deprive me of the pleasure of a few moments' +conversation with you--and I've only one pair of gloves with me." + +He was still watching her beautiful eyes--respectfully, admiringly, and +strategically. For he was quite convinced that if he DID move she +would certainly discharge one or both barrels at him. + +"Where's the rest of you?" she continued sharply. + +"About three hundred yards away, in the covert, not near enough to +trouble you." + +"Will they come here?" + +"I trust not." + +"You trust not?" she repeated scornfully. "Why? + +"Because they would be disobeying orders." + +She lowered her gun slightly, but kept her black brows levelled at him. +"I reckon I'm a match for YOU," she said, with a slightly contemptuous +glance at his slight figure, and opened the door. For a moment they +stood looking at each other. He saw, besides the handsome face and +eyes that had charmed him, a tall slim figure, made broader across the +shoulders by an open pea-jacket that showed a man's red flannel shirt +belted at the waist over a blue skirt, with the collar knotted by a +sailor's black handkerchief, and turned back over a pretty though +sunburnt throat. She saw a rather undersized young fellow in a jaunty +undress uniform, scant of gold braid, and bearing only the single gold +shoulder-bars of his rank, but scrupulously neat and well fitting. +Light-colored hair cropped close, the smallest of light moustaches, +clear and penetrating blue eyes, and a few freckles completed a picture +that did not prepossess her. She was therefore the more inclined to +resent the perfect ease and self-possession with which the stranger +carried off these manifest defects before her. + +She laid aside the gun, put her hands deep in the pockets of her +pea-jacket, and, slightly squaring her shoulders, said curtly, "What do +you want?" + +"A very little information, which I trust it will not trouble you to +give me. My men have just discovered the uniform belonging to a +deserter from the Fort lying in the bushes yonder. Can you give me the +slightest idea how it came there?" + +"What right have you trapseing over our property?" she said, turning +upon him sharply, with a slight paling of color. + +"None whatever." + +"Then what did you come for?" + +"To ask that permission, in case you would give me no information." + +"Why don't you ask my brother, and not a woman? Were you afraid?" + +"He could hardly have done me the honor of placing me in more peril +than you have," returned Calvert, smiling. "Then I have the pleasure +of addressing Miss Culpepper?" + +"I'm Jim Culpepper's sister." + +"And, I believe, equally able to give or refuse the permission I ask." + +"And what if I refuse?" + +"Then I have only to ask pardon for having troubled you, go back, and +return here with the tide. You don't resist THAT with a shotgun, do +you?" he asked pleasantly. + +Maggie Culpepper was already familiar with the accepted theory of the +supreme jurisdiction of the Federal Sea. She half turned her back upon +him, partly to show her contempt, but partly to evade the domination of +his clear, good-humored, and self-sustained little eyes. + +"I don't know anythin' about your deserters, nor what rags o' theirs +happen to be floated up here," she said, angrily, "and don't care to. +You kin do what you like." + +"Then I'm afraid I should remain here a little longer, Miss Culpepper; +but my duty"-- + +"Your wot?" she interrupted, disdainfully. + +"I suppose I AM talking shop," he said smilingly. "Then my business"-- + +"Your business--pickin' up half-starved runaways!" + +"And, I trust, sometimes a kind friend," he suggested, with a grave bow. + +"You TRUST? Look yer, young man," she said, with her quick, fierce, +little laugh, "I reckon you TRUST a heap too much!" She would like to +have added, "with your freckled face, red hair, and little eyes"--but +this would have obliged her to face them again, which she did not care +to do. + +Calvert stepped back, lifted his hand to his cap, still pleasantly, and +then walked gravely along the gallery, down the steps, and towards the +cover. From her window, unseen, she followed his neat little figure +moving undeviatingly on, without looking to the left or right, and +still less towards the house he had just quitted. Then she saw the +sunlight flash on cross-belt plates and steel barrels, and a light blue +line issued from out the dark green bushes, round the point, and +disappeared. And then it suddenly occurred to her what she had been +doing! This, then, was her first step towards that fancy she had so +lately conceived, quarrelled over with her brother, and lay awake last +night to place anew, in spite of all opposition! This was her +brilliant idea of dazzling and subduing Logport and the Fort! Had she +grown silly, or what had happened? Could she have dreamed of the +coming of this whipper-snapper, with his insufferable airs, after that +beggarly deserter? I am afraid that for a few moments the miserable +fugitive had as small a place in Maggie's sympathy as the redoubtable +whipper-snapper himself. And now the cherished dream of triumph and +conquest was over! What a "looney" she had been! Instead of inviting +him in, and outdoing him in "company manners," and "fooling" him about +the deserter, and then blazing upon him afterwards at Logport in the +glory of her first spent wealth and finery, she had driven him away! + +And now "he'll go and tell--tell the Fort girls of his hairbreadth +escape from the claws of the Kingfisher's daughter!" + +The thought brought a few bitter tears to her eyes, but she wiped them +away. The thought brought also the terrible conviction that Jim was +right, that there could be nothing but open antagonism between them and +the traducers of their parents, as she herself had instinctively shown! +But she presently wiped that conviction away also, as she had her tears. + +Half an hour later she was attracted by the appearance from the windows +of certain straggling blue spots on the upland that seemed moving +diagonally towards the Marsh. She did not know that it was Calvert's +second "detail" joining him, but believed for a moment that he had not +yet departed, and was strangely relieved. Still later the frequent +disturbed cries of coot, heron, and marsh-hen, recognizing the presence +of unusual invaders of their solitude, distracted her yet more, and +forced her at last with increasing color and an uneasy sense of shyness +to steal out to the gallery for a swift furtive survey of the Marsh. +But an utterly unexpected sight met her eyes, and kept her motionless. + +The birds were rising everywhere and drifting away with querulous +perturbation before a small but augmented blue detachment that was +moving with monotonous regularity towards the point of bushes where she +had seen the young officer previously disappear. In their midst, +between two soldiers with fixed bayonets, marched the man whom even at +that distance she instantly recognized as the deserter of the preceding +night, in the very clothes she had given him. To complete her +consternation, a little to the right marched the young officer also, +but accompanied by, and apparently on the most amicable terms with, +Jim--her own brother! + +To forget all else and dart down the steps, flying towards the point of +bushes, scarcely knowing why or what she was doing, was to Maggie the +impulse and work of a moment. When she had reached it the party were +not twenty paces away. But here a shyness and hesitation again seized +her, and she shrank back in the bushes with an instinctive cry to her +brother inarticulate upon her lips. They came nearer, they were +opposite to her; her brother Jim keeping step with the invader, and +even conversing with him with an animation she had seldom seen upon his +face--they passed! She had been unnoticed except by one. The roving +eye of the deserter had detected her handsome face among the leaves, +slightly turned towards it, and poured out his whole soul in a single +swift wink of eloquent but indescribable confidence. + +When they had quite gone, she crept back to the house, a little +reassured, but still tremulous. When her brother returned at +nightfall, he found her brooding over the fire, in the same attitude as +on the previous night. + +"I reckon ye might hev seen me go by with the sodgers," he said, +seating himself beside her, a little awkwardly, and with an unusual +assumption of carelessness. + +Maggie, without looking up, was languidly surprised. He had been with +the soldiers--and where? + +"About two hours ago I met this yer Leftenant Calvert," he went on with +increasing awkwardness, "and--oh, I say, Mag--he said he saw you, and +hoped he hadn't troubled ye, and--and--ye saw him, didn't ye?" + +Maggie, with all the red of the fire concentrated in her cheek as she +gazed at the flame, believed carelessly "that she had seen a shrimp in +uniform asking questions." + +"Oh, he ain't a bit stuck up," said Jim quickly, "that's what I like +about him. He's ez nat'ral ez you be, and tuck my arm, walkin' around, +careless-like, laffen at what he was doin', ez ef it was a game, and he +wasn't sole commander of forty men. He's only a year or two older than +me--and--and"--he stopped and looked uneasily at Maggie. + +"So ye've bin craw-fishin' agin?" said Maggie, in her deepest and most +scornful contralto. + +"Who's craw-fishin'?" he retorted, angrily. + +"What's this backen out o' what you said yesterday? What's all this +trucklin' to the Fort now?" + +"What? Well now, look yer," said Jim, rising suddenly, with +reproachful indignation, "darned if I don't jest tell ye everythin'. I +promised HIM I wouldn't. He allowed it would frighten ye." + +"FRIGHTEN ME!" repeated Maggie contemptuously, nevertheless with her +cheek paling again. "Frighten me--with what?" + +"Well, since yer so cantankerous, look yer. We've been robbed!" + +"Robbed?" echoed Maggie, facing him. + +"Yes, robbed by that same deserter. Robbed of a suit of my clothes, +and my whiskey-flask, and the darned skunk had 'em on. And if it hadn't +bin for that Leftenant Calvert, and my givin' him permission to hunt +him over the Marsh, we wouldn't have caught him." + +"Robbed?" repeated Maggie again, vaguely. + +"Yes, robbed! Last night, afore we came home. He must hev got in yer +while we was comin' from the boat." + +"Did, did that Leftenant say so?" stammered Maggie. + +"Say it, of course he did! and so do I," continued Jim, impatiently. +"Why, there were my very clothes on his back, and he daren't deny it. +And if you'd hearkened to me jest now, instead of flyin' off in +tantrums, you'd see that THAT'S jest how we got him, and how me and the +Leftenant joined hands in it. I didn't give him permission to hunt +deserters, but THIEVES. I didn't help him to ketch the man that +deserted from HIM, but the skunk that took MY clothes. For when the +Leftenant found the man's old uniform in the bush, he nat'rally +kalkilated he must hev got some other duds near by in some underhand +way. Don't you see? eh? Why, look, Mag. Darned if you ain't skeered +after all! Who'd hev thought it? There now--sit down, dear. Why, +you're white ez a gull." + +He had his arm round her as she sank back in the chair again with a +forced smile. + +"There now," he said with fraternal superiority, "don't mind it, Mag, +any more. Why, it's all over now. You bet he won't trouble us agin, +for the Leftenant sez that now he's found out to be a thief, they'll +jest turn him over to the police, and he's sure o' getten six months' +state prison fer stealin' and burglarin' in our house. But"--he +stopped suddenly and looked at his sister's contracted face; "look yer, +Mag, you're sick, that's what's the matter. Take suthin'"-- + +"I'm better now," she said with an effort; "it's only a kind o' blind +chill I must hev got on the Marsh last night. What's that?" + +She had risen, and grasping her brother's arm tightly had turned +quickly to the window. The casement had suddenly rattled. + +"It's only the wind gettin' up. It looked like a sou'wester when I +came in. Lot o' scud flyin'. But YOU take some quinine, Mag. Don't +YOU go now and get down sick like Maw." + +Perhaps it was this well-meant but infelicitous reference that brought +a moisture to her dark eyes, and caused her lips to momentarily quiver. +But it gave way to a quick determined setting of her whole face as she +turned it once more to the fire, and said, slowly: + +"I reckon I'll sleep it off, if I go to bed now. What time does the +tide fall." + +"About three, unless this yer wind piles it up on the Marsh afore then. +Why?" + +"I was only wonderin' if the boat wus safe," said Maggie, rising. + +"You'd better hoist yourself outside some quinine, instead o' talken +about those things," said Jim, who preferred to discharge his fraternal +responsibility by active medication. "You aren't fit to read tonight." + +"Good night, Jim," she said suddenly, stopping before him. + +"Good night, Mag." He kissed her with protecting and amiable +toleration, generously referring her hot hands and feverish lips to +that vague mystery of feminine complaint which man admits without +indorsing. + +They separated. Jim, under the stimulus of the late supposed robbery, +ostentatiously fastening the doors and windows with assuring comments, +calculated to inspire confidence in his sister's startled heart. Then +he went to bed. He lay awake long enough to be pleasantly conscious +that the wind had increased to a gale, and to be lulled again to sleep +by the cosy security of the heavily timbered and tightly sealed +dwelling that seemed to ride the storm like the ship it resembled. The +gale swept through the piles beneath him and along the gallery as +through bared spars and over wave-washed decks. The whole structure, +attacked above, below, and on all sides by the fury of the wind, seemed +at times to be lifted in the air. Once or twice the creaking timbers +simulated the sound of opening doors and passing footsteps, and again +dilated as if the gale had forced a passage through. But Jim slept on +peacefully, and was at last only aroused by the brilliant sunshine +staring through his window from the clear wind-swept blue arch beyond. + +Dressing himself lazily, he passed into the sitting-room and proceeded +to knock at his sister's door, as was his custom; he was amazed to find +it open and the room empty. Entering hurriedly, he saw that her bed +was undisturbed, as if it had not been occupied, and was the more +bewildered to see a note ostentatiously pinned upon the pillow, +addressed in pencil, in a large school-hand, "To Jim." + +Opening it impatiently, he was startled to read as follows:-- + + +"Don't be angry, Jim dear--but it was all my fault--and I didn't tell +you. I knew all about the deserter, and I gave him the clothes and +things that they say he stole. It was while you was out that night, +and he came and begged of me, and was mournful and hidjus to behold. I +thought I was helping him, and getting our revenge on the Fort, all at +the same time. Don't be mad, Jim dear, and do not be frighted fer me. +I'm going over thar to make it all right--to free HIM of stealing--to +have YOU left out of it all--and take it all on myself. Don't you be a +bit feared for me. I ain't skeert of the wind or of going. I'll close +reef everything, clear the creek, stretch across to Injen Island, hugg +the Point, and bear up fer Logport. Dear Jim--don't get mad--but I +couldn't bear this fooling of you nor HIM--and that man being took for +stealing any longer!--Your loving sister, + +MAGGIE." + + +With a confused mingling of shame, anger, and sudden fear he ran out on +the gallery. The tide was well up, half the Marsh had already +vanished, and the little creek where he had moored his skiff was now an +empty shining river. The water was everywhere--fringing the tussocks +of salt grass with concentric curves of spume and drift, or +tumultuously tossing its white-capped waves over the spreading expanse +of the lower bay. The low thunder of breakers in the farther estuary +broke monotonously on the ear. But his eye was fascinated by a dull +shifting streak on the horizon, that, even as he gazed, shuddered, +whitened along its whole line, and then grew ghastly gray again. It +was the ocean bar. + + +IV. + +"Well, I must say," said Cicely Preston, emphasizing the usual feminine +imperative for perfectly gratuitous statement, as she pushed back her +chair from the commandant's breakfast table, "I MUST really say that I +don't see anything particularly heroic in doing something wrong, lying +about it just to get other folks into trouble, and then rushing off to +do penance in a high wind and an open boat. But she's pretty, and +wears a man's shirt and coat, and of course THAT settles anything. But +why earrings and wet white stockings and slippers? And why that Gothic +arch of front and a boy's hat? That's what I simply ask;" and the +youngest daughter of Colonel Preston rose from the table, shook out the +skirt of her pretty morning dress, and, placing her little thumbs in +the belt of her smart waist, paused witheringly for a reply. + +"You are most unfair, my child," returned Colonel Preston gravely. "Her +giving food and clothes to a deserter may have been only an ordinary +instinct of humanity towards a fellow-creature who appeared to be +suffering, to say nothing of M'Caffrey's plausible tongue. But her +periling her life to save him from an unjust accusation, and her desire +to shield her brother's pride from ridicule, is altogether praiseworthy +and extraordinary. And the moral influence of her kindness was strong +enough to make that scamp refuse to tell the plain truth that might +implicate her in an indiscretion, though it saved him from state +prison." + +"He knew you wouldn't believe him if he had said the clothes were given +to him," retorted Miss Cicely, "so I don't see where the moral +influence comes in. As to her periling her life, those Marsh people +are amphibious anyway, or would be in those clothes. And as to her +motive, why, papa, I heard you say in this very room, and afterwards to +Mr. Calvert, when you gave him instructions, that you believed those +Culpeppers were capable of enticing away deserters; and you forget the +fuss you had with her savage brother's lawyer about that water front, +and how you said it was such people who kept up the irritation between +the Civil and Federal power." + +The colonel coughed hurriedly. It is the fate of all great organizers, +military as well as civil, to occasionally suffer defeat in the family +circle. + +"The more reason," he said, soothingly, "why we should correct harsh +judgments that spring from mere rumors. You should give yourself at +least the chance of overcoming your prejudices, my child. Remember, +too, that she is now the guest of the Fort." + +"And she chooses to stay with Mrs. Bromley! I'm sure it's quite enough +for you and mamma to do duty--and Emily, who wants to know why Mr. +Calvert raves so about her--without MY going over there to stare." + +Colonel Preston shook his head reproachfully, but eventually retired, +leaving the field to the enemy. The enemy, a little pink in the +cheeks, slightly tossed the delicate rings of its blonde crest, settled +its skirts again at the piano, but after turning over the leaves of its +music book, rose, and walked pettishly to the window. + +But here a spectacle presented itself that for a moment dismissed all +other thoughts from the girl's rebellious mind. + +Not a dozen yards away, on the wind-swept parade, a handsome young +fellow, apparently halted by the sentry, had impetuously turned upon +him in an attitude of indignant and haughty surprise. To the quick +fancy of the girl it seemed as if some disguised rustic god had been +startled by the challenge of a mortal. Under an oilskin hat, like the +petasus of Hermes, pushed back from his white forehead, crisp black +curls were knotted around a head whose beardless face was perfect as a +cameo cutting. In the close-fitting blue woolen jersey under his open +jacket the clear outlines and youthful grace of his upper figure were +revealed as clearly as in a statue. Long fishing-boots reaching to his +thighs scarcely concealed the symmetry of his lower limbs. Cricket and +lawn-tennis, knickerbockers and flannels had not at that period +familiarized the female eye to unfettered masculine outline, and Cicely +Preston, accustomed to the artificial smartness and regularity of +uniform, was perhaps the more impressed by the stranger's lawless grace. + +The sentry had repeated his challenge; an angry flush was deepening on +the intruder's cheek. At this critical moment Cicely threw open the +French windows and stepped upon the veranda. + +The sentry saluted the familiar little figure of his colonel's daughter +with an explanatory glance at the stranger. The young fellow looked +up--and the god became human. + +"I'm looking for my sister," he said, half awkwardly, half defiantly; +"she's here, somewhere." + +"Yes--and perfectly safe, Mr. Culpepper, I think," said the +arch-hypocrite with dazzling sweetness; "and we're all so delighted. +And so brave and plucky and skillful in her to come all that way--and +for such a purpose." + +"Then--you know--all about it"--stammered Jim, more relieved than he +had imagined--"and that I"-- + +"That you were quite ignorant of your sister helping the deserter. Oh +yes, of course," said Cicely, with bewildering promptitude. "You see, +Mr. Culpepper, we girls are SO foolish. I dare say I should have done +the same thing in her place, only I should never have had the courage +to do what she did afterwards. You really must forgive her. But won't +you come in--DO." She stepped back, holding the window open with the +half-coaxing air of a spoiled child. "This way is quickest. DO come." +As he still hesitated, glancing from her to the house, she added, with +a demure little laugh, "Oh, I forget--this is Colonel Preston's +quarters, and I'm his daughter." + +And this dainty little fairy, so natural in manner, so tasteful in +attire, was one of the artificial over-dressed creatures that his +sister had inveighed against so bitterly! Was Maggie really to be +trusted? This new revelation coming so soon after the episode of the +deserter staggered him. Nevertheless he hesitated, looking up with a +certain boyish timidity into Cicely's dangerous eyes. + +"Is--is--my sister there?" + +"I'm expecting her with my mother every moment," responded this +youthful but ingenious diplomatist sweetly; "she might be here now; +but," she added with a sudden heart-broken flash of sympathy, "I know +HOW anxious you both must be. I'LL take you to her now. Only one +moment, please." The opportunity of leading this handsome savage as it +were in chains across the parade, before everybody, her father, her +mother, her sister, and HIS--was not to be lost. She darted into the +house, and reappeared with the daintiest imaginable straw hat on the +side of her head, and demurely took her place at his side. "It's only +over there, at Major Bromley's," she said, pointing to one of the +vine-clad cottage quarters; "but you are a stranger here, you know, and +might get lost." + +Alas! he was already that. For keeping step with those fairy-like +slippers, brushing awkwardly against that fresh and pretty skirt, and +feeling the caress of the soft folds; looking down upon the brim of +that beribboned little hat, and more often meeting the upturned blue +eyes beneath it, Jim was suddenly struck with a terrible conviction of +his own contrasting coarseness and deficiencies. How hideous those +oiled canvas fishing-trousers and pilot jacket looked beside this +perfectly fitted and delicately gowned girl! He loathed his collar, +his jersey, his turned-back sou'wester, even his height, which seemed +to hulk beside her--everything, in short, that the girl had recently +admired. By the time that they had reached Major Bromley's door he had +so far succumbed to the fair enchantress and realized her ambition of a +triumphant procession, that when she ushered him into the presence of +half a dozen ladies and gentlemen he scarcely recognized his sister as +the centre of attraction, or knew that Miss Cicely's effusive greeting +of Maggie was her first one. "I knew he was dying to see you after all +you had BOTH passed through, and I brought him straight here," said the +diminutive Machiavelli, meeting the astonished gaze of her father and +the curious eyes of her sister with perfect calmness, while Maggie, +full of gratitude and admiration of her handsome brother, forgot his +momentary obliviousness, and returned her greeting warmly. +Nevertheless, there was a slight movement of reserve among the +gentlemen at the unlooked-for irruption of this sunburnt Adonis, until +Calvert, disengaging himself from Maggie's side, came forward with his +usual frank imperturbability and quiet tact, and claimed Jim as his +friend and honored guest. + +It then came out with that unostentatious simplicity which +characterized the brother and sister, and was their secure claim to +perfect equality with their entertainers, that Jim, on discovering his +sister's absence, and fearing that she might be carried by the current +towards the bar, had actually SWUM THE ESTUARY to Indian Island, and in +an ordinary Indian canoe had braved the same tempestuous passage she +had taken a few hours before. Cicely, listening to this recital with +rapt attention, nevertheless managed to convey the impression of having +fully expected it from the first. "Of course he'd have come here; if +she'd only waited," she said, sotto voce, to her sister Emily. + +"He's certainly the handsomer of the two," responded that young lady. + +"Of course," returned Cicely, with a superior air, "don't you see she +COPIES him." + +Not that this private criticism prevented either from vying with the +younger officers in their attentions to Maggie, with perhaps the +addition of an open eulogy of her handsome brother, more or less +invidious in comparison to the officers. "I suppose it's an active +out-of-door life gives him that perfect grace and freedom," said Emily, +with a slight sneer at the smartly belted Calvert. "Yes; and he don't +drink or keep late hours," responded Cicely significantly. "His sister +says they always retire before ten o'clock, and that although his +father left him some valuable whiskey he seldom takes a drop of it." +"Therein," gravely concluded Captain Kirby, "lies OUR salvation. If, +after such a confession, Calvert doesn't make the most of his +acquaintance with young Culpepper to remove that whiskey from his path +and bring it here, he's not the man I take him for." + +Indeed, for the moment it seemed as if he was not. During the next +three or four days, in which Colonel Preston had insisted upon +detaining his guests, Calvert touched no liquor, evaded the evening +poker parties at quarters, and even prevailed upon some of his brother +officers to give them up for the more general entertainment of the +ladies. Colonel Preston was politician enough to avail himself of the +popularity of Maggie's adventure to invite some of the Logport people +to assist him in honoring their neighbor. Not only was the old feud +between the Fort and the people thus bridged over, but there was no +doubt that the discipline of the Fort had been strengthened by Maggie's +extravagant reputation as a mediator among the disaffected rank and +file. Whatever characteristic license the grateful Dennis +M'Caffrey--let off with a nominal punishment--may have taken in his +praise of the "Quane of the Marshes," it is certain that the men +worshiped her, and that the band pathetically begged permission to +serenade her the last night of her stay. + +At the end of that time, with a dozen invitations, a dozen +appointments, a dozen vows of eternal friendship, much hand-shaking, +and accompanied by a number of the officers to their boat, Maggie and +Jim departed. They talked but little on their way home; by some tacit +understanding they did not discuss those projects, only recalling +certain scenes and incidents of their visit. By the time they had +reached the little creek the silence and nervous apathy which usually +follow excitement in the young seemed to have fallen upon them. It was +not until after their quiet frugal supper that, seated beside the fire, +Jim looked up somewhat self-consciously in his sister's grave and +thoughtful face. + +"Say, Mag, what was that idea o' yours about selling some land, and +taking a house at Logport?" + +Maggie looked up, and said passively, "Oh, THAT idea?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"Well," said Jim somewhat awkwardly, "it COULD be done, you know. I'm +willin'." + +As she did not immediately reply, he continued uneasily, "Miss Preston +says we kin get a nice little house that is near the Fort, until we +want to build." + +"Oh, then you HAVE talked about it?" + +"Yes--that is--why, what are ye thinkin' of, Mag? Wasn't it YOUR idea +all along?" he said, suddenly facing her with querulous embarrassment. +They had been sitting in their usual evening attitudes of Assyrian +frieze profile, with even more than the usual Assyrian frieze +similarity of feature. + +"Yes; but, Jim dear, do you think it the best thing for--for us to do?" +said Maggie, with half-frightened gravity. + +At this sudden and startling exhibition of female inconsistency and +inconsequence, Jim was for a moment speechless. Then he recovered +himself, volubly, aggrievedly, and on his legs. What DID she mean? Was +he to give up understanding girls--or was it their sole vocation in +life to impede masculine processes and shipwreck masculine conclusions? +Here, after all she said the other night, after they had nearly +"quo'lled" over her "set idees," after she'd "gone over all that +foolishness about Jael and Sisera--and there wasn't any use for +it--after she'd let him run on to them officers all he was goin' to +do--nay, after SHE herself, for he had heard her, had talked to Calvert +about it, she wanted to know NOW if it was best." He looked at the +floor and the ceiling, as if expecting the tongued and grooved planks +to cry out at this crowning enormity. + +The cause of it had resumed her sad gaze at the fire. Presently, +without turning her head, she reached up her long, graceful arm, and +clasping her brother's neck, brought his face down in profile with her +own, cheek against cheek, until they looked like the double outlines of +a medallion. Then she said--to the fire: + +"Jim, do you think she's pretty?" + +"Who?" said Jim, albeit his color had already answered the question. + +"You know WHO. Do you like her?" + +Jim here vaguely murmured to the fire that he thought her "kinder +nice," and that she dressed mighty purty. "Ye know, Mag," he said with +patronizing effusion, "you oughter get some gownds like hers." + +"That wouldn't make me like her," said Maggie gravely. + +"I don't know about that," said Jim politely, but with an appalling +hopelessness of tone. After a pause he added slyly, "'Pears to me +SOMEBODY ELSE thought somebody else mighty purty--eh?" + +To his discomfiture she did not solicit further information. After a +pause he continued, still more archly: + +"Do you like HIM, Mag?" + +"I think he's a perfect gentleman," she said calmly. + +He turned his eyes quickly from the glowing fire to her face. The +cheek that had been resting against his own was as cool as the night +wind that came through the open door, and the whole face was as fixed +and tranquil as the upper stars. + + +V. + +For a year the tide had ebbed and flowed on the Dedlow Marsh unheeded +before the sealed and sightless windows of the "Kingfisher's Nest." +Since the young birds had flown to Logport, even the Indian caretakers +had abandoned the piled dwelling for their old nomadic haunts in the +"bresh." The high spring tide had again made its annual visit to the +little cemetery of drift-wood, and, as if recognizing another wreck in +the deserted home, had hung a few memorial offerings on the blackened +piles, softly laid a garland of grayish drift before it, and then +sobbed itself out in the salt grass. + +From time to time the faint echoes of the Culpeppers' life at Logport +reached the upland, and the few neighbors who had only known them by +hearsay shook their heads over the extravagance they as yet only knew +by report. But it was in the dead ebb of the tide and the waning +daylight that the feathered tenants of the Marsh seemed to voice dismal +prophecies of the ruin of their old master and mistress, and to give +themselves up to gloomiest lamentation and querulous foreboding. +Whether the traditional "bird of the air" had entrusted his secret to a +few ornithological friends, or whether from a natural disposition to +take gloomy views of life, it was certain that at this hour the vocal +expression of the Marsh was hopeless and despairing. It was then that +a dejected plover, addressing a mocking crew of sandpipers on a +floating log, seemed to bewail the fortune that was being swallowed up +by the riotous living and gambling debts of Jim. It was then that the +querulous crane rose, and testily protested against the selling of his +favorite haunt in the sandy peninsula, which only six months of Jim's +excesses had made imperative. It was then that a mournful curlew, who, +with the preface that he had always been really expecting it, +reiterated the story that Jim had been seen more than once staggering +home with nervous hands and sodden features from a debauch with the +younger officers; it was the same desponding fowl who knew that +Maggie's eyes had more than once filled with tears at Jim's failings, +and had already grown more hollow with many watchings. It was a flock +of wrangling teal that screamingly discussed the small scandals, +jealous heart-burnings, and curious backbitings that had attended +Maggie's advent into society. It was the high-flying brent who, +knowing how the sensitive girl, made keenly conscious at every turn of +her defective training and ingenuous ignorance, had often watched their +evening flight with longing gaze, now "honked" dismally at the +recollection. It was at this hour and season that the usual vague +lamentings of Dedlow Marsh seemed to find at last a preordained +expression. And it was at such a time, when light and water were both +fading, and the blackness of the Marsh was once more reasserting +itself, that a small boat was creeping along one of the tortuous +inlets, at times half hiding behind the bank like a wounded bird. As +it slowly penetrated inland it seemed to be impelled by its solitary +occupant in a hesitating uncertain way, as if to escape observation +rather than as if directed to any positive bourn. Stopping beside a +bank of reeds at last, the figure rose stoopingly, and drew a gun from +between its feet and the bottom of the boat. As the light fell upon +its face, it could be seen that it was James Culpepper! James +Culpepper! hardly recognizable in the swollen features, bloodshot eyes, +and tremulous hands of that ruined figure! James Culpepper, only +retaining a single trace of his former self in his look of set and +passionate purpose! And that purpose was to kill himself--to be found +dead, as his father had been before him--in an open boat, adrift upon +the Marsh! + +It was not the outcome of a sudden fancy. The idea had first come to +him in a taunting allusion from the drunken lips of one of his ruder +companions, for which he had stricken the offender to the earth. It +had since haunted his waking hours of remorse and hopeless fatuity; it +had seemed to be the one relief and atonement he could make his devoted +sister; and, more fatuous than all, it seemed to the miserable boy the +one revenge he would take upon the faithless coquette, who for a year +had played with his simplicity, and had helped to drive him to the +distraction of cards and drink. Only that morning Colonel Preston had +forbidden him the house; and now it seemed to him the end had come. He +raised his distorted face above the reedy bank for a last tremulous and +half-frightened glance at the landscape he was leaving forever. A +glint in the western sky lit up the front of his deserted dwelling in +the distance, abreast of which the windings of the inlet had +unwittingly led him. As he looked he started, and involuntarily +dropped into a crouching attitude. For, to his superstitious terror, +the sealed windows of his old home were open, the bright panes were +glittering with the fading light, and on the outer gallery the familiar +figure of his sister stood, as of old, awaiting his return! Was he +really going mad, or had this last vision of his former youth been +purposely vouchsafed him? + +But, even as he gazed, the appearance of another figure in the +landscape beyond the house proved the reality of his vision, and as +suddenly distracted him from all else. For it was the apparition of a +man on horseback approaching the house from the upland; and even at +that distance he recognized its well-known outlines. It was Calvert! +Calvert the traitor! Calvert, the man whom he had long suspected as +being the secret lover and destined husband of Cicely Preston! +Calvert, who had deceived him with his calm equanimity and his affected +preference for Maggie, to conceal his deliberate understanding with +Cicely. What was he doing here? Was he a double traitor, and now +trying to deceive HER--as he had him? And Maggie here! This sudden +return--this preconcerted meeting. It was infamy! + +For a moment he remained stupefied, and then, with a mechanical +instinct, plunged his head and face in the lazy-flowing water, and then +once again rose cool and collected. The half-mad distraction of his +previous resolve had given way to another, more deliberate, but not +less desperate determination. He knew now WHY he came there--WHY he +had brought his gun--why his boat had stopped when it did! + +Lying flat in the bottom, he tore away fragments of the crumbling bank +to fill his frail craft, until he had sunk it to the gunwale, and below +the low level of the Marsh. Then, using his hands as noiseless +paddles, he propelled this rude imitation of a floating log slowly past +the line of vision, until the tongue of bushes had hidden him from +view. With a rapid glance at the darkening flat, he then seized his +gun, and springing to the spongy bank, half crouching half crawling +through reeds and tussocks, he made his way to the brush. A foot and +eye less experienced would have plunged its owner helpless in the black +quagmire. At one edge of the thicket he heard hoofs trampling the +dried twigs. Calvert's horse was already there, tied to a skirting +alder. + +He ran to the house, but, instead of attracting attention by ascending +the creaking steps, made his way to the piles below the rear gallery +and climbed to it noiselessly. It was the spot where the deserter had +ascended a year ago, and, like him, he could see and hear all that +passed distinctly. Calvert stood near the open door as if departing. +Maggie stood between him and the window, her face in shadow, her hands +clasped tightly behind her. A profound sadness, partly of the dying +day and waning light, and partly of some vague expiration of their own +sorrow, seemed to encompass them. Without knowing why, a strange +trembling took the place of James Culpepper's fierce determination, and +a film of moisture stole across his staring eyes. + +"When I tell you that I believe all this will pass, and that you will +still win your brother back to you," said Calvert's sad but clear +voice, "I will tell you why--although, perhaps, it is only a part of +that confidence you command me to withhold. When I first saw you, I +myself had fallen into like dissolute habits; less excusable than he, +for I had some experience of the world and its follies. When I met +YOU, and fell under the influence of your pure, simple, and healthy +life; when I saw that isolation, monotony, misunderstanding, even the +sense of superiority to one's surroundings could be lived down and +triumphed over, without vulgar distractions or pitiful ambitions; when +I learned to love you--hear me out, Miss Culpepper, I beg you--you +saved ME--I, who was nothing to you, even as I honestly believe you +will still save your brother, whom you love." + +"How do you know I didn't RUIN him?" she said, turning upon him +bitterly. "How do you know that it wasn't to get rid of OUR monotony, +OUR solitude that I drove him to this vulgar distraction, this +pitiful--yes, you were right--pitiful ambition?" + +"Because it isn't your real nature," he said quietly. + +"My real nature," she repeated with a half savage vehemence that seemed +to be goaded from her by his very gentleness, "my real nature! What +did HE--what do YOU know of it?--My real nature!--I'll tell you what it +was," she went on passionately. "It was to be revenged on you all for +your cruelty, your heartlessness, your wickedness to me and mine in the +past. It was to pay you off for your slanders of my dead father--for +the selfishness that left me and Jim alone with his dead body on the +Marsh. That was what sent me to Logport--to get even with you--to--to +fool and flaunt you! There, you have it now! And now that God has +punished me for it by crushing my brother--you--you expect me to let +you crush ME too." + +"But," he said eagerly, advancing toward her, "you are wronging me--you +are wronging yourself, cruelly." + +"Stop," she said, stepping back, with her hands still locked behind +her. "Stay where you are. There! That's enough!" She drew herself +up and let her hands fall at her side. "Now, let us speak of Jim," she +said coldly. + +Without seeming to hear her, he regarded her for the first time with +hopeless sadness. + +"Why did you let my brother believe you were his rival with Cicely +Preston?" she asked impatiently. + +"Because I could not undeceive him without telling him I hopelessly +loved his sister. You are proud, Miss Culpepper," he said, with the +first tinge of bitterness in his even voice. "Can you not understand +that others may be proud too?" + +"No," she said bluntly; "it is not pride but weakness. You could have +told him what you knew to be true: that there could be nothing in +common between her folk and such savages as we; that there was a gulf +as wide as that Marsh and as black between our natures, our training +and theirs, and even if they came to us across it, now and then, to +suit their pleasure, light and easy as that tide--it was still there to +some day ground and swamp them! And if he doubted it, you had only to +tell him your own story. You had only to tell him what you have just +told me--that you yourself, an officer and a gentleman, thought you +loved me, a vulgar, uneducated, savage girl, and that I, kinder to you +than you to me or him, made you take it back across that tide, because +I couldn't let you link your life with me, and drag you in the mire." + +"You need not have said that, Miss Culpepper," returned Calvert with +the same gentle smile, "to prove that I am your inferior in all but one +thing." + +"And that?" she said quickly. + +"Is my love." + +His gentle face was as set now as her own as he moved back slowly +towards the door. There he paused. + +"You tell me to speak of Jim, and Jim only. Then hear me. I believe +that Miss Preston cares for him as far as lies in her young and giddy +nature. I could not, therefore, have crushed HIS hope without +deceiving him, for there are as cruel deceits prompted by what we call +reason as by our love. If you think that a knowledge of this plain +truth would help to save him, I beg you to be kinder to him than you +have been to me,--or even, let me dare to hope, to YOURSELF." + +He slowly crossed the threshold, still holding his cap lightly in his +hand. + +"When I tell you that I am going away to-morrow on a leave of absence, +and that in all probability we may not meet again, you will not +misunderstand why I add my prayer to the message your friends in +Logport charged me with. They beg that you will give up your idea of +returning here, and come back to them. Believe me, you have made +yourself loved and respected there, in spite--I beg pardon--perhaps I +should say BECAUSE of your pride. Good-night and good-bye." + +For a single instant she turned her set face to the window with a +sudden convulsive movement, as if she would have called him back, but +at the same moment the opposite door creaked and her brother slipped +into the room. Whether a quick memory of the deserter's entrance at +that door a year ago had crossed her mind, whether there was some +strange suggestion in his mud-stained garments and weak deprecating +smile, or whether it was the outcome of some desperate struggle within +her, there was that in her face that changed his smile into a +frightened cry for pardon, as he ran and fell on his knees at her feet. +But even as he did so her stern look vanished, and with her arm around +him she bent over him and mingled her tears with his. + +"I heard it all, Mag dearest! All! Forgive me! I have been +crazy!--wild!--I will reform!--I will be better! I will never disgrace +you again, Mag! Never, never! I swear it!" + +She reached down and kissed him. After a pause, a weak boyish smile +struggled into his face. + +"You heard what he said of HER, Mag. Do you think it might be true?" + +She lifted the damp curls from his forehead with a sad half-maternal +smile, but did not reply. + +"And Mag, dear, don't you think YOU were a little--just a little--hard +on HIM? No! Don't look at me that way, for God's sake! There, I +didn't mean anything. Of course you knew best. There, Maggie dear, +look up. Hark there! Listen, Mag, do!" + +They lifted their eyes to the dim distance seen through the open door. +Borne on the fading light, and seeming to fall and die with it over +marsh and river, came the last notes of the bugle from the Fort. + +"There! Don't you remember what you used to say, Mag?" + +The look that had frightened him had quite left her face now. + +"Yes," she smiled, laying her cold cheek beside his softly. "Oh yes! +It was something that came and went, 'Like a song'--'Like a song.'" + + + + +A KNIGHT-ERRANT OF THE FOOTHILLS. + +I. + +As Father Felipe slowly toiled up the dusty road towards the Rancho of +the Blessed Innocents, he more than once stopped under the shadow of a +sycamore to rest his somewhat lazy mule and to compose his own +perplexed thoughts by a few snatches from his breviary. For the good +padre had some reason to be troubled. The invasion of Gentile +Americans that followed the gold discovery of three years before had +not confined itself to the plains of the Sacramento, but stragglers had +already found their way to the Santa Cruz Valley, and the seclusion of +even the mission itself was threatened. It was true that they had not +brought their heathen engines to disembowel the earth in search of +gold, but it was rumored that they had already speculated upon the +agricultural productiveness of the land, and had espied "the fatness +thereof." As he reached the higher plateau he could see the afternoon +sea-fog--presently to obliterate the fair prospect--already pulling +through the gaps in the Coast Range, and on a nearer slope--no less +ominously--the smoke of a recent but more permanently destructive +Yankee saw-mill was slowly drifting towards the valley. + +"Get up, beast!" said the father, digging his heels into the +comfortable flanks of his mule with some human impatience, "or art +THOU, too, a lazy renegade? Thinkest thou, besotted one, that the +heretic will spare thee more work than the Holy Church." + +The mule, thus apostrophized in ear and flesh, shook its head +obstinately as if the question was by no means clear to its mind, but +nevertheless started into a little trot, which presently brought it to +the low adobe wall of the courtyard of "The Innocents," and entered the +gate. A few lounging peons in the shadow of an archway took off their +broad-brimmed hats and made way for the padre, and a half dozen equally +listless vaqueros helped him to alight. Accustomed as he was to the +indolence and superfluity of his host's retainers, to-day it +nevertheless seemed to strike some note of irritation in his breast. + +A stout, middle-aged woman of ungirt waist and beshawled head and +shoulders appeared at the gateway as if awaiting him. After a formal +salutation she drew him aside into an inner passage. + +"He is away again, your Reverence," she said. + +"Ah--always the same?" + +"Yes, your Reverence--and this time to 'a meeting' of the heretics at +their pueblo, at Jonesville--where they will ask him of his land for a +road." + +"At a MEETING?" echoed the priest uneasily. + +"Ah yes! a meeting--where Tiburcio says they shout and spit on the +ground, your Reverence, and only one has a chair and him they call a +'chairman' because of it, and yet he sits not but shouts and spits even +as the others and keeps up a tapping with a hammer like a very pico. +And there it is they are ever 'resolving' that which is not, and +consider it even as done." + +"Then he is still the same," said the priest gloomily, as the woman +paused for breath. + +"Only more so, your Reverence, for he reads nought but the newspaper of +the Americanos that is brought in the ship, the 'New York 'errald'--and +recites to himself the orations of their legislators. Ah! it was an +evil day when the shipwrecked American sailor taught him his uncouth +tongue, which, as your Reverence knows, is only fit for beasts and +heathen incantation." + +"Pray Heaven THAT were all he learned of him," said the priest hastily, +"for I have great fear that this sailor was little better than an +atheist and an emissary from Satan. But where are these newspapers and +the fantasies of publicita that fill his mind? I would see them, my +daughter." + +"You shall, your Reverence, and more too," she replied eagerly, leading +the way along the passage to a grated door which opened upon a small +cell-like apartment, whose scant light and less air came through the +deeply embayed windows in the outer wall. "Here is his estudio." + +In spite of this open invitation, the padre entered with that air of +furtive and minute inspection common to his order. His glance fell +upon a rude surveyor's plan of the adjacent embryo town of Jonesville +hanging on the wall, which he contemplated with a cold disfavor that +even included the highly colored vignette of the projected Jonesville +Hotel in the left-hand corner. He then passed to a supervisor's notice +hanging near it, which he examined with a suspicion heightened by that +uneasiness common to mere worldly humanity when opposed to an unknown +and unfamiliar language. But an exclamation broke from his lips when +he confronted an election placard immediately below it. It was printed +in Spanish and English, and Father Felipe had no difficulty in reading +the announcement that "Don Jose Sepulvida would preside at a meeting of +the Board of Education in Jonesville as one of the trustees." + +"This is madness," said the padre. + +Observing that Dona Maria was at the moment preoccupied in examining +the pictorial pages of an illustrated American weekly which had +hitherto escaped his eyes, he took it gently from her hand. + +"Pardon, your Reverence," she said with slightly acidulous deprecation, +"but thanks to the Blessed Virgin and your Reverence's teaching, the +text is but gibberish to me and I did but glance at the pictures." + +"Much evil may come in with the eye," said the priest sententiously, +"as I will presently show thee. We have here," he continued, pointing +to an illustration of certain college athletic sports, "a number of +youthful cavaliers posturing and capering in a partly nude condition +before a number of shameless women, who emulate the saturnalia of +heathen Rome by waving their handkerchiefs. We have here a companion +picture," he said, indicating an illustration of gymnastic exercises by +the students of a female academy at "Commencement," "in which, as thou +seest, even the aged of both sexes unblushingly assist as spectators +with every expression of immodest satisfaction." + +"Have they no bull-fights or other seemly recreation that they must +indulge in such wantonness?" asked Dona Maria indignantly, gazing, +however, somewhat curiously at the baleful representations. + +"Of all that, my daughter, has their pampered civilization long since +wearied," returned the good padre, "for see, this is what they consider +a moral and even a religious ceremony." He turned to an illustration +of a woman's rights convention; "observe with what rapt attention the +audience of that heathen temple watch the inspired ravings of that +elderly priestess on the dais. It is even this kind of sacrilegious +performance that I am told thy nephew Don Jose expounds and defends." + +"May the blessed saints preserve us; where will it lead to?" murmured +the horrified Dona Maria. + +"I will show thee," said Father Felipe, briskly turning the pages with +the same lofty ignoring of the text until he came to a representation +of a labor procession. "There is one of their periodic revolutions +unhappily not unknown even in Mexico. Thou perceivest those complacent +artisans marching with implements of their craft, accompanied by the +military, in the presence of their own stricken masters. Here we see +only another instance of the instability of all communities that are +not founded on the principles of the Holy Church." + +"And what is to be done with my nephew?" + +The good father's brow darkened with the gloomy religious zeal of two +centuries ago. "We must have a council of the family, the alcalde, and +the archbishop, at ONCE," he said ominously. To the mere heretical +observer the conclusion might have seemed lame and impotent, but it was +as near the Holy inquisition as the year of grace 1852 could offer. + +A few days after this colloquy the unsuspecting subject of it, Don Jose +Sepulvida, was sitting alone in the same apartment. The fading glow of +the western sky, through the deep embrasured windows, lit up his rapt +and meditative face. He was a young man of apparently twenty-five, +with a colorless satin complexion, dark eyes alternating between +melancholy and restless energy, a narrow high forehead, long straight +hair, and a lightly penciled moustache. He was said to resemble the +well-known portrait of the Marquis of Monterey in the mission church, a +face that was alleged to leave a deep and lasting impression upon the +observers. It was undoubtedly owing to this quality during a brief +visit of the famous viceroy to a remote and married ancestress of Don +Jose at Leon that the singular resemblance may be attributed. + +A heavy and hesitating step along the passage stopped before the +grating. Looking up, Don Jose beheld to his astonishment the slightly +inflamed face of Roberto, a vagabond American whom he had lately taken +into his employment. + +Roberto, a polite translation of "Bob the Bucker," cleaned out at a +monte-bank in Santa Cruz, penniless and profligate, had sold his +mustang to Don Jose and recklessly thrown himself in with the bargain. +Touched by the rascal's extravagance, the quality of the mare, and +observing that Bob's habits had not yet affected his seat in the +saddle, but rather lent a demoniac vigor to his chase of wild cattle, +Don Jose had retained rider and horse in his service as vaquero. + +Bucking Bob, observing that his employer was alone, coolly opened the +door without ceremony, shut it softly behind him, and then closed the +wooden shutter of the grating. Don Jose surveyed him with mild +surprise and dignified composure. The man appeared perfectly +sober,--it was a peculiarity of his dissipated habits that, when not +actually raving with drink, he was singularly shrewd and practical. + +"Look yer, Don Kosay," he began in a brusque but guarded voice, "you +and me is pards. When ye picked me and the mare up and set us on our +legs again in this yer ranch, I allowed I'd tie to ye whenever you was +in trouble--and wanted me. And I reckon that's what's the matter now. +For from what I see and hear on every side, although you're the boss of +this consarn, you're surrounded by a gang of spies and traitors. Your +comings and goings, your ins and outs, is dogged and followed and blown +upon. The folks you trust is playing it on ye. It ain't for me to say +why or wherefore--what's their rights and what's yourn--but I've come +to tell ye that if you don't get up and get outer this ranch them d--d +priests and your own flesh and blood--your aunts and your uncles and +your cousins, will have you chucked outer your property, and run into a +lunatic asylum." + +"Me--Don Jose Sepulvida--a lunatico! You are yourself crazy of drink, +friend Roberto." + +"Yes," said Roberto grimly, "but that kind ain't ILLEGAL, while your +makin' ducks and drakes of your property and going into 'Merikin ideas +and 'Merikin speculations they reckon is. And speakin' on the square, +it ain't NAT'RAL." + +Don Jose sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down his cell-like +study. "Ah, I remember now," he muttered, "I begin to comprehend: +Father Felipe's homilies and discourses! My aunt's too affectionate +care! My cousin's discreet consideration! The prompt attention of my +servants! I see it all! And you," he said, suddenly facing Roberto, +"why come you to tell me this?" + +"Well, boss," said the American dryly, "I reckoned to stand by you." + +"Ah," said Don Jose, visibly affected. "Good Roberto, come hither, +child, you may kiss my hand." + +"If! it's all the same to you, Don Kosay,--THAT kin slide." + +"Ah, if--yes," said Don Jose, meditatively putting his hand to his +forehead, "miserable that I am!--I remembered not you were Americano. +Pardon, my friend--embrace me--Conpanero y Amigo." + +With characteristic gravity he reclined for a moment upon Robert's +astonished breast. Then recovering himself with equal gravity he +paused, lifted his hand with gentle warning, marched to a recess in the +corner, unhooked a rapier hanging from the wall, and turned to his +companion. + +"We will defend ourselves, friend Roberto. It is the sword of the +Comandante--my ancestor. The blade is of Toledo." + +"An ordinary six-shooter of Colt's would lay over that," said Roberto +grimly--"but that ain't your game just now, Don Kosay. You must get up +and get, and at once. You must vamose the ranch afore they lay hold of +you and have you up before the alcalde. Once away from here, they +daren't follow you where there's 'Merikin law, and when you kin fight +'em in the square." + +"Good," said Don Jose with melancholy preciseness. "You are wise, +friend Roberto. We may fight them later, as you say--on the square, or +in the open Plaza. And you, camarado, YOU shall go with me--you and +your mare." + +Sincere as the American had been in his offer of service, he was +somewhat staggered at this imperative command. But only for a moment. +"Well," he said lazily, "I don't care if I do." + +"But," said Don Jose with increased gravity, "you SHALL care, friend +Roberto. We shall make an alliance, an union. It is true, my brother, +you drink of whiskey, and at such times are even as a madman. It has +been recounted to me that it was necessary to your existence that you +are a lunatic three days of the week. Who knows? I myself, though I +drink not of aguardiente, am accused of fantasies for all time. +Necessary it becomes therefore that we should go TOGETHER. My +fantasies and speculations cannot injure you, my brother; your whiskey +shall not empoison me. We shall go together in the great world of your +American ideas of which I am much inflamed. We shall together breathe +as one the spirit of Progress and Liberty. We shall be even as +neophytes making of ourselves Apostles of Truth. I absolve and +renounce myself henceforth of my family. I shall take to myself the +sister and the brother, the aunt and the uncle, as we proceed. I +devote myself to humanity alone. I devote YOU, my friend, and the +mare--though happily she has not a Christian soul--to this glorious +mission." + +The few level last rays of light lit up a faint enthusiasm in the face +of Don Jose, but without altering his imperturbable gravity. The +vaquero eyed him curiously and half doubtfully. + +"We will go to-morrow," resumed Don Jose with solemn decision, "for it +is Wednesday. It was a Sunday that thou didst ride the mare up the +steps of the Fonda and demanded that thy liquor should be served to +thee in a pail. I remember it, for the landlord of the Fonda claimed +twenty pesos for damage and the kissing of his wife. Therefore, by +computation, good Roberto, thou shouldst be sober until Friday, and we +shall have two clear days to fly before thy madness again seizes thee." + +"They kin say what they like, Don Kosay, but YOUR head is level," +returned the unabashed American, grasping Don Jose's hand. "All right, +then. Hasta manana, as your folks say." + +"Hasta manana," repeated Don Jose gravely. + +At daybreak next morning, while slumber still weighted the lazy eyelids +of "the Blessed Innocents," Don Jose Sepulvida and his trusty squire +Roberto, otherwise known as "Bucking Bob," rode forth unnoticed from +the corral. + + +II. + +Three days had passed. At the close of the third, Don Jose was seated +in a cosy private apartment of the San Mateo Hotel, where they had +halted for an arranged interview with his lawyer before reaching San +Francisco. From his window he could see the surrounding park-like +avenues of oaks and the level white high road, now and then clouded +with the dust of passing teams. But his eyes were persistently fixed +upon a small copy of the American Constitution before him. Suddenly +there was a quick rap on his door, and before he could reply to it a +man brusquely entered. + +Don Jose raised his head slowly, and recognized the landlord. But the +intruder, apparently awed by the gentle, grave, and studious figure +before him, fell back for an instant in an attitude of surly apology. + +"Enter freely, my good Jenkinson," said Don Jose, with a quiet courtesy +that had all the effect of irony. "The apartment, such as it is, is at +your disposition. It is even yours, as is the house." + +"Well, I'm darned if I know as it is," said the landlord, recovering +himself roughly, "and that's jest what's the matter. Yer's that man of +yours smashing things right and left in the bar-room and chuckin' my +waiters through the window." + +"Softly, softly, good Jenkinson," said Don Jose, putting a mark in the +pages of the volume before him. "It is necessary first that I should +correct your speech. He is not my 'MAN,' which I comprehend to mean a +slave, a hireling, a thing obnoxious to the great American nation which +I admire and to which HE belongs. Therefore, good Jenkinson, say +'friend,' 'companion,' 'guide,' philosopher,' if you will. As to the +rest, it is of no doubt as you relate. I myself have heard the +breakings of glass and small dishes as I sit here; three times I have +seen your waiters projected into the road with much violence and +confusion. To myself I have then said, even as I say to you, good +Jenkinson, 'Patience, patience, the end is not far.' In four hours," +continued Don Jose, holding up four fingers, "he shall make a finish. +Until then, not." + +"Well, I'm d--d," ejaculated Jenkinson, gasping for breath in his +indignation. + +"Nay, excellent Jenkinson, not dam-ned but of a possibility dam-AGED. +That I shall repay when he have make a finish." + +"But, darn it all," broke in the landlord angrily. + +"Ah," said Don Jose gravely, "you would be paid before! Good; for how +much shall you value ALL you have in your bar?" + +Don Jose's imperturbability evidently shook the landlord's faith in the +soundness of his own position. He looked at his guest critically and +audaciously. + +"It cost me two hundred dollars to fit it up," he said curtly. + +Don Jose rose, and, taking a buckskin purse from his saddle-bag, +counted out four slugs[1] and handed them to the stupefied Jenkinson. +The next moment, however, his host recovered himself, and casting the +slugs back on the little table, brought his fist down with an emphasis +that made them dance. + +"But, look yer--suppose I want this thing stopped--you hear +me--STOPPED--now." + +"That would be interfering with the liberty of the subject, my good +Jenkinson--which God forbid!" said Don Jose calmly. "Moreover, it is +the custom of the Americanos--a habit of my friend Roberto--a necessity +of his existence--and so recognized of his friends. Patience and +courage, Senor Jenkinson. Stay--ah, I comprehend! you have--of a +possibility--a wife?" + +"No, I'm a widower," said Jenkinson sharply. + +"Then I congratulate you. My friend Roberto would have kissed her. It +is also of his habit. Truly you have escaped much. I embrace you, +Jenkinson." + +He threw his arms gravely around Jenkinson, in whose astounded face at +last an expression of dry humor faintly dawned. After a moment's +survey of Don Jose's impenetrable gravity, he coolly gathered up the +gold coins, and saying that he would assess the damages and return the +difference, he left the room as abruptly as he had entered it. + +But Don Jose was not destined to remain long in peaceful study of the +American Constitution. He had barely taken up the book again and +renewed his serious contemplation of its excellences when there was +another knock at his door. This time, in obedience to his invitation +to enter, the new visitor approached with more deliberation and a +certain formality. + +He was a young man of apparently the same age as Don Jose, handsomely +dressed, and of a quiet self-possession and gravity almost equal to his +host's. + +"I believe I am addressing Don Jose Sepulvida," he said with a familiar +yet courteous inclination of his handsome head. Don Jose, who had +risen in marked contrast to his reception of his former guest, +answered,-- + +"You are truly making to him a great honor." + +"Well, you're going it blind as far as I'M concerned certainly," said +the young man, with a slight smile, "for you don't know ME." + +"Pardon, my friend," said Don Jose gently, "in this book, this great +Testament of your glorious nation, I have read that you are all equal, +one not above, one not below the other. I salute in you the Nation! +It is enough!" + +"Thank you," returned the stranger, with a face that, saving the +faintest twinkle in the corner of his dark eyes, was as immovable as +his host's, "but for the purposes of my business I had better say I am +Jack Hamlin, a gambler, and am just now dealing faro in the Florida +saloon round the corner." + +He paused carelessly, as if to allow Don Jose the protest he did not +make, and then continued,-- + +"The matter is this. One of your vaqueros, who is, however, an +American, was round there an hour ago bucking against faro, and put up +and LOST, not only the mare he was riding, but a horse which I have +just learned is yours. Now we reckon, over there, that we can make +enough money playing a square game, without being obliged to take +property from a howling drunkard, to say nothing of it not belonging to +him, and I've come here, Don Jose, to say that if you'll send over and +bring away your man and your horse, you can have 'em both." + +"If I have comprehended, honest Hamlin," said Don Jose slowly, "this +Roberto, who was my vaquero and is my brother, has approached this faro +game by himself unsolicited?" + +"He certainly didn't seem shy of it," said Mr. Hamlin with equal +gravity. "To the best of my knowledge he looked as if he'd been there +before." + +"And if he had won, excellent Hamlin, you would have given him the +equal of his mare and horse?" + +"A hundred dollars for each, yes, certainly." + +"Then I see not why I should send for the property which is truly no +longer mine, nor for my brother who will amuse himself after the +fashion of his country in the company of so honorable a caballero as +yourself? Stay! oh imbecile that I am. I have not remembered. You +would possibly say that he has no longer of horses! Play him; play +him, admirable yet prudent Hamlin. I have two thousand horses! Of a +surety he cannot exhaust them in four hours. Therefore play him, trust +to me for recompensa, and have no fear." + +A quick flush covered the stranger's cheek, and his eyebrows +momentarily contracted. He walked carelessly to the window, however, +glanced out, and then turned to Don Jose. + +"May I ask, then," he said with almost sepulchral gravity, "is anybody +taking care of you?" + +"Truly," returned Don Jose cautiously, "there is my brother and friend +Roberto." + +"Ah! Roberto, certainly," said Mr. Hamlin profoundly. + +"Why do you ask, considerate friend?" + +"Oh! I only thought, with your kind of opinions, you must often feel +lonely in California. Good-bye." He shook Don Jose's hand heartily, +took up his hat, inclined his head with graceful seriousness, and +passed out of the room. In the hall he met the landlord. + +"Well," said Jenkinson, with a smile half anxious, half insinuating, +"you saw him? What do you think of him?" + +Mr. Hamlin paused and regarded Jenkinson with a calmly contemplative +air, as if he were trying to remember first who he was, and secondly +why he should speak to him at all. "Think of whom?" he repeated +carelessly. + +"Why him--you know--Don Jose." + +"I did not see anything the matter with him," returned Hamlin with +frigid simplicity. + +"What? nothing queer?" + +"Well, no--except that he's a guest in YOUR house," said Hamlin with +great cheerfulness. "But then, as you keep a hotel, you can't help +occasionally admitting a--gentleman." + +Mr. Jenkinson smiled the uneasy smile of a man who knew that his +interlocutor's playfulness occasionally extended to the use of a +derringer, in which he was singularly prompt and proficient, and Mr. +Hamlin, equally conscious of that knowledge on the part of his +companion, descended the staircase composedly. + +But the day had darkened gradually into night, and Don Jose was at last +compelled to put aside his volume. The sound of a large bell rung +violently along the hall and passages admonished him that the American +dinner was ready, and although the viands and the mode of cooking were +not entirely to his fancy, he had, in his grave enthusiasm for the +national habits, attended the table d'hote regularly with Roberto. On +reaching the lower hall he was informed that his henchman had early +succumbed to the potency of his libations, and had already been carried +by two men to bed. Receiving this information with his usual stoical +composure, he entered the dining-room, but was surprised to find that a +separate table had been prepared for him by the landlord, and that a +rude attempt had been made to serve him with his own native dishes. + +"Senores y Senoritas," said Don Jose, turning from it and with grave +politeness addressing the assembled company, "if I seem to-day to +partake alone and in a reserved fashion of certain viands that have +been prepared for me, it is truly from no lack of courtesy to your +distinguished company, but rather, I protest, to avoid the appearance +of greater discourtesy to our excellent Jenkinson, who has taken some +pains and trouble to comport his establishment to what he conceives to +be my desires. Wherefore, my friends, in God's name fall to, the same +as if I were not present, and grace be with you." + +A few stared at the tall, gentle, melancholy figure with some +astonishment; a few whispered to their neighbors; but when, at the +conclusion of his repast, Don Jose arose and again saluted the company, +one or two stood up and smilingly returned the courtesy, and Polly +Jenkinson, the landlord's youngest daughter, to the great delight of +her companions, blew him a kiss. + +After visiting the vaquero in his room, and with his own hand applying +some native ointment to the various contusions and scratches which +recorded the late engagements of the unconscious Roberto, Don Jose +placed a gold coin in the hands of the Irish chamber-maid, and bidding +her look after the sleeper, he threw his serape over his shoulders and +passed into the road. The loungers on the veranda gazed at him +curiously, yet half acknowledged his usual serious salutation, and made +way for him with a certain respect. Avoiding the few narrow streets of +the little town, he pursued his way meditatively along the highroad, +returning to the hotel after an hour's ramble, as the evening +stage-coach had deposited its passengers and departed. + +"There's a lady waiting to see you upstairs," said the landlord with a +peculiar smile. "She rather allowed it wasn't the proper thing to see +you alone, or she wasn't quite ekal to it, I reckon, for she got my +Polly to stand by her." + +"Your Polly, good Jenkinson?" said Don Jose interrogatively. + +"My darter, Don Jose." + +"Ah, truly! I am twice blessed," said Don Jose, gravely ascending the +staircase. + +On entering the room he perceived a tall, large-featured woman with an +extraordinary quantity of blond hair parted on one side of her broad +forehead, sitting upon the sofa. Beside her sat Polly Jenkinson, her +fresh, honest, and rather pretty face beaming with delighted +expectation and mischief. Don Jose saluted them with a formal +courtesy, which, however, had no trace of the fact that he really did +not remember anything of them. + +"I called," said the large-featured woman with a voice equally +pronounced, "in reference to a request from you, which, though perhaps +unconventional in the extreme, I have been able to meet by the +intervention of this young lady's company. My name on this card may +not be familiar to you--but I am 'Dorothy Dewdrop.'" + +A slight movement of abstraction and surprise passed over Don Jose's +face, but as quickly vanished as he advanced towards her and gracefully +raised the tips of her fingers to his lips. "Have I then, at last, the +privilege of beholding that most distressed and deeply injured of +women! Or is it but a dream!" + +It certainly was not, as far as concerned the substantial person of the +woman before him, who, however, seemed somewhat uneasy under his words +as well as the demure scrutiny of Miss Jenkinson. "I thought you might +have forgotten," she said with slight acerbity, "that you desired an +interview with the authoress of"-- + +"Pardon," interrupted Don Jose, standing before her in an attitude of +the deepest sympathizing dejection, "I had not forgotten. It is now +three weeks since I have read in the journal 'Golden Gate' the eloquent +and touching poem of your sufferings, and your aspirations, and your +miscomprehensions by those you love. I remember as yesterday that you +have said, that cruel fate have linked you to a soulless +state--that--but I speak not well your own beautiful language--you are +in tears at evenfall 'because that you are not understood of others, +and that your soul recoiled from iron bonds, until, as in a dream, you +sought succor and release in some true Knight of equal plight.'" + +"I am told," said the large-featured woman with some satisfaction, +"that the poem to which you allude has been generally admired." + +"Admired! Senora," said Don Jose, with still darker sympathy, "it is +not the word; it is FELT. I have felt it. When I read those words of +distress, I am touched of compassion! I have said, This woman, so +disconsolate, so oppressed, must be relieved, protected! I have wrote +to you, at the 'Golden Gate,' to see me here." + +"And I have come, as you perceive," said the poetess, rising with a +slight smile of constraint; "and emboldened by your appreciation, I +have brought a few trifles thrown off"-- + +"Pardon, unhappy Senora," interrupted Don Jose, lifting his hand +deprecatingly without relaxing his melancholy precision, "but to a +cavalier further evidence is not required--and I have not yet make +finish. I have not content myself to WRITE to you. I have sent my +trusty friend Roberto to inquire at the 'Golden Gate' of your +condition. I have found there, most unhappy and persecuted +friend--that with truly angelic forbearance you have not told ALL--that +you are MARRIED, and that of a necessity it is your husband that is +cold and soulless and unsympathizing--and all that you describe." + +"Sir!" said the poetess, rising in angry consternation. + +"I have written to him," continued Don Jose, with unheeding gravity; +"have appealed to him as a friend, I have conjured him as a caballero, +I have threatened him even as a champion of the Right, I have said to +him, in effect--that this must not be as it is. I have informed him +that I have made an appointment with you even at this house, and I +challenged him to meet you here--in this room--even at this instant, +and, with God's help, we should make good our charges against him. It +is yet early; I have allowed time for the lateness of the stage and the +fact that he will come by another conveyance. Therefore, O Dona +Dewdrop, tremble not like thy namesake as it were on the leaf of +apprehension and expectancy. I, Don Jose, am here to protect thee. I +will take these charges"--gently withdrawing the manuscripts from her +astonished grasp--"though even, as I related to thee before, I want +them not, yet we will together confront him with them and make them +good against him." + +"Are you mad?" demanded the lady in almost stentorious accents, "or is +this an unmanly hoax?" Suddenly she stopped in undeniable +consternation. "Good heavens," she muttered, "if Abner should believe +this. He is SUCH a fool! He has lately been queer and jealous. Oh +dear!" she said, turning to Polly Jenkinson with the first indication +of feminine weakness, "Is he telling the truth? is he crazy? what shall +I do?" + +Polly Jenkinson, who had witnessed the interview with the intensest +enjoyment, now rose equal to the occasion. + +"You have made a mistake," she said, uplifting her demure blue eyes to +Don Jose's dark and melancholy gaze. "This lady is a POETESS! The +sufferings she depicts, the sorrows she feels, are in the IMAGINATION, +in her fancy only." + +"Ah!" said Don Jose gloomily; "then it is all false." + +"No," said Polly quickly, "only they are not her OWN, you know. They +are somebody elses. She only describes them for another, don't you +see?" + +"And who, then, is this unhappy one?" asked the Don quickly. + +"Well--a--friend," stammered Polly, hesitatingly. + +"A friend!" repeated Don Jose. "Ah, I see, of possibility a dear one, +even," he continued, gazing with tender melancholy into the untroubled +cerulean depths of Polly's eyes, "even, but no, child, it could not be! +THOU art too young." + +"Ah," said Polly, with an extraordinary gulp and a fierce nudge of the +poetess, "but it WAS me." + +"You, Senorita," repeated Don Jose, falling back in an attitude of +mingled admiration and pity. "You, the child of Jenkinson!" + +"Yes, yes," joined in the poetess hurriedly; "but that isn't going to +stop the consequences of your wretched blunder. My husband will be +furious, and will be here at any moment. Good gracious! what is that?" + +The violent slamming of a distant door at that instant, the sounds of +quick scuffling on the staircase, and the uplifting of an irate voice +had reached her ears and thrown her back in the arms of Polly +Jenkinson. Even the young girl herself turned an anxious gaze towards +the door. Don Jose alone was unmoved. + +"Possess yourselves in peace, Senoritas," he said calmly. "We have +here only the characteristic convalescence of my friend and brother, +the excellent Roberto. He will ever recover himself from drink with +violence, even as he precipitates himself into it with fury. He has +been prematurely awakened. I will discover the cause." + +With an elaborate bow to the frightened women, he left the room. +Scarcely had the door closed when the poetess turned quickly to Polly. +"The man's a stark staring lunatic, but, thank Heaven, Abner will see +it at once. And now let's get away while we can. To think," she said, +snatching up her scattered manuscripts, "that THAT was all the beast +wanted." + +"I'm sure he's very gentle and kind," said Polly, recovering her +dimples with a demure pout; "but stop, he's coming back." + +It was indeed Don Jose re-entering the room with the composure of a +relieved and self-satisfied mind. "It is even as I said, Senora," he +began, taking the poetess's hand,--"and MORE. You are SAVED!" + +As the women only stared at each other, he gravely folded his arms and +continued: "I will explain. For the instant I have not remember that, +in imitation of your own delicacy, I have given to your husband in my +letter, not the name of myself, but, as a mere Don Fulano, the name of +my brother Roberto--'Bucking Bob.' Your husband have this moment +arrive! Penetrating the bedroom of the excellent Roberto, he has +indiscreetly seize him in his bed, without explanation, without +introduction, without fear! The excellent Roberto, ever ready for such +distractions, have respond! In a word, to use the language of the good +Jenkinson--our host, our father--who was present, he have 'wiped the +floor with your husband,' and have even carried him down the staircase +to the street. Believe me, he will not return. You are free!" + +"Fool! Idiot! Crazy beast!" said the poetess, dashing past him and +out of the door. "You shall pay for this!" + +Don Jose did not change his imperturbable and melancholy calm. "And +now, little one," he said, dropping on one knee before the +half-frightened Polly, "child of Jenkinson, now that thy perhaps too +excitable sponsor has, in a poet's caprice, abandoned thee for some +newer fantasy, confide in me thy distress, to me, thy Knight, and tell +the story of thy sorrows." + +"But," said Polly, rising to her feet and struggling between a laugh +and a cry. "I haven't any sorrows. Oh dear! don't you see, it's only +her FANCY to make me seem so. There's nothing the matter with me." + +"Nothing the matter," repeated Don Jose slowly. "You have no distress? +You want no succor, no relief, no protector? This, then, is but +another delusion!" he said, rising sadly. + +"Yes, no--that is--oh, my gracious goodness!" said Polly, hopelessly +divided between a sense of the ridiculous and some strange attraction +in the dark, gentle eyes that were fixed upon her half reproachfully. +"You don't understand." + +Don Jose replied only with a melancholy smile, and then going to the +door, opened it with a bowed head and respectful courtesy. At the act, +Polly plucked up courage again, and with it a slight dash of her old +audacity. + +"I'm sure I'm very sorry that I ain't got any love sorrows," she said +demurely. "And I suppose it's very dreadful in me not to have been +raving and broken-hearted over somebody or other as that woman has +said. Only," she waited till she had gained the secure vantage of the +threshold, "I never knew a gentleman to OBJECT to it before!" + +With this Parthian arrow from her blue eyes she slipped into the +passage and vanished through the door of the opposite parlor. For an +instant Don Jose remained motionless and reflecting. Then, recovering +himself with grave precision, he deliberately picked up his narrow +black gloves from the table, drew them on, took his hat in his hand, +and solemnly striding across the passage, entered the door that had +just closed behind her. + + +[1] Hexagonal gold pieces valued at $50 each, issued by a private firm +as coin in the early days. + + +III. + +It must not be supposed that in the meantime the flight of Don Jose and +his follower was unattended by any commotion at the rancho of the +Blessed Innocents. At the end of three hours' deliberation, in which +the retainers were severally examined, the corral searched, and the +well in the courtyard sounded, scouts were dispatched in different +directions, who returned with the surprising information that the +fugitives were not in the vicinity. A trustworthy messenger was sent +to Monterey for "custom-house paper," on which to draw up a formal +declaration of the affair. The archbishop was summoned from San Luis, +and Don Victor and Don Vincente Sepulvida, with the Donas Carmen and +Inez Alvarado, and a former alcalde, gathered at a family council the +next day. In this serious conclave the good Father Felipe once more +expounded the alienated condition and the dangerous reading of the +absent man. In the midst of which the ordinary post brought a letter +from Don Jose, calmly inviting the family to dine with him and Roberto +at San Mateo on the following Wednesday. The document was passed +gravely from hand to hand. Was it a fresh evidence of mental +aberration--an audacity of frenzy--or a trick of the vaquero? The +archbishop and alcalde shook their heads--it was without doubt a +lawless, even a sacrilegious and blasphemous fete. But a certain +curiosity of the ladies and of Father Felipe carried the day. Without +formally accepting the invitation it was decided that the family should +examine the afflicted man, with a view of taking active measures +hereafter. On the day appointed, the traveling carriage of the +Sepulvidas, an equipage coeval with the beginning of the century, drawn +by two white mules gaudily caparisoned, halted before the hotel at San +Mateo and disgorged Father Felipe, the Donas Carmen and Inez Alvarado +and Maria Sepulvida, while Don Victor and Don Vincente Sepulvida, their +attendant cavaliers on fiery mustangs, like outriders, drew rein at the +same time. A slight thrill of excitement, as of the advent of a +possible circus, had preceded them through the little town; a faint +blending of cigarette smoke and garlic announced their presence on the +veranda. + +Ushered into the parlor of the hotel, apparently set apart for their +reception, they were embarrassed at not finding their host present. +But they were still more disconcerted when a tall full-bearded +stranger, with a shrewd amused-looking face, rose from a chair by the +window, and stepping forward, saluted them in fluent Spanish with a +slight American accent. + +"I have to ask you, gentlemen and ladies," he began, with a certain +insinuating ease and frankness that alternately aroused and lulled +their suspicions, "to pardon the absence of our friend Don Jose +Sepulvida at this preliminary greeting. For to be perfectly frank with +you, although the ultimate aim and object of our gathering is a social +one, you are doubtless aware that certain infelicities and +misunderstandings--common to most families--have occurred, and a free, +dispassionate, unprejudiced discussion and disposal of them at the +beginning will only tend to augment the goodwill of our gathering." + +"The Senor without doubt is"--suggested the padre, with a polite +interrogative pause. + +"Pardon me! I forgot to introduce myself. Colonel Parker--entirely at +your service and that of these charming ladies." + +The ladies referred to allowed their eyes to rest with evident +prepossession on the insinuating stranger. "Ah, a soldier," said Don +Vincente. + +"Formerly," said the American lightly; "at present a lawyer, the +counsel of Don Jose." + +A sudden rigor of suspicion stiffened the company; the ladies withdrew +their eyes; the priest and the Sepulvidas exchanged glances. + +"Come," said Colonel Parker, with apparent unconsciousness of the +effect of his disclosure, "let us begin frankly. You have, I believe, +some anxiety in regard to the mental condition of Don Jose." + +"We believe him to be mad," said Padre Felipe promptly, "irresponsible, +possessed!" + +"That is your opinion; good," said the lawyer quietly. + +"And ours too," clamored the party, "without doubt." + +"Good," returned the lawyer with perfect cheerfulness. "As his +relations, you have no doubt had superior opportunities for observing +his condition. I understand also that you may think it necessary to +have him legally declared non compos, a proceeding which, you are +aware, might result in the incarceration of our distinguished friend in +a mad-house." + +"Pardon, Senor," interrupted Dona Maria proudly, "you do not comprehend +the family. When a Sepulvida is visited of God we do not ask the +Government to confine him like a criminal. We protect him in his own +house from the consequences of his frenzy." + +"From the machinations of the worldly and heretical," broke in the +priest, "and from the waste and dispersion of inherited possessions." + +"Very true," continued Colonel Parker, with unalterable good-humor; +"but I was only about to say that there might be conflicting evidence +of his condition. For instance, our friend has been here three days. +In that time he has had three interviews with three individuals under +singular circumstances." Colonel Parker then briefly recounted the +episodes of the landlord, the gambler, Miss Jenkinson and the poetess, +as they had been related to him. "Yet," he continued, "all but one of +these individuals are willing to swear that they not only believe Don +Jose perfectly sane, but endowed with a singularly sound judgment. In +fact, the testimony of Mr. Hamlin and Miss Jenkinson is remarkably +clear on that subject." + +The company exchanged a supercilious smile. "Do you not see, O Senor +Advocate," said Don Vincente compassionately, "that this is but a +conspiracy to avail themselves of our relative's weakness. Of a +necessity they find him sane who benefits them." + +"I have thought of that, and am glad to hear you say so," returned the +lawyer still more cheerfully, "for your prompt opinion emboldens me to +be at once perfectly frank with you. Briefly then, Don Jose has +summoned me here to make a final disposition of his property. In the +carrying out of certain theories of his, which it is not my province to +question, he has resolved upon comparative poverty for himself as best +fitted for his purpose, and to employ his wealth solely for others. In +fact, of all his vast possessions he retains for himself only an income +sufficient for the bare necessaries of life." + +"And you have done this?" they asked in one voice. + +"Not yet," said the lawyer. + +"Blessed San Antonio, we have come in time!" ejaculated Dona Carmen. +"Another day and it would have been too late; it was an inspiration of +the Blessed Innocents themselves," said Dona Maria, crossing herself. +"Can you longer doubt that this is the wildest madness?" said Father +Felipe with flashing eyes. + +"Yet," returned the lawyer, caressing his heavy beard with a meditative +smile, "the ingenious fellow actually instanced the vows of YOUR OWN +ORDER, reverend sir, as an example in support of his theory. But to be +brief. Conceiving, then, that his holding of property was a mere +accident of heritage, not admitted by him, unworthy his acceptance, and +a relic of superstitious ignorance"-- + +"This is the very sacrilege of Satanic prepossession," broke in the +priest indignantly. + +"He therefore," continued the lawyer composedly, "makes over and +reverts the whole of his possessions, with the exceptions I have +stated, to his family and the Church." + +A breathless and stupefying silence fell upon the company. In the dead +hush the sound of Polly Jenkinson's piano, played in a distant room, +could be distinctly heard. With their vacant eyes staring at him the +speaker continued: + +"That deed of gift I have drawn up as he dictated it. I don't mind +saying that in the opinion of some he might be declared non compos upon +the evidence of that alone. I need not say how relieved I am to find +that your opinion coincides with my own." + +"But," gasped Father Felipe hurriedly, with a quick glance at the +others, "it does not follow that it will be necessary to resort to +these legal measures. Care, counsel, persuasion--" + +"The general ministering of kinship--nursing, a woman's care--the +instincts of affection," piped Dona Maria in breathless eagerness. + +"Any light social distraction--a harmless flirtation--a possible +attachment," suggested Dona Carmen shyly. + +"Change of scene--active exercise--experiences--even as those you have +related," broke in Don Vincente. + +"I for one have ever been opposed to LEGAL measures," said Don Victor. +"A mere consultation of friends--in fact, a fete like this is +sufficient." + +"Good friends," said Father Felipe, who had by this time recovered +himself, taking out his snuff-box portentously, "it would seem truly, +from the document which this discreet caballero has spoken of, that the +errors of our dear Don Jose are rather of method than intent, and that +while we may freely accept the one"-- + +"Pardon," interrupted Colonel Parker with bland persistence, "but I +must point out to you that what we call in law 'a consideration' is +necessary to the legality of a conveyance, even though that +consideration be frivolous and calculated to impair the validity of the +document." + +"Truly," returned the good padre insinuatingly; "but if a discreet +advocate were to suggest the substitution of some more pious and +reasonable consideration"-- + +"But that would be making it a perfectly sane and gratuitous document, +not only glaringly inconsistent with your charges, my good friends, +with Don Jose's attitude towards you and his flight from home, but open +to the gravest suspicion in law. In fact, its apparent propriety in +the face of these facts would imply improper influence." + +The countenances of the company fell. The lawyer's face, however, +became still more good-humored and sympathizing. "The case is simply +this. If in the opinion of judge and jury Don Jose is declared insane, +the document is worthless except as a proof of that fact or a possible +indication of the undue influence of his relations, which might compel +the court to select his guardians and trustees elsewhere than among +them." + +"Friend Abogado," said Father Felipe with extraordinary deliberation, +"the document thou hast just described so eloquently convinces me +beyond all doubt that Don Jose is not only perfectly sane but endowed +with a singular discretion. I consider it as a delicate and +high-spirited intimation to us, his friends and kinsmen, of his +unalterable and logically just devotion to his family and religion, +whatever may seem to be his poetical and imaginative manner of +declaring it. I think there is not one here," continued the padre, +looking around him impressively, "who is not entirely satisfied of Don +Jose's reason and competency to arrange his own affairs." + +"Entirely," "truly," "perfectly," eagerly responded the others with +affecting spontaneity. + +"Nay, more. To prevent any misconception, we shall deem it our duty to +take every opportunity of making our belief publicly known," added +Father Felipe. + +The padre and Colonel Parker gazed long and gravely into each other's +eyes. It may have been an innocent touch of the sunlight through the +window, but a faint gleam seemed to steal into the pupil of the affable +lawyer at the same moment that, probably from the like cause, there was +a slight nervous contraction of the left eyelid of the pious father. +But it passed, and the next instant the door opened to admit Don Jose +Sepulvida. + +He was at once seized and effusively embraced by the entire company +with every protest of affection and respect. Not only Mr. Hamlin and +Mr. Jenkinson, who accompanied him as invited guests, but Roberto, in a +new suit of clothes and guiltless of stain or trace of dissipation, +shared in the pronounced friendliness of the kinsmen. Padre Felipe +took snuff, Colonel Parker blew his nose gently. + +Nor were they less demonstrative of their new convictions later at the +banquet. Don Jose, with Jenkinson and the padre on his right and left, +preserved his gentle and half-melancholy dignity in the midst of the +noisy fraternization. Even Padre Felipe, in a brief speech or +exhortation proposing the health of their host, lent himself in his own +tongue to this polite congeniality. "We have had also, my friends and +brothers," he said in peroration, "a pleasing example of the compliment +of imitation shown by our beloved Don Jose. No one who has known him +during his friendly sojourn in this community but will be struck with +the conviction that he has acquired that most marvelous faculty of your +great American nation, the exhibition of humor and of the practical +joke." + +Every eye was turned upon the imperturbable face of Don Jose as he +slowly rose to reply. "In bidding you to this fete, my friends and +kinsmen," he began calmly, "it was with the intention of formally +embracing the habits, customs, and spirit of American institutions by +certain methods of renunciation of the past, as became a caballero of +honor and resolution. Those methods may possibly be known to some of +you." He paused for a moment as if to allow the members of his family +to look unconscious. "Since then, in the wisdom of God, it has +occurred to me that my purpose may be as honorably effected by a +discreet blending of the past and the present--in a word, by the +judicious combination of the interests of my native people and the +American nation. In consideration of that purpose, friends and +kinsmen, I ask you to join me in drinking the good health of my host +Senor Jenkinson, my future father-in-law, from whom I have to-day had +the honor to demand the hand of the peerless Polly, his daughter, as +the future mistress of the Rancho of the Blessed Innocents." + + +The marriage took place shortly after. Nor was the free will and +independence of Don Jose Sepulvida in the least opposed by his +relations. Whether they felt they had already committed themselves, or +had hopes in the future, did not transpire. Enough that the escapade +of a week was tacitly forgotten. The only allusion ever made to the +bridegroom's peculiarities was drawn from the demure lips of the bride +herself on her installation at the "Blessed Innocents." + +"And what, little one, didst thou find in me to admire?" Don Jose had +asked tenderly. + +"Oh, you seemed to be so much like that dear old Don Quixote, you +know," she answered demurely. + +"Don Quixote," repeated Don Jose with gentle gravity. "But, my child, +that was only a mere fiction--a romance, of one Cervantes. Believe me, +of a truth there never was any such person!" + + + + +A SECRET OF TELEGRAPH HILL + +I. + +As Mr. Herbert Bly glanced for the first time at the house which was to +be his future abode in San Francisco, he was somewhat startled. In +that early period of feverish civic improvement the street before it +had been repeatedly graded and lowered until the dwelling--originally a +pioneer suburban villa perched upon a slope of Telegraph Hill--now +stood sixty feet above the sidewalk, superposed like some Swiss chalet +on successive galleries built in the sand-hill, and connected by a +half-dozen distinct zigzag flights of wooden staircase. Stimulated, +however, by the thought that the view from the top would be a fine one, +and that existence there would have all the quaint originality of +Robinson Crusoe's tree-dwelling, Mr. Bly began cheerfully to mount the +steps. It should be premised that, although a recently appointed clerk +in a large banking house, Mr. Bly was somewhat youthful and +imaginative, and regarded the ascent as part of that "Excelsior" +climbing pointed out by a great poet as a praiseworthy function of +ambitious youth. + +Reaching at last the level of the veranda, he turned to the view. The +distant wooded shore of Contra Costa, the tossing white-caps and +dancing sails of the bay between, and the foreground at his feet of +wharves and piers, with their reed-like jungles of masts and cordage, +made up a bright, if somewhat material, picture. To his right rose the +crest of the hill, historic and memorable as the site of the old +semaphoric telegraph, the tossing of whose gaunt arms formerly thrilled +the citizens with tidings from the sea. Turning to the house, he +recognized the prevailing style of light cottage architecture, although +incongruously confined to narrow building plots and the civic +regularity of a precise street frontage. Thus a dozen other villas, +formerly scattered over the slope, had been laboriously displaced and +moved to the rigorous parade line drawn by the street surveyor, no +matter how irregular and independent their design and structure. +Happily, the few scrub-oaks and low bushes which formed the scant +vegetation of this vast sand dune offered no obstacle and suggested no +incongruity. Beside the house before which Mr. Bly now stood, a +prolific Madeira vine, quickened by the six months' sunshine, had alone +survived the displacement of its foundations, and in its untrimmed +luxuriance half hid the upper veranda from his view. + +Still glowing with his exertion, the young man rang the bell and was +admitted into a fair-sized drawing-room, whose tasteful and +well-arranged furniture at once prepossessed him. An open piano, a +sheet of music carelessly left on the stool, a novel lying face +downwards on the table beside a skein of silk, and the distant rustle +of a vanished skirt through an inner door, gave a suggestion of refined +domesticity to the room that touched the fancy of the homeless and +nomadic Bly. He was still enjoying, in half embarrassment, that vague +and indescribable atmosphere of a refined woman's habitual presence, +when the door opened and the mistress of the house formally presented +herself. + +She was a faded but still handsome woman. Yet she wore that peculiar +long, limp, formless house-shawl which in certain phases of Anglo-Saxon +spinster and widowhood assumes the functions of the recluse's veil and +announces the renunciation of worldly vanities and a resigned +indifference to external feminine contour. The most audacious +masculine arm would shrink from clasping that shapeless void in which +the flatness of asceticism or the heavings of passion might alike lie +buried. She had also in some mysterious way imported into the fresh +and pleasant room a certain bombaziny shadow of the past, and a +suggestion of that appalling reminiscence known as "better days." +Though why it should be always represented by ashen memories, or why +better days in the past should be supposed to fix their fitting symbol +in depression in the present, Mr. Bly was too young and too preoccupied +at the moment to determine. He only knew that he was a little +frightened of her, and fixed his gaze with a hopeless fascination on a +letter which she somewhat portentously carried under the shawl, and +which seemed already to have yellowed in its arctic shade. + +"Mr. Carstone has written to me that you would call," said Mrs. Brooks +with languid formality. "Mr. Carstone was a valued friend of my late +husband, and I suppose has told you the circumstances--the only +circumstances--which admit of my entertaining his proposition of taking +anybody, even temporarily, under my roof. The absence of my dear son +for six months at Portland, Oregon, enables me to place his room at the +disposal of Mr. Carstone's young protege, who, Mr. Carstone tells me, +and I have every reason to believe, is, if perhaps not so seriously +inclined nor yet a church communicant, still of a character and +reputation not unworthy to follow my dear Tappington in our little +family circle as he has at his desk in the bank." + +The sensitive Bly, struggling painfully out of an abstraction as to how +he was ever to offer the weekly rent of his lodgings to such a remote +and respectable person, and also somewhat embarrassed at being appealed +to in the third person, here started and bowed. + +"The name of Bly is not unfamiliar to me," continued Mrs. Brooks, +pointing to a chair and sinking resignedly into another, where her +baleful shawl at once assumed the appearance of a dust-cover; "some of +my dearest friends were intimate with the Blys of Philadelphia. They +were a branch of the Maryland Blys of the eastern shore, of whom my +Uncle James married. Perhaps you are distantly related?" + +Mrs. Brooks was perfectly aware that her visitor was of unknown Western +origin, and a poor but clever protege of the rich banker; but she was +one of a certain class of American women who, in the midst of a fierce +democracy, are more or less cat-like conservators of family pride and +lineage, and more or less felinely inconsistent and treacherous to +republican principles. Bly, who had just settled in his mind to send +her the rent anonymously--as a weekly valentine--recovered himself and +his spirits in his usual boyish fashion. + +"I am afraid, Mrs. Brooks," he said gayly, "I cannot lay claim to any +distinguished relationship, even to that 'Nelly Bly' who, you remember, +'winked her eye when she went to sleep.'" He stopped in consternation. +The terrible conviction flashed upon him that this quotation from a +popular negro-minstrel song could not possibly be remembered by a lady +as refined as his hostess, or even known to her superior son. The +conviction was intensified by Mrs. Brooks rising with a smileless face, +slightly shedding the possible vulgarity with a shake of her shawl, and +remarking that she would show him her son's room, led the way upstairs +to the apartment recently vacated by the perfect Tappington. + +Preceded by the same distant flutter of unseen skirts in the passage +which he had first noticed on entering the drawing-room, and which +evidently did not proceed from his companion, whose self-composed +cerements would have repressed any such indecorous agitation, Mr. Bly +stepped timidly into the room. It was a very pretty apartment, +suggesting the same touches of tasteful refinement in its furniture and +appointments, and withal so feminine in its neatness and regularity, +that, conscious of his frontier habits and experience, he felt at once +repulsively incongruous. "I cannot expect, Mr. Bly," said Mrs. Brooks +resignedly, "that you can share my son's extreme sensitiveness to +disorder and irregularity; but I must beg you to avoid as much as +possible disturbing the arrangement of the book-shelves, which, you +observe, comprise his books of serious reference, the Biblical +commentaries, and the sermons which were his habitual study. I must +beg you to exercise the same care in reference to the valuable +offerings from his Sabbath-school scholars which are upon the mantel. +The embroidered book-marker, the gift of the young ladies of his +Bible-class in Dr. Stout's church, is also, you perceive, kept for +ornament and affectionate remembrance. The harmonium--even if you are +not yourself given to sacred song--I trust you will not find in your +way, nor object to my daughter continuing her practice during your +daily absence. Thank you. The door you are looking at leads by a +flight of steps to the side street." + +"A very convenient arrangement," said Bly hopefully, who saw a chance +for an occasional unostentatious escape from a too protracted +contemplation of Tappington's perfections. "I mean," he added +hurriedly, "to avoid disturbing you at night." + +"I believe my son had neither the necessity nor desire to use it for +that purpose," returned Mrs. Brooks severely; "although he found it +sometimes a convenient short cut to church on Sabbath when he was late." + +Bly, who in his boyish sensitiveness to external impressions had by +this time concluded that a life divided between the past perfections of +Tappington and the present renunciations of Mrs. Brooks would be +intolerable, and was again abstractedly inventing some delicate excuse +for withdrawing without committing himself further, was here suddenly +attracted by a repetition of the rustling of the unseen skirt. This +time it was nearer, and this time it seemed to strike even Mrs. +Brooks's remote preoccupation. "My daughter, who is deeply devoted to +her brother," she said, slightly raising her voice, "will take upon +herself the care of looking after Tappington's precious mementoes, and +spare you the trouble. Cherry, dear! this way. This is the young +gentleman spoken of by Mr. Carstone, your papa's friend. My daughter +Cherubina, Mr. Bly." + +The fair owner of the rustling skirt, which turned out to be a pretty +French print, had appeared at the doorway. She was a tall, slim +blonde, with a shy, startled manner, as of a penitent nun who was +suffering for some conventual transgression--a resemblance that was +heightened by her short-cut hair, that might have been cropped as if +for punishment. A certain likeness to her mother suggested that she +was qualifying for that saint's ascetic shawl--subject, however, to +rebellious intervals, indicated in the occasional sidelong fires of her +gray eyes. Yet the vague impression that she knew more of the world +than her mother, and that she did not look at all as if her name was +Cherubina, struck Bly in the same momentary glance. + +"Mr. Bly is naturally pleased with what he has seen of our dear +Tappington's appointments; and as I gather from Mr. Carstone's letter +that he is anxious to enter at once and make the most of the dear boy's +absence, you will see, my dear Cherry, that Ellen has everything ready +for him?" + +Before the unfortunate Bly could explain or protest, the young girl +lifted her gray eyes to his. Whether she had perceived and understood +his perplexity he could not tell; but the swift shy glance was at once +appealing, assuring, and intelligent. She was certainly unlike her +mother and brother. Acting with his usual impulsiveness, he forgot his +previous resolution, and before he left had engaged to begin his +occupation of the room on the following day. + +The next afternoon found him installed. Yet, after he had unpacked his +modest possessions and put them away, after he had placed his few books +on the shelves, where they looked glaringly trivial and frivolous +beside the late tenant's severe studies; after he had set out his +scanty treasures in the way of photographs and some curious mementoes +of his wandering life, and then quickly put them back again with a +sudden angry pride at exposing them to the unsympathetic incongruity of +the other ornaments, he, nevertheless, felt ill at ease. He glanced in +vain around the pretty room. It was not the delicately flowered +wall-paper; it was not the white and blue muslin window-curtains +gracefully tied up with blue and white ribbons; it was not the spotless +bed, with its blue and white festooned mosquito-net and flounced +valances, and its medallion portrait of an unknown bishop at the back; +it was not the few tastefully framed engravings of certain cardinal +virtues, "The Rock of Ages," and "The Guardian Angel"; it was not the +casts in relief of "Night" and "Morning"; it was certainly not the cosy +dimity-covered arm-chairs and sofa, nor yet the clean-swept polished +grate with its cheerful fire sparkling against the chill afternoon +sea-fogs without; neither was it the mere feminine suggestion, for that +touched a sympathetic chord in his impulsive nature; nor the religious +and ascetic influence, for he had occupied a monastic cell in a school +of the padres at an old mission, and slept profoundly;--it was none of +those, and yet a part of all. Most habitations retain a cast or shell +of their previous tenant that, fitting tightly or loosely, is still +able to adjust itself to the newcomer; in most occupied apartments +there is still a shadowy suggestion of the owner's individuality; there +was nothing here that fitted Bly--nor was there either, strange to say, +any evidence of the past proprietor in this inhospitality of sensation. +It did not strike him at the time that it was this very LACK of +individuality which made it weird and unreal, that it was strange only +because it was ARTIFICIAL, and that a REAL Tappington had never +inhabited it. + +He walked to the window--that never-failing resource of the unquiet +mind--and looked out. He was a little surprised to find, that, owing +to the grading of the house, the scrub-oaks and bushes of the hill were +nearly on the level of his window, as also was the adjoining side +street on which his second door actually gave. Opening this, the sudden +invasion of the sea-fog and the figure of a pedestrian casually passing +along the disused and abandoned pavement not a dozen feet from where he +had been comfortably seated, presented such a striking contrast to the +studious quiet and cosiness of his secluded apartment that he hurriedly +closed the door again with a sense of indiscreet exposure. Returning +to the window, he glanced to the left, and found that he was overlooked +by the side veranda of another villa in the rear, evidently on its way +to take position on the line of the street. Although in actual and +deliberate transit on rollers across the backyard and still occulting a +part of the view, it remained, after the reckless fashion of the +period, inhabited. Certainly, with a door fronting a thoroughfare, and +a neighbor gradually approaching him, he would not feel lonely or lack +excitement. + +He drew his arm-chair to the fire and tried to realize the +all-pervading yet evasive Tappington. There was no portrait of him in +the house, and although Mrs. Brooks had said that he "favored" his +sister, Bly had, without knowing why, instinctively resented it. He had +even timidly asked his employer, and had received the vague reply that +he was "good-looking enough," and the practical but discomposing +retort, "What do you want to know for?" As he really did not know why, +the inquiry had dropped. He stared at the monumental crystal ink-stand +half full of ink, yet spotless and free from stains, that stood on the +table, and tried to picture Tappington daintily dipping into it to +thank the fair donors--"daughters of Rebecca." Who were they? and what +sort of man would they naturally feel grateful to? + +What was that? + +He turned to the window, which had just resounded to a slight tap or +blow, as if something soft had struck it. With an instinctive +suspicion of the propinquity of the adjoining street he rose, but a +single glance from the window satisfied him that no missile would have +reached it from thence. He scanned the low bushes on the level before +him; certainly no one could be hiding there. He lifted his eyes toward +the house on the left; the curtains of the nearest window appeared to +be drawn suddenly at the same moment. Could it have come from there? +Looking down upon the window-ledge, there lay the mysterious missile--a +little misshapen ball. He opened the window and took it up. It was a +small handkerchief tied into a soft knot, and dampened with water to +give it the necessary weight as a projectile. + +Was it apparently the trick of a mischievous child? or-- + +But here a faint knock on the door leading into the hall checked his +inquiry. He opened it sharply in his excitement, and was embarrassed +to find the daughter of his hostess standing there, shy, startled, and +evidently equally embarrassed by his abrupt response. + +"Mother only wanted me to ask you if Ellen had put everything to +rights," she said, making a step backwards. + +"Oh, thank you. Perfectly," said Herbert with effusion. "Nothing +could be better done. In fact"-- + +"You're quite sure she hasn't forgotten anything? or that there isn't +anything you would like changed?" she continued, with her eyes leveled +on the floor. + +"Nothing, I assure you," he said, looking at her downcast lashes. As +she still remained motionless, he continued cheerfully, "Would +you--would you--care to look round and see?" + +"No; I thank you." + +There was an awkward pause. He still continued to hold the door open. +Suddenly she moved forward with a school-girl stride, entered the room, +and going to the harmonium, sat down upon the music-stool beside it, +slightly bending forward, with one long, slim, white hand on top of the +other, resting over her crossed knees. + +Herbert was a little puzzled. It was the awkward and brusque act of a +very young person, and yet nothing now could be more gentle and +self-composed than her figure and attitude. + +"Yes," he continued, smilingly; "I am only afraid that I may not be +able to live quite up to the neatness and regularity of the example I +find here everywhere. You know I am dreadfully careless and not at all +orderly. I shudder to think what may happen; but you and your mother, +Miss Brooks, I trust, will make up your minds to overlook and forgive a +good deal. I shall do my best to be worthy of Mr. Tap--of my +predecessor--but even then I am afraid you'll find me a great bother." + +She raised her shy eyelids. The faintest ghost of a long-buried dimple +came into her pale cheek as she said softly, to his utter consternation: + +"Rats!" + +Had she uttered an oath he could not have been more startled than he +was by this choice gem of Western saloon-slang from the pure lips of +this Evangeline-like figure before him. He sat gazing at her with a +wild hysteric desire to laugh. She lifted her eyes again, swept him +with a slightly terrified glance, and said: + +"Tap says you all say that when any one makes-believe politeness to +you." + +"Oh, your BROTHER says that, does he?" said Herbert, laughing. + +"Yes, and sometimes 'Old rats.' But," she continued hurriedly, "HE +doesn't say it; he says YOU all do. My brother is very particular, and +very good. Doctor Stout loves him. He is thought very much of in all +Christian circles. That book-mark was given to him by one of his +classes." + +Every trace of her dimples had vanished. She looked so sweetly grave, +and withal so maidenly, sitting there slightly smoothing the lengths of +her pink fingers, that Herbert was somewhat embarrassed. + +"But I assure you, Miss Brooks, I was not making-believe. I am really +very careless, and everything is so proper--I mean so neat and +pretty--here, that I"--he stopped, and, observing the same backward +wandering of her eye as of a filly about to shy, quickly changed the +subject. "You have, or are about to have, neighbors?" he said, +glancing towards the windows as he recalled the incident of a moment +before. + +"Yes; and they're not at all nice people. They are from Pike County, +and very queer. They came across the plains in '50. They say +'Stranger'; the men are vulgar, and the girls very forward. Tap forbids +my ever going to the window and looking at them. They're quite what you +would call 'off color.'" + +Herbert, who did not dare to say that he never would have dreamed of +using such an expression in any young girl's presence, was plunged in +silent consternation. + +"Then your brother doesn't approve of them?" he said, at last, +awkwardly. + +"Oh, not at all. He even talked of having ground-glass put in all +these windows, only it would make the light bad." + +Herbert felt very embarrassed. If the mysterious missile came from +these objectionable young persons, it was evidently because they +thought they had detected a more accessible and sympathizing individual +in the stranger who now occupied the room. He concluded he had better +not say anything about it. + +Miss Brooks's golden eyelashes were bent towards the floor. "Do you +play sacred music, Mr. Bly?" she said, without raising them. + +"I am afraid not." + +"Perhaps you know only negro-minstrel songs?" + +"I am afraid--yes." + +"I know one." The dimples faintly came back again. "It's called 'The +Ham-fat Man.' Some day when mother isn't in I'll play it for you." + +Then the dimples fled again, and she immediately looked so distressed +that Herbert came to her assistance. + +"I suppose your brother taught you that too?" + +"Oh dear, no!" she returned, with her frightened glance; "I only heard +him say some people preferred that kind of thing to sacred music, and +one day I saw a copy of it in a music-store window in Clay Street, and +bought it. Oh no! Tappington didn't teach it to me." + +In the pleasant discovery that she was at times independent of her +brother's perfections, Herbert smiled, and sympathetically drew a step +nearer to her. She rose at once, somewhat primly holding back the +sides of her skirt, school-girl fashion, with thumb and finger, and her +eyes cast down. + +"Good afternoon, Mr. Bly." + +"Must you go? Good afternoon." + +She walked directly to the open door, looking very tall and stately as +she did so, but without turning towards him. When she reached it she +lifted her eyes; there was the slightest suggestion of a return of her +dimples in the relaxation of her grave little mouth. Then she said, +"good-bye, Mr. Bly," and departed. + +The skirt of her dress rustled for an instant in the passage. Herbert +looked after her. "I wonder if she skipped then--she looks like a girl +that might skip at such a time," he said to himself. "How very odd she +is--and how simple! But I must pull her up in that slang when I know +her better. Fancy her brother telling her THAT! What a pair they must +be!" Nevertheless, when he turned back into the room again he forbore +going to the window to indulge further curiosity in regard to his +wicked neighbors. A certain new feeling of respect to his late +companion--and possibly to himself--held him in check. Much as he +resented Tappington's perfections, he resented quite as warmly the +presumption that he was not quite as perfect, which was implied in that +mysterious overture. He glanced at the stool on which she had been +sitting with a half-brotherly smile, and put it reverently on one side +with a very vivid recollection of her shy maidenly figure. In some +mysterious way too the room seemed to have lost its formal strangeness; +perhaps it was the touch of individuality--HERS--that had been wanting? +He began thoughtfully to dress himself for his regular dinner at the +Poodle Dog Restaurant, and when he left the room he turned back to look +once more at the stool where she had sat. Even on his way to that fast +and famous cafe of the period he felt, for the first time in his +thoughtless but lonely life, the gentle security of the home he had +left behind him. + + +II. + +It was three or four days before he became firmly adjusted to his new +quarters. During this time he had met Cherry casually on the +staircase, in going or coming, and received her shy greetings; but she +had not repeated her visit, nor again alluded to it. He had spent part +of a formal evening in the parlor in company with a calling deacon, +who, unappalled by the Indian shawl for which the widow had exchanged +her household cerements on such occasions, appeared to Herbert to have +remote matrimonial designs, as far at least as a sympathetic +deprecation of the vanities of the present, an echoing of her sighs +like a modest encore, a preternatural gentility of manner, a vague +allusion to the necessity of bearing "one another's burdens," and an +everlasting promise in store, would seem to imply. To Herbert's vivid +imagination, a discussion on the doctrinal points of last Sabbath's +sermon was fraught with delicate suggestion and an acceptance by the +widow of an appointment to attend the Wednesday evening "Lectures" had +all the shy reluctant yielding of a granted rendezvous. Oddly enough, +the more formal attitude seemed to be reserved for the young people, +who, in the suggestive atmosphere of this spiritual flirtation, alone +appeared to preserve the proprieties and, to some extent, decorously +chaperon their elders. Herbert gravely turned the leaves of Cherry's +music while she played and sang one or two discreet but depressing +songs expressive of her unalterable but proper devotion to her mother's +clock, her father's arm-chair, and her aunt's Bible; and Herbert joined +somewhat boyishly in the soul-subduing refrain. Only once he ventured +to suggest in a whisper that he would like to add HER music-stool to +the adorable inventory; but he was met by such a disturbed and +terrified look that he desisted. "Another night of this wild and +reckless dissipation will finish me," he said lugubriously to himself +when he reached the solitude of his room. "I wonder how many times a +week I'd have to help the girl play the spiritual gooseberry downstairs +before we could have any fun ourselves?" + +Here the sound of distant laughter, interspersed with vivacious +feminine shrieks, came through the open window. He glanced between the +curtains. His neighbor's house was brilliantly lit, and the shadows of +a few romping figures were chasing each other across the muslin shades +of the windows. The objectionable young women were evidently enjoying +themselves. In some conditions of the mind there is a certain +exasperation in the spectacle of unmeaning enjoyment, and he shut the +window sharply. At the same moment some one knocked at his door. + +It was Miss Brooks, who had just come upstairs. + +"Will you please let me have my music-stool?" + +He stared at her a moment in surprise, then recovering himself, said, +"Yes, certainly," and brought the stool. For an instant he was tempted +to ask why she wanted it, but his pride forbade him. + +"Thank you. Good-night." + +"Good-night!" + +"I hope it wasn't in your way?" + +"Not at all." + +"Good-night!" + +"Good-night." + +She vanished. Herbert was perplexed. Between young ladies whose naive +exuberance impelled them to throw handkerchiefs at his window and young +ladies whose equally naive modesty demanded the withdrawal from his +bedroom of a chair on which they had once sat, his lot seemed to have +fallen in a troubled locality. Yet a day or two later he heard Cherry +practising on the harmonium as he was ascending the stairs on his +return from business; she had departed before he entered the room, but +had left the music-stool behind her. It was not again removed. + +One Sunday, the second or third of his tenancy, when Cherry and her +mother were at church, and he had finished some work that he had +brought from the bank, his former restlessness and sense of strangeness +returned. The regular afternoon fog had thickened early, and, driving +him back from a cheerless, chilly ramble on the hill, had left him +still more depressed and solitary. In sheer desperation he moved some +of the furniture, and changed the disposition of several smaller +ornaments. Growing bolder, he even attacked the sacred shelf devoted +to Tappington's serious literature and moral studies. At first glance +the book of sermons looked suspiciously fresh and new for a volume of +habitual reference, but its leaves were carefully cut, and contained +one or two book-marks. It was only another evidence of that perfect +youth's care and neatness. As he was replacing it he noticed a small +object folded in white paper at the back of the shelf. To put the book +back into its former position it was necessary to take this out. He +did so, but its contents slid from his fingers and the paper to the +floor. To his utter consternation, looking down he saw a pack of +playing-cards strewn at his feet! + +He hurriedly picked them up. They were worn and slippery from use, and +exhaled a faint odor of tobacco. Had they been left there by some +temporary visitor unknown to Tappington and his family, or had they +been hastily hidden by a servant? Yet they were of a make and texture +superior to those that a servant would possess; looking at them +carefully, he recognized them to be of a quality used by the +better-class gamblers. Restoring them carefully to their former +position, he was tempted to take out the other volumes, and was +rewarded with the further discovery of a small box of ivory counters, +known as "poker-chips." It was really very extraordinary! It was +quite the cache of some habitual gambler. Herbert smiled grimly at the +irreverent incongruity of the hiding-place selected by its unknown and +mysterious owner, and amused himself by fancying the horror of his +sainted predecessor had he made the discovery. He determined to +replace them, and to put some mark upon the volumes before them in +order to detect any future disturbance of them in his absence. + +Ought he not to take Miss Brooks in his confidence? Or should he say +nothing about it at present, and trust to chance to discover the +sacrilegious hider? Could it possibly be Cherry herself, guilty of the +same innocent curiosity that had impelled her to buy the "Ham-fat Man"? +Preposterous! Besides, the cards had been used, and she could not play +poker alone! + +He watched the rolling fog extinguish the line of Russian Hill, the +last bit of far perspective from his window. He glanced at his +neighbor's veranda, already dripping with moisture; the windows were +blank; he remembered to have heard the girls giggling in passing down +the side street on their way to church, and had noticed from behind his +own curtains that one was rather pretty. This led him to think of +Cherry again, and to recall the quaint yet melancholy grace of her +figure as she sat on the stool opposite. Why had she withdrawn it so +abruptly; did she consider his jesting allusion to it indecorous and +presuming? Had he really meant it seriously; and was he beginning to +think too much about her? Would she ever come again? How nice it +would be if she returned from church alone early, and they could have a +comfortable chat together here! Would she sing the "Ham-fat Man" for +him? Would the dimples come back if she did? Should he ever know more +of this quaint repressed side of her nature? After all, what a dear, +graceful, tantalizing, lovable creature she was! Ought he not at all +hazards try to know her better? Might it not be here that he would +find a perfect realization of his boyish dreams, and in HER all +that--what nonsense he was thinking! + +Suddenly Herbert was startled by the sound of a light but hurried foot +upon the wooden outer step of his second door, and the quick but +ineffective turning of the door-handle. He started to his feet, his +mind still filled with a vision of Cherry. Then he as suddenly +remembered that he had locked the door on going out, putting the key in +his overcoat pocket. He had returned by the front door, and his +overcoat was now hanging in the lower hall. + +The door again rattled impetuously. Then it was supplemented by a +female voice in a hurried whisper: "Open quick, can't you? do hurry!" + +He was confounded. The voice was authoritative, not unmusical; but it +was NOT Cherry's. Nevertheless he called out quickly, "One moment, +please, and I'll get the key!" dashed downstairs and up again, +breathlessly unlocked the door and threw it open. + +Nobody was there! + +He ran out into the street. On one side it terminated abruptly on the +cliff on which his dwelling was perched; on the other, it descended +more gradually into the next thoroughfare; but up and down the street, +on either hand, no one was to be seen. A slightly superstitious +feeling for an instant crept over him. Then he reflected that the +mysterious visitor could in the interval of his getting the key have +easily slipped down the steps of the cliff or entered the shrubbery of +one of the adjacent houses. But why had she not waited? And what did +she want? As he reentered his door he mechanically raised his eyes to +the windows of his neighbor's. This time he certainly was not mistaken. +The two amused, mischievous faces that suddenly disappeared behind the +curtain as he looked up showed that the incident had not been +unwitnessed. Yet it was impossible that it could have been either of +THEM. Their house was only accessible by a long detour. It might have +been the trick of a confederate; but the tone of half familiarity and +half entreaty in the unseen visitor's voice dispelled the idea of any +collusion. He entered the room and closed the door angrily. A grim +smile stole over his face as he glanced around at the dainty saint-like +appointments of the absent Tappington, and thought what that +irreproachable young man would have said to the indecorous intrusion, +even though it had been a mistake. Would those shameless Pike County +girls have dared to laugh at HIM? + +But he was again puzzled to know why he himself should have been +selected for this singular experience. Why was HE considered fair game +for these girls? And, for the matter of that, now that he reflected +upon it, why had even this gentle, refined, and melancholy Cherry +thought it necessary to talk slang to HIM on their first acquaintance, +and offer to sing him the "Ham-fat Man"? It was true he had been a +little gay, but never dissipated. Of course he was not a saint, like +Tappington--oh, THAT was it! He believed he understood it now. He was +suffering from that extravagant conception of what worldliness consists +of, so common to very good people with no knowledge of the world. +Compared to Tappington he was in their eyes, of course, a rake and a +roue. The explanation pleased him. He would not keep it to himself. +He would gain Cherry's confidence and enlist her sympathies. Her +gentle nature would revolt at this injustice to their lonely lodger. +She would see that there were degrees of goodness besides her +brother's. She would perhaps sit on that stool again and NOT sing the +"Ham-fat Man." + +A day or two afterwards the opportunity seemed offered to him. As he +was coming home and ascending the long hilly street, his eye was taken +by a tall graceful figure just preceding him. It was she. He had never +before seen her in the street, and was now struck with her ladylike +bearing and the grave superiority of her perfectly simple attire. In a +thoroughfare haunted by handsome women and striking toilettes, the +refined grace of her mourning costume, and a certain stateliness that +gave her the look of a young widow, was a contrast that evidently +attracted others than himself. It was with an odd mingling of pride +and jealousy that he watched the admiring yet respectful glances of the +passers-by, some of whom turned to look again, and one or two to +retrace their steps and follow her at a decorous distance. This caused +him to quicken his own pace, with a new anxiety and a remorseful sense +of wasted opportunity. What a booby he had been, not to have made more +of his contiguity to this charming girl--to have been frightened at the +naive decorum of her maidenly instincts! He reached her side, and +raised his hat with a trepidation at her new-found graces--with a +boldness that was defiant of her other admirers. She blushed slightly. + +"I thought you'd overtake me before," she said naively. "I saw YOU +ever so long ago." + +He stammered, with an equal simplicity, that he had not dared to. + +She looked a little frightened again, and then said hurriedly: "I only +thought that I would meet you on Montgomery Street, and we would walk +home together. I don't like to go out alone, and mother cannot always +go with me. Tappington never cared to take me out--I don't know why. +I think he didn't like the people staring and stop ping us. But they +stare more--don't you think?--when one is alone. So I thought if you +were coming straight home we might come together--unless you have +something else to do?" + +Herbert impulsively reiterated his joy at meeting her, and averred that +no other engagement, either of business or pleasure, could or would +stand in his way. Looking up, however, it was with some consternation +that he saw they were already within a block of the house. + +"Suppose we take a turn around the hill and come back by the old street +down the steps?" he suggested earnestly. + +The next moment he regretted it. The frightened look returned to her +eyes; her face became melancholy and formal again. + +"No!" she said quickly. "That would be taking a walk with you like +these young girls and their young men on Saturdays. That's what Ellen +does with the butcher's boy on Sundays. Tappington often used to meet +them. Doing the 'Come, Philanders,' as he says you call it." + +It struck Herbert that the didactic Tappington's method of inculcating +a horror of slang in his sister's breast was open to some objection; +but they were already on the steps of their house, and he was too much +mortified at the reception of his last unhappy suggestion to make the +confidential disclosure he had intended, even if there had still been +time. + +"There's mother waiting for me," she said, after an awkward pause, +pointing to the figure of Mrs. Brooks dimly outlined on the veranda. +"I suppose she was beginning to be worried about my being out alone. +She'll be so glad I met you." It didn't appear to Herbert, however, +that Mrs. Brooks exhibited any extravagant joy over the occurrence, and +she almost instantly retired with her daughter into the sitting-room, +linking her arm in Cherry's, and, as it were, empanoplying her with her +own invulnerable shawl. Herbert went to his room more dissatisfied with +himself than ever. + +Two or three days elapsed without his seeing Cherry; even the +well-known rustle of her skirt in the passage was missing. On the +third evening he resolved to bear the formal terrors of the +drawing-room again, and stumbled upon a decorous party consisting of +Mrs. Brooks, the deacon, and the pastor's wife--but not Cherry. It +struck him on entering that the momentary awkwardness of the company +and the formal beginning of a new topic indicated that HE had been the +subject of their previous conversation. In this idea he continued, +through that vague spirit of opposition which attacks impulsive people +in such circumstances, to generally disagree with them on all subjects, +and to exaggerate what he chose to believe they thought objectionable +in him. He did not remain long; but learned in that brief interval +that Cherry had gone to visit a friend in Contra Costa, and would be +absent a fortnight; and he was conscious that the information was +conveyed to him with a peculiar significance. + +The result of which was only to intensify his interest in the absent +Cherry, and for a week to plunge him in a sea of conflicting doubts and +resolutions. At one time he thought seriously of demanding an +explanation from Mrs. Brooks, and of confiding to her--as he had +intended to do to Cherry--his fears that his character had been +misinterpreted, and his reasons for believing so. But here he was met +by the difficulty of formulating what he wished to have explained, and +some doubts as to whether his confidences were prudent. At another +time he contemplated a serious imitation of Tappington's perfections, a +renunciation of the world, and an entire change in his habits. He +would go regularly to church--HER church, and take up Tappington's +desolate Bible-class. But here the torturing doubt arose whether a +young lady who betrayed a certain secular curiosity, and who had +evidently depended upon her brother for a knowledge of the world, would +entirely like it. At times he thought of giving up the room and +abandoning for ever this doubly dangerous proximity; but here again he +was deterred by the difficulty of giving a satisfactory reason to his +employer, who had procured it as a favor. His passion--for such he +began to fear it to be--led him once to the extravagance of asking a +day's holiday from the bank, which he vaguely spent in the streets of +Oakland in the hope of accidentally meeting the exiled Cherry. + + +III. + +The fortnight slowly passed. She returned, but he did not see her. She +was always out or engaged in her room with some female friend when +Herbert was at home. This was singular, as she had never appeared to +him as a young girl who was fond of visiting or had ever affected +female friendships. In fact, there was little doubt now that, +wittingly or unwittingly, she was avoiding him. + +He was moodily sitting by the fire one evening, having returned early +from dinner. In reply to his habitual but affectedly careless inquiry, +Ellen had told him that Mrs. Brooks was confined to her room by a +slight headache, and that Miss Brooks was out. He was trying to read, +and listening to the wind that occasionally rattled the casement and +caused the solitary gas-lamp that was visible in the side street to +flicker and leap wildly. Suddenly he heard the same footfall upon his +outer step and a light tap at the door. Determined this time to solve +the mystery, he sprang to his feet and ran to the door; but to his +anger and astonishment it was locked and the key was gone. Yet he was +positive that HE had not taken it out. + +The tap was timidly repeated. In desperation he called out, "Please +don't go away yet. The key is gone; but I'll find it in a moment." +Nevertheless he was at his wits' end. + +There was a hesitating pause and then the sound of a key cautiously +thrust into the lock. It turned; the door opened, and a tall figure, +whose face and form were completely hidden in a veil and long gray +shawl, quickly glided into the room and closed the door behind it. +Then it suddenly raised its arms, the shawl was parted, the veil fell +aside, and Cherry stood before him! + +Her face was quite pale. Her eyes, usually downcast, frightened, or +coldly clear, were bright and beautiful with excitement. The dimples +were faintly there, although the smile was sad and half hysterical. +She remained standing, erect and tall, her arms dropped at her side, +holding the veil and shawl that still depended from her shoulders. + +"So--I've caught you!" she said, with a strange little laugh. "Oh yes. +'Please don't go away yet. I'll get the key in a moment,'" she +continued, mimicking his recent utterance. + +He could only stammer, "Miss Brooks--then it was YOU?" + +"Yes; and you thought it was SHE, didn't you? Well, and you're caught! +I didn't believe it; I wouldn't believe it when they said it. I +determined to find it out myself. And I have; and it's true." + +Unable to determine whether she was serious or jesting, and conscious +only of his delight at seeing her again, he advanced impulsively. But +her expression instantly changed: she became at once stiff and +school-girlishly formal, and stepped back towards the door. + +"Don't come near me, or I'll go," she said quickly, with her hand upon +the lock. + +"But not before you tell me what you mean," he said half laughingly +half earnestly. "Who is SHE? and what wouldn't you have believed? For +upon my honor, Miss Brooks, I don't know what you are talking about." + +His evident frankness and truthful manner appeared to puzzle her. "You +mean to say you were expecting no one?" she said sharply. + +"I assure you I was not." + +"And--and no woman was ever here--at that door?" + +He hesitated. "Not to-night--not for a long time; not since you +returned from Oakland." + +"Then there WAS one?" + +"I believe so." + +"You BELIEVE--you don't KNOW?" + +"I believed it was a woman from her voice; for the door was locked, and +the key was downstairs. When I fetched it and opened the door, she--or +whoever it was--was gone." + +"And that's why you said so imploringly, just now, 'Please don't go +away yet'? You see I've caught you. Ah! I don't wonder you blush!" + +If he had, his cheeks had caught fire from her brilliant eyes and the +extravagantly affected sternness--as of a school-girl monitor--in her +animated face. Certainly he had never seen such a transformation. + +"Yes; but, you see, I wanted to know who the intruder was," he said, +smiling at his own embarrassment. + +"You did--well, perhaps THAT will tell you? It was found under your +door before I went away." She suddenly produced from her pocket a +folded paper and handed it to him. It was a misspelt scrawl, and ran +as follows:-- + +"Why are you so cruel? Why do you keep me dansing on the stepps before +them gurls at the windows? Was it that stuckup Saint, Miss Brooks, +that you were afraid of, my deer? Oh, you faithless trater! Wait till +I ketch you! I'll tear your eyes out and hern!" + +It did not require great penetration for Herbert to be instantly +convinced that the writer of this vulgar epistle and the owner of the +unknown voice were two very different individuals. The note was +evidently a trick. A suspicion of its perpetrators flashed upon him. + +"Whoever the woman was, it was not she who wrote the note," he said +positively. "Somebody must have seen her at the door. I remember now +that those girls--your neighbors--were watching me from their window +when I came out. Depend upon it, that letter comes from them." + +Cherry's eyes opened widely with a sudden childlike perception, and +then shyly dropped. "Yes," she said slowly; "they DID watch you. They +know it, for it was they who made it the talk of the neighborhood, and +that's how it came to mother's ears." She stopped, and, with a +frightened look, stepped back towards the door again. + +"Then THAT was why your mother"-- + +"Oh yes," interrupted Cherry quickly. "That was why I went over to +Oakland, and why mother forbade my walking with you again, and why she +had a talk with friends about your conduct, and why she came near +telling Mr. Carstone all about it until I stopped her." She checked +herself--he could hardly believe his eyes--the pale, nun-like girl was +absolutely blushing. + +"I thank you, Miss Brooks," he said gravely, "for your thoughtfulness, +although I hope I could have still proven my innocence to Mr. Carstone, +even if some unknown woman tried my door by mistake, and was seen doing +it. But I am pained to think that YOU could have believed me capable +of so wanton and absurd an impropriety--and such a gross disrespect to +your mother's house." + +"But," said Cherry with childlike naivete, "you know YOU don't think +anything of such things, and that's what I told mother." + +"You told your mother THAT?" + +"Oh yes--I told her Tappington says it's quite common with young men. +Please don't laugh--for it's very dreadful. Tappington didn't laugh +when he told it to me as a warning. He was shocked." + +"But, my dear Miss Brooks"-- + +"There--now you're angry--and that's as bad. Are you sure you didn't +know that woman?" + +"Positive!" + +"Yet you seemed very anxious just now that she should wait till you +opened the door." + +"That was perfectly natural." + +"I don't think it was natural at all." + +"But--according to Tappington"-- + +"Because my brother is very good you need not make fun of him." + +"I assure you I have no such intention. But what more can I say? I +give you my word that I don't know who that unlucky woman was. No doubt +she may have been some nearsighted neighbor who had mistaken the house, +and I dare say was as thoroughly astonished at my voice as I was at +hers. Can I say more? Is it necessary for me to swear that since I +have been here no woman has ever entered that door--but"-- + +"But who?" + +"Yourself." + +"I know what you mean," she said hurriedly, with her old frightened +look, gliding to the outer door. "It's shameful what I've done. But I +only did it because--because I had faith in you, and didn't believe +what they said was true." She had already turned the lock. There were +tears in her pretty eyes. + +"Stop," said Herbert gently. He walked slowly towards her, and within +reach of her frightened figure stopped with the timid respect of a +mature and genuine passion. "You must not be seen going out of that +door," he said gravely. "You must let me go first, and, when I am +gone, lock the door again and go through the hall to your own room. No +one must know that I was in the house when you came in at that door. +Good-night." + +Without offering his hand he lifted his eyes to her face. The dimples +were all there--and something else. He bowed and passed out. + +Ten minutes later he ostentatiously returned to the house by the front +door, and proceeded up the stairs to his own room. As he cast a glance +around he saw that the music-stool had been moved before the fire, +evidently with the view of attracting his attention. Lying upon it, +carefully folded, was the veil that she had worn. There could be no +doubt that it was left there purposely. With a smile at this strange +girl's last characteristic act of timid but compromising recklessness, +after all his precautions, he raised it tenderly to his lips, and then +hastened to hide it from the reach of vulgar eyes. But had Cherry +known that its temporary resting-place that night was under his pillow +she might have doubted his superior caution. + +When he returned from the bank the next afternoon, Cherry rapped +ostentatiously at his door. "Mother wishes me to ask you," she began +with a certain prim formality, which nevertheless did not preclude +dimples, "if you would give us the pleasure of your company at our +Church Festival to-night? There will be a concert and a collation. +You could accompany us there if you cared. Our friends and +Tappington's would be so glad to see you, and Dr. Stout would be +delighted to make your acquaintance." + +"Certainly!" said Herbert, delighted and yet astounded. "Then," he +added in a lower voice, "your mother no longer believes me so +dreadfully culpable?" + +"Oh no," said Cherry in a hurried whisper, glancing up and down the +passage; "I've been talking to her about it, and she is satisfied that +it is all a jealous trick and slander of these neighbors. Why, I told +her that they had even said that I was that mysterious woman; that I +came that way to you because she had forbidden my seeing you openly." + +"What! You dared say that?" + +"Yes don't you see? Suppose they said they HAD seen me coming in last +night--THAT answers it," she said triumphantly. + +"Oh, it does?" he said vacantly. + +"Perfectly. So you see she's convinced that she ought to put you on +the same footing as Tappington, before everybody; and then there won't +be any trouble. You'll come, won't you? It won't be so VERY good. +And then, I've told mother that as there have been so many +street-fights, and so much talk about the Vigilance Committee lately, I +ought to have somebody for an escort when I am coming home. And if +you're known, you see, as one of US, there'll be no harm in your +meeting me." + +"Thank you," he said, extending his hand gratefully. + +Her fingers rested a moment in his. "Where did you put it?" she said +demurely. + +"It? Oh! IT'S all safe," he said quickly, but somewhat vaguely. + +"But I don't call the upper drawer of your bureau safe," she returned +poutingly, "where EVERYBODY can go. So you'll find it NOW inside the +harmonium, on the keyboard." + +"Oh, thank you." + +"It's quite natural to have left it there ACCIDENTALLY--isn't it?" she +said imploringly, assisted by all her dimples. Alas! she had forgotten +that he was still holding her hand. Consequently, she had not time to +snatch it away and vanish, with a stifled little cry, before it had +been pressed two or three times to his lips. A little ashamed of his +own boldness, Herbert remained for a few moments in the doorway +listening, and looking uneasily down the dark passage. Presently a +slight sound came over the fanlight of Cherry's room. Could he believe +his ears? The saint-like Cherry--no doubt tutored, for example's sake, +by the perfect Tappington--was softly whistling. + +In this simple fashion the first pages of this little idyl were quietly +turned. The book might have been closed or laid aside even then. But +it so chanced that Cherry was an unconscious prophet; and presently it +actually became a prudential necessity for her to have a masculine +escort when she walked out. For a growing state of lawlessness and +crime culminated one day the deep tocsin of the Vigilance Committee, +and at its stroke fifty thousand peaceful men, reverting to the first +principles of social safety, sprang to arms, assembled at their +quarters, or patrolled the streets. In another hour the city of San +Francisco was in the hands of a mob--the most peaceful, orderly, well +organized, and temperate the world had ever known, and yet in +conception as lawless, autocratic, and imperious as the conditions it +opposed. + + +IV. + +Herbert, enrolled in the same section with his employer and one or two +fellow-clerks, had participated in the meetings of the committee with +the light-heartedness and irresponsibility of youth, regretting only +the loss of his usual walk with Cherry and the hours that kept him from +her house. He was returning from a protracted meeting one night, when +the number of arrests and searching for proscribed and suspected +characters had been so large as to induce fears of organized resistance +and rescue, and on reaching the foot of the hill found it already so +late, that to avoid disturbing the family he resolved to enter his room +directly by the door in the side street. On inserting his key in the +lock it met with some resisting obstacle, which, however, yielded and +apparently dropped on the mat inside. Opening the door and stepping +into the perfectly dark apartment, he trod upon this object, which +proved to be another key. The family must have procured it for their +convenience during his absence, and after locking the door had +carelessly left it in the lock. It was lucky that it had yielded so +readily. + +The fire had gone out. He closed the door and lit the gas, and after +taking off his overcoat moved to the door leading into the passage to +listen if anybody was still stirring. To his utter astonishment he +found it locked. What was more remarkable--the key was also INSIDE! +An inexplicable feeling took possession of him. He glanced suddenly +around the room, and then his eye fell upon the bed. Lying there, +stretched at full length, was the recumbent figure of a man. + +He was apparently in the profound sleep of utter exhaustion. The +attitude of his limbs and the order of his dress--of which only his +collar and cravat had been loosened--showed that sleep must have +overtaken him almost instantly. In fact, the bed was scarcely +disturbed beyond the actual impress of his figure. He seemed to be a +handsome, matured man of about forty; his dark straight hair was a +little thinned over the temples, although his long heavy moustache was +still youthful and virgin. His clothes, which were elegantly cut and +of finer material than that in ordinary use, the delicacy and neatness +of his linen, the whiteness of his hands, and, more particularly, a +certain dissipated pallor of complexion and lines of recklessness on +the brow and cheek, indicated to Herbert that the man before him was +one of that desperate and suspected class--some of whose proscribed +members he had been hunting--the professional gambler! + +Possibly the magnetism of Herbert's intent and astonished gaze affected +him. He moved slightly, half opened his eyes, said "Halloo, Tap," +rubbed them again, wholly opened them, fixed them with a lazy stare on +Herbert, and said: + +"Now, who the devil are you?" + +"I think I have the right to ask that question, considering that this +is my room," said Herbert sharply. + +"YOUR room?" + +"Yes!" + +The stranger half raised himself on his elbow, glanced round the room, +settled himself slowly back on the pillows, with his hands clasped +lightly behind his head, dropped his eyelids, smiled, and said: + +"Rats!" + +"What?" demanded Herbert, with a resentful sense of sacrilege to +Cherry's virgin slang. + +"Well, old rats then! D'ye think I don't know this shebang? Look +here, Johnny, what are you putting on all this side for, eh? What's +your little game? Where's Tappington?" + +"If you mean Mr. Brooks, the son of this house, who formerly lived in +this room," replied Herbert, with a formal precision intended to show a +doubt of the stranger's knowledge of Tappington, "you ought to know +that he has left town." + +"Left town!" echoed the stranger, raising himself again. "Oh, I see! +getting rather too warm for him here? Humph! I ought to have thought +of that. Well, you know, he DID take mighty big risks, anyway!" He +was silent a moment, with his brows knit and a rather dangerous +expression in his handsome face. "So some d--d hound gave him +away--eh?" + +"I hadn't the pleasure of knowing Mr. Brooks except by reputation, as +the respected son of the lady upon whose house you have just intruded," +said Herbert frigidly, yet with a creeping consciousness of some +unpleasant revelation. + +The stranger stared at him for a moment, again looked carefully round +the room, and then suddenly dropped his head back on the pillow, and +with his white hands over his eyes and mouth tried to restrain a spasm +of silent laughter. After an effort he succeeded, wiped his moist +eyes, and sat up. + +"So you didn't know Tappington, eh?" he said, lazily buttoning his +collar. + +"No." + +"No more do I." + +He retied his cravat, yawned, rose, shook himself perfectly neat again, +and going to Herbert's dressing-table quietly took up a brush and began +to lightly brush himself, occasionally turning to the window to glance +out. Presently he turned to Herbert and said: + +"Well, Johnny, what's your name?" + +"I am Herbert Bly, of Carstone's Bank." + +"So, and a member of this same Vigilance Committee, I reckon," he +continued. + +"Yes." + +"Well, Mr. Bly, I owe you an apology for coming here, and some thanks +for the only sleep I've had in forty-eight hours. I struck this old +shebang at about ten o'clock, and it's now two, so I reckon I've put in +about four hours' square sleep. Now, look here." He beckoned Herbert +towards the window. "Do you see those three men standing under that +gaslight? Well, they're part of a gang of Vigilantes who've hunted me +to the hill, and are waiting to see me come out of the bushes, where +they reckon I'm hiding. Go to them and say that I'm here! Tell them +you've got Gentleman George--George Dornton, the man they've been +hunting for a week--in this room. I promise you I won't stir, nor kick +up a row, when they've come. Do it, and Carstone, if he's a square +man, will raise your salary for it, and promote you." He yawned +slightly, and then slowly looking around him, drew the easy-chair +towards him and dropped comfortably in it, gazing at the astounded and +motionless Herbert with a lazy smile. + +"You're wondering what my little game is, Johnny, ain't you? Well, +I'll tell you. What with being hunted from pillar to post, putting my +old pards to no end of trouble, and then slipping up on it whenever I +think I've got a sure thing like this,"--he cast an almost affectionate +glance at the bed,--"I've come to the conclusion that it's played out, +and I might as well hand in my checks. It's only a question of my +being RUN OUT of 'Frisco, or hiding until I can SLIP OUT myself; and +I've reckoned I might as well give them the trouble and expense of +transportation. And if I can put a good thing in your way in doing +it--why, it will sort of make things square with you for the fuss I've +given you." + +Even in the stupefaction and helplessness of knowing that the man +before him was the notorious duellist and gambler George Dornton, one +of the first marked for deportation by the Vigilance Committee, Herbert +recognized all he had heard of his invincible coolness, courage, and +almost philosophic fatalism. For an instant his youthful imagination +checked even his indignation. When he recovered himself, he said, with +rising color and boyish vehemence: + +"Whoever YOU may be, I am neither a police officer nor a spy. You have +no right to insult me by supposing that I would profit by the mistake +that made you my guest, or that I would refuse you the sanctuary of the +roof that covers your insult as well as your blunder." + +The stranger gazed at him with an amused expression, and then rose and +stretched out his hand. + +"Shake, Mr. Bly! You're the only man that ever kicked George Dornton +when he deserved it. Good-night!" He took his hat and walked to the +door. + +"Stop!" said Herbert impulsively; "the night is already far gone; go +back and finish your sleep." + +"You mean it?" + +"I do." + +The stranger turned, walked back to the bed, unfastening his coat and +collar as he did so, and laid himself down in the attitude of a moment +before. + +"I will call you in the morning," continued Herbert. "By that +time,"--he hesitated,--"by that time your pursuers may have given up +their search. One word more. You will be frank with me?" + +"Go on." + +"Tappington and you are--friends?" + +"Well--yes." + +"His mother and sister know nothing of this?" + +"I reckon he didn't boast of it. I didn't. Is that all?" sleepily. + +"Yes." + +"Don't YOU worry about HIM. Good-night." + +"Good-night." + +But even at that moment George Dornton had dropped off in a quiet, +peaceful sleep. + +Bly turned down the light, and, drawing his easy-chair to the window, +dropped into it in bewildering reflection. This then was the +secret--unknown to mother and daughter--unsuspected by all! This was +the double life of Tappington, half revealed in his flirtation with the +neighbors, in the hidden cards behind the books, in the mysterious +visitor--still unaccounted for--and now wholly exploded by this +sleeping confederate, for whom, somehow, Herbert felt the greatest +sympathy! What was to be done? What should he say to Cherry--to her +mother--to Mr. Carstone? Yet he had felt he had done right. From time +to time he turned to the motionless recumbent shadow on the bed and +listened to its slow and peaceful respiration. Apart from that +undefinable attraction which all original natures have for each other, +the thrice-blessed mystery of protection of the helpless, for the first +time in his life, seemed to dawn upon him through that night. + +Nevertheless, the actual dawn came slowly. Twice he nodded and awoke +quickly with a start. The third time it was day. The street-lamps +were extinguished, and with them the moving, restless watchers seemed +also to have vanished. Suddenly a formal deliberate rapping at the +door leading to the hall startled him to his feet. + +It must be Ellen. So much the better; he could quickly get rid of her. +He glanced at the bed; Dornton slept on undisturbed. He unlocked the +door cautiously, and instinctively fell back before the erect, shawled, +and decorous figure of Mrs. Brooks. But an utterly new resolution and +excitement had supplanted the habitual resignation of her handsome +features, and given them an angry sparkle of expression. + +Recollecting himself, he instantly stepped forward into the passage, +drawing to the door behind him, as she, with equal celerity, opposed it +with her hand. + +"Mr. Bly," she said deliberately, "Ellen has just told me that your +voice has been heard in conversation with some one in this room late +last night. Up to this moment I have foolishly allowed my daughter to +persuade me that certain infamous scandals regarding your conduct here +were false. I must ask you as a gentleman to let me pass now and +satisfy myself." + +"But, my dear madam, one moment. Let me first explain--I +beg"--stammered Herbert with a half-hysterical laugh. "I assure you a +gentleman friend"-- + +But she had pushed him aside and entered precipitately. With a quick +feminine glance round the room she turned to the bed, and then halted +in overwhelming confusion. + +"It's a friend," said Herbert in a hasty whisper. "A friend of mine +who returned with me late, and whom, on account of the disturbed state +of the streets, I induced to stay here all night. He was so tired that +I have not had the heart to disturb him yet." + +"Oh, pray don't!--I beg"--said Mrs. Brooks with a certain youthful +vivacity, but still gazing at the stranger's handsome features as she +slowly retreated. "Not for worlds!" + +Herbert was relieved; she was actually blushing. + +"You see, it was quite unpremeditated, I assure you. We came in +together," whispered Herbert, leading her to the door, "and I"-- + +"Don't believe a word of it, madam," said a lazy voice from the bed, as +the stranger leisurely raised himself upright, putting the last +finishing touch to his cravat as he shook himself neat again. "I'm an +utter stranger to him, and he knows it. He found me here, biding from +the Vigilantes, who were chasing me on the hill. I got in at that +door, which happened to be unlocked. He let me stay because he was a +gentleman--and--I wasn't. I beg your pardon, madam, for having +interrupted him before you; but it was a little rough to have him lie +on MY account when he wasn't the kind of man to lie on his OWN. You'll +forgive him--won't you, please?--and, as I'm taking myself off now, +perhaps you'll overlook MY intrusion too." + +It was impossible to convey the lazy frankness of this speech, the +charming smile with which it was accompanied, or the easy yet +deferential manner with which, taking up his hat, he bowed to Mrs. +Brooks as he advanced toward the door. + +"But," said Mrs. Brooks, hurriedly glancing from Herbert to the +stranger, "it must be the Vigilantes who are now hanging about the +street. Ellen saw them from her window, and thought they were YOUR +friends, Mr. Bly. This gentleman--your friend"--she had become a +little confused in her novel excitement--"really ought not to go out +now. It would be madness." + +"If you wouldn't mind his remaining a little longer, it certainly would +be safer," said Herbert, with wondering gratitude. + +"I certainly shouldn't consent to his leaving my house now," said Mrs. +Brooks with dignity; "and if you wouldn't mind calling Cherry here, Mr. +Bly--she's in the dining-room--and then showing yourself for a moment +in the street and finding out what they wanted, it would be the best +thing to do." + +Herbert flew downstairs; in a few hurried words he gave the same +explanation to the astounded Cherry that he had given to her mother, +with the mischievous addition that Mrs. Brooks's unjust suspicions had +precipitated her into becoming an amicable accomplice, and then ran out +into the street. Here he ascertained from one of the Vigilantes, whom +he knew, that they were really seeking Dornton; but that, concluding +that the fugitive had already escaped to the wharves, they expected to +withdraw their surveillance at noon. Somewhat relieved, he hastened +back, to find the stranger calmly seated on the sofa in the parlor with +the same air of frank indifference, lazily relating the incidents of +his flight to the two women, who were listening with every expression +of sympathy and interest. "Poor fellow!" said Cherry, taking the +astonished Bly aside into the hall, "I don't believe he's half as bad +as THEY said he is--or as even HE makes himself out to be. But DID you +notice mother?" + +Herbert, a little dazed, and, it must be confessed, a trifle uneasy at +this ready acceptance of the stranger, abstractedly said he had not. + +"Why, it's the most ridiculous thing. She's actually going round +WITHOUT HER SHAWL, and doesn't seem to know it." + + +V. + +When Herbert finally reached the bank that morning he was still in a +state of doubt and perplexity. He had parted with his grateful +visitor, whose safety in a few hours seemed assured, but without the +least further revelation or actual allusion to anything antecedent to +his selecting Tappington's room as refuge. More than that, Herbert was +convinced from his manner that he had no intention of making a +confidant of Mrs. Brooks, and this convinced him that Dornton's +previous relations with Tappington were not only utterly inconsistent +with that young man's decorous reputation, but were unsuspected by the +family. The stranger's familiar knowledge of the room, his mysterious +allusions to the "risks" Tappington had taken, and his sudden silence +on the discovery of Bly's ignorance of the whole affair all pointed to +some secret that, innocent or not, was more or less perilous, not only +to the son but to the mother and sister. Of the latter's ignorance he +had no doubt--but had he any right to enlighten them? Admitting that +Tappington had deceived them with the others, would they thank him for +opening their eyes to it? If they had already a suspicion, would they +care to know that it was shared by him? Halting between his frankness +and his delicacy, the final thought that in his budding relations with +the daughter it might seem a cruel bid for her confidence, or a revenge +for their distrust of him, inclined him to silence. But an unforeseen +occurrence took the matter from his hands. At noon he was told that +Mr. Carstone wished to see him in his private room! + +Satisfied that his complicity with Dornton's escape was discovered, the +unfortunate Herbert presented himself, pale but self-possessed, before +his employer. That brief man of business bade him be seated, and +standing himself before the fireplace, looked down curiously, but not +unkindly, upon his employee. + +"Mr. Bly, the bank does not usually interfere with the private affairs +of its employees, but for certain reasons which I prefer to explain to +you later, I must ask you to give me a straightforward answer to one or +two questions. I may say that they have nothing to do with your +relations to the bank, which are to us perfectly satisfactory." + +More than ever convinced that Mr. Carstone was about to speak of his +visitor, Herbert signified his willingness to reply. + +"You have been seen a great deal with Miss Brooks lately--on the street +and elsewhere--acting as her escort, and evidently on terms of +intimacy. To do you both justice, neither of you seemed to have made +it a secret or avoided observation; but I must ask you directly if it +is with her mother's permission?" + +Considerably relieved, but wondering what was coming, Herbert answered, +with boyish frankness, that it was. + +"Are you--engaged to the young lady?" + +"No, sir." + +"Are you--well, Mr. Bly--briefly, are you what is called 'in love' with +her?" asked the banker, with a certain brusque hurrying over of a +sentiment evidently incompatible with their present business +surroundings. + +Herbert blushed. It was the first time he had heard the question +voiced, even by himself. + +"I am," he said resolutely. + +"And you wish to marry her?" + +"If I dared ask her to accept a young man with no position as yet," +stammered Herbert. + +"People don't usually consider a young man in Carstone's Bank of no +position," said the banker dryly; "and I wish for your sake THAT were +the only impediment. For I am compelled to reveal to you a secret." +He paused, and folding his arms, looked fixedly down upon his clerk. +"Mr. Bly, Tappington Brooks, the brother of your sweetheart, was a +defaulter and embezzler from this bank!" + +Herbert sat dumfounded and motionless. + +"Understand two things," continued Mr. Carstone quickly. "First, that +no purer or better women exist than Miss Brooks and her mother. +Secondly, that they know nothing of this, and that only myself and one +other man are in possession of the secret." + +He slightly changed his position, and went on more deliberately. "Six +weeks ago Tappington sat in that chair where you are sitting now, a +convicted hypocrite and thief. Luckily for him, although his guilt was +plain, and the whole secret of his double life revealed to me, a sum of +money advanced in pity by one of his gambling confederates had made his +accounts good and saved him from suspicion in the eyes of his +fellow-clerks and my partners. At first he tried to fight me on that +point; then he blustered and said his mother could have refunded the +money; and asked me what was a paltry five thousand dollars! I told +him, Mr. Bly, that it might be five years of his youth in state prison; +that it might be five years of sorrow and shame for his mother and +sister; that it might be an everlasting stain on the name of his dead +father--my friend. He talked of killing himself: I told him he was a +cowardly fool. He asked me to give him up to the authorities: I told +him I intended to take the law in my own hands and give him another +chance; and then he broke down. I transferred him that very day, +without giving him time to communicate with anybody, to our branch +office at Portland, with a letter explaining his position to our agent, +and the injunction that for six months he should be under strict +surveillance. I myself undertook to explain his sudden departure to +Mrs. Brooks, and obliged him to write to her from time to time." He +paused, and then continued: "So far I believe my plan has been +successful: the secret has been kept; he has broken with the evil +associates that ruined him here--to the best of my knowledge he has had +no communication with them since; even a certain woman here who shared +his vicious hidden life has abandoned him." + +"Are you sure?" asked Herbert involuntarily, as he recalled his +mysterious visitor. + +"I believe the Vigilance Committee has considered it a public duty to +deport her and her confederates beyond the State," returned Carstone +dryly. + +Another idea flashed upon Herbert. "And the gambler who advanced the +money to save Tappington?" he said breathlessly. + +"Wasn't such a hound as the rest of his kind, if report says true," +answered Carstone. "He was well known here as George +Dornton--Gentleman George--a man capable of better things. But he was +before your time, Mr. Bly--YOU don't know him." + +Herbert didn't deem it a felicitous moment to correct his employer, and +Mr. Carstone continued: "I have now told you what I thought it was my +duty to tell you. I must leave YOU to judge how far it affects your +relations with Miss Brooks." + +Herbert did not hesitate. "I should be very sorry, sir, to seem to +undervalue your consideration or disregard your warning; but I am +afraid that even if you had been less merciful to Tappington, and he +were now a convicted felon, I should change neither my feelings nor my +intentions to his sister." + +"And you would still marry her?" said Carstone sternly; "YOU, an +employee of the bank, would set the example of allying yourself with +one who had robbed it?" + +"I--am afraid I would, sir," said Herbert slowly. + +"Even if it were a question of your remaining here?" said Carstone +grimly. + +Poor Herbert already saw himself dismissed and again taking up his +weary quest for employment; but, nevertheless, he answered stoutly: + +"Yes, sir." + +"And nothing will prevent you marrying Miss Brooks?" + +"Nothing--save my inability to support her." + +"Then," said Mr. Carstone, with a peculiar light in his eyes, "it only +remains for the bank to mark its opinion of your conduct by INCREASING +YOUR SALARY TO ENABLE YOU TO DO SO! Shake hands, Mr. Bly," he said, +laughing. "I think you'll do to tie to--and I believe the young lady +will be of the same opinion. But not a word to either her or her +mother in regard to what you have heard. And now I may tell you +something more. I am not without hope of Tappington's future, +nor--d--n it!--without some excuse for his fault, sir. He was +artificially brought up. When my old friend died, Mrs. Brooks, still a +handsome woman, like all her sex wouldn't rest until she had another +devotion, and wrapped herself and her children up in the Church. +Theology may be all right for grown people, but it's apt to make +children artificial; and Tappington was pious before he was fairly +good. He drew on a religious credit before he had a moral capital +behind it. He was brought up with no knowledge of the world, and when +he went into it--it captured him. I don't say there are not saints +born into the world occasionally; but for every one you'll find a lot +of promiscuous human nature. My old friend Josh Brooks had a heap of +it, and it wouldn't be strange if some was left in his children, and +burst through their straight-lacing in a queer way. That's all! +Good-morning, Mr. Bly. Forget what I've told you for six months, and +then I shouldn't wonder if Tappington was on hand to give his sister +away." + + . . . . . . . + +Mr. Carstone's prophecy was but half realized. At the end of six +months Herbert Bly's discretion and devotion were duly rewarded by +Cherry's hand. But Tappington did NOT give her away. That saintly +prodigal passed his period of probation with exemplary rectitude, but, +either from a dread of old temptation, or some unexplained reason, he +preferred to remain in Portland, and his fastidious nest on Telegraph +Hill knew him no more. The key of the little door on the side street +passed, naturally, into the keeping of Mrs. Bly. + +Whether the secret of Tappington's double life was ever revealed to the +two women is not known to the chronicler. Mrs. Bly is reported to have +said that the climate of Oregon was more suited to her brother's +delicate constitution than the damp fogs of San Francisco, and that his +tastes were always opposed to the mere frivolity of metropolitan +society. The only possible reason for supposing that the mother may +have become cognizant of her son's youthful errors was in the +occasional visits to the house of the handsome George Dornton, who, in +the social revolution that followed the brief reign of the Vigilance +Committee, characteristically returned as a dashing stockbroker, and +the fact that Mrs. Brooks seemed to have discarded her ascetic shawl +forever. But as all this was contemporaneous with the absurd rumor, +that owing to the loneliness induced by the marriage of her daughter +she contemplated a similar change in her own condition, it is deemed +unworthy the serious consideration of this veracious chronicle. + + + + +CAPTAIN JIM'S FRIEND. + +I. + +Hardly one of us, I think, really believed in the auriferous +probabilities of Eureka Gulch. Following a little stream, we had one +day drifted into it, very much as we imagined the river gold might have +done in remoter ages, with the difference that WE remained there, while +the river gold to all appearances had not. At first it was tacitly +agreed to ignore this fact, and we made the most of the charming +locality, with its rare watercourse that lost itself in tangled depths +of manzanita and alder, its laurel-choked pass, its flower-strewn +hillside, and its summit crested with rocking pines. + +"You see," said the optimistic Rowley, "water's the main thing after +all. If we happen to strike river gold, thar's the stream for washing +it; if we happen to drop into quartz--and that thar rock looks mighty +likely--thar ain't a more natural-born site for a mill than that right +bank, with water enough to run fifty stamps. That hillside is an +original dump for your tailings, and a ready found inclined road for +your trucks, fresh from the hands of Providence; and that road we're +kalkilatin' to build to the turnpike will run just easy along that +ridge." + +Later, when we were forced to accept the fact that finding gold was +really the primary object of a gold-mining company, we still remained +there, excusing our youthful laziness and incertitude by brilliant and +effective sarcasms upon the unremunerative attractions of the gulch. +Nevertheless, when Captain Jim, returning one day from the nearest +settlement and post-office, twenty miles away, burst upon us with +"Well, the hull thing'll be settled now, boys; Lacy Bassett is coming +down yer to look round," we felt considerably relieved. + +And yet, perhaps, we had as little reason for it as we had for +remaining there. There was no warrant for any belief in the special +divining power of the unknown Lacy Bassett, except Captain Jim's +extravagant faith in his general superiority, and even that had always +been a source of amused skepticism to the camp. We were already +impatiently familiar with the opinions of this unseen oracle; he was +always impending in Captain Jim's speech as a fragrant memory or an +unquestioned authority. When Captain Jim began, "Ez Lacy was one day +tellin' me," or, "Ez Lacy Bassett allows," or more formally, when +strangers were present, "Ez a partickler friend o' mine, Lacy +Bassett--maybe ez you know him--sez," the youthful and lighter members +of the Eureka Mining Company glanced at each other in furtive +enjoyment. Nevertheless no one looked more eagerly forward to the +arrival of this apocryphal sage than these indolent skeptics. It was +at least an excitement; they were equally ready to accept his +condemnation of the locality or his justification of their original +selection. + +He came. He was received by the Eureka Mining Company lying on their +backs on the grassy site of the prospective quartz mill, not far from +the equally hypothetical "slide" to the gulch. He came by the future +stage road--at present a thickset jungle of scrub-oaks and ferns. He +was accompanied by Captain Jim, who had gone to meet him on the trail, +and for a few moments all critical inspection of himself was withheld +by the extraordinary effect he seemed to have upon the faculties of his +introducer. + +Anything like the absolute prepossession of Captain Jim by this +stranger we had never imagined. He approached us running a little +ahead of his guest, and now and then returning assuringly to his side +with the expression of a devoted Newfoundland dog, which in fluffiness +he generally resembled. And now, even after the introduction was over, +when he made a point of standing aside in an affectation of +carelessness, with his hands in his pockets, the simulation was so +apparent, and his consciousness and absorption in his friend so +obvious, that it was a relief to us to recall him into the conversation. + +As to our own first impressions of the stranger, they were probably +correct. We all disliked him; we thought him conceited, +self-opinionated, selfish, and untrustworthy. But later, reflecting +that this was possibly the result of Captain Jim's over-praise, and +finding none of these qualities as yet offensively opposed to our own +selfishness and conceit, we were induced, like many others, to forget +our first impressions. We could easily correct him if he attempted to +impose upon US, as he evidently had upon Captain Jim. Believing, after +the fashion of most humanity, that there was something about US +particularly awe-inspiring and edifying to vice or weakness of any +kind, we good-humoredly yielded to the cheap fascination of this showy, +self-saturated, over-dressed, and underbred stranger. Even the epithet +of "blower" as applied to him by Rowley had its mitigations; in that +Trajan community a bully was not necessarily a coward, nor florid +demonstration always a weakness. + +His condemnation of the gulch was sweeping, original, and striking. He +laughed to scorn our half-hearted theory of a gold deposit in the bed +and bars of our favorite stream. We were not to look for auriferous +alluvium in the bed of any present existing stream, but in the "cement" +or dried-up bed of the original prehistoric rivers that formerly ran +parallel with the present bed, and which--he demonstrated with the stem +of Pickney's pipe in the red dust--could be found by sinking shafts at +right angles with the stream. The theory was to us, at that time, +novel and attractive. It was true that the scientific explanation, +although full and gratuitous, sounded vague and incoherent. It was +true that the geological terms were not always correct, and their +pronunciation defective, but we accepted such extraordinary discoveries +as "ignus fatuus rock," "splendiferous drift," "mica twist" (recalling +a popular species of tobacco), "iron pirates," and "discomposed quartz" +as part of what he not inaptly called a "tautological formation," and +were happy. Nor was our contentment marred by the fact that the +well-known scientific authority with whom the stranger had been +intimate,--to the point of "sleeping together" during a survey,--and +whom he described as a bent old man with spectacles, must have aged +considerably since one of our party saw him three years before as a +keen young fellow of twenty-five. Inaccuracies like those were only +the carelessness of genius. "That's my opinion, gentlemen," he +concluded, negligently rising, and with pointed preoccupation whipping +the dust of Eureka Gulch from his clothes with his handkerchief, "but +of course it ain't nothin' to me." + +Captain Jim, who had followed every word with deep and trustful +absorption, here repeated, "It ain't nothing to him, boys," with a +confidential implication of the gratuitous blessing we had received, +and then added, with loyal encouragement to him, "It ain't nothing to +you, Lacy, in course," and laid his hand on his shoulder with infinite +tenderness. + +We, however, endeavored to make it something to Mr. Lacy Bassett. He +was spontaneously offered a share in the company and a part of Captain +Jim's tent. He accepted both after a few deprecating and muttered +asides to Captain Jim, which the latter afterwards explained to us was +the giving up of several other important enterprises for our sake. +When he finally strolled away with Rowley to look over the gulch, +Captain Jim reluctantly tore himself away from him only for the +pleasure of reiterating his praise to us as if in strictest confidence +and as an entirely novel proceeding. + +"You see, boys, I didn't like to say it afore HIM, we bein' old +friends; but, between us, that young feller ez worth thousands to the +camp. Mebbee," he continued with grave naivete, "I ain't said much +about him afore, mebbee, bein' old friends and accustomed to him--you +know how it is, boys,--I haven't appreciated him as much ez I ought, +and ez you do. In fact, I don't ezakly remember how I kem to ask him +down yer. It came to me suddent, one day only a week ago Friday night, +thar under that buckeye; I was thinkin' o' one of his sayins, and sez +I--thar's Lacy, if he was here he'd set the hull thing right. It was +the ghost of a chance my findin' him free, but I did. And there HE is, +and yer WE are settled! Ye noticed how he just knocked the bottom +outer our plans to work. Ye noticed that quick sort o' sneerin' smile +o' his, didn't ye--that's Lacy! I've seen him knock over a heap o' +things without sayin' anythin'--with jist that smile." + +It occurred to us that we might have some difficulty in utilizing this +smile in our present affairs, and that we should have probably +preferred something more assuring, but Captain Jim's faith was +contagious. + +"What is he, anyway?" asked Joe Walker lazily. + +"Eh!" echoed Captain Jim in astonishment. "What is Lacy Bassett?" + +"Yes, what is he?" repeated Walker. + +"Wot IS--he?" + +"Yes." + +"I've knowed him now goin' as four year," said Captain Jim with slow +reflective contentment. "Let's see. It was in the fall o' '54 I first +met him, and he's allus been the same ez you see him now." + +"But what is his business or profession? What does he do?" + +Captain Jim looked reproachfully at his questioner. + +"Do?" he repeated, turning to the rest of us as if disdaining a direct +reply. "Do?--why, wot he's doin' now. He's allus the same, allus Lacy +Bassett." + +Howbeit, we went to work the next day under the superintendence of the +stranger with youthful and enthusiastic energy, and began the sinking +of a shaft at once. To do Captain Jim's friend justice, for the first +few weeks he did not shirk a fair share of the actual labor, replacing +his objectionable and unsuitable finery with a suit of serviceable +working clothes got together by general contribution of the camp, and +assuring us of a fact we afterwards had cause to remember, that "he +brought nothing but himself into Eureka Gulch." It may be added that +he certainly had not brought money there, as Captain Jim advanced the +small amounts necessary for his purchases in the distant settlement, +and for the still smaller sums he lost at cards, which he played with +characteristic self-sufficiency. + +Meantime the work in the shaft progressed slowly but regularly. Even +when the novelty had worn off and the excitement of anticipation grew +fainter, I am afraid that we clung to this new form of occupation as an +apology for remaining there; for the fascinations of our vagabond and +unconventional life were more potent than we dreamed of. We were +slowly fettered by our very freedom; there was a strange spell in this +very boundlessness of our license that kept us from even the desire of +change; in the wild and lawless arms of nature herself we found an +embrace as clinging, as hopeless and restraining, as the civilization +from which we had fled. We were quite content after a few hours' work +in the shaft to lie on our backs on the hillside staring at the +unwinking sky, or to wander with a gun through the virgin forest in +search of game scarcely less vagabond than ourselves. We indulged in +the most extravagant and dreamy speculations of the fortune we should +eventually discover in the shaft, and believed that we were practical. +We broke our "saleratus bread" with appetites unimpaired by +restlessness or anxiety; we went to sleep under the grave and sedate +stars with a serene consciousness of having fairly earned our rest; we +awoke the next morning with unabated trustfulness, and a sweet +obliviousness of even the hypothetical fortunes we had perhaps won or +lost at cards overnight. We paid no heed to the fact that our little +capital was slowly sinking with the shaft, and that the rainy +season--wherein not only "no man could work," but even such play as +ours was impossible--was momentarily impending. + +In the midst of this, one day Lacy Bassett suddenly emerged from the +shaft before his "shift" of labor was over with every sign of disgust +and rage in his face and inarticulate with apparent passion. In vain +we gathered round him in concern; in vain Captain Jim regarded him with +almost feminine sympathy, as he flung away his pick and dashed his hat +to the ground. + +"What's up, Lacy, old pard? What's gone o' you?" said Captain Jim +tenderly. + +"Look!" gasped Lacy at last, when every eye was on him, holding up a +small fragment of rock before us and the next moment grinding it under +his heel in rage. "Look! To think that I've been fooled agin by this +blanked fossiliferous trap--blank it! To think that after me and +Professor Parker was once caught jist in this way up on the Stanislaus +at the bottom of a hundred-foot shaft by this rotten trap--that yer I +am--bluffed agin!" + +There was a dead silence; we looked at each other blankly. + +"But, Bassett," said Walker, picking up a part of the fragment, "we've +been finding this kind of stuff for the last two weeks." + +"But how?" returned Lacy, turning upon him almost fiercely. "Did ye +find it superposed on quartz, or did you find it NOT superposed on +quartz? Did you find it in volcanic drift, or did ye find it in old +red-sandstone or coarse illuvion? Tell me that, and then ye kin talk. +But this yer blank fossiliferous trap, instead o' being superposed on +top, is superposed on the bottom. And that means"-- + +"What?" we all asked eagerly. + +"Why--blank it all--that this yer convulsion of nature, this +prehistoric volcanic earthquake, instead of acting laterally and +chuckin' the stream to one side, has been revolutionary and turned the +old river-bed bottom-side up, and yer d--d cement hez got half the +globe atop of it! Ye might strike it from China, but nowhere else." + +We continued to look at one another, the older members with darkening +faces, the younger with a strong inclination to laugh. Captain Jim, who +had been concerned only in his friend's emotion, and who was hanging +with undisguised satisfaction on these final convincing proofs of his +superior geological knowledge, murmured approvingly and confidingly, +"He's right, boys! Thar ain't another man livin' ez could give you the +law and gospil like that! Ye can tie to what he says. That's Lacy all +over." + +Two weeks passed. We had gathered, damp and disconsolate, in the only +available shelter of the camp. For the long summer had ended +unexpectedly to us; we had one day found ourselves caught like the +improvident insect of the child's fable with gauzy and unseasonable +wings wet and bedraggled in the first rains, homeless and hopeless. The +scientific Lacy, who lately spent most of his time as a bar-room oracle +in the settlement, was away, and from our dripping canvas we could see +Captain Jim returning from a visit to him, slowly plodding along the +trail towards us. + +"It's no use, boys," said Rowley, summarizing the result of our +conference, "we must speak out to him, and if nobody else cares to do +it I will. I don't know why we should be more mealy-mouthed than they +are at the settlement. They don't hesitate to call Bassett a +dead-beat, whatever Captain Jim says to the contrary." + +The unfortunate Captain Jim had halted irresolutely before the gloomy +faces in the shelter. Whether he felt instinctively some forewarning +of what was coming I cannot say. There was a certain dog-like +consciousness in his eye and a half-backward glance over his shoulder +as if he were not quite certain that Lacy was not following. The rain +had somewhat subdued his characteristic fluffiness, and he cowered with +a kind of sleek storm-beaten despondency over the smoking fire of green +wood before our tent. + +Nevertheless, Rowley opened upon him with a directness and decision +that astonished us. He pointed out briefly that Lacy Bassett had been +known to us only through Captain Jim's introduction. That he had been +originally invited there on Captain Jim's own account, and that his +later connection with the company had been wholly the result of Captain +Jim's statements. That, far from being any aid or assistance to them, +Bassett had beguiled them by apocryphal knowledge and sham scientific +theories into an expensive and gigantic piece of folly. That, in +addition to this, they had just discovered that he had also been using +the credit of the company for his own individual expenses at the +settlement while they were working on his d--d fool shaft--all of which +had brought them to the verge of bankruptcy. That, as a result, they +were forced now to demand his resignation--not only on their general +account, but for Captain Jim's sake--believing firmly, as they did, +that he had been as grossly deceived in his friendship for Lacy Bassett +as THEY were in their business relations with him. + +Instead of being mollified by this, Captain Jim, to our greater +astonishment, suddenly turned upon the speaker, bristling with his old +canine suggestion. + +"There! I said so! Go on! I'd have sworn to it afore you opened your +lips. I knowed it the day you sneaked around and wanted to know wot +his business was! I said to myself, Cap, look out for that sneakin' +hound Rowley, he's no friend o' Lacy's. And the day Lacy so far +demeaned himself as to give ye that splendid explanation o' things, I +watched ye; ye didn't think it, but I watched ye. Ye can't fool me! I +saw ye lookin' at Walker there, and I said to myself, Wot's the use, +Lacy, wot's the use o' your slingin' them words to such as THEM? Wot +do THEY know? It's just their pure jealousy and ignorance. Ef you'd +come down yer, and lazed around with us and fallen into our common +ways, you'd ha' been ez good a man ez the next. But no, it ain't your +style, Lacy, you're accustomed to high-toned men like Professor Parker, +and you can't help showing it. No wonder you took to avoidin' us; no +wonder I've had to foller you over the Burnt Wood Crossin' time and +again, to get to see ye. I see it all now: ye can't stand the kempany +I brought ye to! Ye had to wipe the slum gullion of Eureka Gulch off +your hands, Lacy"-- He stopped, gasped for breath, and then lifted his +voice more savagely, "And now, what's this? Wot's this hogwash? this +yer lyin' slander about his gettin' things on the kempany's credit? +Eh, speak up, some of ye!" + +We were so utterly shocked and stupefied at the degradation of this +sudden and unexpected outburst from a man usually so honorable, gentle, +self-sacrificing, and forgiving, that we forgot the cause of it and +could only stare at each other. What was this cheap stranger, with his +shallow swindling tricks, to the ignoble change he had worked upon the +man before us. Rowley and Walker, both fearless fighters and quick to +resent an insult, only averted their saddened faces and turned aside +without a word. + +"Ye dussen't say it! Well, hark to me then," he continued with white +and feverish lips. "I put him up to helpin' himself. I told him to +use the kempany's name for credit. Ye kin put that down to ME. And +when ye talk of HIS resigning, I want ye to understand that I resign +outer this rotten kempany and TAKE HIM WITH ME! Ef all the gold yer +lookin' for was piled up in that shaft from its bottom in hell to its +top in the gulch, it ain't enough to keep me here away from him! Ye +kin take all my share--all MY rights yer above ground and below it--all +I carry,"--he threw his buckskin purse and revolver on the +ground,--"and pay yourselves what you reckon you've lost through HIM. +But you and me is quits from to-day." + +He strode away before a restraining voice or hand could reach him. His +dripping figure seemed to melt into the rain beneath the thickening +shadows of the pines, and the next moment he was gone. From that day +forward Eureka Gulch knew him no more. And the camp itself somehow +melted away during the rainy season, even as he had done. + + +II. + +Three years had passed. The pioneer stage-coach was sweeping down the +long descent to the pastoral valley of Gilead, and I was looking +towards the village with some pardonable interest and anxiety. For I +carried in my pocket my letters of promotion from the box seat of the +coach--where I had performed the functions of treasure messenger for +the Excelsior Express Company--to the resident agency of that company +in the bucolic hamlet before me. The few dusty right-angled streets, +with their rigid and staringly new shops and dwellings, the stern +formality of one or two obelisk-like meeting-house spires, the +illimitable outlying plains of wheat and wild oats beyond, with their +monotony scarcely broken by skeleton stockades, corrals, and +barrack-looking farm buildings, were all certainly unlike the unkempt +freedom of the mountain fastnesses in which I had lately lived and +moved. Yuba Bill, the driver, whose usual expression of humorous +discontent deepened into scorn as he gathered up his reins as if to +charge the village and recklessly sweep it from his path, indicated a +huge, rambling, obtrusively glazed, and capital-lettered building with +a contemptuous flick of his whip as we passed. "Ef you're kalkilatin' +we'll get our partin' drink there you're mistaken. That's wot they call +a TEMPERANCE HOUSE--wot means a place where the licker ye get underhand +is only a trifle worse than the hash ye get above-board. I suppose +it's part o' one o' the mysteries o' Providence that wharever you find +a dusty hole like this--that's naturally THIRSTY--ye run agin a +'temperance' house. But never YOU mind! I shouldn't wonder if thar +was a demijohn o' whiskey in the closet of your back office, kept thar +by the feller you're relievin'--who was a white man and knew the ropes." + +A few minutes later, when my brief installation was over, we DID find +the demijohn in the place indicated. As Yuba Bill wiped his mouth with +the back of his heavy buckskin glove, he turned to me not unkindly. "I +don't like to set ye agin Gile-ad, which is a scrip-too-rural place, +and a God-fearin' place, and a nice dry place, and a place ez I've +heard tell whar they grow beans and pertatoes and garden sass; but +afore three weeks is over, old pard, you'll be howlin' to get back on +that box seat with me, whar you uster sit, and be ready to take your +chances agin, like a little man, to get drilled through with buckshot +from road agents. You hear me! I'll give you three weeks, sonny, just +three weeks, to get your butes full o' hayseed and straws in yer har; +and I'll find ye wadin' the North Fork at high water to get out o' +this." He shook my hand with grim tenderness, removing his glove--a +rare favor--to give me the pressure of his large, soft, protecting +palm, and strode away. The next moment he was shaking the white dust +of Gilead from his scornful chariot-wheels. + +In the hope of familiarizing myself with the local interests of the +community, I took up a copy of the "Gilead Guardian" which lay on my +desk, forgetting for the moment the usual custom of the country press +to displace local news for long editorials on foreign subjects and +national politics. I found, to my disappointment, that the "Guardian" +exhibited more than the usual dearth of domestic intelligence, although +it was singularly oracular on "The State of Europe," and "Jeffersonian +Democracy." A certain cheap assurance, a copy-book dogmatism, a +colloquial familiarity, even in the impersonal plural, and a series of +inaccuracies and blunders here and there, struck some old chord in my +memory. I was mutely wondering where and when I had become personally +familiar with rhetoric like that, when the door of the office opened +and a man entered. I was surprised to recognize Captain Jim. + +I had not seen him since he had indignantly left us, three years +before, in Eureka Gulch. The circumstances of his defection were +certainly not conducive to any voluntary renewal of friendship on +either side; and although, even as a former member of the Eureka Mining +Company, I was not conscious of retaining any sense of injury, yet the +whole occurrence flashed back upon me with awkward distinctness. To my +relief, however, he greeted me with his old cordiality; to my amusement +he added to it a suggestion of the large forgiveness of conscious +rectitude and amiable toleration. I thought, however, I detected, as +he glanced at the paper which was still in my hand and then back again +at my face, the same uneasy canine resemblance I remembered of old. He +had changed but little in appearance; perhaps he was a trifle stouter, +more mature, and slower in his movements. If I may return to my canine +illustration, his grayer, dustier, and more wiry ensemble gave me the +impression that certain pastoral and agricultural conditions had varied +his type, and he looked more like a shepherd's dog in whose brown eyes +there was an abiding consciousness of the care of straying sheep, and +possibly of one black one in particular. + +He had, he told me, abandoned mining and taken up farming on a rather +large scale. He had prospered. He had other interests at stake, "A +flour-mill with some improvements--and--and"--here his eyes wandered to +the "Guardian" again, and he asked me somewhat abruptly what I thought +of the paper. Something impelled me to restrain my previous fuller +criticism, and I contented myself by saying briefly that I thought it +rather ambitious for the locality. "That's the word," he said with a +look of gratified relief, "'ambitious'--you've just hit it. And what's +the matter with thet? Ye kan't expect a high-toned man to write down to +the level of every karpin' hound, ken ye now? That's what he says to +me"-- He stopped half confused, and then added abruptly: "That's one +o' my investments." + +"Why, Captain Jim, I never suspected that you"-- + +"Oh, I don't WRITE it," he interrupted hastily. "I only furnish the +money and the advertising, and run it gin'rally, you know; and I'm +responsible for it. And I select the eddyter--and"--he continued, with +a return of the same uneasy wistful look--"thar's suthin' in thet, you +know, eh?" + +I was beginning to be perplexed. The memory evoked by the style of the +editorial writing and the presence of Captain Jim was assuming a +suspicious relationship to each other. "And who's your editor?" I +asked. + +"Oh, he's--he's--er--Lacy Bassett," he replied, blinking his eyes with +a hopeless assumption of carelessness. "Let's see! Oh yes! You knowed +Lacy down there at Eureka. I disremembered it till now. Yes, sir!" he +repeated suddenly and almost rudely, as if to preclude any adverse +criticism, "he's the eddyter!" + +To my surprise he was quite white and tremulous with nervousness. I was +very sorry for him, and as I really cared very little for the +half-forgotten escapade of his friend except so far as it seemed to +render HIM sensitive, I shook his hand again heartily and began to talk +of our old life in the gulch--avoiding as far as possible any allusion +to Lacy Bassett. His face brightened; his old simple cordiality and +trustfulness returned, but unfortunately with it his old disposition to +refer to Bassett. "Yes, they waz high old times, and ez I waz sayin' +to Lacy on'y yesterday, there is a kind o' freedom 'bout that sort o' +life that runs civilization and noospapers mighty hard, however +high-toned they is. Not but what Lacy ain't right," he added quickly, +"when he sez that the opposition the 'Guardian' gets here comes from +ignorant low-down fellers ez wos brought up in played-out camps, and +can't tell a gentleman and a scholar and a scientific man when they +sees him. No! So I sez to Lacy, 'Never you mind, it's high time they +did, and they've got to do it and to swaller the "Guardian," if I sink +double the money I've already put into the paper.'" + +I was not long in discovering from other sources that the "Guardian" +was not popular with the more intelligent readers of Gilead, and that +Captain Jim's extravagant estimate of his friend was by no means +indorsed by the community. But criticism took a humorous turn even in +that practical settlement, and it appeared that Lacy Bassett's vanity, +assumption, and ignorance were an unfailing and weekly joy to the +critical, in spite of the vague distrust they induced in the more +homely-witted, and the dull acquiescence of that minority who accepted +the paper for its respectable exterior and advertisements. I was +somewhat grieved, however, to find that Captain Jim shared equally with +his friend in this general verdict of incompetency, and that some of +the most outrageous blunders were put down to HIM. But I was not +prepared to believe that Lacy had directly or by innuendo helped the +public to this opinion. + +Whether through accident or design on his part, Lacy Bassett did not +personally obtrude himself upon my remembrance until a month later. +One dazzling afternoon, when the dust and heat had driven the pride of +Gilead's manhood into the surreptitious shadows of the temperance +hotel's back room, and had even cleared the express office of its +loungers, and left me alone with darkened windows in the private +office, the outer door opened and Captain Jim's friend entered as part +of that garish glitter I had shut out. To do the scamp strict justice, +however, he was somewhat subdued in his dress and manner, and, possibly +through some gentle chastening of epigram and revolver since I had seen +him last, was less aggressive and exaggerated. I had the impression, +from certain odors wafted through the apartment and a peculiar physical +exaltation that was inconsistent with his evident moral hesitancy, that +he had prepared himself for the interview by a previous visit to the +hidden fountains of the temperance hotel. + +"We don't seem to have run agin each other since you've been here," he +said with an assurance that was nevertheless a trifle forced "but I +reckon we're both busy men, and there's a heap too much loafing goin' +on in Gilead. Captain Jim told me he met you the day you arrived; said +you just cottoned to the 'Guardian' at once and thought it a deal too +good for Gilead; eh? Oh, well, jest ez likely he DIDN'T say it--it was +only his gassin'. He's a queer man--is Captain Jim." + +I replied somewhat sharply that I considered him a very honest man, a +very simple man, and a very loyal man. + +"That's all very well," said Bassett, twirling his cane with a +patronizing smile, "but, as his friend, don't you find him considerable +of a darned fool?" + +I could not help retorting that I thought HE had found that hardly an +objection. + +"YOU think so," he said querulously, apparently ignoring everything but +the practical fact,--"and maybe others do; but that's where you're +mistaken. It don't pay. It may pay HIM to be runnin' me as his +particular friend, to be quotin' me here and there, to be gettin' +credit of knowin' me and my friends and ownin' me--by Gosh! but I don't +see where the benefit to ME comes in. Eh? Take your own case down +there at Eureka Gulch; didn't he send for me just to show me up to you +fellers? Did I want to have anything to do with the Eureka Company? +Didn't he set me up to give my opinion about that shaft just to show +off what I knew about science and all that? And what did he get me to +join the company for? Was it for you? No! Was it for me? No! It was +just to keep me there for HIMSELF, and kinder pit me agin you fellers +and crow over you! Now that ain't my style! It may be HIS--it may be +honest and simple and loyal, as you say, and it may be all right for +him to get me to run up accounts at the settlement and then throw off +on me--but it ain't my style. I suppose he let on that I did that. +No? He didn't? Well then, why did he want to run me off with him, and +out the whole concern in an underhand way and make me leave with nary a +character behind me, eh? Now, I never said anything about this +before--did I? It ain't like me. I wouldn't have said anything about +it now, only you talked about MY being benefited by his darned +foolishness. Much I've made outer HIM." + +Despicable, false, and disloyal as this was, perhaps it was the +crowning meanness of such confidences that his very weakness seemed +only a reflection of Captain Jim's own, and appeared in some strange +way to degrade his friend as much as himself. The simplicity of his +vanity and selfishness was only equalled by the simplicity of Captain +Jim's admiration of it. It was a part of my youthful inexperience of +humanity that I was not above the common fallacy of believing that a +man is "known by the company he keeps," and that he is in a manner +responsible for its weakness; it was a part of that humanity that I +felt no surprise in being more amused than shocked by this revelation. +It seemed a good joke on Captain Jim! + +"Of course YOU kin laugh at his darned foolishness; but, by Gosh, it +ain't a laughing matter to me!" + +"But surely he's given you a good position on the 'Guardian,'" I urged. +"That was disinterested, certainly." + +"Was it? I call that the cheekiest thing yet. When he found he +couldn't make enough of me in private life, he totes me out in public +as HIS editor--the man who runs HIS paper! And has his name in print +as the proprietor, the only chance he'd ever get of being before the +public. And don't know the whole town is laughing at him!" + +"That may be because they think HE writes some of the articles," I +suggested. + +Again the insinuation glanced harmlessly from his vanity. "That +couldn't be, because I do all the work, and it ain't his style," he +said with naive discontent. "And it's always the highest style, done +to please him, though between you and me it's sorter castin' pearls +before swine--this 'Frisco editing--and the public would be just as +satisfied with anything I could rattle off that was peart and +sassy,--something spicy or personal. I'm willing to climb down and do +it, for there's nothin' stuck-up about me, you know; but that darned +fool Captain Jim has got the big head about the style of the paper, and +darned if I don't think he's afraid if there's a lettin' down, people +may think it's him! Ez if! Why, you know as well as me that there's a +sort of snap I could give these things that would show it was me and no +slouch did them, in a minute." + +I had my doubts about the elegance or playfulness of Mr. Bassett's +trifling, but from some paragraphs that appeared in the next issue of +the "Guardian" I judged that he had won over Captain Jim--if indeed +that gentleman's alleged objections were not entirely the outcome of +Bassett's fancy. The social paragraphs themselves were clumsy and +vulgar. A dull-witted account of a select party at Parson Baxter's, +with a point-blank compliment to Polly Baxter his daughter, might have +made her pretty cheek burn but for her evident prepossession for the +meretricious scamp, its writer. But even this horse-play seemed more +natural than the utterly artificial editorials with their pinchbeck +glitter and cheap erudition; and thus far it appeared harmless. + +I grieve to say that these appearances were deceptive. One afternoon, +as I was returning from a business visit to the outskirts of the +village, I was amazed on reentering the main street to find a crowd +collected around the "Guardian" office, gazing at the broken glass of +its windows and a quantity of type scattered on the ground. But my +attention was at that moment more urgently attracted by a similar group +around my own office, who, however, seemed more cautious, and were +holding timorously aloof from the entrance. As I ran rapidly towards +them, a few called out, "Look out--he's in there!" while others made +way to let me pass. With the impression of fire or robbery in my mind, +I entered precipitately, only to find Yuba Bill calmly leaning back in +an arm-chair with his feet on the back of another, a glass of whiskey +from my demijohn in one hand and a huge cigar in his mouth. Across his +lap lay a stumpy shotgun which I at once recognized as "the Left +Bower," whose usual place was at his feet on the box during his +journeys. He looked cool and collected, although there were one or two +splashes of printer's ink on his shirt and trousers, and from the +appearance of my lavatory and towel he had evidently been removing +similar stains from his hands. Putting his gun aside and grasping my +hand warmly without rising, he began with even more than his usual lazy +imperturbability: + +"Well, how's Gilead lookin' to-day?" + +It struck me as looking rather disturbed, but, as I was still too +bewildered to reply, he continued lazily: + +"Ez you didn't hunt me up, I allowed you might hev got kinder petrified +and dried up down yer, and I reckoned to run down and rattle round a +bit and make things lively for ye. I've jist cleared out a newspaper +office over thar. They call it the 'Guardi-an,' though it didn't seem +to offer much pertection to them fellers ez was in it. In fact, it +wasn't ez much a fight ez it orter hev been. It was rather monotonous +for me." + +"But what's the row, Bill? What has happened?" I asked excitedly. + +"Nothin' to speak of, I tell ye," replied Yuba Bill reflectively. "I +jest meandered into that shop over there, and I sez, 'I want ter see +the man ez runs this yer mill o' literatoor an' progress.' Thar waz two +infants sittin' on high chairs havin' some innocent little game o' +pickin' pieces o' lead outer pill-boxes like, and as soon ez they seed +me one of 'em crawled under his desk and the other scooted outer the +back door. Bimeby the door opens again, and a fluffy coyote-lookin' +feller comes in and allows that HE is responsible for that yer paper. +When I saw the kind of animal he was, and that he hadn't any weppings, +I jist laid the Left Bower down on the floor. Then I sez, 'You allowed +in your paper that I oughter hev a little sevility knocked inter me, +and I'm here to hev it done. You ken begin it now.' With that I +reached for him, and we waltzed oncet or twicet around the room, and +then I put him up on the mantelpiece and on them desks and little +boxes, and took him down again, and kinder wiped the floor with him +gin'rally, until the first thing I knowed he was outside the winder on +the sidewalk. On'y blamed if I didn't forget to open the winder. Ef it +hadn't been for that, it would hev been all quiet and peaceful-like, +and nobody hev knowed it. But the sash being in the way, it sorter +created a disturbance and unpleasantness OUTSIDE." + +"But what was it all about?" I repeated. "What had he done to you?" + +"Ye'll find it in that paper," he said, indicating a copy of the +"Guardian" that lay on my table with a lazy nod of his head. "P'r'aps +you don't read it? No more do I. But Joe Bilson sez to me yesterday: +'Bill,' sez he, 'they're goin' for ye in the "Guardian."' 'Wot's +that?' sez I. 'Hark to this,' sez he, and reads out that bit that +you'll find there." + +I had opened the paper, and he pointed to a paragraph. "There it is. +Pooty, ain't it?" I read with amazement as follows:-- + + +"If the Pioneer Stage Company want to keep up with the times, and not +degenerate into the old style 'one hoss' road-wagon business, they'd +better make some reform on the line. They might begin by shipping off +some of the old-time whiskey-guzzling drivers who are too high and +mighty to do anything but handle the ribbons, and are above speaking to +a passenger unless he's a favorite or one of their set. Over-praise +for an occasional scrimmage with road agents, and flattery from Eastern +greenhorns, have given them the big head. If the fool-killer were let +loose on the line with a big club, and knocked a little civility into +their heads, it wouldn't be a bad thing, and would be a particular +relief to the passengers for Gilead who have to take the stage from +Simpson's Bar." + + +"That's my stage," said Yuba Bill quietly, when I had ended; "and +that's ME." + +"But it's impossible," I said eagerly. "That insult was never written +by Captain Jim." + +"Captain Jim," repeated Yuba Bill reflectively. "Captain Jim,--yes, +that was the name o' the man I was playin' with. Shortish hairy +feller, suthin' between a big coyote and the old-style hair-trunk. +Fought pretty well for a hay-footed man from Gil-e-ad." + +"But you've whipped the wrong man, Bill," I said. "Think again! Have +you had any quarrel lately?--run against any newspaper man?" The +recollection had flashed upon me that Lacy Bassett had lately returned +from a visit to Stockton. + +Yuba Bill regarded his boots on the other arm-chair for a few moments +in profound meditation. "There was a sort o' gaudy insect," he began +presently, "suthin' halfway betwixt a boss-fly and a devil's +darnin'-needle, ez crawled up onter the box seat with me last week, and +buzzed! Now I think on it, he talked high-faluten' o' the inflooence +of the press and sech. I may hev said 'shoo' to him when he was +hummin' the loudest. I mout hev flicked him off oncet or twicet with +my whip. It must be him. Gosh!" he said suddenly, rising and lifting +his heavy hand to his forehead, "now I think agin he was the feller ez +crawled under the desk when the fight was goin' on, and stayed there. +Yes, sir, that was HIM. His face looked sorter familiar, but I didn't +know him moultin' with his feathers off." He turned upon me with the +first expression of trouble and anxiety I had ever seen him wear. +"Yes, sir, that's him. And I've kem--me, Yuba Bill!--kem MYSELF, a +matter of twenty miles, totin' a GUN--a gun, by Gosh!--to fight +that--that--that potatar-bug!" He walked to the window, turned, walked +back again, finished his whiskey with a single gulp, and laid his hand +almost despondingly on my shoulder. "Look ye, old--old fell, you and +me's ole friends. Don't give me away. Don't let on a word o' this to +any one! Say I kem down yer howlin' drunk on a gen'ral tear! Say I +mistook that newspaper office for a cigar-shop, and--got licked by the +boss! Say anythin' you like, 'cept that I took a gun down yer to chase +a fly that had settled onter me. Keep the Left Bower in yer back +office till I send for it. Ef you've got a back door somewhere handy +where I can slip outer this without bein' seen I'd be thankful." + +As this desponding suggestion appeared to me as the wisest thing for +him to do in the then threatening state of affairs outside,--which, had +he suspected it, he would have stayed to face,--I quickly opened a door +into a courtyard that communicated through an alley with a side street. +Here we shook hands and parted; his last dejected ejaculation being, +"That potatobug!" Later I ascertained that Captain Jim had retired to +his ranch some four miles distant. He was not seriously hurt, but +looked, to use the words of my informant, "ez ef he'd been hugged by a +playful b'ar." As the "Guardian" made its appearance the next week +without the slightest allusion to the fracas, I did not deem it +necessary to divulge the real facts. When I called to inquire about +Captain Jim's condition, he himself, however, volunteered an +explanation. + +"I don't mind tellin' you, ez an old friend o' mine and Lacy's, that +the secret of that there attack on me and the 'Guardian' was +perlitikal. Yes, sir! There was a powerful orginization in the +interest o' Halkins for assemblyman ez didn't like our high-toned +editorials on caucus corruption, and hired a bully to kem down here and +suppress us. Why, this yer Lacy spotted the idea to oncet; yer know +how keen be is." + +"Was Lacy present?" I asked as carelessly as I could. + +Captain Jim glanced his eyes over his shoulder quite in his old furtive +canine fashion, and then blinked them at me rapidly. "He war! And if +it warn't for HIS pluck and HIS science and HIS strength, I don't know +whar I'D hev been now! Howsomever, it's all right. I've had a fair +offer to sell the 'Guardian' over at Simpson's Bar, and it's time I +quit throwin' away the work of a man like Lacy Bassett upon it. And +between you and me, I've got an idea and suthin' better to put his +talens into." + + +III. + +It was not long before it became evident that the "talens" of Mr. Lacy +Bassett, as indicated by Captain Jim, were to grasp at a seat in the +state legislature. An editorial in the "Simpson's Bar Clarion" boldly +advocated his pretensions. At first it was believed that the article +emanated from the gifted pen of Lacy himself, but the style was so +unmistakably that of Colonel Starbottle, an eminent political +"war-horse" of the district, that a graver truth was at once suggested, +namely, that the "Guardian" had simply been transferred to Simpson's +Bar, and merged into the "Clarion" solely on this condition. At least +it was recognized that it was the hand of Captain Jim which guided the +editorial fingers of the colonel, and Captain Jim's money that +distended the pockets of that gallant political leader. + +Howbeit Lacy Bassett was never elected; in fact he was only for one +brief moment a candidate. It was related that upon his first ascending +the platform at Simpson's Bar a voice in the audience said lazily, +"Come down!" That voice was Yuba Bill's. A slight confusion ensued, +in which Yuba Bill whispered a few words in the colonel's ear. After a +moment's hesitation the "war-horse" came forward, and in his loftiest +manner regretted that the candidate had withdrawn. The next issue of +the "Clarion" proclaimed with no uncertain sound that a base conspiracy +gotten up by the former proprietor of the "Guardian" to undermine the +prestige of the Great Express Company had been ruthlessly exposed, and +the candidate on learning it HIMSELF for the first time, withdrew his +name from the canvass, as became a high-toned gentleman. Public +opinion, ignoring Lacy Bassett completely, unhesitatingly denounced +Captain Jim. + +During this period I had paid but little heed to Lacy Bassett's social +movements, or the successes which would naturally attend such a +character with the susceptible sex. I had heard that he was engaged to +Polly Baxter, but that they had quarrelled in consequence of his +flirtations with others, especially a Mrs. Sweeny, a profusely +ornamented but reputationless widow. Captain Jim had often alluded +with a certain respectful pride and delicacy to Polly's ardent +appreciation of his friend, and had more than half hinted with the same +reverential mystery to their matrimonial union later, and his intention +of "doing the square thing" for the young couple. But it was presently +noticed that these allusions became less frequent during Lacy's amorous +aberrations, and an occasional depression and unusual reticence marked +Captain Jim's manner when the subject was discussed in his presence. +He seemed to endeavor to make up for his friend's defection by a kind +of personal homage to Polly, and not unfrequently accompanied her to +church or to singing-class. I have a vivid recollection of meeting him +one afternoon crossing the fields with her, and looking into her face +with that same wistful, absorbed, and uneasy canine expression that I +had hitherto supposed he had reserved for Lacy alone. I do not know +whether Polly was averse to the speechless devotion of these yearning +brown eyes; her manner was animated and the pretty cheek that was +nearest me mantled as I passed; but I was struck for the first time +with the idea that Captain Jim loved her! I was surprised to have that +fancy corroborated in the remark of another wayfarer whom I met, to the +effect, "That now that Bassett was out o' the running it looked ez if +Captain Jim was makin' up for time!" Was it possible that Captain Jim +had always loved her? I did not at first know whether to be pained or +pleased for his sake. But I concluded that whether the unworthy +Bassett had at last found a RIVAL in Captain Jim or in the girl +herself, it was a displacement that was for Captain Jim's welfare. But +as I was about leaving Gilead for a month's transfer to the San +Francisco office, I had no opportunity to learn more from the +confidences of Captain Jim. + +I was ascending the principal staircase of my San Francisco hotel one +rainy afternoon, when I was pointedly recalled to Gilead by the passing +glitter of Mrs. Sweeny's jewelry and the sudden vanishing behind her of +a gentleman who seemed to be accompanying her. A few moments after I +had entered my room I heard a tap at my door, and opened it upon Lacy +Bassett. I thought he looked a little confused and agitated. +Nevertheless, with an assumption of cordiality and ease he said, "It +appears we're neighbors. That's my room next to yours." He pointed to +the next room, which I then remembered was a sitting-room en suite with +my own, and communicating with it by a second door, which was always +locked. It had not been occupied since my tenancy. As I suppose my +face did not show any extravagant delight at the news of his +contiguity, he added, hastily, "There's a transom over the door, and I +thought I'd tell you you kin hear everything from the one room to the +other." + +I thanked him, and told him dryly that, as I had no secrets to divulge +and none that I cared to hear, it made no difference to me. As this +seemed to increase his confusion and he still hesitated before the +door, I asked him if Captain Jim was with him. + +"No," he said quickly. "I haven't seen him for a month, and don't want +to. Look here, I want to talk to you a bit about him." He walked into +the room, and closed the door behind him. "I want to tell you that me +and Captain Jim is played! All this runnin' o' me and interferin' with +me is played! I'm tired of it. You kin tell him so from me." + +"Then you have quarrelled?" + +"Yes. As much as any man can quarrel with a darned fool who can't take +a hint." + +"One moment. Have you quarrelled about Polly Baxter?" + +"Yes," he answered querulously. "Of course I have. What does he mean +by interfering? + +"Now listen to me, Mr. Bassett," I interrupted. "I have no desire to +concern myself in your association with Captain Jim, but since you +persist in dragging me into it, you must allow me to speak plainly. +From all that I can ascertain you have no serious intentions of +marrying Polly Baxter. You have come here from Gilead to follow Mrs. +Sweeny, whom I saw you with a moment ago. Now, why do you not frankly +give up Miss Baxter to Captain Jim, who will make her a good husband, +and go your own way with Mrs. Sweeny? If you really wish to break off +your connection with Captain Jim, that's the only way to do it." + +His face, which had exhibited the weakest and most pitiable +consciousness at the mention of Mrs. Sweeny, changed to an expression +of absolute stupefaction as I concluded. + +"Wot stuff are you tryin' to fool me with?" he said at last roughly. + +"I mean," I replied sharply, "that this double game of yours is +disgraceful. Your association with Mrs. Sweeny demands the withdrawal +of any claim you have upon Miss Baxter at once. If you have no respect +for Captain Jim's friendship, you must at least show common decency to +her." + +He burst into a half-relieved, half-hysteric laugh. "Are you crazy?" +gasped he. "Why, Captain Jim's just huntin' ME down to make ME marry +Polly. That's just what the row's about. That's just what he's +interferin' for--just to carry out his darned fool ideas o' gettin' a +wife for me; just his vanity to say HE'S made the match. It's ME that +he wants to marry to that Baxter girl--not himself. He's too cursed +selfish for that." + +I suppose I was not different from ordinary humanity, for in my +unexpected discomfiture I despised Captain Jim quite as much as I did +the man before me. Reiterating my remark that I had no desire to mix +myself further in their quarrels, I got rid of him with as little +ceremony as possible. But a few minutes later, when the farcical side +of the situation struck me, my irritation was somewhat mollified, +without however increasing my respect for either of the actors. The +whole affair had assumed a triviality that was simply amusing, nothing +more, and I even looked forward to a meeting with Captain Jim and HIS +exposition of the matter--which I knew would follow--with pleasurable +anticipation. But I was mistaken. + +One afternoon, when I was watching the slanting volleys of rain driven +by a strong southwester against the windows of the hotel reading-room, +I was struck by the erratic movements of a dripping figure outside that +seemed to be hesitating over the entrance to the hotel. At times +furtively penetrating the porch as far as the vestibule, and again +shyly recoiling from it, its manner was so strongly suggestive of some +timid animal that I found myself suddenly reminded of Captain Jim and +the memorable evening of his exodus from Eureka Gulch. As the figure +chanced to glance up to the window where I stood I saw to my +astonishment that it WAS Captain Jim himself, but so changed and +haggard that I scarcely knew him. I instantly ran out into the hall +and vestibule, but when I reached the porch he had disappeared. Either +he had seen me and wished to avoid me, or he had encountered the object +of his quest, which I at once concluded must be Lacy Bassett. I was so +much impressed and worried by his appearance and manner, that, in this +belief, I overcame my aversion to meeting Bassett, and even sought him +through the public rooms and lobbies in the hope of finding Captain Jim +with him. But in vain; possibly he had succeeded in escaping his +relentless friend. + +As the wind and rain increased at nightfall and grew into a tempestuous +night, with deserted streets and swollen waterways, I did not go out +again, but retired early, inexplicably haunted by the changed and +brooding face of Captain Jim. Even in my dreams he pursued me in his +favorite likeness of a wistful, anxious, and uneasy hound, who, on my +turning to caress him familiarly, snapped at me viciously, and appeared +to have suddenly developed a snarling rabid fury. I seemed to be +awakened at last by the sound of his voice. For an instant I believed +the delusion a part of my dream. But I was mistaken; I was lying broad +awake, and the voice clearly had come from the next room, and was +distinctly audible over the transom. + +"I've had enough of it," he said, "and I'm givin' ye now--this +night--yer last chance. Quit this hotel and that woman, and go back to +Gilead and marry Polly. Don't do it and I'll kill ye, ez sure ez you +sit there gapin' in that chair. If I can't get ye to fight me like a +man,--and I'll spit in yer face or put some insult onto you afore that +woman, afore everybody, ez would make a bigger skunk nor you +turn,--I'll hunt ye down and kill ye in your tracks." + +There was a querulous murmur of interruption in Lacy's voice, but +whether of defiance or appeal I could not distinguish. Captain Jim's +voice again rose, dogged and distinct. + +"Ef YOU kill me it's all the same, and I don't say that I won't thank +ye. This yer world is too crowded for yer and me, Lacy Bassett. I've +believed in ye, trusted in ye, lied for ye, and fought for ye. From +the time I took ye up--a feller-passenger to 'Fresco--believin' there +wor the makin's of a man in ye, to now, you fooled me,--fooled me afore +the Eureka boys; fooled me afore Gilead; fooled me afore HER; fooled me +afore God! It's got to end here. Ye've got to take the curse of that +foolishness off o' me! You've got to do one single thing that's like +the man I took ye for, or you've got to die. Times waz when I'd have +wished it for your account--that's gone, Lacy Bassett! You've got to +do it for ME. You've got to do it so I don't see 'd--d fool' writ in +the eyes of every man ez looks at me." + +He had apparently risen and walked towards the door. His voice sounded +from another part of the room. + +"I'll give ye till to-morrow mornin' to do suthin' to lift this curse +off o' me. Ef you refoose, then, by the living God, I'll slap yer face +in the dinin'-room, or in the office afore them all! You hear me!" + +There was a pause, and then a quick sharp explosion that seemed to fill +and expand both rooms until the windows were almost lifted from their +casements, a hysterical inarticulate cry from Lacy, the violent opening +of a door, hurried voices, and the tramping of many feet in the +passage. I sprang out of bed, partly dressed myself, and ran into the +hall. But by that time I found a crowd of guests and servants around +the next door, some grasping Bassett, who was white and trembling, and +others kneeling by Captain Jim, who was half lying in the doorway +against the wall. + +"He heard it all," Bassett gasped hysterically, pointing to me. "HE +knows that this man wanted to kill me." + +Before I could reply, Captain Jim partly raised himself with a +convulsive effort. Wiping away the blood that, oozing from his lips, +already showed the desperate character of his internal wound, he said +in a husky and hurried voice: "It's all right, boys! It's my fault. +It was ME who done it. I went for him in a mean underhanded way jest +now, when he hadn't a weppin nor any show to defend himself. We +gripped. He got a holt o' my derringer--you see that's MY pistol +there, I swear it--and turned it agin me in self-defense, and sarved me +right. I swear to God, gentlemen, it's so!" Catching sight of my +face, he looked at me, I fancied half imploringly and half +triumphantly, and added, "I might hev knowed it! I allers allowed Lacy +Bassett was game!--game, gentlemen--and he was. If it's my last word, +I say it--he was game!" + +And with this devoted falsehood upon his lips and something of the old +canine instinct in his failing heart, as his head sank back he seemed +to turn it towards Bassett, as if to stretch himself out at his feet. +Then the light failed from his yearning upward glance, and the curse of +foolishness was lifted from him forever. + +So conclusive were the facts, that the coroner's jury did not deem it +necessary to detain Mr. Bassett for a single moment after the inquest. +But he returned to Gilead, married Polly Baxter, and probably on the +strength of having "killed his man," was unopposed on the platform next +year, and triumphantly elected to the legislature! + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other +Tales, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH *** + +***** This file should be named 2281.txt or 2281.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/8/2281/ + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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