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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories, 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 Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2676]
+Last Updated: March 5, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S
+
+JOHNNYBOY
+
+YOUNG ROBIN GRAY
+
+THE SHERIFF OF SISKYOU
+
+A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE
+
+THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA
+
+CHU CHU
+
+MY FIRST BOOK
+
+
+
+
+THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Where the North Fork of the Stanislaus River begins to lose its youthful
+grace, vigor, and agility, and broadens more maturely into the plain,
+there is a little promontory which at certain high stages of water lies
+like a small island in the stream. To the strongly-marked heroics of
+Sierran landscape it contrasts a singular, pastoral calm. White and
+gray mosses from the overhanging rocks and feathery alders trail their
+filaments in its slow current, and between the woodland openings there
+are glimpses of vivid velvet sward, even at times when the wild oats and
+“wire-grasses” of the plains are already yellowing. The placid river,
+unstained at this point by mining sluices or mill drift, runs clear
+under its contemplative shadows. Originally the camping-ground of a
+Digger Chief, it passed from his tenancy with the American rifle bullet
+that terminated his career. The pioneer who thus succeeded to its
+attractive calm gave way in turn to a well-directed shot from the
+revolver of a quartz-prospector, equally impressed with the charm of
+its restful tranquillity. How long he might have enjoyed its riparian
+seclusion is not known. A sudden rise of the river one March night
+quietly removed him, together with the overhanging post oak beneath
+which he was profoundly but unconsciously meditating. The demijohn of
+whiskey was picked up further down. But no other suggestion of these
+successive evictions was ever visible in the reposeful serenity of the
+spot.
+
+It was later occupied, and a cabin built upon the spot, by one Alexander
+McGee, better known as “the Bell-ringer of Angel's.” This euphonious
+title, which might have suggested a consistently peaceful occupation,
+however, referred to his accuracy of aim at a mechanical target, where
+the piercing of the bull's eye was celebrated by the stroke of a bell.
+It is probable that this singular proficiency kept his investment of
+that gentle seclusion unchallenged. At all events it was uninvaded. He
+shared it only with the birds. Perhaps some suggestion of nest building
+may have been in his mind, for one pleasant spring morning he brought
+hither a wife. It was his OWN; and in this way he may be said to have
+introduced that morality which is supposed to be the accompaniment and
+reflection of pastoral life. Mrs. McGee's red petticoat was sometimes
+seen through the trees--a cheerful bit of color. Mrs. McGee's red
+cheeks, plump little figure, beribboned hat and brown, still-girlish
+braids were often seen at sunset on the river bank, in company with
+her husband, who seemed to be pleased with the discreet and distant
+admiration that followed them. Strolling under the bland shadows of the
+cotton-woods, by the fading gold of the river, he doubtless felt that
+peace which the mere world cannot give, and which fades not away before
+the clear, accurate eye of the perfect marksman.
+
+Their nearest neighbors were the two brothers Wayne, who took up
+a claim, and built themselves a cabin on the river bank near the
+promontory. Quiet, simple men, suspected somewhat of psalm-singing, and
+undue retirement on Sundays, they attracted but little attention. But
+when, through some original conception or painstaking deliberation, they
+turned the current of the river so as to restrict the overflow between
+the promontory and the river bank, disclosing an auriferous “bar” of
+inconceivable richness, and establishing their theory that it was really
+the former channel of the river, choked and diverted though ages of
+alluvial drift, they may be said to have changed, also, the fortunes
+of the little settlement. Popular feeling and the new prosperity which
+dawned upon the miners recognized the two brothers by giving the name of
+Wayne's Bar to the infant settlement and its post-office. The peaceful
+promontory, although made easier of access, still preserved its calm
+seclusion, and pretty Mrs. McGee could contemplate through the leaves of
+her bower the work going on at its base, herself unseen. Nevertheless,
+this Arcadian retreat was being slowly and surely invested; more than
+that, the character of its surroundings was altered, and the complexion
+of the river had changed. The Wayne engines on the point above had
+turned the drift and debris into the current that now thickened and ran
+yellow around the wooded shore. The fringes of this Eden were already
+tainted with the color of gold.
+
+It is doubtful, however, if Mrs. McGee was much affected by this
+sentimental reflection, and her husband, in a manner, lent himself to
+the desecration of his exclusive domain by accepting a claim along
+the shore--tendered by the conscientious Waynes in compensation for
+restricting the approach to the promontory--and thus participated in
+the fortunes of the Bar. Mrs. McGee amused herself by watching from
+her eyrie, with a presumably childish interest, the operations of
+the red-shirted brothers on the Bar; her husband, however, always
+accompanying her when she crossed the Bar to the bank. Some two or three
+other women--wives of miners--had joined the camp, but it was evident
+that McGee was as little inclined to intrust his wife to their
+companionship as to that of their husbands. An opinion obtained that
+McGee, being an old resident, with alleged high connections in Angel's,
+was inclined to be aristocratic and exclusive.
+
+Meantime, the two brothers who had founded the fortunes of the Bar were
+accorded an equally high position, with an equal amount of reserve.
+Their ways were decidedly not those of the other miners, and were as
+efficacious in keeping them from familiar advances as the reputation of
+Mr. McGee was in isolating his wife. Madison Wayne, the elder, was
+tall, well-knit and spare, reticent in speech and slow in deduction;
+his brother, Arthur, was of rounder outline, but smaller and of a more
+delicate and perhaps a more impressible nature. It was believed by some
+that it was within the range of possibility that Arthur would yet be
+seen “taking his cocktail like a white man,” or “dropping his scads”
+ at draw poker. At present, however, they seemed content to spend their
+evenings in their own cabin, and their Sundays at a grim Presbyterian
+tabernacle in the next town, to which they walked ten miles, where, it
+was currently believed, “hell fire was ladled out free,” and “infants
+damned for nothing.” When they did not go to meeting it was also
+believed that the minister came to them, until it was ascertained that
+the sound of sacred recitation overheard in their cabin was simply
+Madison Wayne reading the Bible to his younger brother. McGee is said
+to have stopped on one of these occasions--unaccompanied by his
+wife--before their cabin, moving away afterwards with more than his
+usual placid contentment.
+
+It was about eleven o'clock one morning, and Madison Wayne was at work
+alone on the Bar. Clad in a dark gray jersey and white duck trousers
+rolled up over high india-rubber boots, he looked not unlike a peaceful
+fisherman digging stakes for his nets, as he labored in the ooze and
+gravel of the still half-reclaimed river bed. He was far out on the Bar,
+within a stone's throw of the promontory. Suddenly his quick ear caught
+an unfamiliar cry and splash. Looking up hastily, he saw Mrs. McGee's
+red petticoat in the water under the singularly agitated boughs of an
+overhanging tree. Madison Wayne ran to the bank, threw off his heavy
+boots, and sprang into the stream. A few strokes brought him to Mrs.
+McGee's petticoat, which, as he had wisely surmised, contained Mrs.
+McGee, who was still clinging to a branch of the tree. Grasping her
+waist with one hand and the branch with the other, he obtained a
+foothold on the bank, and dragged her ashore. A moment later they both
+stood erect and dripping at the foot of the tree.
+
+“Well?” said the lady.
+
+Wayne glanced around their seclusion with his habitual caution, slightly
+knit his brows perplexedly, and said: “You fell in?”
+
+“I didn't do nothin' of the sort. I JUMPED in.”
+
+Wayne again looked around him, as if expecting her companion, and
+squeezed the water out of his thick hair. “Jumped in?” he repeated
+slowly. “What for?”
+
+“To make you come over here, Mad Wayne,” she said, with a quick laugh,
+putting her arms akimbo.
+
+They stood looking at each other, dripping like two river gods. Like
+them, also, Wayne had apparently ignored the fact that his trousers were
+rolled up above his bare knees, and Mrs. McGee that her red petticoat
+clung closely to her rather pretty figure. But he quickly recovered
+himself. “You had better go in and change your clothes,” he said, with
+grave concern. “You'll take cold.”
+
+She only shook herself disdainfully. “I'm all right,” she said; “but
+YOU, Mad Wayne, what do you mean by not speaking to me--not knowing me?
+You can't say that I've changed like that.” She passed her hand down her
+long dripping braids as if to press the water from them, and yet with a
+half-coquettish suggestion in the act.
+
+Something struggled up into the man's face which was not there before.
+There was a new light in his grave eyes. “You look the same,” he said
+slowly; “but you are married--you have a husband.”
+
+“You think that changes a girl?” she said, with a laugh “That's where
+all you men slip up! You're afraid of his rifle--THAT'S the change that
+bothers you, Mad.”
+
+“You know I care little for carnal weapons,” he said quietly. She DID
+know it; but it is the privilege of the sex to invent its facts and then
+to graciously abandon them as if they were only arguments. “Then why do
+you keep off from me? Why do you look the other way when I pass?” she
+said quickly.
+
+“Because you are married,” he said slowly.
+
+She again shook the water from her like a Newfoundland dog. “That's it.
+You're mad because I got married. You're mad because I wouldn't marry
+you and your church over on the cross roads, and sing hymns with you and
+become SISTER Wayne. You wanted me to give up dancing and buggy ridin'
+Sundays--and you're just mad because I didn't. Yes, mad--just mean, baby
+mad, Mr. Maddy Wayne, for all your CHRISTIAN resignation! That's what's
+the matter with you.” Yet she looked very pretty and piquant in her
+small spitefulness, which was still so general and superficial that
+she seemed to shake it out of her wet petticoats in a vicious flap that
+disclosed her neat ankles.
+
+“You preferred McGee to me,” he said grimly. “I didn't blame you.”
+
+“Who said I PREFERRED him?” she retorted quickly. “Much you know!”
+ Then, with swift feminine abandonment of her position, she added, with a
+little laugh, “It's all the same whether you're guarded with a rifle or
+a Church Presbytery, only”--
+
+“Only what?” said Madison earnestly.
+
+“There's men who'd risk being SHOT for a girl, that couldn't stand
+psalm-singin' palaver.”
+
+The quick expression of pain that passed over his hard, dark face seemed
+only to heighten her pretty mischievousness. But he simply glanced again
+around the solitude, passed his hand over his wet sleeve, and said, “I
+must go now; your husband wouldn't like me being here.”
+
+“He's workin' in the claim,--the claim YOU gave him,” said Mrs. McGee,
+with cheerful malice. “Wonder what he'd say if he knew it was given to
+him by the man who used to spark his wife only two years ago? How does
+that suit your Christian conscience, Mad?”
+
+“I should have told him, had I not believed that everything was over
+between us, or that it was possible that you and me should ever meet
+again,” he returned, in a tone so measured that the girl seemed to hear
+the ring of the conventicle in it.
+
+“Should you, BROTHER Wayne?” she said, imitating him. “Well, let me tell
+you that you are the one man on the Bar that Sandy has taken a fancy
+to.”
+
+Madison's sallow cheek colored a little, but he did not speak.
+
+“Well!” continued Mrs. McGee impatiently. “I don't believe he'd object
+to your comin' here to see me--if you cared.”
+
+“But I wouldn't care to come, unless he first knew that I had been once
+engaged to you,” said Madison gravely.
+
+“Perhaps he might not think as much of that as you do,” retorted the
+woman pertly. “Every one isn't as straitlaced as you, and every girl has
+had one or two engagements. But do as you like--stay at home if you want
+to, and sing psalms and read the Scriptures to that younger brother of
+yours! All the same, I'm thinkin' he'd rather be out with the boys.”
+
+“My brother is God-fearing and conscientious,” said Madison quickly.
+“You do not know him. You have never seen him.”
+
+“No,” said Mrs. McGee shortly. She then gave a little shiver (that was,
+however, half simulated) in her wet garments, and added: “ONE saint was
+enough for me; I couldn't stand the whole church, Mad.”
+
+“You are catching cold,” he said quickly, his whole face brightening
+with a sudden tenderness that seemed to transfigure the dark features.
+“I am keeping you here when you should be changing your clothes. Go, I
+beg you, at once.”
+
+She stood still provokingly, with an affectation of wiping her arms and
+shoulders and sopping her wet dress with clusters of moss.
+
+“Go, please do--Safie, please!”
+
+“Ah!”--she drew a quick, triumphant breath. “Then you'll come again to
+see me, Mad?”
+
+“Yes,” he said slowly, and even more gravely than before.
+
+“But you must let me show you the way out--round under those
+trees--where no one can see you come.” She held out her hand.
+
+“I'll go the way I came,” he said quietly, swinging himself silently
+from the nearest bough into the stream. And before she could utter a
+protest he was striking out as silently, hand over hand, across the
+current.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+A week later Madison Wayne was seated alone in his cabin. His supper
+table had just been cleared by his Chinese coolie, as it was getting
+late, and the setting sun, which for half an hour had been persistently
+making a vivid beacon of his windows for the benefit of wayfarers along
+the river bank, had at last sunk behind the cottonwoods. His head was
+resting on his hand; the book he had been reading when the light faded
+was lying open on the table before him. In this attitude he became aware
+of a hesitating step on the gravel outside his open door. He had been
+so absorbed that the approach of any figure along the only highway--the
+river bank--had escaped his observation. Looking up, he discovered
+that Mr. Alexander McGee was standing in the doorway, his hand resting
+lightly on the jamb. A sudden color suffused Wayne's cheek; his hand
+reached for his book, which he drew towards him hurriedly, yet half
+automatically, as he might have grasped some defensive weapon.
+
+The Bell-ringer of Angel's noticed the act, but not the blush, and
+nodded approvingly. “Don't let me disturb ye. I was only meanderin'
+by and reckoned I'd say 'How do?' in passin'.” He leaned gently back
+against the door-post, to do which comfortably he was first obliged to
+shift the revolver on his hip. The sight of the weapon brought a slight
+contraction to the brows of Wayne, but he gravely said: “Won't you come
+in?”
+
+“It ain't your prayin' time?” said McGee politely.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor you ain't gettin' up lessons outer the Book?” he continued
+thoughtfully.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Cos it don't seem, so to speak, you see, the square thing to be
+botherin' a man when he might be doin' suthin' else, don't you see? You
+understand what I mean?”
+
+It was his known peculiarity that he always seemed to be suffering from
+an inability to lucid expression, and the fear of being misunderstood in
+regard to the most patent or equally the most unimportant details of his
+speech. All of which, however, was in very remarkable contrast to his
+perfectly clear and penetrating eyes.
+
+Wayne gravely assured him that he was not interrupting him in any way.
+
+“I often thought--that is, I had an idea, you understand what I mean--of
+stoppin' in passing. You and me, you see, are sorter alike; we don't
+seem to jibe in with the gin'ral gait o' the camp. You understand what I
+mean? We ain't in the game, eh? You see what I'm after?”
+
+Madison Wayne glanced half mechanically at McGee's revolver. McGee's
+clear eyes at once took in the glance.
+
+“That's it! You understand? You with them books of yours, and me with
+my shootin' iron--we're sort o' different from the rest, and ought to be
+kinder like partners. You understand what I mean? We keep this camp in
+check. We hold a full hand, and don't stand no bluffing.”
+
+“If you mean there is some effect in Christian example and the life of a
+God-fearing man”--began Madison gravely.
+
+“That's it! God-fearin' or revolver-fearin', it amounts to the same when
+you come down to the hard pan and bed-rock,” interrupted McGee. “I ain't
+expectin' you to think much of my style, but I go a heap on yours, even
+if I can't play your game. And I sez to my wife, 'Safie'--her that trots
+around with me sometimes--I sez, 'Safie, I oughter know that man, and
+shall. And I WANT YOU to know him.' Hol' on,” he added quickly, as
+Madison rose with a flushed face and a perturbed gesture. “Ye don't
+understand! I see wot's in your mind--don't you see? When I married
+my wife and brought her down here, knowin' this yer camp, I sez: 'No
+flirtin', no foolin', no philanderin' here, my dear! You're young and
+don't know the ways o' men. The first man I see you talking with, I
+shoot. You needn't fear, my dear, for accidents. I kin shoot all round
+you, under your arm, across your shoulders, over your head and between
+your fingers, my dear, and never start skin or fringe or ruffle. But I
+don't miss HIM. You sorter understand what I mean,' sez I, 'so don't!' Ye
+noticed how my wife is respected, Mr. Wayne? Queen Victoria sittin' on
+her throne ain't in it with my Safie. But when I see YOU not herdin'
+with that cattle, never liftin' your eyes to me or Safie as we pass,
+never hangin' round the saloons and jokin', nor winkin', nor slingin'
+muddy stories about women, but prayin' and readin' Scripter stories,
+here along with your brother, I sez to myself, I sez, 'Sandy, ye kin
+take off your revolver and hang up your shot gun when HE'S around. For
+'twixt HIM and your wife ain't no revolver, but the fear of God and hell
+and damnation and the world to come!' You understand what I mean, don't
+ye? Ye sorter follow my lead, eh? Ye can see what I'm shootin' round,
+don't ye? So I want you to come up neighborly like, and drop in to see
+my wife.”
+
+Madison Wayne's face became set and hard again, but he advanced towards
+McGee with the book against his breast, and his finger between the
+leaves. “I already know your wife, Mr. McGee! I saw her before YOU ever
+met her. I was engaged to her; I loved her, and--as far as man may
+love the wife of another and keep the commands of this book--I love her
+still!”
+
+To his surprise, McGee, whose calm eyes had never dimmed or blenched,
+after regarding him curiously, took the volume from him, laid it on the
+table, opened it, turned its leaves critically, said earnestly, “That's
+the law here, is it?” and then held out his hand.
+
+“Shake!”
+
+Madison Wayne hesitated--and then grasped his hand.
+
+“Ef I had known this,” continued McGee, “I reckon I wouldn't have
+been so hard on Safie and so partikler. She's better than I took her
+for--havin' had you for a beau! You understand what I mean. You follow
+me--don't ye? I allus kinder wondered why she took me, but sens you've
+told me that YOU used to spark her, in your God-fearin' way, I reckon it
+kinder prepared her for ME. You understand? Now you come up, won't ye?”
+
+“I will call some evening with my brother,” said Wayne embarrassedly.
+
+“With which?” demanded McGee.
+
+“My brother Arthur. We usually spend the evenings together.”
+
+McGee paused, leaned against the doorpost, and, fixing his clear eyes on
+Wayne, said: “Ef it's all the same to you, I'd rather you did not bring
+him. You understand what I mean? You follow me; no other man but you and
+me. I ain't sayin' anything agin' your brother, but you see how it is,
+don't you? Just me and you.”
+
+“Very well, I will come,” said Wayne gloomily. But as McGee backed out
+of the door, he followed him, hesitatingly. Then, with an effort he
+seemed to recover himself, and said almost harshly: “I ought to tell you
+another thing--that I have seen and spoken to Mrs. McGee since she
+came to the Bar. She fell into the water last week, and I swam out and
+dragged her ashore. We talked and spoke of the past.”
+
+“She fell in,” echoed McGee.
+
+Wayne hesitated; then a murky blush came into his face as he slowly
+repeated, “She FELL in.”
+
+McGee's eyes only brightened. “I have been too hard on her. She might
+have drowned ef you hadn't took risks. You see? You understand what I
+mean? And she never let out anything about it--and never boasted o' YOU
+helpin' her out. All right--you'll come along and see her agin'.” He
+turned and walked cheerfully away.
+
+Wayne re-entered the cabin. He sat for a long time by the window until
+the stars came out above the river, and another star, with which he had
+been long familiar, took its place apparently in the heart of the wooded
+crest of the little promontory. Then the fringing woods on the opposite
+shore became a dark level line across the landscape, and the color
+seemed to fade out of the moist shining gravel before his cabin.
+Presently the silhouette of his dark face disappeared from the window,
+and Mr. McGee might have been gratified to know that he had slipped to
+his knees before the chair whereon he had been sitting, and that his
+head was bowed before it on his clasped hands. In a little while he rose
+again, and, dragging a battened old portmanteau from the corner, took
+out a number of letters tied up in a package, with which, from time to
+time, he slowly fed the flame that flickered on his hearth. In this way
+the windows of the cabin at times sprang into light, making a somewhat
+confusing beacon for the somewhat confused Arthur Wayne, who was
+returning from a visit to Angel's, and who had fallen into that slightly
+morose and irritated state which follows excessive hilarity, and is also
+apt to indicate moral misgivings.
+
+But the last letter was burnt and the cabin quite dark when he entered.
+His brother was sitting by the slowly dying fire, and he trusted that
+in that uncertain light any observation of his expression or manner--of
+which he himself was uneasily conscious--would pass unheeded.
+
+“You are late,” said Madison gravely.
+
+At which his brother rashly assumed the aggressive. He was no later than
+the others, and if the Rogers boys were good enough to walk with him
+for company he couldn't run ahead of them just because his brother was
+waiting! He didn't want any supper, he had something at the Cross Roads
+with the others. Yes! WHISKEY, if he wanted to know. People couldn't
+keep coffee and temperance drinks just to please him and his brother,
+and he wasn't goin' to insult the others by standing aloof. Anyhow, he
+had never taken the pledge, and as long as he hadn't he couldn't see
+why he should refuse a single glass. As it was, everybody said he was a
+milksop, and a tender-foot, and he was just sick of it.
+
+Madison rose and lit a candle and held it up before his brother's face.
+It was a handsome, youthful face that looked into his, flushed with the
+excitement of novel experiences and perhaps a more material stimulation.
+The little silken moustache was ostentatiously curled, the brown curls
+were redolent of bear's grease. Yet there was a certain boyish timidity
+and nervousness in the defiance of his blue eyes that momentarily
+touched the elder brother.
+
+“I've been too hand with him,” he said to himself, half consciously
+recalling what McGee had said of Safie. He put the candle down, laid
+his hand gently on Arthur's shoulder, and said, with a certain cautious
+tenderness, “Come, Arty, sit down and tell me all about it.”
+
+Whereupon the mercurial Arthur, not only relieved of his nervousness but
+of his previous ethical doubts and remorse, became gay and voluble.
+He had finished his purchases at Angel's, and the storekeeper had
+introduced him to Colonel Starbottle, of Kentucky, as one of “the Waynes
+who had made Wayne's Bar famous.” Colonel Starbottle had said in his
+pompous fashion--yet he was not such a bad fellow, after all--that the
+Waynes ought to be represented in the Councils of the State, and
+that he, Starbottle, would be proud to nominate Madison for the next
+Legislature and run him, too. “And you know, really, Mad, if you mixed
+a little more with folks, and they weren't--well, sorter AFRAID of
+you--you could do it. Why, I've made a heap o' friends over there,
+just by goin' round a little, and one of old Selvedge's girls--the
+storekeeper, you know--said from what she'd heard of us, she always
+thought I was about fifty, and turned up the whites of my eyes instead
+of the ends of my moustache! She's mighty smart! Then the Postmaster has
+got his wife and three daughters out from the States, and they've asked
+me to come over to their church festival next week. It isn't our church,
+of course, but I suppose it's all right.”
+
+This and much more with the volubility of relieved feelings. When he
+stopped, out of breath, Madison said, “I have had a visitor since you
+left--Mr. McGee.”
+
+“And his wife?” asked Arthur quickly. Madison flushed slightly. “No; but
+he asked me to go and see her.”
+
+“That's HER doin', then,” returned Arthur, with a laugh. “She's always
+lookin' round the corners of her eyes at me when she passes. Why, John
+Rogers was joking me about her only yesterday, and said McGee would blow
+a hole through me some of these days if I didn't look out! Of course,”
+ he added, affectedly curling his moustache, “that's nonsense! But you
+know how they talk, and she's too pretty for that fellow McGee.”
+
+“She has found a careful helpmeet in her husband,” said Madison sternly,
+“and it's neither seemly nor Christian in you, Arthur, to repeat the
+idle, profane gossip of the Bar. I knew her before her marriage, and if
+she was not a professing Christian, she was, and is, a pure, good woman!
+Let us have no more of this.”
+
+Whether impressed by the tone of his brother's voice, or only affected
+by his own mercurial nature, Arthur changed the subject to further
+voluble reminiscences of his trip to Angel's. Yet he did not seem
+embarrassed nor disconcerted when his brother, in the midst of his
+speech, placed the candle and the Bible on the table, with two chairs
+before it. He listened to Madison's monotonous reading of the evening
+exercise with equally monotonous respect. Then they both arose, without
+looking at each other, but with equally set and stolid faces, and knelt
+down before their respective chairs, clasping the back with both hands,
+and occasionally drawing the hard, wooden frames against their breasts
+convulsively, as if it were a penitential act. It was the elder brother
+who that night prayed aloud. It was his voice that rose higher by
+degrees above the low roof and encompassing walls, the level river camp
+lights that trembled through the window, the dark belt of riverside
+trees, and the light on the promontory's crest--up to the tranquil,
+passionless stars themselves.
+
+With those confidences to his Maker this chronicle does not
+lie--obtrusive and ostentatious though they were in tone and attitude.
+Enough that they were a general arraignment of humanity, the Bar,
+himself, and his brother, and indeed much that the same Maker had
+created and permitted. That through this hopeless denunciation still
+lingered some human feeling and tenderness might have been shown by the
+fact that at its close his hands trembled and his face was bedewed by
+tears. And his brother was so deeply affected that he resolved hereafter
+to avoid all evening prayers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+It was a week later that Madison Wayne and Mr. McGee were seen, to the
+astonishment of the Bar, leisurely walking together in the direction of
+the promontory. Here they disappeared, entering a damp fringe of willows
+and laurels that seemed to mark its limits, and gradually ascending some
+thickly-wooded trail, until they reached its crest, which, to Madison's
+surprise, was cleared and open, and showed an acre or two of rude
+cultivation. Here, too, stood the McGees' conjugal home--a small,
+four-roomed house, but so peculiar and foreign in aspect that it at
+once challenged even Madison's abstracted attention. It was a tiny Swiss
+chalet, built in sections, and originally packed in cases, one of the
+early importations from Europe to California after the gold discovery,
+when the country was supposed to be a woodless wilderness. Mr. McGee
+explained, with his usual laborious care, how he had bought it at
+Marysville, not only for its picturesqueness, but because in its
+unsuggestive packing-cases it offered no indication to the curious
+miners, and could be put up by himself and a single uncommunicative
+Chinaman, without any one else being aware of its existence. There was,
+indeed, something quaint in this fragment of Old World handicraft, with
+its smooth-jointed paneling, in two colors, its little lozenge fretwork,
+its lapped roof, overhanging eaves, and miniature gallery. Inartistic
+as Madison was--like most men of rigidly rectangular mind and
+principle--and accustomed to the bleak and economic sufficiency of the
+Californian miner's cabin, he was touched strangely by its novel grace
+and freshness. It reminded him of HER; he had a new respect for this
+rough, sinful man who had thus idealized his wife in her dwelling.
+Already a few Madeira vines and a Cherokee rose clambered up the
+gallery. And here Mrs. McGee was sitting.
+
+In the face that she turned upon the two men Madison could see that she
+was not expecting them, and even in the slight curiosity with which
+she glanced at her husband, that evidently he had said nothing of his
+previous visit or invitation. And this conviction became certainty at
+Mr. McGee's first words.
+
+“I've brought you an ole friend, Safie. He used to spark ye once at
+Angel's afore my time--he told me so; he picked ye outer the water
+here--he told me that, too. Ye mind that I said afore that he was the
+only man I wanted ter know; I reckon now it seems the square thing that
+he should be the one man YOU wanted ter know, too. You understand what I
+mean--you follow me, don't you?”
+
+Whether or not Mrs. McGee DID follow him, she exhibited neither concern,
+solicitude, nor the least embarrassment. An experienced lover might have
+augured ill from this total absence of self-consciousness. But Madison
+was not an experienced lover. He accepted her amused smile as a
+recognition of his feelings, trembled at the touch of her cool hands,
+as if it had been a warm pressure, and scarcely dared to meet her
+maliciously laughing eyes. When he had followed Mr. McGee to the little
+gallery, the previous occupation of Mrs. McGee when they arrived was
+explained. From that slight elevation there was a perfect view over the
+whole landscape and river below; the Bar stretched out as a map at her
+feet; in that clear, transparent air she could see every movement and
+gesture of Wayne's brother, all unconscious of that surveillance, at
+work on the Bar. For an instant Madison's sallow cheek reddened, he knew
+not why; a remorseful feeling that he ought to be there with Arthur came
+over him. Mrs. McGee's voice seemed to answer his thought. “You can see
+everything that's going on down there without being seen yourself. It's
+good fun for me sometimes. The other day I saw that young Carpenter
+hanging round Mrs. Rogers's cabin in the bush when old Rogers was away.
+And I saw her creep out and join him, never thinking any one could see
+her!”
+
+She laughed, seeking Madison's averted eyes, yet scarcely noticing his
+suddenly contracted brows. Mr. McGee alone responded.
+
+“That's why,” he said, explanatorily, to Madison, “I don't allow to have
+my Safie go round with those women. Not as I ever see anything o'
+that sort goin' on, or keer to look, but on gin'ral principles. You
+understand what I mean.”
+
+“That's your brother over there, isn't it?” said Mrs. McGee, turning to
+Madison and calmly ignoring her husband's explanation, as she indicated
+the distant Arthur. “Why didn't you bring him along with you?”
+
+Madison hesitated, and looked at McGee. “He wasn't asked,” said that
+gentleman cheerfully. “One's company, two's none! You don't know him,
+my dear; and this yer ain't a gin'ral invitation to the Bar. You follow
+me?”
+
+To this Mrs. McGee made no comment, but proceeded to show Madison over
+the little cottage. Yet in a narrow passage she managed to touch his
+hand, lingered to let her husband precede them from one room to another,
+and once or twice looked meaningly into his eyes over McGee's shoulder.
+Disconcerted and embarrassed, he tried to utter a few commonplaces, but
+so constrainedly that even McGee presently noticed it. And the result
+was still more embarrassing.
+
+“Look yer,” he said, suddenly turning to them both. “I reckon as how you
+two wanter talk over old times, and I'll just meander over to the claim,
+and do a spell o' work. Don't mind ME. And if HE”--indicating Madison
+with his finger--“gets on ter religion, don't you mind him. It won't
+hurt you, Safie,--no more nor my revolver,--but it's pow'ful persuadin',
+and you understand me? You follow me? Well, so long!”
+
+He turned away quickly, and was presently lost among the trees. For an
+instant the embarrassed Madison thought of following him; but he was
+confronted by Mrs. McGee's wicked eyes and smiling face between him
+and the door. Composing herself, however, with a simulation of perfect
+gravity she pointed to a chair.
+
+“Sit down, Brother Wayne. If you're going to convert me, it may take
+some time, you know, and you might as well make yourself comfortable.
+As for me, I'll take the anxious bench.” She laughed with a certain
+girlishness, which he well remembered, and leaped to a sitting posture
+on the table with her hands on her knees, swinging her smart shoes
+backwards and forwards below it.
+
+Madison looked at her in hopeless silence, with a pale, disturbed face
+and shining eyes.
+
+“Or, if you want to talk as we used to talk, Mad, when we sat on the
+front steps at Angel's and pa and ma went inside to give us a show, ye
+can hop up alongside o' me.” She made a feint of gathering her skirts
+beside her.
+
+“Safie!” broke out the unfortunate man, in a tone that seemed to
+increase in formal solemnity with his manifest agitation, “this is
+impossible. The laws of God that have joined you and this man”--
+
+“Oh, it's the prayer-meeting, is it?” said Safie, settling her skirts
+again, with affected resignation. “Go on.”
+
+“Listen, Safie,” said Madison, turning despairingly towards her. “Let
+us for His sake, let us for the sake of our dear blessed past, talk
+together earnestly and prayerfully. Let us take this time to root out of
+our feeble hearts all yearnings that are not prompted by Him--yearnings
+that your union with this man makes impossible and sinful. Let us for
+the sake of the past take counsel of each other, even as brother and
+sister.”
+
+“Sister McGee!” she interrupted mockingly. “It wasn't as brother and
+sister you made love to me at Angel's.”
+
+“No! I loved you then, and would have made you my wife.”
+
+“And you don't love me any more,” she said, audaciously darting a wicked
+look into his eyes, “only because I didn't marry you? And you think that
+Christian?”
+
+“You know I love you as I have loved you always,” he said passionately.
+
+“Hush!” she said mockingly; “suppose he should hear you.”
+
+“He knows it!” said Madison bitterly. “I told him all!”
+
+She stared at him fixedly.
+
+“You have--told--him--that--you STILL love me?” she repeated slowly.
+
+“Yes, or I wouldn't be here now. It was due to him--to my own
+conscience.”
+
+“And what did he say?”
+
+“He insisted upon my coming, and, as God is my Judge and witness--he
+seemed satisfied and content.”
+
+She drew her pretty lips together with a long whistle, and then leaped
+from the table. Her face was hard and her eyes were bright as she went
+to the window and looked out. He followed her timidly.
+
+“Don't touch me,” she said, sharply striking away his proffered hand.
+He turned with a flushed cheek and walked slowly towards the door. Her
+laugh stopped him.
+
+“Come! I reckon that squeezin' hands ain't no part of your contract with
+Sandy?” she said, glancing down at her own. “Well, so you're goin'?”
+
+“I only wished to talk seriously and prayerfully with you for a few
+moments, Safie, and then--to see you no more.”
+
+“And how would that suit him,” she said dryly, “if he wants your company
+here? Then, just because you can't convert me and bring me to your ways
+of thinkin' in one visit, I suppose you think it is Christian-like to
+run away like this! Or do you suppose that, if you turn tail now, he
+won't believe that your Christian strength and Christian resignation is
+all humbug?”
+
+Madison dropped into the chair, put his elbows on the table, and buried
+his face in his hands. She came a little nearer, and laid her hand
+lightly on his arm. He made a movement as if to take it, but she
+withdrew it impatiently.
+
+“Come,” she said brusquely; “now you're in for it you must play the game
+out. He trusts you; if he sees you can't trust yourself, he'll shoot you
+on sight. That don't frighten you? Well, perhaps this will then! He'll
+SAY your religion is a sham and you a hypocrite--and everybody will
+believe him. How do you like that, Brother Wayne? How will that help
+the Church? Come! You're a pair of cranks together; but he's got the
+whip-hand of you this time. All you can do is to keep up to his idea
+of you. Put a bold face on it, and come here as often as you can--the
+oftener the better; the sooner you'll both get sick of each other--and
+of ME. That's what you're both after, ain't it? Well! I can tell you
+now, you needn't either of you be the least afraid of me.”
+
+She walked away to the window again, not angrily, but smoothing down the
+folds of her bright print dress as if she were wiping her hands of her
+husband and his guest. Something like a very material and man-like sense
+of shame struggled up through his crust of religion. He stammered, “You
+don't understand me, Safie.”
+
+“Then talk of something I do understand,” she said pertly. “Tell me
+some news of Angel's. Your brother was over there the other day. He
+made himself quite popular with the young ladies--so I hear from Mrs.
+Selvedge. You can tell me as we walk along the bank towards Sandy's
+claim. It's just as well that you should move on now, as it's your FIRST
+call, and next time you can stop longer.” She went to the corner of the
+room, removed her smart slippers, and put on a pair of walking-shoes,
+tying them, with her foot on a chair, in a quiet disregard of her
+visitor's presence; took a brown holland sunbonnet from the wall,
+clapped it over her browner hair and hanging braids, and tied it under
+her chin with apparently no sense of coquetry in the act--becoming
+though it was--and without glancing at him. Alas for Madison's ethics!
+The torment of her worldly speech and youthful contempt was nothing to
+this tacit ignoring of the manhood of her lover--this silent acceptance
+of him as something even lower than her husband. He followed her with a
+burning cheek and a curious revolting of his whole nature that it is to
+be feared were scarcely Christian. The willows opened to let them pass
+and closed behind them.
+
+An hour later Mrs. McGee returned to her leafy bower alone. She took off
+her sunbonnet, hung it on its nail on the wall, shook down her braids,
+took off her shoes, stained with the mud of her husband's claim, and put
+on her slippers. Then she ascended to her eyrie in the little gallery,
+and gazed smilingly across the sunlit Bar. The two gaunt shadows of
+her husband and lover, linked like twins, were slowly passing along the
+river bank on their way to the eclipsing obscurity of the cottonwoods.
+Below her--almost at her very feet--the unconscious Arthur Wayne was
+pushing his work on the river bed, far out to the promontory. The
+sunlight fell upon his vivid scarlet shirt, his bared throat, and head
+clustering with perspiring curls. The same sunlight fell upon Mrs.
+McGee's brown head too, and apparently put a wicked fancy inside it. She
+ran to her bedroom, and returned with a mirror from its wall, and, after
+some trials in getting the right angle, sent a searching reflection upon
+the spot where Arthur was at work.
+
+For an instant a diamond flash played around him. Then he lifted his
+head and turned it curiously towards the crest above him. But the next
+moment he clapped his hands over his dazzled but now smiling eyes, as
+Mrs. McGee, secure in her leafy obscurity, fell back and laughed to
+herself, like a very schoolgirl.
+
+It was three weeks later, and Madison Wayne was again sitting alone in
+his cabin. This solitude had become of more frequent occurrence lately,
+since Arthur had revolted and openly absented himself from his religious
+devotions for lighter diversions of the Bar. Keenly as Madison felt his
+defection, he was too much preoccupied with other things to lay much
+stress upon it, and the sting of Arthur's relapse to worldliness and
+folly lay in his own consciousness that it was partly his fault. He
+could not chide his brother when he felt that his own heart was absorbed
+in his neighbor's wife, and although he had rigidly adhered to his own
+crude ideas of self-effacement and loyalty to McGee, he had been again
+and again a visitor at his house. It was true that Mrs. McGee had
+made this easier by tacitly accepting his conditions of their
+acquaintanceship, by seeming more natural, by exhibiting a gayety, and
+at times even a certain gentleness and thoughtfulness of conduct that
+delighted her husband and astonished her lover. Whether this wonderful
+change had really been effected by the latter's gloomy theology and
+still more hopeless ethics, he could not say. She certainly showed no
+disposition to imitate their formalities, nor seemed to be impressed by
+them on the rare occasions when he now offered them. Yet she appeared to
+link the two men together--even physically--as on these occasions when,
+taking an arm of each, she walked affectionately between them along the
+river bank promenade, to the great marveling and admiration of the Bar.
+It was said, however, that Mr. Jack Hamlin, a gambler, at that moment
+professionally visiting Wayne's Bar, and a great connoisseur of feminine
+charms and weaknesses, had glanced at them under his handsome lashes,
+and asked a single question, evidently so amusing to the younger members
+of the Bar that Madison Wayne knit his brow and Arthur Wayne blushed.
+Mr. Hamlin took no heed of the elder brother's frown, but paid some
+slight attention to the color of the younger brother, and even more to
+a slightly coquettish glance from the pretty Mrs. McGee. Whether or
+not--as has been ingeniously alleged by some moralists--the light
+and trifling of either sex are prone to recognize each other by some
+mysterious instinct, is not a necessary consideration of this chronicle;
+enough that the fact is recorded.
+
+And yet Madison Wayne should have been satisfied with his work! His
+sacrifice was accepted; his happy issue from a dangerous situation, and
+his happy triumph over a more dangerous temptation, was complete and
+perfect, and even achieved according to his own gloomy theories of
+redemption and regeneration. Yet he was not happy. The human heart is
+at times strangely unappeasable. And as he sat that evening in the
+gathering shadows, the Book which should have yielded him balm and
+comfort lay unopened in his lap.
+
+A step upon the gravel outside had become too familiar to startle him.
+It was Mr. McGee lounging into the cabin like a gaunt shadow. It must be
+admitted that the friendship of these strangely contrasted men, however
+sincere and sympathetic, was not cheerful. A belief in the thorough
+wickedness of humanity, kept under only through fear of extreme penalty
+and punishment, material and spiritual, was not conducive to light and
+amusing conversation. Their talk was mainly a gloomy chronicle of life
+at the Bar, which was in itself half an indictment. To-night, Mr. McGee
+spoke of the advent of Mr. Jack Hamlin, and together they deplored the
+diversion of the hard-earned gains and valuable time of the Bar through
+the efforts of that ingenious gentleman. “Not,” added McGee cautiously,
+“but what he can shoot straight enough, and I've heard tell that he
+don't LIE. That mout and it moutn't be good for your brother who goes
+around with him considerable, there's different ways of lookin' at
+that; you understand what I mean? You follow me?” For all that, the
+conversation seemed to languish this evening, partly through some
+abstraction on the part of Wayne and partly some hesitation in McGee,
+who appeared to have a greater fear than usual of not expressing himself
+plainly. It was quite dark in the cabin when at last, detaching himself
+from his usual lounging place, the door-post, he walked to the window
+and leaned, more shadowy than ever, over Wayne's chair. “I want to
+tell you suthin',” he said slowly, “that I don't want you to
+misunderstand--you follow me? and that ain't no ways carpin' or
+criticisin' nor reflectin' on YOU--you understand what I mean? Ever sens
+you and me had that talk here about you and Safie, and ever sens I got
+the hang of your ways and your style o' thinkin', I've been as sure
+of you and her as if I'd been myself trottin' round with you and
+a revolver. And I'm as sure of you now--you sabe what I mean? you
+understand? You've done me and her a heap o' good; she's almost another
+woman sens you took hold of her, and ef you ever want me to stand up
+and 'testify,' as you call it, in church, Sandy McGee is ready. What
+I'm tryin' to say to ye is this. Tho' I understand you and your work and
+your ways--there's other folks ez moutn't--you follow? You understand
+what I mean? And it's just that I'm coming to. Now las' night, when you
+and Safie was meanderin' along the lower path by the water, and I kem
+across you”--
+
+“But,” interrupted Madison quickly, “you're mistaken. I wasn't”--
+
+“Hol' on,” said McGee, quietly; “I know you got out o' the way without
+you seein' me or me you, because you didn't know it was me, don't you
+see? don't you follow? and that's just it! It mout have bin some one
+from the Bar as seed you instead o' ME. See? That's why you lit out
+before I could recognize you, and that's why poor Safie was so mighty
+flustered at first and was for runnin' away until she kem to herself
+agin. When, of course, she laughed, and agreed you must have mistook
+me.”
+
+“But,” gasped Madison quickly, “I WASN'T THERE AT ALL LAST NIGHT.”
+
+“What?”
+
+The two men had risen simultaneously and were facing each other. McGee,
+with a good-natured, half-critical expression, laid his hand on Wayne's
+shoulder and slightly turned him towards the window, that he might see
+his face. It seemed to him white and dazed.
+
+“You--wasn't there--last night?” he repeated, with a slow tolerance.
+
+Scarcely a moment elapsed, but the agony of an hour may have thrilled
+through Wayne's consciousness before he spoke. Then all the blood of his
+body rushed to his face with his first lie as he stammered, “No! Yes! Of
+course. I have made a mistake--it WAS I.”
+
+“I see--you thought I was riled?” said McGee quietly.
+
+“No; I was thinking it was NIGHT BEFORE LAST! Of course it was last
+night. I must be getting silly.” He essayed a laugh--rare at any
+time with him--and so forced now that it affected McGee more than his
+embarrassment. He looked at Wayne thoughtfully, and then said slowly: “I
+reckon I did come upon you a little too sudden last night, but, you see,
+I was thinkin' of suthin' else and disremembered you might be there. But
+I wasn't mad--no! no! and I only spoke about it now that you might be
+more keerful before folks. You follow me? You understand what I mean?”
+
+He turned and walked to the door, when he halted. “You follow me, don't
+you? It ain't no cussedness o' mine, or want o' trustin', don't you see?
+Mebbe I oughtened have spoken. I oughter remembered that times this
+sort o' thing must be rather rough on you and her. You follow me? You
+understand what I mean? Good-night.”
+
+He walked slowly down the path towards the river. Had Madison Wayne been
+watching him, he would have noticed that his head was bent and his step
+less free. But Madison Wayne was at that moment sitting rigidly in his
+chair, nursing, with all the gloomy concentration of a monastic nature,
+a single terrible suspicion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Howbeit the sun shone cheerfully over the Bar the next morning and the
+next; the breath of life and activity was in the air; the settlement
+never had been more prosperous, and the yield from the opened placers
+on the drained river-bed that week was enormous. The Brothers Wayne
+were said to be “rolling in gold.” It was thought to be consistent with
+Madison Wayne's nature that there was no trace of good fortune in his
+face or manner--rather that he had become more nervous, restless, and
+gloomy. This was attributed to the joylessness of avarice as contrasted
+with the spendthrift gayety of the more liberal Arthur, and he was
+feared and RESPECTED as a miser. His long, solitary walks around the
+promontory, his incessant watchfulness, his reticence when questioned,
+were all recognized as the indications of a man whose soul was absorbed
+in money-getting. The reverence they failed to yield to his religious
+isolation they were willing to freely accord to his financial
+abstraction. But Mr. McGee was not so deceived. Overtaking him one
+day under the fringe of willows, he characteristically chided him
+with absenting himself from Mrs. McGee and her house since their last
+interview.
+
+“I reckon you did not harbor malice in your Christianity,” he said;
+“but it looks mighty like ez if ye was throwing off on Safie and me on
+account of what I said.”
+
+In vain Madison gloomily and almost sternly protested.
+
+McGee looked him all over with his clear measuring eye, and for some
+minutes was singularly silent. At last he said slowly: “I've been
+thinkin' suthin' o' goin' down to 'Frisco, and I'd be a heap easier in
+my mind ef you'd promise to look arter Safie now and then.”
+
+“You surely are not going to leave her here ALONE?” said Wayne roughly.
+
+“Why not?”
+
+For an instant Wayne hesitated. Then he burst out. “For a hundred
+reasons! If she ever wanted your protection, before, she surely does
+now. Do you suppose the Bar is any less heathen or more regenerated than
+it was when you thought it necessary to guard her with your revolver?
+Man! It is a hundred times worse than then! The new claims have
+filled it with spying adventurers--with wolves like Hamlin and his
+friends--idolaters who would set up Baal and Ashteroth here--and fill
+your tents with the curses of Sodom!”
+
+Perhaps it was owing to the Scriptural phrasing, perhaps it was from
+some unusual authority of the man's manner, but a look of approving
+relief and admiration came into McGee's clear eyes.
+
+“And YOU'RE just the man to tackle 'em,” he said, clapping his hand on
+Wayne's shoulder. “That's your gait--keep it up! But,” he added, in
+a lower voice, “me and my revolver are played out.” There was a
+strangeness in the tone that arrested Wayne's attention. “Yes,”
+ continued McGee, stroking his beard slowly, “men like me has their day,
+and revolvers has theirs; the world turns round and the Bar fills up,
+and this yer river changes its course--and it's all in the day's work.
+You understand what I mean--you follow me? And if anything should happen
+to me--not that it's like to; but it's in the way o' men--I want you
+to look arter Safie. It ain't every woman ez has two men, ez like and
+unlike, to guard her. You follow me--you understand what I mean, don't
+you?” With these words he parted somewhat abruptly from Wayne, turning
+into the steep path to the promontory crest and leaving his companion
+lost in gloomy abstraction. The next day Alexander McGee had departed on
+a business trip to San Francisco.
+
+In his present frame of mind, with his new responsibility and the
+carrying out of a plan which he had vaguely conceived might remove the
+terrible idea that had taken possession of him, Madison Wayne was even
+relieved when his brother also announced his intention of going to
+Angel's for a few days.
+
+For since his memorable interview with McGee he had been convinced that
+Safie had been clandestinely visited by some one. Whether it was the
+thoughtless and momentary indiscretion of a willful woman, or the sequel
+to some deliberately planned intrigue, did not concern him so much as
+the falsity of his own position, and the conniving lie by which he had
+saved her and her lover. That at this crucial moment he had failed to
+“testify” to guilt and wickedness; that he firmly believed--such is the
+inordinate vanity of the religious zealot--that he had denied Him in his
+effort to shield HER; and that he had broken faith with the husband who
+had entrusted to him the custody of his wife's honor, seemed to him more
+terrible than her faithlessness. In his first horror he had dreaded
+to see her, lest her very confession--he knew her reckless frankness
+towards himself--should reveal to him the extent of his complicity. But
+since then, and during her husband's absence, he had convinced himself
+that it was his duty to wrestle and strive with her weak spirit, to
+implore her to reveal her new intrigue to her husband, and then he would
+help her to sue for his forgiveness. It was a part of the inconsistency
+of his religious convictions; in his human passion he was perfectly
+unselfish, and had already forgiven her the offense against himself. He
+would see her at once!
+
+But it happened to be a quiet, intense night, with the tremulous
+opulence of a full moon that threw quivering shafts of light like summer
+lightning over the blue river, and laid a wonderful carpet of intricate
+lace along the path that wound through the willows to the crest. There
+was the dry, stimulating dust and spice of heated pines from below; the
+languorous odors of syringa; the faint, feminine smell of southernwood,
+and the infinite mystery of silence. This silence was at times softly
+broken with the tender inarticulate whisper of falling leaves, broken
+sighs from the tree-tops, and the languid stretching of wakened and
+unclasping boughs. Madison Wayne had not, alas! taken into account this
+subtle conspiracy of Night and Nature, and as he climbed higher, his
+steps began to falter with new and strange sensations. The rigidity
+of purpose which had guided the hard religious convictions that always
+sustained him, began to relax. A tender sympathy stole over him; a
+loving mercy to himself as well as others stole into his heart. He
+thought of HER as she had nestled at his side, hand in hand, upon the
+moonlit veranda of her father's house, before his hard convictions had
+chilled and affrighted her. He thought of her fresh simplicity, and what
+had seemed to him her wonderful girlish beauty, and lo! in a quick turn
+of the path he stood breathless and tremulous before the house. The
+moonbeams lay tenderly upon the peaceful eaves; the long blossoms of the
+Madeira vine seemed sleeping also. The pink flush of the Cherokee rose
+in the unreal light had become chastely white.
+
+But he was evidently too late for an interview. The windows were blank
+in the white light; only one--her bedroom--showed a light behind the
+lowered muslin blind. Her draped shadow once or twice passed across it.
+He was turning away with soft steps and even bated breath when suddenly
+he stopped. The exaggerated but unmistakable shadow of a man stood
+beside her on the blind.
+
+With a fierce leap as of a maniac, he was at the door, pounding,
+rattling, and uttering hoarse and furious outcries. Even through his
+fury he heard quickened footsteps--her light, reckless, half-hysterical
+laugh--a bound upon the staircase--the hurried unbolting and opening of
+distant doors, as the lighter one with which he was struggling at last
+yielded to his blind rage, and threw him crashing into the sitting-room.
+The back door was wide open. He could hear the rustling and crackling of
+twigs and branches in different directions down the hillside, where the
+fugitives had separated as they escaped. And yet he stood there for an
+instant, dazed and wondering, “What next?”
+
+His eyes fell upon McGee's rifle standing upright in the corner. It was
+a clean, beautiful, precise weapon, even to the unprofessional eye,
+its long, laminated hexagonal barrel taking a tenderer blue in the
+moonlight. He snatched it up. It was capped and loaded. Without a pause
+he dashed down the hill.
+
+Only one thought was in his mind now--the crudest, simplest duty. He
+was there in McGee's place; he should do what McGee would do. God had
+abandoned him, but McGee's rifle remained.
+
+In a few minutes' downward plunging he had reached the river bank. The
+tranquil silver surface quivered and glittered before him. He saw what
+he knew he would see, the black target of a man's head above it, making
+for the Bar. He took deliberate aim and fired. There was no echo to that
+sharp detonation; a distant dog barked, there was a slight whisper
+in the trees beside him, that was all! But the head of the man was no
+longer visible, and the liquid silver filmed over again, without a speck
+or stain.
+
+He shouldered the rifle, and with the automatic action of men in great
+crises returned slowly and deliberately to the house and carefully
+replaced the rifle in its old position. He had no concern for the
+miserable woman who had fled; had she appeared before him at the moment,
+he would not have noticed her. Yet a strange instinct--it seemed to him
+the vaguest curiosity--made him ascend the stairs and enter her
+chamber. The candle was still burning on the table with that awful
+unconsciousness and simplicity of detail which makes the scene of real
+tragedy so terrible. Beside it lay a belt and leather pouch. Madison
+Wayne suddenly dashed forward and seized it, with a wild, inarticulate
+cry; staggered, fell over the chair, rose to his feet, blindly groped
+his way down the staircase, burst into the road, and, hugging the pouch
+to his bosom, fled like a madman down the hill.
+
+*****
+
+The body of Arthur Wayne was picked up two days later a dozen miles down
+the river. Nothing could be more evident and prosaic than the manner
+in which he had met his fate. His body was only partly clothed, and
+the money pouch and belt, which had been securely locked next his skin,
+after the fashion of all miners, was gone. He was known to have left the
+Bar with a considerable sum of money; he was undoubtedly dogged, robbed,
+and murdered during his journey on the river bank by the desperadoes who
+were beginning to infest the vicinity. The grief and agony of his only
+brother, sole survivor of that fraternal and religious partnership so
+well known to the camp, although shown only by a grim and speechless
+melancholy,--broken by unintelligible outbursts of religious
+raving,--was so real, that it affected even the callous camp. But
+scarcely had it regained its feverish distraction, before it was
+thrilled by another sensation. Alexander McGee had fallen from the deck
+of a Sacramento steamboat in the Straits of Carquinez, and his body had
+been swept out to sea. The news had apparently been first to reach the
+ears of his devoted wife, for when the camp--at this lapse of the old
+prohibition--climbed to her bower with their rude consolations, the
+house was found locked and deserted. The fateful influence of the
+promontory had again prevailed, the grim record of its seclusion was
+once more unbroken.
+
+For with it, too, drooped and faded the fortunes of the Bar. Madison
+Wayne sold out his claim, endowed the church at the Cross Roads with the
+proceeds, and the pulpit with his grim, hopeless, denunciatory presence.
+The first rains brought a freshet to the Bar. The river leaped the
+light barriers that had taken the place of Wayne's peaceful engines,
+and regained the old channel. The curse that the Rev. Madison Wayne had
+launched on this riverside Sodom seemed to have been fulfilled. But even
+this brought no satisfaction to the gloomy prophet, for it was presently
+known that he had abandoned his terror-stricken flock to take the
+circuit as revivalist preacher and camp-meeting exhorter, in the rudest
+and most lawless of gatherings. Desperate ruffians writhed at his feet
+in impotent terror or more impotent rage; murderers and thieves listened
+to him with blanched faces and set teeth, restrained only by a more
+awful fear. Over and over again he took his life with his Bible into his
+own hands when he rose above the excited multitude; he was shot at, he
+was rail-ridden, he was deported, but never silenced. And so, sweeping
+over the country, carrying fear and frenzy with him, scouting life and
+mercy, and crushing alike the guilty and innocent, he came one Sabbath
+to a rocky crest of the Sierras--the last tattered and frayed and soiled
+fringe of civilization on the opened tract of a great highway. And here
+he was to “testify,” as was his wont.
+
+But not as he expected. For as he stood up on a boulder above the thirty
+or forty men sitting or lying upon other rocks and boulders around him,
+on the craggy mountain shelf where they had gathered, a man also rose,
+elbowed past them, and with a hurried impulse tried to descend
+the declivity. But a cry was suddenly heard from others, quick and
+clamoring, which called the whole assembly to its feet, and it was seen
+that the fugitive had in some blundering way fallen from the precipice.
+
+He was brought up cruelly maimed and mangled, his ribs crushed, and one
+lung perforated, but still breathing and conscious. He had asked to see
+the preacher. Death impending, and even then struggling with his breath,
+made this request imperative. Madison Wayne stopped the service, and
+stalked grimly and inflexibly to where the dying man lay. But there he
+started.
+
+“McGee!” he said breathlessly.
+
+“Send these men away,” said McGee faintly. “I've got suthin' to tell
+you.”
+
+The men drew back without a word. “You thought I was dead,” said McGee,
+with eyes still undimmed and marvelously clear. “I orter bin, but it
+don't need no doctor to say it ain't far off now. I left the Bar to get
+killed; I tried to in a row, but the fellows were skeert to close with
+me, thinkin' I'd shoot. My reputation was agin me, there! You follow me?
+You understand what I mean?”
+
+Kneeling beside him now and grasping both his hands, the changed and
+horror-stricken Wayne gasped, “But”--
+
+“Hold on! I jumped off the Sacramento boat--I was goin' down the third
+time--they thought on the boat I was gone--they think so now! But a
+passin' fisherman dived for me. I grappled him--he was clear grit and
+would have gone down with me, but I couldn't let him die too--havin' so
+to speak no cause. You follow me--you understand me? I let him save me.
+But it was all the same, for when I got to 'Frisco I read as how I was
+drowned. And then I reckoned it was all right, and I wandered HERE,
+where I wasn't known--until I saw you.”
+
+“But why should you want to die?” said Wayne, almost fiercely. “What
+right have you to die while others--double-dyed and blood-stained, are
+condemned to live, 'testify,' and suffer?”
+
+The dying man feebly waved a deprecation with his maimed hand, and even
+smiled faintly. “I knew you'd say that. I knew what you'd think about
+it, but it's all the same now. I did it for you and Safie! I knew I was
+in the way; I knew you was the man she orter had; I knew you was the man
+who had dragged her outer the mire and clay where I was leavin' her, as
+you did when she fell in the water. I knew that every day I lived I was
+makin' YOU suffer and breakin' HER heart--for all she tried to be gentle
+and gay.”
+
+“Great God in heaven! Will you stop!” said Wayne, springing to his feet
+in agony. A frightened look--the first that any one had ever seen in
+the clear eyes of the Bell-ringer of Angel's--passed over them, and he
+murmured tremulously: “All right--I'm stoppin'!”
+
+So, too, was his heart, for the wonderful eyes were now slowly glazing.
+Yet he rallied once more--coming up again the third time as it seemed
+to Wayne--and his lips moved slowly. The preacher threw himself
+despairingly on the ground beside him.
+
+“Speak, brother! For God's sake, speak!”
+
+It was his last whisper--so faint it might have been the first of his
+freed soul. But he only said:--
+
+“You're--followin'--me? You--understand--what--I--mean?”
+
+
+
+
+JOHNNYBOY.
+
+
+The vast dining-room of the Crustacean Hotel at Greyport, U. S., was
+empty and desolate. It was so early in the morning that there was a
+bedroom deshabille in the tucked-up skirts and bare legs of the
+little oval breakfast-tables as they had just been left by the dusting
+servants. The most stirring of travelers was yet abed, the most
+enterprising of first-train catchers had not yet come down; there was
+a breath of midsummer sleep still in the air; through the half-opened
+windows that seemed to be yawning, the pinkish blue Atlantic beyond
+heaved gently and slumberously, and drowsy early bathers crept into it
+as to bed. Yet as I entered the room I saw that one of the little
+tables in the corner was in reality occupied by a very small and very
+extraordinary child. Seated in a high chair, attended by a dreamily
+abstracted nurse on one side, an utterly perfunctory negro waiter on the
+other, and an incongruous assortment of disregarded viands before
+him, he was taking--or, rather, declining--his solitary breakfast. He
+appeared to be a pale, frail, but rather pretty boy, with a singularly
+pathetic combination of infant delicacy of outline and maturity of
+expression. His heavily fringed eyes expressed an already weary and
+discontented intelligence, and his willful, resolute little mouth was, I
+fancied, marked with lines of pain at either corner. He struck me as not
+only being physically dyspeptic, but as morally loathing his attendants
+and surroundings.
+
+My entrance did not disturb the waiter, with whom I had no financial
+relations; he simply concealed an exaggerated yawn professionally behind
+his napkin until my own servitor should appear. The nurse slightly awoke
+from her abstraction, shoved the child mechanically,--as if starting
+up some clogged machinery,--said, “Eat your breakfast, Johnnyboy,” and
+subsided into her dream. I think the child had at first some faint hope
+of me, and when my waiter appeared with my breakfast he betrayed some
+interest in my selection, with a view of possible later appropriation,
+but, as my repast was simple, that hope died out of his infant mind.
+Then there was a silence, broken at last by the languid voice of the
+nurse:--
+
+“Try some milk then--nice milk.”
+
+“No! No mik! Mik makes me sick--mik does!”
+
+In spite of the hurried infantine accent the protest was so emphatic,
+and, above all, fraught with such pent-up reproach and disgust, that I
+turned about sympathetically. But Johnnyboy had already thrown down his
+spoon, slipped from his high chair, and was marching out of the room as
+fast as his little sandals would carry him, with indignation bristling
+in every line of the crisp bows of his sash.
+
+I, however, gathered from Mr. Johnson, my waiter, that the unfortunate
+child owned a fashionable father and mother, one or two blocks of
+houses in New York, and a villa at Greyport, which he consistently and
+intelligently despised. That he had imperiously brought his parents
+here on account of his health, and had demanded that he should breakfast
+alone in the big dining-room. That, however, he was not happy. “Nuffin
+peahs to agree wid him, Sah, but he doan' cry, and he speaks his mind,
+Sah; he speaks his mind.”
+
+Unfortunately, I did not keep Johnnyboy's secret, but related the scene
+I had witnessed to some of the lighter-hearted Crustaceans of either
+sex, with the result that his alliterative protest became a sort of
+catchword among them, and that for the next few mornings he had a large
+audience of early breakfasters, who fondly hoped for a repetition of
+his performance. I think that Johnnyboy for the time enjoyed
+this companionship, yet without the least affectation or
+self-consciousness--so long as it was unobtrusive. It so chanced,
+however, that the Rev. Mr. Belcher, a gentleman with bovine lightness
+of touch, and a singular misunderstanding of childhood, chose to
+presume upon his paternal functions. Approaching the high chair in which
+Johnnyboy was dyspeptically reflecting, with a ponderous wink at the
+other guests, and a fat thumb and forefinger on Johnnyboy's table, he
+leaned over him, and with slow, elephantine playfulness said:--
+
+“And so, my dear young friend, I understand that 'mik makes you
+sick--mik does.'”
+
+Anything approaching to the absolute likeness of this imitation of
+Johnnyboy's accents it is impossible to conceive. Possibly Johnnyboy
+felt it. But he simply lifted his lovely lashes, and said with great
+distinctness:--
+
+“Mik don't--you devil!”
+
+After this, closely as it had knitted us together, Johnnyboy's morning
+presence was mysteriously withdrawn. It was later pointed out to us by
+Mr. Belcher, upon the veranda, that, although Wealth had its privileges,
+it was held in trust for the welfare of Mankind, and that the children
+of the Rich could not too early learn the advantages of Self-restraint
+and the vanity of a mere gratification of the Senses. Early and frequent
+morning ablutions, brisk morning toweling, half of a Graham biscuit in
+a teacup of milk, exercise with the dumb-bells, and a little
+rough-and-tumble play in a straw hat, check apron, and overalls would
+eventually improve that stamina necessary for his future Position, and
+repress a dangerous cerebral activity and tendency to give way to--He
+suddenly stopped, coughed, and absolutely looked embarrassed. Johnnyboy,
+a moving cloud of white pique, silk, and embroidery, had just turned
+the corner of the veranda. He did not speak, but as he passed raised
+his blue-veined lids to the orator. The look of ineffable scorn and
+superiority in those beautiful eyes surpassed anything I had ever seen.
+At the next veranda column he paused, and, with his baby thumbs inserted
+in his silk sash, again regarded him under his half-dropped lashes as
+if he were some curious animal, and then passed on. But Belcher was
+silenced for the second time.
+
+I think I have said enough to show that Johnnyboy was hopelessly
+worshiped by an impressible and illogical sex. I say HOPELESSLY, for
+he slipped equally from the proudest silken lap and the humblest one
+of calico, and carried his eyelashes and small aches elsewhere. I think
+that a secret fear of his alarming frankness, and his steady rejection
+of the various tempting cates they offered him, had much to do with
+their passion. “It won't hurt you, dear,” said Miss Circe, “and it's so
+awfully nice. See!” she continued, putting one of the delicacies in
+her own pretty mouth with every assumption of delight. “It's SO good!”
+ Johnnyboy rested his elbows on her knees, and watched her with a grieved
+and commiserating superiority. “Bimeby, you'll have pains in youse
+tommick, and you'll be tookt to bed,” he said sadly, “and then
+you'll--have to dit up and”--But as it was found necessary here to
+repress further details, he escaped other temptation.
+
+Two hours later, as Miss Circe was seated in the drawing-room with her
+usual circle of enthusiastic admirers around her, Johnnyboy--who was
+issued from his room for circulation, two or three times a day, as a
+genteel advertisement of his parents--floated into the apartment in a
+new dress and a serious demeanor. Sidling up to Miss Circe he laid a
+phial--evidently his own pet medicine--on her lap, said, “For youse
+tommikake to-night,” and vanished. Yet I have reason to believe that
+this slight evidence of unusual remembrance on Johnnyboy's part more
+than compensated for its publicity, and for a few days Miss Circe was
+quite “set up” by it.
+
+It was through some sympathy of this kind that I first gained
+Johnnyboy's good graces. I had been presented with a small pocket case
+of homoeopathic medicines, and one day on the beach I took out one of
+the tiny phials and, dropping two or three of the still tinier pellets
+in my hand, swallowed them. To my embarrassment, a small hand presently
+grasped my trouser-leg. I looked down; it was Johnnyboy, in a new and
+ravishing smuggler suit, with his questioning eyes fixed on mine.
+
+“Howjer do dat?”
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“Wajer do dat for?”
+
+“That?--Oh, that's medicine. I've got a headache.”
+
+He searched the inmost depths of my soul with his wonderful eyes. Then,
+after a pause, he held out his baby palm.
+
+“You kin give Johnny some.”
+
+“But you haven't got headache--have you?”
+
+“Me alluz has.”
+
+“Not ALWAYS.”
+
+He nodded his head rapidly. Then added slowly, and with great
+elaboration, “Et mo'nins, et affernoons, et nights, 'nd mo'nins adain.
+'N et becker” (i. e., breakfast).
+
+There was no doubt it was the truth. Those eyes did not seem to be in
+the habit of lying. After all, the medicine could not hurt him. His
+nurse was at a little distance gazing absently at the sea. I sat down
+on a bench, and dropped a few of the pellets into his palm. He ate
+them seriously, and then turned around and backed--after the well-known
+appealing fashion of childhood--against my knees. I understood the
+movement--although it was unlike my idea of Johnnyboy. However, I
+raised him to my lap--with the sensation of lifting a dozen lace-edged
+handkerchiefs, and with very little more effort--where he sat silently
+for a moment, with his sandals crossed pensively before him.
+
+“Wouldn't you like to go and play with those children?” I asked,
+pointing to a group of noisy sand levelers not far away.
+
+“No!” After a pause, “You wouldn't neither.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Hediks.”
+
+“But,” I said, “perhaps if you went and played with them and ran up and
+down as they do, you wouldn't have headache.”
+
+Johnnyboy did not answer for a moment; then there was a perceptible
+gentle movement of his small frame. I confess I felt brutally like
+Belcher. He was getting down.
+
+Once down he faced me, lifted his frank eyes, said, “Do way and play
+den,” smoothed down his smuggler frock, and rejoined his nurse.
+
+But although Johnnyboy afterwards forgave my moral defection, he did not
+seem to have forgotten my practical medical ministration, and our brief
+interview had a surprising result. From that moment he confounded his
+parents and doctors by resolutely and positively refusing to take any
+more of their pills, tonics, or drops. Whether from a sense of
+loyalty to me, or whether he was not yet convinced of the efficacy of
+homoeopathy, he did not suggest a substitute, declare his preferences,
+or even give his reasons, but firmly and peremptorily declined his
+present treatment. And, to everybody's astonishment, he did not seem a
+bit the worse for it.
+
+Still he was not strong, and his continual aversion to childish sports
+and youthful exercise provoked the easy criticism of that large part
+of humanity who are ready to confound cause and effect, and such brief
+moments as the Sluysdaels could spare him from their fashionable duties
+were made miserable to them by gratuitous suggestions and plans for
+their child's improvement. It was noticeable, however, that few of them
+were ever offered to Johnnyboy personally. He had a singularly direct
+way of dealing with them, and a precision of statement that was
+embarrassing.
+
+One afternoon, Jack Bracy drove up to the veranda of the Crustacean
+with a smart buggy and spirited thoroughbred for Miss Circe's especial
+driving, and his own saddle-horse on which he was to accompany her.
+Jack had dismounted, a groom held his saddle-horse until the young lady
+should appear, and he himself stood at the head of the thoroughbred. As
+Johnnyboy, leaning against the railing, was regarding the turnout
+with ill-concealed disdain, Jack, in the pride of his triumph over his
+rivals, good-humoredly offered to put him in the buggy, and allow him to
+take the reins. Johnnyboy did not reply.
+
+“Come along!” continued Jack, “it will do you a heap of good! It's
+better than lazing there like a girl! Rouse up, old man!”
+
+“Me don't like that geegee,” said Johnnyboy calmly. “He's a silly fool.”
+
+“You're afraid,” said Jack.
+
+Johnnyboy lifted his proud lashes, and toddled to the steps. Jack
+received him in his arms, swung him into the seat, and placed the slim
+yellow reins in his baby hands.
+
+“Now you feel like a man, and not like a girl!” said Jack. “Eh, what?
+Oh, I beg your pardon.”
+
+For Miss Circe had appeared--had absolutely been obliged to wait a
+whole half-minute unobserved--and now stood there a dazzling but pouting
+apparition. In eagerly turning to receive her, Jack's foot slipped on
+the step, and he fell. The thoroughbred started, gave a sickening plunge
+forward, and was off! But so, too, was Jack, the next moment, on his own
+horse, and before Miss Circe's screams had died away.
+
+For two blocks on Ocean Avenue, passersby that afternoon saw a strange
+vision. A galloping horse careering before a light buggy, in which a
+small child, seated upright, was grasping the tightened reins. But so
+erect and composed was the little face and figure--albeit as white
+as its own frock--that for an instant they did not grasp its awful
+significance. Those further along, however, read the whole awful story
+in the drawn face and blazing eyes of Jack Bracy as he, at last, swung
+into the Avenue. For Jack had the brains as well as the nerve of your
+true hero, and, knowing the dangerous stimulus of a stern chase to
+a frightened horse, had kept a side road until it branched into the
+Avenue. So furious had been his pace, and so correct his calculation,
+that he ranged alongside of the runaway even as it passed, grasped the
+reins, and, in half a block, pulled up on even wheels.
+
+“I never saw such pluck in a mite like that,” he whispered afterwards to
+his anxious auditory. “He never dropped those ribbons, by G--, until I
+got alongside, and then he just hopped down and said, as short and cool
+as you please, 'Dank you!'”
+
+“Me didn't,” uttered a small voice reproachfully.
+
+“Didn't you, dear! What DID you say then, darling?” exclaimed a
+sympathizing chorus.
+
+“Me said: 'Damn you!' Me don't like silly fool geegees. Silly fool
+geegees make me sick--silly fool geegees do!”
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of this incident, the attempts at Johnnyboy's
+physical reformation still went on. More than that, it was argued by
+some complacent casuists that the pluck displayed by the child was the
+actual result of this somewhat heroic method of taking exercise, and NOT
+an inherent manliness distinct from his physical tastes. So he was made
+to run when he didn't want to--to dance when he frankly loathed his
+partners--to play at games that he despised. His books and pictures were
+taken away; he was hurried past hoardings and theatrical posters that
+engaged his fancy; the public was warned against telling him fairy
+tales, except those constructed on strictly hygienic principles.
+His fastidious cleanliness was rebuked, and his best frocks taken
+away--albeit at a terrible sacrifice of his parents' vanity--to suit
+the theories of his critics. How long this might have continued is not
+known--for the theory and practice were suddenly arrested by another
+sensation.
+
+One morning a children's picnic party was given on a rocky point only
+accessible at certain states of the tide, whither they were taken in a
+small boat under the charge of a few hotel servants, and, possibly as
+part of his heroic treatment, Johnnyboy, who was included in the party,
+was not allowed to be attended by his regular nurse.
+
+Whether this circumstance added to his general disgust of the whole
+affair, and his unwillingness to go, I cannot say, but it is to be
+regretted, since the omission deprived Johnnyboy of any impartial
+witness to what subsequently occurred. That he was somewhat roughly
+handled by several of the larger children appeared to be beyond doubt,
+although there was conflicting evidence as to the sequel. Enough that
+at noon screams were heard in the direction of certain detached rocks
+on the point, and the whole party proceeding thither found three of the
+larger boys on the rocks, alone and cut off by the tide, having been
+left there, as they alleged, by Johnnyboy, WHO HAD RUN AWAY WITH THE
+BOAT. They subsequently admitted that THEY had first taken the boat and
+brought Johnnyboy with them, “just to frighten him,” but they adhered to
+the rest. And certainly Johnnyboy and the boat were nowhere to be found.
+The shore was communicated with, the alarm was given, the telegraph,
+up and down the coast trilled with excitement, other boats were
+manned--consternation prevailed.
+
+But that afternoon the captain of the “Saucy Jane,” mackerel fisher,
+lying off the point, perceived a derelict “Whitehall” boat drifting
+lazily towards the Gulf Stream. On boarding it he was chagrined to find
+the expected flotsam already in the possession of a very small child,
+who received him with a scornful reticence as regarded himself and his
+intentions, and some objurgation of a person or persons unknown. It was
+Johnnyboy. But whether he had attempted the destruction of the three
+other boys by “marooning” them upon the rocks--as their parents firmly
+believed--or whether he had himself withdrawn from their company simply
+because he did not like them, was never known. Any further attempt to
+improve his education by the roughing gregarious process was, however,
+abandoned. The very critics who had counseled it now clamored for
+restraint and perfect isolation. It was ably pointed out by the Rev.
+Mr. Belcher that the autocratic habits begotten by wealth and pampering
+should be restricted, and all intercourse with their possessor promptly
+withheld.
+
+But the season presently passed with much of this and other criticism,
+and the Sluysdaels passed too, carrying Johnnyboy and his small aches
+and long eyelashes beyond these Crustacean voices, where it was to be
+hoped there was peace. I did not hear of him again for five years,
+and then, oddly enough, from the lips of Mr. Belcher on the deck of
+a transatlantic steamer, as he was being wafted to Europe for his
+recreation by the prayers and purses of a grateful and enduring flock.
+“Master John Jacob Astor Sluysdael,” said Mr. Belcher, speaking
+slowly, with great precision of retrospect, “was taken from his private
+governess--I may say by my advice--and sent to an admirable school in
+New York, fashioned upon the English system of Eton and Harrow, and
+conducted by English masters from Oxford and Cambridge. Here--I may
+also say at my suggestion--he was subjected to the wholesome discipline
+equally of his schoolmates and his masters; in fact, sir, as you are
+probably aware, the most perfect democracy that we have yet known,
+in which the mere accidents of wealth, position, luxury, effeminacy,
+physical degeneration, and over-civilized stimulation, are not
+recognized. He was put into compulsory cricket, football, and rounders.
+As an undersized boy he was subjected to that ingenious preparation for
+future mastership by the pupillary state of servitude known, I think,
+as 'fagging.' His physical inertia was stimulated and quickened, and his
+intellectual precocity repressed, from time to time, by the exuberant
+playfulness of his fellow-students, which occasionally took the form
+of forced ablutions and corporal discomfort, and was called, I am
+told, 'hazing.' It is but fair to state that our young friend had some
+singular mental endowments, which, however, were promptly checked to
+repress the vanity and presumption that would follow.” The Rev. Mr.
+Belcher paused, closed his eyes resignedly, and added, “Of course, you
+know the rest.”
+
+“Indeed, I do not,” I said anxiously.
+
+“A most deplorable affair--indeed, a most shocking incident! It was
+hushed up, I believe, on account of the position of his parents.” He
+glanced furtively around, and in a lower and more impressive voice said,
+“I am not myself a believer in heredity, and I am not personally aware
+that there was a MURDERER among the Sluysdael ancestry, but it seems
+that this monstrous child, in some clandestine way, possessed himself of
+a huge bowie-knife, sir, and on one of those occasions actually rushed
+furiously at the larger boys--his innocent play-fellows--and absolutely
+forced them to flee in fear of their lives. More than that, sir, a
+LOADED REVOLVER was found in his desk, and he boldly and shamelessly
+avowed his intention to eviscerate, or--to use his own revolting
+language--'to cut the heart out' of the first one who again 'laid a
+finger on him.'” He paused again, and, joining his two hands together
+with the fingers pointing to the deck, breathed hard and said, “His
+instantaneous withdrawal from the school was a matter of public
+necessity. He was afterwards taken, in the charge of a private tutor, to
+Europe, where, I trust, we shall NOT meet.”
+
+I could not resist saying cheerfully that, at least, Johnnyboy had for a
+short time made it lively for the big boys.
+
+The Rev. Mr. Belcher rose slowly, but painfully, said with a deeply
+grieved expression, “I don't think that I entirely follow you,” and
+moved gently away.
+
+The changes of youth are apt to be more bewildering than those of age,
+and a decade scarcely perceptible in an old civilization often means
+utter revolution to the new. It did not seem strange to me, therefore,
+on meeting Jack Bracy twelve years after, to find that he had forgotten
+Miss Circe, or that SHE had married, and was living unhappily with a
+middle-aged adventurer by the name of Jason, who was reputed to have had
+domestic relations elsewhere. But although subjugated and exorcised,
+she at least was reminiscent. To my inquiries about the Sluysdaels, she
+answered with a slight return of her old vivacity:--
+
+“Ah, yes, dear fellow, he was one of my greatest admirers.”
+
+“He was about four years old when you knew him, wasn't he?” suggested
+Jason meanly. “Yes, they usually WERE young, but so kind of you to
+recollect them. Young Sluysdael,” he continued, turning to me, “is--but
+of course you know that disgraceful story.”
+
+I felt that I could stand this no longer. “Yes,” I said indignantly,
+“I know all about the school, and I don't call his conduct disgraceful
+either.”
+
+Jason stared. “I don't know what you mean about the school,” he
+returned. “I am speaking of his stepfather.”
+
+“His STEPFATHER!”
+
+“Yes; his father, Van Buren Sluysdael, died, you know--a year after they
+left Greyport. The widow was left all the money in trust for Johnny,
+except about twenty-five hundred a year which he was in receipt of as a
+separate income, even as a boy. Well, a glib-tongued parson, a fellow by
+the name of Belcher, got round the widow--she was a desperate fool--and,
+by Jove! made her marry him. He made ducks and drakes of not only her
+money, but Johnny's too, and had to skip to Spain to avoid the trustees.
+And Johnny--for the Sluysdaels are all fools or lunatics--made over his
+whole separate income to that wretched, fashionable fool of a mother,
+and went into a stockbroker's office as a clerk.”
+
+“And walks to business before eight every morning, and they say even
+takes down the shutters and sweeps out,” broke in Circe impulsively.
+“Works like a slave all day, wears out his old clothes, has given up his
+clubs and amusements, and shuns society.”
+
+“But how about his health?” I asked. “Is he better and stronger?”
+
+“I don't know,” said Circe, “but he LOOKS as beautiful as Endymion.”
+
+*****
+
+At his bank, in Wall Street, Bracy that afternoon confirmed all that
+Jason had told me of young Sluysdael. “But his temper?” I asked. “You
+remember his temper--surely.”
+
+“He's as sweet as a lamb, never quarrels, never whines, never alludes to
+his lost fortune, and is never put out. For a youngster, he's the most
+popular man in the street. Shall we nip round and see him?”
+
+“By all means.”
+
+“Come. It isn't far.”
+
+A few steps down the crowded street we dived into a den of plate-glass
+windows, of scraps of paper, of rattling, ticking machines, more voluble
+and excited than the careworn, abstracted men who leaned over them. But
+“Johnnyboy”--I started at the familiar name again--was not there. He was
+at luncheon.
+
+“Let us join him,” I said, as we gained the street again and turned
+mechanically into Delmonico's.
+
+“Not there,” said Bracy with a laugh. “You forget! That's not
+Johnnyboy's gait just now. Come here.” He was descending a few steps
+that led to a humble cake-shop. As we entered I noticed a young fellow
+standing before the plain wooden counter with a cake of gingerbread in
+one hand and a glass of milk in the other. His profile was before me;
+I at once recognized the long lashes. But the happy, boyish, careless
+laugh that greeted Bracy, as he presented me, was a revelation.
+
+Yet he was pleased to remember me. And then--it may have been
+embarrassment that led me to such tactlessness, but as I glanced at him
+and the glass of milk he was holding, I could not help reminding him of
+the first words I had ever heard him utter.
+
+He tossed off the glass, colored slightly, as I thought, and said with a
+light laugh:--
+
+“I suppose I have changed a good deal since then, sir.”
+
+I looked at his demure and resolute mouth, and wondered if he had.
+
+
+
+
+YOUNG ROBIN GRAY.
+
+
+The good American barque Skyscraper was swinging at her moorings in
+the Clyde, off Bannock, ready for sea. But that good American
+barque--although owned in Baltimore--had not a plank of American timber
+in her hulk, nor a native American in her crew, and even her nautical
+“goodness” had been called into serious question by divers of that
+crew during her voyage, and answered more or less inconclusively
+with belaying-pins, marlin-spikes, and ropes' ends at the hands of an
+Irish-American captain and a Dutch and Danish mate. So much so, that
+the mysterious powers of the American consul at St. Kentigern had been
+evoked to punish mutiny on the one hand, and battery and starvation
+on the other; both equally attested by manifestly false witness and
+subornation on each side. In the exercise of his functions the consul
+had opened and shut some jail doors, and otherwise effected the usual
+sullen and deceitful compromise, and his flag was now flying, on a final
+visit, from the stern sheets of a smart boat alongside. It was with a
+feeling of relief at the end of the interview that he at last lifted his
+head above an atmosphere of perjury and bilge-water and came on deck.
+The sun and wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening river
+beyond the “measured mile”; a few gulls were wavering and dipping near
+the lee scuppers, and the sound of Sabbath bells, mellowed by a distance
+that secured immunity of conscience, came peacefully to his ear.
+
+“Now that job's over ye'll be takin' a partin' dhrink,” suggested the
+captain.
+
+The consul thought not. Certain incidents of “the job” were fresh in his
+memory, and he proposed to limit himself to his strict duty.
+
+“You have some passengers, I see,” he said, pointing to a group of two
+men and a young girl, who had apparently just come aboard.
+
+“Only wan; an engineer going out to Rio. Them's just his friends seein'
+him off, I'm thinkin',” returned the captain, surveying them somewhat
+contemptuously.
+
+The consul was a little disturbed. He wondered if the passenger knew
+anything of the quality and reputation of the ship to which he was
+entrusting his fortunes. But he was only a PASSENGER, and the consul's
+functions--like those of the aloft-sitting cherub of nautical song--were
+restricted exclusively to looking after “Poor Jack.” However, he asked a
+few further questions, eliciting the fact that the stranger had already
+visited the ship with letters from the eminently respectable consignees
+at St. Kentigern, and contented himself with lingering near them. The
+young girl was accompanied by her father, a respectably rigid-looking
+middle-class tradesman, who, however, seemed to be more interested in
+the novelty of his surroundings than in the movements of his daughter
+and their departing friend. So it chanced that the consul re-entered
+the cabin--ostensibly in search of a missing glove, but really with the
+intention of seeing how the passenger was bestowed--just behind them.
+But to his great embarrassment he at once perceived that, owing to the
+obscurity of the apartment, they had not noticed him, and before he
+could withdraw, the man had passed his arm around the young girl's half
+stiffened, yet half yielding figure.
+
+“Only one, Ailsa,” he pleaded in a slow, serious voice, pathetic from
+the very absence of any youthful passion in it; “just one now. It'll be
+gey lang before we meet again. Ye'll not refuse me now.”
+
+The young girl's lips seemed to murmur some protest that, however, was
+lost in the beginning of a long and silent kiss.
+
+The consul slipped out softly. His smile had died away. That
+unlooked-for touch of human weakness seemed to purify the stuffy and
+evil-reeking cabin, and the recollection of its brutal past to drop with
+a deck-load of iniquity behind him to the bottom of the Clyde. It is
+to be feared that in his unofficial moments he was inclined to be
+sentimental, and it seemed to him that the good ship Skyscraper
+henceforward carried an innocent freight not mentioned in her manifest,
+and that a gentle, ever-smiling figure, not entered on her books, had
+invisibly taken a place at her wheel.
+
+But he was recalled to himself by a slight altercation on deck. The
+young girl and the passenger had just returned from the cabin. The
+consul, after a discreetly careless pause, had lifted his eyes to the
+young girl's face, and saw that it was singularly pretty in color and
+outline, but perfectly self-composed and serenely unconscious. And he
+was a little troubled to observe that the passenger was a middle-aged
+man, whose hard features were already considerably worn with trial and
+experience.
+
+Both he and the girl were listening with sympathizing but cautious
+interest to her father's contention with the boatman who had brought
+them from shore, and who was now inclined to demand an extra fee for
+returning with them. The boatman alleged that he had been detained
+beyond “kirk time,” and that this imperiling of his salvation could
+only be compensated by another shilling. To the consul's surprise,
+this extraordinary argument was recognized by the father, who, however,
+contented himself by simply contending that it had not been stipulated
+in the bargain. The issue was, therefore, limited, and the discussion
+progressed slowly and deliberately, with a certain calm dignity and
+argumentative satisfaction on both sides that exalted the subject,
+though it irritated the captain.
+
+“If ye accept the premisses that I've just laid down, that it's a
+contract”---began the boatman.
+
+“Dry up! and haul off,” said the captain.
+
+“One moment,” interposed the consul, with a rapid glance at the slight
+trouble in the young girl's face. Turning to the father, he went on:
+“Will you allow me to offer you and your daughter a seat in my boat?”
+
+It was an unlooked-for and tempting proposal. The boatman was lazily
+lying on his oars, secure in self-righteousness and the conscious
+possession of the only available boat to shore; on the other hand, the
+smart gig of the consul, with its four oars, was not only a providential
+escape from a difficulty, but even to some extent a quasi-official
+endorsement of his contention. Yet he hesitated.
+
+“It'll be costin' ye no more?” he said interrogatively, glancing at the
+consul's boat crew, “or ye'll be askin' me a fair proportion.”
+
+“It will be the gentleman's own boat,” said the girl, with a certain shy
+assurance, “and he'll be paying his boatmen by the day.”
+
+The consul hastened to explain that their passage would involve no
+additional expense to anybody, and added, tactfully, that he was glad to
+enable them to oppose extortion.
+
+“Ay, but it's a preencipel,” said the father proudly, “and I'm pleased,
+sir, to see ye recognize it.”
+
+He proceeded to help his daughter into the boat without any further
+leave-taking of the passenger, to the consul's great surprise, and with
+only a parting nod from the young girl. It was as if this momentous
+incident were a sufficient reason for the absence of any further trivial
+sentiment.
+
+Unfortunately the father chose to add an exordium for the benefit of the
+astonished boatsman still lying on his oars.
+
+“Let this be a lesson to ye, ma frien', when ye're ower sure! Ye'll
+ne'er say a herrin' is dry until it be reestit an' reekit.”
+
+“Ay,” said the boatman, with a lazy, significant glance at the consul,
+“it wull be a lesson to me not to trust to a lassie's GANGIN' jo, when
+thair's anither yin comin'.”
+
+“Give way,” said the consul sharply.
+
+Yet his was the only irritated face in the boat as the men bent over
+their oars. The young girl and her father looked placidly at the
+receding ship, and waved their hands to the grave, resigned face over
+the taffrail. The consul examined them more attentively. The father's
+face showed intelligence and a certain probity in its otherwise
+commonplace features. The young girl had more distinction, with,
+perhaps, more delicacy of outline than of texture. Her hair was dark,
+with a burnished copper tint at its roots, and eyes that had the same
+burnished metallic lustre in their brown pupils. Both sat respectfully
+erect, as if anxious to record the fact that the boat was not their
+own to take their ease in; and both were silently reserved, answering
+briefly to the consul's remarks as if to indicate the formality of
+their presence there. But a distant railway whistle startled them into
+emotion.
+
+“We've lost the train, father!” said the young girl.
+
+The consul followed the direction of her anxious eyes; the train was
+just quitting the station at Bannock.
+
+“If ye had not lingered below with Jamie, we'd have been away in time,
+ay, and in our own boat,” said the father, with marked severity.
+
+The consul glanced quickly at the girl. But her face betrayed no
+consciousness, except of their present disappointment.
+
+“There's an excursion boat coming round the Point,” he said, pointing
+to the black smoke trail of a steamer at the entrance of a loch, “and it
+will be returning to St. Kentigern shortly. If you like, we'll pull over
+and put you aboard.”
+
+“Eh! but it's the Sabbath-breaker!” said the old man harshly.
+
+The consul suddenly remembered that that was the name which the
+righteous St. Kentigerners had given to the solitary bold, bad
+pleasure-boat that defied their Sabbatical observances.
+
+“Perhaps you won't find very pleasant company on board,” said the consul
+smiling; “but, then, you're not seeking THAT. And as you would be only
+using the boat to get back to your home, and not for Sunday recreation,
+I don't think your conscience should trouble you.”
+
+“Ay, that's a fine argument, Mr. Consul, but I'm thinkin' it's none the
+less sopheestry for a' that,” said the father grimly. “No; if ye'll just
+land us yonder at Bannock pier, we'll be ay thankin' ye the same.”
+
+“But what will you do there? There's no other train to-day.”
+
+“Ay, we'll walk on a bit.”
+
+The consul was silent. After a pause the young girl lifted her clear
+eyes, and with a half pathetic, half childish politeness, said: “We'll
+be doing very well--my father and me. You're far too kind.”
+
+Nothing further was said as they began to thread their way between a
+few large ships and an ocean steamer at anchor, from whose decks a few
+Sunday-clothed mariners gazed down admiringly on the smart gig and the
+pretty girl in a Tam o' Shanter in its stern sheets. But here a new
+idea struck the consul. A cable's length ahead lay a yacht, owned by an
+American friend, and at her stern a steam launch swung to its painter.
+Without intimating his intention to his passengers he steered for it.
+“Bow!--way enough,” he called out as the boat glided under the yacht's
+counter, and, grasping the companion-ladder ropes, he leaped aboard. In
+a few hurried words he explained the situation to Mr. Robert Gray, her
+owner, and suggested that he should send the belated passengers to St.
+Kentigern by the launch. Gray assented with the easy good-nature of
+youth, wealth, and indolence, and lounged from his cabin to the side.
+The consul followed. Looking down upon the boat he could not help
+observing that his fair young passenger, sitting in her demure stillness
+at her father's side, made a very pretty picture. It was possible that
+“Bob Gray” had made the same observation, for he presently swung himself
+over the gangway into the gig, hat in hand. The launch could easily take
+them; in fact, he added unblushingly, it was even then getting up steam
+to go to St. Kentigern. Would they kindly come on board until it was
+ready? At an added word or two of explanation from the consul, the
+father accepted, preserving the same formal pride and stiffness, and the
+transfer was made. The consul, looking back as his gig swept round again
+towards Bannock pier, received their parting salutations, and the first
+smile he had seen on the face of his grave little passenger. He thought
+it very sweet and sad.
+
+He did not return to the Consulate at St. Kentigern until the next day.
+But he was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Robert Gray awaiting him, and
+upon some business which the young millionaire could have easily deputed
+to his captain or steward. As he still lingered, the consul pleasantly
+referred to his generosity on the previous day, and hoped the passengers
+had given him no trouble.
+
+“No,” said Gray with a slight simulation of carelessness. “In fact I
+came up with them myself. I had nothing to do; it was Sunday, you know.”
+
+The consul lifted his eyebrows slightly.
+
+“Yes, I saw them home,” continued Gray lightly. “In one of those
+by-streets not far from here; neat-looking house outside; inside,
+corkscrew stone staircase like a lighthouse; fourth floor, no lift, but
+SHE circled up like a swallow! Flat--sitting-room, two bedrooms, and
+a kitchen--mighty snug and shipshape and pretty as a pink. They OWN it
+too--fancy OWNING part of a house! Seems to be a way they have here in
+St. Kentigern.” He paused and then added: “Stayed there to a kind of
+high tea!”
+
+“Indeed,” said the consul.
+
+“Why not? The old man wanted to return my 'hospitality' and square the
+account! He wasn't going to lie under any obligation to a stranger, and,
+by Jove! he made it a special point of honor! A Spanish grandee couldn't
+have been more punctilious. And with an accent, Jerusalem! like a
+northeaster off the Banks! But the feed was in good taste, and he only a
+mathematical instrument maker, on about twelve hundred dollars a year!”
+
+“You seem to know all about him,” said the consul smilingly.
+
+“Not so much as he does about me,” returned Gray, with a half perplexed
+face; “for he saw enough to admonish me about my extravagance, and even
+to intimate that that rascal Saunderson, my steward, was imposing on me.
+SHE took me to task, too, for not laying the yacht up on Sunday that the
+men could go 'to kirk,' and for swearing at a bargeman who ran across
+our bows. It's their perfect simplicity and sincerity in all this that
+gets me! You'd have thought that the old man was my guardian, and the
+daughter my aunt.” After a pause he uttered a reminiscent laugh. “She
+thought we ate and drank too much on the yacht, and wondered what we
+could find to do all day. All this, you know, in the gentlest, caressing
+sort of voice, as if she was really concerned, like one's own sister.
+Well, not exactly like mine”--he interrupted himself grimly--“but, hang
+it all, you know what I mean. You know that our girls over there haven't
+got THAT trick of voice. Too much self-assertion, I reckon; things made
+too easy for them by us men. Habit of race, I dare say.” He laughed a
+little. “Why, I mislaid my glove when I was coming away, and it was as
+good as a play to hear her commiserating and sympathizing, and hunting
+for it as if it were a lost baby.”
+
+“But you've seen Scotch girls before this,” said the consul. “There were
+Lady Glairn's daughters, whom you took on a cruise.”
+
+“Yes, but the swell Scotch all imitate the English, as everybody else
+does, for the matter of that, our girls included; and they're all alike.
+Society makes 'em fit in together like tongued and grooved planks that
+will take any amount of holy-stoning and polish. It's like dropping into
+a dead calm, with every rope and spar that you know already reflected
+back from the smooth water upon you. It's mighty pretty, but it isn't
+getting on, you know.” After a pause he added: “I asked them to take a
+little holiday cruise with me.”
+
+“And they declined,” interrupted the consul.
+
+Gray glanced at him quickly.
+
+“Well, yes; that's all right enough. They don't know me, you see, but
+they do know you; and the fact is, I was thinking that as you're our
+consul here, don't you see, and sort of responsible for me, you might
+say that it was all right, you know. Quite the customary thing with us
+over there. And you might say, generally, who I am.”
+
+“I see,” said the consul deliberately. “Tell them you're Bob Gray, with
+more money and time than you know what to do with; that you have a
+fine taste for yachting and shooting and racing, and amusing yourself
+generally; that you find that THEY amuse you, and you would like your
+luxury and your dollars to stand as an equivalent to their independence
+and originality; that, being a good republican yourself, and recognizing
+no distinction of class, you don't care what this may mean to them, who
+are brought up differently; that after their cruise with you you don't
+care what life, what friends, or what jealousies they return to; that
+you know no ties, no responsibilities beyond the present, and that you
+are not a marrying man.”
+
+“Look here, I say, aren't you making a little too much of this?” said
+Gray stiffly.
+
+The consul laughed. “I should be glad to know that I am.”
+
+Gray rose. “We'll be dropping down the river to-morrow,” he said, with
+a return of his usual lightness, “and I reckon I'll be toddling down to
+the wharf. Good-bye, if I don't see you again.”
+
+He passed out. As the consul glanced from the window he observed,
+however, that Mr. Gray was “toddling” in quite another direction than
+the wharf. For an instant he half regretted that he had not suggested,
+in some discreet way, the conclusion he had arrived at after witnessing
+the girl's parting with the middle-aged passenger the day before. But he
+reflected that this was something he had only accidentally overseen, and
+was the girl's own secret.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+When the summer had so waxed in its fullness that the smoke of factory
+chimneys drifted high, permitting glimpses of fairly blue sky; when the
+grass in St. Kentigern's proudest park took on a less sober green in the
+comfortable sun, and even in the thickest shade there was no chilliness,
+the good St. Kentigerners recognized that the season had arrived to go
+“down the river,” and that it was time for them to betake themselves,
+with rugs, mackintoshes, and umbrellas, to the breezy lochs and misty
+hillsides for which the neighborhood of St. Kentigern is justly famous.
+So when it came to pass that the blinds were down in the highest places,
+and the most exclusive pavements of St. Kentigern were echoless and
+desolate, the consul heroically tore himself from the weak delight of
+basking in the sunshine, and followed the others.
+
+He soon found himself settled at the furthest end of a long narrow loch,
+made longer and narrower by the steep hillside of rock and heather which
+flanked its chilly surface on either side, and whose inequalities were
+lost in the firs and larches that filled ravine and chasm. The fragrant
+road which ran sinuously through their shadowy depths was invisible from
+the loch; no protuberance broke the seemingly sheer declivity; the even
+sky-line was indented in two places--one where it was cracked into a
+fanciful resemblance to a human profile, the other where it was curved
+like a bowl. Need it be said that one was distinctly recognized as
+the silhouette of a prehistoric giant, and that the other was his
+drinking-cup; need it be added that neither lent the slightest human
+suggestion to the solitude? A toy-like pier extending into the loch,
+midway from the barren shore, only heightened the desolation. And when
+the little steamboat that occasionally entered the loch took away a
+solitary passenger from the pier-head, the simplest parting was invested
+with a dreary loneliness that might have brought tears to the most
+hardened eye.
+
+Still, when the shadow of either hillside was not reaching across the
+loch, the meridian sun, chancing upon this coy mirror, made the most of
+it. Then it was that, seen from above, it flashed like a falchion lying
+between the hills; then its reflected glory, striking up, transfigured
+the two acclivities, tipped the cold heather with fire, gladdened the
+funereal pines, and warmed the ascetic rocks. And it was in one of those
+rare, passionate intervals that the consul, riding along the wooded
+track and turning his eyes from their splendors, came upon a little
+house.
+
+It had once been a sturdy cottage, with a grim endurance and
+inflexibility which even some later and lighter additions had softened
+rather than changed. On either side of the door, against the bleak
+whitewashed wall, two tall fuchsias relieved the rigid blankness with a
+show of color. The windows were prettily draped with curtains caught up
+with gay ribbons. In a stony pound-like enclosure there was some attempt
+at floral cultivation, but all quite recent. So, too, were a wicker
+garden seat, a bright Japanese umbrella, and a tropical hammock
+suspended between two arctic-looking bushes, which the rude and rigid
+forefathers of the hamlet would have probably resented.
+
+He had just passed the house when a charming figure slipped across the
+road before him. To his surprise it was the young girl he had met a few
+months before on the Skyscraper. But the Tam o' Shanter was replaced by
+a little straw hat; and a light dress, summery in color and texture,
+but more in keeping with her rustic surroundings, seemed as grateful and
+rare as the sunshine. Without knowing why, he had an impression that
+it was of her own making--a gentle plagiarism of the style of her more
+fortunate sisters, but with a demure restraint all her own. As she
+recognized him a faint color came to her cheek, partly from surprise,
+partly from some association. To his delighted greeting she responded by
+informing him that her father had taken the cottage he had just passed,
+where they were spending a three weeks' vacation from his business. It
+was not so far from St. Kentigern but that he could run up for a day to
+look after the shop. Did the consul not think it was wise?
+
+Quite ready to assent to any sagacity in those clear brown eyes, the
+consul thought it was. But was it not, like wisdom, sometimes lonely?
+
+Ah! no. There was the loch and the hills and the heather; there were her
+flowers; did he not think they were growing well? and at the head of the
+loch there was the old tomb of the McHulishes, and some of the coffins
+were still to be seen.
+
+Perhaps emboldened by the consul's smile, she added, with a more serious
+precision which was, however, lost in the sympathizing caress of her
+voice, “And would you not be getting off and coming in and resting a wee
+bit before you go further? It would be so good of you, and father would
+think it so kind. And he will be there now, if you're looking.”
+
+The consul looked. The old man was standing in the doorway of the
+cottage, as respectably uncompromising as ever, with the slight
+concession to his rural surroundings of wearing a Tam o' Shanter and
+easy slippers. The consul dismounted and entered. The interior was
+simply, but tastefully furnished. It struck him that the Scotch prudence
+and economy, which practically excluded display and meretricious
+glitter, had reached the simplicity of the truest art and the most
+refined wealth. He felt he could understand Gray's enthusiasm, and by an
+odd association of ideas he found himself thinking of the resigned face
+of the lonely passenger on the Skyscraper.
+
+“Have you heard any news of your friend who went to Rio?” he asked
+pleasantly, but without addressing himself particularly to either.
+
+There was a perceptible pause; doubtless of deference to her father
+on the part of the young girl, and of the usual native conscientious
+caution on the part of the father, but neither betrayed any
+embarrassment or emotion. “No; he would not be writing yet,” she at
+length said simply, “he would be waiting until he was settled to his
+business. Jamie would be waiting until he could say how he was doing,
+father?” she appealed interrogatively to the old man.
+
+“Ay, James Gow would not fash himself to write compliments and gossip
+till he knew his position and work,” corroborated the old man. “He'll
+not be going two thousand miles to send us what we can read in the
+'St. Kentigern Herald.' But,” he added, suddenly, with a recall of
+cautiousness, “perhaps YOU will be hearing of the ship?”
+
+“The consul will not be remembering what he hears of all the ships,”
+ interposed the young girl, with the same gentle affectation of superior
+worldly knowledge which had before amused him. “We'll be wearying him,
+father,” and the subject dropped.
+
+The consul, glancing around the room again, but always returning to the
+sweet and patient seriousness of the young girl's face and the grave
+decorum of her father, would have liked to ask another question, but it
+was presently anticipated; for when he had exhausted the current topics,
+in which both father and daughter displayed a quiet sagacity, and he had
+gathered a sufficient knowledge of their character to seem to justify
+Gray's enthusiasm, and was rising to take his leave, the young girl said
+timidly:--
+
+“Would ye not let Bessie take your horse to the grass field over yonder,
+and yourself stay with us to dinner? It would be most kind, and you
+would meet a great friend of yours who will be here.”
+
+“Mr. Gray?” suggested the consul audaciously. Yet he was greatly
+surprised when the young girl said quietly, “Ay.”
+
+“He'll be coming in the loch with his yacht,” said the old man. “It's
+not so expensive lying here as at Bannock, I'm thinking; and the men
+cannot gang ashore for drink. Eh, but it's an awful waste o' pounds,
+shillings, and pence, keeping these gowks in idleness with no feeshin'
+nor carrying of passengers.”
+
+“Ay, but it's better Mr. Gray should pay them for being decent and
+well-behaved on board his ship, than that they should be out of work
+and rioting in taverns and lodging-houses. And you yourself, father,
+remember the herrin' fishers that come ashore at Ardie, and the deck
+hands of the excursion boat, and the language they'll be using.”
+
+“Have you had a cruise in the yacht?” asked the consul quickly.
+
+“Ay,” said the father, “we have been up and down the loch, and around
+the far point, but not for boardin' or lodgin' the night, nor otherwise
+conteenuing or parteecipating. I have explained to Mr. Gray that we
+must return to our own home and our own porridge at evening, and he has
+agreed, and even come with us. He's a decent enough lad, and not above
+instructin', but extraordinar' extravagant.”
+
+“Ye know, father,” interposed the young girl, “he talks of fitting up
+the yacht for the fishing, and taking some of his most decent men on
+shares. He says he was very fond of fishing off the Massachusetts coast,
+in America. It will be, I'm thinking,” she said, suddenly turning to the
+consul with an almost pathetic appeal in her voice, “a great occupation
+for the rich young men over there.”
+
+The consul, desperately struggling with a fanciful picture of Mr. Robert
+Gray as a herring fisher, thought gravely that it “might be.” But he
+thought still more gravely, though silently, of this singular companion
+ship, and was somewhat anxious to confront his friend with his new
+acquaintances. He had not long to wait. The sun was just dipping behind
+the hill when the yacht glided into the lonely loch. A boat was put off,
+and in a few moments Robert Gray was climbing the little path from the
+loch.
+
+Had the consul expected any embarrassment or lover-like consciousness
+on the face of Mr. Gray at their unexpected meeting, he would have been
+disappointed. Nor was the young man's greeting of father and daughter,
+whom he addressed as Mr. and Miss Callender, marked by any tenderness or
+hesitation. On the contrary, a certain seriousness and quiet reticence,
+unlike Gray, which might have been borrowed from his new friends,
+characterized his speech and demeanor. Beyond this freemasonry of sad
+repression there was no significance of look or word passed between
+these two young people. The girl's voice retained its even pathos.
+Gray's grave politeness was equally divided between her and her father.
+He corroborated what Callender had said of his previous visits without
+affectation or demonstration; he spoke of the possibilities of his
+fitting up the yacht for the fishing season with a practical detail and
+economy that left the consul's raillery ineffective. Even when, after
+dinner, the consul purposely walked out in the garden with the father,
+Gray and Ailsa presently followed them without lingering or undue
+precipitation, and with no change of voice or manner. The consul was
+perplexed. Had the girl already told Gray of her lover across the sea,
+and was this singular restraint their joint acceptance of their fate;
+or was he mistaken in supposing that their relations were anything more
+than the simple friendship of patron and protegee? Gray was rich enough
+to indulge in such a fancy, and the father and daughter were too proud
+to ever allow it to influence their own independence. In any event the
+consul's right to divulge the secret he was accidentally possessed
+of seemed more questionable than ever. Nor did there appear to be any
+opportunity for a confidential talk with Gray, since it was proposed
+that the whole party should return to the yacht for supper, after
+which the consul should be dropped at the pier-head, distant only a few
+minutes from his hotel, and his horse sent to him the next day.
+
+A faint moon was shimmering along the surface of Loch Dour in icy little
+ripples when they pulled out from the shadows of the hillside. By the
+accident of position, Gray, who was steering, sat beside Ailsa in the
+stern, while the consul and Mr. Callender were further forward, although
+within hearing. The faces of the young people were turned towards each
+other, yet in the cold moonlight the consul fancied they looked as
+impassive and unemotional as statues. The few distant, far-spaced lights
+that trembled on the fading shore, the lonely glitter of the water,
+the blackness of the pine-clad ravines seemed to be a part of this
+repression, until the vast melancholy of the lake appeared to meet and
+overflow them like an advancing tide. Added to this, there came from
+time to time the faint sound and smell of the distant, desolate sea.
+
+The consul, struggling manfully to keep up a spasmodic discussion on
+Scotch diminutives in names, found himself mechanically saying:
+
+“And James you call Jamie?”
+
+“Ay; but ye would say, to be pure Scotch, 'Hamish,'” said Mr. Callender
+precisely. The girl, however, had not spoken; but Gray turned to her
+with something of his old gayety.
+
+“And I suppose you would call me 'Robbie'?”
+
+“Ah, no!”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“Robin.”
+
+Her voice was low yet distinct, but she had thrown into the two
+syllables such infinite tenderness, that the consul was for an instant
+struck with an embarrassment akin to that he had felt in the cabin of
+the Skyscraper, and half expected the father to utter a shocked protest.
+And to save what he thought would be an appalling silence, he said with
+a quiet laugh:--
+
+“That's the fellow who 'made the assembly shine' in the song, isn't it?”
+
+“That was Robin Adair,” said Gray quietly; “unfortunately I would only
+be 'Robin Gray,' and that's quite another song.”
+
+“AULD Robin Gray, sir, deestinctly 'auld' in the song,” interrupted Mr.
+Callender with stern precision; “and I'm thinking he was not so very
+unfortunate either.”
+
+The discussion of Scotch diminutives halting here, the boat sped on
+silently to the yacht. But although Robert Gray, as host, recovered some
+of his usual lightheartedness, the consul failed to discover anything
+in his manner to indicate the lover, nor did Miss Ailsa after her single
+lapse of tender accent exhibit the least consciousness. It was true that
+their occasional frank allusions to previous conversations seemed to
+show that their opportunities had not been restricted, but nothing more.
+He began again to think he was mistaken.
+
+As he wished to return early, and yet not hasten the Callenders, he
+prevailed upon Gray to send him to the pier-head first, and not disturb
+the party. As he stepped into the boat, something in the appearance
+of the coxswain awoke an old association in his mind. The man at first
+seemed to avoid his scrutiny, but when they were well away from the
+yacht, he said hesitatingly:--
+
+“I see you remember me, sir. But if it's all the same to you, I've got a
+good berth here and would like to keep it.”
+
+The consul had a flash of memory. It was the boatswain of the
+Skyscraper, one of the least objectionable of the crew. “But what are
+you doing here? you shipped for the voyage,” he said sharply.
+
+“Yes, but I got away at Key West, when I knew what was coming. I wasn't
+on her when she was abandoned.”
+
+“Abandoned!” repeated the consul. “What the d---l! Do you mean to say she
+was wrecked?”
+
+“Well, yes--you know what I mean, sir. It was an understood thing. She
+was over-insured and scuttled in the Bahamas. It was a put-up job, and I
+reckoned I was well out of it.”
+
+“But there was a passenger! What of him?” demanded the consul anxiously.
+
+“Dnnno! But I reckon he got away. There wasn't any of the crew lost that
+I know of. Let's see, he was an engineer, wasn't he? I reckon he had to
+take a hand at the pumps, and his chances with the rest.”
+
+“Does Mr. Gray know of this?” asked the consul after a pause.
+
+The man stared.
+
+“Not from me, sir. You see it was nothin' to him, and I didn't care
+talking much about the Skyscraper. It was hushed up in the papers. You
+won't go back on me, sir?”
+
+“You don't know what became of the passenger?”
+
+“No! But he was a Scotchman, and they're bound to fall on their feet
+somehow!”
+
+
+III.
+
+
+The December fog that overhung St. Kentigern had thinned sufficiently to
+permit the passage of a few large snowflakes, soiled in their descent,
+until in color and consistency they spotted the steps of the Consulate
+and the umbrellas of the passers-by like sprinklings of gray mortar.
+Nevertheless the consul thought the streets preferable to the persistent
+gloom of his office, and sallied out. Youthful mercantile St. Kentigern
+strode sturdily past him in the lightest covert coats; collegiate St.
+Kentigern fluttered by in the scantiest of red gowns, shaming the furs
+that defended his more exotic blood; and the bare red feet of a few
+factory girls, albeit their heads and shoulders were draped and hooded
+in thick shawls, filled him with a keen sense of his effeminacy.
+Everything of earth, air, and sky, and even the faces of those he looked
+upon, seemed to be set in the hard, patient endurance of the race.
+Everywhere on that dismal day, he fancied he could see this energy
+without restlessness, this earnestness without geniality, all grimly set
+against the hard environment of circumstance and weather.
+
+The consul turned into one of the main arteries of St. Kentigern, a wide
+street that, however, began and ended inconsequently, and with half a
+dozen social phases in as many blocks. Here the snow ceased, the fog
+thickened suddenly with the waning day, and the consul found himself
+isolated and cut off on a block which he did not remember, with the
+clatter of an invisible tramway in his ears. It was a block of small
+houses with smaller shop-fronts. The one immediately before him seemed
+to be an optician's, but the dimly lighted windows also displayed the
+pathetic reinforcement of a few watches, cheap jewelry on cards, and
+several cairngorm brooches and pins set in silver. It occurred to him
+that he wanted a new watch crystal, and that he would procure it here
+and inquire his way. Opening the door he perceived that there was no one
+in the shop, but from behind the counter another open door disclosed
+a neat sitting-room, so close to the street that it gave the casual
+customer the sensation of having intruded upon domestic privacy. The
+consul's entrance tinkled a small bell which brought a figure to the
+door. It was Ailsa Callender.
+
+The consul was startled. He had not seen her since he had brought to
+their cottage the news of the shipwreck with a precaution and delicacy
+that their calm self-control and patient resignation, however, seemed to
+make almost an impertinence. But this was no longer the handsome shop in
+the chief thoroughfare with its two shopmen, which he previously knew as
+“Callender's.” And Ailsa here! What misfortune had befallen them?
+
+Whatever it was, there was no shadow of it in her clear eyes and frank
+yet timid recognition of him. Falling in with her stoical and reticent
+acceptance of it, he nevertheless gathered that the Callenders had lost
+money in some invention which James Gow had taken with him to Rio, but
+which was sunk in the ship. With this revelation of a business interest
+in what he had believed was only a sentimental relation, the consul
+ventured to continue his inquiries. Mr. Gow had escaped with his life
+and had reached Honduras, where he expected to try his fortunes anew.
+It might be a year or two longer before there were any results. Did the
+consul know anything of Honduras? There was coffee there--so she and her
+father understood. All this with little hopefulness, no irritation,
+but a divine patience in her eyes. The consul, who found that his watch
+required extensive repairing, and had suddenly developed an inordinate
+passion for cairngorms, watched her as she opened the show-case with no
+affectation of unfamiliarity with her occupation, but with all her old
+serious concern. Surely she would have made as thorough a shop-girl as
+she would--His half-formulated thought took the shape of a question.
+
+“Have you seen Mr. Gray since his return from the Mediterranean?”
+
+Ah! one of the brooches had slipped from her fingers to the bottom of
+the case. There was an interval or two of pathetic murmuring, with her
+fair head under the glass, before she could find it; then she lifted
+her eyes to the consul. They were still slightly suffused with her
+sympathetic concern. The stone, which was set in a thistle--the national
+emblem--did he not know it?--had dropped out. But she could put it in.
+It was pretty and not expensive. It was marked twelve shillings on the
+card, but he could have it for ten shillings. No, she had not seen Mr.
+Gray since they had lost their fortune. (It struck the consul as none
+the less pathetic that she seemed really to believe in their former
+opulence.) They could not be seeing him there in a small shop, and they
+could not see him elsewhere. It was far better as it was. Yet she
+paused a moment when she had wrapped up the brooch. “You'd be seeing him
+yourself some time?” she added gently.
+
+“Perhaps.”
+
+“Then you'll not mind saying how my father and myself are sometimes
+thinking of his goodness and kindness,” she went on, in a voice whose
+tenderness seemed to increase with the formal precision of her speech.
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“And you'll say we're not forgetting him.”
+
+“I promise.”
+
+As she handed him the parcel her lips softly parted in what might have
+been equally a smile or a sigh.
+
+He was able to keep his promise sooner than he had imagined. It was only
+a few weeks later that, arriving in London, he found Gray's hatbox and
+bag in the vestibule of his club, and that gentleman himself in the
+smoking-room. He looked tanned and older.
+
+“I only came from Southampton an hour ago, where I left the yacht. And,”
+ shaking the consul's hand cordially, “how's everything and everybody up
+at old St. Kentigern?”
+
+The consul thought fit to include his news of the Callenders in
+reference to that query, and with his eyes fixed on Gray dwelt at some
+length on their change of fortune. Gray took his cigar from his mouth,
+but did not lift his eyes from the fire. Presently he said, “I suppose
+that's why Callender declined to take the shares I offered him in the
+fishing scheme. You know I meant it, and would have done it.”
+
+“Perhaps he had other reasons.”
+
+“What do you mean?” said Gray, facing the consul suddenly.
+
+“Look here, Gray,” said the consul, “did Miss Callender or her father
+ever tell you she was engaged?”
+
+“Yes; but what's that to do with it?”
+
+“A good deal. Engagements, you know, are sometimes forced, unsuitable,
+or unequal, and are broken by circumstances. Callender is proud.”
+
+Gray turned upon the consul the same look of gravity that he had worn
+on the yacht--the same look that the consul even fancied he had seen
+in Ailsa's eyes. “That's exactly where you're mistaken in her,” he said
+slowly. “A girl like that gives her word and keeps it. She waits, hopes,
+accepts what may come--breaks her heart, if you will, but not her word.
+Come, let's talk of something else. How did he--that man Gow--lose
+Callender's money?”
+
+The consul did not see the Callenders again on his return, and perhaps
+did not think it necessary to report the meeting. But one morning he
+was delighted to find an official document from New York upon his desk,
+asking him to communicate with David Callender of St. Kentigern, and,
+on proof of his identity, giving him authority to draw the sum of five
+thousand dollars damages awarded for the loss of certain property on
+the Skyscraper, at the request of James Gow. Yet it was with mixed
+sensations that the consul sought the little shop of the optician with
+this convincing proof of Gow's faithfulness and the indissolubility of
+Ailsa's engagement. That there was some sad understanding between the
+girl and Gray he did not doubt, and perhaps it was not strange that he
+felt a slight partisanship for his friend, whose nature had so strangely
+changed. Miss Ailsa was not there. Her father explained that her health
+had required a change, and she was visiting some friends on the river.
+
+“I'm thinkin' that the atmosphere is not so pure here. It is deficient
+in ozone. I noticed it myself in the early morning. No! it was not the
+confinement of the shop, for she never cared to go out.”
+
+He received the announcement of his good fortune with unshaken calm and
+great practical consideration of detail. He would guarantee his identity
+to the consul. As for James Gow, it was no more than fair; and what he
+had expected of him. As to its being an equivalent of his loss, he could
+not tell until the facts were before him.
+
+“Miss Ailsa,” suggested the consul venturously, “will be pleased to hear
+again from her old friend, and know that he is succeeding.”
+
+“I'm not so sure that ye could call it 'succeeding,'” returned the old
+man, carefully wiping the glasses of a pair of spectacles that he held
+critically to the light, “when ye consider that, saying nothing of the
+waste of valuable time, it only puts James Gow back where he was when he
+went away.”
+
+“But any man who has had the pleasure of knowing Mr. and Miss Callender
+would be glad to be on that footing,” said the consul, with polite
+significance.
+
+“I'm not agreeing with you there,” said Mr. Callender quietly; “and I'm
+observing in ye of late a tendency to combine business wi'
+compleement. But it was kind of ye to call; and I'll be sending ye the
+authorization.”
+
+Which he did. But the consul, passing through the locality a few weeks
+later, was somewhat concerned to find the shop closed, with others
+on the same block, behind a hoarding that indicated rebuilding and
+improvement. Further inquiry elicited the fact that the small leases
+had been bought up by some capitalist, and that Mr. Callender, with the
+others, had benefited thereby. But there was no trace nor clew to his
+present locality. He and his daughter seemed to have again vanished with
+this second change in their fortunes.
+
+It was a late March morning when the streets were dumb with snow, and
+the air was filled with flying granulations that tinkled against the
+windows of the Consulate like fairy sleigh-bells, when there was the
+stamping of snow-clogged feet in the outer hall, and the door was opened
+to Mr. and Miss Callender. For an instant the consul was startled. The
+old man appeared as usual--erect, and as frigidly respectable as one
+of the icicles that fringed the window, but Miss Ailsa was, to his
+astonishment, brilliant with a new-found color, and sparkling with
+health and only half-repressed animation. The snow-flakes, scarcely
+melting on the brown head of this true daughter of the North, still
+crowned her hood; and, as she threw back her brown cloak and disclosed a
+plump little scarlet jacket and brown skirt, the consul could not resist
+her suggested likeness to some bright-eyed robin redbreast, to whom the
+inclement weather had given a charming audacity. And shy and demure as
+she still was, it was evident that some change had been wrought in her
+other than that evoked by the stimulus of her native sky and air.
+
+To his eager questioning, the old man replied briefly that he had bought
+the old cottage at Loch Dour, where they were living, and where he
+had erected a small manufactory and laboratory for the making of his
+inventions, which had become profitable. The consul reiterated his
+delight at meeting them again.
+
+“I'm not so sure of that, sir, when you know the business on which I
+come,” said Mr. Callender, dropping rigidly into a chair, and clasping
+his hands over the crutch of a shepherd-like staff. “Ye mind, perhaps,
+that ye conveyed to me, osteensibly at the request of James Gow,
+a certain sum of money, for which I gave ye a good and sufficient
+guarantee. I thought at the time that it was a most feckless and
+unbusiness-like proceeding on the part of James, as it was without
+corroboration or advice by letter; but I took the money.”
+
+“Do you mean to say that he made no allusion to it in his other
+letters?” interrupted the consul, glancing at Ailsa.
+
+“There were no other letters at the time,” said Callender dryly. “But
+about a month afterwards we DID receive a letter from him enclosing a
+draft and a full return of the profits of the invention, which HE HAD
+SOLD IN HONDURAS. Ye'll observe the deescrepancy! I then wrote to the
+bank on which I had drawn as you authorized me, and I found that they
+knew nothing of any damages awarded, but that the sum I had drawn had
+been placed to my credit by Mr. Robert Gray.”
+
+In a flash the consul recalled the one or two questions that Gray had
+asked him, and saw it all. For an instant he felt the whole bitterness
+of Gray's misplaced generosity--its exposure and defeat. He glanced
+again hopelessly at Ailsa. In the eye of that fresh, glowing, yet
+demure, young goddess, unhallowed as the thought might be, there was
+certainly a distinctly tremulous wink.
+
+The consul took heart. “I believe I need not say, Mr. Callender,” he
+began with some stiffness, “that this is as great a surprise to me as
+to you. I had no reason to believe the transaction other than bona
+fide, and acted accordingly. If my friend, deeply sympathizing with your
+previous misfortune, has hit upon a delicate, but unbusiness-like way of
+assisting you temporarily--I say TEMPORARILY, because it must have
+been as patent to him as to you, that you would eventually find out his
+generous deceit--you surely can forgive him for the sake of his kind
+intention. Nay, more; may I point out to you that you have no right to
+assume that this benefaction was intended exclusively for you; if Mr.
+Gray, in his broader sympathy with you and your daughter, has in this
+way chosen to assist and strengthen the position of a gentleman so
+closely connected with you, but still struggling with hard fortune”--
+
+“I'd have ye know, sir,” interrupted the old man, rising to his feet,
+“that ma frien' Mr. James Gow is as independent of yours as he is of
+me and mine. He has married, sir, a Mrs. Hernandez, the rich widow of
+a coffee-planter, and now is the owner of the whole estate, minus the
+encumbrance of three children. And now, sir, you'll take this,”--he drew
+from his pocket an envelope. “It's a draft for five thousand dollars,
+with the ruling rate of interest computed from the day I received it
+till this day, and ye'll give it to your frien' when ye see him. And
+ye'll just say to him from me”--
+
+But Miss Ailsa, with a spirit and independence that challenged her
+father's, here suddenly fluttered between them with sparkling eyes and
+outstretched hands.
+
+“And ye'll say to him from ME that a more honorable, noble, and generous
+man, and a kinder, truer, and better friend than he, cannot be found
+anywhere! And that the foolishest and most extravagant thing he ever did
+is better than the wisest and most prudent thing that anybody else ever
+did, could, or would do! And if he was a bit overproud--it was only
+because those about him were overproud and foolish. And you'll tell him
+that we're wearying for him! And when you give him that daft letter from
+father you'll give him this bit line from me,” she went on rapidly as
+she laid a tiny note in his hand. “And,” with wicked dancing eyes that
+seemed to snap the last bond of repression, “ye'll give him THAT too,
+and say I sent it!”
+
+There was a stir in the official apartment! The portraits of Lincoln and
+Washington rattled uneasily in their frames; but it was no doubt only a
+discreet blast of the north wind that drowned the echo of a kiss.
+
+“Ailsa!” gasped the shocked Mr. Callender.
+
+“Ah! but, father, if it had not been for HIM we would not have known
+Robin.”
+
+*****
+
+It was the last that the consul saw of Ailsa Callender; for the next
+summer when he called at Loch Dour she was Mrs. Gray.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHERIFF OF SISKYOU.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+On the fifteenth of August, 1854, what seemed to be the entire
+population of Wynyard's Bar was collected upon a little bluff which
+overlooked the rude wagon road that was the only approach to the
+settlement. In general appearance the men differed but little from
+ordinary miners, although the foreign element, shown in certain Spanish
+peculiarities of dress and color, predominated, and some of the men
+were further distinguished by the delicacy of education and sedentary
+pursuits. Yet Wynyard's Bar was a city of refuge, comprised among its
+inhabitants a number who were “wanted” by the State authorities, and
+its actual attitude at that moment was one of open rebellion against the
+legal power, and of particular resistance to the apprehension by warrant
+of one of its prominent members. This gentleman, Major Overstone, then
+astride of a gray mustang, and directing the movements of the crowd,
+had, a few days before, killed the sheriff of Siskyou county, who had
+attempted to arrest him for the double offense of misappropriating
+certain corporate funds of the State and the shooting of the editor who
+had imprudently exposed him. The lesser crime of homicide might have
+been overlooked by the authorities, but its repetition upon the body
+of their own over-zealous and misguided official could not pass
+unchallenged if they expected to arrest Overstone for the more serious
+offense against property. So it was known that a new sheriff had been
+appointed and was coming to Wynyard's Bar with an armed posse. But it
+was also understood that this invasion would be resisted by the Bar to
+its last man.
+
+All eyes were turned upon a fringe of laurel and butternut that
+encroached upon the road half a mile away, where it seemed that such
+of the inhabitants who were missing from the bluff were hidden to give
+warning or retard the approach of the posse. A gray haze, slowly rising
+between the fringe and the distant hillside, was recognized as the
+dust of a cavalcade passing along the invisible highway. In the hush
+of expectancy that followed, the irregular clatter of hoofs, the sharp
+crack of a rifle, and a sudden halt were faintly audible. The
+men, scattered in groups on the bluff, exchanged a smile of grim
+satisfaction.
+
+Not so their leader! A quick start and an oath attracted attention to
+him. To their surprise he was looking in another direction, but as
+they looked too they saw and understood the cause. A file of horsemen,
+hitherto undetected, were slowly passing along the little ridge on their
+right. Their compact accoutrements and the yellow braid on their
+blue jackets, distinctly seen at that distance, showed them to be a
+detachment of United States cavalry.
+
+Before the assemblage could realize this new invasion, a nearer clatter
+of hoofs was heard along the high road, and one of the ambuscading party
+dashed up from the fringe of woods below. His face was flushed, but
+triumphant.
+
+“A reg'lar skunk--by the living hokey!” he panted, pointing to the faint
+haze that was again slowly rising above the invisible road. “They backed
+down as soon as they saw our hand, and got a hole through their new
+sheriff's hat. But what are you lookin' at? What's up?”
+
+The leader impatiently pointed with a darkening face to the distant
+file.
+
+“Reg'lars, by gum!” ejaculated the other. “But Uncle Sam ain't in this
+game. Wot right have THEY”--
+
+“Dry up!” said the leader.
+
+The detachment was now moving at right angles with the camp, but
+suddenly halted, almost doubling upon itself in some evident commotion.
+A dismounted figure was seen momentarily flying down the hillside
+dodging from bush to bush until lost in the underbrush. A dozen shots
+were fired over its head, and then the whole detachment wheeled and
+came clattering down the trail in the direction of the camp. A single
+riderless horse, evidently that of the fugitive, followed.
+
+“Spread yourselves along the ridge, every man of you, and cover them as
+they enter the gulch!” shouted the leader. “But not a shot until I give
+the word. Scatter!”
+
+The assemblage dispersed like a startled village of prairie dogs,
+squatting behind every available bush and rock along the line of bluff.
+The leader alone trotted quietly to the head of the gulch.
+
+The nine cavalrymen came smartly up in twos, a young officer leading.
+The single figure of Major Overstone opposed them with a command to
+halt. Looking up, the young officer drew rein, said a word to his file
+leader, and the four files closed in a compact square motionless on the
+road. The young officer's unsworded hand hung quietly at his thigh,
+the men's unslung carbines rested easily on their saddles. Yet at that
+moment every man of them knew that they were covered by a hundred
+rifles and shot guns leveled from every bush, and that they were caught
+helplessly in a trap.
+
+“Since when,” said Major Overstone with an affectation of tone and
+manner different from that in which he had addressed his previous
+companions, “have the Ninth United States Cavalry helped to serve a
+State court's pettifogging process?”
+
+“We are hunting a deserter--a half-breed agent--who has just escaped
+us,” returned the officer. His voice was boyish--so, too, was his figure
+in its slim, cadet-like smartness of belted tunic--but very quiet and
+level, although his face was still flushed with the shock and shame of
+his surprise.
+
+The relaxation of relief went through the wrought and waiting camp. The
+soldiers were not seeking THEM. Ready as these desperate men had been to
+do their leader's bidding, they were well aware that a momentary victory
+over the troopers would not pass unpunished, and meant the ultimate
+dispersion of the camp. And quiet as these innocent invaders seemed
+to be they would no doubt sell their lives dearly. The embattled
+desperadoes glanced anxiously at their leader; the soldiers, on the
+contrary, looked straight before them.
+
+“Process or no process,” said Major Overstone with a sneer, “you've
+come to the last place to recover your deserter. We don't give up men in
+Wynyard's Bar. And they didn't teach you at the Academy, sir, to stop to
+take prisoners when you were outflanked and outnumbered.”
+
+“Bedad! They didn't teach YOU, Captain Overstone, to engage a battery at
+Cerro Gordo with a half company, but you did it; more shame to you now,
+sorr, commandin' the thayves and ruffians you do.”
+
+“Silence!” said the young officer.
+
+The sleeve of the sergeant who had spoken--with the chevrons of long
+service upon it--went up to a salute, and dropped again over his carbine
+as he stared stolidly before him. But his shot had told. A flush of
+mingled pride and shame passed over Overstone's face.
+
+“Oh! it's YOU, Murphy,” he said with an affected laugh, “and you haven't
+improved with your stripes.”
+
+The young officer turned his head slightly.
+
+“Attention!”
+
+“One moment more,” said Overstone coming forward. “I have told you that
+we don't give up any man who seeks our protection. But,” he added with
+a half-careless, half-contemptuous wave of his hand, and a significant
+glance at his followers, “we don't prevent you from seeking him. The
+road is clear; the camp is before you.”
+
+The young officer continued without looking at him. “Forward--in two
+files--open order. Ma-arch!”
+
+The little troop moved forward, passed Major Overstone at the head of
+the gully, and spread out on the hillside. The assembled camp, still
+armed, lounging out of ambush here and there, ironically made way for
+them to pass. A few moments of this farcical quest, and a glance at
+the impenetrably wooded heights around, apparently satisfied the young
+officer, and he turned his files again into the gully. Major Overstone
+was still lingering there.
+
+“I hope you are satisfied,” he said grimly. He then paused, and in a
+changed and more hesitating voice added: “I am an older soldier than
+you, sir, but I am always glad to make the acquaintance of West Point.”
+ He paused and held out his hand.
+
+West Point, still red and rigid, glanced at him with bright clear eyes
+under light lashes and the peak of a smartly cocked cap, looked coolly
+at the proffered hand, raised his own to a stiff salute, said, “Good
+afternoon, sir,” and rode away.
+
+Major Overstone wheeled angrily, but in doing so came sharply upon his
+coadjutor--the leader of the ambushed party.
+
+“Well, Dawson,” he said impatiently. “Who was it?”
+
+“Only one of them d----d half-breed Injin agents. He's just over there
+in the brush with Simpson, lying low till the soldiers clear out.”
+
+“Did you talk to him?”
+
+“Not much!” returned Dawson scornfully. “He ain't my style.”
+
+“Fetch him up to my cabin; he may be of some use to us.”
+
+Dawson looked skeptical. “I reckon he ain't no more gain here than he
+was over there,” he said, and turned away.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The cabin of Major Overstone differed outwardly but little from those of
+his companions. It was the usual structure of logs, laid lengthwise, and
+rudely plastered at each point of contact with adobe, the material from
+which the chimney, which entirely occupied one gable, was built. It
+was pierced with two windows and a door, roofed with smaller logs, and
+thatched with long half cylinders of spruce bark. But the interior
+gave certain indications of the distinction as well as the peculiar
+experiences of its occupant. In place of the usual bunk or berth built
+against the wall stood a small folding camp bedstead, and upon a rude
+deal table that held a tin wash-basin and pail lay two ivory-handled
+brushes, combs, and other elegant toilet articles, evidently the
+contents of the major's dressing-bag. A handsome leather trunk occupied
+one corner, with a richly caparisoned silver-mounted Mexican saddle,
+a mahogany case of dueling pistols, a leather hat-box, locked and
+strapped, and a gorgeous gold and quartz handled ebony “presentation”
+ walking stick. There was a certain dramatic suggestion in this
+revelation of the sudden and hurried transition from a life of
+ostentatious luxury to one of hidden toil and privation, and a further
+significance in the slow and gradual distribution and degradation of
+these elegant souvenirs. A pair of silver boot-hooks had been used
+for raking the hearth and lifting the coffee kettle; the ivory of the
+brushes was stained with coffee; the cut-glass bottles had lost their
+stoppers, and had been utilized for vinegar and salt; a silver-framed
+hand mirror hung against the blackened wall. For the major's occupancy
+was the sequel of a hurried flight from his luxurious hotel at
+Sacramento--a transfer that he believed was only temporary until
+the affair blew over, and he could return in safety to brow-beat his
+accusers, as was his wont. But this had not been so easy as he had
+imagined; his prosecutors were bitter, and his enforced seclusion had
+been prolonged week by week until the fracas which ended in the shooting
+of the sheriff had apparently closed the door upon his return to
+civilization forever. Only here was his life and person secure. For
+Wynyard's Bar had quickly succumbed to the domination of his reckless
+courage, and the eminence of his double crime had made him respected
+among spendthrifts, gamblers, and gentlemen whose performances had
+never risen above a stage-coach robbery or a single assassination. Even
+criticism of his faded luxuries had been delicately withheld.
+
+He was leaning over his open trunk--which the camp popularly supposed
+to contain State bonds and securities of fabulous amount--and had taken
+some letters from it, when a figure darkened the doorway. He looked up,
+laying his papers carelessly aside. WITHIN Wynyard's Bar property was
+sacred.
+
+It was the late fugitive. Although some hours had already elapsed since
+his arrival in camp, and he had presumably refreshed himself inwardly,
+his outward appearance was still disheveled and dusty. Brier and
+milkweed clung to his frayed blouse and trousers. What could be seen of
+the skin of his face and hands under its stains and begriming was of
+a dull yellow. His light eyes had all the brightness without the
+restlessness of the mongrel race. They leisurely took in the whole
+cabin, the still open trunk before the major, and then rested
+deliberately on the major himself.
+
+“Well,” said Major Overstone abruptly, “what brought you here?”
+
+“Same as brought you, I reckon,” responded the man almost as abruptly.
+
+The major knew something of the half-breed temper, and neither the
+retort nor its tone affected him.
+
+“You didn't come here just because you deserted,” said the major coolly.
+“You've been up to something else.”
+
+“I have,” said the man with equal coolness.
+
+“I thought so. Now, you understand you can't try anything of that kind
+HERE. If you do, up you go on the first tree. That's Rule 1.”
+
+“I see you ain't pertickler about waiting for the sheriff here, you
+fellers.”
+
+The major glanced at him quickly. He seemed to be quite unconscious of
+any irony in his remark, and continued grimly, “And what's Rule 2?”
+
+“I reckon you needn't trouble yourself beyond No. 1,” returned the major
+with dry significance. Nevertheless, he opened a rude cupboard in the
+corner and brought out a rich silver-mounted cut-glass drinking-flask,
+which he handed to the stranger.
+
+“I say,” said the half-breed, admiringly, “yours?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Certainly NOW, but BEFORE, eh?”
+
+Rule No. 2 may have indicated that references to the past held no
+dishonor. The major, although accustomed to these pleasantries, laughed
+a little harshly.
+
+“Mine always,” he said. “But you don't drink?”
+
+The half-breed's face darkened under its grime.
+
+“Wot you're givin' us? I've been filled chock up by Simpson over thar. I
+reckon I know when I've got a load on.”
+
+“Were you ever in Sacramento?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“Last week.”
+
+“Did you hear anything about me?”
+
+The half-breed glanced through his tangled hair at the major in some
+wonder, not only at the question, but at the almost childish eagerness
+with which it was asked.
+
+“I didn't hear much of anything else,” he answered grimly.
+
+“And--what did they SAY?”
+
+“Said you'd got to be TOOK anyhow! They allowed the new sheriff would do
+it too.”
+
+The major laughed. “Well, you heard HOW the new sheriff did it--skunked
+away with his whole posse before one-eighth of my men! You saw how the
+rest of this camp held up your nine troopers, and that sap-headed cub
+of a lieutenant--didn't you? You wouldn't have been standing here if
+you hadn't. No; there isn't the civil process nor the civil power in all
+California that can take me out of this camp.”
+
+But neither his previous curiosity nor present bravado seemed to impress
+the ragged stranger with much favor. He glanced sulkily around the cabin
+and began to shuffle towards the door.
+
+“Stop! Where are you going to? Sit down. I want to talk to you.”
+
+The fugitive hesitated for a moment, and then dropped ungraciously on
+the edge of a camp-stool near the door. The major looked at him.
+
+“I may have to remind you that I run this camp, and the boys hereabouts
+do pretty much as I say. What's your name?”
+
+“Tom.”
+
+“Tom? Well, look here, Tom! D--n it all! Can't you see that when a man
+is stuck here alone, as I am, he wants to know what's going on outside,
+and hear a little fresh talk?”
+
+The singular weakness of this blended command and appeal apparently
+struck the fugitive curiously. He fixed his lowering eyes on the major
+as if in gloomy doubt if he were really the reckless desperado he had
+been represented. That this man--twice an assassin and the ruler
+of outlaws as reckless as himself--should approach him in this
+half-confidential way evidently puzzled him.
+
+“Wot you wanter know?” he asked gruffly.
+
+“Well, what's my party saying or doing about me?” said the major
+impatiently. “What's the 'Express' saying about me?”
+
+“I reckon they're throwing off on you all round; they allow you never
+represented the party, but worked for yourself,” said the man shortly.
+
+Here the major lashed out. A set of traitors and hirelings! He had
+bought and paid for them all! He had sunk two thousand dollars in the
+“Express” and saved the editor from being horsewhipped and jailed for
+libel! Half the cursed bonds that they were making such a blanked
+fuss about were handled by these hypocrites--blank them! They were a
+low-lived crew of thieves and deserters! It is presumed that the major
+had forgotten himself in this infelicitous selection of epithets, but
+the stranger's face only relaxed into a grim smile. More than that, the
+major had apparently forgotten his desire to hear his guest talk, for he
+himself at once launched into an elaborate exposition of his own affairs
+and a specious and equally elaborate defense and justification of
+himself and denunciation of his accusers. For nearly half an hour he
+reviewed step by step and detail by detail the charges against him--with
+plausible explanation and sophistical argument, but always with
+a singular prolixity and reiteration that spoke of incessant
+self-consciousness and self-abstraction. Of that dashing
+self-sufficiency which had dazzled his friends and awed his enemies
+there was no trace! At last, even the set smile of the degraded
+recipient of these confidences darkened with a dull, bewildered disgust.
+Then, to his relief, a step was heard without. The major's manner
+instantly changed.
+
+“Well?” he demanded impatiently, as Dawson entered.
+
+“I came to know what you want done with HIM,” said Dawson, indicating
+the fugitive with a contemptuous finger.
+
+“Take him to your cabin!”
+
+“My cabin! HIM?” ejaculated Dawson, turning sharply on his chief.
+
+The major's light eyes contracted and his thin lips became a straight
+line. “I don't think you understand me, Dawson, and another time you'd
+better wait until I'm done. I want you to take him to your cabin--and
+then CLEAR OUT OF IT YOURSELF. You understand? I want him NEAR ME AND
+ALONE!”
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Dawson was not astonished the next morning to see Major Overstone and
+the half-breed walking together down the gully road, for he had already
+come to the conclusion that the major was planning some extraordinary
+reprisals against the invaders, that would ensure the perpetual security
+of the camp. That he should use so insignificant and unimportant a tool
+now appeared to him to be quite natural, particularly as the service
+was probably one in which the man would be sacrificed. “The major,” he
+suggested to his companions, “ain't going to risk a white man's skin,
+when he can get an Injun's hide handy.”
+
+The reluctant hesitating step of the half-breed as they walked along
+seemed to give some color to this hypothesis. He listened sullenly to
+the major as he pointed out the strategic position of the Bar. “That
+wagon road is the only approach to Wynyard's, and a dozen men along the
+rocks could hold it against a hundred. The trail that you came by, over
+the ridge, drops straight into this gully, and you saw what that would
+mean to any blanked fools who might try it. Of course we could be
+shelled from that ridge if the sheriff had a howitzer, or the men who
+knew how to work one, but even then we could occupy the ridge before
+them.” He paused a moment and then added: “I used to be in the army,
+Tom; I saw service in Mexico before that cub you got away from had his
+first trousers. I was brought up as a gentleman--blank it all--and HERE
+I am!”
+
+The man slouched on by his side, casting his surly, furtive glances
+from left to right, as if seeking to escape from these confidences.
+Nevertheless, the major kept on through the gully, until reaching the
+wagon road they crossed it, and began to ascend the opposite slope, half
+hidden by the underbrush and larches. Here the major paused again and
+faced about. The cabins of the settlement were already behind the bluff;
+the little stream which indicated the “bar”--on which some perfunctory
+mining was still continued--now and then rang out quite clearly at their
+feet, although the bar itself had disappeared. The sounds of occupation
+and labor had at last died away in the distance. They were quite alone.
+The major sat down on a boulder, and pointed to another. The man,
+however, remained sullenly standing where he was, as if to accent as
+strongly as possible the enforced companionship. Either the major
+was too self-absorbed to notice it, or accepted it as a satisfactory
+characteristic of the half-breed's race. He continued confidently:--
+
+“Now look here, Tom. I want to leave this cursed hole, and get clear out
+of the State! Anywhere; over the Oregon line into British Columbia, or
+to the coast, where I can get a coasting vessel down to Mexico. It will
+cost money, but I've got it. It will cost a lot of risks, but I'll take
+them. I want somebody to help me, some one to share risks with me, and
+some one to share my luck if I succeed. Help to put me on the other side
+of the border line, by sea or land, and I'll give you a thousand dollars
+down BEFORE WE START and a thousand dollars when I'm safe.”
+
+The half-breed had changed his slouching attitude. It seemed more
+indolent on account of the loosely hanging strap that had once held his
+haversack, which was still worn in a slovenly fashion over his shoulder
+as a kind of lazy sling for his shiftless hand.
+
+“Well, Tom, is it a go? You can trust ME, for you'll have the thousand
+in your pocket before you start. I can trust YOU, for I'll kill you
+quicker than lightning if you say a word of this to any one before I go,
+or play a single trick on me afterwards.”
+
+Suddenly the two men were rolling over and over in the underbrush. The
+half-breed had thrown himself upon the major, bearing him down to the
+ground. The haversack strap for an instant whirled like the loop of a
+lasso in the air, and descended over the major's shoulders, pinioning
+his arms to his side. Then the half-breed, tearing open his ragged
+blouse, stripped off his waist-belt, and as dexterously slipped it over
+the ankles of the struggling man.
+
+It was all over in a moment. Neither had spoken a word. Only their rapid
+panting broke the profound silence. Each probably knew that no outcry
+would be overheard.
+
+For the first time the half-breed sat down. But there was no trace of
+triumph or satisfaction in his face, which wore the same lowering look
+of disgust, as he gazed upon the prostrate man.
+
+“I want to tell you first,” he said, slowly wiping his face, “that I
+didn't kalkilate upon doin' this in this yer kind o' way. I expected
+more of a stan' up fight from you--more risk in gettin' you out o' that
+hole--and a different kind of a man to tackle. I never expected you
+to play into my hand like this--and it goes against me to hev to take
+advantage of it.”
+
+“Who are you?” said the major, pantingly.
+
+“I'm the new sheriff of Siskyou!”
+
+He drew from beneath his begrimed shirt a paper wrapping, from which
+he gingerly extracted with the ends of his dirty fingers a clean,
+legal-looking folded paper.
+
+“That's my warrant! I've kept it fresh for you. I reckon you don't care
+to read it--you've seen it afore. It's just the same as t'other sheriff
+had--what you shot.”
+
+“Then this was a plant of yours, and that whelp's troopers?” said the
+major.
+
+“Neither him nor the sojers knows any more about it than you,” returned
+the sheriff slowly. “I enlisted as Injin guide or scout ten days ago.
+I deserted just as reg'lar and nat'ral like when we passed that ridge
+yesterday. I could be took to-morrow by the sojers if they caught sight
+o' me and court-martialed--it's as reg'lar as THAT! But I timed to have
+my posse, under a deputy, draw you off by an attack just as the escort
+reached the ridge. And here I am.”
+
+“And you're no half-breed?”
+
+“There's nothin' Injin about me that water won't wash off. I kalkilated
+you wouldn't suspect anything so insignificant as an INJIN, when I fixed
+myself up. You saw Dawson didn't hanker after me much. But I didn't
+reckon on YOUR tumbling to me so quick. That's what gets me! You must
+hev been pretty low down for kempany when you took a man like me inter
+your confidence. I don't see it yet.”
+
+He looked inquiringly at his captive--with the same wondering surliness.
+Nor could he understand another thing which was evident. After the first
+shock of resistance the major had exhibited none of the indignation of
+a betrayed man, but actually seemed to accept the situation with a
+calmness that his captor lacked. His voice was quite unemotional as he
+said:
+
+“And how are you going to get me away from here?”
+
+“That's MY look out, and needn't trouble you, major; but, seein' as how
+confidential you've been to me, I don't mind tellin' you. Last night
+that posse of mine that you 'skunked,' you know, halted at the cross
+roads till them sojers went by. They has only to SEE THEM to know that I
+had got away. They'll hang round the cross roads till they see my signal
+on top of the ridge, and then they'll make another show against that
+pass. Your men will have their hands full, I reckon, without huntin' for
+YOU, or noticin' the three men o' mine that will come along this ridge
+where the sojers come yesterday--to help me get you down in the same
+way. You see, major, your little trap in that gully ain't in this
+fight--WE'RE THE OTHER SIDE OF IT. I ain't much of a sojer, but I
+reckon I've got you there! And it's all owing to YOU. I ain't,” he added
+gloomily, “takin' much pride in it MYSELF.”
+
+“I shouldn't think you would,” said the major, “and look here! I'll
+double that offer I made you just now. Set me down just as I am on the
+deck of some coasting vessel, and I'll pay you four thousand dollars.
+You may have all the glory of having captured me, HERE, and of making
+your word good before your posse. But you can arrange afterwards on the
+way to let me give you the slip somewhere near Sacramento.”
+
+The sheriff's face actually brightened. “Thanks for that, major. I was
+gettin' a little sick of my share in this job, but, by God, you've put
+some sand in me. Well, then! there ain't gold enough in all Californy to
+make me let you go. You hear me; so drop that. I've TOOK you, and TOOK
+ye'll remain until I land you in Sacramento jail. I don't want to kill
+you, though your life's forfeit a dozen times over, and I reckon you
+don't care for it either way, but if you try any tricks on me I may have
+to MAIM ye to make you come along comf'able and easy. I ain't hankerin'
+arter THAT either, but come you shall!”
+
+“Give your signal and have an end of this,” said the major curtly.
+
+The sheriff looked at him again curiously. “I never had my hands in
+another man's pockets before, major, but I reckon I'll have to take your
+derringers from yours.” He slipped his hand into the major's waistcoat
+and secured the weapons. “I'll have to trouble you for your sash, too,”
+ he said, unwinding the knitted silken girdle from the captive's waist.
+“You won't want it, for you ain't walking, and it'll come in handy to me
+just now.”
+
+He bent over, and, passing it across the major's breast with more
+gentleness and solicitude than he had yet shown, secured him in an easy
+sitting posture against the tree. Then, after carefully trying the knots
+and straps that held his prisoner, he turned and lightly bounded up the
+hill.
+
+He was absent scarcely ten minutes, yet when he returned the major's
+eyes were half closed. But not his lips. “If you expect to hold me until
+your posse comes you had better take me to some less exposed position,”
+ he said dryly. “There's a man just crossed the gully, coming into the
+brush below in the wood.”
+
+“None of your tricks, major!”
+
+“Look for yourself.”
+
+The sheriff glanced quickly below him. A man with an axe on his shoulder
+could be seen plainly making his way through the underbrush not a
+hundred yards away. The sheriff instantly clapped his hand upon his
+captive's mouth, but at a look from his eyes took it away again.
+
+“I see,” he said grimly, “you don't want to lure that man within reach
+of my revolver by calling to him.”
+
+“I could have called him while you were away,” returned the major
+quietly.
+
+The sheriff with a darkened face loosened the sash that bound his
+prisoner to the tree, and then, lifting him in his arms, began to ascend
+the hill cautiously, dipping into the heavier shadows. But the ascent
+was difficult, the load a heavy one, and the sheriff was agile rather
+than muscular. After a few minutes' climbing he was forced to pause and
+rest his burden at the foot of a tree. But the valley and the man in the
+underbrush were no longer in view.
+
+“Come,” said the major quietly, “unstrap my ankles and I'll WALK up.
+We'll never get there at this rate.”
+
+The sheriff paused, wiped his grimy face with his grimier blouse, and
+stood looking at his prisoner. Then he said slowly:--
+
+“Look yer! Wot's your little game? Blessed if I kin follow suit.”
+
+For the first time the major burst into a rage. “Blast it all! Don't you
+see that if I'm discovered HERE, in this way, there's not a man on the
+Bar who would believe that I walked into your trap, not a man, by God,
+who wouldn't think it was a trick of yours and mine together?”
+
+“Or,” interrupted the sheriff slowly, fixing his eyes on his prisoner,
+“not a man who would ever trust Major Overstone for a leader again?”
+
+“Perhaps,” said the major, unmovedly again, “I don't think EITHER OF US
+would ever get a chance of being trusted again by any one.”
+
+The sheriff still kept his eyes fixed on his prisoner, his gloomy face
+growing darker under its grime. “THAT ain't the reason, major. Life and
+death don't mean much more to you than they do to me in this yer game. I
+know that you'd kill me quicker nor lightning if you got the chance; YOU
+know that I'm takin' you to the gallows.”
+
+“The reason is that I want to leave Wynyard's Bar,” said the major
+coolly; “and even this way out of it will suit me.”
+
+The sheriff took his revolver from his pocket and deliberately cocked
+it. Then, leaning down, he unbuckled the strap from the major's ankles.
+A wild hope that his incomprehensible captive might seize that moment to
+develop his real intent--that he might fly, fight, or in some way act up
+to his reckless reputation--sustained him for a moment, but in the next
+proved futile. The major only said, “Thank you, Tom,” and stretched his
+cramped legs.
+
+“Get up and go on,” said the sheriff roughly.
+
+The major began to slowly ascend the hill, the sheriff close on his
+heels, alert, tingling, and watchful of every movement. For a few
+moments this strain upon his faculties seemed to invigorate him, and his
+gloom relaxed, but presently it became too evident that the prisoner's
+pinioned arms made it impossible for him to balance or help himself on
+that steep trail, and once or twice he stumbled and reeled dangerously
+to one side. With an oath the sheriff caught him, and tore from his arms
+the only remaining bonds that fettered him. “There!” he said savagely;
+“go on; we're equal!”
+
+Without replying, the major continued his ascent; it became steeper
+as they neared the crest, and at last they were both obliged to drag
+themselves up by clutching the vines and underbrush. Suddenly the major
+stopped with a listening gesture. A strange roaring--as of wind or
+water--was distinctly audible.
+
+“How did you signal?” asked the major abruptly.
+
+“Made a smoke,” said the sheriff as abruptly.
+
+“I thought so--well! you've set the woods on fire.”
+
+They both plunged upwards again, now quite abreast, vying with each
+other to reach the summit as if with the one thought only. Already the
+sting and smart of acrid fumes were in their eyes and nostrils; when
+they at last stood on level ground again, it was hidden by a thin film
+of grayish blue haze that seemed to be creeping along it. But above
+was the clear sky, seen through the interlacing boughs, and to
+their surprise--they who had just come from the breathless, stagnant
+hillside--a fierce wind was blowing! But the roaring was louder than
+before.
+
+“Unless your three men are already here, your game is up,” said the
+major calmly. “The wind blows dead along the ridge where they should
+come, and they can't get through the smoke and fire.”
+
+It was indeed true! In the scarce twenty minutes that had elapsed since
+the sheriff's return the dry and brittle underbrush for half a mile on
+either side had been converted into a sheet of flame, which at times
+rose to a furnace blast through the tall chimney-like conductors of tree
+shafts, from whose shriveled sides bark was crackling, and lighted dead
+limbs falling in all directions. The whole valley, the gully, the Bar,
+the very hillside they had just left, were blotted out by a creeping,
+stifling smoke-fog that scarcely rose breast high, but was beaten down
+or cut off cleanly by the violent wind that swept the higher level
+of the forest. At times this gale became a sirocco in temperature,
+concentrating its heat in withering blasts which they could not face, or
+focusing its intensity upon some mass of foliage that seemed to shrink
+at its touch and open a scathed and quivering aisle to its approach. The
+enormous skeleton of a dead and rotten redwood, not a hundred yards to
+their right, broke suddenly like a gigantic firework into sparks and
+flame.
+
+The sheriff had grasped the full meaning of their situation. In spite of
+his first error--the very carelessness of familiarity--his knowledge
+of woodcraft was greater than his companion's, and he saw their danger.
+“Come,” he said quickly, “we must make for an opening or we shall be
+caught.”
+
+The major smiled in misapprehension.
+
+“Who could catch us here?”
+
+The sheriff pointed to the blazing tree.
+
+“THAT,” he said. “In five minutes IT will have a posse that will wipe us
+both out.”
+
+He caught the major by the arm and rushed him into the smoke,
+apparently in the direction of the greatest mass of flame. The heat was
+suffocating, but it struck the major that the more they approached the
+actual scene of conflagration the heat and smoke became less, until he
+saw that the fire was retreating before them and the following wind.
+In a few moments their haven of safety--the expanse already burnt
+over--came in sight. Here and there, seen dimly through the drifting
+smoke, the scattered embers that still strewed the forest floor glowed
+in weird nebulous spots like will-o'-the-wisps. For an instant the major
+hesitated; the sheriff cast a significant glance behind them.
+
+“Go on; it's our only chance,” he said imperatively.
+
+They darted on, skimming the blackened or smouldering surface, which at
+times struck out sparks and flame from their heavier footprints as they
+passed. Their boots crackled and scorched beneath them; their shreds
+of clothing were on fire; their breathing became more difficult, until,
+providentially, they fell upon an abrupt, fissure-like depression of the
+soil, which the fire had leaped, and into which they blindly plunged and
+rolled together. A moment of relief and coolness followed, as they crept
+along the fissure, filled with damp and rotting leaves.
+
+“Why not stay here?” said the exhausted prisoner.
+
+“And be roasted like sweet potatoes when these trees catch,” returned
+the sheriff grimly. “No.” Even as he spoke, a dropping rain of
+fire spattered through the leaves from a splintered redwood, before
+overlooked, that was now blazing fiercely in the upper wind. A vague and
+indefinable terror was in the air. The conflagration no longer seemed
+to obey any rule of direction. The incendiary torch had passed
+invisibly everywhere. They scrambled out of the hollow, and again dashed
+desperately forward.
+
+Beaten, bruised, blackened, and smoke-grimed--looking less human than
+the animals who had long since deserted the crest--they at last limped
+into a “wind opening” in the woods that the fire had skirted. The major
+sank exhaustedly to the ground; the sheriff threw himself beside him.
+Their strange relations to each other seemed to have been forgotten;
+they looked and acted as if they no longer thought of anything beyond
+the present. And when the sheriff finally arose and, disappearing for
+several minutes, brought his hat full of water for his prisoner from a
+distant spring that they had passed in their flight, he found him where
+he had left him--unchanged and unmoved.
+
+He took the water gratefully, and after a pause fixed his eyes earnestly
+upon his captor. “I want you to do a favor to me,” he said slowly. “I'm
+not going to offer you a bribe to do it either, nor ask you anything
+that isn't in a line with your duty. I think I understand you now, if I
+didn't before. Do you know Briggs's restaurant in Sacramento?”
+
+The sheriff nodded.
+
+“Well! over the restaurant are my private rooms, the finest in
+Sacramento. Nobody knows it but Briggs, and he has never told. They've
+been locked ever since I left; I've got the key still in my pocket. Now
+when we get to Sacramento, instead of taking me straight to jail, I want
+you to hold me THERE as your prisoner for a day and a night. I don't
+want to get away; you can take what precautions you like--surround the
+house with policemen, and sleep yourself in the ante-room. I don't want
+to destroy any papers or evidence; you can go through the rooms and
+examine everything before and after; I only want to stay there a day and
+a night; I want to be in my old rooms, have my meals from the restaurant
+as I used to, and sleep in my own bed once more. I want to live for one
+day like a gentleman, as I used to live before I came here. That's all!
+It isn't much, Tom. You can do it and say you require to do it to get
+evidence against me, or that you want to search the rooms.”
+
+The expression of wonder which had come into the sheriff's face at
+the beginning of this speech deepened into his old look of surly
+dissatisfaction. “And that's all ye want?” he said gloomily. “Ye don't
+want no friends--no lawyer? For I tell you, straight out, major, there
+ain't no hope for ye, when the law once gets hold of ye in Sacramento.”
+
+“That's all. Will you do it?”
+
+The sheriff's face grew still darker. After a pause he said: “I don't
+say 'no,' and I don't say 'yes.' But,” he added grimly, “it strikes me
+we'd better wait till we get clear o' these woods afore you think o'
+your Sacramento lodgings.”
+
+The major did not reply. The day had worn on, but the fire, now
+completely encircling them, opposed any passage in or out of that
+fateful barrier. The smoke of the burning underbrush hung low around
+them in a bank equally impenetrable to vision. They were as alone as
+shipwrecked sailors on an island, girded by a horizon of clouds.
+
+“I'm going to try to sleep,” said the major; “if your men come you can
+waken me.”
+
+“And if YOUR men come?” said the sheriff dryly.
+
+“Shoot me.”
+
+He lay down, closed his eyes, and to the sheriff's astonishment
+presently fell asleep. The sheriff, with his chin in his grimy hands,
+sat and watched him as the day slowly darkened around them and the
+distant fires came out in more lurid intensity. The face of the captive
+and outlawed murderer was singularly peaceful; that of the captor and
+man of duty was haggard, wild, and perplexed.
+
+But even this changed soon. The sleeping man stirred restlessly and
+uneasily; his face began to work, his lips to move. “Tom,” he gasped
+suddenly, “Tom!”
+
+The sheriff bent over him eagerly. The sleeping man's eyes were still
+closed; beads of sweat stood upon his forehead. He was dreaming.
+
+“Tom,” he whispered, “take me out of this place--take me out from
+these dogs and pimps and beggars! Listen, Tom!--they're Sydney ducks,
+ticket-of-leave men, short card sharps, and sneak thieves! There isn't a
+gentleman among 'em! There isn't one I don't loathe and hate--and would
+grind under my heel, elsewhere. I'm a gentleman, Tom--yes, by God--an
+officer and a gentleman! I've served my country in the 9th Cavalry.
+That cub of West Point knows it and despises me, seeing me here in such
+company. That sergeant knows it--I recommended him for his first stripes
+for all he taunts me,--d--n him!”
+
+“Come, wake up!” said the sheriff harshly.
+
+The prisoner did not heed him; the sheriff shook him roughly, so roughly
+that the major's waistcoat and shirt dragged open, disclosing his fine
+silk undershirt, delicately worked and embroidered with golden thread.
+At the sight of this abased and faded magnificence the sheriff's hand
+was stayed; his eye wandered over the sleeping form before him. Yes, the
+hair was dyed too; near the roots it was quite white and grizzled; the
+pomatum was coming off the pointed moustache and imperial; the face in
+the light was very haggard; the lines from the angles of the nostril and
+mouth were like deep, half-healed gashes. The major was, without doubt,
+prematurely worn and played out.
+
+The sheriff's persistent eyes, however, seemed to effect what his ruder
+hand could not. The sleeping man stirred, awoke to full consciousness,
+and sat up.
+
+“Are they here? I'm ready,” he said calmly.
+
+“No,” said the sheriff deliberately; “I only woke ye to say that I've
+been thinkin' over what ye asked me, and if we get to Sacramento all
+right, why, I'll do it and give ye that day and night at your old
+lodgings.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+The major reached out his hand; the sheriff hesitated, and then extended
+his own. The hands of the two men clasped for the first, and it would
+seem, the last time.
+
+For the “cub of West Point” was, like most cubs, irritable when
+thwarted. And having been balked of his prey, the deserter, and possibly
+chaffed by his comrades for his profitless invasion of Wynyard's Bar, he
+had persuaded his commanding officer to give him permission to effect a
+recapture. Thus it came about that at dawn, filing along the ridge, on
+the outskirts of the fire, his heart was gladdened by the sight of
+the half-breed--with his hanging haversack belt and tattered army
+tunic--evidently still a fugitive, not a hundred yards away on the other
+side of the belt of fire, running down the hill with another ragged
+figure at his side. The command to “halt” was enforced by a single rifle
+shot over the fugitives' heads--but they still kept on their flight.
+Then the boy-officer snatched a carbine from one of his men, a volley
+rang out from the little troop--the shots of the privates mercifully
+high, those of the officer and sergeant leveled with wounded pride and
+full of deliberate purpose. The half-breed fell; so did his companion,
+and, rolling over together, both lay still.
+
+But between the hunters and their fallen quarry reared a cheval de
+frise of flame and fallen timber impossible to cross. The young officer
+hesitated, shrugged his shoulders, wheeled his men about, and left the
+fire to correct any irregularity in his action.
+
+It did not, however, change contemporaneous history, for a week later,
+when Wynyard's Bar discovered Major Overstone lying beside the man now
+recognized by them as the disguised sheriff of Siskyou, they rejoiced at
+this unfailing evidence of their lost leader's unequaled prowess. That
+he had again killed a sheriff and fought a whole posse, yielding only
+with his life, was never once doubted, and kept his memory green in
+Sierran chronicles long after Wynyard's Bar had itself become a memory.
+
+
+
+
+A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE.
+
+
+The American consul at St. Kentigern stepped gloomily from the train at
+Whistlecrankie station. For the last twenty minutes his spirits had been
+slowly sinking before the drifting procession past the carriage windows
+of dull gray and brown hills--mammiform in shape, but so cold and
+sterile in expression that the swathes of yellow mist which lay in
+their hollows, like soiled guipure, seemed a gratuitous affectation of
+modesty. And when the train moved away, mingling its escaping steam
+with the slower mists of the mountain, he found himself alone on the
+platform--the only passenger and apparently the sole occupant of the
+station. He was gazing disconsolately at his trunk, which had taken upon
+itself a human loneliness in the emptiness of the place, when a railway
+porter stepped out of the solitary signal-box, where he had evidently
+been performing a double function, and lounged with exasperating
+deliberation towards him. He was a hard-featured man, with a thin fringe
+of yellow-gray whiskers that met under his chin like dirty strings to
+tie his cap on with.
+
+“Ye'll be goin' to Glenbogie House, I'm thinkin'?” he said moodily.
+
+The consul said that he was.
+
+“I kenned it. Ye'll no be gettin' any machine to tak' ye there. They'll
+be sending a carriage for ye--if ye're EXPECTED.” He glanced half
+doubtfully at the consul as if he was not quite so sure of it.
+
+But the consul believed he WAS expected, and felt relieved at the
+certain prospect of a conveyance. The porter meanwhile surveyed him
+moodily.
+
+“Ye'll be seein' Mistress MacSpadden there!”
+
+The consul was surprised into a little over-consciousness. Mrs.
+MacSpadden was a vivacious acquaintance at St. Kentigern, whom he
+certainly--and not without some satisfaction--expected to meet at
+Glenbogie House. He raised his eyes inquiringly to the porter's.
+
+“Ye'll no be rememberin' me. I had a machine in St. Kentigern and drove
+ye to MacSpadden's ferry often. Far, far too often! She's a strange
+flagrantitious creature; her husband's but a puir fule, I'm thinkin',
+and ye did yersel' nae guid gaunin' there.”
+
+It was a besetting weakness of the consul's that his sense of the
+ludicrous was too often reached before his more serious perceptions. The
+absurd combination of the bleak, inhospitable desolation before him, and
+the sepulchral complacency of his self-elected monitor, quite upset his
+gravity.
+
+“Ay, ye'll be laughin' THE NOO,” returned the porter with gloomy
+significance.
+
+The consul wiped his eyes. “Still,” he said demurely, “I trust you won't
+object to my giving you sixpence to carry my box to the carriage when
+it comes, and let the morality of this transaction devolve entirely
+upon me. Unless,” he continued, even more gravely, as a spick and span
+brougham, drawn by two thoroughbreds, dashed out of the mist up to
+the platform, “unless you prefer to state the case to those two
+gentlemen”--pointing to the smart coachman and footman on the box--“and
+take THEIR opinion as to the propriety of my proceeding any further.
+It seems to me that their consciences ought to be consulted as well
+as yours. I'm only a stranger here, and am willing to do anything to
+conform to the local custom.”
+
+“It's a saxpence ye'll be payin' anyway,” said the porter, grimly
+shouldering the trunk, “but I'll be no takin' any other mon's opinion on
+matters of my am dooty and conscience.”
+
+“Ah,” said the consul gravely, “then you'll perhaps be allowing ME the
+same privilege.”
+
+The porter's face relaxed, and a gleam of approval--purely intellectual,
+however,--came into his eyes.
+
+“Ye were always a smooth deevel wi' your tongue, Mr. Consul,” he said,
+shouldering the box and walking off to the carriage.
+
+Nevertheless, as soon as he was fairly seated and rattling away from the
+station, the consul had a flashing conviction that he had not only
+been grievously insulted but also that he had allowed the wife of an
+acquaintance to be spoken of disrespectfully in his presence. And he had
+done nothing! Yes--it was like him!--he had LAUGHED at the absurdity of
+the impertinence without resenting it! Another man would have slapped
+the porter's face! For an instant he hung out of the carriage window,
+intent upon ordering the coachman to drive back to the station, but the
+reflection--again a ludicrous one--that he would now be only bringing
+witnesses to a scene which might provoke a scandal more invidious to his
+acquaintance, checked him in time. But his spirits, momentarily diverted
+by the porter's effrontery, sunk to a lower ebb than before.
+
+The clattering of his horses' hoofs echoed back from the rocky walls
+that occasionally hemmed in the road was not enlivening, but was less
+depressing than the recurring monotony of the open. The scenery did not
+suggest wildness to his alien eyes so much as it affected him with a
+vague sense of scorbutic impoverishment. It was not the loneliness of
+unfrequented nature, for there was a well-kept carriage road traversing
+its dreariness; and even when the hillside was clothed with scanty
+verdure, there were “outcrops” of smooth glistening weather-worn rocks
+showing like bare brown knees under the all too imperfectly kilted
+slopes. And at a little distance, lifting above a black drift of firs,
+were the square rigid sky lines of Glenbogie House, standing starkly
+against the cold, lingering northern twilight. As the vehicle turned,
+and rolled between two square stone gate-posts, the long avenue before
+him, though as well kept as the road, was but a slight improvement upon
+the outer sterility, and the dark iron-gray rectangular mansion beyond,
+guiltless of external decoration, even to the outlines of its small
+lustreless windows, opposed the grim inhospitable prospect with an
+equally grim inhospitable front. There were a few moments more of rapid
+driving, a swift swishing over soft gravel, the opening of a heavy
+door into a narrow vestibule, and then--a sudden sense of exquisitely
+diffused light and warmth from an arched and galleried central hall, the
+sounds of light laughter and subdued voices half lost in the airy space
+between the lofty pictured walls; the luxury of color in trophies,
+armor, and hangings; one or two careless groups before the recessed
+hearth or at the centre table, and the halted figure of a pretty woman
+on the broad, slow staircase. The contrast was sharp, ironical, and
+bewildering.
+
+So much so that the consul, when he had followed the servant to his
+room, was impelled to draw aside the heavy window-curtains and look out
+again upon the bleak prospect it had half obliterated. The wing in which
+he was placed overhung a dark ravine or gully choked with shrubs and
+brambles that grew in a new luxuriance. As he gazed a large black bird
+floated upwards slowly from its depths, circled around the house with a
+few quick strokes of its wing, and then sped away--a black bolt--in one
+straight undeviating line towards the paling north. He still gazed into
+the abyss--half expecting another, even fancying he heard the occasional
+stir and flutter of obscure life below, and the melancholy call of
+nightfowl. A long-forgotten fragment of old English verse began to haunt
+him--
+
+     Hark! the raven flaps hys wing
+        In the briered dell belowe,
+     Hark! the dethe owl loude doth synge
+        To the night maers as thaie goe.
+
+“Now, what put that stuff in my head?” he said as he turned impatiently
+from the window. “And why does this house, with all its interior luxury,
+hypocritically oppose such a forbidding front to its neighbors?” Then
+it occurred to him that perhaps the architect instinctively felt that
+a more opulent and elaborate exterior would only bring the poverty of
+surrounding nature into greater relief. But he was not in the habit of
+troubling himself with abstruse problems. A nearer recollection of the
+pretty frock he had seen on the staircase--in whose wearer he had
+just recognized his vivacious friend--turned his thoughts to her. He
+remembered how at their first meeting he had been interested in her
+bright audacity, unconventionality, and high spirits, which did not,
+however, amuse him as greatly as his later suspicion that she was
+playing a self-elected role, often with difficulty, opposition, and
+feverishness, rather than spontaneity. He remembered how he had watched
+her in the obtrusive assumption of a new fashion, in some reckless
+departure from an old one, or in some ostentatious disregard of certain
+hard and set rules of St. Kentigern; but that it never seemed to him
+that she was the happier for it. He even fancied that her mirth at such
+times had an undue nervousness; that her pluck--which was undoubted--had
+something of the defiance of despair, and that her persistence often had
+the grimness of duty rather than the thoughtlessness of pure amusement.
+What was she trying to do?--what was she trying to UNDO or forget? Her
+married life was apparently happy and even congenial. Her young husband
+was clever, complaisant, yet honestly devoted to her, even to the
+extension of a certain camaraderie to her admirers and a chivalrous
+protection by half-participation in her maddest freaks. Nor could he
+honestly say that her attitude towards his own sex--although marked by a
+freedom that often reached the verge of indiscretion--conveyed the least
+suggestion of passion or sentiment. The consul, more perceptive than
+analytical, found her a puzzle--who was, perhaps, the least mystifying
+to others who were content to sum up her eccentricities under the single
+vague epithet, “fast.” Most women disliked her: she had a few associates
+among them, but no confidante, and even these were so unlike her,
+again, as to puzzle him still more. And yet he believed himself strictly
+impartial.
+
+He walked to the window again, and looked down upon the ravine from
+which the darkness now seemed to be slowly welling up and obliterating
+the landscape, and then, taking a book from his valise, settled himself
+in the easy-chair by the fire. He was in no hurry to join the party
+below, whom he had duly recognized and greeted as he passed through.
+They or their prototypes were familiar friends. There was the recently
+created baronet, whose “bloody hand” had apparently wiped out the
+stains of his earlier Radicalism, and whose former provincial
+self-righteousness had been supplanted by an equally provincial
+skepticism; there was his wife, who through all the difficulties of
+her changed position had kept the stalwart virtues of the Scotch
+bourgeoisie, and was--“decent”; there were the two native lairds that
+reminded him of “parts of speech,” one being distinctly alluded to as
+a definite article, and the other being “of” something, and apparently
+governed always by that possessive case. There were two or three
+“workers”--men of power and ability in their several vocations; indeed,
+there was the general over-proportion of intellect, characteristic of
+such Scotch gatherings, and often in excess of minor social qualities.
+There was the usual foreigner, with Latin quickness, eagerness,
+and misapprehending adaptability. And there was the solitary
+Englishman--perhaps less generously equipped than the others--whom
+everybody differed from, ridiculed, and then looked up to and imitated.
+There were the half-dozen smartly frocked women, who, far from being
+the females of the foregoing species, were quite indistinctive, with
+the single exception of an American wife, who was infinitely more Scotch
+than her Scotch husband.
+
+Suddenly he became aware of a faint rustling at his door, and what
+seemed to be a slight tap on the panel. He rose and opened it--the long
+passage was dark and apparently empty, but he fancied he could detect
+the quick swish of a skirt in the distance. As he re-entered his room,
+his eye fell for the first time on a rose whose stalk was thrust through
+the keyhole of his door. The consul smiled at this amiable solution of a
+mystery. It was undoubtedly the playful mischievousness of the vivacious
+MacSpadden. He placed it in water--intending to wear it in his coat at
+dinner as a gentle recognition of the fair donor's courtesy.
+
+Night had thickened suddenly as from a passing cloud. He lit the two
+candles on his dressing-table, gave a glance into the now scarcely
+distinguishable abyss below his window, as he drew the curtains, and by
+the more diffused light for the first time surveyed his room critically.
+It was a larger apartment than that usually set aside for bachelors;
+the heavy four-poster had a conjugal reserve about it, and a tall cheval
+glass and certain minor details of the furniture suggested that it had
+been used for a married couple. He knew that the guest-rooms in country
+houses, as in hotels, carried no suggestion or flavor of the last
+tenant, and therefore lacked color and originality, and he was
+consequently surprised to find himself impressed with some distinctly
+novel atmosphere. He was puzzling himself to discover what it might
+be, when he again became aware of cautious footsteps apparently halting
+outside his door. This time he was prepared. With a half smile he
+stepped softly to the door and opened it suddenly. To his intense
+surprise he was face to face with a man.
+
+But his discomfiture was as nothing compared to that of the
+stranger--whom he at once recognized as one of his fellow-guests--the
+youthful Laird of Whistlecrankie. The young fellow's healthy color at
+once paled, then flushed a deep crimson, and a forced smile stiffened
+his mouth.
+
+“I--beg your par-r-rdon,” he said with a nervous brusqueness that
+brought out his accent. “I couldna find ma room. It'll be changed, and
+I--”
+
+“Perhaps I have got it,” interrupted the consul smilingly. “I've only
+just come, and they've put me in here.”
+
+“Nae! Nae!” said the young man hurriedly, “it's no' thiss. That is, it's
+no' mine noo.”
+
+“Won't you come in?” suggested the consul politely, holding open the
+door.
+
+The young man entered the room with the quick strides but the mechanical
+purposelessness of embarrassment. Then he stiffened and stood erect. Yet
+in spite of all this he was strikingly picturesque and unconventional in
+his Highland dress, worn with the freedom of long custom and a
+certain lithe, barbaric grace. As the consul continued to gaze at him
+encouragingly, the quick resentful pride of a shy man suddenly mantled
+his high cheekbones, and with an abrupt “I'll not deesturb ye longer,”
+ he strode out of the room.
+
+The consul watched the easy swing of his figure down the passage, and
+then closed the door. “Delightful creature,” he said musingly, “and not
+so very unlike an Apache chief either! But what was he doing outside
+my door? And was it HE who left that rose--not as a delicate Highland
+attention to an utter stranger, but”--the consul's mouth suddenly
+expanded--“to some fair previous occupant? Or was it really HIS room--he
+looked as if he were lying--and”--here the consul's mouth expanded even
+more wickedly--“and Mrs. MacSpadden had put the flower there for him.”
+ This implied snub to his vanity was, however, more than compensated by
+his wicked anticipation of the pretty perplexity of his fair friend when
+HE should appear at dinner with the flower in his own buttonhole. It
+would serve her right, the arrant flirt! But here he was interrupted by
+the entrance of a tall housemaid with his hot water.
+
+“I am afraid I've dispossessed Mr.--Mr.--Kilcraithie rather
+prematurely,” said the consul lightly.
+
+To his infinite surprise the girl answered with grim decision, “Nane too
+soon.”
+
+The consul stared. “I mean,” he explained, “that I found him hesitating
+here in the passage, looking for his room.”
+
+“Ay, he's always hoaverin' and glowerin' in the passages--but it's no'
+for his ROOM! And it's a deesgrace to decent Christian folk his carryin'
+on wi' married weemen--mebbee they're nae better than he!”
+
+“That will do,” said the consul curtly. He had no desire to encourage a
+repetition of the railway porter's freedom.
+
+“Ye'll no fash yoursel' aboot HIM,” continued the girl, without heeding
+the rebuff. “It's no' the meestreess' wish that he's keepit here in the
+wing reserved for married folk, and she's no' sorry for the excuse to
+pit ye in his place. Ye'll be married yoursel', I'm hearin'. But, I ken
+ye's nae mair to be lippened tae for THAT.”
+
+This was too much for the consul's gravity. “I'm afraid,” he said with
+diplomatic gayety, “that although I am married, as I haven't my wife
+with me, I've no right to this superior accommodation and comfort. But
+you can assure your mistress that I'll try to deserve them.”
+
+“Ay,” said the girl, but with no great confidence in her voice as she
+grimly quitted the room.
+
+“When our foot's upon our native heath, whether our name's Macgregor or
+Kilcraithie, it would seem that we must tread warily,” mused the consul
+as he began to dress. “But I'm glad she didn't see that rose, or MY
+reputation would have been ruined.” Here another knock at the door
+arrested him. He opened it impatiently to a tall gillie, who instantly
+strode into the room. There was such another suggestion of Kilcraithie
+in the man and his manner that the consul instantly divined that he was
+Kilcraithie's servant.
+
+“I'll be takin' some bit things that yon Whistlecrankie left,” said the
+gillie gravely, with a stolid glance around the room.
+
+“Certainly,” said the consul; “help yourself.” He continued his dressing
+as the man began to rummage in the empty drawers. The consul had his
+back towards him, but, looking in the glass of the dressing-table, he
+saw that the gillie was stealthily watching him. Suddenly he passed
+before the mantelpiece and quickly slipped the rose from its glass into
+his hand.
+
+“I'll trouble you to put that back,” said the consul quietly, without
+turning round. The gillie slid a quick glance towards the door, but the
+consul was before him. “I don't think THAT was left by your master,” he
+said in an ostentatiously calm voice, for he was conscious of an absurd
+and inexplicable tumult in his blood, “and perhaps you'd better put it
+back.”
+
+The man looked at the flower with an attention that might have been
+merely ostentatious, and replaced it in the glass.
+
+“A thocht it was hiss.”
+
+“And I think it isn't,” said the consul, opening the door.
+
+Yet when the man had passed out he was by no means certain that the
+flower was not Kilcraithie's. He was even conscious that if the young
+Laird had approached him with a reasonable explanation or appeal he
+would have yielded it up. Yet here he was--looking angrily pale in the
+glass, his eyes darker than they should be, and with an unmistakable
+instinct to do battle for this idiotic gage! Was there some morbid
+disturbance in the air that was affecting him as it had Kilcraithie?
+He tried to laugh, but catching sight of its sardonic reflection in
+the glass became grave again. He wondered if the gillie had been
+really looking for anything his master had left--he had certainly TAKEN
+nothing. He opened one or two of the drawers, and found only a woman's
+tortoiseshell hairpin--overlooked by the footman when he had emptied
+them for the consul's clothes. It had been probably forgotten by some
+fair and previous tenant to Kilcraithie. The consul looked at his
+watch--it was time to go down. He grimly pinned the fateful flower in
+his buttonhole, and half-defiantly descended to the drawing-room.
+
+Here, however, he was inclined to relax when, from a group of pretty
+women, the bright gray eyes of Mrs. MacSpadden caught his, were suddenly
+diverted to the lapel of his coat, and then leaped up to his again with
+a sparkle of mischief. But the guests were already pairing off in dinner
+couples, and as they passed out of the room, he saw that she was on the
+arm of Kilcraithie. Yet, as she passed him, she audaciously turned her
+head, and in a mischievous affectation of jealous reproach, murmured:--
+
+“So soon!”
+
+At dinner she was too far removed for any conversation with him,
+although from his seat by his hostess he could plainly see her saucy
+profile midway up the table. But, to his surprise, her companion,
+Kilcraithie, did not seem to be responding to her gayety. By turns
+abstracted and feverish, his glances occasionally wandered towards the
+end of the table where the consul was sitting. For a few moments he
+believed that the affair of the flower, combined, perhaps, with the
+overhearing of Mrs. MacSpadden's mischievous sentence, rankled in the
+Laird's barbaric soul. But he became presently aware that Kilcraithie's
+eyes eventually rested upon a quiet-looking blonde near the hostess. Yet
+the lady not only did not seem to be aware of it, but her face was more
+often turned towards the consul, and their eyes had once or twice met.
+He had been struck by the fact that they were half-veiled but singularly
+unimpassioned eyes, with a certain expression of cold wonderment and
+criticism quite inconsistent with their veiling. Nor was he surprised
+when, after a preliminary whispering over the plates, his hostess
+presented him. The lady was the young wife of the middle-aged dignitary
+who, seated further down the table, opposite Mrs. MacSpadden, was
+apparently enjoying that lady's wildest levities. The consul bowed, the
+lady leaned a little forward.
+
+“We were saying what a lovely rose you had.”
+
+The consul's inward response was “Hang that flower!” His outward
+expression was the modest query:--
+
+“Is it SO peculiar?”
+
+“No; but it's very pretty. Would you allow me to see it?”
+
+Disengaging the flower from his buttonhole he handed it to her. Oddly
+enough, it seemed to him that half the table was watching and listening
+to them. Suddenly the lady uttered a little cry. “Dear me! it's full
+of thorns; of course you picked and arranged it yourself, for any lady
+would have wrapped something around the stalk!”
+
+But here there was a burlesque outcry and a good-humored protest from
+the gentlemen around her against this manifestly leading question. “It's
+no fair! Ye'll not answer her--for the dignity of our sex.” Yet in the
+midst of it, it suddenly occurred to the consul that there HAD been a
+slip of paper wrapped around it, which had come off and remained in the
+keyhole. The blue eyes of the lady were meanwhile sounding his, but he
+only smiled and said:--
+
+“Then it seems it IS peculiar?”
+
+When the conversation became more general he had time to observe other
+features of the lady than her placid eyes. Her light hair was very long,
+and grew low down the base of her neck. Her mouth was firm, the upper
+lip slightly compressed in a thin red line, but the lower one, although
+equally precise at the corners, became fuller in the centre and turned
+over like a scarlet leaf, or, as it struck him suddenly, like the
+tell-tale drop of blood on the mouth of a vampire. Yet she was
+very composed, practical, and decorous, and as the talk grew more
+animated--and in the vicinity of Mrs. MacSpadden, more audacious--she
+kept a smiling reserve of expression,--which did not, however, prevent
+her from following that lively lady, whom she evidently knew, with a
+kind of encouraging attention.
+
+“Kate is in full fling to-night,” she said to the hostess. Lady
+Macquoich smiled ambiguously--so ambiguously that the consul thought it
+necessary to interfere for his friend. “She seems to say what most of
+us think, but I am afraid very few of us could voice as innocently,” he
+smilingly suggested.
+
+“She is a great friend of yours,” returned the lady, looking at him
+through her half-veiled lids. “She has made us quite envy her.”
+
+“And I am afraid made it impossible for ME to either sufficiently thank
+her or justify her taste,” he said quietly. Yet he was vexed at an
+unaccountable resentment which had taken possession of him--who but a
+few hours before had only laughed at the porter's criticism.
+
+After the ladies had risen, the consul with an instinct of sympathy was
+moving up towards “Jock” MacSpadden, who sat nearer the host, when he
+was stopped midway of the table by the dignitary who had sat opposite
+to Mrs. MacSpadden. “Your frien' is maist amusing wi' her audacious
+tongue--ay, and her audacious ways,” he said with large official
+patronage; “and we've enjoyed her here immensely, but I hae mae doots
+if mae Leddy Macquoich taks as kindly to them. You and I--men of the
+wurrld, I may say--we understand them for a' their worth; ay!--ma wife
+too, with whom I observed ye speakin'--is maist tolerant of her, but
+man! it's extraordinar'”--he lowered his voice slightly--“that yon
+husband of hers does na' check her freedoms with Kilcraithie. I wadna'
+say anythin' was wrong, ye ken, but is he no' over confident and
+conceited aboot his wife?”
+
+“I see you don't know him,” said the consul smilingly, “and I'd be
+delighted to make you acquainted. Jock,” he continued, raising his
+voice as he turned towards MacSpadden, “let me introduce you to Sir
+Alan Deeside, who don't know YOU, although he's a great admirer of your
+wife;” and unheeding the embarrassed protestations of Sir Alan and the
+laughing assertions of Jock that they were already acquainted, he moved
+on beside his host. That hospitable knight, who had been airing his
+knowledge of London smart society to his English guest with a singular
+mixture of assertion and obsequiousness, here stopped short. “Ay, sit
+down, laddie, it was so guid of ye to come, but I'm thinkin' at your end
+of the table ye lost the bit fun of Mistress MacSpadden. Eh, but she was
+unco' lively to-night. 'Twas all Kilcraithie could do to keep her from
+proposin' your health with Hieland honors, and offerin' to lead off with
+her ain foot on the table! Ay, and she'd ha' done it. And that's a
+braw rose she's been givin' ye--and ye got out of it claverly wi' Lady
+Deeside.”
+
+When he left the table with the others to join the ladies, the same
+unaccountable feeling of mingled shyness and nervous irascibility still
+kept possession of him. He felt that in his present mood he could not
+listen to any further criticisms of his friend without betraying some
+unwonted heat, and as his companions filed into the drawing-room he
+slipped aside in the hope of recovering his equanimity by a few moments'
+reflection in his own room. He glided quickly up the staircase and
+entered the corridor. The passage that led to his apartment was quite
+dark, especially before his door, which was in a bay that really ended
+the passage. He was consequently surprised and somewhat alarmed at
+seeing a shadowy female figure hovering before it. He instinctively
+halted; the figure became more distinct from some luminous halo that
+seemed to encompass it. It struck him that this was only the light of
+his fire thrown through his open door, and that the figure was probably
+that of a servant before it, who had been arranging his room. He started
+forward again, but at the sound of his advancing footsteps the figure
+and the luminous glow vanished, and he arrived blankly face to face with
+his own closed door. He looked around the dim bay; it was absolutely
+vacant. It was equally impossible for any one to have escaped
+without passing him. There was only his room left. A half-nervous,
+half-superstitious thrill crept over him as he suddenly grasped the
+handle of the door and threw it open. The leaping light of his fire
+revealed its emptiness: no one was there! He lit the candle and peered
+behind the curtains and furniture and under the bed; the room was as
+vacant and undisturbed as when he left it.
+
+Had it been a trick of his senses or a bona-fide apparition? He had
+never heard of a ghost at Glenbogie--the house dated back some
+fifty years; Sir John Macquoich's tardy knighthood carried no such
+impedimenta. He looked down wonderingly on the flower in his buttonhole.
+Was there something uncanny in that innocent blossom? But here he was
+struck by another recollection, and examined the keyhole of his door.
+With the aid of the tortoiseshell hairpin he dislodged the paper he had
+forgotten. It was only a thin spiral strip, apparently the white outer
+edge of some newspaper, and it certainly seemed to be of little service
+as a protection against the thorns of the rose-stalk. He was holding it
+over the fire, about to drop it into the blaze, when the flame revealed
+some pencil-marks upon it. Taking it to the candle he read, deeply
+bitten into the paper by a hard pencil-point: “At half-past one.”
+ There was nothing else--no signature; but the handwriting was NOT Mrs.
+MacSpadden's!
+
+Then whose? Was it that of the mysterious figure whom he had just seen?
+Had he been selected as the medium of some spiritual communication, and,
+perhaps, a ghostly visitation later on? Or was he the victim of some
+clever trick? He had once witnessed such dubious attempts to relieve the
+monotony of a country house. He again examined the room carefully, but
+without avail. Well! the mystery or trick would be revealed at half-past
+one. It was a somewhat inconvenient hour, certainly. He looked down at
+the baleful gift in his buttonhole, and for a moment felt inclined
+to toss it in the fire. But this was quickly followed by his former
+revulsion of resentment and defiance. No! he would wear it, no matter
+what happened, until its material or spiritual owner came for it. He
+closed the door and returned to the drawing-room.
+
+Midway of the staircase he heard the droning of pipes. There was dancing
+in the drawing-room to the music of the gorgeous piper who had marshaled
+them to dinner. He was not sorry, as he had no inclination to talk, and
+the one confidence he had anticipated with Mrs. MacSpadden was out of
+the question now. He had no right to reveal his later discovery. He
+lingered a few moments in the hall. The buzzing of the piper's drones
+gave him that impression of confused and blindly aggressive intoxication
+which he had often before noticed in this barbaric instrument, and had
+always seemed to him as the origin of its martial inspiration. From this
+he was startled by voices and steps in the gallery he had just
+quitted, but which came from the opposite direction to his room. It was
+Kilcraithie and Mrs. MacSpadden. As she caught sight of him, he fancied
+she turned slightly and aggressively pale, with a certain hardening of
+her mischievous eyes. Nevertheless, she descended the staircase
+more deliberately than her companion, who brushed past him with an
+embarrassed self-consciousness, quite in advance of her. She lingered
+for an instant.
+
+“You are not dancing?” she said.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Perhaps you are more agreeably employed?”
+
+“At this exact moment, certainly.”
+
+She cast a disdainful glance at him, crossed the hall, and followed
+Kilcraithie.
+
+“Hang me, if I understand it all!” mused the consul, by no means
+good-humoredly. “Does she think I have been spying upon her and her
+noble chieftain? But it's just as well that I didn't tell her anything.”
+
+He turned to follow them. In the vestibule he came upon a figure which
+had halted before a large pier-glass. He recognized M. Delfosse, the
+French visitor, complacently twisting the peak of his Henri Quatre
+beard. He would have passed without speaking, but the Frenchman glanced
+smilingly at the consul and his buttonhole. Again the flower!
+
+“Monsieur is decore,” he said gallantly.
+
+The consul assented, but added, not so gallantly, that though they were
+not in France he might still be unworthy of it. The baleful flower had
+not improved his temper. Nor did the fact that, as he entered the room,
+he thought the people stared at him--until he saw that their attention
+was directed to Lady Deeside, who had entered almost behind him. From
+his hostess, who had offered him a seat beside her, he gathered that
+M. Delfosse and Kilcraithie had each temporarily occupied his room, but
+that they had been transferred to the other wing, apart from the married
+couples and young ladies, because when they came upstairs from
+the billiard and card room late, they sometimes disturbed the fair
+occupants. No!--there were no ghosts at Glenbogie. Mysterious footsteps
+had sometimes been heard in the ladies' corridor, but--with peculiar
+significance--she was AFRAID they could be easily accounted for. Sir
+Alan, whose room was next to the MacSpaddens', had been disturbed by
+them.
+
+He was glad when it was time to escape to the billiard-room and tobacco.
+For a while he forgot the evening's adventure, but eventually found
+himself listening to a discussion--carried on over steaming tumblers of
+toddy--in regard to certain predispositions of the always debatable sex.
+
+“Ye'll not always judge by appearances,” said Sir Alan. “Ye'll mind the
+story o' the meenester's wife of Aiblinnoch. It was thocht that she
+was ower free wi' one o' the parishioners--ay! it was the claish o' the
+whole kirk, while none dare tell the meenester hisself--bein' a bookish,
+simple, unsuspectin' creeter. At last one o' the elders bethocht him of
+a bit plan of bringing it home to the wife, through the gospel lips
+of her ain husband! So he intimated to the meenester his suspicions
+of grievous laxity amang the female flock, and of the necessity of a
+special sermon on the Seventh Command. The puir man consented--although
+he dinna ken why and wherefore--and preached a gran' sermon! Ay, man! it
+was crammed wi' denunciation and an emptyin' o' the vials o' wrath! The
+congregation sat dumb as huddled sheep--when they were no' starin' and
+gowpin' at the meenester's wife settin' bolt upright in her place. And
+then, when the air was blue wi' sulphur frae tae pit, the meenester's
+wife up rises! Man! Ivry eye was spearin' her--ivry lug was prickt
+towards her! And she goes out in the aisle facin' the meenester, and--”
+
+Sir Alan paused.
+
+“And what?” demanded the eager auditory.
+
+“She pickit up the elder's wife, sobbin' and tearin' her hair in strong
+hysterics.”
+
+At the end of a relieved pause Sir Alan slowly concluded: “It was said
+that the elder removed frae Aiblinnoch wi' his wife, but no' till he had
+effected a change of meenesters.”
+
+It was already past midnight, and the party had dropped off one by one,
+with the exception of Deeside, Macquoich, the young Englishman, and a
+Scotch laird, who were playing poker--an amusement which he understood
+they frequently protracted until three in the morning. It was nearly
+time for him to expect his mysterious visitant. Before he went upstairs
+he thought he would take a breath of the outer evening air, and throwing
+a mackintosh over his shoulders, passed out of the garden door of the
+billiard-room. To his surprise it gave immediately upon the fringe of
+laurel that hung over the chasm.
+
+It was quite dark; the few far-spread stars gave scarcely any light,
+and the slight auroral glow towards the north was all that outlined the
+fringe of the abyss, which might have proved dangerous to any unfamiliar
+wanderer. A damp breath of sodden leaves came from its depths. Beside
+him stretched the long dark facade of the wing he inhabited, his own
+window the only one that showed a faint light. A few paces beyond, a
+singular structure of rustic wood and glass, combining the peculiarities
+of a sentry-box, a summer-house, and a shelter, was built against the
+blank wall of the wing. He imagined the monotonous prospect from
+its windows of the tufted chasm, the coldly profiled northern hills
+beyond,--and shivered. A little further on, sunk in the wall like a
+postern, was a small door that evidently gave easy egress to seekers
+of this stern retreat. In the still air a faint grating sound like the
+passage of a foot across gravel came to him as from the distance. He
+paused, thinking he had been followed by one of the card-players, but
+saw no one, and the sound was not repeated.
+
+It was past one. He re-entered the billiard-room, passed the unchanged
+group of card-players, and taking a candlestick from the hall ascended
+the dark and silent staircase into the corridor. The light of his candle
+cast a flickering halo around him--but did not penetrate the gloomy
+distance. He at last halted before his door, gave a scrutinizing glance
+around the embayed recess, and opened the door half expectantly. But the
+room was empty as he had left it.
+
+It was a quarter past one. He threw himself on the bed without
+undressing, and fixed his eyes alternately on the door and his watch.
+Perhaps the unwonted seriousness of his attitude struck him, but a
+sudden sense of the preposterousness of the whole situation, of his
+solemnly ridiculous acceptance of a series of mere coincidences as
+a foregone conclusion, overcame him, and he laughed. But in the same
+breath he stopped.
+
+There WERE footsteps approaching--cautious footsteps--but not at his
+door! They were IN THE ROOM--no! in the WALL just behind him! They were
+descending some staircase at the back of his bed--he could hear the
+regular tap of a light slipper from step to step and the rustle of
+a skirt seemingly in his very ear. They were becoming less and less
+distinct--they were gone! He sprang to his feet, but almost at the
+same instant he was conscious of a sudden chill--that seemed to him
+as physical as it was mental. The room was slowly suffused with a cool
+sodden breath and the dank odor of rotten leaves. He looked at the
+candle--its flame was actually deflecting in this mysterious blast.
+It seemed to come from a recess for hanging clothes topped by a heavy
+cornice and curtain. He had examined it before, but he drew the
+curtain once more aside. The cold current certainly seemed to be more
+perceptible there. He felt the red-clothed backing of the interior,
+and his hand suddenly grasped a doorknob. It turned, and the whole
+structure--cornice and curtains--swung inwards towards him with THE DOOR
+ON WHICH IT WAS HUNG! Behind it was a dark staircase leading from the
+floor above to some outer door below, whose opening had given ingress to
+the chill humid current from the ravine. This was the staircase where he
+had just heard the footsteps--and this was, no doubt, the door through
+which the mysterious figure had vanished from his room a few hours
+before!
+
+Taking his candle, he cautiously ascended the stairs until he found
+himself on the landing of the suites of the married couples and directly
+opposite to the rooms of the MacSpaddens and Deesides. He was about to
+descend again when he heard a far-off shout, a scuffling sound on the
+outer gravel, and the frenzied shaking of the handle of the lower door.
+He had hardly time to blow out his candle and flatten himself against
+the wall, when the door was flung open and a woman frantically flew up
+the staircase. His own door was still open; from within its depths the
+light of his fire projected a flickering beam across the steps. As she
+rushed past it the light revealed her face; it needed not the peculiar
+perfume of her garments as she swept by his concealed figure to make him
+recognize--Lady Deeside!
+
+Amazed and confounded, he was about to descend, when he heard the lower
+door again open. But here a sudden instinct bade him pause, turn, and
+reascend to the upper landing. There he calmly relit his candle, and
+made his way down to the corridor that overlooked the central hall. The
+sound of suppressed voices--speaking with the exhausted pauses that come
+from spent excitement--made him cautious again, and he halted. It was
+the card party slowly passing from the billiard-room to the hall.
+
+“Ye owe it yoursel'--to your wife--not to pit up with it a day longer,”
+ said the subdued voice of Sir Alan. “Man! ye war in an ace o' havin' a
+braw scandal.”
+
+“Could ye no' get your wife to speak till her,” responded Macquoich, “to
+gie her a hint that she's better awa' out of this? Lady Deeside has some
+influence wi' her.”
+
+The consul ostentatiously dropped the extinguisher from his candlestick.
+The party looked up quickly. Their faces were still flushed and
+agitated, but a new restraint seemed to come upon them on seeing him.
+
+“I thought I heard a row outside,” said the consul explanatorily.
+
+They each looked at their host without speaking.
+
+“Oh, ay,” said Macquoich, with simulated heartiness, “a bit fuss between
+the Kilcraithie and yon Frenchman; but they're baith goin' in the
+mornin'.”
+
+“I thought I heard MacSpadden's voice,” said the consul quietly.
+
+There was a dead silence. Then Macquoich said hurriedly:--
+
+“Is he no' in his room--in bed--asleep,--man?”
+
+“I really don't know; I didn't inquire,” said the consul with a slight
+yawn. “Good night!”
+
+He turned, not without hearing them eagerly whispering again, and
+entered the passage leading to his own room. As he opened the door
+he was startled to find the subject of his inquiry--Jock
+MacSpadden--quietly seated in his armchair by his fire.
+
+“Jock!”
+
+“Don't be alarmed, old man; I came up by that staircase and saw the door
+open, and guessed you'd be returning soon. But it seemed you went ROUND
+BY THE CORRIDOR,” he said, glancing curiously at the consul's face. “Did
+you meet the crowd?”
+
+“Yes, Jock! WHAT does it all mean?”
+
+MacSpadden laughed. “It means that I was just in time to keep
+Kilbraithie from chucking Delfosse down that ravine; but they both
+scooted when they saw me. By Jove! I don't know which was the most
+frightened.”
+
+“But,” said the consul slowly, “what was it all about, Jock?”
+
+“Some gallantry of that d----d Frenchman, who's trying to do some
+woman-stalking up here, and jealousy of Kilcraithie's, who's just got
+enough of his forbears' blood in him to think nothing of sticking three
+inches of his dirk in the wame of the man that crosses him. But I say,”
+ continued Jock, leaning easily back in his chair, “YOU ought to know
+something of all this. This room, old man, was used as a sort of
+rendezvous, having two outlets, don't you see, when they couldn't get at
+the summer-house below. By Jove! they both had it in turns--Kilcraithie
+and the Frenchman--until Lady Macquoich got wind of something, swept
+them out, and put YOU in it.”
+
+The consul rose and approached his friend with a grave face. “Jock, I
+DO know something about it--more about it than any one thinks. You and I
+are old friends. Shall I tell you WHAT I know?”
+
+Jock's handsome face became a trifle paler, but his frank, clear eyes
+rested steadily on the consul's.
+
+“Go on!” he said.
+
+“I know that this flower which I am wearing was the signal for the
+rendezvous this evening,” said the consul slowly, “and this paper,”
+ taking it from his pocket, “contained the time of the meeting, written
+in the lady's own hand. I know who she was, for I saw her face as
+plainly as I see yours now, by the light of the same fire; it was as
+pale, but not as frank as yours, old man. That is what I know. But I
+know also what people THINK they know, and for that reason I put that
+paper in YOUR hand. It is yours--your vindication--your REVENGE, if you
+choose. Do with it what you like.”
+
+Jock, with unchanged features and undimmed eyes, took the paper from the
+consul's hand, without looking at it.
+
+“I may do with it what I like?” he repeated.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He was about to drop it into the fire, but the consul stayed his hand.
+
+“Are you not going to LOOK at the handwriting first?”
+
+There was a moment of silence. Jock raised his eyes with a sudden flash
+of pride in them and said, “No!”
+
+The friends stood side by side, grasping each other's hands, as the
+burning paper leaped up the chimney in a vanishing flame.
+
+“Do you think you have done quite right, Jock, in view of any scandal
+you may hear?”
+
+“Quite! You see, old man, I know MY WIFE--but I don't think that Deeside
+KNOWS HIS.”
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA.
+
+
+Dick Bracy gazed again at the Hacienda de los Osos, and hesitated. There
+it lay--its low whitewashed walls looking like a quartz outcrop of the
+long lazy hillside--unmistakably hot, treeless, and staring broadly in
+the uninterrupted Californian sunlight. Yet he knew that behind those
+blistering walls was a reposeful patio, surrounded by low-pitched
+verandas; that the casa was full of roomy corridors, nooks, and
+recesses, in which lurked the shadows of a century, and that hidden by
+the further wall was a lonely old garden, hoary with gnarled pear-trees,
+and smothered in the spice and dropping leaves of its baking roses. He
+knew that, although the unwinking sun might glitter on its red tiles,
+and the unresting trade winds whistle around its angles, it always kept
+one unvarying temperature and untroubled calm, as if the dignity of
+years had triumphed over the changes of ephemeral seasons. But would
+others see it with his eyes? Would his practical, housekeeping aunt, and
+his pretty modern cousin--
+
+“Well, what do you say? Speak the word, and you can go into it with your
+folks to-morrow. And I reckon you won't want to take anything either,
+for you'll find everything there--just as the old Don left it. I don't
+want it; the land is good enough for me; I shall have my vaqueros and
+rancheros to look after the crops and the cattle, and they won't trouble
+you, for their sheds and barns will be two miles away. You can stay
+there as long as you like, and go when you choose. You might like to try
+it for a spell; it's all the same to me. But I should think it the sort
+of thing a man like you would fancy, and it seems the right thing to
+have you there. Well,--what shall it be? Is it a go?”
+
+Dick knew that the speaker was sincere. It was an offer perfectly
+characteristic of his friend, the Western millionaire, who had halted
+by his side. And he knew also that the slow lifting of his bridle-rein,
+preparatory to starting forward again, was the business-like gesture of
+a man who wasted no time even over his acts of impulsive liberality.
+In another moment he would dismiss the unaccepted offer from his
+mind--without concern and without resentment.
+
+“Thank you--it is a go,” said Dick gratefully.
+
+Nevertheless, when he reached his own little home in the outskirts of
+San Francisco that night, he was a trifle nervous in confiding to the
+lady, who was at once his aunt and housekeeper, the fact that he was
+now the possessor of a huge mansion in whose patio alone the little
+eight-roomed villa where they had lived contentedly might be casually
+dropped. “You see, Aunt Viney,” he hurriedly explained, “it would have
+been so ungrateful to have refused him--and it really was an offer as
+spontaneous as it was liberal. And then, you see, we need occupy only a
+part of the casa.”
+
+“And who will look after the other part?” said Aunt Viney grimly. “That
+will have to be kept tidy, too; and the servants for such a house, where
+in heaven are they to come from? Or do they go with it?”
+
+“No,” said Dick quickly; “the servants left with their old master, when
+Ringstone bought the property. But we'll find servants enough in the
+neighborhood--Mexican peons and Indians, you know.”
+
+Aunt Viney sniffed. “And you'll have to entertain--if it's a big house.
+There are all your Spanish neighbors. They'll be gallivanting in and out
+all the time.”
+
+“They won't trouble us,” he returned, with some hesitation. “You
+see, they're furious at the old Don for disposing of his lands to an
+American, and they won't be likely to look upon the strangers in the new
+place as anything but interlopers.”
+
+“Oh, that is it, is it?” ejaculated Aunt Viney, with a slight puckering
+of her lips. “I thought there was SOMETHING.”
+
+“My dear aunt,” said Dick, with a sudden illogical heat which he tried
+to suppress; “I don't know what you mean by 'it' and 'something.'
+Ringstone's offer was perfectly unselfish; he certainly did not suppose
+that I would be affected, any more than he would he, by the childish
+sentimentality of these people over a legitimate, every-day business
+affair. The old Don made a good bargain, and simply sold the land he
+could no longer make profitable with his obsolete method of farming, his
+gang of idle retainers, and his Noah's Ark machinery, to a man who knew
+how to use steam reapers, and hired sensible men to work on shares.”
+ Nevertheless he was angry with himself for making any explanation, and
+still more disturbed that he was conscious of a certain feeling that it
+was necessary.
+
+“I was thinking,” said Aunt Viney quietly, “that if we invited anybody
+to stay with us--like Cecily, for example--it might be rather dull for
+her if we had no neighbors to introduce her to.”
+
+Dick started; he had not thought of this. He had been greatly influenced
+by the belief that his pretty cousin, who was to make them a visit,
+would like the change and would not miss excitement. “We can always
+invite some girls down there and make our own company,” he answered
+cheerfully. Nevertheless, he was dimly conscious that he had already
+made an airy castle of the old hacienda, in which Cecily and her aunt
+moved ALONE. It was to Cecily that he would introduce the old garden, it
+was Cecily whom he would accompany through the dark corridors, and
+with whom he would lounge under the awnings of the veranda. All this
+innocently, and without prejudice or ulterior thought. He was not yet
+in love with the pretty cousin whom he had seen but once or twice
+during the past few years, but it was a possibility not unpleasant to
+occasionally contemplate. Yet it was equally possible that she might
+yearn for lighter companionship and accustomed amusement; that the
+passion-fringed garden and shadow-haunted corridor might be profaned by
+hoydenish romping and laughter, or by that frivolous flirtation which,
+in others, he had always regarded as commonplace and vulgar.
+
+Howbeit, at the end of two weeks he found himself regularly installed
+in the Hacienda de los Osos. His little household, re-enforced by
+his cousin Cecily and three peons picked up at Los Pinos, bore
+their transplantation with a singular equanimity that seemed to him
+unaccountable. Then occurred one of those revelations of character with
+which Nature is always ready to trip up merely human judgment. Aunt
+Viney, an unrelenting widow of calm but unshaken Dutch prejudices,
+high but narrow in religious belief, merged without a murmur into the
+position of chatelaine of this unconventional, half-Latin household.
+Accepting the situation without exaltation or criticism, placid but
+unresponsive amidst the youthful enthusiasm of Dick and Cecily over
+each quaint detail, her influence was, nevertheless, felt throughout
+the lingering length and shadowy breadth of the strange old house. The
+Indian and Mexican servants, at first awed by her practical superiority,
+succumbed to her half-humorous toleration of their incapacity, and
+became her devoted slaves. Dick was astonished, and even Cecily was
+confounded. “Do you know,” she said confidentially to her cousin,
+“that when that brown Conchita thought to please Aunty by wearing white
+stockings instead of going round as usual with her cinnamon-colored
+bare feet in yellow slippers--which I was afraid would be enough to send
+Aunty into conniption fits--she actually told her, very quietly, to take
+them off, and dress according to her habits and her station? And you
+remember that in her big, square bedroom there is a praying-stool and
+a ghastly crucifix, at least three feet long, in ivory and black,
+quite too human for anything? Well, when I offered to put them in the
+corridor, she said I 'needn't trouble'; that really she hadn't noticed
+them, and they would do very well where they were. You'd think she had
+been accustomed to this sort of thing all her life. It's just too sweet
+of her, any way, even if she's shamming. And if she is, she just does
+it to the life too, and could give those Spanish women points. Why, she
+rode en pillion on Manuel's mule, behind him, holding on by his
+sash, across to the corral yesterday; and you should have seen Manuel
+absolutely scrape the ground before her with his sombrero when he let
+her down.” Indeed, her tall, erect figure in black lustreless silk,
+appearing in a heavily shadowed doorway, or seated in a recessed window,
+gave a new and patrician dignity to the melancholy of the hacienda. It
+was pleasant to follow this quietly ceremonious shadow gliding along
+the rose garden at twilight, halting at times to bend stiffly over the
+bushes, garden-shears in hand, and carrying a little basket filled with
+withered but still odorous petals, as if she were grimly gathering the
+faded roses of her youth.
+
+It was also probable that the lively Cecily's appreciation of her aunt
+might have been based upon another virtue of that lady--namely, her
+exquisite tact in dealing with the delicate situation evolved from the
+always possible relations of the two cousins. It was not to be supposed
+that the servants would fail to invest the young people with Southern
+romance, and even believe that the situation was prearranged by the
+aunt with a view to their eventual engagement. To deal with the problem
+openly, yet without startling the consciousness of either Dick or
+Cecily; to allow them the privileges of children subject to the
+occasional restraints of childhood; to find certain household duties
+for the young girl that kept them naturally apart until certain hours
+of general relaxation; to calmly ignore the meaning of her retainers'
+smiles and glances, and yet to good-humoredly accept their interest as a
+kind of feudal loyalty, was part of Aunt Viney's deep diplomacy. Cecily
+enjoyed her freedom and companionship with Dick, as she enjoyed the
+novel experiences of the old house, the quaint, faded civilization that
+it represented, and the change and diversion always acceptable to youth.
+She did not feel the absence of other girls of her own age; neither was
+she aware that through this omission she was spared the necessity of
+a confidante or a rival--both equally revealing to her thoughtless
+enjoyment. They took their rides together openly and without
+concealment, relating their adventures afterwards to Aunt Viney with
+a naivete and frankness that dreamed of no suppression. The city-bred
+Cecily, accustomed to horse exercise solely as an ornamental and
+artificial recreation, felt for the first time the fearful joy of a dash
+across a league-long plain, with no onlookers but the scattered wild
+horses she might startle up to scurry before her, or race at her side.
+Small wonder that, mounted on her fiery little mustang, untrammeled by
+her short gray riding-habit, free as the wind itself that blew through
+the folds of her flannel blouse, with her brown hair half-loosed beneath
+her slouched felt hat, she seemed to Dick a more beautiful and womanly
+figure than the stiff buckramed simulation of man's angularity and
+precision he had seen in the parks. Perhaps one day she detected this
+consciousness too plainly in his persistent eyes. Up to that moment
+she had only watched the glittering stretches of yellow grain, in which
+occasional wind-shorn evergreen oaks stood mid-leg deep like cattle in
+water, the distant silhouette of the Sierras against the steely blue, or
+perhaps the frankly happy face of the good-looking young fellow at her
+side. But it seemed to her now that an intruder had entered the field--a
+stranger before whom she was impelled to suddenly fly--half-laughingly,
+half-affrightedly--the anxious Dick following wonderingly at her
+mustang's heels, until she reached the gates of the hacienda, where she
+fell into a gravity and seriousness that made him wonder still more. He
+did not dream that his guileless cousin had discovered, with a woman's
+instinct, a mysterious invader who sought to share their guileless
+companionship, only to absorb it entirely, and that its name was--love!
+
+The next day she was so greatly preoccupied with her household duties
+that she could not ride with him. Dick felt unaccountably lost. Perhaps
+this check to their daily intercourse was no less accelerating to his
+feelings than the vague motive that induced Cecily to withhold herself.
+He moped in the corridor; he rode out alone, bullying his mustang in
+proportion as he missed his cousin's gentle companionship, and circling
+aimlessly, but still unconsciously, around the hacienda as a centre of
+attraction. The sun at last was sinking to the accompaniment of a
+rising wind, which seemed to blow and scatter its broad rays over the
+shimmering plain until every slight protuberance was burnished
+into startling brightness; the shadows of the short green oaks grew
+disproportionally long, and all seemed to point to the white-walled
+casa. Suddenly he started and instantly reined up.
+
+The figure of a young girl, which he had not before noticed, was slowly
+moving down the half-shadowed lane made by the two walls of the garden
+and the corral. Cecily! Perhaps she had come out to meet him. He spurred
+forward; but, as he came nearer, he saw that the figure and its attire
+were surely not hers. He reined up again abruptly, mortified at his
+disappointment, and a little ashamed lest he should have seemed to have
+been following an evident stranger. He vaguely remembered, too, that
+there was a trail to the high road, through a little swale clothed
+with myrtle and thorn bush which he had just passed, and that she was
+probably one of his reserved and secluded neighbors--indeed, her dress,
+in that uncertain light, looked half Spanish. This was more confusing,
+since his rashness might have been taken for an attempt to force an
+acquaintance. He wheeled and galloped towards the front of the casa as
+the figure disappeared at the angle of the wall.
+
+“I don't suppose you ever see any of our neighbors?” said Dick to his
+aunt casually.
+
+“I really can't say,” returned the lady with quiet equanimity. “There
+were some extraordinary-looking foreigners on the road to San Gregorio
+yesterday. Manuel, who was driving me, may have known who they were--he
+is a kind of Indian Papist himself, you know--but I didn't. They might
+have been relations of his, for all I know.”
+
+At any other time Dick would have been amused at this serene relegation
+of the lofty Estudillos and Peraltas to the caste of the Indian convert,
+but he was worried to think that perhaps Cecily was really being bored
+by the absence of neighbors. After dinner, when they sought the rose
+garden, he dropped upon the little lichen-scarred stone bench by her
+side. It was still warm from the sun; the hot musk of the roses filled
+the air; the whole garden, shielded from the cool evening trade winds by
+its high walls, still kept the glowing memory of the afternoon sunshine.
+Aunt Viney, with her garden basket on her arm, moved ghost-like among
+the distant bushes.
+
+“I hope you are not getting bored here?” he said, after a slight
+inconsequent pause.
+
+“Does that mean that YOU are?” she returned, raising her mischievous
+eyes to his.
+
+“No; but I thought you might find it lonely, without neighbors.”
+
+“I stayed in to-day,” she said, femininely replying to the unasked
+question, “because I fancied Aunt Viney might think it selfish of me to
+leave her alone so much.”
+
+“But YOU are not lonely?”
+
+Certainly not! The young lady was delighted with the whole place, with
+the quaint old garden, the mysterious corridors, the restful quiet of
+everything, the picture of dear Aunt Viney--who was just the sweetest
+soul in the world--moving about like the genius of the casa. It was
+such a change to all her ideas, she would never forget it. It was so
+thoughtful of him, Dick, to have given them all that pleasure.
+
+“And the rides,” continued Dick, with the untactful pertinacity of the
+average man at such moments--“you are not tired of THEM?”
+
+No; she thought them lovely. Such freedom and freshness in the exercise;
+so different from riding in the city or at watering-places, where it was
+one-half show, and one was always thinking of one's habit or one's self.
+One quite forgot one's self on that lovely plain--with everything so far
+away, and only the mountains to look at in the distance. Nevertheless
+she did not lift her eyes from the point of the little slipper which had
+strayed beyond her skirt.
+
+Dick was relieved, but not voluble; he could only admiringly follow the
+curves of her pretty arms and hands, clasped lightly in her lap, down to
+the point of the little slipper. But even that charming vanishing point
+was presently withdrawn--possibly through some instinct--for the young
+lady had apparently not raised her eyes.
+
+“I'm so glad you like it,” said Dick earnestly, yet with a nervous
+hesitation that made his speech seem artificial to his own ears. “You
+see I--that is--I had an idea that you might like an occasional change
+of company. It's a great pity we're not on speaking terms with one
+of these Spanish families. Some of the men, you know, are really fine
+fellows, with an old-world courtesy that is very charming.”
+
+He was surprised to see that she had lifted her head suddenly, with a
+quick look that however changed to an amused and half coquettish smile.
+
+“I am finding no fault with my present company,” she said demurely,
+dropping her head and eyelids until a faint suffusion seemed to
+follow the falling lashes over her cheek. “I don't think YOU ought to
+undervalue it.”
+
+If he had only spoken then! The hot scent of the roses hung suspended in
+the air, which seemed to be hushed around them in mute expectancy; the
+shadows which were hiding Aunt Viney from view were also closing round
+the bench where they sat. He was very near her; he had only to reach
+out his hand to clasp hers, which lay idly in her lap. He felt himself
+glowing with a strange emanation; he even fancied that she was turning
+mechanically towards him, as a flower might turn towards the fervent
+sunlight. But he could not speak; he could scarcely collect his
+thoughts, conscious though he was of the absurdity of his silence. What
+was he waiting for? what did he expect? He was not usually bashful, he
+was no coward; there was nothing in her attitude to make him hesitate to
+give expression to what he believed was his first real passion. But he
+could do nothing. He even fancied that his face, turned towards hers,
+was stiffening into a vacant smile.
+
+The young girl rose. “I think I heard Aunt Viney call me,” she said
+constrainedly, and made a hesitating step forward. The spell which had
+held Dick seemed to be broken suddenly; he stretched forth his arm
+to detain her. But the next step appeared to carry her beyond his
+influence; and it was even with a half movement of rejection that
+she quickened her pace and disappeared down the path. Dick fell back
+dejectedly into his seat, yet conscious of a feeling of RELIEF that
+bewildered him.
+
+But only for a moment. A recollection of the chance that he had
+impotently and unaccountably thrown away returned to him. He tried to
+laugh, albeit with a glowing cheek, over the momentary bashfulness which
+he thought had overtaken him, and which must have made him ridiculous
+in her eyes. He even took a few hesitating steps in the direction of the
+path where she had disappeared. The sound of voices came to his ear, and
+the light ring of Cecily's laughter. The color deepened a little on his
+cheek; he re-entered the house and went to his room.
+
+The red sunset, still faintly showing through the heavily recessed
+windows to the opposite wall, made two luminous aisles through the
+darkness of the long low apartment. From his easy-chair he watched the
+color drop out of the sky, the yellow plain grow pallid and seem to
+stretch itself to infinite rest; then a black line began to deepen and
+creep towards him from the horizon edge; the day was done. It seemed to
+him a day lost. He had no doubt now but that he loved his cousin, and
+the opportunity of telling her so--of profiting by her predisposition of
+the moment--had passed. She would remember herself, she would remember
+his weak hesitancy, she would despise him. He rose and walked uneasily
+up and down. And yet--and it disgusted him with himself still more--he
+was again conscious of the feeling of relief he had before experienced.
+A vague formula, “It's better as it is,” “Who knows what might have
+come of it?” he found himself repeating, without reason and without
+resignation.
+
+Ashamed even of his seclusion, he rose to join the little family circle,
+which now habitually gathered around a table on the veranda of the
+patio under the rays of a swinging lamp to take their chocolate. To his
+surprise the veranda was empty and dark; a light shining from the inner
+drawing-room showed him his aunt in her armchair reading, alone. A
+slight thrill ran over him: Cecily might be still in the garden! He
+noiselessly passed the drawing-room door, turned into a long corridor,
+and slipped through a grating in the wall into the lane that separated
+it from the garden. The gate was still open; a few paces brought him
+into the long alley of roses. Their strong perfume--confined in the
+high, hot walls--at first made him giddy. This was followed by an
+inexplicable languor; he turned instinctively towards the stone bench
+and sank upon it. The long rows of calla lilies against the opposite
+wall looked ghostlike in the darkness, and seemed to have turned their
+white faces towards him. Then he fancied that ONE had detached itself
+from the rank and was moving away. He looked again: surely there was
+something gliding along the wall! A quick tremor of anticipation passed
+over him. It was Cecily, who had lingered in the garden--perhaps to
+give him one more opportunity! He rose quickly, and stepped towards the
+apparition, which had now plainly resolved itself into a slight girlish
+figure; it slipped on beneath the trees; he followed quickly--his
+nervous hesitancy had vanished before what now seemed to be a half-coy,
+half-coquettish evasion of him. He called softly, “Cecily!” but she did
+not heed him; he quickened his pace--she increased hers. They were both
+running. She reached the angle of the wall where the gate opened upon
+the road. Suddenly she stopped, as if intentionally, in the clear open
+space before it. He could see her distinctly. The lace mantle slipped
+from her head and shoulders. It was NOT Cecily!
+
+But it was a face so singularly beautiful and winsome that he was as
+quickly arrested. It was a woman's deep, passionate eyes and heavy hair,
+joined to a childish oval of cheek and chin, an infantine mouth, and a
+little nose whose faintly curved outline redeemed the lower face from
+weakness and brought it into charming harmony with the rest. A yellow
+rose was pinned in the lustrous black hair above the little ear; a
+yellow silk shawl or mantle, which had looked white in the shadows, was
+thrown over one shoulder and twisted twice or thrice around the plump
+but petite bust. The large black velvety eyes were fixed on his in
+half wonderment, half amusement; the lovely lips were parted in half
+astonishment and half a smile. And yet she was like a picture, a
+dream,--a materialization of one's most fanciful imaginings,--like
+anything, in fact, but the palpable flesh and blood she evidently was,
+standing only a few feet before him, whose hurried breath he could see
+even now heaving her youthful breast.
+
+His own breath appeared suspended, although his heart beat rapidly as
+he stammered out: “I beg your pardon--I thought--” He stopped at the
+recollection that this was the SECOND time he had followed her.
+
+She did not speak, although her parted lips still curved with their
+faint coy smile. Then she suddenly lifted her right hand, which had
+been hanging at her side, clasping some long black object like a stick.
+Without any apparent impulse from her fingers, the stick slowly seemed
+to broaden in her little hand into the segment of an opening disk, that,
+lifting to her face and shoulders, gradually eclipsed the upper part of
+her figure, until, mounting higher, the beautiful eyes and the yellow
+rose of her hair alone remained above--a large unfurled fan! Then
+the long eyelashes drooped, as if in a mute farewell, and they too
+disappeared as the fan was lifted higher. The half-hidden figure
+appeared to glide to the gateway, lingered for an instant, and vanished.
+The astounded Dick stepped quickly into the road, but fan and figure
+were swallowed up in the darkness.
+
+Amazed and bewildered, he stood for a moment, breathless and irresolute.
+It was no doubt the same stranger that he had seen before. But WHO was
+she, and what was she doing there? If she were one of their Spanish
+neighbors, drawn simply by curiosity to become a trespasser, why had she
+lingered to invite a scrutiny that would clearly identify her? It was
+not the escapade of that giddy girl which the lower part of her face had
+suggested, for such a one would have giggled and instantly flown; it was
+not the deliberate act of a grave woman of the world, for its sequel
+was so purposeless. Why had she revealed herself to HIM alone? Dick
+felt himself glowing with a half-shamed, half-secret pleasure. Then he
+remembered Cecily, and his own purpose in coming into the garden. He
+hurriedly made a tour of the walks and shrubbery, ostentatiously calling
+her, yet seeing, as in a dream, only the beautiful eyes of the stranger
+still before him, and conscious of an ill-defined remorse and disloyalty
+he had never known before. But Cecily was not there; and again he
+experienced the old sensation of relief!
+
+He shut the garden gate, crossed the road, and found the grille just
+closing behind a slim white figure. He started, for it was Cecily; but
+even in his surprise he was conscious of wondering how he could have
+ever mistaken the stranger for her. She appeared startled too; she
+looked pale and abstracted. Could she have been a witness of his strange
+interview?
+
+Her first sentence dispelled the idea.
+
+“I suppose you were in the garden?” she said, with a certain timidity.
+“I didn't go there--it seemed so close and stuffy--but walked a little
+down the lane.”
+
+A moment before he would have eagerly told her his adventure; but in the
+presence of her manifest embarrassment his own increased. He concluded
+to tell her another time. He murmured vaguely that he had been looking
+for her in the garden, yet he had a flushing sense of falsehood in his
+reserve; and they passed silently along the corridor and entered the
+patio together. She lit the hanging lamp mechanically. She certainly
+WAS pale; her slim hand trembled slightly. Suddenly her eyes met his,
+a faint color came into her cheek, and she smiled. She put up her hand
+with a girlish gesture towards the back of her head.
+
+“What are you looking at? Is my hair coming down?”
+
+“No,” hesitated Dick, “but--I--thought--you were looking just a LITTLE
+pale.”
+
+An aggressive ray slipped into her blue eyes.
+
+“Strange! I thought YOU were. Just now at the grille you looked as if
+the roses hadn't agreed with you.”
+
+They both laughed, a little nervously, and Conchita brought the
+chocolate. When Aunt Viney came from the drawing-room she found the two
+young people together, and Cecily in a gale of high spirits.
+
+She had had SUCH a wonderfully interesting walk, all by herself, alone
+on the plain. It was really so queer and elfish to find one's self where
+one could see nothing above or around one anywhere but stars. Stars
+above one, to right and left of one, and some so low down they seemed
+as if they were picketed on the plain. It was so odd to find the horizon
+line at one's very feet, like a castaway at sea. And the wind! it seemed
+to move one this way and that way, for one could not see anything,
+and might really be floating in the air. Only once she thought she saw
+something, and was quite frightened.
+
+“What was it?” asked Dick quickly.
+
+“Well, it was a large black object; but--it turned out only to be a
+horse.”
+
+She laughed, although she had evidently noticed her cousin's eagerness,
+and her own eyes had a nervous brightness.
+
+“And where was Dick all this while?” asked Aunt Viney quietly.
+
+Cecily interrupted, and answered for him briskly. “Oh, he was trying to
+make attar of rose of himself in the garden. He's still stupefied by his
+own sweetness.”
+
+“If this means,” said Aunt Viney, with matter-of-fact precision, “that
+you've been gallivanting all alone, Cecily, on that common plain, where
+you're likely to meet all sorts of foreigners and tramps and savages,
+and Heaven knows what other vermin, I shall set my face against a
+repetition of it. If you MUST go out, and Dick can't go with you--and
+I must say that even you and he going out together there at night
+isn't exactly the kind of American Christian example to set to our
+neighbors--you had better get Concepcion to go with you and take a
+lantern.”
+
+“But there is nobody one meets on the plain--at least, nobody likely to
+harm one,” protested Cecily.
+
+“Don't tell ME,” said Aunt Viney decidedly; “haven't I seen all sorts
+of queer figures creeping along by the brink after nightfall between San
+Gregorio and the next rancho? Aren't they always skulking backwards and
+forwards to mass and aguardiente?”
+
+“And I don't know why WE should set any example to our neighbors. We
+don't see much of them, or they of us.”
+
+“Of course not,” returned Aunt Viney; “because all proper Spanish young
+ladies are shut up behind their grilles at night. You don't see THEM
+traipsing over the plain in the darkness, WITH or WITHOUT cavaliers!
+Why, Don Rafael would lock one of HIS sisters up in a convent and
+consider her disgraced forever, if he heard of it.”
+
+Dick felt his cheeks burning; Cecily slightly paled. Yet both said
+eagerly together: “Why, what do YOU know about it, Aunty?”
+
+“A great deal,” returned Aunt Viney quietly, holding her tatting up to
+the light and examining the stitches with a critical eye. “I've got
+my eyes about me, thank heaven! even if my ears don't understand the
+language. And there's a great deal, my dears, that you young people
+might learn from these Papists.”
+
+“And do you mean to say,” continued Dick, with a glowing cheek and an
+uneasy smile, “that Spanish girls don't go out alone?”
+
+“No young LADY goes out without her duenna,” said Aunt Viney
+emphatically. “Of course there's the Concha variety, that go out without
+even stockings.”
+
+As the conversation flagged after this, and the young people once or
+twice yawned nervously, Aunt Viney thought they had better go to bed.
+
+But Dick did not sleep. The beautiful face beamed out again from the
+darkness of his room; the light that glimmered through his deep-set
+curtainless windows had an odd trick of bringing out certain hanging
+articles, or pieces of furniture, into a resemblance to a mantled
+figure. The deep, velvety eyes, fringed with long brown lashes, again
+looked into his with amused, childlike curiosity. He scouted the harsh
+criticisms of Aunt Viney, even while he shrank from proving to her her
+mistake in the quality of his mysterious visitant. Of course she was
+a lady--far superior to any of her race whom he had yet met. Yet how
+should he find WHO she was? His pride and a certain chivalry forbade his
+questioning the servants--before whom it was the rule of the
+household to avoid all reference to their neighbors. He would make the
+acquaintance of the old padre--perhaps HE might talk. He would ride
+early along the trail in the direction of the nearest rancho,--Don Jose
+Amador's,--a thing he had hitherto studiously refrained from doing. It
+was three miles away. She must have come that distance, but not ALONE.
+Doubtless she had kept her duenna in waiting in the road. Perhaps it
+was she who had frightened Cecily. Had Cecily told ALL she had seen? Her
+embarrassed manner certainly suggested more than she had told. He felt
+himself turning hot with an indefinite uneasiness. Then he tried to
+compose himself. After all, it was a thing of the past. The fair unknown
+had bribed the duenna for once, no doubt--had satisfied her girlish
+curiosity--she would not come again! But this thought brought with
+it such a sudden sense of utter desolation, a deprivation so new and
+startling, that it frightened him. Was his head turned by the witcheries
+of some black-eyed schoolgirl whom he had seen but once? Or--he felt his
+cheeks glowing in the darkness--was it really a case of love at first
+sight, and she herself had been impelled by the same yearning that now
+possessed him? A delicious satisfaction followed, that left a smile on
+his lips as if it had been a kiss. He knew now why he had so strangely
+hesitated with Cecily. He had never really loved her--he had never known
+what love was till now!
+
+He was up early the next morning, skimming the plain on the back of
+“Chu Chu,” before the hacienda was stirring. He did not want any one to
+suspect his destination, and it was even with a sense of guilt that
+he dashed along the swale in the direction of the Amador rancho. A
+few vaqueros, an old Digger squaw carrying a basket, two little Indian
+acolytes on their way to mass passed him. He was surprised to find that
+there were no ruts of carriage wheels within three miles of the casa,
+and evidently no track for carriages through the swale. SHE must have
+come on HORSEBACK. A broader highway, however, intersected the trail at
+a point where the low walls of the Amador rancho came in view. Here he
+was startled by the apparition of an old-fashioned family carriage drawn
+by two large piebald mules. But it was unfortunately closed. Then, with
+a desperate audacity new to his reserved nature, he ranged close beside
+it, and even stared in the windows. A heavily mantled old woman, whose
+brown face was in high contrast to her snow-white hair, sat in the back
+seat. Beside her was a younger companion, with the odd blonde hair and
+blue eyes sometimes seen in the higher Castilian type. For an instant
+the blue eyes caught his, half-coquettishly. But the girl was NOT at all
+like his mysterious visitor, and he fell, discomfited, behind.
+
+He had determined to explain his trespass on the grounds of his
+neighbor, if questioned, by the excuse that he was hunting a strayed
+mustang. But his presence, although watched with a cold reserve by the
+few peons who were lounging near the gateway, provoked no challenge from
+them; and he made a circuit of the low adobe walls, with their barred
+windows and cinnamon-tiled roofs, without molestation--but equally
+without satisfaction. He felt he was a fool for imagining that he would
+see her in that way. He turned his horse towards the little Mission
+half a mile away. There he had once met the old padre, who spoke a
+picturesque but limited English; now he was only a few yards ahead of
+him, just turning into the church. The padre was pleased to see Don
+Ricardo; it was an unusual thing for the Americanos, he observed, to
+be up so early: for himself, he had his functions, of course. No, the
+ladies that the caballero had seen had not been to mass! They were Donna
+Maria and her daughter, going to San Gregorio. They comprised ALL the
+family at the rancho,--there were none others, unless the caballero, of
+a possibility, meant Donna Inez, a maiden aunt of sixty--an admirable
+woman, a saint on earth! He trusted that he would find his estray; there
+was no doubt a mark upon it, otherwise the plain was illimitable; there
+were many horses--the world was wide!
+
+Dick turned his face homewards a little less adventurously, and it must
+be confessed, with a growing sense of his folly. The keen, dry morning
+air brushed away his fancies of the preceding night; the beautiful eyes
+that had lured him thither seemed to flicker and be blown out by its
+practical breath. He began to think remorsefully of his cousin, of his
+aunt,--of his treachery to that reserve which the little alien household
+had maintained towards their Spanish neighbors. He found Aunt Viney and
+Cecily at breakfast--Cecily, he thought, looking a trifle pale. Yet (or
+was it only his fancy?) she seemed curious about his morning ride. And
+he became more reticent.
+
+“You must see a good many of our neighbors when you are out so early?”
+
+“Why?” he asked shortly, feeling his color rise.
+
+“Oh, because--because we don't see them at any other time.”
+
+“I saw a very nice chap--I think the best of the lot,” he began, with
+assumed jocularity; then, seeing Cecily's eyes suddenly fixed on him, he
+added, somewhat lamely, “the padre! There were also two women in a queer
+coach.”
+
+“Donna Maria Amador, and Dona Felipa Peralta--her daughter by her first
+husband,” said Aunt Viney quietly. “When you see the horses you think
+it's a circus; when you look inside the carriage you KNOW it's a
+funeral.”
+
+Aunt Viney did not condescend to explain how she had acquired her
+genealogical knowledge of her neighbor's family, but succeeded in
+breaking the restraint between the young people. Dick proposed a ride
+in the afternoon, which was cheerfully accepted by Cecily. Their
+intercourse apparently recovered its old frankness and freedom, marred
+only for a moment when they set out on the plain. Dick, really to forget
+his preoccupation of the morning, turned his horse's head AWAY from
+the trail, to ride in another direction; but Cecily oddly, and with an
+exhibition of caprice quite new to her, insisted upon taking the old
+trail. Nevertheless they met nothing, and soon became absorbed in the
+exercise. Dick felt something of his old tenderness return to this
+wholesome, pretty girl at his side; perhaps he betrayed it in his voice,
+or in an unconscious lingering by her bridle-rein, but she accepted it
+with a naive reserve which he naturally attributed to the effect of
+his own previous preoccupation. He bore it so gently, however, that it
+awakened her interest, and, possibly, her pique. Her reserve relaxed,
+and by the time they returned to the hacienda they had regained
+something of their former intimacy. The dry, incisive breath of the
+plains swept away the last lingering remnants of yesterday's illusions.
+Under this frankly open sky, in this clear perspective of the remote
+Sierras, which admitted no fanciful deception of form or distance--there
+remained nothing but a strange incident--to be later explained or
+forgotten. Only he could not bring himself to talk to HER about it.
+
+After dinner, and a decent lingering for coffee on the veranda, Dick
+rose, and leaning half caressingly, half mischievously, over his aunt's
+rocking-chair, but with his eyes on Cecily, said:--
+
+“I've been deeply considering, dear Aunty, what you said last evening
+of the necessity of our offering a good example to our neighbors. Now,
+although Cecily and I are cousins, yet, as I am HEAD of the house,
+lord of the manor, and padron, according to the Spanish ideas I am her
+recognised guardian and protector, and it seems to me it is my positive
+DUTY to accompany her if she wishes to walk out this evening.”
+
+A momentary embarrassment--which, however, changed quickly into an
+answering smile to her cousin--came over Cecily's face. She turned to
+her aunt.
+
+“Well, don't go too far,” said that lady quietly.
+
+When they closed the grille behind them and stepped into the lane,
+Cecily shot a quick glance at her cousin.
+
+“Perhaps you'd rather walk in the garden?”
+
+“I? Oh, no,” he answered honestly. “But”--he hesitated--“would you?”
+
+“Yes,” she said faintly.
+
+He impulsively offered his arm; her slim hand slipped lightly through
+it and rested on his sleeve. They crossed the lane together, and entered
+the garden. A load appeared to be lifted from his heart; the moment
+seemed propitious,--here was a chance to recover his lost ground, to
+regain his self-respect and perhaps his cousin's affection. By a common
+instinct, however, they turned to the right, and AWAY from the stone
+bench, and walked slowly down the broad allee.
+
+They talked naturally and confidingly of the days when they had met
+before, of old friends they had known and changes that had crept into
+their young lives; they spoke affectionately of the grim, lonely, but
+self-contained old woman they had just left, who had brought them thus
+again together. Cecily talked of Dick's studies, of the scientific work
+on which he was engaged, that was to bring him, she was sure, fame and
+fortune! They talked of the thoughtful charm of the old house, of its
+quaint old-world flavor. They spoke of the beauty of the night, the
+flowers and the stars, in whispers, as one is apt to do--as fearing to
+disturb a super-sensitiveness in nature.
+
+They had come out later than on the previous night; and the moon,
+already risen above the high walls of the garden, seemed a vast silver
+shield caught in the interlacing tops of the old pear-trees, whose
+branches crossed its bright field like dark bends or bars. As it rose
+higher, it began to separate the lighter shrubbery, and open white lanes
+through the olive-trees. Damp currents of air, alternating with drier
+heats, on what appeared to be different levels, moved across the
+whole garden, or gave way at times to a breathless lull and hush of
+everything, in which the long rose alley seemed to be swooning in its
+own spices. They had reached the bottom of the garden, and had turned,
+facing the upper moonlit extremity and the bare stone bench. Cecily's
+voice faltered, her hand leaned more heavily on his arm, as if she were
+overcome by the strong perfume. His right hand began to steal towards
+hers. But she had stopped; she was trembling.
+
+“Go on,” she said in a half whisper. “Leave me a moment; I'll join you
+afterwards.”
+
+“You are ill, Cecily! It's those infernal flowers!” said Dick earnestly.
+“Let me help you to the bench.”
+
+“No--it's nothing. Go on, please. Do! Will you go!”
+
+She spoke with imperiousness, unlike herself. He walked on mechanically
+a dozen paces and turned. She had disappeared. He remembered there was a
+smaller gate opening upon the plain near where they had stopped. Perhaps
+she had passed through that. He continued on, slowly, towards the upper
+end of the garden, occasionally turning to await her return. In this way
+he gradually approached the stone bench. He was facing about to continue
+his walk, when his heart seemed to stop beating. The beautiful visitor
+of last night was sitting alone on the bench before him!
+
+She had not been there a moment before; he could have sworn it. Yet
+there was no illusion now of shade or distance. She was scarcely six
+feet from him, in the bright moonlight. The whole of her exquisite
+little figure was visible, from her lustrous hair down to the tiny,
+black satin, low-quartered slipper, held as by two toes. Her face was
+fully revealed; he could see even the few minute freckles, like powdered
+allspice, that heightened the pale satin sheen of her beautifully
+rounded cheek; he could detect even the moist shining of her parted red
+lips, the white outlines of her little teeth, the length of her curved
+lashes, and the meshes of the black lace veil that fell from the yellow
+rose above her ear to the black silk camisa; he noted even the thick
+yellow satin saya, or skirt, heavily flounced with black lace and
+bugles, and that it was a different dress from that worn on the
+preceding night, a half-gala costume, carried with the indescribable air
+of a woman looking her best and pleased to do so: all this he had noted,
+drawing nearer and nearer, until near enough to forget it all and drown
+himself in the depths of her beautiful eyes. For they were no
+longer childlike and wondering: they were glowing with expectancy,
+anticipation--love!
+
+He threw himself passionately on the bench beside her. Yet, even if he
+had known her language, he could not have spoken. She leaned towards
+him; their eyes seemed to meet caressingly, as in an embrace. Her little
+hand slipped from the yellow folds of her skirt to the bench. He eagerly
+seized it. A subtle thrill ran through his whole frame. There was
+no delusion here; it was flesh and blood, warm, quivering, and even
+tightening round his own. He was about to carry it to his lips, when she
+rose and stepped backwards. He pressed eagerly forward. Another backward
+step brought her to the pear-tree, where she seemed to plunge into its
+shadow. Dick Bracy followed--and the same shadow seemed to fold them in
+its embrace.
+
+*****
+
+He did not return to the veranda and chocolate that evening, but sent
+word from his room that he had retired, not feeling well.
+
+Cecily, herself a little nervously exalted, corroborated the fact of
+his indisposition by telling Aunt Viney that the close odors of the rose
+garden had affected them both. Indeed, she had been obliged to leave
+before him. Perhaps in waiting for her return--and she really was not
+well enough to go back--he was exposed to the night air too long. She
+was very sorry.
+
+Aunt Viney heard this with a slight contraction of her brows and a
+renewed scrutiny of her knitting; and, having satisfied herself by
+a personal visit to Dick's room that he was not alarmingly ill, set
+herself to find out what was really the matter with the young people;
+for there was no doubt that Cecily was in some vague way as disturbed
+and preoccupied as Dick. He rode out again early the next morning,
+returning to his studies in the library directly after breakfast; and
+Cecily was equally reticent, except when, to Aunt Viney's perplexity,
+she found excuses for Dick's manner on the ground of his absorption in
+his work, and that he was probably being bored by want of society. She
+proposed that she should ask an old schoolfellow to visit them.
+
+“It would give Dick a change of ideas, and he would not be perpetually
+obliged to look so closely after me.” She blushed slightly under Aunt
+Viney's gaze, and added hastily, “I mean, of course, he would not feel
+it his DUTY.”
+
+She even induced her aunt to drive with her to the old mission church,
+where she displayed a pretty vivacity and interest in the people they
+met, particularly a few youthful and picturesque caballeros. Aunt Viney
+smiled gravely. Was the poor child developing an unlooked-for coquetry,
+or preparing to make the absent-minded Dick jealous? Well, the idea was
+not a bad one. In the evening she astonished the two cousins by offering
+to accompany them into the garden--a suggestion accepted with eager and
+effusive politeness by each, but carried out with great awkwardness by
+the distrait young people later. Aunt Viney clearly saw that it was not
+her PRESENCE that was required. In this way two or three days elapsed
+without apparently bringing the relations of Dick and Cecily to any more
+satisfactory conclusion. The diplomatic Aunt Viney confessed herself
+puzzled.
+
+One night it was very warm; the usual trade winds had died away before
+sunset, leaving an unwonted hush in sky and plain. There was something
+so portentous in this sudden withdrawal of that rude stimulus to the
+otherwise monotonous level, that a recurrence of such phenomena was
+always known as “earthquake weather.” The wild cattle moved uneasily in
+the distance without feeding; herds of unbroken mustangs approached
+the confines of the hacienda in vague timorous squads. The silence and
+stagnation of the old house was oppressive, as if the life had really
+gone out of it at last; and Aunt Viney, after waiting impatiently for
+the young people to come in to chocolate, rose grimly, set her lips
+together, and went out into the lane. The gate of the rose garden
+opposite was open. She walked determinedly forward and entered.
+
+In that doubly stagnant air the odor of the roses was so suffocating
+and overpowering that she had to stop to take breath. The whole garden,
+except a near cluster of pear-trees, was brightly illuminated by the
+moonlight. No one was to be seen along the length of the broad allee,
+strewn an inch deep with scattered red and yellow petals--colorless in
+the moonbeams. She was turning away, when Dick's familiar voice, but
+with a strange accent of entreaty in it, broke the silence. It seemed to
+her vaguely to come from within the pear-tree shadow.
+
+“But we must understand one another, my darling! Tell me all. This
+suspense, this mystery, this brief moment of happiness, and these hours
+of parting and torment, are killing me!”
+
+A slight cough broke from Aunt Viney. She had heard enough--she did not
+wish to hear more. The mystery was explained. Dick loved Cecily; the
+coyness or hesitation was not on HIS part. Some idiotic girlish caprice,
+quite inconsistent with what she had noticed at the mission church,
+was keeping Cecily silent, reserved, and exasperating to her lover. She
+would have a talk with the young lady, without revealing the fact that
+she had overheard them. She was perhaps a little hurt that affairs
+should have reached this point without some show of confidence to her
+from the young people. Dick might naturally be reticent--but Cecily!
+
+She did not even look towards the pear-tree, but turned and walked
+stiffly out of the gate. As she was crossing the lane she suddenly
+started back in utter dismay and consternation! For Cecily, her
+niece,--in her own proper person,--was actually just coming OUT OF THE
+HOUSE!
+
+Aunt Viney caught her wrist. “Where have you been?” she asked quickly.
+
+“In the house,” stammered Cecily, with a frightened face.
+
+“You have not been in the garden with Dick?” continued Aunt Viney
+sharply--yet with a hopeless sense of the impossibility of the
+suggestion.
+
+“No, I was not even going there. I thought of just strolling down the
+lane.”
+
+The girl's accents were truthful; more than that, she absolutely looked
+relieved by her aunt's question. “Do you want me, Aunty?” she added
+quickly.
+
+“Yes--no. Run away, then--but don't go far.”
+
+At any other time Aunt Viney might have wondered at the eagerness with
+which Cecily tripped away; now she was only anxious to get rid of her.
+She entered the casa hurriedly.
+
+“Send Josefa to me at once,” she said to Manuel.
+
+Josefa, the housekeeper,--a fat Mexican woman,--appeared. “Send Concha
+and the other maids here.” They appeared, mutely wondering. Aunt Viney
+glanced hurriedly over them--they were all there--a few comely, but not
+too attractive, and all stupidly complacent. “Have you girls any friends
+here this evening--or are you expecting any?” she demanded. Of a surety,
+no!--as the padrona knew--it was not night for church. “Very well,”
+ returned Aunt Viney; “I thought I heard your voices in the garden;
+understand, I want no gallivanting there. Go to bed.”
+
+She was relieved! Dick certainly was not guilty of a low intrigue with
+one of the maids. But who and what was she?
+
+Dick was absent again from chocolate; there was unfinished work to do.
+Cecily came in later, just as Aunt Viney was beginning to be anxious.
+Had she appeared distressed or piqued by her cousin's conduct, Aunt
+Viney might have spoken; but there was a pretty color on her cheek--the
+result, she said, of her rapid walking, and the fresh air; did Aunt
+Viney know that a cool breeze had just risen?--and her delicate lips
+were wreathed at times in a faint retrospective smile. Aunt Viney
+stared; certainly the girl was not pining! What young people were made
+of now-a-days she really couldn't conceive. She shrugged her shoulders
+and resumed her tatting.
+
+Nevertheless, as Dick's unfinished studies seemed to have whitened his
+cheek and impaired his appetite the next morning, she announced her
+intention of driving out towards the mission alone. When she returned at
+luncheon she further astonished the young people by casually informing
+them they would have Spanish visitors to dinner--namely, their
+neighbors, Donna Maria Amador and the Dona Felipa Peralta.
+
+Both faces were turned eagerly towards her; both said almost in the same
+breath, “But, Aunt Viney! you don't know them! However did you--What
+does it all mean?”
+
+“My dears,” said Aunt Viney placidly, “Mrs. Amador and I have always
+nodded to each other, and I knew they were only waiting for the
+slightest encouragement. I gave it, and they're coming.”
+
+It was difficult to say whether Cecily's or Dick's face betrayed the
+greater delight and animation. Aunt Viney looked from the one to the
+other. It seemed as if her attempt at diversion had been successful.
+
+“Tell us all about it, you dear, clever, artful Aunty!” said Cecily
+gayly.
+
+“There's nothing whatever to tell, my love! It seems, however, that the
+young one, Dona Felipa, has seen Dick, and remembers him.” She shot a
+keen glance at Dick, but was obliged to admit that the rascal's face
+remained unchanged. “And I wanted to bring a cavalier for YOU, dear, but
+Don Jose's nephew isn't at home now.” Yet here, to her surprise, Cecily
+was faintly blushing.
+
+Early in the afternoon the piebald horses and dark brown chariot of the
+Amadors drew up before the gateway. The young people were delighted
+with Dona Felipa, and thought her blue eyes and tawny hair gave an added
+piquancy to her colorless satin skin and otherwise distinctively
+Spanish face and figure. Aunt Viney, who entertained Donna Maria, was
+nevertheless watchful of the others; but failed to detect in Dick's
+effusive greeting, or the Dona's coquettish smile of recognition, any
+suggestion of previous confidences. It was rather to Cecily that
+Dona Felipa seemed to be characteristically exuberant and childishly
+feminine. Both mother and stepdaughter spoke a musical infantine
+English, which the daughter supplemented with her eyes, her eyebrows,
+her little brown fingers, her plump shoulders, a dozen charming
+intonations of voice, and a complete vocabulary in her active and
+emphatic fan.
+
+The young lady went over the house with Cecily curiously, as if
+recalling some old memories. “Ah, yes, I remember it--but it was long
+ago and I was very leetle--you comprehend, and I have not arrive mooch
+when the old Don was alone. It was too--too--what you call melank-oaly.
+And the old man have not make mooch to himself of company.”
+
+“Then there were no young people in the house, I suppose?” said Cecily,
+smiling.
+
+“No--not since the old man's father lif. Then there were TWO. It is a
+good number, this two, eh?” She gave a single gesture, which took in,
+with Cecily, the distant Dick, and with a whole volume of suggestion
+in her shoulders, and twirling fan, continued: “Ah! two sometime make
+one--is it not? But not THEN in the old time--ah, no! It is a sad story.
+I shall tell it to you some time, but not to HIM.”
+
+But Cecily's face betrayed no undue bashful consciousness, and she only
+asked, with a quiet smile, “Why not to--to my cousin?”
+
+“Imbecile!” responded that lively young lady.
+
+After dinner the young people proposed to take Dona Felipa into the rose
+garden, while Aunt Viney entertained Donna Maria on the veranda. The
+young girl threw up her hands with an affectation of horror. “Santa
+Maria!--in the rose garden? After the Angelus, you and him? Have you not
+heard?”
+
+But here Donna Maria interposed. Ah! Santa Maria! What was all that!
+Was it not enough to talk old woman's gossip and tell vaqueros tales at
+home, without making uneasy the strangers? She would have none of it.
+“Vamos!”
+
+Nevertheless Dona Felipa overcame her horror of the rose garden at
+infelicitous hours, so far as to permit herself to be conducted by the
+cousins into it, and to be installed like a rose queen on the stone
+bench, while Dick and Cecily threw themselves in submissive and
+imploring attitudes at her little feet. The young girl looked
+mischievously from one to the other.
+
+“It ees very pret-ty, but all the same I am not a rose: I am what you
+call a big goose-berry! Eh--is it not?”
+
+The cousins laughed, but without any embarrassed consciousness. “Dona
+Felipa knows a sad story of this house,” said Cecily; “but she will not
+tell it before you, Dick.”
+
+Dick, looking up at the coquettish little figure, with Heaven knows what
+OTHER memories in his mind, implored and protested.
+
+“Ah! but this little story--she ees not so mooch sad of herself as she
+ees str-r-r-ange!” She gave an exaggerated little shiver under her lace
+shawl, and closed her eyes meditatively.
+
+“Go on,” said Dick, smiling in spite of his interested expectation.
+
+Dona Felipa took her fan in both hands, spanning her knees, leaned
+forward, and after a preliminary compressing of her lips and knitting of
+her brows, said:--
+
+“It was a long time ago. Don Gregorio he have his daughter Rosita here,
+and for her he will fill all thees rose garden and gif to her; for she
+like mooch to lif with the rose. She ees very pret-ty. You shall have
+seen her picture here in the casa. No? It have hang under the crucifix
+in the corner room, turn around to the wall--WHY, you shall comprehend
+when I have made finish thees story. Comes to them here one day Don
+Vincente, Don Gregorio's nephew, to lif when his father die. He was
+yong, a pollio--same as Rosita. They were mooch together; they have
+make lofe. What will you?--it ees always the same. The Don Gregorio have
+comprehend; the friends have all comprehend; in a year they will make
+marry. Dona Rosita she go to Monterey to see his family. There ees
+an English warship come there; and Rosita she ees very gay with the
+officers, and make the flirtation very mooch. Then Don Vincente he is
+onhappy, and he revenge himself to make lofe with another. When Rosita
+come back it is very miserable for them both, but they say nossing. The
+warship he have gone away; the other girl Vincente he go not to no more.
+All the same, Rosita and Vincente are very triste, and the family will
+not know what to make. Then Rosita she is sick and eat nossing, and walk
+to herself all day in the rose garden, until she is as white and
+fade away as the rose. And Vincente he eat nossing, but drink mooch
+aguardiente. Then he have fever and go dead. And Rosita she have
+fainting and fits; and one day they have look for her in the rose
+garden, and she is not! And they poosh and poosh in the ground for her,
+and they find her with so mooch rose-leaves--so deep--on top of her. SHE
+has go dead. It is a very sad story, and when you hear it you are very,
+very mooch dissatisfied.”
+
+It is to be feared that the two Americans were not as thrilled by this
+sad recital as the fair narrator had expected, and even Dick ventured to
+point out that those sort of things happened also to his countrymen, and
+were not peculiar to the casa.
+
+“But you said that there was a terrible sequel,” suggested Cecily
+smilingly: “tell us THAT. Perhaps Mr. Bracy may receive it a little more
+politely.”
+
+An expression of superstitious gravity, half real, half simulated, came
+over Dona Felipa's face, although her vivacity of gesticulation and
+emphasis did not relax. She cast a hurried glance around her, and leaned
+a little forward towards the cousins.
+
+“When there are no more young people in the casa because they are dead,”
+ she continued, in a lower voice, “Don Gregorio he is very melank-oaly,
+and he have no more company for many years. Then there was a rodeo near
+the hacienda, and there came five or six caballeros to stay with him
+for the feast. Notabilimente comes then Don Jorge Martinez. He is a bad
+man--so weeked--a Don Juan for making lofe to the ladies. He lounge in
+the garden, he smoke his cigarette, he twist the moustache--so! One day
+he came in, and he laugh and wink so and say, 'Oh, the weeked, sly Don
+Gregorio! He have hid away in the casa a beautiful, pret-ty girl, and
+he will nossing say.' And the other caballeros say, 'Mira! what is this?
+there is not so mooch as one young lady in the casa.' And Don Jorge he
+wink, and he say, 'Imbeciles! pigs!' And he walk in the garden and twist
+his moustache more than ever. And one day, behold! he walk into the
+casa, very white and angry, and he swear mooch to himself; and he orders
+his horse, and he ride away, and never come back no more, never-r-r!
+And one day another caballero, Don Esteban Briones, he came in, and say,
+'Hola! Don Jorge has forgotten his pret-ty girl: he have left her over
+on the garden bench. Truly I have seen.' And they say, 'We will too.'
+And they go, and there is nossing. And they say, 'Imbecile and pig!' But
+he is not imbecile and pig; for he has seen, and Don Jorge has seen; and
+why? For it is not a girl, but what you call her--a ghost! And they will
+that Don Esteban should make a picture of her--a design; and he make
+one. And old Don Gregorio he say, 'madre de Dios! it is Rosita'--the
+same that hung under the crucifix in the big room.”
+
+“And is that all?” asked Dick, with a somewhat pronounced laugh, but a
+face that looked quite white in the moonlight.
+
+“No, it ees NOT all. For when Don Gregorio got himself more company
+another time--it ees all yonge ladies, and my aunt she is invite too;
+for she was yonge then, and she herself have tell to me this:--
+
+“One night she is in the garden with the other girls, and when they want
+to go in the casa one have say, 'Where is Francisca Pacheco? Look,
+she came here with us, and now she is not.' Another one say, 'She have
+conceal herself to make us affright.' And my aunt she say, 'I will
+go seek that I shall find her.' And she go. And when she came to the
+pear-tree, she heard Francisca's voice, and it say to some one she see
+not, 'Fly! vamos! some one have come.' And then she come at the moment
+upon Francisca, very white and trembling, and--alone. And Francisca she
+have run away and say nossing, and shut herself in her room. And one of
+the other girls say: 'It is the handsome caballero with the little black
+moustache and sad white face that I have seen in the garden that make
+this. It is truly that he is some poor relation of Don Gregorio, or
+some mad kinsman that he will not we should know.' And my aunt ask Don
+Gregorio; for she is yonge. And he have say: 'What silly fool ees thees?
+There is not one caballero here, but myself.' And when the other young
+girl have tell to him how the caballero look, he say: 'The saints save
+us! I cannot more say. It ees Don Vincente, who haf gone dead.' And
+he cross himself, and--But look! Madre de Dios! Mees Cecily, you are
+ill--you are affrighted. I am a gabbling fool! Help her, Don Ricardo;
+she is falling!”
+
+But it was too late: Cecily had tried to rise to her feet, had staggered
+forward and fallen in a faint on the bench.
+
+*****
+
+Dick did not remember how he helped to carry the insensible Cecily to
+the casa, nor what explanation he had given to the alarmed inmates of
+her sudden attack. He recalled vaguely that something had been said of
+the overpowering perfumes of the garden at that hour, that the lively
+Felipa had become half hysterical in her remorseful apologies, and that
+Aunt Viney had ended the scene by carrying Cecily into her own
+room, where she presently recovered a still trembling but reticent
+consciousness. But the fainting of his cousin and the presence of a real
+emergency had diverted his imagination from the vague terror that
+had taken possession of it, and for the moment enabled him to control
+himself. With a desperate effort he managed to keep up a show of
+hospitable civility to his Spanish friends until their early departure.
+Then he hurried to his own room. So bewildered and horrified he had
+become, and a prey to such superstitious terrors, that he could not at
+that moment bring himself to the test of looking for the picture of the
+alleged Rosita, which might still be hanging in his aunt's room. If
+it were really the face of his mysterious visitant--in his present
+terror--he felt that his reason might not stand the shock. He would look
+at it to-morrow, when he was calmer! Until then he would believe that
+the story was some strange coincidence with what must have been his
+hallucination, or a vulgar trick to which he had fallen a credulous
+victim. Until then he would believe that Cecily's fright had been only
+the effect of Dona Felipa's story, acting upon a vivid imagination, and
+not a terrible confirmation of something she had herself seen. He threw
+himself, without undressing, upon his bed in a benumbing agony of doubt.
+
+The gentle opening of his door and the slight rustle of a skirt started
+him to his feet with a feeling of new and overpowering repulsion. But it
+was a familiar figure that he saw in the long aisle of light which led
+from his recessed window, whose face was white enough to have been a
+spirit's, and whose finger was laid upon its pale lips, as it softly
+closed the door behind it.
+
+“Cecily!”
+
+“Hush!” she said, in a distracted whisper: “I felt I must see you
+to-night. I could not wait until day--no, not another hour! I could
+not speak to you before them. I could not go into that dreadful garden
+again, or beyond the walls of this house. Dick, I want to--I MUST tell
+you something! I would have kept it from every one--from you most of
+all! I know you will hate me, and despise me; but, Dick, listen!”--she
+caught his hand despairingly, drawing it towards her--“that girl's awful
+story was TRUE!” She threw his hand away.
+
+“And you have seen HER!” said Dick, frantically. “Good God!”
+
+The young girl's manner changed. “HER!” she said, half scornfully, “you
+don't suppose I believe THAT story? No. I--I--don't blame me, Dick,--I
+have seen HIM.”
+
+“Him?”
+
+She pushed him nervously into a seat, and sat down beside him. In the
+half light of the moon, despite her pallor and distraction, she was
+still very human, womanly, and attractive in her disorder.
+
+“Listen to me, Dick. Do you remember one afternoon, when we were riding
+together, I got ahead of you, and dashed off to the casa. I don't know
+what possessed me, or WHY I did it. I only know I wanted to get home
+quickly, and get away from you. No, I was not angry, Dick, at YOU;
+it did not seem to be THAT; I--well, I confess I was FRIGHTENED--at
+something, I don't know what. When I wheeled round into the lane, I
+saw--a man--a young gentleman standing by the garden-wall. He was very
+picturesque-looking, in his red sash, velvet jacket, and round silver
+buttons; handsome, but oh, so pale and sad! He looked at me very
+eagerly, and then suddenly drew back, and I heard you on Chu Chu coming
+at my heels. You must have seen him and passed him too, I thought: but
+when you said nothing of it, I--I don't know why, Dick, I said nothing
+of it too. Don't speak!” she added, with a hurried gesture: “I know NOW
+why you said nothing,--YOU had not seen him.”
+
+She stopped, and put back a wisp of her disordered chestnut hair.
+
+“The next time was the night YOU were so queer, Dick, sitting on that
+stone bench. When I left you--I thought you didn't care to have me
+stay--I went to seek Aunt Viney at the bottom of the garden. I was very
+sad, but suddenly I found myself very gay, talking and laughing with
+her in a way I could not account for. All at once, looking up, I saw HIM
+standing by the little gate, looking at me very sadly. I think I would
+have spoken to Aunt Viney, but he put his finger to his lips--his
+hand was so slim and white, quite like a hand in one of those Spanish
+pictures--and moved slowly backwards into the lane, as if he wished to
+speak with ME only--out there. I know I ought to have spoken to Aunty; I
+knew it was wrong what I did, but he looked so earnest, so appealing, so
+awfully sad, Dick, that I slipped past Aunty and went out of the gate.
+Just then she missed me, and called. He made a kind of despairing
+gesture, raising his hand Spanish fashion to his lips, as if to say
+good-night. You'll think me bold, Dick, but I was so anxious to know
+what it all meant, that I gave a glance behind to see if Aunty was
+following, before I should go right up to him and demand an explanation.
+But when I faced round again, he was gone! I walked up and down the lane
+and out on the plain nearly half an hour, seeking him. It was strange, I
+know; but I was not a bit FRIGHTENED, Dick--that was so queer--but I was
+only amazed and curious.”
+
+The look of spiritual terror in Dick's face here seemed to give way to a
+less exalted disturbance, as he fixed his eyes on Cecily's.
+
+“You remember I met YOU coming in: you seemed so queer then that I
+did not say anything to you, for I thought you would laugh at me, or
+reproach me for my boldness; and I thought, Dick, that--that--that--this
+person wished to speak only to ME.” She hesitated.
+
+“Go on,” said Dick, in a voice that had also undergone a singular
+change.
+
+The chestnut head was bent a little lower, as the young girl nervously
+twisted her fingers in her lap.
+
+“Then I saw him again--and--again,” she went on hesitatingly. “Of course
+I spoke to him, to--to--find out what he wanted; but you know, Dick, I
+cannot speak Spanish, and of course he didn't understand me, and didn't
+reply.”
+
+“But his manner, his appearance, gave you some idea of his meaning?”
+ said Dick suddenly.
+
+Cecily's head drooped a little lower. “I thought--that is, I fancied I
+knew what he meant.”
+
+“No doubt,” said Dick, in a voice which, but for the superstitious
+horror of the situation, might have impressed a casual listener as
+indicating a trace of human irony.
+
+But Cecily did not seem to notice it. “Perhaps I was excited that night,
+perhaps I was bolder because I knew you were near me; but I went up to
+him and touched him! And then, Dick!--oh, Dick! think how awful--”
+
+Again Dick felt the thrill of superstitious terror creep over him. “And
+he vanished!” he said hoarsely.
+
+“No--not at once,” stammered Cecily, with her head almost buried in her
+lap; “for he--he--he took me in his arms and--”
+
+“And kissed you?” said Dick, springing to his feet, with every trace
+of his superstitious agony gone from his indignant face. But Cecily,
+without raising her head, caught at his gesticulating hand.
+
+“Oh, Dick, Dick! do you think he really did it? The horror of it, Dick!
+to be kissed by a--a--man who has been dead a hundred years!”
+
+“A hundred fiddlesticks!” said Dick furiously. “We have been deceived!
+No,” he stammered, “I mean YOU have been deceived--insulted!”
+
+“Hush! Aunty will hear you,” murmured the girl despairingly.
+
+Dick, who had thrown away his cousin's hand, caught it again, and
+dragged her along the aisle of light to the window. The moon shone upon
+his flushed and angry face.
+
+“Listen!” he said; “you have been fooled, tricked--infamously tricked
+by these people, and some confederate, whom--whom I shall horsewhip if I
+catch. The whole story is a lie!”
+
+“But you looked as if you believed it--about the girl,” said Cecily;
+“you acted so strangely. I even thought, Dick,--sometimes--you had seen
+HIM.”
+
+Dick shuddered, trembled; but it is to be feared that the lower, more
+natural human element in him triumphed.
+
+“Nonsense!” he stammered; “the girl was a foolish farrago of
+absurdities, improbable on the face of things, and impossible to prove.
+But that infernal, sneaking rascal was flesh and blood.”
+
+It seemed to him to relieve the situation and establish his own
+sanity to combat one illusion with another. Cecily had already been
+deceived--another lie wouldn't hurt her. But, strangely enough, he was
+satisfied that Cecily's visitant was real, although he still had doubts
+about his own.
+
+“Then you think, Dick, it was actually some real man?” she said
+piteously. “Oh, Dick, I have been so foolish!”
+
+Foolish she no doubt had been; pretty she certainly was, sitting there
+in her loosened hair, and pathetic, appealing earnestness. Surely the
+ghostly Rosita's glances were never so pleading as these actual honest
+eyes behind their curving lashes. Dick felt a strange, new-born sympathy
+of suffering, mingled tantalizingly with a new doubt and jealousy, that
+was human and stimulating.
+
+“Oh, Dick, what are WE to do?”
+
+The plural struck him as deliciously sweet and subtle. Had they
+really been singled out for this strange experience, or still stranger
+hallucination? His arm crept around her; she gently withdrew from it.
+
+“I must go now,” she murmured; “but I couldn't sleep until I told you
+all. You know, Dick, I have no one else to come to, and it seemed to me
+that YOU ought to know it first. I feel better for telling you. You will
+tell me to-morrow what you think we ought to do.”
+
+They reached the door, opening it softly. She lingered for a moment on
+the threshold.
+
+“Tell me, Dick” (she hesitated), “if that--that really were a spirit,
+and not a real man,--you don't think that--that kiss” (she shuddered)
+“could do me harm!”
+
+He shuddered too, with a strange and sympathetic consciousness that,
+happily, she did not even suspect. But he quickly recovered himself
+and said, with something of bitterness in his voice, “I should be more
+afraid if it really were a man.”
+
+“Oh, thank you, Dick!”
+
+Her lips parted in a smile of relief; the color came faintly back to her
+cheek.
+
+A wild thought crossed his fancy that seemed an inspiration. They would
+share the risks alike. He leaned towards her: their lips met in their
+first kiss.
+
+“Oh, Dick!”
+
+“Dearest!”
+
+“I think--we are saved.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“It wasn't at all like that.”
+
+He smiled as she flew swiftly down the corridor. Perhaps he thought so
+too.
+
+*****
+
+No picture of the alleged Rosita was ever found. Dona Felipa, when the
+story was again referred to, smiled discreetly, but was apparently too
+preoccupied with the return of Don Jose's absent nephew for further
+gossiping visits to the hacienda; and Dick and Cecily, as Mr. and Mrs.
+Bracy, would seem to have survived--if they never really solved--the
+mystery of the Hacienda de los Osos. Yet in the month of June, when the
+moon is high, one does not sit on the stone bench in the rose garden
+after the last stroke of the Angelus.
+
+
+
+
+CHU CHU.
+
+
+I do not believe that the most enthusiastic lover of that “useful and
+noble animal,” the horse, will claim for him the charm of geniality,
+humor, or expansive confidence. Any creature who will not look you
+squarely in the eye--whose only oblique glances are inspired by fear,
+distrust, or a view to attack; who has no way of returning caresses, and
+whose favorite expression is one of head-lifting disdain, may be “noble”
+ or “useful,” but can be hardly said to add to the gayety of nations.
+Indeed it may be broadly stated that, with the single exception of
+gold-fish, of all animals kept for the recreation of mankind the
+horse is alone capable of exciting a passion that shall be absolutely
+hopeless. I deem these general remarks necessary to prove that my
+unreciprocated affection for “Chu Chu” was not purely individual or
+singular. And I may add that to these general characteristics she
+brought the waywardness of her capricious sex.
+
+She came to me out of the rolling dust of an emigrant wagon, behind
+whose tailboard she was gravely trotting. She was a half-broken colt--in
+which character she had at different times unseated everybody in the
+train--and, although covered with dust, she had a beautiful coat, and
+the most lambent gazelle-like eyes I had ever seen. I think she kept
+these latter organs purely for ornament--apparently looking at things
+with her nose, her sensitive ears, and, sometimes, even a slight lifting
+of her slim near fore-leg. On our first interview I thought she favored
+me with a coy glance, but as it was accompanied by an irrelevant “Look
+out!” from her owner, the teamster, I was not certain. I only know that
+after some conversation, a good deal of mental reservation, and the
+disbursement of considerable coin, I found myself standing in the dust
+of the departing emigrant-wagon with one end of a forty-foot riata in my
+hand, and Chu Chu at the other.
+
+I pulled invitingly at my own end, and even advanced a step or two
+towards her. She then broke into a long disdainful pace, and began to
+circle round me at the extreme limit of her tether. I stood admiring
+her free action for some moments--not always turning with her, which was
+tiring--until I found that she was gradually winding herself up ON ME!
+Her frantic astonishment when she suddenly found herself thus brought up
+against me was one of the most remarkable things I ever saw, and nearly
+took me off my legs. Then when she had pulled against the riata until
+her narrow head and prettily arched neck were on a perfectly straight
+line with it, she as suddenly slackened the tension and condescended to
+follow me, at an angle of her own choosing. Sometimes it was on one
+side of me, sometimes on the other. Even then the sense of my dreadful
+contiguity apparently would come upon her like a fresh discovery, and
+she would become hysterical. But I do not think that she really SAW me.
+She looked at the riata and sniffed it disparagingly, she pawed some
+pebbles that were near me tentatively with her small hoof; she started
+back with a Robinson Crusoe-like horror of my footprints in the wet
+gully, but my actual personal presence she ignored. She would sometimes
+pause, with her head thoughtfully between her fore-legs, and apparently
+say: “There is some extraordinary presence here: animal, vegetable, or
+mineral--I can't make out which--but it's not good to eat, and I loathe
+and detest it.”
+
+When I reached my house in the suburbs, before entering the “fifty vara”
+ lot inclosure, I deemed it prudent to leave her outside while I informed
+the household of my purchase; and with this object I tethered her by the
+long riata to a solitary sycamore which stood in the centre of the road,
+the crossing of two frequented thoroughfares. It was not long, however,
+before I was interrupted by shouts and screams from that vicinity, and
+on returning thither I found that Chu Chu, with the assistance of her
+riata, had securely wound up two of my neighbors to the tree, where they
+presented the appearance of early Christian martyrs. When I released
+them it appeared that they had been attracted by Chu Chu's graces,
+and had offered her overtures of affection, to which she had
+characteristically rotated with this miserable result. I led her, with
+some difficulty, warily keeping clear of the riata, to the inclosure,
+from whose fence I had previously removed several bars. Although the
+space was wide enough to have admitted a troop of cavalry she affected
+not to notice it, and managed to kick away part of another section on
+entering. She resisted the stable for some time, but after carefully
+examining it with her hoofs, and an affectedly meek outstretching of
+her nose, she consented to recognize some oats in the feed-box--without
+looking at them--and was formally installed. All this while she had
+resolutely ignored my presence. As I stood watching her she suddenly
+stopped eating; the same reflective look came over her. “Surely I am not
+mistaken, but that same obnoxious creature is somewhere about here!” she
+seemed to say, and shivered at the possibility.
+
+It was probably this which made me confide my unreciprocated affection
+to one of my neighbors--a man supposed to be an authority on horses, and
+particularly of that wild species to which Chu Chu belonged. It was he
+who, leaning over the edge of the stall where she was complacently and,
+as usual, obliviously munching, absolutely dared to toy with a pet lock
+of hair which she wore over the pretty star on her forehead. “Ye see,
+captain,” he said with jaunty easiness, “hosses is like wimmen; ye don't
+want ter use any standoffishness or shyness with THEM; a stiddy but
+keerless sort o' familiarity, a kind o' free but firm handlin', jess
+like this, to let her see who's master”--
+
+We never clearly knew HOW it happened; but when I picked up my neighbor
+from the doorway, amid the broken splinters of the stall rail, and a
+quantity of oats that mysteriously filled his hair and pockets, Chu Chu
+was found to have faced around the other way, and was contemplating her
+forelegs, with her hind ones in the other stall. My neighbor spoke of
+damages while he was in the stall, and of physical coercion when he
+was out of it again. But here Chu Chu, in some marvelous way, righted
+herself, and my neighbor departed hurriedly with a brimless hat and an
+unfinished sentence.
+
+My next intermediary was Enriquez Saltello--a youth of my own age,
+and the brother of Consuelo Saltello, whom I adored. As a Spanish
+Californian he was presumed, on account of Chu Chu's half-Spanish
+origin, to have superior knowledge of her character, and I even vaguely
+believed that his language and accent would fall familiarly on her ear.
+There was the drawback, however, that he always preferred to talk in
+a marvelous English, combining Castilian precision with what he fondly
+believed to be Californian slang.
+
+“To confer then as to thees horse, which is not--observe me--a Mexican
+plug! Ah, no! you can your boots bet on that. She is of Castilian
+stock--believe me and strike me dead! I will myself at different times
+overlook and affront her in the stable, examine her as to the assault,
+and why she should do thees thing. When she is of the exercise I will
+also accost and restrain her. Remain tranquil, my friend! When a few
+days shall pass much shall be changed, and she will be as another. Trust
+your oncle to do thees thing! Comprehend me? Everything shall be lovely,
+and the goose hang high!”
+
+Conformably with this he “overlooked” her the next day, with a cigarette
+between his yellow-stained finger-tips, which made her sneeze in a
+silent pantomimic way, and certain Spanish blandishments of speech which
+she received with more complacency. But I don't think she ever even
+looked at him. In vain he protested that she was the “dearest” and
+“littlest” of his “little loves”--in vain he asserted that she was his
+patron saint, and that it was his soul's delight to pray to her; she
+accepted the compliment with her eyes fixed upon the manger. When he had
+exhausted his whole stock of endearing diminutives, adding a few playful
+and more audacious sallies, she remained with her head down, as if
+inclined to meditate upon them. This he declared was at least an
+improvement on her former performances. It may have been my own
+jealousy, but I fancied she was only saying to herself, “Gracious! can
+there be TWO of them?”
+
+“Courage and patience, my friend,” he said, as we were slowly quitting
+the stable. “Thees horse is yonge, and has not yet the habitude of the
+person. To-morrow, at another season, I shall give to her a foundling”
+ (“fondling,” I have reason to believe, was the word intended by
+Enriquez)--“and we shall see. It shall be as easy as to fall away from
+a log. A leetle more of this chin music which your friend Enriquez
+possesses, and some tapping of the head and neck, and you are there.
+You are ever the right side up. Houp la! But let us not precipitate this
+thing. The more haste, we do not so much accelerate ourselves.”
+
+He appeared to be suiting the action to the word as he lingered in the
+doorway of the stable. “Come on,” I said.
+
+“Pardon,” he returned, with a bow that was both elaborate and evasive,
+“but you shall yourself precede me--the stable is YOURS.”
+
+“Oh, come along!” I continued impatiently. To my surprise he seemed to
+dodge back into the stable again. After an instant he reappeared.
+
+“Pardon! but I am re-strain! Of a truth, in this instant I am grasp by
+the mouth of thees horse in the coat-tail of my dress! She will that I
+should remain. It would seem”--he disappeared again--“that”--he was out
+once more--“the experiment is a sooccess! She reciprocate! She is, of a
+truth, gone on me. It is lofe!”--a stronger pull from Chu Chu here sent
+him in again--“but”--he was out now triumphantly with half his garment
+torn away--“I shall coquet.”
+
+Nothing daunted, however, the gallant fellow was back next day with
+a Mexican saddle, and attired in the complete outfit of a vaquero.
+Overcome though HE was by heavy deerskin trousers, open at the side
+from the knees down, and fringed with bullion buttons, an enormous
+flat sombrero, and a stiff, short embroidered velvet jacket, I was more
+concerned at the ponderous saddle and equipments intended for the slim
+Chu Chu. That these would hide and conceal her beautiful curves and
+contour, as well as overweight her, seemed certain; that she would
+resist them all to the last seemed equally clear. Nevertheless, to my
+surprise, when she was led out, and the saddle thrown deftly across her
+back, she was passive. Was it possible that some drop of her old Spanish
+blood responded to its clinging embrace? She did not either look at it
+nor smell it. But when Enriquez began to tighten the “cinch” or girth
+a more singular thing occurred. Chu Chu visibly distended her slender
+barrel to twice its dimensions; the more he pulled the more she swelled,
+until I was actually ashamed of her. Not so Enriquez. He smiled at us,
+and complacently stroked his thin moustache.
+
+“Eet is ever so! She is the child of her grandmother! Even when you
+shall make saddle thees old Castilian stock, it will make large--it will
+become a balloon! Eet is a trick--eet is a leetle game--believe me. For
+why?”
+
+I had not listened, as I was at that moment astonished to see the saddle
+slowly slide under Chu Chu's belly, and her figure resume, as if by
+magic, its former slim proportions. Enriquez followed my eyes, lifted
+his shoulders, shrugged them, and said smilingly, “Ah, you see!”
+
+When the girths were drawn in again with an extra pull or two from the
+indefatigable Enriquez, I fancied that Chu Chu nevertheless secretly
+enjoyed it, as her sex is said to appreciate tight-lacing. She drew a
+deep sigh, possibly of satisfaction, turned her neck, and apparently
+tried to glance at her own figure--Enriquez promptly withdrawing to
+enable her to do so easily. Then the dread moment arrived. Enriquez,
+with his hand on her mane, suddenly paused and, with exaggerated
+courtesy, lifted his hat and made an inviting gesture.
+
+“You will honor me to precede.”
+
+I shook my head laughingly.
+
+“I see,” responded Enriquez gravely. “You have to attend the obsequies
+of your aunt who is dead, at two of the clock. You have to meet your
+broker who has bought you feefty share of the Comstock lode--at thees
+moment--or you are loss! You are excuse! Attend! Gentlemen, make your
+bets! The band has arrived to play! 'Ere we are!”
+
+With a quick movement the alert young fellow had vaulted into the
+saddle. But, to the astonishment of both of us, the mare remained
+perfectly still. There was Enriquez bolt upright in the stirrups,
+completely overshadowing by his saddle-flaps, leggings, and gigantic
+spurs the fine proportions of Chu Chu, until she might have been a
+placid Rosinante, bestridden by some youthful Quixote. She closed her
+eyes, she was going to sleep! We were dreadfully disappointed. This
+clearly would not do. Enriquez lifted the reins cautiously! Chu Chu
+moved forward slowly--then stopped, apparently lost in reflection.
+
+“Affront her on thees side.”
+
+I approached her gently. She shot suddenly into the air, coming down
+again on perfectly stiff legs with a springless jolt. This she instantly
+followed by a succession of other rocket-like propulsions, utterly
+unlike a leap, all over the inclosure. The movements of the unfortunate
+Enriquez were equally unlike any equitation I ever saw. He appeared
+occasionally over Chu Chu's head, astride of her neck and tail, or in
+the free air, but never IN the saddle. His rigid legs, however, never
+lost the stirrups, but came down regularly, accentuating her springless
+hops. More than that, the disproportionate excess of rider, saddle,
+and accoutrements was so great that he had, at times, the appearance of
+lifting Chu Chu forcibly from the ground by superior strength, and of
+actually contributing to her exercise! As they came towards me, a wild
+tossing and flying mass of hoofs and spurs, it was not only difficult
+to distinguish them apart, but to ascertain how much of the jumping was
+done by Enriquez separately. At last Chu Chu brought matters to a close
+by making for the low-stretching branches of an oak-tree which stood at
+the corner of the lot. In a few moments she emerged from it--but without
+Enriquez.
+
+I found the gallant fellow disengaging himself from the fork of a branch
+in which he had been firmly wedged, but still smiling and confident, and
+his cigarette between his teeth. Then for the first time he removed it,
+and seating himself easily on the branch with his legs dangling down, he
+blandly waved aside my anxious queries with a gentle reassuring gesture.
+
+“Remain tranquil, my friend. Thees does not count! I have conquer--you
+observe--for why? I have NEVER for once ARRIVE AT THE GROUND! Consequent
+she is disappoint! She will ever that I SHOULD! But I have got her when
+the hair is not long! Your oncle Henry”--with an angelic wink--“is fly!
+He is ever a bully boy, with the eye of glass! Believe me. Behold! I am
+here! Big Injin! Whoop!”
+
+He leaped lightly to the ground. Chu Chu, standing watchfully at a
+little distance, was evidently astonished at his appearance. She threw
+out her hind hoofs violently, shot up into the air until the stirrups
+crossed each other high above the saddle, and made for the stable in a
+succession of rabbit-like bounds--taking the precaution to remove the
+saddle, on entering, by striking it against the lintel of the door. “You
+observe,” said Enriquez blandly, “she would make that thing of ME. Not
+having the good occasion, she ees dissatisfied. Where are you now?”
+
+Two or three days afterwards he rode her again with the same
+result--accepted by him with the same heroic complacency. As we did not,
+for certain reasons, care to use the open road for this exercise, and as
+it was impossible to remove the tree, we were obliged to submit to the
+inevitable. On the following day I mounted her--undergoing the same
+experience as Enriquez, with the individual sensation of falling from a
+third-story window on top of a counting-house stool, and the variation
+of being projected over the fence. When I found that Chu Chu had not
+accompanied me, I saw Enriquez at my side. “More than ever is become
+necessary that we should do thees things again,” he said gravely, as
+he assisted me to my feet. “Courage, my noble General! God and Liberty!
+Once more on to the breach! Charge, Chestare, charge! Come on, Don
+Stanley! 'Ere we are!”
+
+He helped me none too quickly to catch my seat again, for it apparently
+had the effect of the turned peg on the enchanted horse in the Arabian
+Nights, and Chu Chu instantly rose into the air. But she came down this
+time before the open window of the kitchen, and I alighted easily on the
+dresser. The indefatigable Enriquez followed me.
+
+“Won't this do?” I asked meekly.
+
+“It ees BETTER--for you arrive NOT on the ground,” he said cheerfully;
+“but you should not once but a thousand times make trial! Ha! Go and
+win! Nevare die and say so! 'Eave ahead! 'Eave! There you are!”
+
+Luckily, this time I managed to lock the rowels of my long spurs under
+her girth, and she could not unseat me. She seemed to recognize the fact
+after one or two plunges, when, to my great surprise, she suddenly
+sank to the ground and quietly rolled over me. The action disengaged
+my spurs, but, righting herself without getting up, she turned her
+beautiful head and absolutely LOOKED at me!--still in the saddle. I felt
+myself blushing! But the voice of Enriquez was at my side.
+
+“Errise, my friend; you have conquer! It is SHE who has arrive at the
+ground! YOU are all right. It is done; believe me, it is feenish! No
+more shall she make thees thing. From thees instant you shall ride her
+as the cow--as the rail of thees fence--and remain tranquil. For she is
+a-broke! Ta-ta! Regain your hats, gentlemen! Pass in your checks! It is
+ovar! How are you now?” He lit a fresh cigarette, put his hands in his
+pockets, and smiled at me blandly.
+
+For all that, I ventured to point out that the habit of alighting in the
+fork of a tree, or the disengaging of one's self from the saddle on the
+ground, was attended with inconvenience, and even ostentatious display.
+But Enriquez swept the objections away with a single gesture. “It is
+the PREENCIPAL--the bottom fact--at which you arrive. The next come of
+himself! Many horse have achieve to mount the rider by the knees, and
+relinquish after thees same fashion. My grandfather had a barb of thees
+kind--but she has gone dead, and so have my grandfather. Which is sad
+and strange! Otherwise I shall make of them both an instant example!”
+
+I ought to have said that although these performances were never
+actually witnessed by Enriquez's sister--for reasons which he and I
+thought sufficient--the dear girl displayed the greatest interest in
+them, and, perhaps aided by our mutually complimentary accounts of each
+other, looked upon us both as invincible heroes. It is possible also
+that she over-estimated our success, for she suddenly demanded that I
+should RIDE Chu Chu to her house, that she might see her. It was
+not far; by going through a back lane I could avoid the trees which
+exercised such a fatal fascination for Chu Chu. There was a pleading,
+child-like entreaty in Consuelo's voice that I could not resist, with
+a slight flash from her lustrous dark eyes that I did not care to
+encourage. So I resolved to try it at all hazards.
+
+My equipment for the performance was modeled after Enriquez's previous
+costume, with the addition of a few fripperies of silver and stamped
+leather out of compliment to Consuelo, and even with a faint hope
+that it might appease Chu Chu. SHE certainly looked beautiful in her
+glittering accoutrements, set off by her jet-black shining coat. With an
+air of demure abstraction she permitted me to mount her, and even for
+a hundred yards or so indulged in a mincing maidenly amble that was not
+without a touch of coquetry. Encouraged by this, I addressed a few terms
+of endearment to her, and in the exuberance of my youthful enthusiasm I
+even confided to her my love for Consuelo, and begged her to be “good”
+ and not disgrace herself and me before my Dulcinea. In my foolish
+trustfulness I was rash enough to add a caress, and to pat her soft
+neck. She stopped instantly with a hysteric shudder. I knew what was
+passing through her mind: she had suddenly become aware of my baleful
+existence.
+
+The saddle and bridle Chu Chu was becoming accustomed to, but who was
+this living, breathing object that had actually touched her? Presently
+her oblique vision was attracted by the fluttering movement of a fallen
+oak-leaf in the road before her. She had probably seen many oak-leaves
+many times before; her ancestors had no doubt been familiar with them on
+the trackless hills and in field and paddock, but this did not alter her
+profound conviction that I and the leaf were identical, that our baleful
+touch was something indissolubly connected. She reared before that
+innocent leaf, she revolved round it, and then fled from it at the top
+of her speed.
+
+The lane passed before the rear wall of Saltello's garden.
+Unfortunately, at the angle of the fence stood a beautiful Madrono-tree,
+brilliant with its scarlet berries, and endeared to me as Consuelo's
+favorite haunt, under whose protecting shade I had more than once avowed
+my youthful passion. By the irony of fate Chu Chu caught sight of it,
+and with a succession of spirited bounds instantly made for it. In
+another moment I was beneath it, and Chu Chu shot like a rocket into the
+air. I had barely time to withdraw my feet from the stirrups, to throw
+up one arm to protect my glazed sombrero and grasp an overhanging branch
+with the other, before Chu Chu darted off. But to my consternation, as
+I gained a secure perch on the tree, and looked about me, I saw
+her--instead of running away--quietly trot through the open gate into
+Saltello's garden.
+
+Need I say that it was to the beneficent Enriquez that I again owed my
+salvation? Scarcely a moment elapsed before his bland voice rose in
+a concentrated whisper from the corner of the garden below me. He had
+divined the dreadful truth!
+
+“For the love of God, collect to yourself many kinds of thees berry! All
+you can! Your full arms round! Rest tranquil. Leave to your ole oncle to
+make for you a delicate exposure. At the instant!”
+
+He was gone again. I gathered, wonderingly, a few of the larger clusters
+of parti-colored fruit and patiently waited. Presently he reappeared,
+and with him the lovely Consuelo--her dear eyes filled with an adorable
+anxiety.
+
+“Yes,” continued Enriquez to his sister, with a confidential lowering
+of tone but great distinctness of utterance, “it is ever so with the
+American! He will ever make FIRST the salutation of the flower or the
+fruit, picked to himself by his own hand, to the lady where he call. It
+is the custom of the American hidalgo! My God--what will you? I make it
+not--it is so! Without doubt he is in this instant doing thees thing.
+That is why he have let go his horse to precede him here; it is always
+the etiquette to offer these things on the feet. Ah! Behold! it is
+he!--Don Francisco! Even now he will descend from thees tree! Ah! You
+make the blush, little sister (archly)! I will retire! I am discreet;
+two is not company for the one! I make tracks! I am gone!”
+
+How far Consuelo entirely believed and trusted her ingenious brother
+I do not know, nor even then cared to inquire. For there was a pretty
+mantling of her olive cheek, as I came forward with my offering, and a
+certain significant shyness in her manner that were enough to throw
+me into a state of hopeless imbecility. And I was always miserably
+conscious that Consuelo possessed an exalted sentimentality, and a
+predilection for the highest mediaeval romance, in which I knew I was
+lamentably deficient. Even in our most confidential moments I was
+always aware that I weakly lagged behind this daughter of a gloomily
+distinguished ancestry, in her frequent incursions into a vague
+but poetic past. There was something of the dignity of the Spanish
+chatelaine in the sweetly grave little figure that advanced to accept my
+specious offering. I think I should have fallen on my knees to present
+it, but for the presence of the all seeing Enriquez. But why did I even
+at that moment remember that he had early bestowed upon her the nickname
+of “Pomposa”? This, as Enriquez himself might have observed, was “sad
+and strange.”
+
+I managed to stammer out something about the Madrono berries being at
+her “disposicion” (the tree was in her own garden!), and she took the
+branches in her little brown hand with a soft response to my unutterable
+glances.
+
+But here Chu Chu, momentarily forgotten, executed a happy diversion. To
+our astonishment she gravely walked up to Consuelo and, stretching out
+her long slim neck, not only sniffed curiously at the berries, but even
+protruded a black underlip towards the young girl herself. In another
+instant Consuelo's dignity melted. Throwing her arms around Chu Chu's
+neck she embraced and kissed her. Young as I was, I understood the
+divine significance of a girl's vicarious effusiveness at such a moment,
+and felt delighted. But I was the more astonished that the usually
+sensitive horse not only submitted to these caresses, but actually
+responded to the extent of affecting to nip my mistress's little right
+ear.
+
+This was enough for the impulsive Consuelo. She ran hastily into the
+house, and in a few moments reappeared in a bewitching riding-skirt
+gathered round her jimp waist. In vain Enriquez and myself joined in
+earnest entreaty: the horse was hardly broken for even a man's riding
+yet; the saints alone could tell what the nervous creature might do
+with a woman's skirt flapping at her side! We begged for delay, for
+reflection, for at least time to change the saddle--but with no avail!
+Consuelo was determined, indignant, distressingly reproachful! Ah, well!
+if Don Pancho (an ingenious diminutive of my Christian name) valued
+his horse so highly--if he were jealous of the evident devotion of the
+animal to herself, he would--but here I succumbed! And then I had the
+felicity of holding that little foot for one brief moment in the hollow
+of my hand, of readjusting the skirt as she threw her knee over
+the saddle-horn, of clasping her tightly--only half in fear--as I
+surrendered the reins to her grasp. And to tell the truth, as Enriquez
+and I fell back, although I had insisted upon still keeping hold of the
+end of the riata, it was a picture to admire. The petite figure of the
+young girl, and the graceful folds of her skirt, admirably harmonized
+with Chu Chu's lithe contour, and as the mare arched her slim neck and
+raised her slender head under the pressure of the reins, it was so like
+the lifted velvet-capped toreador crest of Consuelo herself, that they
+seemed of one race.
+
+“I would not that you should hold the riata,” said Consuelo petulantly.
+
+I hesitated--Chu Chu looked certainly very amiable--I let go. She began
+to amble towards the gate, not mincingly as before, but with a freer and
+fuller stride. In spite of the incongruous saddle the young girl's seat
+was admirable. As they neared the gate she cast a single mischievous
+glance at me, jerked at the rein, and Chu Chu sprang into the road at
+a rapid canter. I watched them fearfully and breathlessly, until at the
+end of the lane I saw Consuelo rein in slightly, wheel easily, and come
+flying back. There was no doubt about it; the horse was under perfect
+control. Her second subjugation was complete and final!
+
+Overjoyed and bewildered, I overwhelmed them with congratulations;
+Enriquez alone retaining the usual brotherly attitude of criticism, and
+a superior toleration of a lover's enthusiasm. I ventured to hint to
+Consuelo (in what I believed was a safe whisper) that Chu Chu only
+showed my own feelings towards her. “Without doubt,” responded Enriquez
+gravely. “She have of herself assist you to climb to the tree to pull
+to yourself the berry for my sister.” But I felt Consuelo's little hand
+return my pressure, and I forgave and even pitied him.
+
+From that day forward, Chu Chu and Consuelo were not only firm friends
+but daily companions. In my devotion I would have presented the horse
+to the young girl, but with flattering delicacy she preferred to call it
+mine. “I shall erride it for you, Pancho,” she said; “I shall feel,” she
+continued with exalted although somewhat vague poetry, “that it is of
+YOU! You lofe the beast--it is therefore of a necessity YOU, my Pancho!
+It is YOUR soul I shall erride like the wings of the wind--your lofe in
+this beast shall be my only cavalier for ever.” I would have preferred
+something whose vicarious qualities were less uncertain than I still
+felt Chu Chu's to be, but I kissed the girl's hand submissively. It was
+only when I attempted to accompany her in the flesh, on another horse,
+that I felt the full truth of my instinctive fears. Chu Chu would not
+permit any one to approach her mistress's side. My mounted presence
+revived in her all her old blind astonishment and disbelief in my
+existence; she would start suddenly, face about, and back away from me
+in utter amazement as if I had been only recently created, or with an
+affected modesty as if I had been just guilty of some grave indecorum
+towards her sex which she really could not stand. The frequency of these
+exhibitions in the public highway were not only distressing to me as
+a simple escort, but as it had the effect on the casual spectators of
+making Consuelo seem to participate in Chu Chu's objections, I felt
+that, as a lover, it could not be borne. Any attempt to coerce Chu Chu
+ended in her running away. And my frantic pursuit of her was open to
+equal misconstruction. “Go it, Miss, the little dude is gainin' on you!”
+ shouted by a drunken teamster to the frightened Consuelo, once checked
+me in mid career. Even the dear girl herself saw the uselessness of my
+real presence, and after a while was content to ride with “my soul.”
+
+Notwithstanding this, I am not ashamed to say that it was my custom,
+whenever she rode out, to keep a slinking and distant surveillance of
+Chu Chu on another horse, until she had fairly settled down to her pace.
+A little nod of Consuelo's round black-and-red toreador hat or a kiss
+tossed from her riding-whip was reward enough!
+
+I remember a pleasant afternoon when I was thus awaiting her in the
+outskirts of the village. The eternal smile of the Californian summer
+had begun to waver and grow less fixed; dust lay thick on leaf and
+blade; the dry hills were clothed in russet leather; the trade winds
+were shifting to the south with an ominous warm humidity; a few days
+longer and the rains would be here. It so chanced that this afternoon my
+seclusion on the roadside was accidentally invaded by a village belle--a
+Western young lady somewhat older than myself, and of flirtatious
+reputation. As she persistently and--as I now have reason to
+believe--mischievously lingered, I had only a passing glimpse of
+Consuelo riding past at an unaccustomed speed which surprised me at
+the moment. But as I reasoned later that she was only trying to avoid
+a merely formal meeting, I thought no more about it. It was not until I
+called at the house to fetch Chu Chu at the usual hour, and found that
+Consuelo had not yet returned, that a recollection of Chu Chu's furious
+pace again troubled me. An hour passed--it was getting towards sunset,
+but there were no signs of Chu Chu nor her mistress. I became seriously
+alarmed. I did not care to reveal my fears to the family, for I felt
+myself responsible for Chu Chu. At last I desperately saddled my horse,
+and galloped off in the direction she had taken. It was the road to
+Rosario and the hacienda of one of her relations, where she sometimes
+halted.
+
+The road was a very unfrequented one, twisting like a mountain river;
+indeed, it was the bed of an old watercourse, between brown hills of
+wild oats, and debouching at last into a broad blue lake-like expanse of
+alfalfa meadows. In vain I strained my eyes over the monotonous level;
+nothing appeared to rise above or move across it. In the faint hope that
+she might have lingered at the hacienda, I was spurring on again when I
+heard a slight splashing on my left. I looked around. A broad patch
+of fresher-colored herbage and a cluster of dwarfed alders indicated
+a hidden spring. I cautiously approached its quaggy edges, when I was
+shocked by what appeared to be a sudden vision! Mid-leg deep in the
+centre of a greenish pool stood Chu Chu! But without a strap or buckle
+of harness upon her--as naked as when she was foaled!
+
+For a moment I could only stare at her in bewildered terror. Far from
+recognizing me, she seemed to be absorbed in a nymph-like contemplation
+of her own graces in the pool. Then I called “Consuelo!” and galloped
+frantically around the spring. But there was no response, nor was there
+anything to be seen but the all-unconscious Chu Chu. The pool, thank
+Heaven! was not deep enough to have drowned any one; there were no signs
+of a struggle on its quaggy edges. The horse might have come from a
+distance! I galloped on, still calling. A few hundred yards further
+I detected the vivid glow of Chu Chu's scarlet saddle-blanket, in the
+brush near the trail. My heart leaped--I was on the track. I called
+again; this time a faint reply, in accents I knew too well, came from
+the field beside me!
+
+Consuelo was there! reclining beside a manzanita bush which screened
+her from the road, in what struck me, even at that supreme moment, as a
+judicious and picturesquely selected couch of scented Indian grass and
+dry tussocks. The velvet hat with its balls of scarlet plush was laid
+carefully aside; her lovely blue-black hair retained its tight coils
+undisheveled, her eyes were luminous and tender. Shocked as I was at her
+apparent helplessness, I remember being impressed with the fact that it
+gave so little indication of violent usage or disaster.
+
+I threw myself frantically on the ground beside her.
+
+“You are hurt, Consita! For Heaven's sake, what has happened?”
+
+She pushed my hat back with her little hand, and tumbled my hair gently.
+
+“Nothing. YOU are here, Pancho--eet is enofe! What shall come after
+thees--when I am perhaps gone among the grave--make nothing! YOU are
+here--I am happy. For a little, perhaps--not mooch.”
+
+“But,” I went on desperately, “was it an accident? Were you thrown? Was
+it Chu Chu?”--for somehow, in spite of her languid posture and voice, I
+could not, even in my fears, believe her seriously hurt.
+
+“Beat not the poor beast, Pancho. It is not from HER comes thees thing.
+She have make nothing--believe me! I have come upon your assignation
+with Miss Essmith! I make but to pass you--to fly--to never come back!
+I have say to Chu Chu, 'Fly!' We fly many miles. Sometimes together,
+sometimes not so mooch! Sometimes in the saddle, sometimes on the neck!
+Many things remain in the road; at the end, I myself remain! I have
+say, 'Courage, Pancho will come!' Then I say, 'No, he is talk with Miss
+Essmith!' I remember not more. I have creep here on the hands. Eet is
+feenish!”
+
+I looked at her distractedly. She smiled tenderly, and slightly smoothed
+down and rearranged a fold of her dress to cover her delicate little
+boot.
+
+“But,” I protested, “you are not much hurt, dearest. You have broken no
+bones. Perhaps,” I added, looking at the boot, “only a slight sprain.
+Let me carry you to my horse; I will walk beside you, home. Do, dearest
+Consita!”
+
+She turned her lovely eyes towards me sadly. “You comprehend not, my
+poor Pancho! It is not of the foot, the ankle, the arm, or the head that
+I can say, 'She is broke!' I would it were even so. But”--she lifted her
+sweet lashes slowly--“I have derrange my inside. It is an affair of my
+family. My grandfather have once toomble over the bull at a rodeo. He
+speak no more; he is dead. For why? He has derrange his inside. Believe
+me, it is of the family. You comprehend? The Saltellos are not as the
+other peoples for this. When I am gone, you will bring to me the berry
+to grow upon my tomb, Pancho; the berry you have picked for me. The
+little flower will come too, the little star will arrive, but Consuelo,
+who lofe you, she will come not more! When you are happy and talk in the
+road to the Essmith, you will not think of me. You will not see my eyes,
+Pancho; thees little grass”--she ran her plump little fingers through a
+tussock--“will hide them; and the small animals in the black coats that
+lif here will have much sorrow--but you will not. It ees better so! My
+father will not that I, a Catholique, should marry into a camp-meeting,
+and lif in a tent, and make howl like the coyote.” (It was one
+of Consuelo's bewildering beliefs that there was only one form of
+dissent--Methodism!) “He will not that I should marry a man who possess
+not the many horses, ox, and cow, like him. But I care not. YOU are my
+only religion, Pancho! I have enofe of the horse, and ox, and cow when
+YOU are with me! Kiss me, Pancho. Perhaps it is for the last time--the
+feenish! Who knows?”
+
+There were tears in her lovely eyes; I felt that my own were growing
+dim; the sun was sinking over the dreary plain to the slow rising of the
+wind; an infinite loneliness had fallen upon us, and yet I was miserably
+conscious of some dreadful unreality in it all. A desire to laugh, which
+I felt must be hysterical, was creeping over me; I dared not speak. But
+her dear head was on my shoulder, and the situation was not unpleasant.
+
+Nevertheless, something must be done! This was the more difficult as it
+was by no means clear what had already been done. Even while I supported
+her drooping figure I was straining my eyes across her shoulder for
+succor of some kind. Suddenly the figure of a rapid rider appeared
+upon the road. It seemed familiar. I looked again--it was the blessed
+Enriquez! A sense of deep relief came over me. I loved Consuelo; but
+never before had lover ever hailed the irruption of one of his beloved's
+family with such complacency.
+
+“You are safe, dearest; it is Enriquez!”
+
+I thought she received the information coldly. Suddenly she turned upon
+me her eyes, now bright and glittering. “Swear to me at the instant,
+Pancho, that you will not again look upon Miss Essmith, even for once.”
+
+I was simple and literal. Miss Smith was my nearest neighbor, and,
+unless I was stricken with blindness, compliance was impossible. I
+hesitated--but swore.
+
+“Enofe--you have hesitate--I will no more.”
+
+She rose to her feet with grave deliberation. For an instant, with the
+recollection of the delicate internal organization of the Saltellos
+on my mind, I was in agony lest she should totter and fall, even then,
+yielding up her gentle spirit on the spot. But when I looked again she
+had a hairpin between her white teeth, and was carefully adjusting her
+toreador hat. And beside us was Enriquez--cheerful, alert, voluble, and
+undaunted.
+
+“Eureka! I have found! We are all here! Eet is a leetle public--eh! a
+leetle too much of a front seat for a tete-a-tete, my yonge friends,”
+ he said, glancing at the remains of Consuelo's bower, “but for the
+accounting of taste there is none. What will you? The meat of the one
+man shall envenom the meat of the other. But” (in a whisper to me)
+“as to thees horse--thees Chu Chu, which I have just pass--why is she
+undress? Surely you would not make an exposition of her to the traveler
+to suspect! And if not, why so?”
+
+I tried to explain, looking at Consuelo, that Chu Chu had run away, that
+Consuelo had met with a terrible accident, had been thrown, and I feared
+had suffered serious internal injury. But to my embarrassment Consuelo
+maintained a half scornful silence, and an inconsistent freshness of
+healthful indifference, as Enriquez approached her with an engaging
+smile. “Ah, yes, she have the headache, and the molligrubs. She will sit
+on the damp stone when the gentle dew is falling. I comprehend. Meet
+me in the lane when the clock strike nine! But,” in a lower voice,
+“of thees undress horse I comprehend nothing! Look you--it is sad and
+strange.”
+
+He went off to fetch Chu Chu, leaving me and Consuelo alone. I do not
+think I ever felt so utterly abject and bewildered before in my life.
+Without knowing why, I was miserably conscious of having in some way
+offended the girl for whom I believed I would have given my life, and
+I had made her and myself ridiculous in the eyes of her brother. I had
+again failed in my slower Western nature to understand her high romantic
+Spanish soul! Meantime she was smoothing out her riding-habit, and
+looking as fresh and pretty as when she first left her house.
+
+“Consita,” I said hesitatingly, “you are not angry with me?”
+
+“Angry?” she repeated haughtily, without looking at me. “Oh, no! Of a
+possibility eet is Mees Essmith who is angry that I have interroopt her
+tete-a-tete with you, and have send here my brother to make the same
+with me.”
+
+“But,” I said eagerly, “Miss Smith does not even know Enriquez!”
+
+Consuelo turned on me a glance of unutterable significance. “Ah!” she
+said darkly, “you TINK!”
+
+Indeed I KNEW. But here I believed I understood Consuelo, and was
+relieved. I even ventured to say gently, “And you are better?”
+
+She drew herself up to her full height, which was not much. “Of my
+health, what is it? A nothing. Yes! Of my soul let us not speak.”
+
+Nevertheless, when Enriquez appeared with Chu Chu she ran towards her
+with outstretched arms. Chu Chu protruded about six inches of upper
+lip in response--apparently under the impression, which I could quite
+understand, that her mistress was edible. And, I may have been mistaken,
+but their beautiful eyes met in an absolute and distinct glance of
+intelligence!
+
+During the home journey Consuelo recovered her spirits, and parted from
+me with a magnanimous and forgiving pressure of the hand. I do not know
+what explanation of Chu Chu's original escapade was given to Enriquez
+and the rest of the family; the inscrutable forgiveness extended to me
+by Consuelo precluded any further inquiry on my part. I was willing
+to leave it a secret between her and Chu Chu. But, strange to say, it
+seemed to complete our own understanding, and precipitated, not only our
+lovemaking, but the final catastrophe which culminated that romance.
+For we had resolved to elope. I do not know that this heroic remedy was
+absolutely necessary from the attitude of either Consuelo's family or
+my own; I am inclined to think we preferred it, because it involved no
+previous explanation or advice. Need I say that our confidant and firm
+ally was Consuelo's brother--the alert, the linguistic, the ever-happy,
+ever-ready Enriquez! It was understood that his presence would not only
+give a certain mature respectability to our performance--but I do not
+think we would have contemplated this step without it. During one of our
+riding excursions we were to secure the services of a Methodist minister
+in the adjoining county, and, later, that of the Mission padre--when the
+secret was out. “I will gif her away,” said Enriquez confidently, “it
+will on the instant propitiate the old shadbelly who shall perform the
+affair, and withhold his jaw. A little chin-music from your oncle 'Arry
+shall finish it! Remain tranquil and forgot not a ring! One does not
+always, in the agony and dissatisfaction of the moment, a ring remember.
+I shall bring two in the pocket of my dress.”
+
+If I did not entirely participate in this roseate view it may have
+been because Enriquez, although a few years my senior, was much
+younger-looking, and with his demure deviltry of eye, and his upper lip
+close shaven for this occasion, he suggested a depraved acolyte rather
+than a responsible member of a family. Consuelo had also confided to
+me that her father--possibly owing to some rumors of our previous
+escapade--had forbidden any further excursions with me alone. The
+innocent man did not know that Chu Chu had forbidden it also, and that
+even on this momentous occasion both Enriquez and myself were obliged to
+ride in opposite fields like out flankers. But we nevertheless felt the
+full guilt of disobedience added to our desperate enterprise. Meanwhile,
+although pressed for time, and subject to discovery at any moment, I
+managed at certain points of the road to dismount and walk beside Chu
+Chu (who did not seem to recognize me on foot), holding Consuelo's hand
+in my own, with the discreet Enriquez leading my horse in the distant
+field. I retain a very vivid picture of that walk--the ascent of a
+gentle slope towards a prospect as yet unknown, but full of glorious
+possibilities; the tender dropping light of an autumn sky, slightly
+filmed with the promise of the future rains, like foreshadowed tears,
+and the half frightened, half serious talk into which Consuelo and I
+had insensibly fallen. And then, I don't know how it happened, but as we
+reached the summit Chu Chu suddenly reared, wheeled, and the next moment
+was flying back along the road we had just traveled, at the top of her
+speed! It might have been that, after her abstracted fashion, she only
+at that moment detected my presence; but so sudden and complete was
+her evolution that before I could regain my horse from the astonished
+Enriquez she was already a quarter of a mile on the homeward stretch,
+with the frantic Consuelo pulling hopelessly at the bridle. We started
+in pursuit. But a horrible despair seized us. To attempt to overtake
+her, to even follow at the same rate of speed would only excite Chu
+Chu and endanger Consuelo's life. There was absolutely no help for
+it, nothing could be done; the mare had taken her determined long,
+continuous stride, the road was a straight, steady descent all the way
+back to the village, Chu Chu had the bit between her teeth, and there
+was no prospect of swerving her. We could only follow hopelessly,
+idiotically, furiously, until Chu Chu dashed triumphantly into the
+Saltellos' courtyard, carrying the half-fainting Consuelo back to the
+arms of her assembled and astonished family.
+
+It was our last ride together. It was the last I ever saw of Consuelo
+before her transfer to the safe seclusion of a convent in Southern
+California. It was the last I ever saw of Chu Chu, who in the confusion
+of that rencontre was overlooked in her half-loosed harness, and allowed
+to escape though the back gate to the fields. Months afterwards it was
+said that she had been identified among a band of wild horses in the
+Coast Range, as a strange and beautiful creature who had escaped the
+brand of the rodeo and had become a myth. There was another legend that
+she had been seen, sleek, fat, and gorgeously caparisoned, issuing from
+the gateway of the Rosario patio, before a lumbering Spanish cabriole in
+which a short, stout matron was seated--but I will have none of it. For
+there are days when she still lives, and I can see her plainly still
+climbing the gentle slope towards the summit, with Consuelo on her back,
+and myself at her side, pressing eagerly forward towards the illimitable
+prospect that opens in the distance.
+
+
+
+
+MY FIRST BOOK.
+
+
+When I say that my “First Book” was NOT my own, and contained beyond the
+title-page not one word of my own composition, I trust that I will not
+be accused of trifling with paradox, or tardily unbosoming myself of
+youthful plagiary. But the fact remains that in priority of publication
+the first book for which I became responsible, and which probably
+provoked more criticism than anything I have written since, was a small
+compilation of Californian poems indited by other hands.
+
+A well-known bookseller of San Francisco one day handed me a collection
+of certain poems which had already appeared in Pacific Coast magazines
+and newspapers, with the request that I should, if possible, secure
+further additions to them, and then make a selection of those which I
+considered the most notable and characteristic, for a single volume to
+be issued by him. I have reason to believe that this unfortunate man was
+actutated by a laudable desire to publish a pretty Californian book--HIS
+first essay in publication--and at the same time to foster Eastern
+immigration by an exhibit of the Californian literary product; but,
+looking back upon his venture, I am inclined to think that the little
+volume never contained anything more poetically pathetic or touchingly
+imaginative than that gentle conception. Equally simple and trustful
+was his selection of myself as compiler. It was based somewhat, I think,
+upon the fact that “the artless Helicon” I boasted “was Youth,” but I
+imagine it was chiefly owing to the circumstance that I had from the
+outset, with precocious foresight, confided to him my intention of not
+putting any of my own verses in the volume. Publishers are appreciative;
+and a self-abnegation so sublime, to say nothing of its security, was
+not without its effect.
+
+We settled to our work with fatuous self-complacency, and no suspicion
+of the trouble in store for us, or the storm that was to presently
+hurtle around our devoted heads. I winnowed the poems, and he exploited
+a preliminary announcement to an eager and waiting press, and we moved
+together unwittingly to our doom. I remember to have been early struck
+with the quantity of material coming in--evidently the result of some
+popular misunderstanding of the announcement. I found myself in daily
+and hourly receipt of sere and yellow fragments, originally torn from
+some dead and gone newspaper, creased and seamed from long folding in
+wallet or pocketbook. Need I say that most of them were of an emotional
+or didactic nature; need I add any criticism of these homely souvenirs,
+often discolored by the morning coffee, the evening tobacco, or, heaven
+knows! perhaps blotted by too easy tears! Enough that I knew now what
+had become of those original but never recopied verses which filled the
+“Poet's Corner” of every country newspaper on the coast. I knew now
+the genesis of every didactic verse that “coldly furnished forth the
+marriage table” in the announcement of weddings in the rural press. I
+knew now who had read--and possibly indited--the dreary hic jacets of
+the dead in their mourning columns. I knew now why certain letters
+of the alphabet had been more tenderly considered than others, and
+affectionately addressed. I knew the meaning of the “Lines to Her who
+can best understand them,” and I knew that they HAD been understood.
+The morning's post buried my table beneath these withered leaves of
+posthumous passion. They lay there like the pathetic nosegays of
+quickly fading wild flowers, gathered by school children, inconsistently
+abandoned upon roadsides, or as inconsistently treasured as limp and
+flabby superstitions in their desks. The chill wind from the Bay blowing
+in at the window seemed to rustle them into sad articulate appeal. I
+remember that when one of them was whisked from the window by a stronger
+gust than usual, and was attaining a circulation it had never known
+before, I ran a block or two to recover it. I was young then, and in an
+exalted sense of editorial responsibility which I have since survived,
+I think I turned pale at the thought that the reputation of some unknown
+genius might have thus been swept out and swallowed by the all-absorbing
+sea.
+
+There were other difficulties arising from this unexpected wealth of
+material. There were dozens of poems on the same subject. “The Golden
+Gate,” “Mount Shasta,” “The Yosemite,” were especially provocative. A
+beautiful bird known as the “Californian Canary” appeared to have been
+shot at and winged by every poet from Portland to San Diego. Lines to
+the “Mariposa” flower were as thick as the lovely blossoms themselves in
+the Merced valley, and the Madrone tree was as “berhymed” as Rosalind.
+Again, by a liberal construction of the publisher's announcement,
+MANUSCRIPT poems, which had never known print, began to coyly unfold
+their virgin blossoms in the morning's mail. They were accompanied by
+a few lines stating, casually, that their sender had found them lying
+forgotten in his desk, or, mendaciously, that they were “thrown off” on
+the spur of the moment a few hours before. Some of the names appended
+to them astonished me. Grave, practical business men, sage financiers,
+fierce speculators, and plodding traders, never before suspected of
+poetry, or even correct prose, were among the contributors. It seemed as
+if most of the able-bodied inhabitants of the Pacific Coast had been in
+the habit at some time of expressing themselves in verse. Some sought
+confidential interviews with the editor. The climax was reached when,
+in Montgomery Street, one day, I was approached by a well known and
+venerable judicial magnate. After some serious preliminary conversation,
+the old gentleman finally alluded to what he was pleased to call a task
+of “great delicacy and responsibility laid upon my young shoulders.”
+ “In fact,” he went on paternally, adding the weight of his judicial
+hand to that burden, “I have thought of speaking to you about it. In
+my leisure moments on the Bench I have, from time to time, polished and
+perfected a certain college poem begun years ago, but which may now be
+said to have been finished in California, and thus embraced in the scope
+of your proposed selection. If a few extracts, selected by myself, to
+save you all trouble and responsibility, be of any benefit to you, my
+dear young friend, consider them at your service.”
+
+In this fashion the contributions had increased to three times the
+bulk of the original collection, and the difficulties of selection
+were augmented in proportion. The editor and publisher eyed each other
+aghast. “Never thought there were so many of the blamed things alive,”
+ said the latter with great simplicity, “had you?” The editor had not.
+“Couldn't you sorter shake 'em up and condense 'em, you know? keep their
+ideas--and their names--separate, so that they'd have proper credit.
+See?” The editor pointed out that this would infringe the rule he had
+laid down. “I see,” said the publisher thoughtfully; “well, couldn't
+you pare 'em down; give the first verse entire and sorter sample the
+others?” The editor thought not. There was clearly nothing to do but to
+make a more rigid selection--a difficult performance when the material
+was uniformly on a certain dead level, which it is not necessary to
+define here. Among the rejections were, of course, the usual plagiarisms
+from well-known authors imposed upon an inexperienced country press;
+several admirable pieces detected as acrostics of patent medicines,
+and certain veiled libels and indecencies such as mark the “first”
+ publications on blank walls and fences of the average youth. Still the
+bulk remained too large, and the youthful editor set to work reducing
+it still more with a sympathizing concern which the good-natured, but
+unliterary, publisher failed to understand, and which, alas! proved to
+be equally unappreciated by the rejected contributors.
+
+The book appeared--a pretty little volume typographically, and
+externally a credit to pioneer book-making. Copies were liberally
+supplied to the press, and authors and publishers self-complacently
+awaited the result. To the latter this should have been satisfactory;
+the book sold readily from his well-known counters to purchasers who
+seemed to be drawn by a singular curiosity, unaccompanied, however, by
+any critical comment. People would lounge in to the shop, turn over the
+leaves of other volumes, say carelessly, “Got a new book of California
+poetry out, haven't you?” purchase it, and quietly depart. There were
+as yet no notices from the press; the big dailies were silent; there was
+something ominous in this calm.
+
+Out of it the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I here
+poetically veil under the title of the Red Dog “Jay Hawk,” was first to
+swoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-end
+of fastidious and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting to
+recall the direct style of the Californian “sixties.” “The hogwash and
+'purp'-stuff ladled out from the slop-bucket of Messrs. ---- and Co., of
+'Frisco, by some lop-eared Eastern apprentice, and called 'A Compilation
+of Californian Verse,' might be passed over, so far as criticism goes. A
+club in the hands of any able-bodied citizen of Red Dog, and a steamboat
+ticket to the Bay, cheerfully contributed from this office, would
+be all-sufficient. But when an imported greenhorn dares to call his
+flapdoodle mixture 'Californian,' it is an insult to the State that has
+produced the gifted 'Yellow Hammer,' whose lofty flights have from time
+to time dazzled our readers in the columns of the 'Jay Hawk.' That this
+complacent editorial jackass, browsing among the dock and thistles which
+he has served up in this volume, should make no allusion to California's
+greatest bard, is rather a confession of his idiocy than a slur upon the
+genius of our esteemed contributor.” I turned hurriedly to my pile of
+rejected contributions--the nom de plume of “Yellow Hammer” did NOT
+appear among them; certainly I had never heard of its existence. Later,
+when a friend showed me one of that gifted bard's pieces, I was inwardly
+relieved! It was so like the majority of the other verses, in and out of
+the volume, that the mysterious poet might have written under a hundred
+aliases. But the Dutch Flat “Clarion,” following, with no uncertain
+sound, left me small time for consideration. “We doubt,” said that
+journal, “if a more feeble collection of drivel could have been made,
+even if taken exclusively from the editor's own verses, which we note he
+has, by an equal editorial incompetency, left out of the volume. When
+we add that, by a felicity of idiotic selection, this person has chosen
+only one, and the least characteristic, of the really clever poems of
+Adoniram Skaggs, which have so often graced these columns, we have
+said enough to satisfy our readers.” The Mormon Hill “Quartz Crusher”
+ relieved this simple directness with more fancy: “We don't know
+why Messrs. ---- and Co. send us, under the title of 'Selections of
+Californian Poetry,' a quantity of slumgullion which really belongs
+to the sluices of a placer mining camp, or the ditches of the rural
+districts. We have sometimes been compelled to run a lot of tailings
+through our stamps, but never of the grade of the samples offered,
+which, we should say, would average about 33-1/3 cents per ton. We have,
+however, come across a single specimen of pure gold evidently overlooked
+by the serene ass who has compiled this volume. We copy it with
+pleasure, as it has already shone in the 'Poet's Corner' of the
+'Crusher' as the gifted effusion of the talented Manager of the
+Excelsior Mill, otherwise known to our delighted readers as 'Outcrop.'”
+ The Green Springs “Arcadian” was no less fanciful in imagery: “Messrs.
+---- and Co. send us a gaudy green-and-yellow, parrot-colored volume,
+which is supposed to contain the first callow 'cheepings' and 'peepings'
+of Californian songsters. From the flavor of the specimens before us we
+should say that the nest had been disturbed prematurely. There seems to
+be a good deal of the parrot inside as well as outside the covers, and
+we congratulate our own sweet singer 'Blue Bird,' who has so often made
+these columns melodious, that she has escaped the ignominy of being
+exhibited in Messrs. ---- and Co.'s aviary.” I should add that this
+simile of the aviary and its occupants was ominous, for my tuneful choir
+was relentlessly slaughtered; the bottom of the cage was strewn with
+feathers! The big dailies collected the criticisms and published them
+in their own columns with the grim irony of exaggerated head-lines. The
+book sold tremendously on account of this abuse, but I am afraid that
+the public was disappointed. The fun and interest lay in the criticisms,
+and not in any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather commonplace
+collection, and I fear I cannot claim for it even that merit. And it
+will be observed that the animus of the criticism appeared to be the
+omission rather than the retention of certain writers.
+
+But this brings me to the most extraordinary feature of this singular
+demonstration. I do not think that the publishers were at all troubled
+by it; I cannot conscientiously say that I was; I have every reason to
+believe that the poets themselves, in and out of the volume, were not
+displeased at the notoriety they had not expected, and I have long since
+been convinced that my most remorseless critics were not in earnest, but
+were obeying some sudden impulse started by the first attacking journal.
+The extravagance of the Red Dog “Jay Hawk” was emulated by others:
+it was a large, contagious joke, passed from journal to journal in
+a peculiar cyclonic Western fashion. And there still lingers, not
+unpleasantly, in my memory the conclusion of a cheerfully scathing
+review of the book which may make my meaning clearer: “If we have
+said anything in this article which might cause a single pang to the
+poetically sensitive nature of the youthful individual calling himself
+Mr. Francis Bret Harte--but who, we believe, occasionally parts his name
+and his hair in the middle--we will feel that we have not labored in
+vain, and are ready to sing Nunc Dimittis, and hand in our checks. We
+have no doubt of the absolutely pellucid and lacteal purity of Franky's
+intentions. He means well to the Pacific Coast, and we return the
+compliment. But he has strayed away from his parents and guardians while
+he was too fresh. He will not keep without a little salt.”
+
+It was thirty years ago. The book and its Rabelaisian criticisms have
+been long since forgotten. Alas! I fear that even the capacity for that
+Gargantuan laughter which met them, in those days, exists no longer.
+The names I have used are necessarily fictitious, but where I have been
+obliged to quote the criticisms from memory I have, I believe, only
+softened their asperity. I do not know that this story has any moral.
+The criticisms here recorded never hurt a reputation nor repressed a
+single honest aspiration. A few contributors to the volume, who were
+of original merit, have made their mark, independently of it or its
+critics. The editor, who was for two months the most abused man on the
+Pacific slope, within the year became the editor of its first successful
+magazine. Even the publisher prospered, and died respected!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other
+Stories, by Bret Harte
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