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diff --git a/2692.txt b/2692.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7527ba2 --- /dev/null +++ b/2692.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6389 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Protegee of Jack Hamlin'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: A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories + +Author: Bret Harte + +Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2692] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S + +by Bret Harte + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S + +AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS + +THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY + +THE HEIR OF THE McHULISHES + +AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS + +THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES + + + + +A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S. + + +I. + +The steamer Silveropolis was sharply and steadily cleaving the broad, +placid shallows of the Sacramento River. A large wave like an eagre, +diverging from its bow, was extending to either bank, swamping the tules +and threatening to submerge the lower levees. The great boat itself--a +vast but delicate structure of airy stories, hanging galleries, fragile +colonnades, gilded cornices, and resplendent frescoes--was throbbing +throughout its whole perilous length with the pulse of high pressure and +the strong monotonous beat of a powerful piston. Floods of foam pouring +from the high paddle-boxes on either side and reuniting in the wake of +the boat left behind a track of dazzling whiteness, over which trailed +two dense black banners flung from its lofty smokestacks. + +Mr. Jack Hamlin had quietly emerged from his stateroom on deck and was +looking over the guards. His hands were resting lightly on his hips over +the delicate curves of his white waistcoat, and he was whistling softly, +possibly some air to which he had made certain card-playing passengers +dance the night before. He was in comfortable case, and his soft brown +eyes under their long lashes were veiled with gentle tolerance of all +things. He glanced lazily along the empty hurricane deck forward; he +glanced lazily down to the saloon deck below him. Far out against the +guards below him leaned a young girl. Mr. Hamlin knitted his brows +slightly. + +He remembered her at once. She had come on board that morning with one +Ned Stratton, a brother gambler, but neither a favorite nor intimate of +Jack's. From certain indications in the pair, Jack had inferred that she +was some foolish or reckless creature whom "Ed" had "got on a string," +and was spiriting away from her friends and family. With the abstract +morality of this situation Jack was not in the least concerned. For +himself he did not indulge in that sort of game; the inexperience and +vacillations of innocence were apt to be bothersome, and besides, a +certain modest doubt of his own competency to make an original selection +had always made him prefer to confine his gallantries to the wives of +men of greater judgment than himself who had. But it suddenly occurred +to him that he had seen Stratton quickly slip off the boat at the last +landing stage. Ah! that was it; he had cast away and deserted her. +It was an old story. Jack smiled. But he was not greatly amused with +Stratton. + +She was very pale, and seemed to be clinging to the network railing, +as if to support herself, although she was gazing fixedly at the yellow +glancing current below, which seemed to be sucked down and swallowed +in the paddle-box as the boat swept on. It certainly was a fascinating +sight--this sloping rapid, hurrying on to bury itself under the crushing +wheels. For a brief moment Jack saw how they would seize anything +floating on that ghastly incline, whirl it round in one awful revolution +of the beating paddles, and then bury it, broken and shattered out of +all recognition, deep in the muddy undercurrent of the stream behind +them. + +She moved away presently with an odd, stiff step, chafing her gloved +hands together as if they had become stiffened too in her rigid grasp +of the railing. Jack leisurely watched her as she moved along the narrow +strip of deck. She was not at all to his taste,--a rather plump girl +with a rustic manner and a great deal of brown hair under her straw +hat. She might have looked better had she not been so haggard. When she +reached the door of the saloon she paused, and then, turning suddenly, +began to walk quickly back again. As she neared the spot where she had +been standing her pace slackened, and when she reached the railing she +seemed to relapse against it in her former helpless fashion. Jack became +lazily interested. Suddenly she lifted her head and cast a quick glance +around and above her. In that momentary lifting of her face Jack saw her +expression. Whatever it was, his own changed instantly; the next moment +there was a crash on the lower deck. It was Jack who had swung himself +over the rail and dropped ten feet, to her side. But not before she had +placed one foot in the meshes of the netting and had gripped the railing +for a spring. + +The noise of Jack's fall might have seemed to her bewildered fancy as a +part of her frantic act, for she fell forward vacantly on the railing. +But by this time Jack had grasped her arm as if to help himself to his +feet. + +"I might have killed myself by that foolin', mightn't I?" he said +cheerfully. + +The sound of a voice so near her seemed to recall to her dazed sense the +uncompleted action his fall had arrested. She made a convulsive bound +towards the railing, but Jack held her fast. + +"Don't," he said in a low voice, "don't, it won't pay. It's the sickest +game that ever was played by man or woman. Come here!" + +He drew her towards an empty stateroom whose door was swinging on its +hinges a few feet from them. She was trembling violently; he half led, +half pushed her into the room, closed the door and stood with his back +against it as she dropped into a chair. She looked at him vacantly; the +agitation she was undergoing inwardly had left her no sense of outward +perception. + +"You know Stratton would be awfully riled," continued Jack easily. "He's +just stepped out to see a friend and got left by the fool boat. He'll be +along by the next steamer, and you're bound to meet him in Sacramento." + +Her staring eyes seemed suddenly to grasp his meaning. But to his +surprise she burst out with a certain hysterical desperation, "No! no! +Never! NEVER again! Let me pass! I must go," and struggled to regain +the door. Jack, albeit singularly relieved to know that she shared +his private sentiments regarding Stratton, nevertheless resisted her. +Whereat she suddenly turned white, reeled back, and sank in a dead faint +in the chair. + +The gambler turned, drew the key from the inside of the door, passed +out, locking it behind him, and walked leisurely into the main saloon. +"Mrs. Johnson," he said gravely, addressing the stewardess, a tall +mulatto, with his usual winsome supremacy over dependents and children, +"you'll oblige me if you'll corral a few smelling salts, vinaigrettes, +hairpins, and violet powder, and unload them in deck stateroom No. 257. +There's a lady"-- + +"A lady, Marse Hamlin?" interrupted the mulatto, with an archly +significant flash of her white teeth. + +"A lady," continued Jack with unabashed gravity, "in a sort of +conniption fit. A relative of mine; in fact a niece, my only sister's +child. Hadn't seen each other for ten years, and it was too much for +her." + +The woman glanced at him with a mingling of incredulous belief, but +delighted obedience, hurriedly gathered a few articles from her cabin, +and followed him to No. 257. The young girl was still unconscious. The +stewardess applied a few restoratives with the skill of long experience, +and the young girl opened her eyes. They turned vacantly from the +stewardess to Jack with a look of half recognition and half frightened +inquiry. "Yes," said Jack, addressing the eyes, although ostentatiously +speaking to Mrs. Johnson, "she'd only just come by steamer to 'Frisco +and wasn't expecting to see me, and we dropped right into each other +here on the boat. And I haven't seen her since she was so high. Sister +Mary ought to have warned me by letter; but she was always a slouch at +letter writing. There, that'll do, Mrs. Johnson. She's coming round; I +reckon I can manage the rest. But you go now and tell the purser I want +one of those inside staterooms for my niece,--MY NIECE, you hear,--so +that you can be near her and look after her." + +As the stewardess turned obediently away the young girl attempted to +rise, but Jack checked her. "No," he said, almost brusquely; "you and +I have some talking to do before she gets back, and we've no time for +foolin'. You heard what I told her just now! Well, it's got to be as I +said, you sabe. As long as you're on this boat you're my niece, and my +sister Mary's child. As I haven't got any sister Mary, you don't run any +risk of falling foul of her, and you ain't taking any one's place. That +settles that. Now, do you or do you not want to see that man again? Say +yes, and if he's anywhere above ground I'll yank him over to you as soon +as we touch shore." He had no idea of interfering with his colleague's +amours, but he had determined to make Stratton pay for the bother their +slovenly sequence had caused him. Yet he was relieved and astonished +by her frantic gesture of indignation and abhorrence. "No?" he repeated +grimly. "Well, that settles that. Now, look here; quick, before she +comes--do you want to go back home to your friends?" + +But here occurred what he had dreaded most and probably thought he had +escaped. She had stared at him, at the stewardess, at the walls, with +abstracted, vacant, and bewildered, but always undimmed and unmoistened +eyes. A sudden convulsion shook her whole frame, her blank expression +broke like a shattered mirror, she threw her hands over her eyes and +fell forward with her face to the back of her chair in an outburst of +tears. + +Alas for Jack! with the breaking up of those sealed fountains came her +speech also, at first disconnected and incoherent, and then despairing +and passionate. No! she had no longer friends or home! She had lost and +disgraced them! She had disgraced HERSELF! There was no home for her +but the grave. Why had Jack snatched her from it? Then, bit by bit, +she yielded up her story,--a story decidedly commonplace to Jack, +uninteresting, and even irritating to his fastidiousness. She was a +schoolgirl (not even a convent girl, but the inmate of a Presbyterian +female academy at Napa. Jack shuddered as he remembered to have once +seen certain of the pupils walking with a teacher), and she lived with +her married sister. She had seen Stratton while going to and fro on +the San Francisco boat; she had exchanged notes with him, had met him +secretly, and finally consented to elope with him to Sacramento, only +to discover when the boat had left the wharf the real nature of his +intentions. Jack listened with infinite weariness and inward chafing. He +had read all this before in cheap novelettes, in the police reports, in +the Sunday papers; he had heard a street preacher declaim against +it, and warn young women of the serpent-like wiles of tempters of the +Stratton variety. But even now Jack failed to recognize Stratton as a +serpent, or indeed anything but a blundering cheat and clown, who had +left his dirty 'prentice work on his (Jack's) hands. But the girl was +helpless and, it seemed, homeless, all through a certain desperation +of feeling which, in spite of her tears, he could not but respect. That +momentary shadow of death had exalted her. He stroked his mustache, +pulled down his white waistcoat and her cry, without saying anything. +He did not know that this most objectionable phase of her misery was her +salvation and his own. + +But the stewardess would return in a moment. "You'd better tell me what +to call you," he said quietly. "I ought to know my niece's first name." + +The girl caught her breath, and, between two sobs, said, "Sophonisba." + +Jack winced. It seemed only to need this last sentimental touch to +complete the idiotic situation. "I'll call you Sophy," he said hurriedly +and with an effort. + +"And now look here! You are going in that cabin with Mrs. Johnson where +she can look after you, but I can't. So I'll have to take your word, for +I'm not going to give you away before Mrs. Johnson, that you won't try +that foolishness--you know what I mean--before I see you again. Can I +trust you?" + +With her head still bowed over the chair back, she murmured slowly +somewhere from under her disheveled hair:-- + +"Yes." + +"Honest Injin?" adjured Jack gravely. + +"Yes." + +The shuffling step of the stewardess was heard slowly approaching. +"Yes," continued Jack abruptly, lightly lifting his voice as Mrs. +Johnson opened the door,--"yes, if you'd only had some of those +spearmint drops of your aunt Rachel's that she always gave you when +these fits came on you'd have been all right inside of five minutes. +Aunty was no slouch of a doctor, was she? Dear me, it only seems +yesterday since I saw her. You were just playing round her knee like +a kitten on the back porch. How time does fly! But here's Mrs. Johnson +coming to take you in. Now rouse up, Sophy, and just hook yourself on to +Mrs. Johnson on that side, and we'll toddle along." + +The young girl put back her heavy hair, and with her face still averted +submitted to be helped to her feet by the kindly stewardess. Perhaps +something homely sympathetic and nurse-like in the touch of the mulatto +gave her assurance and confidence, for her head lapsed quite naturally +against the woman's shoulder, and her face was partly hidden as she +moved slowly along the deck. Jack accompanied them to the saloon and the +inner stateroom door. A few passengers gathered curiously near, as much +attracted by the unusual presence of Jack Hamlin in such a procession +as by the girl herself. "You'll look after her specially, Mrs. Johnson," +said Jack, in unusually deliberate terms. "She's been a good deal petted +at home, and my sister perhaps has rather spoilt her. She's pretty much +of a child still, and you'll have to humor her. Sophy," he continued, +with ostentatious playfulness, directing his voice into the dim recesses +of the stateroom, "you'll just think Mrs. Johnson's your old nurse, +won't you? Think it's old Katy, hey?" + +To his great consternation the girl approached tremblingly from the +inner shadow. The faintest and saddest of smiles for a moment played +around the corners of her drawn mouth and tear-dimmed eyes as she held +out her hand and said:-- + +"God bless you for being so kind." + +Jack shuddered and glanced quickly round. But luckily no one heard this +crushing sentimentalism, and the next moment the door closed upon her +and Mrs. Johnson. + +It was past midnight, and the moon was riding high over the narrowing +yellow river, when Jack again stepped out on deck. He had just left the +captain's cabin, and a small social game with the officers, which +had served to some extent to vaguely relieve his irritation and +their pockets. He had presumably quite forgotten the incident of the +afternoon, as he looked about him, and complacently took in the quiet +beauty of the night. + +The low banks on either side offered no break to the uninterrupted level +of the landscape, through which the river seemed to wind only as a race +track for the rushing boat. Every fibre of her vast but fragile bulk +quivered under the goad of her powerful engines. There was no other +movement but hers, no other sound but this monstrous beat and panting; +the whole tranquil landscape seemed to breathe and pulsate with her; +dwellers in the tules, miles away, heard and felt her as she passed, and +it seemed to Jack, leaning over the railing, as if the whole river swept +like a sluice through her paddle-boxes. + +Jack had quite unconsciously lounged before that part of the railing +where the young girl had leaned a few hours ago. As he looked down upon +the streaming yellow mill-race below him, he noticed--what neither he +nor the girl had probably noticed before--that a space of the top bar of +the railing was hinged, and could be lifted by withdrawing a small +bolt, thus giving easy access to the guards. He was still looking at it, +whistling softly, when footsteps approached. + +"Jack," said a lazy voice, "how's sister Mary?" + +"It's a long time since you've seen her only child, Jack, ain't it?" +said a second voice; "and yet it sort o' seems to me somehow that I've +seen her before." + +Jack recognized the voice of two of his late companions at the +card-table. His whistling ceased; so also dropped every trace of color +and expression from his handsome face. But he did not turn, and remained +quietly gazing at the water. + +"Aunt Rachel, too, must be getting on in years, Jack," continued the +first speaker, halting behind Jack. + +"And Mrs. Johnson does not look so much like Sophy's old nurse as +she used to," remarked the second, following his example. Still Jack +remained unmoved. + +"You don't seem to be interested, Jack," continued the first speaker. +"What are you looking at?" + +Without turning his head the gambler replied, "Looking at the boat; +she's booming along, just chawing up and spitting out the river, ain't +she? Look at that sweep of water going under her paddle-wheels," he +continued, unbolting the rail and lifting it to allow the two men to +peer curiously over the guards as he pointed to the murderous incline +beneath them; "a man wouldn't stand much show who got dropped into it. +How these paddles would just snatch him bald-headed, pick him up and +slosh him round and round, and then sling him out down there in such a +shape that his own father wouldn't know him." + +"Yes," said the first speaker, with an ostentatious little laugh, "but +all that ain't telling us how sister Mary is." + +"No," said the gambler slipping into the opening with a white and rigid +face in which nothing seemed living but the eyes, "no, but it's telling +you how two d----d fools who didn't know when to shut their mouths might +get them shut once and forever. It's telling you what might happen to +two men who tried to 'play' a man who didn't care to be 'played,'--a man +who didn't care much what he did, when he did it, or how he did it, but +would do what he'd set out to do--even if in doing it he went to hell +with the men he sent there." + +He had stepped out on the guards, beside the two men, closing the rail +behind him. He had placed his hands on their shoulders; they had both +gripped his arms; yet, viewed from the deck above, they seemed at that +moment an amicable, even fraternal group, albeit the faces of the three +were dead white in the moonlight. + +"I don't think I'm so very much interested in sister Mary," said the +first speaker quietly, after a pause. + +"And I don't seem to think so much of aunt Rachel as I did," said his +companion. + +"I thought you wouldn't," said Jack, coolly reopening the rail and +stepping back again. "It all depends upon the way you look at those +things. Good-night." + +"Good-night." + +The three men paused, shook each other's hands silently, and separated, +Jack sauntering slowly back to his stateroom. + + +II. + + +The educational establishment of Mrs. Mix and Madame Bance, situated +in the best quarter of Sacramento and patronized by the highest state +officials and members of the clergy, was a pretty if not an imposing +edifice. Although surrounded by a high white picket fence and entered +through a heavily boarded gate, its balconies festooned with jasmine +and roses, and its spotlessly draped windows as often graced with fresh, +flower-like faces, were still plainly and provokingly visible above the +ostentatious spikes of the pickets. Nevertheless, Mr. Jack Hamlin, who +had six months before placed his niece, Miss Sophonisba Brown, under +its protecting care, felt a degree of uneasiness, even bordering on +timidity, which was new to that usually self-confident man. Remembering +how his first appearance had fluttered this dovecote and awakened a +severe suspicion in the minds of the two principals, he had discarded +his usual fashionable attire and elegantly fitting garments for a rough, +homespun suit, supposed to represent a homely agriculturist, but which +had the effect of transforming him into an adorable Strephon, infinitely +more dangerous in his rustic shepherd-like simplicity. He had also +shaved off his silken mustache for the same prudential reasons, but had +only succeeded in uncovering the delicate lines of his handsome +mouth, and so absurdly reducing his apparent years that his avuncular +pretensions seemed more preposterous than ever; and when he had rung +the bell and was admitted by a severe Irish waiting-maid, his momentary +hesitation and half humorous diffidence had such an unexpected effect +upon her, that it seemed doubtful if he would be allowed to pass beyond +the vestibule. "Shure, miss," she said in a whisper to an under teacher, +"there's wan at the dhure who calls himself, 'Mister' Hamlin, but av it +is not a young lady maskeradin' in her brother's clothes Oim very much +mistaken; and av it's a boy, one of the pupil's brothers, shure ye might +put a dhress on him when you take the others out for a walk, and he'd +pass for the beauty of the whole school." + +Meantime, the unconscious subject of this criticism was pacing somewhat +uneasily up and down the formal reception room into which he had been +finally ushered. Its farther end was filled by an enormous parlor organ, +a number of music books, and a cheerfully variegated globe. A large +presentation Bible, an equally massive illustrated volume on the Holy +Land, a few landscapes in cold, bluish milk and water colors, and rigid +heads in crayons--the work of pupils--were presumably ornamental. An +imposing mahogany sofa and what seemed to be a disproportionate excess +of chairs somewhat coldly furnished the room. Jack had reluctantly +made up his mind that, if Sophy was accompanied by any one, he would be +obliged to kiss her to keep up his assumed relationship. As she entered +the room with Miss Mix, Jack advanced and soberly saluted her on the +cheek. But so positive and apparent was the gallantry of his presence, +and perhaps so suggestive of some pastoral flirtation, that Miss Mix, to +Jack's surprise, winced perceptibly and became stony. But he was still +more surprised that the young lady herself shrank half uneasily from his +lips, and uttered a slight exclamation. It was a new experience to Mr. +Hamlin. + +But this somewhat mollified Miss Mix, and she slightly relaxed her +austerity. She was glad to be able to give the best accounts of Miss +Brown, not only as regarded her studies, but as to her conduct and +deportment. Really, with the present freedom of manners and laxity of +home discipline in California, it was gratifying to meet a young lady +who seemed to value the importance of a proper decorum and behavior, +especially towards the opposite sex. Mr. Hamlin, although her guardian, +was perhaps too young to understand and appreciate this. To this +inexperience she must also attribute the indiscretion of his calling +during school hours and without preliminary warning. She trusted, +however, that this informality could be overlooked after consultation +with Madame Bance, but in the mean time, perhaps for half an hour, she +must withdraw Miss Brown and return with her to the class. Mr. Hamlin +could wait in this public room, reserved especially for visitors, until +they returned. Or, if he cared to accompany one of the teachers in a +formal inspection of the school, she added, doubtfully, with a glance +at Jack's distracting attractions, she would submit this also to Madame +Bance. + +"Thank you, thank you," returned Jack hurriedly, as a depressing vision +of the fifty or sixty scholars rose before his eyes, "but I'd rather +not. I mean, you know, I'd just as lief stay here ALONE. I wouldn't have +called anyway, don't you see, only I had a day off,--and--and--I wanted +to talk with my niece on family matters." He did not say that he had +received a somewhat distressful letter from her asking him to come; a +new instinct made him cautious. + +Considerably relieved by Jack's unexpected abstention, which seemed to +spare her pupils the distraction of his graces, Miss Mix smiled more +amicably and retired with her charge. In the single glance he had +exchanged with Sophy he saw that, although resigned and apparently +self-controlled, she still appeared thoughtful and melancholy. She had +improved in appearance and seemed more refined and less rustic in her +school dress, but he was conscious of the same distinct separation of +her personality (which was uninteresting to him) from the sentiment that +had impelled him to visit her. She was possibly still hankering after +that fellow Stratton, in spite of her protestations to the contrary; +perhaps she wanted to go back to her sister, although she had declared +she would die first, and had always refused to disclose her real name +or give any clue by which he could have traced her relations. She would +cry, of course; he almost hoped that she would not return alone; he half +regretted he had come. She still held him only by a single quality +of her nature,--the desperation she had shown on the boat; that was +something he understood and respected. + +He walked discontentedly to the window and looked out; he walked +discontentedly to the end of the room and stopped before the organ. +It was a fine instrument; he could see that with an admiring and +experienced eye. He was alone in the room; in fact, quite alone in that +part of the house which was separated from the class-rooms. He would +disturb no one by trying it. And if he did, what then? He smiled a +little recklessly, slowly pulled off his gloves, and sat down before it. + +He played cautiously at first, with the soft pedal down. The instrument +had never known a strong masculine hand before, having been fumbled and +friveled over by softly incompetent, feminine fingers. But presently it +began to thrill under the passionate hand of its lover, and carried away +by his one innocent weakness, Jack was launched upon a sea of musical +reminiscences. Scraps of church music, Puritan psalms of his boyhood; +dying strains from sad, forgotten operas, fragments of oratorios and +symphonies, but chiefly phases from old masses heard at the missions +of San Pedro and Santa Isabel, swelled up from his loving and masterful +fingers. He had finished an Agnus Dei; the formal room was pulsating +with divine aspiration; the rascal's hands were resting listlessly on +the keys, his brown lashes lifted, in an effort of memory, tenderly +towards the ceiling. + +Suddenly, a subdued murmur of applause and a slight rustle behind him +recalled him to himself again. He wheeled his chair quickly round. The +two principals of the school and half a dozen teachers were standing +gravely behind him, and at the open door a dozen curled and frizzled +youthful heads peered in eagerly, but half restrained by their teachers. +The relaxed features and apologetic attitude of Madame Bance and Miss +Mix showed that Mr. Hamlin had unconsciously achieved a triumph. + +He might not have been as pleased to know that his extraordinary +performance had solved a difficulty, effaced his other graces, and +enabled them to place him on the moral pedestal of a mere musician, to +whom these eccentricities were allowable and privileged. He shared the +admiration extended by the young ladies to their music teacher, which +was always understood to be a sexless enthusiasm and a contagious +juvenile disorder. It was also a fine advertisement for the organ. +Madame Bance smiled blandly, improved the occasion by thanking Mr. +Hamlin for having given the scholars a gratuitous lesson on the +capabilities of the instrument, and was glad to be able to give Miss +Brown a half-holiday to spend with her accomplished relative. Miss Brown +was even now upstairs, putting on her hat and mantle. Jack was relieved. +Sophy would not attempt to cry on the street. + +Nevertheless, when they reached it and the gate closed behind them, he +again became uneasy. The girl's clouded face and melancholy manner were +not promising. It also occurred to him that he might meet some one who +knew him and thus compromise her. This was to be avoided at all hazards. +He began with forced gayety:-- + +"Well, now, where shall we go?" + +She slightly raised her tear-dimmed eyes. "Where you please--I don't +care." + +"There isn't any show going on here, is there?" He had a vague idea of a +circus or menagerie--himself behind her in the shadow of the box. + +"I don't know of any." + +"Or any restaurant--or cake shop?" + +"There's a place where the girls go to get candy on Main Street. Some of +them are there now." + +Jack shuddered; this was not to be thought of. "But where do you walk?" + +"Up and down Main Street." + +"Where everybody can see you?" said Jack, scandalized. + +The girl nodded. + +They walked on in silence for a few moments. Then a bright idea struck +Mr. Hamlin. He suddenly remembered that in one of his many fits +of impulsive generosity and largesse he had given to an old negro +retainer--whose wife had nursed him through a dangerous illness--a house +and lot on the river bank. He had been told that they had opened a small +laundry or wash-house. It occurred to him that a stroll there and a +call upon "Uncle Hannibal and Aunt Chloe" combined the propriety and +respectability due to the young person he was with, and the requisite +secrecy and absence of publicity due to himself. He at once suggested +it. + +"You see she was a mighty good woman and you ought to know her, for she +was my old nurse"-- + +The girl glanced at him with a sudden impatience. + +"Honest Injin," said Jack solemnly; "she did nurse me through my last +cough. I ain't playing old family gags on you now." + +"Oh, dear," burst out the girl impulsively, "I do wish you wouldn't ever +play them again. I wish you wouldn't pretend to be my uncle; I wish you +wouldn't make me pass for your niece. It isn't right. It's all wrong. +Oh, don't you know it's all wrong, and can't come right any way? It's +just killing me. I can't stand it. I'd rather you'd say what I am and +how I came to you and how you pitied me." + +They had luckily entered a narrow side street, and the sobs which shook +the young girl's frame were unnoticed. For a few moments Jack felt a +horrible conviction stealing over him, that in his present attitude +towards her he was not unlike that hound Stratton, and that, however +innocent his own intent, there was a sickening resemblance to the +situation on the boat in the base advantage he had taken of her +friendlessness. He had never told her that he was a gambler like +Stratton, and that his peculiarly infelix reputation among women made it +impossible for him to assist her, except by a stealth or the deception +he had practiced, without compromising her. He who had for years faced +the sneers and half-frightened opposition of the world dared not tell +the truth to this girl, from whom he expected nothing and who did not +interest him. He felt he was almost slinking at her side. At last he +said desperately:-- + +"But I snatched them bald-headed at the organ, Sophy, didn't I?" + +"Oh yes," said the girl, "you played beautifully and grandly. It was so +good of you, too. For I think, somehow, Madame Bance had been a little +suspicious of you, but that settled it. Everybody thought it was fine, +and some thought it was your profession. Perhaps," she added timidly, +"it is?" + +"I play a good deal, I reckon," said Jack, with a grim humor which did +not, however, amuse him. + +"I wish I could, and make money by it," said the girl eagerly. Jack +winced, but she did not notice it as she went on hurriedly: "That's what +I wanted to talk to you about. I want to leave the school and make my +own living. Anywhere where people won't know me and where I can be alone +and work. I shall die here among these girls--with all their talk of +their friends and their--sisters,--and their questions about you." + +"Tell 'em to dry up," said Jack indignantly. "Take 'em to the cake shop +and load 'em up with candy and ice cream. That'll stop their mouths. +You've got money, you got my last remittance, didn't you?" he repeated +quickly. "If you didn't, here's"--his hand was already in his pocket +when she stopped him with a despairing gesture. + +"Yes, yes, I got it all. I haven't touched it. I don't want it. For I +can't live on you. Don't you understand,--I want to work. Listen,--I can +draw and paint. Madame Bance says I do it well; my drawing-master says +I might in time take portraits and get paid for it. And even now I can +retouch photographs and make colored miniatures from them. And," she +stopped and glanced at Jack half-timidly, "I've--done some already." + +A glow of surprised relief suffused the gambler. Not so much at this +astonishing revelation as at the change it seemed to effect in her. Her +pale blue eyes, made paler by tears, cleared and brightened under +their swollen lids like wiped steel; the lines of her depressed mouth +straightened and became firm. Her voice had lost its hopeless monotone. + +"There's a shop in the next street,--a photographer's,--where they +have one of mine in their windows," she went on, reassured by Jack's +unaffected interest. "It's only round the corner, if you care to see." + +Jack assented; a few paces farther brought them to the corner of a +narrow street, where they presently turned into a broader thoroughfare +and stopped before the window of a photographer. Sophy pointed to an +oval frame, containing a portrait painted on porcelain. Mr. Hamlin was +startled. Inexperienced as he was, a certain artistic inclination +told him it was good, although it is to be feared he would have been +astonished even if it had been worse. The mere fact that this headstrong +country girl, who had run away with a cur like Stratton, should be able +to do anything else took him by surprise. + +"I got ten dollars for that," she said hesitatingly, "and I could have +got more for a larger one, but I had to do that in my room, during +recreation hours. If I had more time and a place where I could +work"--she stopped timidly and looked tentatively at Jack. But he was +already indulging in a characteristically reckless idea of coming back +after he had left Sophy, buying the miniature at an extravagant price, +and ordering half a dozen more at extraordinary figures. Here, however, +two passers-by, stopping ostensibly to look in the window, but really +attracted by the picturesque spectacle of the handsome young rustic and +his schoolgirl companion, gave Jack such a fright that he hurried +Sophy away again into the side street. "There's nothing mean about that +picture business," he said cheerfully; "it looks like a square kind of +game," and relapsed into thoughtful silence. + +At which, Sophy, the ice of restraint broken, again burst into +passionate appeal. If she could only go away somewhere--where she saw no +one but the people who would buy her work, who knew nothing of her past +nor cared to know who were her relations! She would work hard; she knew +she could support herself in time. She would keep the name he had given +her,--it was not distinctive enough to challenge any inquiry,--but +nothing more. She need not assume to be his niece; he would always be +her kind friend, to whom she owed everything, even her miserable life. +She trusted still to his honor never to seek to know her real name, nor +ever to speak to her of that man if he ever met him. It would do no good +to her or to them; it might drive her, for she was not yet quite sure of +herself, to do that which she had promised him never to do again. + +There was no threat, impatience, or acting in her voice, but he +recognized the same dull desperation he had once heard in it, and her +eyes, which a moment before were quick and mobile, had become fixed and +set. He had no idea of trying to penetrate the foolish secret of her +name and relations; he had never had the slightest curiosity, but it +struck him now that Stratton might at any time force it upon him. The +only way that he could prevent it was to let it be known that, for +unexpressed reasons, he would shoot Stratton "on sight." This would +naturally restrict any verbal communication between them. Jack's ideas +of morality were vague, but his convictions on points of honor were +singularly direct and positive. + + +III. + + +Meantime Hamlin and Sophy were passing the outskirts of the town; the +open lots and cleared spaces were giving way to grassy stretches, willow +copses, and groups of cottonwood and sycamore; and beyond the level of +yellowing tules appeared the fringed and raised banks of the river. +Half tropical looking cottages with deep verandas--the homes of early +Southern pioneers--took the place of incomplete blocks of modern +houses, monotonously alike. In these sylvan surroundings Mr. Hamlin's +picturesque rusticity looked less incongruous and more Arcadian; the +young girl had lost some of her restraint with her confidences, and +lounging together side by side, without the least consciousness of any +sentiment in their words or actions, they nevertheless contrived to +impress the spectator with the idea that they were a charming pair of +pastoral lovers. So strong was this impression that, as they approached +Aunt Chloe's laundry, a pretty rose-covered cottage with an enormous +whitewashed barn-like extension in the rear, the black proprietress +herself, standing at the door, called her husband to come and look at +them, and flashed her white teeth in such unqualified commendation +and patronage that Mr. Hamlin, withdrawing himself from Sophy's side, +instantly charged down upon them. + +"If you don't slide the lid back over that grinning box of dominoes of +yours and take it inside, I'll just carry Hannibal off with me," he said +in a quick whisper, with a half-wicked, half-mischievous glitter in his +brown eyes. "That young lady's--A LADY--do you understand? No riffraff +friend of mine, but a regular NUN--a saint--do you hear? So you just +stand back and let her take a good look round, and rest herself, until +she wants you." "Two black idiots, Miss Brown," he continued cheerfully +in a higher voice of explanation, as Sophy approached, "who think +because one of 'em used to shave me and the other saved my life they've +got a right to stand at their humble cottage door and frighten horses!" + +So great was Mr. Hamlin's ascendency over his former servants that even +this ingenious pleasantry was received with every sign of affection +and appreciation of the humorist, and of the profound respect for his +companion. Aunt Chloe showed them effusively into her parlor, a small +but scrupulously neat and sweet-smelling apartment, inordinately +furnished with a huge mahogany centre-table and chairs, and the most +fragile and meretricious china and glass ornaments on the mantel. But +the three jasmine-edged lattice windows opened upon a homely garden of +old-fashioned herbs and flowers, and their fragrance filled the room. +The cleanest and starchiest of curtains, the most dazzling and whitest +of tidies and chair-covers, bespoke the adjacent laundry; indeed, the +whole cottage seemed to exhale the odors of lavender soap and freshly +ironed linen. Yet the cottage was large for the couple and their +assistants. "Dar was two front rooms on de next flo' dat dey never +used," explained Aunt Chloe; "friends allowed dat dey could let 'em to +white folks, but dey had always been done kep' for Marse Hamlin, ef he +ever wanted to be wid his old niggers again." Jack looked up quickly +with a brightened face, made a sign to Hannibal, and the two left the +room together. + +When he came through the passage a few moments later, there was a sound +of laughter in the parlor. He recognized the full, round lazy chuckle of +Aunt Chloe, but there was a higher girlish ripple that he did not know. +He had never heard Sophy laugh before. Nor, when he entered, had he +ever seen her so animated. She was helping Chloe set the table, to that +lady's intense delight at "Missy's" girlish housewifery. She was picking +the berries fresh from the garden, buttering the Sally Lunn, making the +tea, and arranging the details of the repast with apparently no trace +of her former discontent and unhappiness in either face or manner. He +dropped quietly into a chair by the window, and, with the homely scents +of the garden mixing with the honest odors of Aunt Chloe's cookery, +watched her with an amusement that was as pleasant and grateful as it +was strange and unprecedented. + +"Now den," said Aunt Chloe to her husband, as she put the finishing +touch to the repast in a plate of doughnuts as exquisitely brown and +shining as Jack's eyes were at that moment, "Hannibal, you just come +away, and let dem two white quality chillens have dey tea. Dey's done +starved, shuah." And with an approving nod to Jack, she bundled her +husband from the room. + +The door closed; the young girl began to pour out the tea, but Jack +remained in his seat by the window. It was a singular sensation which +he did not care to disturb. It was no new thing for Mr. Hamlin to find +himself at a tete-a-tete repast with the admiring and complaisant fair; +there was a 'cabinet particulier' in a certain San Francisco restaurant +which had listened to their various vanities and professions of undying +faith; he might have recalled certain festal rendezvous with a widow +whose piety and impeccable reputation made it a moral duty for her to +come to him only in disguise; it was but a few days ago that he had +been let privately into the palatial mansion of a high official for a +midnight supper with a foolish wife. It was not strange, therefore, that +he should be alone here, secretly, with a member of that indiscreet, +loving sex. But that he should be sitting there in a cheap negro laundry +with absolutely no sentiment of any kind towards the heavy-haired, +freckle-faced country schoolgirl opposite him, from whom he sought +and expected nothing, and ENJOYING it without scorn of himself or his +companion, to use his own expression, "got him." Presently he rose and +sauntered to the table with shining eyes. + +"Well, what do you think of Aunt Chloe's shebang?" he asked smilingly. + +"Oh, it's so sweet and clean and homelike," said the girl quickly. At +any other time he would have winced at the last adjective. It struck him +now as exactly the word. + +"Would you like to live here, if you could?" + +Her face brightened. She put the teapot down and gazed fixedly at Jack. + +"Because you can. Look here. I spoke to Hannibal about it. You can have +the two front rooms if you want to. One of 'em is big enough and light +enough for a studio to do your work in. You tell that nigger what you +want to put in 'em, and he's got my orders to do it. I told him about +your painting; said you were the daughter of an old friend, you know. +Hold on, Sophy; d--n it all, I've got to do a little gilt-edged lying; +but I let you out of the niece business this time. Yes, from this moment +I'm no longer your uncle. I renounce the relationship. It's hard," +continued the rascal, "after all these years and considering sister +Mary's feelings; but, as you seem to wish it, it must be done." + +Sophy's steel-blue eyes softened. She slid her long brown hand across +the table and grasped Jack's. He returned the pressure quickly and +fraternally, even to that half-shamed, half-hurried evasion of emotion +peculiar to all brothers. This was also a new sensation; but he liked +it. + +"You are too--too good, Mr. Hamlin," she said quietly. + +"Yes," said Jack cheerfully, "that's what's the matter with me. It isn't +natural, and if I keep it up too long it brings on my cough." + +Nevertheless, they were happy in a boy and girl fashion, eating +heartily, and, I fear, not always decorously; scrambling somewhat for +the strawberries, and smacking their lips over the Sally Lunn. Meantime, +it was arranged that Mr. Hamlin should inform Miss Mix that Sophy would +leave school at the end of the term, only a few days hence, and then +transfer herself to lodgings with some old family servants, where she +could more easily pursue her studies in her own profession. She need not +make her place of abode a secret, neither need she court publicity. She +would write to Jack regularly, informing him of her progress, and he +would visit her whenever he could. Jack assented gravely to the further +proposition that he was to keep a strict account of all the moneys he +advanced her, and that she was to repay him out of the proceeds of her +first pictures. He had promised also, with a slight mental reservation, +not to buy them all himself, but to trust to her success with the +public. They were never to talk of what had happened before; she was to +begin life anew. Of such were their confidences, spoken often together +at the same moment, and with their mouths full. Only one thing troubled +Jack; he had not yet told her frankly who he was and what was his +reputation; he had hitherto carelessly supposed she would learn it, +and in truth had cared little if she did; but it was evident from her +conversation that day that by some miracle she was still in ignorance. +Unable now to tell her himself, he had charged Hannibal to break it to +her casually after he was gone. "You can let me down easy if you like, +but you'd better make a square deal of it while you're about it. And," +Jack had added cheerfully, "if she thinks after that she'd better drop +me entirely, you just say that if she wishes to STAY, you'll see that +I don't ever come here again. And you keep your word about it too, you +black nigger, or I'll be the first to thrash you." + +Nevertheless, when Hannibal and Aunt Chloe returned to clear away the +repast, they were a harmonious party; albeit, Mr. Hamlin seemed more +content to watch them silently from his chair by the window, a cigar +between his lips, and the pleasant distraction of the homely scents and +sounds of the garden in his senses. Allusion having been made again to +the morning performance of the organ, he was implored by Hannibal to +diversify his talent by exercising it on an old guitar which had passed +into that retainer's possession with certain clothes of his master's +when they separated. Mr. Hamlin accepted it dubiously; it had twanged +under his volatile fingers in more pretentious but less innocent halls. +But presently he raised his tenor voice and soft brown lashes to the +humble ceiling and sang. + + "Way down upon the Swanee River," + +Discoursed Jack plaintively,-- + + "Far, far away, + Thar's whar my heart is turning ever, + Thar's whar the old folks stay." + +The two dusky scions of an emotional race, that had been wont to sweeten +its toil and condone its wrongs with music, sat wrapt and silent, +swaying with Jack's voice until they could burst in upon the chorus. +The jasmine vines trilled softly with the afternoon breeze; a slender +yellow-hammer, perhaps emulous of Jack, swung himself from an outer +spray and peered curiously into the room; and a few neighbors, gathering +at their doors and windows, remarked that "after all, when it came to +real singing, no one could beat those d----d niggers." + +The sun was slowly sinking in the rolling gold of the river when Jack +and Sophy started leisurely back through the broken shafts of light, and +across the far-stretching shadows of the cottonwoods. In the midst of +a lazy silence they were presently conscious of a distant monotonous +throb, the booming of the up boat on the river. The sound came +nearer--passed them, the boat itself hidden by the trees; but a trailing +cloud of smoke above cast a momentary shadow upon their path. The girl +looked up at Jack with a troubled face. Mr. Hamlin smiled reassuringly; +but in that instant he had made up his mind that it was his moral duty +to kill Mr. Edward Stratton. + + +IV. + + +For the next two months Mr. Hamlin was professionally engaged in San +Francisco and Marysville, and the transfer of Sophy from the school to +her new home was effected without his supervision. From letters received +by him during that interval, it seemed that the young girl had entered +energetically upon her new career, and that her artistic efforts were +crowned with success. There were a few Indian-ink sketches, studies made +at school and expanded in her own "studio," which were eagerly bought as +soon as exhibited in the photographer's window,--notably by a florid +and inartistic bookkeeper, an old negro woman, a slangy stable boy, a +gorgeously dressed and painted female, and the bearded second officer of +a river steamboat, without hesitation and without comment. This, as Mr. +Hamlin intelligently pointed out in a letter to Sophy, showed a general +and diversified appreciation on the part of the public. Indeed, it +emboldened her, in the retouching of photographs, to offer sittings +to the subjects, and to undertake even large crayon copies, which had +resulted in her getting so many orders that she was no longer obliged +to sell her drawings, but restricted herself solely to profitable +portraiture. The studio became known; even its quaint surroundings added +to the popular interest, and the originality and independence of the +young painter helped her to a genuine success. All this she wrote to +Jack. Meantime Hannibal had assured him that he had carried out his +instructions by informing "Missy" of his old master's real occupation +and reputation, but that the young lady hadn't "took no notice." +Certainly there was no allusion to it in her letters, nor any indication +in her manner. Mr. Hamlin was greatly, and it seemed to him properly, +relieved. And he looked forward with considerable satisfaction to an +early visit to old Hannibal's laundry. + +It must be confessed, also, that another matter, a simple affair of +gallantry, was giving him an equally unusual, unexpected, and absurd +annoyance, which he had never before permitted to such trivialities. +In a recent visit to a fashionable watering-place, he had attracted the +attention of what appeared to be a respectable, matter of fact woman, +the wife of a recently elected rural Senator. She was, however, +singularly beautiful, and as singularly cold. It was perhaps this +quality, and her evident annoyance at some unreasoning prepossession +which Jack's fascinations exercised upon her, that heightened that +reckless desire for risk and excitement which really made up the greater +part of his gallantry. Nevertheless, as was his habit, he had treated +her always with a charming unconsciousness of his own attentions, and a +frankness that seemed inconsistent with any insidious approach. In fact, +Mr. Hamlin seldom made love to anybody, but permitted it to be made to +him with good-humored deprecation and cheerful skepticism. He had once, +quite accidentally, while riding, come upon her when she had strayed +from her own riding party, and had behaved with such unexpected +circumspection and propriety, not to mention a certain thoughtful +abstraction,--it was the day he had received Sophy's letter,--that she +was constrained to make the first advances. This led to a later innocent +rendezvous, in which Mrs. Camperly was impelled to confide to Mr. Hamlin +the fact that her husband had really never understood her. Jack listened +with an understanding and sympathy quickened by long experience of such +confessions. If anything had ever kept him from marriage it was this +evident incompatibility of the conjugal relations with a just conception +of the feminine soul and its aspirations. + +And so eventually this yearning for sympathy dragged Mrs. Camperly's +clean skirts and rustic purity after Jack's heels into various places +and various situations not so clean, rural, or innocent; made her +miserably unhappy in his absence, and still more miserably happy in his +presence; impelled her to lie, cheat, and bear false witness; forced her +to listen with mingled shame and admiration to narrow criticism of his +faults, from natures so palpably inferior to his own that her moral +sense was confused and shaken; gave her two distinct lives, but so +unreal and feverish that, with a recklessness equal to his own, she was +at last ready to merge them both into his. For the first time in his +life Mr. Hamlin found himself bored at the beginning of an affair, +actually hesitated, and suddenly disappeared from San Francisco. + +He turned up a few days later at Aunt Chloe's door, with various +packages of presents and quite the air of a returning father of a +family, to the intense delight of that lady and to Sophy's proud +gratification. For he was lost in a profuse, boyish admiration of her +pretty studio, and in wholesome reverence for her art and her astounding +progress. They were also amused at his awe and evident alarm at the +portraits of two ladies, her latest sitters, that were still on +the easels, and, in consideration of his half-assumed, half-real +bashfulness, they turned their faces to the wall. Then his quick, +observant eye detected a photograph of himself on the mantel. + +"What's that?" he asked suddenly. + +Sophy and Aunt Chloe exchanged meaning glances. Sophy had, as a surprise +to Jack, just completed a handsome crayon portrait of himself from an +old photograph furnished by Hannibal, and the picture was at that moment +in the window of her former patron,--the photographer. + +"Oh, dat! Miss Sophy jus' put it dar fo' de lady sitters to look at to +gib 'em a pleasant 'spresshion," said Aunt Chloe, chuckling. + +Mr. Hamlin did not laugh, but quietly slipped the photograph into his +pocket. Yet, perhaps, it had not been recognized. + +Then Sophy proposed to have luncheon in the studio; it was quite +"Bohemian" and fashionable, and many artists did it. But to her great +surprise Jack gravely objected, preferring the little parlor of Aunt +Chloe, the vine-fringed windows, and the heavy respectable furniture. +He thought it was profaning the studio, and then--anybody might come in. +This unusual circumspection amused them, and was believed to be part of +the boyish awe with which Jack regarded the models, the draperies, and +the studies on the walls. Certain it was that he was much more at his +ease in the parlor, and when he and Sophy were once more alone at their +meal, although he ate nothing, he had regained all his old naivete. +Presently he leaned forward and placed his hand fraternally on her arm. +Sophy looked up with an equally frank smile. + +"You know I promised to let bygones be bygones, eh? Well, I intended it, +and more,--I intended to make 'em so. I told you I'd never speak to you +again of that man who tried to run you off, and I intended that no one +else should. Well, as he was the only one who could talk--that meant +him. But the cards are out of my hands; the game's been played without +me. For he's dead!" + +The girl started. Mr. Hamlin's hand passed caressingly twice or thrice +along her sleeve with a peculiar gentleness that seemed to magnetize +her. + +"Dead," he repeated slowly. "Shot in San Diego by another man, but not +by me. I had him tracked as far as that, and had my eyes on him, but it +wasn't my deal. But there," he added, giving her magnetized arm a gentle +and final tap as if to awaken it, "he's dead, and so is the whole story. +And now we'll drop it forever." + +The girl's downcast eyes were fixed on the table. "But there's my +sister," she murmured. + +"Did she know you went with him?" asked Jack. + +"No; but she knows I ran away." + +"Well, you ran away from home to study how to be an artist, don't +you see? Some day she'll find out you ARE ONE; that settles the whole +thing." + +They were both quite cheerful again when Aunt Chloe returned to +clear the table, especially Jack, who was in the best spirits, with +preternaturally bright eyes and a somewhat rare color on his cheeks. +Aunt Chloe, who had noticed that his breathing was hurried at times, +watched him narrowly, and when later he slipped from the room, followed +him into the passage. He was leaning against the wall. In an instant the +negress was at his side. + +"De Lawdy Gawd, Marse Jack, not AGIN?" + +He took his handkerchief, slightly streaked with blood, from his lips +and said faintly, "Yes, it came on--on the boat; but I thought the +d----d thing was over. Get me out of this, quick, to some hotel, before +she knows it. You can tell her I was called away. Say that"--but his +breath failed him, and when Aunt Chloe caught him like a child in her +strong arms he could make no resistance. + +In another hour he was unconscious, with two doctors at his bedside, in +the little room that had been occupied by Sophy. It was a sharp attack, +but prompt attendance and skillful nursing availed; he rallied the next +day, but it would be weeks, the doctors said, before he could be removed +in safety. Sophy was transferred to the parlor, but spent most of her +time at Jack's bedside with Aunt Chloe, or in the studio with the door +open between it and the bedroom. In spite of his enforced idleness and +weakness, it was again a singularly pleasant experience to Jack; it +amused him to sometimes see Sophy at her work through the open door, and +when sitters came,--for he had insisted on her continuing her duties as +before, keeping his invalid presence in the house a secret,--he had all +the satisfaction of a mischievous boy in rehearsing to Sophy such of +the conversation as could be overheard through the closed door, and +speculating on the possible wonder and chagrin of the sitters had they +discovered him. Even when he was convalescent and strong enough to be +helped into the parlor and garden, he preferred to remain propped up in +Sophy's little bedroom. It was evident, however, that this predilection +was connected with no suggestion nor reminiscence of Sophy herself. It +was true that he had once asked her if it didn't make her "feel like +home." The decided negative from Sophy seemed to mildly surprise him. +"That's odd," he said; "now all these fixings and things," pointing +to the flowers in a vase, the little hanging shelf of books, the +knickknacks on the mantel-shelf, and the few feminine ornaments that +still remained, "look rather like home to me." + +So the days slipped by, and although Mr. Hamlin was soon able to walk +short distances, leaning on Sophy's arm, in the evening twilight, along +the river bank, he was still missed from the haunts of dissipated men. A +good many people wondered, and others, chiefly of the more irrepressible +sex, were singularly concerned. Apparently one of these, one sultry +afternoon, stopped before the shadowed window of a photographer's; she +was a handsome, well-dressed woman, yet bearing a certain countrylike +simplicity that was unlike the restless smartness of the more urban +promenaders who passed her. Nevertheless she had halted before Mr. +Hamlin's picture, which Sophy had not yet dared to bring home and +present to him, and was gazing at it with rapt and breathless attention. +Suddenly she shook down her veil and entered the shop. Could the +proprietor kindly tell her if that portrait was the work of a local +artist? + +The proprietor was both proud and pleased to say that IT WAS! It was the +work of a Miss Brown, a young girl student; in fact, a mere schoolgirl +one might say. He could show her others of her pictures. + +Thanks. But could he tell her if this portrait was from life? + +No doubt; the young lady had a studio, and he himself had sent her +sitters. + +And perhaps this was the portrait of one that he had sent her? + +No; but she was very popular and becoming quite the fashion. Very +probably this gentleman, who, he understood, was quite a public +character, had heard of her, and selected her on that account. + +The lady's face flushed slightly. The photographer continued. The +picture was not for sale; it was only there on exhibition; in fact it +was to be returned to-morrow. + +To the sitter? + +He couldn't say. It was to go back to the studio. Perhaps the sitter +would be there. + +And this studio? Could she have its address? + +The man wrote a few lines on his card. Perhaps the lady would be kind +enough to say that he had sent her. The lady, thanking him, partly +lifted her veil to show a charming smile, and gracefully withdrew. The +photographer was pleased. Miss Brown had evidently got another sitter, +and, from that momentary glimpse of her face, it would be a picture as +beautiful and attractive as the man's. But what was the odd idea that +struck him? She certainly reminded him of some one! There was the same +heavy hair, only this lady's was golden, and she was older and more +mature. And he remained for a moment with knitted brows musing over his +counter. + +Meantime the fair stranger was making her way towards the river suburb. +When she reached Aunt Chloe's cottage, she paused, with the unfamiliar +curiosity of a newcomer, over its quaint and incongruous exterior. She +hesitated a moment also when Aunt Chloe appeared in the doorway, and, +with a puzzled survey of her features, went upstairs to announce a +visitor. There was the sound of hurried shutting of doors, of the moving +of furniture, quick footsteps across the floor, and then a girlish laugh +that startled her. She ascended the stairs breathlessly to Aunt Chloe's +summons, found the negress on the landing, and knocked at a door which +bore a card marked "Studio." The door opened; she entered; there were +two sudden outcries that might have come from one voice. + +"Sophonisba!" + +"Marianne!" + +"Hush." + +The woman had seized Sophy by the wrist and dragged her to the window. +There was a haggard look of desperation in her face akin to that which +Hamlin had once seen in her sister's eyes on the boat, as she said +huskily: "I did not know YOU were here. I came to see the woman who had +painted Mr. Hamlin's portrait. I did not know it was YOU. Listen! Quick! +answer me one question. Tell me--I implore you--for the sake of the +mother who bore us both!--tell me--is this the man for whom you left +home?" + +"No! No! A hundred times no!" + +Then there was a silence. Mr. Hamlin from the bedroom heard no more. + +An hour later, when the two women opened the studio door, pale but +composed, they were met by the anxious and tearful face of Aunt Chloe. + +"Lawdy Gawd, Missy,--but dey done gone!--bofe of 'em!" + +"Who is gone?" demanded Sophy, as the woman beside her trembled and grew +paler still. + +"Marse Jack and dat fool nigger, Hannibal." + +"Mr. Hamlin gone?" repeated Sophy incredulously. "When? Where?" + +"Jess now--on de down boat. Sudden business. Didn't like to disturb yo' +and yo' friend. Said he'd write." + +"But he was ill--almost helpless," gasped Sophy. + +"Dat's why he took dat old nigger. Lawdy, Missy, bress yo' heart. Dey +both knows aich udder, shuah! It's all right. Dar now, dar dey are; +listen." + +She held up her hand. A slow pulsation, that might have been the dull, +labored beating of their own hearts, was making itself felt throughout +the little cottage. It came nearer,--a deep regular inspiration that +seemed slowly to fill and possess the whole tranquil summer twilight. It +was nearer still--was abreast of the house--passed--grew fainter and at +last died away like a deep-drawn sigh. It was the down boat, that was +now separating Mr. Hamlin and his protegee, even as it had once brought +them together. + + + + +AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS. + + +I. + + +We all held our breath as the coach rushed through the semi-darkness of +Galloper's Ridge. The vehicle itself was only a huge lumbering shadow; +its side-lights were carefully extinguished, and Yuba Bill had just +politely removed from the lips of an outside passenger even the cigar +with which he had been ostentatiously exhibiting his coolness. For it +had been rumored that the Ramon Martinez gang of "road agents" were +"laying" for us on the second grade, and would time the passage of our +lights across Galloper's in order to intercept us in the "brush" beyond. +If we could cross the ridge without being seen, and so get through the +brush before they reached it, we were safe. If they followed, it would +only be a stern chase with the odds in our favor. + +The huge vehicle swayed from side to side, rolled, dipped, and +plunged, but Bill kept the track, as if, in the whispered words of the +Expressman, he could "feel and smell" the road he could no longer see. +We knew that at times we hung perilously over the edge of slopes that +eventually dropped a thousand feet sheer to the tops of the sugar-pines +below, but we knew that Bill knew it also. The half visible heads of the +horses, drawn wedge-wise together by the tightened reins, appeared to +cleave the darkness like a ploughshare, held between his rigid +hands. Even the hoof-beats of the six horses had fallen into a vague, +monotonous, distant roll. Then the ridge was crossed, and we plunged +into the still blacker obscurity of the brush. Rather we no longer +seemed to move--it was only the phantom night that rushed by us. The +horses might have been submerged in some swift Lethean stream; nothing +but the top of the coach and the rigid bulk of Yuba Bill arose above +them. Yet even in that awful moment our speed was unslackened; it was +as if Bill cared no longer to GUIDE but only to drive, or as if the +direction of his huge machine was determined by other hands than his. An +incautious whisperer hazarded the paralyzing suggestion of our "meeting +another team." To our great astonishment Bill overheard it; to our +greater astonishment he replied. "It 'ud be only a neck and neck +race which would get to h-ll first," he said quietly. But we were +relieved--for he had SPOKEN! Almost simultaneously the wider turnpike +began to glimmer faintly as a visible track before us; the wayside trees +fell out of line, opened up, and dropped off one after another; we were +on the broader table-land, out of danger, and apparently unperceived and +unpursued. + +Nevertheless in the conversation that broke out again with the +relighting of the lamps, and the comments, congratulations, and +reminiscences that were freely exchanged, Yuba Bill preserved a +dissatisfied and even resentful silence. The most generous praise of +his skill and courage awoke no response. "I reckon the old man waz just +spilin' for a fight, and is feelin' disappointed," said a passenger. +But those who knew that Bill had the true fighter's scorn for any purely +purposeless conflict were more or less concerned and watchful of him. He +would drive steadily for four or five minutes with thoughtfully knitted +brows, but eyes still keenly observant under his slouched hat, and +then, relaxing his strained attitude, would give way to a movement of +impatience. "You ain't uneasy about anything, Bill, are you?" asked +the Expressman confidentially. Bill lifted his eyes with a slightly +contemptuous surprise. "Not about anything ter COME. It's what HEZ +happened that I don't exackly sabe. I don't see no signs of Ramon's gang +ever havin' been out at all, and ef they were out I don't see why they +didn't go for us." + +"The simple fact is that our ruse was successful," said an outside +passenger. "They waited to see our lights on the ridge, and, not seeing +them, missed us until we had passed. That's my opinion." + +"You ain't puttin' any price on that opinion, air ye?" inquired Bill +politely. + +"No." + +"'Cos thar's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've +seen worse things in it." + +"Come off, Bill," retorted the passenger, slightly nettled by the +tittering of his companions. "Then what did you put out the lights for?" + +"Well," returned Bill grimly, "it mout have been because I didn't keer +to hev you chaps blazin' away at the first bush you THOUGHT you saw move +in your skeer, and bringin' down their fire on us." + +The explanation, though unsatisfactory, was by no means an improbable +one, and we thought it better to accept it with a laugh. Bill, however, +resumed his abstracted manner. + +"Who got in at the Summit?" he at last asked abruptly of the Expressman. + +"Derrick and Simpson of Cold Spring, and one of the 'Excelsior' boys," +responded the Expressman. + +"And that Pike County girl from Dow's Flat, with her bundles. Don't +forget her," added the outside passenger ironically. + +"Does anybody here know her?" continued Bill, ignoring the irony. + +"You'd better ask Judge Thompson; he was mighty attentive to her; +gettin' her a seat by the off window, and lookin' after her bundles and +things." + +"Gettin' her a seat by the WINDOW?" repeated Bill. + +"Yes, she wanted to see everything, and wasn't afraid of the shooting." + +"Yes," broke in a third passenger, "and he was so d----d civil that +when she dropped her ring in the straw, he struck a match agin all your +rules, you know, and held it for her to find it. And it was just as we +were crossin' through the brush, too. I saw the hull thing through the +window, for I was hanging over the wheels with my gun ready for action. +And it wasn't no fault of Judge Thompson's if his d----d foolishness +hadn't shown us up, and got us a shot from the gang." + +Bill gave a short grunt, but drove steadily on without further comment +or even turning his eyes to the speaker. + +We were now not more than a mile from the station at the crossroads +where we were to change horses. The lights already glimmered in the +distance, and there was a faint suggestion of the coming dawn on the +summits of the ridge to the west. We had plunged into a belt of timber, +when suddenly a horseman emerged at a sharp canter from a trail that +seemed to be parallel with our own. We were all slightly startled; Yuba +Bill alone preserving his moody calm. + +"Hullo!" he said. + +The stranger wheeled to our side as Bill slackened his speed. He seemed +to be a "packer" or freight muleteer. + +"Ye didn't get 'held up' on the Divide?" continued Bill cheerfully. + +"No," returned the packer, with a laugh; "I don't carry treasure. But I +see you're all right, too. I saw you crossin' over Galloper's." + +"SAW us?" said Bill sharply. "We had our lights out." + +"Yes, but there was suthin' white--a handkerchief or woman's veil, I +reckon--hangin' from the window. It was only a movin' spot agin the +hillside, but ez I was lookin' out for ye I knew it was you by that. +Good-night!" + +He cantered away. We tried to look at each other's faces, and at Bill's +expression in the darkness, but he neither spoke nor stirred until he +threw down the reins when we stopped before the station. The passengers +quickly descended from the roof; the Expressman was about to follow, but +Bill plucked his sleeve. + +"I'm goin' to take a look over this yer stage and these yer passengers +with ye, afore we start." + +"Why, what's up?" + +"Well," said Bill, slowly disengaging himself from one of his enormous +gloves, "when we waltzed down into the brush up there I saw a man, ez +plain ez I see you, rise up from it. I thought our time had come and the +band was goin' to play, when he sorter drew back, made a sign, and we +just scooted past him." + +"Well?" + +"Well," said Bill, "it means that this yer coach was PASSED THROUGH FREE +to-night." + +"You don't object to THAT--surely? I think we were deucedly lucky." + +Bill slowly drew off his other glove. "I've been riskin' my everlastin' +life on this d----d line three times a week," he said with mock +humility, "and I'm allus thankful for small mercies. BUT," he added +grimly, "when it comes down to being passed free by some pal of a hoss +thief, and thet called a speshal Providence, I AIN'T IN IT! No, sir, I +ain't in it!" + + +II. + + +It was with mixed emotions that the passengers heard that a delay of +fifteen minutes to tighten certain screw-bolts had been ordered by the +autocratic Bill. Some were anxious to get their breakfast at Sugar Pine, +but others were not averse to linger for the daylight that promised +greater safety on the road. The Expressman, knowing the real cause of +Bill's delay, was nevertheless at a loss to understand the object of it. +The passengers were all well known; any idea of complicity with the road +agents was wild and impossible, and, even if there was a confederate +of the gang among them, he would have been more likely to precipitate a +robbery than to check it. Again, the discovery of such a confederate--to +whom they clearly owed their safety--and his arrest would have been +quite against the Californian sense of justice, if not actually illegal. +It seemed evident that Bill's quixotic sense of honor was leading him +astray. + +The station consisted of a stable, a wagon shed, and a building +containing three rooms. The first was fitted up with "bunks" or sleeping +berths for the employees; the second was the kitchen; and the third +and larger apartment was dining-room or sitting-room, and was used +as general waiting-room for the passengers. It was not a refreshment +station, and there was no "bar." But a mysterious command from the +omnipotent Bill produced a demijohn of whiskey, with which he hospitably +treated the company. The seductive influence of the liquor loosened the +tongue of the gallant Judge Thompson. He admitted to having struck a +match to enable the fair Pike Countian to find her ring, which, however, +proved to have fallen in her lap. She was "a fine, healthy young +woman--a type of the Far West, sir; in fact, quite a prairie blossom! +yet simple and guileless as a child." She was on her way to Marysville, +he believed, "although she expected to meet friends--a friend, in +fact--later on." It was her first visit to a large town--in fact, any +civilized centre--since she crossed the plains three years ago. Her +girlish curiosity was quite touching, and her innocence irresistible. +In fact, in a country whose tendency was to produce "frivolity and +forwardness in young girls, he found her a most interesting young +person." She was even then out in the stable-yard watching the horses +being harnessed, "preferring to indulge a pardonable healthy young +curiosity than to listen to the empty compliments of the younger +passengers." + +The figure which Bill saw thus engaged, without being otherwise +distinguished, certainly seemed to justify the Judge's opinion. She +appeared to be a well-matured country girl, whose frank gray eyes and +large laughing mouth expressed a wholesome and abiding gratification in +her life and surroundings. She was watching the replacing of luggage in +the boot. A little feminine start, as one of her own parcels was thrown +somewhat roughly on the roof, gave Bill his opportunity. "Now there," he +growled to the helper, "ye ain't carting stone! Look out, will yer! Some +of your things, miss?" he added, with gruff courtesy, turning to her. +"These yer trunks, for instance?" + +She smiled a pleasant assent, and Bill, pushing aside the helper, seized +a large square trunk in his arms. But from excess of zeal, or some other +mischance, his foot slipped, and he came down heavily, striking +the corner of the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges and +fastenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the accident +discovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, lace-edged feminine +apparel of an apparently superior quality. The young lady uttered +another cry and came quickly forward, but Bill was profuse in his +apologies, himself girded the broken box with a strap, and declared his +intention of having the company "make it good" to her with a new one. +Then he casually accompanied her to the door of the waiting-room, +entered, made a place for her before the fire by simply lifting the +nearest and most youthful passenger by the coat collar from the stool +that he was occupying, and, having installed the lady in it, displaced +another man who was standing before the chimney, and, drawing himself +up to his full six feet of height in front of her, glanced down upon his +fair passenger as he took his waybill from his pocket. + +"Your name is down here as Miss Mullins?" he said. + +She looked up, became suddenly aware that she and her questioner were +the centre of interest to the whole circle of passengers, and, with a +slight rise of color, returned, "Yes." + +"Well, Miss Mullins, I've got a question or two to ask ye. I ask it +straight out afore this crowd. It's in my rights to take ye aside and +ask it---but that ain't my style; I'm no detective. I needn't ask it at +all, but act as ef I knowed the answer, or I might leave it to be asked +by others. Ye needn't answer it ef ye don't like; ye've got a friend +over ther--Judge Thompson--who is a friend to ye, right or wrong, jest +as any other man here is--as though ye'd packed your own jury. Well, the +simple question I've got to ask ye is THIS: Did you signal to anybody +from the coach when we passed Galloper's an hour ago?" + +We all thought that Bill's courage and audacity had reached its +climax here. To openly and publicly accuse a "lady" before a group +of chivalrous Californians, and that lady possessing the further +attractions of youth, good looks, and innocence, was little short of +desperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the +fair stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the very +boldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise. Judge Thompson, +with a bland propitiatory smile began: "Really, Bill, I must protest on +behalf of this young lady"--when the fair accused, raising her eyes to +her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slight +but convincing hesitation of conscientious truthfulness:-- + +"I DID." + +"Ahem!" interposed the Judge hastily, "er--that is--er--you allowed +your handkerchief to flutter from the window,--I noticed it +myself,--casually--one might say even playfully--but without any +particular significance." + +The girl, regarding her apologist with a singular mingling of pride and +impatience, returned briefly:-- + +"I signaled." + +"Who did you signal to?" asked Bill gravely. + +"The young gentleman I'm going to marry." + +A start, followed by a slight titter from the younger passengers, was +instantly suppressed by a savage glance from Bill. + +"What did you signal to him for?" he continued. + +"To tell him I was here, and that it was all right," returned the young +girl, with a steadily rising pride and color. + +"Wot was all right?" demanded Bill. + +"That I wasn't followed, and that he could meet me on the road beyond +Cass's Ridge Station." She hesitated a moment, and then, with a still +greater pride, in which a youthful defiance was still mingled, said: + +"I've run away from home to marry him. And I mean to! No one can stop +me. Dad didn't like him just because he was poor, and dad's got money. +Dad wanted me to marry a man I hate, and got a lot of dresses and things +to bribe me." + +"And you're taking them in your trunk to the other feller?" said Bill +grimly. + +"Yes, he's poor," returned the girl defiantly. + +"Then your father's name is Mullins?" asked Bill. + +"It's not Mullins. I--I--took that name," she hesitated, with her first +exhibition of self-consciousness. + +"Wot IS his name?" + +"Eli Hemmings." + +A smile of relief and significance went round the circle. The fame of +Eli or "Skinner" Hemmings, as a notorious miser and usurer, had passed +even beyond Galloper's Ridge. + +"The step that you're taking, Miss Mullins, I need not tell you, is +one of great gravity," said Judge Thompson, with a certain paternal +seriousness of manner, in which, however, we were glad to detect a +glaring affectation; "and I trust that you and your affianced have fully +weighed it. Far be it from me to interfere with or question the natural +affections of two young people, but may I ask you what you know of +the--er--young gentleman for whom you are sacrificing so much, and, +perhaps, imperiling your whole future? For instance, have you known him +long?" + +The slightly troubled air of trying to understand,--not unlike the +vague wonderment of childhood,--with which Miss Mullins had received the +beginning of this exordium, changed to a relieved smile of comprehension +as she said quickly, "Oh yes, nearly a whole year." + +"And," said the Judge, smiling, "has he a vocation--is he in business?" + +"Oh yes," she returned; "he's a collector." + +"A collector?" + +"Yes; he collects bills, you know,--money," she went on, with childish +eagerness, "not for himself,--HE never has any money, poor Charley,--but +for his firm. It's dreadful hard work, too; keeps him out for days and +nights, over bad roads and baddest weather. Sometimes, when he's stole +over to the ranch just to see me, he's been so bad he could scarcely +keep his seat in the saddle, much less stand. And he's got to take +mighty big risks, too. Times the folks are cross with him and won't pay; +once they shot him in the arm, and he came to me, and I helped do it +up for him. But he don't mind. He's real brave,--jest as brave as he's +good." There was such a wholesome ring of truth in this pretty praise +that we were touched in sympathy with the speaker. + +"What firm does he collect for?" asked the Judge gently. + +"I don't know exactly--he won't tell me; but I think it's a Spanish +firm. You see"--she took us all into her confidence with a sweeping +smile of innocent yet half-mischievous artfulness--"I only know because +I peeped over a letter he once got from his firm, telling him he must +hustle up and be ready for the road the next day; but I think the name +was Martinez--yes, Ramon Martinez." + +In the dead silence that ensued--a silence so profound that we could +hear the horses in the distant stable-yard rattling their harness--one +of the younger "Excelsior" boys burst into a hysteric laugh, but the +fierce eye of Yuba Bill was down upon him, and seemed to instantly +stiffen him into a silent, grinning mask. The young girl, however, +took no note of it. Following out, with lover-like diffusiveness, the +reminiscences thus awakened, she went on:-- + +"Yes, it's mighty hard work, but he says it's all for me, and as soon as +we're married he'll quit it. He might have quit it before, but he won't +take no money of me, nor what I told him I could get out of dad! That +ain't his style. He's mighty proud--if he is poor--is Charley. Why +thar's all ma's money which she left me in the Savin's Bank that I +wanted to draw out--for I had the right--and give it to him, but he +wouldn't hear of it! Why, he wouldn't take one of the things I've got +with me, if he knew it. And so he goes on ridin' and ridin', here and +there and everywhere, and gettin' more and more played out and sad, and +thin and pale as a spirit, and always so uneasy about his business, and +startin' up at times when we're meetin' out in the South Woods or in the +far clearin', and sayin': 'I must be goin' now, Polly,' and yet always +tryin' to be chiffle and chipper afore me. Why he must have rid miles +and miles to have watched for me thar in the brush at the foot of +Galloper's to-night, jest to see if all was safe; and Lordy! I'd have +given him the signal and showed a light if I'd died for it the next +minit. There! That's what I know of Charley--that's what I'm running +away from home for--that's what I'm running to him for, and I don't +care who knows it! And I only wish I'd done it afore--and I +would--if--if--if--he'd only ASKED ME! There now!" She stopped, panted, +and choked. Then one of the sudden transitions of youthful emotion +overtook the eager, laughing face; it clouded up with the swift change +of childhood, a lightning quiver of expression broke over it, and--then +came the rain! + +I think this simple act completed our utter demoralization! We smiled +feebly at each other with that assumption of masculine superiority +which is miserably conscious of its own helplessness at such moments. We +looked out of the window, blew our noses, said: "Eh--what?" and "I say," +vaguely to each other, and were greatly relieved, and yet apparently +astonished, when Yuba Bill, who had turned his back upon the fair +speaker, and was kicking the logs in the fireplace, suddenly swept down +upon us and bundled us all into the road, leaving Miss Mullins alone. +Then he walked aside with Judge Thompson for a few moments; returned to +us, autocratically demanded of the party a complete reticence towards +Miss Mullins on the subject-matter under discussion, re-entered the +station, reappeared with the young lady, suppressed a faint idiotic +cheer which broke from us at the spectacle of her innocent face once +more cleared and rosy, climbed the box, and in another moment we were +under way. + +"Then she don't know what her lover is yet?" asked the Expressman +eagerly. + +"No." + +"Are YOU certain it's one of the gang?" + +"Can't say FOR SURE. It mout be a young chap from Yolo who bucked agin +the tiger* at Sacramento, got regularly cleaned out and busted, and +joined the gang for a flier. They say thar was a new hand in that job +over at Keeley's,--and a mighty game one, too; and ez there was some +buckshot onloaded that trip, he might hev got his share, and that would +tally with what the girl said about his arm. See! Ef that's the man, +I've heered he was the son of some big preacher in the States, and a +college sharp to boot, who ran wild in 'Frisco, and played himself for +all he was worth. They're the wust kind to kick when they once get +a foot over the traces. For stiddy, comf'ble kempany," added Bill +reflectively, "give ME the son of a man that was HANGED!" + + * Gambled at faro. + +"But what are you going to do about this?" + +"That depends upon the feller who comes to meet her." + +"But you ain't going to try to take him? That would be playing it pretty +low down on them both." + +"Keep your hair on, Jimmy! The Judge and me are only going to rastle +with the sperrit of that gay young galoot, when he drops down for his +girl--and exhort him pow'ful! Ef he allows he's convicted of sin and +will find the Lord, we'll marry him and the gal offhand at the next +station, and the Judge will officiate himself for nothin'. We're +goin' to have this yer elopement done on the square--and our waybill +clean--you bet!" + +"But you don't suppose he'll trust himself in your hands?" + +"Polly will signal to him that it's all square." + +"Ah!" said the Expressman. Nevertheless in those few moments the men +seemed to have exchanged dispositions. The Expressman looked doubtfully, +critically, and even cynically before him. Bill's face had relaxed, and +something like a bland smile beamed across it, as he drove confidently +and unhesitatingly forward. + +Day, meantime, although full blown and radiant on the mountain summits +around us, was yet nebulous and uncertain in the valleys into which +we were plunging. Lights still glimmered in the cabins and few ranch +buildings which began to indicate the thicker settlements. And the +shadows were heaviest in a little copse, where a note from Judge +Thompson in the coach was handed up to Yuba Bill, who at once slowly +began to draw up his horses. The coach stopped finally near the junction +of a small crossroad. At the same moment Miss Mullins slipped down from +the vehicle, and, with a parting wave of her hand to the Judge, who had +assisted her from the steps, tripped down the crossroad, and disappeared +in its semi-obscurity. To our surprise the stage waited, Bill holding +the reins listlessly in his hands. Five minutes passed--an eternity of +expectation, and, as there was that in Yuba Bill's face which forbade +idle questioning, an aching void of silence also! This was at last +broken by a strange voice from the road:-- + +"Go on we'll follow." + +The coach started forward. Presently we heard the sound of other +wheels behind us. We all craned our necks backward to get a view of +the unknown, but by the growing light we could only see that we were +followed at a distance by a buggy with two figures in it. Evidently +Polly Mullins and her lover! We hoped that they would pass us. But the +vehicle, although drawn by a fast horse, preserved its distance always, +and it was plain that its driver had no desire to satisfy our curiosity. +The Expressman had recourse to Bill. + +"Is it the man you thought of?" he asked eagerly. + +"I reckon," said Bill briefly. + +"But," continued the Expressman, returning to his former skepticism, +"what's to keep them both from levanting together now?" + +Bill jerked his hand towards the boot with a grim smile. + +"Their baggage." + +"Oh!" said the Expressman. + +"Yes," continued Bill. "We'll hang on to that gal's little frills and +fixin's until this yer job's settled, and the ceremony's over, jest +as ef we waz her own father. And, what's more, young man," he added, +suddenly turning to the Expressman, "YOU'LL express them trunks of +hers THROUGH TO SACRAMENTO with your kempany's labels, and hand her the +receipts and checks for them, so she CAN GET 'EM THERE. That'll keep HIM +outer temptation and the reach o' the gang, until they get away +among white men and civilization again. When your hoary-headed ole +grandfather, or, to speak plainer, that partikler old whiskey-soaker +known as Yuba Bill, wot sits on this box," he continued, with a +diabolical wink at the Expressman, "waltzes in to pervide for a young +couple jest startin' in life, thar's nothin' mean about his style, you +bet. He fills the bill every time! Speshul Providences take a back seat +when he's around." + +When the station hotel and straggling settlement of Sugar Pine, now +distinct and clear in the growing light, at last rose within rifleshot +on the plateau, the buggy suddenly darted swiftly by us, so swiftly +that the faces of the two occupants were barely distinguishable as they +passed, and keeping the lead by a dozen lengths, reached the door of the +hotel. The young girl and her companion leaped down and vanished within +as we drew up. They had evidently determined to elude our curiosity, and +were successful. + +But the material appetites of the passengers, sharpened by the keen +mountain air, were more potent than their curiosity, and, as the +breakfast-bell rang out at the moment the stage stopped, a majority of +them rushed into the dining-room and scrambled for places without giving +much heed to the vanished couple or to the Judge and Yuba Bill, who had +disappeared also. The through coach to Marysville and Sacramento was +likewise waiting, for Sugar Pine was the limit of Bill's ministration, +and the coach which we had just left went no farther. In the course of +twenty minutes, however, there was a slight and somewhat ceremonious +bustling in the hall and on the veranda, and Yuba Bill and the Judge +reappeared. The latter was leading, with some elaboration of manner +and detail, the shapely figure of Miss Mullins, and Yuba Bill was +accompanying her companion to the buggy. We all rushed to the windows to +get a good view of the mysterious stranger and probable ex-brigand +whose life was now linked with our fair fellow-passenger. I am +afraid, however, that we all participated in a certain impression of +disappointment and doubt. Handsome and even cultivated-looking, he +assuredly was--young and vigorous in appearance. But there was a certain +half-shamed, half-defiant suggestion in his expression, yet coupled with +a watchful lurking uneasiness which was not pleasant and hardly becoming +in a bridegroom--and the possessor of such a bride. But the frank, +joyous, innocent face of Polly Mullins, resplendent with a simple, +happy confidence, melted our hearts again, and condoned the fellow's +shortcomings. We waved our hands; I think we would have given three +rousing cheers as they drove away if the omnipotent eye of Yuba Bill had +not been upon us. It was well, for the next moment we were summoned to +the presence of that soft-hearted autocrat. + +We found him alone with the Judge in a private sitting-room, standing +before a table on which there was a decanter and glasses. As we filed +expectantly into the room and the door closed behind us, he cast a +glance of hesitating tolerance over the group. + +"Gentlemen," he said slowly, "you was all present at the beginnin' of a +little game this mornin', and the Judge thar thinks that you oughter +be let in at the finish. I don't see that it's any of YOUR d----d +business--so to speak; but ez the Judge here allows you're all in the +secret, I've called you in to take a partin' drink to the health of Mr. +and Mrs. Charley Byng--ez is now comf'ably off on their bridal tower. +What YOU know or what YOU suspects of the young galoot that's married +the gal ain't worth shucks to anybody, and I wouldn't give it to a +yaller pup to play with, but the Judge thinks you ought all to promise +right here that you'll keep it dark. That's his opinion. Ez far as my +opinion goes, gen'l'men," continued Bill, with greater blandness and +apparent cordiality, "I wanter simply remark, in a keerless, offhand +gin'ral way, that ef I ketch any God-forsaken, lop-eared, chuckle-headed +blatherin' idjet airin' HIS opinion"-- + +"One moment, Bill," interposed Judge Thompson with a grave smile; "let +me explain. You understand, gentlemen," he said, turning to us, "the +singular, and I may say affecting, situation which our good-hearted +friend here has done so much to bring to what we hope will be a happy +termination. I want to give here, as my professional opinion, that there +is nothing in his request which, in your capacity as good citizens and +law-abiding men, you may not grant. I want to tell you, also, that +you are condoning no offense against the statutes; that there is not a +particle of legal evidence before us of the criminal antecedents of Mr. +Charles Byng, except that which has been told you by the innocent lips +of his betrothed, which the law of the land has now sealed forever in +the mouth of his wife, and that our own actual experience of his acts +have been in the main exculpatory of any previous irregularity--if not +incompatible with it. Briefly, no judge would charge, no jury convict, +on such evidence. When I add that the young girl is of legal age, that +there is no evidence of any previous undue influence, but rather of the +reverse, on the part of the bridegroom, and that I was content, as a +magistrate, to perform the ceremony, I think you will be satisfied to +give your promise, for the sake of the bride, and drink a happy life to +them both." + +I need not say that we did this cheerfully, and even extorted from Bill +a grunt of satisfaction. The majority of the company, however, who were +going with the through coach to Sacramento, then took their leave, and, +as we accompanied them to the veranda, we could see that Miss Polly +Mullins's trunks were already transferred to the other vehicle under the +protecting seals and labels of the all-potent Express Company. Then +the whip cracked, the coach rolled away, and the last traces of the +adventurous young couple disappeared in the hanging red dust of its +wheels. + +But Yuba Bill's grim satisfaction at the happy issue of the episode +seemed to suffer no abatement. He even exceeded his usual deliberately +regulated potations, and, standing comfortably with his back to the +centre of the now deserted barroom, was more than usually loquacious +with the Expressman. "You see," he said, in bland reminiscence, "when +your old Uncle Bill takes hold of a job like this, he puts it straight +through without changin' hosses. Yet thar was a moment, young feller, +when I thought I was stompt! It was when we'd made up our mind to make +that chap tell the gal fust all what he was! Ef she'd rared or kicked in +the traces, or hung back only ez much ez that, we'd hev given him jest +five minits' law to get up and get and leave her, and we'd hev toted +that gal and her fixin's back to her dad again! But she jest gave a +little scream and start, and then went off inter hysterics, right on +his buzzum, laughing and cryin' and sayin' that nothin' should part 'em. +Gosh! if I didn't think HE woz more cut up than she about it; a minit +it looked as ef HE didn't allow to marry her arter all, but that passed, +and they was married hard and fast--you bet! I reckon he's had enough of +stayin' out o' nights to last him, and ef the valley settlements hevn't +got hold of a very shining member, at least the foothills hev got shut +of one more of the Ramon Martinez gang." + +"What's that about the Ramon Martinez gang?" said a quiet potential +voice. + +Bill turned quickly. It was the voice of the Divisional Superintendent +of the Express Company,--a man of eccentric determination of character, +and one of the few whom the autocratic Bill recognized as an equal,--who +had just entered the barroom. His dusty pongee cloak and soft hat +indicated that he had that morning arrived on a round of inspection. + +"Don't care if I do, Bill," he continued, in response to Bill's +invitatory gesture, walking to the bar. "It's a little raw out on the +road. Well, what were you saying about Ramon Martinez gang? You haven't +come across one of 'em, have you?" + +"No," said Bill, with a slight blinking of his eye, as he ostentatiously +lifted his glass to the light. + +"And you WON'T," added the Superintendent, leisurely sipping his liquor. +"For the fact is, the gang is about played out. Not from want of a job +now and then, but from the difficulty of disposing of the results of +their work. Since the new instructions to the agents to identify and +trace all dust and bullion offered to them went into force, you see, +they can't get rid of their swag. All the gang are spotted at the +offices, and it costs too much for them to pay a fence or a middleman +of any standing. Why, all that flaky river gold they took from the +Excelsior Company can be identified as easy as if it was stamped with +the company's mark. They can't melt it down themselves; they can't +get others to do it for them; they can't ship it to the Mint or Assay +Offices in Marysville and 'Frisco, for they won't take it without our +certificate and seals; and WE don't take any undeclared freight WITHIN +the lines that we've drawn around their beat, except from people and +agents known. Why, YOU know that well enough, Jim," he said, suddenly +appealing to the Expressman, "don't you?" + +Possibly the suddenness of the appeal caused the Expressman to swallow +his liquor the wrong way, for he was overtaken with a fit of +coughing, and stammered hastily as he laid down his glass, "Yes--of +course--certainly." + +"No, sir," resumed the Superintendent cheerfully, "they're pretty well +played out. And the best proof of it is that they've lately been robbing +ordinary passengers' trunks. There was a freight wagon 'held up' near +Dow's Flat the other day, and a lot of baggage gone through. I had to +go down there to look into it. Darned if they hadn't lifted a lot o' +woman's wedding things from that rich couple who got married the other +day out at Marysville. Looks as if they were playing it rather low down, +don't it? Coming down to hardpan and the bed rock--eh?" + +The Expressman's face was turned anxiously towards Bill, who, after a +hurried gulp of his remaining liquor, still stood staring at the window. +Then he slowly drew on one of his large gloves. "Ye didn't," he said, +with a slow, drawling, but perfectly distinct, articulation, "happen to +know old 'Skinner' Hemmings when you were over there?" + +"Yes." + +"And his daughter?" + +"He hasn't got any." + +"A sort o' mild, innocent, guileless child of nature?" persisted Bill, +with a yellow face, a deadly calm and Satanic deliberation. + +"No. I tell you he HASN'T any daughter. Old man Hemmings is a confirmed +old bachelor. He's too mean to support more than one." + +"And you didn't happen to know any o' that gang, did ye?" continued +Bill, with infinite protraction. + +"Yes. Knew 'em all. There was French Pete, Cherokee Bob, Kanaka +Joe, One-eyed Stillson, Softy Brown, Spanish Jack, and two or three +Greasers." + +"And ye didn't know a man by the name of Charley Byng?" + +"No," returned the Superintendent, with a slight suggestion of weariness +and a distraught glance towards the door. + +"A dark, stylish chap, with shifty black eyes and a curled-up +merstache?" continued Bill, with dry, colorless persistence. + +"No. Look here, Bill, I'm in a little bit of a hurry--but I suppose +you must have your little joke before we part. Now, what is your little +game?" + +"Wot you mean?" demanded Bill, with sudden brusqueness. + +"Mean? Well, old man, you know as well as I do. You're giving me the +very description of Ramon Martinez himself, ha! ha! No--Bill! you didn't +play me this time. You're mighty spry and clever, but you didn't catch +on just then." + +He nodded and moved away with a light laugh. Bill turned a stony face to +the Expressman. Suddenly a gleam of mirth came into his gloomy eyes. He +bent over the young man, and said in a hoarse, chuckling whisper:-- + +"But I got even after all!" + +"How?" + +"He's tied up to that lying little she-devil, hard and fast!" + + + + +THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY. + + +I. + + +It was a freshly furrowed field, so large that the eye at first +scarcely took in its magnitude. The irregular surface of upturned, oily, +wave-shaped clods took the appearance of a vast, black, chopping sea, +that reached from the actual shore of San Francisco Bay to the low hills +of the Coast Range. The sea-breeze that blew chilly over this bleak +expanse added to that fancy, and the line of straggling whitewashed farm +buildings, that half way across lifted themselves above it, seemed to +be placed on an island in its midst. Even the one or two huge, misshapen +agricultural machines, abandoned in the furrows, bore an odd resemblance +to hulks or barges adrift upon its waste. + +This marine suggestion was equally noticeable from the door of one of +the farm buildings--a long, detached wooden shed--into which a number of +farm laborers were slowly filing, although one man was apparently enough +impressed by it to linger and gaze over that rigid sea. Except in their +rough dress and the labor-stains of soil on their hands and faces, they +represented no particular type or class. They were young and old, +robust and delicate, dull and intelligent; kept together only by some +philosophical, careless, or humorous acceptance of equally enforced +circumstance in their labors, as convicts might have been. For they had +been picked up on the streets and wharves of San Francisco,--discharged +sailors, broken-down miners, helpless newcomers, unemployed professional +men, and ruined traders,--to assist in ploughing and planting certain +broad leagues of rich alluvial soil for a speculative Joint Stock +Company, at a weekly wage that would have made an European peasant +independent for half a year. Yet there was no enthusiasm in their labor, +although it was seldom marked by absolute laziness or evasion, and was +more often hindered by ill-regulated "spurts" and excessive effort, +as if the laborer was anxious to get through with it; for in the few +confidences they exchanged there was little allusion to the present, and +they talked chiefly of what they were going to do when their work was +over. They were gregarious only at their meals in one of the sheds, or +when at night they sought their "bunks" or berths together in the larger +building. + +The man who had lingered to look at the dreary prospect had a somewhat +gloomy, discontented face, whose sensitive lines indicated a certain +susceptibility to such impressions. He was further distinguished by +having also lingered longer with the washing of his hands and face +in the battered tin basin on a stool beside the door, and by the +circumstance that the operation revealed the fact that they were whiter +than those of his companions. Drying his fingers slowly on the long +roller-towel, he stood gazing with a kind of hard abstraction across the +darkening field, the strip of faded colorless shore, and the chill gray +sea, to the dividing point of land on the opposite coast, which in the +dying daylight was silhouetted against the cold horizon. + +He knew that around that point and behind it lay the fierce, half-grown, +half-tamed city of yesterday that had worked his ruin. + +It was scarcely a year ago that he had plunged into its wildest +excesses,--a reckless gambler among speculators, a hopeless speculator +among gamblers, until the little fortune he had brought thither had been +swept away. + +From time to time he had kept up his failing spirit with the feverish +exaltation of dissipation, until, awakening from a drunkard's dream one +morning, he had found himself on board a steamboat crossing the bay, in +company with a gang of farm laborers with whom he was hired. A bitter +smile crossed his lips as his eyes hovered over the cold, rugged fields +before him. Yet he knew that they had saved him. The unaccustomed manual +labor in the open air, the regular hours, the silent, heavy, passionless +nights, the plain but wholesome food, were all slowly restoring his +youth and strength again. Temptation and passion had alike fled these +unlovely fields and grim employment. Yet he was not grateful. He nursed +his dreary convalescence as he had his previous dissipation, as part of +a wrong done him by one for whose sake, he was wont to believe, he had +sacrificed himself. That person was a woman. + +Turning at last from the prospect and his bitter memories to join his +companions, he found that they had all passed in. The benches before the +long table on which supper was spread were already filled, and he stood +in hesitation, looking down the line of silent and hungrily preoccupied +men on either side. A young girl, who was standing near a smaller +serving-table, apparently assisting an older woman in directing the +operation of half a dozen Chinese waiters, moved forward and cleared a +place for him at a side-table, pushing before it the only chair in the +room,--the one she had lately vacated. As she placed some of the dishes +before him with a timid ostentation, and her large but well-shaped hands +came suddenly in contact with, and in direst contrast to his own whiter +and more delicate ones, she blushed faintly. He lifted his eyes to hers. + +He had seen her half a dozen times before, for she was the daughter of +the ranch superintendent, and occasionally assisted her mother in +this culinary supervision--which did not, however, bring her into any +familiar association with the men. Even the younger ones, perhaps from +over-consciousness of their inferior position or the preoccupation of +their labor, never indulged in any gallantry toward her, and he himself, +in his revulsion of feeling against the whole sex, had scarcely noticed +that she was good-looking. But this naive exhibition of preference could +not be overlooked, either by his companions, who smiled cynically across +the table, or by himself, from whose morbid fancy it struck an ignoble +suggestion. Ah, well! the girl was pretty--the daughter of his employer, +who rumor said owned a controlling share in the company; why should +he not make this chance preference lead to something, if only to +ameliorate, in ways like this, his despicable position here. He knew +the value of his own good looks, his superior education, and a certain +recklessness which women liked; why should he not profit by them as well +as the one woman who had brought him to this? He owed her sex nothing; +if those among them who were not bad were only fools, there was no +reason why he should not deceive them as they had him. There was +all this small audacity and cynical purpose in his brown eyes as +he deliberately fixed them on hers. And I grieve to say that these +abominable sentiments seemed only to impart to them a certain attractive +brilliancy, and a determination which the undetermining sex is apt to +admire. + +She blushed again, dropped her eyes, replied to his significant thanks +with a few indistinct words, and drew away from the table with a sudden +timidity that was half confession. + +She did not approach him again during the meal, but seemed to have taken +a sudden interest in the efficiency of the waiters, generally, which she +had not shown before. I do not know whether this was merely an effort +at concealment, or an awakened recognition of her duty; but, after the +fashion of her sex,--and perhaps in contrast to his,--she was kinder +that evening to the average man on account of HIM. He did not, however, +notice it; nor did her absence interfere with his now healthy appetite; +he finished his meal, and only when he rose to take his hat from the +peg above him did he glance around the room. Their eyes met again. As +he passed out, although it was dark, he put on his hat a little more +smartly. + +The air was clear and cold, but the outlines of the landscape had +vanished. His companions, with the instinct of tired animals, were +already making their way in knots of two or three, or in silent file, +across the intervening space between the building and their dormitory. +A few had already lit their pipes and were walking leisurely, but the +majority were hurrying from the chill sea-breeze to the warmth and +comfort of the long, well-lit room, lined with blanketed berths, and set +with plain wooden chairs and tables. The young man lingered for a moment +on the wooden platform outside the dining-shed,--partly to evade this +only social gathering of his fellows as they retired for the night, and +partly attracted by a strange fascination to the faint distant glow, +beyond the point of land, which indicated the lights of San Francisco. + +There was a slight rustle behind him! It was the young girl who, with a +white woolen scarf thrown over her head and shoulders, had just left the +room. She started when she saw him, and for an instant hesitated. + +"You are going home, Miss Woodridge?" he said pleasantly. + +"Yes," she returned, in a faint, embarrassed voice. "I thought I'd run +on ahead of ma!" + +"Will you allow me to accompany you?" + +"It's only a step," she protested, indicating the light in the window of +the superintendent's house, the most remote of the group of buildings, +yet scarcely a quarter of a mile distant. + +"But it's quite dark," he persisted smilingly. + +She stepped from the platform to the ground; he instantly followed and +ranged himself at a little distance from her side. She protested still +feebly against his "troubling himself," but in another moment they were +walking on quietly together. Nevertheless, a few paces from the platform +they came upon the upheaved clods of the fresh furrows, and their +progress over them was slow and difficult. + +"Shall I help you? Will you take my arm?" he said politely. + +"No, thank you, Mr. Reddy." + +So! she knew his name! He tried to look into her eyes, but the woolen +scarf hid her head. After all, there was nothing strange in her +knowing him; she probably had the names of the men before her in the +dining-room, or on the books. After a pause he said:-- + +"You quite startled me. One becomes such a mere working machine here +that one quite forgets one's own name,--especially with the prefix of +'Mr.'" + +"And if it don't happen to be one's real name either," said the girl, +with an odd, timid audacity. + +He looked up quickly--more attracted by her manner than her words; more +amused than angry. + +"But Reddy happens to be my real name." + +"Oh!" + +"What made you think it was not?" + +The clods over which they were clambering were so uneven that sometimes +the young girl was mounting one at the same moment that Reddy was +descending from another. Her reply, half muffled in her shawl, was +delivered over his head. "Oh, because pa says most of the men here don't +give their real names--they don't care to be known afterward. Ashamed of +their work, I reckon." + +His face flushed a moment, even in the darkness. He WAS ashamed of his +work, and perhaps a little of the pitiful sport he was beginning. But +oddly enough, the aggressive criticism only whetted his purpose. The +girl was evidently quite able to take care of herself; why should he be +over-chivalrous? + +"It isn't very pleasant to be doing the work of a horse, an ox, or a +machine, if you can do other things," he said half seriously. + +"But you never used to do anything at all, did you?" she asked. + +He hesitated. Here was a chance to give her an affecting history of +his former exalted fortune and position, and perhaps even to stir her +evidently romantic nature with some suggestion of his sacrifices to one +of her own sex. Women liked that sort of thing. It aroused at once +their emulation and their condemnation of each other. He seized the +opportunity, but--for some reason, he knew not why--awkwardly and +clumsily, with a simulated pathos that was lachrymose, a self-assertion +that was boastful, and a dramatic manner that was unreal. Suddenly the +girl stopped him. + +"Yes, I know all THAT; pa told me. Told me you'd been given away by some +woman." + +His face again flushed--this time with anger. The utter failure of his +story to excite her interest, and her perfect possession of herself and +the situation,--so unlike her conduct a few moments before,--made him +savagely silent, and he clambered on sullenly at her side. Presently she +stopped, balancing herself with a dexterity he could not imitate on one +of the larger upheaved clods, and said:-- + +"I was thinking that, as you can't do much with those hands of yours, +digging and shoveling, and not much with your feet either, over ploughed +ground, you might do some inside work, that would pay you better, too. +You might help in the dining room, setting table and washing up, helping +ma and me--though I don't do much except overseeing. I could show you +what to do at first, and you'd learn quick enough. If you say 'yes,' +I'll speak to pa to-night. He'll do whatever I say." + +The rage and shame that filled his breast choked even the bitter laugh +that first rose to his lips. If he could have turned on his heel and +left her with marked indignation, he would have done so, but they were +scarcely half way across the field; his stumbling retreat would have +only appeared ridiculous, and he was by no means sure that she would not +have looked upon it as merely a confession of his inability to keep +up with her. And yet there was something peculiarly fascinating and +tantalizing in the situation. She did not see the sardonic glitter in +his eye as he said brutally:-- + +"Ha! and that would give me the exquisite pleasure of being near you." + +She seemed a little confused, even under her enwrappings, and in +stepping down her foot slipped. Reddy instantly scrambled up to her +and caught her as she was pitching forward into the furrow. Yet in the +struggle to keep his own foothold he was aware that she was assisting +him, and although he had passed his arm around her waist, as if for her +better security, it was only through HER firm grasp of his wrists that +he regained his own footing. The "cloud" had fallen back from her head +and shoulders, her heavy hair had brushed his cheek and left its +faint odor in his nostrils; the rounded outline of her figure had +been slightly drawn against his own. His mean resentment wavered; her +proposition, which at first seemed only insulting, now took a vague form +of satisfaction; his ironical suggestion seemed a natural expression. +"Well, I say 'yes' then," he said, with an affected laugh. "That is, if +you think I can manage to do the work; it is not exactly in my line, you +know." Yet he somehow felt that his laugh was feeble and unconvincing. + +"Oh, it's easy enough," said the girl quietly. "You've only got to be +clean--and that's in your line, I should say." + +"And if I thought it would please you," he added, with another attempt +at gallantry. + +She did not reply, but moved steadily on, he fancied a little more +rapidly. They were nearing the house; he felt he was losing time and +opportunity. The uneven nature of the ground kept him from walking +immediately beside her, unless he held her hand or arm. Yet an odd +timidity was overtaking him. Surely this was the same girl whose +consciousness and susceptibility were so apparent a moment ago; yet her +speech had been inconsistent, unsympathetic, and coldly practical. "It's +very kind of you," he began again, scrambling up one side of the furrow +as she descended on the other, "to--to--take such an interest in--in a +stranger, and I wish you knew how" (she had mounted the ridge again, and +stood balancing herself as if waiting for him to finish his sentence) +"how--how deeply--I--I"--She dropped quickly down again with the same +movement of uneasy consciousness, and he left the sentence unfinished. +The house was now only a few yards away; he hurried forward, but she +reached the wooden platform and stoop upon it first. He, however, at the +same moment caught her hand. + +"I want to thank you," he said, "and say good-night." + +"Good-night." Her voice was indistinct again, and she was trembling. +Emboldened and reckless, he sprang upon the platform, and encircling her +with one arm, with his other hand he unloosed the woolen cloud around +her head and bared her faintly flushed cheek and half-open, hurriedly +breathing lips. But the next moment she threw her head back with a +single powerful movement, and, as it seemed to him, with scarcely an +effort cast him off with both hands, and sent him toppling from the +platform to the ground. He scrambled quickly to his feet again, flushed, +angry, and--frightened! Perhaps she would call her father; he would be +insulted, or worse,--laughed at! He had lost even this pitiful chance of +bettering his condition. But he was as relieved as he was surprised +to see that she was standing quietly on the edge of the platform, +apparently waiting for him to rise. Her face was still uncovered, still +slightly flushed, but bearing no trace of either insult or anger. When +he stood erect again, she looked at him gravely and drew the woolen +cloud over her head, as she said calmly, "Then I'll tell pa you'll take +the place, and I reckon you'll begin to-morrow morning." + + +II. + + +Angered, discomfited, and physically and morally beaten, James Reddy +stumbled and clambered back across the field. The beam of light that had +streamed out over the dark field as the door opened and shut on the +girl left him doubly confused and bewildered. In his dull anger and +mortification, there seemed only one course for him to pursue. He would +demand his wages in the morning, and cut the whole concern. He would go +back to San Francisco and work there, where he at least had friends who +respected his station. Yet, he ought to have refused the girl's offer +before she had repulsed him; his retreat now meant nothing, and might +even tempt her, in her vulgar pique, to reveal her rebuff of him. He +raised his eyes mechanically, and looked gloomily across the dark waste +and distant bay to the opposite shore. But the fog had already hidden +the glow of the city's lights, and, thickening around the horizon, +seemed to be slowly hemming him in with the dreary rancho. In his +present frame of mind there was a certain fatefulness in this that +precluded his once free agency, and to that extent relieved and absolved +HIM of any choice. He reached the dormitory and its turned-down lights +in a state of tired and dull uncertainty, for which sleep seemed to +offer the only relief. He rolled himself in his blankets with an animal +instinct of comfort and shut his eyes, but their sense appeared to +open upon Nelly Woodridge as she stood looking down upon him from the +platform. Even through the dull pain of his bruised susceptibilities he +was conscious of a strange satisfaction he had not felt before. He fell +asleep at last, to waken only to the sunlight streaming through the +curtainless windows on his face. To his surprise the long shed was empty +and deserted, except for a single Chinaman who was sweeping the floor at +the farther end. As Reddy started up, the man turned and approached him +with a characteristic, vague, and patient smile. + +"All lity, John, you sleepee heap! Mistel Woodlidge he say you no go +wolkee field allee same Mellikan man. You stoppee inside housee allee +same ME. Shabbee? You come to glubbee [grub] now" (pointing to the +distant dining-shed), "and then you washee dish." + +The full extent of his new degradation flashed upon Reddy with this +added insult of his brother menial's implicit equality. He understood +it all. He had been detached from the field-workers and was to come to +a later breakfast, perhaps the broken victuals of the first repast, +and wash the dishes. He remembered his new bargain. Very well! he +would refuse positively, take his dismissal, and leave that morning! He +hurriedly dressed himself, and followed the Chinaman into the open air. + +The fog still hung upon the distant bay and hid the opposite point. But +the sun shone with dry Californian brilliancy over the league-long field +around him, revealing every detail of the rancho with sharp, matter of +fact directness, and without the least illusion of distance or romance. +The rough, unplaned, unpainted walls of the dinner-shed stood out +clearly before him; the half-filled buckets of water on the near +platform, and the immense tubs piled with dirty dishes. He scowled +darkly as he walked forward, conscious, nevertheless, of the +invigorating discipline of the morning air and the wholesome whip in the +sky above him. He entered sharply and aggressively. To his relief, the +room at first sight seemed, like the dormitory he had just left, to be +empty. But a voice, clear, dry, direct, and practical as the morning +itself, spoke in his ear: "Mornin', Reddy! My daughter says you're +willin' to take an indoor job, and I reckon, speakin' square, as man +to man, it's more in your line than what you've bin doin'. It mayn't +be high-toned work, but work's WORK anyhow you can fix it; and the only +difference I kin see is in the work that a man does squarely, and the +work that he shirks." + +"But," said Reddy hurriedly, "there's a mistake. I came here only to"-- + +"Work like the others, I understand. Well, you see you CAN'T. You do +your best, I know. I ain't findin' fault, but it ain't in your line. +THIS is, and the pay is better." + +"But," stammered Reddy, "Miss Woodridge didn't understand"-- + +"Yes, she did," returned Woodridge impatiently, "and she told me. She +says she'll show you round at first. You'll catch on all right. Sit down +and eat your breakfast, and she'll be along before you're through. +Ez for ME, I must get up and get. So long!" and before Reddy had an +opportunity to continue his protest, he turned away. + +The young man glanced vexatiously around him. A breakfast much better in +service and quality than the one he had been accustomed to smoked on the +table. There was no one else in the room. He could hear the voices of +the Chinese waiters in the kitchen beyond. He was healthily hungry, +and after a moment's hesitation sat down and began his meal. He could +expostulate with her afterward, and withdraw his promise. He was +entitled to his breakfast, anyway! + +Once or twice, while thus engaged, he heard the door of the kitchen +open and the clipping tread of the Chinese waiters, who deposited some +rattling burden on the adjacent tables, but he thought it prudent not +to seem to notice them. When he had finished, the pleasant, hesitating, +boyish contralto of Miss Woodridge fell upon his ear. + +"When you're ready, I'll show you how to begin your work." + +He turned quickly, with a flush of mortification at being discovered +at his repast, and his anger returned. But as his eyes fell upon +her delicately colored but tranquil face, her well-shaped figure, +coquettishly and spotlessly cuffed, collared, and aproned, and her clear +blue but half-averted eyes, he again underwent a change. She certainly +was very pretty--that most seductive prettiness which seemed to be +warmed into life by her consciousness of himself. Why should he take her +or himself so seriously? Why not play out the farce, and let those +who would criticise him and think his acceptance of the work degrading +understand that it was only an affair of gallantry. He could afford +to serve Woodridge at least a few weeks for the favor of this Rachel! +Forgetful of his rebuff of the night before, he fixed his brown eyes on +hers with an audacious levity. + +"Oh yes--the work! Let us see it. I'm ready in name and nature for +anything that Miss Woodridge wants of me. I'm just dying to begin." + +His voice was raised slightly, with a high comedy jauntiness, for +the benefit of the Chinese waiters who might be lingering to see the +"Mellican man" assume their functions. But it failed in effect. With +their characteristic calm acceptance of any eccentricity in a "foreign +devil," they scarcely lifted their eyes. The young girl pointed to +a deep basket filled with dishes which had been placed on the larger +table, and said, without looking at Reddy:-- + +"You had better begin by 'checking' the crockery. That is, counting the +pieces separately and then arranging them in sets as they come back from +washing. There's the book to compare them with and to set down what is +broken, missing, or chipped. You'll have a clean towel with you to wipe +the pieces that have not been cleaned enough; or, if they are too dirty, +you'll send them back to the kitchen." + +"Couldn't I wash them myself?" said Reddy, continuing his ostentatious +levity. + +"Not yet," said the girl, with grave hesitation; "you'd break them." + +She stood watching him, as with affected hilarity he began to take the +dishes from the basket. But she noticed that in spite of this jocular +simulation his grasp was firm and delicate, and that there was no +clatter--which would have affected her sensitive ear--as he put them +down. She laid a pencil and account book beside him and turned away. + +"But you are not going?" he said, in genuine surprise. + +"Yes," she said quietly, "until you get through 'checking.' Then I'll +come back and show you what you have to do next. You're getting on very +well." + +"But that was because you were with me." + +She colored slightly and, without looking at him, moved slowly to the +door and disappeared. + +Reddy went back to his work, disappointed but not discomfited. He was +getting accustomed to the girl's eccentricities. Whether it was the +freshness of the morning air and sunlight streaming in at the open +windows, the unlooked-for solitude and security of the empty room, or +that there was nothing really unpleasant in his occupation, he went on +cheerfully "checking" the dishes, narrowly examining them for chips and +cracks, and noting them in the book. Again discovering that a few were +imperfectly cleaned and wiped, he repaired the defect with cold water +and a towel without the least thought of the operation being degrading. +He had finished his task in half an hour; she had not returned; why +should he not go on and set the table? As he straightened and turned the +coarse table-cloth, he made the discovery that the long table was +really composed of half a dozen smaller ones, and that the hideous +parallelogram which had always so offended him was merely the outcome of +carelessness and want of taste. Without a moment's hesitation he set +at work to break up the monotonous line and rearranged the tables +laterally, with small open spaces between them. The task was no light +one, even for a stronger man, but he persevered in it with a new-found +energy until he had changed the whole aspect of the room. It looked +larger, wider, and less crowded; its hard practical, workhouse-like +formality had disappeared. He had paused to survey it, panting still +with his unusual exertion, when a voice broke upon his solitude. + +"Well, I wanter know!" + +The voice was not Nelly's, but that of her mother,--a large-boned, +angular woman of fifty,--who had entered the room unperceived. The +accents were simply those of surprise, but on James Reddy's present +sensitive mood, coupled with the feeling that here was a new witness +to his degradation, he might have resented it; but he detected the +handsome, reserved figure of the daughter a few steps behind her. Their +eyes met; wonderful to relate, the young girl's no longer evaded him, +but looked squarely into his with a bright expression of pleasure he +had not seen before. He checked himself with a sudden thrill of +gratification. + +"Well, I declare," continued Mrs. Woodridge; "is that YOUR idea--or +yours, Helen?" + +Here Reddy simply pointed out the advantages for serving afforded by the +new arrangement; that all the tables were equally and quickly accessible +from the serving-table and sideboard, and that it was no longer +necessary to go the whole length of the room to serve the upper table. +He tactfully did not refer to the improved appearance of the room. + +"Well, as long as it ain't mere finikin," said the lady graciously, "and +seems to bring the folks and their vittles nearer together--we'll try +it to-day. It does look kinder CITYFIED--and I reckoned that was all the +good it was. But I calkilated you were goin' to check the crockery this +morning." + +"It's done," said Reddy, smilingly handing her the account-book. + +Mrs. Woodridge glanced over it, and then surveyed her new assistant. + +"And you didn't find any plates that were dirty and that had to be sent +back?" + +"Yes, two or three, but I cleaned them myself." + +Mrs. Woodridge glanced at him with a look of approving curiosity, but +his eyes were just then seeking her daughter's for a more grateful +sympathy. All of which the good lady noted, and as it apparently +answered the unasked question in her own mind, she only uttered the +single exclamation, "Humph!" + +But the approbation he received later at dinner, in the satisfaction +of his old companions with the new arrangement, had also the effect +of diverting from him the criticism he had feared they would make +in finding him installed as an assistant to Mrs. Woodridge. On the +contrary, they appeared only to recognize in him some especial +and superior faculty utilized for their comfort, and when the +superintendent, equally pleased, said it was "all Reddy's own idea," no +one doubted that it was this particular stroke of genius which gained +him the obvious promotion. If he had still thought of offering his +flirtation with Nelly as an excuse, there was now no necessity for any. +Having shown to his employers his capacity for the highest and lowest +work, they naturally preferred to use his best abilities--and he +was kept from any menial service. His accounts were so carefully and +intelligently rendered that the entire care of the building and its +appointments was intrusted to him. At the end of the week Mr. Woodridge +took him aside. + +"I say, you ain't got any job in view arter you finish up here, hev ye?" + +Reddy started. Scarcely ten days ago he had a hundred projects, schemes, +and speculations, more or less wild and extravagant, wherewith he was to +avenge and recoup himself in San Francisco. Now they were gone he knew +not where and how. He briefly said he had not. + +"Because," continued Woodridge, "I've got an idea of startin' a hotel in +the Oak Grove, just on the slope back o' the rancho. The company's bound +to make some sort o' settlement there for the regular hands, and the +place is pooty enough for 'Frisco people who want to run over here and +get set up for a day or two. Thar's plenty of wood and water up thar, +and the company's sure to have a wharf down on the shore. I'll provide +the capital, if you will put in your time. You can sling in ez much +style as you like there" (this was an allusion to Reddy's attempt to +enliven the blank walls with colored pictures from the illustrated +papers and green ceanothus sprays from the slope); "in fact, the more +style the better for them city folks. Well, you think it over." + +He did. But meantime he seemed to make little progress in his court of +the superintendent's daughter. He tried to think it was because he had +allowed himself to be diverted by his work, but although she always +betrayed the same odd physical consciousness of his presence, it was +certain that she never encouraged him. She gave him the few directions +that his new occupation still made necessary, and looked her approval +of his success. But nothing more. He was forced to admit that this was +exactly what she might have done as the superintendent's daughter to a +deserving employee. Whereat, for a few days he assumed an air of cold +and ceremonious politeness, until perceiving that, far from piquing the +girl, it seemed to gratify her, and even to render her less sensitive +in his company, he sulked in good earnest. This proving ineffective +also,--except to produce a kind of compassionate curiosity,--his former +dull rage returned. The planting of the rancho was nearly over; his +service would be ended next week; he had not yet given his answer to +Woodridge's proposition; he would decline it and cut the whole concern! + +It was a crisp Sunday morning. The breakfast hour was later on that +day to allow the men more time for their holiday, which, however, they +generally spent in cards, gossip, or reading in their sleeping sheds. +It usually delayed Reddy's work, but as he cared little for the +companionship of his fellows, it enabled him, without a show of +unsociability, to seclude himself in the dining-room. And this morning +he was early approached by his employer. + +"I'm goin' to take the women folks over to Oakdale to church," said Mr. +Woodridge; "ef ye keer to join us thar's a seat in the wagon, and I'll +turn on a couple of Chinamen to do the work for you, just now; and Nelly +or the old woman will give you a lift this afternoon with the counting +up." + +Reddy felt instinctively that the invitation had been instigated by the +young girl. A week before he would have rejoiced at it; a month ago he +would have accepted it if only as a relief to his degraded position, but +in the pique of this new passion he almost rudely declined it. An hour +later he saw Nelly, becomingly and even tastefully dressed,--with +the American girl's triumphant superiority to her condition and +surroundings,--ride past in her father's smart "carryall." He was +startled to see that she looked so like a lady. Then, with a new and +jealous inconsistency, significant of the progress of his passion, he +resolved to go to church too. She should see that he was not going to +remain behind like a mere slave. He remembered that he had still certain +remnants of his past finery in his trunk; he would array himself in +them, walk to Oakdale, and make one of the congregation. He managed to +change his clothes without attracting the attention of his fellows, and +set out. + +The air was pure but keen, with none of the languor of spring in +its breath, although a few flowers were beginning to star the weedy +wagon-tracked lane, and there was an awakening spice in the wayside +southernwood and myrtle. He felt invigorated, although it seemed only to +whet his jealous pique. He hurried on without even glancing toward the +distant coast-line of San Francisco or even thinking of it. The bitter +memories of the past had been obliterated by the bitterness of the +present. He no longer thought of "that woman;" even when he had +threatened to himself to return to San Francisco, he was vaguely +conscious that it was not SHE who was again drawing him there, but Nelly +who was driving him away. + +The service was nearly over when he arrived at the chilly little +corrugated-zinc church at Oakdale, but he slipped into one of the back +seats. A few worshipers turned round to look at him. Among them were the +daughters of a neighboring miller, who were slightly exercised over the +unusual advent of a good-looking stranger with certain exterior signs of +elegance. Their excitement was communicated by some mysterious instinct +to their neighbor, Nelly Woodridge. She also turned and caught his +eye. But to all appearances she not only showed no signs of her usual +agitation at his presence, but did not seem to even recognize him. +In the acerbity of his pique he was for a moment gratified at what he +believed to be the expression of her wounded pride, but his uneasiness +quickly returned, and at the conclusion of the service he slipped out of +the church with one or two of the more restless in the congregation. +As he passed through the aisle he heard the escort of the miller's +daughters, in response to a whispered inquiry, say distinctly: "Only +the head-waiter over at the company's rancho." Whatever hesitating idea +Reddy might have had of waiting at the church door for the appearance +of Nelly vanished before the brutal truth. His brow darkened, and with +flushed cheeks he turned his back upon the building and plunged into the +woods. This time there was no hesitation in his resolve; he would +leave the rancho at the expiration of his engagement. Even in a higher +occupation he felt he could never live down his reputation there. + +In his morose abstraction he did not know how long or how aimlessly he +had wandered among the mossy live-oaks, his head and shoulders often +imperiled by the downcurving of some huge knotted limb; his feet +straying blindly from the faint track over the thickly matted carpet +of chickweed which hid their roots. But it was nearly an hour before he +emerged upon a wide, open, wooded slope, and, from the distant view of +field and shore, knew that he was at Oak Grove, the site of Woodridge's +projected hotel. And there, surely, at a little distance, was +the Woodridges' wagon and team tied up to a sapling, while the +superintendent and his wife were slowly climbing the slope, and +apparently examining the prospect. Without waiting to see if Nelly was +with them, Reddy instantly turned to avoid meeting them. But he had not +proceeded a hundred yards before he came upon that young lady, who +had evidently strayed from the party, and who was now unconsciously +advancing toward him. A rencontre was inevitable. + +She started slightly, and then stopped, with all her old agitation and +embarrassment. But, to his own surprise, he was also embarrassed and +even tongue-tied. + +She spoke first. + +"You were at church. I didn't quite know you in--in--these clothes." + +In her own finery she had undergone such a change to Reddy's +consciousness that he, for the first time in their acquaintance, now +addressed her as on his own level, and as if she had no understanding of +his own feelings. + +"Oh," he said, with easy bitterness, "OTHERS did, if you did not. They +all detected the 'head-waiter' at the Union Company's rancho. Even if I +had accepted your kindness in offering me a seat in your wagon it would +have made no difference." He was glad to put this construction on +his previous refusal, for in the new relations which seemed to be +established by their Sunday clothes he was obliged to soften the +churlishness of that refusal also. + +"I don't think you'd look nice setting the table in kid gloves," she +said, glancing quickly at his finery as if accepting it as the real +issue; "but you can wear what you like at other times. I never found +fault with your working clothes." + +There was such a pleasant suggestion in her emphasis that his ill-humor +softened. Her eyes wandered over the opposite grove, where her +unconscious parents had just disappeared. + +"Papa's very keen about the hotel," she continued, "and is going to +have the workmen break ground to-morrow. He says he'll have it up in two +months and ready to open, if he has to make the men work double time. +When you're manager, you won't mind what folks say." + +There was no excuse for his further hesitation. He must speak out, but +he did it in a half-hearted way. + +"But if I simply go away--WITHOUT being manager--I won't hear their +criticism either." + +"What do you mean?" she said quickly. + +"I've--I've been thinking of--of going back to San Francisco," he +stammered awkwardly. + +A slight flush of contemptuous indignation passed over her face, and +gave it a strength and expression he had never seen there before. "Oh, +you've not reformed yet, then?" she said, under her scornful lashes. + +"I don't understand you," he said, flushing. + +"Father ought to have told you," she went on dryly, "that that woman has +gone off to the Springs with her husband, and you won't see HER at San +Francisco." + +"I don't know what you mean--and your father seems to take an +unwarrantable interest in my affairs," said Reddy, with an anger that he +was conscious, however, was half simulated. + +"No more than he ought to, if he expects to trust you with all HIS +affairs," said the girl shortly; "but you had better tell him you have +changed your mind at once, before he makes any further calculations on +your staying. He's just over the hill there, with mother." + +She turned away coldly as she spoke, but moved slowly and in the +direction of the hill, although she took a less direct trail than +the one she had pointed to him. But he followed her, albeit still +embarrassedly, and with that new sense of respect which had checked his +former surliness. There was her strong, healthy, well-developed +figure moving before him, but the modish gray dress seemed to give its +pronounced outlines something of the dignity of a goddess. Even the firm +hands had the distinguishment of character. + +"You understand," he said apologetically, "that I mean no discourtesy to +your father or his offer. And"--he hesitated--"neither is my reason what +you would infer." + +"Then what is it?" she asked, turning to him abruptly. "You know you +have no other place when you leave here, nor any chance as good as the +one father offers you. You are not fit for any other work, and you know +it. You have no money to speculate with, nor can you get any. If you +could, you would have never stayed here." + +He could not evade the appalling truthfulness of her clear eyes. He +knew it was no use to lie to her; she had evidently thoroughly informed +herself regarding his past; more than that, she seemed to read his +present thoughts. But not all of them! No! he could startle her still! +It was desperate, but he had nothing now to lose. And she liked the +truth,--she should have it! + +"You are right," he said shortly; "these are not my reasons." + +"Then what reason have you?" + +"You!" + +"Me?" she repeated incredulously, yet with a rising color. + +"Yes, YOU! I cannot stay here, and have you look down upon me." + +"I don't look down on you," she said simply, yet without the haste of +repelling an unjust accusation. "Why should I? Mother and I have done +the same work that you are doing,--if that's what you mean; and father, +who is a man like yourself, helped us at first, until he could do other +things better." She paused. "Perhaps you think so because YOU looked +down on us when you first came here." + +"But I didn't," said Reddy quickly. + +"You did," said the young girl quietly. "That's why you acted toward me +as you did the night you walked home with me. You would not have +behaved in that way to any San Francisco young lady--and I'm not one of +your--fast--MARRIED WOMEN." + +Reddy felt the hot blood mount to his cheek, and looked away. "I +was foolish and rude--and I think you punished me at the time," he +stammered. "But you see I was right in saying you looked down on me," he +concluded triumphantly. + +This was at best a feeble sequitur, but the argument of the affections +is not always logical. And it had its effect on the girl. + +"I wasn't thinking of THAT," she said. "It's that you don't know your +own mind." + +"If I said that I would stay and accept your father's offer, would you +think that I did?" he asked quickly. + +"I should wait and see what you actually DID do," she replied. + +"But if I stayed--and--and--if I told you that I stayed on YOUR +account--to be with you and near you only--would you think that a +proof?" He spoke hesitatingly, for his lips were dry with a nervousness +he had not known before. + +"I might, if you told father you expected to be engaged on those terms. +For it concerns HIM as much as me. And HE engages you, and not I. +Otherwise I'd think it was only your talk." + +Reddy looked at her in astonishment. There was not the slightest trace +of coyness, coquetry, or even raillery in her clear, honest eyes, and +yet it would seem as if she had taken his proposition in its fullest +sense as a matrimonial declaration, and actually referred him to her +father. He was pleased, frightened, and utterly unprepared. + +"But what would YOU say, Nelly?" He drew closer to her and held out both +his hands. But she retreated a step and slipped her own behind her. + +"Better see what father says first," she said quietly. "You may change +your mind again and go back to San Francisco." + +He was confused, and reddened again. But he had become accustomed to her +ways; rather, perhaps, he had begun to recognize the quaint justice that +underlaid them, or, possibly, some better self of his own, that had been +buried under bitterness and sloth and struggled into life. "But whatever +he says," he returned eagerly, "cannot alter my feelings to YOU. It can +only alter my position here, and you say you are above being influenced +by that. Tell me, Nelly--dear Nelly! have you nothing to say to me, AS +I AM, or is it only to your father's manager that you would speak?" His +voice had an unmistakable ring of sincerity in it, and even startled +him--half rascal as he was! + +The young girl's clear, scrutinizing eyes softened; her red resolute +lips trembled slightly and then parted, the upper one hovering a little +to one side over her white teeth. It was Nelly's own peculiar smile, and +its serious piquancy always thrilled him. But she drew a little farther +back from his brightening eyes, her hands still curled behind her, and +said, with the faintest coquettish toss of her head toward the hill: "If +you want to see father, you'd better hurry up." + +With a sudden determination as new to him as it was incomprehensible, +Reddy turned from her and struck forward in the direction of the hill. +He was not quite sure what he was going for. Yet that he, who had only +a moment before fully determined to leave the rancho and her, was now +going to her father to demand her hand as a contingency of his remaining +did not strike him as so extravagant and unexpected a denouement as +it was a difficult one. He was only concerned HOW, and in what way, he +should approach him. In a moment of embarrassment he hesitated, turned, +and looked behind him. + +She was standing where he had left her, gazing after him, leaning +forward with her hands still held behind her. Suddenly, as with an +inspiration, she raised them both, carried them impetuously to her lips, +blew him a dozen riotous kisses, and then, lowering her head like a +colt, whisked her skirt behind her, and vanished in the cover. + + +III. + + +It was only May, but the freshness of early summer already clothed +the great fields of the rancho. The old resemblance to a sea was still +there, more accented, perhaps, by the undulations of bluish-green +grain that rolled from the actual shore-line to the foothills. The farm +buildings were half submerged in this glowing tide of color and lost +their uncouth angularity with their hidden rude foundations. The same +sea-breeze blew chilly and steadily from the bay, yet softened and +subdued by the fresh odors of leaf and flower. The outlying fringe of +oaks were starred through their underbrush with anemones and dog-roses; +there were lupines growing rankly in the open spaces, and along the +gentle slopes of Oak Grove daisies were already scattered. And, as if it +were part of this vernal efflorescence, the eminence itself was crowned +with that latest flower of progress and improvement,--the new Oak Grove +Hotel! + +Long, low, dazzling with white colonnades, verandas, and balconies which +retained, however, enough of the dampness of recent creation to make +them too cool for loungers, except at high noon, the hotel nevertheless +had the charms of freshness, youth, and cleanliness. Reddy's fastidious +neatness showed itself in all the appointments, from the mirrored and +marbled barroom, gilded parlors, and snowy dining-room, to the chintz +and maple furnishing of the bedrooms above. Reddy's taste, too, had +selected the pretty site; his good fortune had afterward discovered +in an adjoining thicket a spring of blandly therapeutic qualities. A +complaisant medical faculty of San Francisco attested to its merits; +a sympathetic press advertised the excellence of the hotel; a +novelty-seeking, fashionable circle--as yet without laws and blindly +imitative--found the new hotel an admirable variation to the vulgar +ordinary "across the bay" excursion, and an accepted excuse for a novel +social dissipation. A number of distinguished people had already visited +it; certain exclusive families had secured the best rooms; there were a +score of pretty women to be seen in its parlors; there had already been +a slight scandal. Nothing seemed wanting to insure its success. + +Reddy was passing through the little wood where four months before he +had parted from Kelly Woodridge to learn his fate from her father. He +remembered that interview to which Nelly's wafted kiss had inspired +him. He recalled to-day, as he had many times before, the singular +complacency with which Mr. Woodridge had received his suit, as if it +were a slight and unimportant detail of the business in hand, and how he +had told him that Kelly and her mother were going to the "States" for a +three months' visit, but that after her return, if they were both "still +agreed," he, Woodridge, would make no objection. He remembered the +slight shock which this announcement of Kelly's separation from him +during his probationary labors had given him, and his sudden suspicion +that he had been partly tricked of his preliminary intent to secure her +company to solace him. But he had later satisfied himself that she +knew nothing of her father's intentions at the time, and he was fain to +content himself with a walk through the fields at her side the day she +departed, and a single kiss--which left him cold. And now in a few days +she would return to witness the successful fufillment of his labors, +and--reward him! + +It was certainly a complacent prospect. He could look forward to a +sensible, prosperous, respectable future. He had won back his good +name, his fortune, and position,--not perhaps exactly in the way he +had expected,--and he had stilled the wanton, foolish cravings of his +passionate nature in the calm, virginal love of an honest, handsome girl +who would make him a practical helpmeet, and a comfortable, trustworthy +wife. He ought to be very happy. He had never known such perfect health +before; he had lost his reckless habits; his handsome, nervous face had +grown more placid and contented; his long curls had been conventionally +clipped; he had gained flesh unmistakably, and the lower buttons of +the slim waistcoat he had worn to church that memorable Sunday were too +tight for comfort or looks. HE WAS happy; yet as he glanced over the +material spring landscape, full of practical health, blossom, and +promise of fruition, it struck him that the breeze that blew over it was +chilly, even if healthful; and he shivered slightly. + +He reached the hotel, entered the office, glanced at the register, and +passed through into his private room. He had been away for two days, +and noticed with gratification that the influx of visitors was still +increasing. His clerk followed into the room. + +"There's a lady in 56 who wanted to see you when you returned. She asked +particularly for the manager." + +"Who is she?" + +"Don't know. It's a Mrs. Merrydew, from Sacramento. Expecting her +husband on the next steamer." + +"Humph! You'll have to be rather careful about these solitary married +women. We don't want another scandal, you know." + +"She asked for you by name, sir, and I thought you might know her," +returned the clerk. + +"Very well. I'll go up." + +He sent a waiter ahead to announce him, and leisurely mounted the +stairs. No. 56 was the sitting-room of a private suite on the first +floor. The waiter was holding the door open. As he approached it a +faint perfume from the interior made him turn pale. But he recovered his +presence of mind sufficiently to close the door sharply upon the waiter +behind him. + +"Jim," said a voice which thrilled him. + +He looked up and beheld what any astute reader of romance will have +already suspected--the woman to whom he believed he owed his ruin in +San Francisco. She was as beautiful and alluring as ever, albeit she was +thinner and more spiritual than he had ever seen her. She was tastefully +dressed, as she had always been, a certain style of languorous silken +deshabille which she was wont to affect in better health now became her +paler cheek and feverishly brilliant eyes. There was the same opulence +of lace and ornament, and, whether by accident or design, clasped around +the slight wrist of her extended hand was a bracelet which he remembered +had swept away the last dregs of his fortune. + +He took her hand mechanically, yet knowing whatever rage was in his +heart he had not the strength to refuse it. + +"They told me it was Mrs. Merrydew," he stammered. + +"That was my mother's name," she said, with a little laugh. "I thought +you knew it. But perhaps you didn't. When I got my divorce from +Dick--you didn't know that either, I suppose; it's three months ago,--I +didn't care to take my maiden name again; too many people remembered +it. So after the decree was made I called myself Mrs. Merrydew. You had +disappeared. They said you had gone East." + +"But the clerk says you are expecting your HUSBAND on the steamer. What +does this mean? Why did you tell him that?" He had so far collected +himself that there was a ring of inquisition in his voice. + +"Oh, I had to give him some kind of reason for my being alone when I did +not find you as I expected," she said half wearily. Then a change came +over her tired face; a smile of mingled audacity and tentative coquetry +lit up the small features. "Perhaps it is true; perhaps I may have a +husband coming on the steamer--that depends. Sit down, Jim." + +She let his hand drop, and pointed to an armchair from which she had +just risen, and sank down herself in a corner of the sofa, her thin +fingers playing with and drawing themselves through the tassels of the +cushion. + +"You see, Jim, as soon as I was free, Louis Sylvester--you remember +Louis Sylvester?--wanted to marry me, and even thought that he was the +cause of Dick's divorcing me. He actually went East to settle up some +property he had left him there, and he's coming on the steamer." + +"Louis Sylvester!" repeated Reddy, staring at her. "Why, he was a bigger +fool than I was, and a worse man!" he added bitterly. + +"I believe he was," said the lady, smiling, "and I think he still +is. But," she added, glancing at Reddy under her light fringed lids, +"you--you're regularly reformed, aren't you? You're stouter, too, and +altogether more solid and commercial looking. Yet who'd have thought of +your keeping a hotel or ever doing anything but speculate in wild-cat +or play at draw poker. How did you drift into it? Come, tell me! I'm not +Mrs. Sylvester just yet, and maybe I might like to go into the business +too. You don't want a partner, do you?" + +Her manner was light and irresponsible, or rather it suggested a +childlike putting of all responsibility for her actions upon others, +which he remembered now too well. Perhaps it was this which kept him +from observing that the corners of her smiling lips, however, twitched +slightly, and that her fingers, twisting the threads of the tassel, +were occasionally stiffened nervously. For he burst out: Oh yes; he had +drifted into it when it was a toss up if it wasn't his body instead +that would be found drifting out to sea from the first wharf of San +Francisco. Yes, he had been a common laborer,--a farm hand, in those +fields she had passed,--a waiter in the farm kitchen, and but for luck +he might be taking her orders now in this very hotel. It was not her +fault if he was not in the gutter. + +She raised her thin hand with a tired gesture as if to ward off the +onset of his words. "The same old Jim," she repeated; "and yet I thought +you had forgotten all that now, and become calmer and more sensible +since you had taken flesh and grown so matter of fact. You ought to have +known then, as you know now, that I never could have been anything to +you as long as I was tied to Dick. And you know you forced your presents +on me, Jim. I took them from YOU because I would take nothing from Dick, +for I hated him. And I never knew positively that you were in straits +then; you know you always talked big, Jim, and were always going to make +your fortune with the next thing you had in hand!" + +It was true, and he remembered it. He had not intended this kind of +recrimination, but he was exasperated with her wearied acceptance of his +reproaches and by a sudden conviction that his long-cherished grievance +against her now that he had voiced it was inadequate, mean, and +trifling. Yet he could not help saying:-- + +"Then you had presents from Sylvester, too. I presume you did not hate +him, either?" + +"He would have married me the day after I got my divorce." + +"And so would I," burst out Reddy. + +She looked at him fixedly. "You would?" she said with a peculiar +emphasis. "And now"-- + +He colored. It had been part of his revengeful purpose on seeing her to +tell her of his engagement to Kelly. He now found himself tongue-tied, +irresolute, and ashamed. Yet he felt she was reading his innermost +thoughts. + +She, however, only lowered her eyes, and with the same tired expression +said: "No matter now. Let us talk of something nearer. That was two +months ago. And so you have charge of this hotel! I like it so much. I +mean the place itself. I fancy I could live here forever. It is so far +away and restful. I am so sick of towns and cities, and people. And this +little grove is so secluded. If one had merely a little cottage here, +one might be so happy." + +What did she mean?--what did she expect?--what did she think of doing? +She must be got rid of before Kelly's arrival, and yet he found himself +wavering under her potent and yet scarcely exerted influence. The +desperation of weakness is apt to be more brutal than the determination +of strength. He remembered why he had come upstairs, and blurted out: +"But you can't stay here. The rules are very stringent in regard to--to +strangers like yourself. It will be known who you really are and what +people say of you. Even your divorce will tell against you. It's all +wrong, I know--but what can I do? I didn't make the rules. I am only a +servant of the landlord, and must carry them out." + +She leaned back against the sofa and laughed silently. But she presently +recovered herself, although with the same expression of fatigue. "Don't +be alarmed, my poor Jim! If you mean your friend, Mr. Woodridge, I +know him. It was he, himself, who suggested my coming here. And +don't misunderstand him--nor me either. He's only a good friend of +Sylvester's; they had some speculation together. He's coming here to see +me after Louis arrives. He's waiting in San Francisco for his wife and +daughter, who come on the same steamer. So you see you won't get into +trouble on my account. Don't look so scared, my dear boy." + +"Does he know that you knew me?" said Reddy, with a white face. + +"Perhaps. But then that was three months ago," returned the lady, +smiling, "and you know how you have reformed since, and grown ever so +much more steady and respectable." + +"Did he talk to you of me?" continued Reddy, still aghast. + +"A little--complimentary of course. Don't look so frightened. I didn't +give you away." + +Her laugh suddenly ceased, and her face changed into a more nervous +activity as she rose and went toward the window. She had heard the sound +of wheels outside--the coach had just arrived. + +"There's Mr. Woodridge now," she said in a more animated voice. "The +steamer must be in. But I don't see Louis; do you?" + +She turned to where Reddy was standing, but he was gone. + +The momentary animation of her face changed. She lifted her shoulders +with a half gesture of scorn, but in the midst of it suddenly threw +herself on the sofa, and buried her face in her hands. + +A few moments elapsed with the bustle of arrival in the hall and +passages. Then there was a hesitating step at her door. She quickly +passed her handkerchief over her wet eyes and resumed her former look +of weary acceptation. The door opened. But it was Mr. Woodridge who +entered. The rough shirt-sleeved ranchman had developed, during the last +four months, into an equally blunt but soberly dressed proprietor. His +keen energetic face, however, wore an expression of embarrassment and +anxiety, with an added suggestion of a half humorous appreciation of it. + +"I wouldn't have disturbed you, Mrs. Merrydew," he said, with a gentle +bluntness, "if I hadn't wanted to ask your advice before I saw Reddy. +I'm keeping out of his way until I could see you. I left Nelly and her +mother in 'Frisco. There's been some queer goings-on on the steamer +coming home; Kelly has sprang a new game on her mother, and--and suthin' +that looks as if there might be a new deal. However," here a sense that +he was, perhaps, treating his statement too seriously, stopped him, and +he smiled reassuringly, "that is as may be." + +"I don't know," he went on, "as I ever told you anything about my Kelly +and Reddy,--partik'lerly about Kelly. She's a good girl, a square girl, +but she's got some all-fired romantic ideas in her head. Mebbee it kem +from her reading, mebbee it kem from her not knowing other girls, or +seeing too much of a queer sort of men; but she got an interest in the +bad ones, and thought it was her mission to reform them,--reform them +by pure kindness, attentive little sisterly ways, and moral example. She +first tried her hand on Reddy. When he first kem to us he was--well, he +was a blazin' ruin! She took him in hand, yanked him outer himself, put +his foot on the bedrock, and made him what you see him now. Well--what +happened; why, he got reg'larly soft on her; wanted to MARRY HER, and +I agreed conditionally, of course, to keep him up to the mark. Did you +speak?" + +"No," said the lady, with her bright eyes fixed upon him. + +"Well, that was all well and good, and I'd liked to have carried out my +part of the contract, and was willing, and am still. But you see, Kelly, +after she'd landed Reddy on firm ground, got a little tired, I reckon, +gal-like, of the thing she'd worked so easily, and when she went East +she looked around for some other wreck to try her hand on, and she found +it on the steamer coming back. And who do you think it was? Why, our +friend Louis Sylvester!" + +Mrs. Merrydew smiled slightly, with her bright eyes still on the +speaker. + +"Well, you know he IS fast at times--if he is a friend of mine--and she +reg'larly tackled him; and as my old woman says, it was a sight to see +her go for him. But then HE didn't tumble to it. No! Reformin' ain't in +HIS line I'm afeard. And what was the result? Why, Kelly only got all +the more keen when she found she couldn't manage him like Reddy,--and, +between you and me, she'd have liked Reddy more if he hadn't been so +easy,--and it's ended, I reckon, in her now falling dead in love with +Sylvester. She swears she won't marry any one else, and wants to devote +her whole life to him! Now, what's to be done! Reddy don't know it yet, +and I don't know how to tell him. Kelly says her mission was ended when +she made a new man of him, and he oughter be thankful for that. Couldn't +you kinder break the news to him and tell him there ain't any show for +him?" + +"Does he love the girl so much, then?" said the lady gently. + +"Yes; but I am afraid there is no hope for Reddy as long as she thinks +there's a chance of her capturing Sylvester." + +The lady rose and went to the writing-table. "Would it be any comfort +to you, Mr. Woodridge, if you were told that she had not the slightest +chance with Sylvester?" + +"Yes." + +She wrote a few lines on a card, put it in an envelope, and handed it to +Woodridge. "Find out where Sylvester is in San Francisco, and give him +that card. I think it will satisfy you. And now as I have to catch the +return coach in ten minutes, I must ask you to excuse me while I put my +things together." + +"And you won't first break the news to Reddy for me?" + +"No; and I advise you to keep the whole matter to yourself for the +present. Good-by!" + +She smiled again, fascinatingly as usual, but, as it seemed to him, a +trifle wearily, and then passed into the inner room. Years after, in his +practical, matter of fact recollections of this strange woman, he always +remembered her by this smile. + +But she had sufficiently impressed him by her parting adjuration to +cause him to answer Reddy's eager inquiries with the statement that +Kelly and her mother were greatly preoccupied with some friends in +San Francisco, and to speedily escape further questioning. Reddy's +disappointment was somewhat mitigated by the simultaneous announcement +of Mrs. Merrydew's departure. But he was still more relieved and +gratified to hear, a few days later, of the marriage of Mrs. Merrydew +with Louis Sylvester. If, to the general surprise and comment it +excited, he contributed only a smile of cynical toleration and superior +self-complacency, the reader will understand and not blame him. Nor did +the public, who knew the austere completeness of his reform. Nor did Mr. +Woodridge, who failed to understand the only actor in this little comedy +who might perhaps have differed from them all. + +A month later James Reddy married Kelly Woodridge, in the chilly little +church at Oakdale. Perhaps by that time it might have occurred to him +that although the freshness and fruition of summer were everywhere, the +building seemed to be still unwarmed. And when he stepped forth with his +bride, and glanced across the prosperous landscape toward the distant +bay and headlands of San Francisco, he shivered slightly at the dryly +practical kiss of the keen northwestern Trades. + +But he was prosperous and comfortable thereafter, as the respectable +owner of broad lands and paying shares. It was said that Mrs. Reddy +contributed much to the popularity of the hotel by her charming freedom +from prejudice and sympathy with mankind; but this was perhaps only due +to the contrast to her more serious and at times abstracted husband. At +least this was the charitable opinion of the proverbially tolerant and +kind-hearted Baroness Streichholzer (nee Merrydew, and relict of the +late lamented Louis Sylvester, Esq.), whom I recently had the pleasure +of meeting at Wiesbaden, where the waters and reposeful surroundings +strongly reminded her of Oakdale. + + + + +THE HEIR OF THE McHULISHES. + + +I. + + +The consul for the United States of America at the port of St. Kentigern +was sitting alone in the settled gloom of his private office. Yet it was +only high noon, of a "seasonable" winter's day, by the face of the clock +that hung like a pallid moon on the murky wall opposite to him. What +else could be seen of the apartment by the faint light that struggled +through the pall of fog outside the lustreless windows presented the +ordinary aspect of a business sanctum. There were a shelf of fog-bound +admiralty law, one or two colored prints of ocean steamships under +full steam, bow on, tremendously foreshortened, and seeming to force +themselves through shadowy partitions; there were engravings of Lincoln +and Washington, as unsubstantial and shadowy as the dead themselves. +Outside, against the window, which was almost level with the street, +an occasional procession of black silhouetted figures of men and women, +with prayer-books in their hands and gloom on their faces, seemed to be +born of the fog, and prematurely to return to it. At which a conviction +of sin overcame the consul. He remembered that it was the Sabbath day, +and that he had no business to be at the consulate at all. + +Unfortunately, with this shameful conviction came the sound of a bell +ringing somewhere in the depths of the building, and the shuffling of +feet on the outer steps. The light of his fire had evidently been seen, +and like a beacon had attracted some wandering and possibly intoxicated +mariner with American papers. The consul walked into the hall with a +sudden righteous frigidity of manner. It was one thing to be lounging +in one's own office on the Sabbath day, and quite another to be +deliberately calling there on business. + +He opened the front door, and a middle-aged man entered, accompanying +and partly shoving forward a more diffident and younger one. Neither +appeared to be a sailor, although both were dressed in that dingy +respectability and remoteness of fashion affected by second and third +mates when ashore. They were already well in the hall, and making their +way toward the private office, when the elder man said, with an air +of casual explanation, "Lookin' for the American consul; I reckon this +yer's the consulate?" + +"It is the consulate," said the official dryly, "and I am the consul; +but"-- + +"That's all right," interrupted the stranger, pushing past him, and +opening the door of the private office, into which he shoved his +companion. "Thar now!" he continued to the diffident youth, pointing to +a chair, and quite ignoring the presence of the consul; "thar's a bit +of America. Sit down thar. You're under the flag now, and can do as +you darn please." Nevertheless, he looked a little disappointed as he +glanced around him, as if he had expected a different environment and +possibly a different climate. + +"I presume," said the consul suavely, "you wish to see me on some urgent +matter; for you probably know that the consulate is closed on Sunday to +ordinary business. I am here myself quite accidentally." + +"Then you don't live here?" said the visitor disappointedly. + +"No." + +"I reckon that's the reason why we didn't see no flag a-flyin' when we +was a-huntin' this place yesterday. We were directed here, but I says to +Malcolm, says I, 'No; it ain't here, or you'd see the Stars and Stripes +afore you'd see anythin' else.' But I reckon you float it over your +house, eh?" + +The consul here explained smilingly that he did NOT fly a flag over his +lodgings, and that except on national holidays it was not customary to +display the national ensign on the consulate. + +"Then you can't do here--and you a CONSUL--what any nigger can do in the +States, eh? That's about how it pans out, don't it? But I didn't think +YOU'D tumble to it quite so quick, Jack." + +At this mention of his Christian name, the consul turned sharply on the +speaker. A closer scrutiny of the face before him ended with a flash +of reminiscence. The fog without and within seemed to melt away; he was +standing once more on a Western hillside with this man; a hundred miles +of sparkling sunshine and crisp, dry air stretching around him, and +above a blue and arched sky that roofed the third of a continent with +six months' summer. And then the fog seemed to come back heavier and +thicker to his consciousness. He emotionally stretched out his hand to +the stranger. But it was the fog and his personal surroundings which now +seemed to be unreal. + +"Why it's Harry Custer!" he said with a laugh that, however, ended in +a sigh. "I didn't recognize you in this half light." He then glanced +curiously toward the diffident young man, as if to identify another +possible old acquaintance. + +"Well, I spotted you from the first," said Custer, "though I ain't seen +you since we were in Scott's Camp together. That's ten years ago. You're +lookin' at HIM," he continued, following the consul's wandering eye. +"Well, it's about him that I came to see you. This yer's a McHulish--a +genuine McHulish!" + +He paused, as if to give effect to this statement. But the name +apparently offered no thrilling suggestion to the consul, who regarded +the young man closely for further explanation. He was a fair-faced youth +of about twenty years, with pale reddish-brown eyes, dark hair reddish +at the roots, and a singular white and pink waxiness of oval cheek, +which, however, narrowed suddenly at the angle of the jaw, and fell away +with the retreating chin. + +"Yes," continued Custer; "I oughter say the ONLY McHulish. He is the +direct heir--and of royal descent! He's one of them McHulishes whose +name in them old history times was enough to whoop up the boys and make +'em paint the town red. A regular campaign boomer--the old McHulish was. +Stump speeches and brass-bands warn't in it with the boys when HE was +around. They'd go their bottom dollar and last cartridge--if they'd had +cartridges in them days--on him. That was the regular McHulish gait. And +Malcolm there's the last of 'em--got the same style of features, too." + +Ludicrous as the situation was, it struck the consul dimly, as +through fog and darkness, that the features of the young man were not +unfamiliar, and indeed had looked out upon him dimly and vaguely at +various times, from various historic canvases. It was the face of +complacent fatuity, incompetency, and inconstancy, which had dragged +down strength, competency, and constancy to its own idiotic fate and +levels,--a face for whose weaknesses valor and beauty had not only +sacrificed themselves, but made things equally unpleasant to a great +many minor virtues. Nevertheless, the consul, with an amused sense of +its ridiculous incongruity to the grim Scottish Sabbath procession in +the street, and the fog-bound volumes of admiralty law in the room, +smiled affably. + +"Of course our young friend has no desire to test the magic of his name +here, in these degenerate days." + +"No," said Custer complacently; "though between you and me, old man, +there's always no tellin' what might turn up over in this yer monarchy. +Things of course are different over our way. But jest now Malcolm will +be satisfied to take the title and property to which he's rightful +heir." + +The consul's face fell. Alas! it was only the old, old story. Its +endless repetitions and variations had been familiar to him even in his +youth and in his own land. "Ef that man had his rights," had once been +pointed out to him in a wild Western camp, "he'd be now sittin' in +scarlet on the right of the Queen of England!" The gentleman who was +indicated in this apocalyptical vision, it appeared, simply bore a +singular likeness to a reigning Hanoverian family, which for some +unexplained reason he had contented himself with bearing with fortitude +and patience. But it was in his official capacity that the consul's +experience had been the most trying. At times it had seemed to him that +much of the real property and peerage of Great Britain was the inherited +right of penniless American republicans who had hitherto refrained +from presenting their legal claims, and that the habitual first duty of +generations of British noblemen on coming into their estates and titles +was to ship their heirs and next of kin to America, and then forget all +about them. He had listened patiently to claims to positions more +or less exalted,--claims often presented with ingenuous sophistry or +pathetic simplicity, prosecuted with great good humor, and abandoned +with invincible cheerfulness; but they seldom culminated more seriously +than in the disbursement of a few dollars by the consul to enable the +rightful owner of millions to procure a steerage passage back to his +previous democratic retirement. There had been others, less sincere but +more pretentious in quality, to whom, however, a letter to the Heralds' +College in London was all sufficient, and who, on payment of various +fees and emoluments, were enabled to stagger back to New York or Boston +with certain unclaimed and forgotten luggage which a more gallant +ancestor had scorned to bring with him into the new life, or had thrown +aside in his undue haste to make them citizens of the republic. Still, +all this had grown monotonous and wearisome, and was disappointing +as coming through the intervention of an old friend who ought to know +better. + +"Of course you have already had legal opinion on the subject over +there," said the consul, with a sigh, "but here, you know, you ought +first to get some professional advice from those acquainted with Scotch +procedure. But perhaps you have that too." + +"No," said Custer cheerfully. "Why, it ain't only two months ago that +I first saw Malcolm. Tumbled over him on his own farm jest out of +MacCorkleville, Kentucky, where he and his fathers before him had been +livin' nigh a hundred years--yes, A HUNDRED YEARS, by Jove! ever since +they first emigrated to the country. Had a talk over it; saw an old +Bible about as big and as used up as that,"--lifting the well-worn +consular Bible,--"with dates in it, and heard the whole story. And here +we are." + +"And you have consulted no lawyer?" gasped the consul. + +"The McHulishes," said an unexpected voice that sounded thin and +feminine, "never took any legal decision. From the craggy summits of +Glen Crankie he lifted the banner of his forefathers, or raised the +war-cry, 'Hulish dhu, ieroe!' from the battlements of Craigiedurrach. +And the clan gathered round him with shouts that rent the air. That was +the way of it in old times. And the boys whooped him up and stood by +him." It was the diffident young man who had half spoken, half recited, +with an odd enthusiasm that even the culminating slang could not make +conventional. + +"That's about the size of it," said Custer, leaning back in his chair +easily with an approving glance at the young man. "And I don't know if +that ain't the way to work the thing now." + +The consul stared hopelessly from the one to the other. It had always +seemed possible that this dreadful mania might develop into actual +insanity, and he had little doubt but that the younger man's brain +was slightly affected. But this did not account for the delusion and +expectations of the elder. Harry Custer, as the consul remembered him, +was a level-headed, practical miner, whose leaning to adventure and +excitement had not prevented him from being a cool speculator, and he +had amassed more than a competency by reason of his judicious foresight +and prompt action. Yet he was evidently under the glamour of this +madman, although outwardly as lazily self-contained as ever. + +"Do you mean to tell me," said the consul in a suppressed voice, "that +you two have come here equipped only with a statement of facts and +a family Bible, and that you expect to take advantage of a feudal +enthusiasm which no longer exists--and perhaps never did exist out of +the pages of romance--as a means of claiming estates whose titles have +long since been settled by law, and can be claimed only under that +tenure? Surely I have misunderstood you. You cannot be in earnest." + +"Honest Injun," said Custer, nodding his head lazily. "We mean it, but +not jest that way you've put it. F'r instance, it ain't only us two. +This yer thing, ole pard, we're runnin' as a syndicate." + +"A syndicate?" echoed the consul. + +"A syndicate," repeated Custer. "Half the boys that were at Eagle Camp +are in it, and two of Malcolm's neighbors from Kentucky--the regular +old Scotch breed like himself; for you know that MacCorkle County +was settled by them old Scotch Covenanters, and the folks are Scotch +Presbyterians to this day. And for the matter of that, the Eagle boys +that are in it are of Scotch descent, or a kind of blend, you know; in +fact, I'm half Scotch myself--or Irish," he added thoughtfully. "So +you see that settles your argument about any local opinion, for if them +Scots don't know their own people, who does?" + +"May I ask," said the consul, with a desperate attempt to preserve his +composure, "what you are proposing to do?" + +"Well," said Custer, settling himself comfortably back in his chair +again, "that depends. Do you remember the time that we jumped them +Mexican claims on the North Fork--the time them greasers wanted to take +in the whole river-bank because they'd found gold on one of the upper +bars? Seems to me we jest went peaceful-like over there one moonshiny +night, and took up THEIR stakes and set down OURS. Seems to me YOU were +one of the party." + +"That was in our own country," returned the consul hastily, "and was an +indefensible act, even in a lawless frontier civilization. But you are +surely not mad enough even to conceive of such a thing HERE!" + +"Keep your hair on, Jack," said Custer lazily. "What's the matter with +constitutional methods, eh? Do you remember the time when we didn't like +Pueblo rules, and we laid out Eureka City on their lines, and whooped up +the Mexicans and diggers to elect mayor and aldermen, and put the city +front on Juanita Creek, and then corraled it for water lots? Seems to +me you were county clerk then. Now who's to keep Dick Macgregor and Joe +Hamilton, that are both up the Nile now, from droppin' in over here to +see Malcolm in his own house? Who's goin' to object to Wallace or Baird, +who are on this side, doin' the Eytalian lakes, from comin' here on +their way home; or Watson and Moore and Timley, that are livin' over in +Paris, from joinin' the boys in givin' Malcolm a housewarmin' in his old +home? What's to keep the whole syndicate from gatherin' at Kelpie Island +up here off the west coast, among the tombs of Malcolm's ancestors, and +fixin' up things generally with the clan?" + +"Only one thing," said the consul, with a gravity which he nevertheless +felt might be a mistaken attitude. "You shouldn't have told ME about +it. For if, as your old friend, I cannot keep you from committing an +unconceivable folly, as the American consul here it will be my first +duty to give notice to our legation, and perhaps warn the authorities. +And you may be sure I will do it." + +To his surprise Custer leaned forward and pressed his hand with an +expression of cheerful relief. "That's so, old pard; I reckoned on it. +In fact, I told Malcolm that that would be about your gait. Of course +you couldn't do otherwise. And it would have been playin' it rather low +down on you to have left you out in the cold--without even THAT show in +the game. For what you will do in warnin' the other fellows, don't you +see, will just waken up the clan. It's better than a campaign circular." + +"Don't be too sure of that," said the consul, with a half-hysterical +laugh. "But we won't consider so lamentable a contingency. Come and +dine with me, both of you, and we'll discuss the only thing worth +discussing,--your LEGAL rights,--and you can tell me your whole story, +which, by the way, I haven't heard." + +"Sorry, Jack, but it can't be done," said Custer, with his first +approach to seriousness of manner. "You see, we'd made up our mind not +to come here again after this first call. We ain't goin' to compromise +you." + +"I am the best judge of that," returned the consul dryly. Then suddenly +changing his manner, he grasped Custer's hands with both his own. "Come, +Harry," he said earnestly; "I will not believe that this is not a joke, +but I beg of you to promise me one thing,--do not move a step further in +this matter without legal counsel. I will give you a letter to a legal +friend of mine--a man of affairs, a man of the world, and a Scot as +typical, perhaps, as any you have mentioned. State your LEGAL case +to him--only that; but his opinion will show you also, if I am not +mistaken, the folly of your depending upon any sectional or historical +sentiment in this matter." + +Without waiting for a reply, he sat down and hastily wrote a few lines +to a friendly local magnate. When he had handed the note to Custer, the +latter looked at the address, and showed it to his young companion. + +"Same name, isn't it?" he asked. + +"Yes," responded Mr. McHulish. + +"Do you know him?" asked the consul, evidently surprised. + +"We don't, but he's a friend of one of the Eagle boys. I reckon we would +have seen him anyhow; but we'll agree with you to hold on until we do. +It's a go. Goodby, old pard! So long." + +They both shook the consul's hand, and departed, leaving him staring at +the fog into which they had melted as if they were unreal shadows of the +past. + + +II. + + +The next morning the fog had given way to a palpable, horizontally +driving rain, which wet the inside as well as the outside of umbrellas, +and caused them to be presented at every conceivable angle as they +drifted past the windows of the consulate. There was a tap at the door, +and a clerk entered. + +"Ye will be in to Sir James MacFen?" + +The consul nodded, and added, "Show him in here." + +It was the magnate to whom he had sent the note the previous day, a man +of large yet slow and cautious nature, learned and even pedantic, yet +far-sighted and practical; very human and hearty in social intercourse, +which, however, left him as it found him,--with no sentimental or +unbusiness-like entanglements. The consul had known him sensible and +sturdy at board meetings and executive councils; logical and convincing +at political gatherings; decorous and grave in the kirk; and humorous +and jovial at festivities, where perhaps later in the evening, in +company with others, hands were clasped over a libation lyrically +defined as a "right guid williewaught." On one of these occasions they +had walked home together, not without some ostentation of steadiness; +yet when MacFen's eminently respectable front door had closed upon +him, the consul was perfectly satisfied that a distinctly proper and +unswerving man of business would issue from it the next morning. + +"Ay, but it's a soft day," said Sir James, removing his gloves. "Ye'll +not be gadding about in this weather." + +"You got my note of introduction, I suppose?" said the consul, when the +momentous topic of the weather was exhausted. + +"Oh, ay." + +"And you saw the gentlemen?" + +"Ay." + +"And what's your opinion of--his claims?" + +"He's a fine lad--that Malcolm--a fine type of a lad," said Sir +James, with an almost too effusive confidence. "Ye'll be thinking so +yourself--no doubt? Ay, it's wonderful to consider the preservation of +type so long after its dispersal in other lands. And it's a strange +and wonderful country that of yours, with its plantations--as one might +say--of homogeneity unimpaired for so many years, and keeping the old +faith too--and all its strange survivals. Ay, and that Kentucky, +where his land is--it will be a rich State! It's very instructing and +interesting to hear his account of that remarkable region they call 'the +blue grass country,' and the stock they raise there. I'm obliged to ye, +my friend, for a most edifying and improving evening." + +"But his claim--did he not speak of that?" + +"Oh, ay. And that Mr. Custer--he's a grand man, and an amusing one. +Ye'll be great comrades, you and he! Man! it was delightful to hear him +tell of the rare doings and the bit fun ye two had in the old times. +Eh, sir, but who'd think that of the proper American consul at St. +Kentigern!" And Sir James leaned back in his chair, and bestowed an +admiring smile on that official. + +The consul thought he began to understand this evasion. "Then you don't +think much of Mr. McHulish's claim?" he said. + +"I'm not saying that." + +"But do you really think a claim based upon a family Bible and a family +likeness a subject for serious consideration?" + +"I'm not saying THAT either, laddie." + +"Perhaps he has confided to you more fully than he has to me, or +possibly you yourself knew something in corroboration of his facts." + +His companion had evidently no desire to be communicative. But the +consul had heard enough to feel that he was justified in leaving the +matter in his hands. He had given him fair warning. Yet, nevertheless, +he would be even more explicit. + +"I do not know," he began, "whether this young McHulish confided to you +his great reliance upon some peculiar effect of his presence among the +tenants, and of establishing his claim to the property by exciting the +enthusiasm of the clan. It certainly struck me that he had some rather +exaggerated ideas, borrowed, perhaps, from romances he'd read, like Don +Quixote his books of chivalry. He seems to believe in the existence of a +clan loyalty, and the actual survival of old feudal instincts and of old +feudal methods in the Highlands. He appears to look upon himself as a +kind of local Prince Charlie, and, by Jove! I've an idea he's almost as +crazy." + +"And why should he na believe in his own kith and kin?" said Sir James, +quickly, with a sudden ring in his voice, and a dialectical freedom +quite distinct from his former deliberate and cautious utterance. "The +McHulishes were chieftains before America was discovered, and many's the +time they overran the border before they went as far as that. If there's +anything in blood and loyalty, it would be strange if they did na +respond. And I can tell ye, ma frien', there's more in the Hielands than +any 'romancer,' as ye call them,--ay, even Scott hissel', and he was but +an Edinboro' man,--ever dreamed of. Don't fash yoursel' about that. And +you and me'll not agree about Prince Charlie. Some day I'll tell ye, +ma frien', mair aboot that bonnie laddie than ye'll gather from your +partisan historians. Until then ye'll be wise when ye'll be talking to +Scotchmen not to be expressing your Southern prejudices." + +Intensely surprised and amused at this sudden outbreak of enthusiasm on +the part of the usually cautious lawyer, the consul could not refrain +from accenting it by a marked return to practical business. + +"I shall be delighted to learn more about Prince Charlie," he said, +smiling, "but just now his prototype--if you'll allow me to call him +so--is a nearer topic, and for the present, at least until he assume his +new titles and dignities, has a right to claim my protection, and I +am responsible for him as an American citizen. Now, my dear friend, is +there really any property, land, or title of any importance involved in +his claim, and what and where, in Heaven's name, is it? For I assure you +I know nothing practical about it, and cannot make head or tail of it." + +Sir James resumed his slow serenity, and gathered up his gloves. "Ay, +there's a great deer-forest in Ballochbrinkie, and there's part of +Loch Phillibeg in Cairngormshire, and there's Kelpie Island off +Moreovershire. Ay, there's enough land when the crofters are cleared +off, and the small sheep-tenants evicted. It will be a grand property +then." + +The consul stared. "The crofters and tenants evicted!" he repeated. "Are +they not part of the clan, and loyal to the McHulish?" + +"The McHulish," said Sir James with great deliberation, "hasn't set foot +there for years. They'd be burning him in effigy." + +"But," said the astonished consul, "that's rather bad for the expectant +heir--and the magic of the McHulish presence." + +"I'm not saying that," returned Sir James cautiously. "Ye see he can be +making better arrangements with the family on account of it." + +"With the family?" repeated the consul. "Then does he talk of +compromising?" + +"I mean they would be more likely to sell for a fair consideration, and +he'd be better paying money to them than the lawyers. The syndicate +will be rich, eh? And I'm not saying the McHulish wouldn't take Kentucky +lands in exchange. It's a fine country, that blue grass district." + +The consul stared at Sir James so long that a faint smile came into the +latter's shrewd eyes; at which the consul smiled, too. A vague air of +relief and understanding seemed to fill the apartment. + +"Oh, ay," continued Sir James, drawing on his gloves with easy +deliberation, "he's a fine lad that Malcolm, and it's a praiseworthy +instinct in him to wish to return to the land of his forebears, and take +his place again among them. And I'm noticing, Mr. Consul, that a great +many of your countrymen are doing the same. Eh, yours is a gran' country +of progress and ceevel and religious liberty, but for a' that, as Burns +says, it's in your blood to turn to the auld home again. And it's a fine +thing to have the money to do it--and, I'm thinking, money well spent +all around. Good-morning. Eh, but I'm forgetting that I wanted to ask +you to dine with me and Malcolm, and your Mr. Custer, and Mr. Watson, +who will be one of your syndicate, and whom I once met abroad. But ye'll +get a bit note of invitation, with the day, from me later." + +The consul remembered that Custer had said that one of the "Eagle boys" +had known Sir James. This was evidently Watson. He smiled again, but +this time Sir James responded only in a general sort of way, as he +genially bowed himself out of the room. + +The consul watched his solid and eminently respectable figure as it +passed the window, and then returned to his desk, still smiling. First +of all he was relieved. What had seemed to him a wild and reckless +enterprise, with possibly some grim international complications on the +part of his compatriots, had simply resolved itself into an ordinary +business speculation--the ethics of which they had pretty equally +divided with the local operators. If anything, it seemed that the +Scotchman would get the best of the bargain, and that, for once at +least, his countrymen were deficient in foresight. But that was a matter +between the parties, and Custer himself would probably be the first to +resent any suggestion of the kind from the consul. The vision of the +McHulish burned in effigy by his devoted tenants and retainers, and the +thought that the prosaic dollars of his countrymen would be substituted +for the potent presence of the heir, tickled, it is to be feared, the +saturnine humor of the consul. He had taken an invincible dislike to +the callow representative of the McHulish, who he felt had in some +extraordinary way imposed upon Custer's credulity. But then he had +apparently imposed equally upon the practical Sir James. The thought of +this sham ideal of feudal and privileged incompetency being elevated +to actual position by the combined efforts of American republicans and +hard-headed Scotch dissenters, on whom the soft Scotch mists fell from +above with equal impartiality, struck him as being very amusing, and +for some time thereafter lightened the respectable gloom of his office. +Other engagements prevented his attendance at Sir James's dinner, +although he was informed afterward that it had passed off with great +eclat, the later singing of "Auld lang Syne," and the drinking of the +health of Custer and Malcolm with "Hieland honors." He learned also that +Sir James had invited Custer and Malcolm to his lacustrine country-seat +in the early spring. But he learned nothing more of the progress of +Malcolm's claim, its details, or the manner in which it was prosecuted. +No one else seemed to know anything about it; it found no echo in the +gossip of the clubs, or in the newspapers of St. Kentigern. In the +absence of the parties connected with it, it began to assume to him the +aspect of a half-humorous romance. He often found himself wondering if +there had been any other purpose in this quest or speculation than what +had appeared on the surface, it seemed so inadequate in result. It would +have been so perfectly easy for a wealthy syndicate to buy up a much +more valuable estate. He disbelieved utterly in the sincerity of +Malcolm's sentimental attitude. There must be some other reason--perhaps +not known even to the syndicate. + +One day he thought that he had found it. He had received a note +addressed from one of the principal hotels, but bearing a large +personal crest on paper and envelope. A Miss Kirkby, passing through St. +Kentigern on her way to Edinburgh, desired to see the consul the next +day, if he would appoint an hour at the consulate; or, as her time was +limited, she would take it as a great favor if he would call at her +hotel. Although a countrywoman, her name might not be so well known to +him as those of her "old friends" Harry Custer, Esq., and Sir +Malcolm McHulish. The consul was a little surprised; the use of the +title--unless it referred to some other McHulish--would seem to indicate +that Malcolm's claim was successful. He had, however, no previous +knowledge of the title of "Sir" in connection with the estate, and +it was probable that his fair correspondent--like most of her +countrywomen--was more appreciative than correct in her bestowal of +dignities. He determined to waive his ordinary business rules, and +to call upon her at once, accepting, as became his patriotism, that +charming tyranny which the American woman usually reserves exclusively +for her devoted countrymen. + +She received him with an affectation of patronage, as if she had +lately become uneasily conscious of being in a country where there were +distinctions of class. She was young, pretty, and tastefully dressed; +the national feminine adaptability had not, however, extended to her +voice and accent. Both were strongly Southwestern, and as she began to +speak she seemed to lose her momentary affectation. + +"It was mighty good of you to come and see me, for the fact is, I didn't +admire going to your consulate--not one bit. You see, I'm a Southern +girl, and never was 'reconstructed' either. I don't hanker after your +Gov'ment. I haven't recognized it, and don't want to. I reckon I ain't +been under the flag since the wah. So you see, I haven't any papers to +get authenticated, nor any certificates to ask for, and ain't wanting +any advice or protection. I thought I'd be fair and square with you from +the word 'go.'" + +Nothing could be more fascinating and infectious than the mirthful +ingenuousness which accompanied and seemed to mitigate this ungracious +speech, and the consul was greatly amused, albeit conscious that it was +only an attitude, and perhaps somewhat worn in sentiment. He knew that +during the war of the rebellion, and directly after it, Great Britain +was the resort of certain Americans from the West as well as from +the South who sought social distinction by the affectation of +dissatisfaction with their own government or the ostentatious simulation +of enforced exile; but he was quite unprepared for this senseless +protraction of dead and gone issues. He ventured to point out with +good-humored practicality that several years had elapsed since the war, +that the South and North were honorably reconciled, and that he was +legally supposed to represent Kentucky as well as New York. "Your +friends," he added smilingly, "Mr. Custer and Mr. McHulish, seemed to +accept the fact without any posthumous sentiment." + +"I don't go much on that," she said with a laugh. "I've been living +in Paris till maw--who's lying down upstairs--came over and brought me +across to England for a look around. And I reckon Malcolm's got to keep +touch with you on account of his property." + +The consul smiled. "Ah, then, I hope you can tell me something about +THAT, for I really don't know whether he has established his claim or +not." + +"Why," returned the girl with naive astonishment, "that was just what I +was going to ask YOU. He reckoned you'd know all about it." + +"I haven't heard anything of the claim for two months," said the +consul; "but from your reference to him as 'Sir Malcolm,' I presumed you +considered it settled. Though, of course, even then he wouldn't be 'Sir +Malcolm,' and you might have meant somebody else." + +"Well, then, Lord Malcolm--I can't get the hang of those titles yet." + +"Neither 'Lord' nor 'Sir'; you know the estate carries no title whatever +with it," said the consul smilingly. + +"But wouldn't he be the laird of something or other, you know?" + +"Yes; but that is only a Scotch description, not a title. It's not the +same as Lord." + +The young girl looked at him with undisguised astonishment. A half laugh +twitched the corners of her mouth. "Are you sure?" she said. + +"Perfectly," returned the consul, a little impatiently; "but do I +understand that you really know nothing more of the progress of the +claim?" + +Miss Kirkby, still abstracted by some humorous astonishment, said +quickly: "Wait a minute. I'll just run up and see if maw's coming down. +She'd admire to see you." Then she stopped, hesitated, and as she rose +added, "Then a laird's wife wouldn't be Lady anything, anyway, would +she?" + +"She certainly would acquire no title merely through her marriage." + +The young girl laughed again, nodded, and disappeared. The consul, +amused yet somewhat perplexed over the naive brusqueness of the +interview, waited patiently. Presently she returned, a little out of +breath, but apparently still enjoying some facetious retrospect, and +said, "Maw will be down soon." After a pause, fixing her bright eyes +mischievously on the consul, she continued:-- + +"Did you see much of Malcolm?" + +"I saw him only once." + +"What did you think of him?" + +The consul in so brief a period had been unable to judge. + +"You wouldn't think I was half engaged to him, would you?" + +The consul was obliged again to protest that in so short an interview he +had been unable to conceive of Malcolm's good fortune. + +"I know what you mean," said the girl lightly. "You think he's a crank. +But it's all over now; the engagement's off." + +"I trust that this does not mean that you doubt his success?" + +The lady shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. "That's all right enough, +I reckon. There's a hundred thousand dollars in the syndicate. Maw put +in twenty thousand, and Custer's bound to make it go--particularly as +there's some talk of a compromise. But Malcolm's a crank, and I reckon +if it wasn't for the compromise the syndicate wouldn't have much show. +Why, he didn't even know that the McHulishes had no title." + +"Do you think he has been suffering under a delusion in regard to his +relationship?" + +"No; he was only a fool in the way he wanted to prove it. He actually +got these boys to think it could be filibustered into his possession. +Had a sort of idea of 'a rising in the Highlands,' you know, like that +poem or picture--which is it? And those fool boys, and Custer among +them, thought it would be great fun and a great spree. Luckily, maw had +the gumption to get Watson to write over about it to one of his friends, +a Mr.--Mr.--MacFen, a very prominent man." + +"Perhaps you mean Sir James MacFen," suggested the consul. "He's a +knight. And what did HE say?" he added eagerly. + +"Oh, he wrote a most sensible letter," returned the lady, apparently +mollified by the title of Watson's adviser, "saying that there was +little doubt, if any, that if the American McHulishes wanted the old +estate they could get it by the expenditure of a little capital. He +offered to make the trial; that was the compromise they're talking +about. But he didn't say anything about there being no 'Lord' McHulish." + +"Perhaps he thought, as you were Americans, you didn't care for THAT," +said the consul dryly. + +"That's no reason why we shouldn't have it if it belonged to us, or we +chose to pay for it," said the lady pertly. + +"Then your changed personal relations with Mr. McHulish is the reason +why you hear so little of his progress or his expectations?" + +"Yes; but he don't know that they are changed, for we haven't seen him +since we've been here, although they say he's here, and hiding somewhere +about." + +"Why should he be hiding?" + +The young girl lifted her pretty brows. "Maybe he thinks it's +mysterious. Didn't I tell you he was a crank?" Yet she laughed so +naively, and with such sublime unconsciousness of any reflection on +herself, that the consul was obliged to smile too. + +"You certainly do not seem to be breaking your heart as well as your +engagement," he said. + +"Not much--but here comes maw. Look here," she said, turning suddenly +and coaxingly upon him, "if she asks you to come along with us up north, +you'll come, won't you? Do! It will be such fun!" + +"Up north?" repeated the consul interrogatively. + +"Yes; to see the property. Here's maw." + +A more languid but equally well-appointed woman had entered the room. +When the ceremony of introduction was over, she turned to her daughter +and said, "Run away, dear, while I talk business with--er--this +gentleman," and, as the girl withdrew laughingly, she half stifled a +reminiscent yawn, and raised her heavy lids to the consul. + +"You've had a talk with my Elsie?" + +The consul confessed to having had that pleasure. + +"She speaks her mind," said Mrs. Kirkby wearily, "but she means well, +and for all her flightiness her head's level. And since her father died +she runs me," she continued with a slight laugh. After a pause, she +added abstractedly, "I suppose she told you of her engagement to young +McHulish?" + +"Yes; but she said she had broken it." + +Mrs. Kirkby lifted her eyebrows with an expression of relief. "It was a +piece of girl and boy foolishness, anyway," she said. "Elsie and he were +children together at MacCorkleville,--second cousins, in fact,--and I +reckon he got her fancy excited over his nobility, and his being the +chief of the McHulishes. Of course Custer will manage to get something +for the shareholders out of it,--I never knew him to fail in a money +speculation yet,--but I think that's about all. I had an idea of going +up with Elsie to take a look at the property, and I thought of asking +you to join us. Did Elsie tell you? I know she'd like it--and so would +I." + +For all her indolent, purposeless manner, there was enough latent +sincerity and earnestness in her request to interest the consul. +Besides, his own curiosity in regard to this singularly supported claim +was excited, and here seemed to be an opportunity of satisfying it. He +was not quite sure, either, that his previous antagonism to his fair +countrywoman's apparent selfishness and snobbery was entirely just. He +had been absent from America a long time; perhaps it was he himself +who had changed, and lost touch with his compatriots. And yet the +demonstrative independence and recklessness of men like Custer were less +objectionable to, and less inconsistent with, his American ideas than +the snobbishness and almost servile adaptability of the women. Or was +it possible that it was only a weakness of the sex, which no republican +nativity or education could eliminate? Nevertheless he looked up +smilingly. + +"But the property is, I understand, scattered about in various places," +he said. + +"Oh, but we mean to go only to Kelpie Island, where there is the ruin of +an old castle. Elsie must see that." + +The consul thought it might be amusing. "By all means let us see that. I +shall be delighted to go with you." + +His ready and unqualified assent appeared to relieve and dissipate the +lady's abstraction. She became more natural and confiding; spoke freely +of Malcolm's mania, which she seemed to accept as a hallucination or a +conviction with equal cheerfulness, and, in brief, convinced the +consul that her connection with the scheme was only the caprice of +inexperienced and unaccustomed idleness. He left her, promising to +return the next day and arrange for their early departure. + +His way home lay through one of the public squares of St. Kentigern, at +an hour of the afternoon when it was crossed by working men and women +returning to their quarters from the docks and factories. Never in any +light a picturesque or even cheery procession, there were days when +its unwholesome, monotonous poverty and dull hopelessness of prospect +impressed him more forcibly. He remembered how at first the spectacle +of barefooted girls and women slipping through fog and mist across the +greasy pavement had offended his fresh New World conception of a more +tenderly nurtured sex, until his susceptibilities seemed to have grown +as callous and hardened as the flesh he looked upon, and he had begun to +regard them from the easy local standpoint of a distinct and differently +equipped class. + +It chanced, also, that this afternoon some of the male workers had added +to their usual solidity a singular trance-like intoxication. It had +often struck him before as a form of drunkenness peculiar to the St. +Kentigern laborers. Men passed him singly and silently, as if following +some vague alcoholic dream, or moving through some Scotch mist of +whiskey and water. Others clung unsteadily but as silently together, +with no trace of convivial fellowship or hilarity in their dull fixed +features and mechanically moving limbs. There was something weird in +this mirthless companionship, and the appalling loneliness of those +fixed or abstracted eyes. Suddenly he was aware of two men who were +reeling toward him under the influence of this drug-like intoxication, +and he was startled by a likeness which one of them bore to some one +he had seen; but where, and under what circumstances, he could not +determine. The fatuous eye, the features of complacent vanity and +self-satisfied reverie were there, either intensified by drink, or +perhaps suggesting it through some other equally hopeless form of +hallucination. He turned and followed the man, trying to identify +him through his companion, who appeared to be a petty tradesman of a +shrewder, more material type. But in vain, and as the pair turned into +a side street the consul slowly retraced his steps. But he had not +proceeded far before the recollection that had escaped him returned, and +he knew that the likeness suggested by the face he had seen was that of +Malcolm McHulish. + + +III. + + +A journey to Kelpie Island consisted of a series of consecutive episodes +by rail, by coach, and by steamboat. The consul was already familiar +with them, as indeed were most of the civilized world, for it seemed +that all roads at certain seasons led out of and returned to St. +Kentigern as a point in a vast circle wherein travelers were sure +to meet one another again, coming or going, at certain depots and +caravansaries with more or less superiority or envy. Tourists on the +road to the historic crags of Wateffa came sharply upon other tourists +returning from them, and glared suspiciously at them, as if to wrest the +dread secret from their souls--a scrutiny which the others returned with +half-humorous pity or superior calm. + +The consul knew, also, that the service by boat and rail was admirable +and skillful; for were not the righteous St. Kentigerners of the tribe +of Tubal-cain, great artificers in steel and iron, and a mighty race +of engineers before the Lord, who had carried their calling and accent +beyond the seas? He knew, too, that the land of these delightful +caravansaries overflowed with marmalade and honey, and that the manna +of delicious scones and cakes fell even upon deserted waters of crag +and heather. He knew that their way would lie through much scenery +whose rude barrenness, and grim economy of vegetation, had been usually +accepted by cockney tourists for sublimity and grandeur; but he knew, +also, that its severity was mitigated by lowland glimpses of sylvan +luxuriance and tangled delicacy utterly unlike the complacent snugness +of an English pastoral landscape, with which it was often confounded and +misunderstood, as being tame and civilized. + +It rained the day they left St. Kentigern, and the next, and the day +after that, spasmodically, as regarded local effort, sporadically, as +seen through the filmed windows of railway carriages or from the shining +decks of steamboats. There was always a shower being sown somewhere +along the valley, or reluctantly tearing itself from a mountain-top, +or being pulled into long threads from the leaden bosom of a lake; the +coach swept in and out of them to the folding and unfolding of umbrellas +and mackintoshes, accompanied by flying beams of sunlight that raced +with the vehicle on long hillsides, and vanished at the turn of the +road. There were hat-lifting scurries of wind down the mountain-side, +small tumults in little lakes below, hysteric ebullitions on mild, +melancholy inland seas, boisterous passages of nearly half an hour with +landings on tempestuous miniature quays. All this seen through wonderful +aqueous vapor, against a background of sky darkened at times to the +depths of an India ink washed sketch, but more usually blurred +and confused on the surface like the gray silhouette of a child's +slate-pencil drawing, half rubbed from the slate by soft palms. +Occasionally a rare glinting of real sunshine on a distant fringe of +dripping larches made some frowning crest appear to smile as through wet +lashes. + +Miss Elsie tucked her little feet under the mackintosh. "I know," she +said sadly, "I should get web-footed if I stayed here long, Why, it's +like coming down from Ararat just after the deluge cleared up." + +Mrs. Kirkby suggested that if the sun would only shine squarely and +decently, like a Christian, for a few moments, they could see the +prospect better. + +The consul here pointed out that the admirers of Scotch scenery thought +that this was its greatest charm. It was this misty effect which made it +so superior to what they called the vulgar chromos and sun-pictures of +less favored lands. + +"You mean because it prevents folks from seeing how poor the view really +is." + +The consul remarked that perhaps distance was lacking. As to the sun +shining in a Christian way, this might depend upon the local idea of +Christianity. + +"Well, I don't call the scenery giddy or frivolous, certainly. And I +reckon I begin to understand the kind of sermons Malcolm's folks brought +over to MacCorkleville. I guess they didn't know much of the heaven +they only saw once a year. Why, even the highest hills--which they call +mountains here--ain't big enough to get above the fogs of their own +creating." + +Feminine wit is not apt to be abstract. It struck the consul that in +Miss Elsie's sprightliness there was the usual ulterior and personal +object, and he glanced around at his fellow-passengers. The object +evidently was sitting at the end of the opposite seat, an amused but +well-behaved listener. For the rest, he was still young and reserved, +but in face, figure, and dress utterly unlike his companions,--an +Englishman of a pronounced and distinct type, the man of society and +clubs. While there was more or less hinting of local influence in the +apparel of the others,--there was a kilt, and bare, unweather-beaten +knees from Birmingham, and even the American Elsie wore a bewitching +tam-o'-shanter,--the stranger carried easy distinction, from his tweed +traveling-cap to his well-made shoes and gaiters, as an unmistakable +Southerner. His deep and pleasantly level voice had been heard only once +or twice, and then only in answering questions, and his quiet, composed +eyes alone had responded to the young girl's provocation. + +They were passing a brown glen, in the cheerless depths of which a brown +watercourse, a shade lighter, was running, and occasionally foaming +like brown beer. Beyond it heaved an arid bulk of hillside, the scant +vegetation of which, scattered like patches of hair, made it look like +the decaying hide of some huge antediluvian ruminant. On the dreariest +part of the dreary slope rose the ruins of a tower, and crumbling walls +and battlements. + +"Whatever possessed folks to build there?" said Miss Elsie. "If they +were poor, it might be some excuse; but that those old swells, or +chiefs, should put up a castle in such a God-forsaken place gets ME." + +"But don't you know, they WERE poor, according to our modern ideas, and +I fancy they built these things more for defense than show, and really +more to gather in cattle--like one of your Texan ranches--after a raid. +That is, I have heard so; I rather fancy that was the idea, wasn't it?" +It was the Englishman who had spoken, and was now looking around at the +other passengers as if in easy deference to local opinion. + +"What raid?" said Miss Elsie, animatedly. "Oh, yes; I see--one of their +old border raids--moss-troopers. I used to like to read about them." + +"I fancy, don't you know," said the Englishman slowly, "that it wasn't +exactly THAT sort of thing, you know, for it's a good way from the +border; but it was one of their raids upon their neighbors, to lift +their cattle--steal 'em, in fact. That's the way those chaps had. But +of course you've read all about that. You Americans, don't you know, are +all up in these historical matters." + +"Eh, but they were often reprisals," said a Scotch passenger. + +"I don't suppose they took much trouble to inquire if the beasts +belonged to an enemy," said the Englishman. + +But here Miss Elsie spoke of castles generally, and averred that the +dearest wish of her life was to see Macbeth's castle at Glamis, where +Duncan was murdered. At which the Englishman, still deferentially, +mistrusted the fact that the murder had been committed there, and +thought that the castle to which Shakespeare probably referred, if he +hadn't invented the murder, too, was farther north, at Cawdor. "You +know," he added playfully, "over there in America you've discovered that +Shakespeare himself was an invention." + +This led to some retaliating brilliancy from the young lady, and when +the coach stopped at the next station their conversation had presumably +become interesting enough to justify him in securing a seat nearer to +her. The talk returning to ruins, Miss Elsie informed him that they were +going to see some on Kelpie Island. The consul, from some instinctive +impulse,--perhaps a recollection of Custer's peculiar methods, gave her +a sign of warning. But the Englishman only lifted his eyebrows in a kind +of half-humorous concern. + +"I don't think you'd like it, you know. It's a beastly place,--rocks +and sea,--worse than this, and half the time you can't see the mainland, +only a mile away. Really, you know, they oughtn't to have induced you to +take tickets there--those excursion-ticket chaps. They're jolly frauds. +It's no place for a stranger to go to." + +"But there are the ruins of an old castle, the old seat of"--began the +astonished Miss Elsie; but she was again stopped by a significant glance +from the consul. + +"I believe there was something of the kind there once--something +like your friends the cattle-stealers' castle over on that hillside," +returned the Englishman; "but the stones were taken by the fishermen for +their cabins, and the walls were quite pulled down." + +"How dared they do that?" said the young lady indignantly. "I call it +not only sacrilege, but stealing." + +"It was defrauding the owner of the property; they might as well take +his money," said Mrs. Kirkby, in languid protest. + +The smile which this outburst of proprietorial indignation brought to +the face of the consul lingered with the Englishman's reply. + +"But it was only robbing the old robbers, don't you know, and they put +their spoils to better use than their old masters did; certainly to +more practical use than the owners do now, for the ruins are good for +nothing." + +"But the hallowed associations--the picturesqueness!" continued Mrs. +Kirkby, with languid interest. + +"The associations wouldn't be anything except to the family, you know; +and I should fancy they wouldn't be either hallowed or pleasant. As for +picturesqueness, the ruins are beastly ugly; weather-beaten instead of +being mellowed by time, you know, and bare where they ought to be hidden +by vines and moss. I can't make out why anybody sent you there, for you +Americans are rather particular about your sightseeing." + +"We heard of them through a friend," said the consul, with assumed +carelessness. "Perhaps it's as good an excuse as any for a pleasant +journey." + +"And very likely your friend mistook it for something else, or was +himself imposed upon," said the Englishman politely. "But you might not +think it so, and, after all," he added thoughtfully, "it's years since +I've seen it. I only meant that I could show you something better a +few miles from my place in Gloucestershire, and not quite so far from +a railway as this. If," he added with a pleasant deliberation which +was the real courtesy of his conventionally worded speech, "you ever +happened at any time to be anywhere near Audrey Edge, and would look me +up, I should be glad to show it to you and your friends." An hour later, +when he left them at a railway station where their paths diverged, Miss +Elsie recovered a fluency that she had lately checked. "Well, I like +that! He never told us his name, or offered a card. I wonder if they +call that an invitation over here. Does he suppose anybody's going to +look up his old Audrey Edge--perhaps it's named after his wife--to find +out who HE is? He might have been civil enough to have left his name, if +he--meant anything." + +"But I assure you he was perfectly sincere, and meant an invitation," +returned the consul smilingly. "Audrey Edge is evidently a well-known +place, and he a man of some position. That is why he didn't specify +either." + +"Well, you won't catch me going there," said Miss Elsie. + +"You would be quite right in either going or staying away," said the +consul simply. + +Miss Elsie tossed her head slightly. Nevertheless, before they left the +station, she informed him that she had been told that the station-master +had addressed the stranger as "my lord," and that another passenger had +said he was "Lord Duncaster." + +"And that proves"-- + +"That I'm right," said the young lady decisively, "and that his +invitation was a mere form." + +It was after sundown when they reached the picturesque and +well-appointed hotel that lifted itself above the little fishing-village +which fronted Kelpie Island. The hotel was in as strong contrast to the +narrow, curving street of dull, comfortless-looking stone cottages below +it, as were the smart tourists who had just landed from the steamer to +the hard-visaged, roughly clad villagers who watched them with a certain +mingling of critical independence and superior self-righteousness. +As the new arrivals walked down the main street, half beach, half +thoroughfare, their baggage following them in low trolleys drawn by +porters at their heels, like a decorous funeral, the joyless faces of +the lookers-on added to the resemblance. Beyond them, in the prolonged +northern twilight, the waters of the bay took on a peculiar pewtery +brightness, but with the usual mourning-edged border of Scotch seacoast +scenery. Low banks of cloud lay on the chill sea; the outlines of Kelpie +Island were hidden. + +But the interior of the hotel, bright with the latest fastidiousness in +modern decoration and art-furniture, and gay with pictured canvases and +color, seemed to mock the sullen landscape, and the sterile crags amid +which the building was set. An attempt to make a pleasance in this +barren waste had resulted only in empty vases, bleak statuary, and +iron settees, as cold and slippery to the touch as the sides of their +steamer. + +"It'll be a fine morning to-morra, and ther'll be a boat going away to +Kelpie for a peekneek in the ruins," said the porter, as the consul and +his fair companions looked doubtfully from the windows of the cheerful +hall. + +A picnic in the sacred ruins of Kelpie! The consul saw the ladies +stiffening with indignation at this trespass upon their possible rights +and probable privileges, and glanced at them warningly. + +"Do you mean to say that it is common property, and ANYBODY can go +there?" demanded Miss Elsie scornfully. + +"No; it's only the hotel that owns the boat and gives the tickets--a +half-crown the passage." + +"And do the owners, the McHulishes, permit this?" + +The porter looked at them with a puzzled, half-pitying politeness. He +was a handsome, tall, broad-shouldered young fellow, with a certain +naive and gentle courtesy of manner that relieved his strong accent, +"Oh, ay," he said, with a reassuring smile; "ye'll no be troubled by +THEM. I'll just gang away noo, and see if I can secure the teekets." + +An elderly guest, who was examining a time-table on the wall, turned to +them as the porter disappeared. + +"Ye'll be strangers noo, and not knowing that Tonalt the porter is a +McHulish hissel'?" he said deliberately. + +"A what?" said the astonished Miss Elsie. + +"A McHulish. Ay, one of the family. The McHulishes of Kelpie were his +own forebears. Eh, but he's a fine lad, and doin' well for the hotel." + +Miss Elsie extinguished a sudden smile with her handkerchief as her +mother anxiously inquired, "And are the family as poor as that?" + +"But I am not saying he's POOR, ma'am, no," replied the stranger, with +native caution. "What wi' tips and gratooities and percentages on the +teekets, it's a bit of money he'll be having in the bank noo." + +The prophecy of Donald McHulish as to the weather came true. The next +morning was bright and sunny, and the boat to Kelpie Island--a large +yawl--duly received its complement of passengers and provision +hampers. The ladies had apparently become more tolerant of their fellow +pleasure-seekers, and it appeared that Miss Elsie had even overcome her +hilarity at the discovery of what "might have been" a relative in +the person of the porter Donald. "I had a long talk with him before +breakfast this morning," she said gayly, "and I know all about him. It +appears that there are hundreds of him--all McHulishes--all along the +coast and elsewhere--only none of them ever lived ON the island, +and don't want to. But he looks more like a 'laird' and a chief than +Malcolm, and if it comes to choosing a head of the family, remember, +maw, I shall vote solid for him." + +"How can you go on so, Elsie?" said Mrs. Kirkby, with languid protest. +"Only I trust you didn't say anything to him of the syndicate. And, +thank Heaven! the property isn't here." + +"No; the waiter tells me all the lovely things we had for breakfast came +from miles away. And they don't seem to have ever raised anything on +the island, from its looks. Think of having to row three miles for the +morning's milk!" + +There was certainly very little appearance of vegetation on the sterile +crags that soon began to lift themselves above the steely waves ahead. +A few scraggy trees and bushes, which twisted and writhed like vines +around the square tower and crumbling walls of an irregular but angular +building, looked in their brown shadows like part of the debris. + +"It's just like a burnt-down bone-boiling factory," said Miss Elsie +critically; "and I shouldn't wonder if that really was old McHulish's +business. They couldn't have it on the mainland for its being a +nuisance." + +Nevertheless, she was one of the first to leap ashore when the yawl's +bow grated in a pebbly cove, and carried her pretty but incongruous +little slippers through the seaweed, wet sand, and slimy cobbles with a +heroism that redeemed her vanity. A scrambling ascent of a few moments +brought them to a wall with a gap in it, which gave easy ingress to +the interior of the ruins. This was merely a little curving hollow from +which the outlines of the plan had long since faded. It was kept green +by the brown walls, which, like the crags of the mainland valleys, +sheltered it from the incessant strife of the Atlantic gales. A few +pale flowers that might have grown in a damp cellar shivered against +the stones. Scraps of newspapers, soda-water and beer bottles, highly +decorated old provision tins, and spent cartridge cases,--the remains +of chilly picnics and damp shooting luncheons,--had at first sight lent +color to the foreground by mere contrast, but the corrosion of time +and weather had blackened rather than mellowed the walls in a way which +forcibly reminded the consul of Miss Elsie's simile of the "burnt-down +factory." The view from the square tower--a mere roost for unclean +sea-fowl, from the sides of which rags of peeling moss and vine hung +like tattered clothing--was equally depressing. The few fishermen's huts +along the shore were built of stones taken from the ruin, and roofed in +with sodden beams and timbers in the last stages of deliquescence. The +thick smoke of smouldering peat-fires came from the low chimneys, and +drifted across the ruins with the odors of drying fish. + +"I've just seen a sort of ground-plan of the castle," said Miss Elsie +cheerfully. "It never had a room in it as big as our bedroom in the +hotel, and there weren't windows enough to go round. A slit in the +wall, about two inches wide by two feet long, was considered dazzling +extravagance to Malcolm's ancestors. I don't wonder some of 'em broke +out and swam over to America. That reminds me. Who do you suppose is +here--came over from the hotel in a boat of his own, just to see maw!" + +"Not Malcolm, surely." + +"Not much," replied Miss Elsie, setting her small lips together. "It's +Mr. Custer. He's talking business with her now down on the beach. +They'll be here when lunch is ready." + +The consul remembered the romantic plan which the enthusiastic Custer +had imparted to him in the foggy consulate at St. Kentigern, and then +thought of the matter of fact tourists, the few stolid fishermen, and +the prosaic ruins around them, and smiled. He looked up, and saw that +Miss Elsie was watching him. + +"You know Mr. Custer, don't you?" + +"We are old Californian friends." + +"I thought so; but I think he looked a little upset when he heard you +were here, too." + +He certainly was a little awkward, as if struggling with some +half-humorous embarrassment, as he came forward a few moments later with +Mrs. Kirkby. But the stimulation of the keen sea air triumphed over the +infelicities of the situation and surroundings, and the little party +were presently enjoying their well-selected luncheon with the wholesome +appetite of travel and change. The chill damp made limp the napkins +and table-cloth, and invaded the victuals; the wind, which was rising, +whistled round the walls, and made miniature cyclones of the torn paper +and dried twigs around them: but they ate, drank, and were merry. At the +end of the repast the two gentlemen rose to light their cigars in the +lee of the wall. + +"I suppose you know all about Malcolm?" said Custer, after an awkward +pause. + +"My dear fellow," said the consul, somewhat impatiently, "I know nothing +about him, and you ought to know that by this time." + +"I thought YOUR FRIEND, Sir James, might have told you," continued +Custer, with significant emphasis. + +"I have not seen Sir James for two months." + +"Well, Malcolm's a crank--always was one, I reckon, and is reg'larly +off his head now. Yes, sir; Scotch whiskey and your friend Sir James +finished him. After that dinner at MacFen's he was done for--went wild. +Danced a sword-dance, or a strathspey, or some other blamed thing, on +the table, and yelled louder than the pipes. So they all did. Jack, I've +painted the town red once myself; I thought I knew what a first-class +jamboree was: but they were prayer-meetings to that show. Everybody was +blind drunk--but they all got over it except HIM. THEY were a different +lot of men the next day, as cool and cautious as you please, but HE was +shut up for a week, and came out crazy." + +"But what's that to do with his claim?" + +"Well, there ain't much use 'whooping up the boys' when only the whooper +gets wild." + +"Still, that does not affect any right he may have in the property." + +"But it affects the syndicate," said Custer gloomily; "and when we found +that he was whooping up some shopkeepers and factory hands who claimed +to belong to the clan,--and you can't heave a stone at a dog around here +without hitting a McHulish,--we concluded we hadn't much use for him +ornamentally. So we shipped him home last steamer." + +"And the property?" + +"Oh, that's all right," said Custer, still gloomily. "We've effected an +amicable compromise, as Sir James calls it. That means we've taken a lot +of land somewhere north, that you can shoot over--that is, you needn't +be afraid of hitting a house, or a tree, or a man anywhere; and we've +got a strip more of the same sort on the seashore somewhere off here, +occupied only by some gay galoots called crofters, and you can raise +a lawsuit and an imprecation on every acre. Then there's this +soul-subduing, sequestered spot, and what's left of the old bone-boiling +establishment, and the rights of fishing and peat-burning, and otherwise +creating a nuisance off the mainland. It cost the syndicate only a +hundred thousand dollars, half cash and half in Texan and Kentucky grass +lands. But we've carried the thing through." + +"I congratulate you," said the consul. + +"Thanks." Custer puffed at his cigar for a few moments. "That Sir James +MacFen is a fine man." + +"He is." + +"A large, broad, all-round man. Knows everything and everybody, don't +he?" + +"I think so." + +"Big man in the church, I should say? No slouch at a party canvass, or +ward politics, eh? As a board director, or president, just takes the +cake, don't he?" + +"I believe so." + +"Nothing mean about Jimmy as an advocate or an arbitrator, either, is +there? Rings the bell every time, don't he? Financiers take a back seat +when he's around? Owns half of Scotland by this time, I reckon." + +The consul believed that Sir James had the reputation of being +exceedingly sagacious in financial and mercantile matters, and that he +was a man of some wealth. + +"Naturally. I wonder what he'd take to come over to America, and give +the boys points," continued Custer, in meditative admiration. "There +were two or three men on Scott's River, and one Chinaman, that we used +to think smart, but they were doddering ijuts to HIM. And as for me--I +say, Jack, you didn't see any hayseed in my hair that day I walked inter +your consulate, did you?" + +The consul smilingly admitted that he had not noticed these signs of +rustic innocence in his friend. + +"Nor any flies? Well, for all that, when I get home I'm going to resign. +No more foreign investments for ME. When anybody calls at the consulate +and asks for H. J. Custer, say you don't know me. And you don't. And I +say, Jack, try to smooth things over for me with HER." + +"With Miss Elsie?" + +Custer cast a glance of profound pity upon the consul. "No with Mrs. +Kirkby, of course. See?" + +The consul thought he did see, and that he had at last found a clue to +Custer's extraordinary speculation. But, like most theorists who +argue from a single fact, a few months later he might have doubted his +deduction. + +He was staying at a large country-house many miles distant from the +scene of his late experiences. Already they had faded from his memory +with the departure of his compatriots from St. Kentigern. He was smoking +by the fire in the billiard-room late one night when a fellow-guest +approached him. + +"Saw you didn't remember me at dinner." + +The voice was hesitating, pleasant, and not quite unfamiliar. The +consul looked up, and identified the figure before him as one of the new +arrivals that day, whom, in the informal and easy courtesy of the +house, he had met with no further introduction than a vague smile. He +remembered, too, that the stranger had glanced at him once or twice at +dinner, with shy but engaging reserve. + +"You must see such a lot of people, and the way things are arranged +and settled here everybody expects to look and act like everybody +else, don't you know, so you can't tell one chap from another. Deuced +annoying, eh? That's where you Americans are different, and that's +why those countrywomen of yours were so charming, don't you know, so +original. We were all together on the top of a coach in Scotland, don't +you remember? Had such a jolly time in the beastly rain. You didn't +catch my name. It's Duncaster." + +The consul at once recalled his former fellow-traveler. The two men +shook hands. The Englishman took a pipe from his smoking-jacket, and +drew a chair beside the consul. + +"Yes," he continued, comfortably filling his pipe, "the daughter, +Miss Kirkby, was awfully good fun; so fresh, so perfectly natural and +innocent, don't you know, and yet so extraordinarily sharp and clever. +She had some awfully good chaff over that Scotch scenery before those +Scotch tourists, do you remember? And it was all so beastly true, too. +Perhaps she's with you here?" + +There was so much unexpected and unaffected interest in the young +Englishman's eyes that the consul was quite serious in his regrets that +the ladies had gone back to Paris. + +"I'd like to have taken them over to Audrey Edge from here. It's no +distance by train. I did ask them in Scotland, but I suppose they had +something better to do. But you might tell them I've got some sisters +there, and that it is an old place and not half bad, don't you know, +when you write to them. You might give me their address." + +The consul did so, and added a few pleasant words regarding their +position,--barring the syndicate,--which he had gathered from Custer. +Lord Duncaster's look of interest, far from abating, became gently +confidential. + +"I suppose you must see a good deal of your countrymen in your business, +and I suppose, just like Englishmen, they differ, by Jove! Some of them, +don't you know, are rather pushing and anxious for position, and all +that sort of thing; and some of 'em, like your friends, are quite +independent and natural." + +He stopped, and puffed slowly at his pipe. Presently he took it from +his mouth, with a little laugh. "I've a mind to tell you a rather queer +experience of mine. It's nothing against your people generally, you +know, nor do I fancy it's even an American type; so you won't mind my +speaking of it. I've got some property in Scotland,--rather poor stuff +you'd call it,--but, by Jove! some Americans have been laying claim +to it under some obscure plea of relationship. There might have been +something in it, although not all they claim, but my business man, a +clever chap up in your place,--perhaps you may have heard of him, +Sir James MacFen,--wrote to me that what they really wanted were some +ancestral lands with the right to use the family name and privileges. +The oddest part of the affair was that the claimant was an impossible +sort of lunatic, and the whole thing was run by a syndicate of shrewd +Western men. As I don't care for the property, which has only been +dropping a lot of money every year for upkeep and litigation, Sir James, +who is an awfully far-sighted chap at managing, thought he could effect +a compromise, and get rid of the property at a fair valuation. And, +by Jove! he did. But what your countrymen can get out of it,--for +the shooting isn't half as good as what they can get in their own +country,--or what use the privileges are to them, I can't fancy." + +"I think I know the story," said the consul, eying his fellow-guest +attentively; "but if I remember rightly, the young man claimed to be the +rightful and only surviving heir." + +The Englishman rose, and, bending over the hearth, slowly knocked the +ashes from his pipe. "That's quite impossible, don't you know. For," he +added, as he stood up in front of the fire in face, figure, and careless +repose more decidedly English than ever, "you see my title of Duncaster +only came to me through an uncle, but I am the direct and sole heir of +the old family, and the Scotch property. I don't perhaps look like a +Scot,--we've been settled in England some time,--but," he continued +with an invincible English drawling deliberation, + +"I--am--really--you--know--what they call The McHulish." + + + + +AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS. + + +I. + + +The rain was dripping monotonously from the scant eaves of the little +church of the Sidon Brethren at West Woodlands. Hewn out of the very +heart of a thicket of buckeye spruce and alder, unsunned and unblown +upon by any wind, it was so green and unseasoned in its solitude that it +seemed a part of the arboreal growth, and on damp Sundays to have +taken root again and sprouted. There were moss and shining spots on the +underside of the unplaned rafters, little green pools of infusoria stood +on the ledge of the windows whose panes were at times suddenly clouded +by mysterious unknown breaths from without or within. It was oppressed +with an extravagance of leaves at all seasons, whether in summer, when +green and limp they crowded the porch, doorways, and shutters, or when +penetrating knot-holes and interstices of shingle and clapboard, on some +creeping vine, they unexpectedly burst and bourgeoned on the walls like +banners; or later, when they rotted in brown heaps in corners, outlined +the edges of the floor with a thin yellow border, or invaded the ranks +of the high-backed benches which served as pews. + +There had been a continuous rustling at the porch and the shaking out +of waterproofs and closing of umbrellas until the half-filled church was +already redolent of damp dyes and the sulphur of India rubber. The eyes +of the congregation were turned to the door with something more than the +usual curiosity and expectation. For the new revivalist preacher from +Horse Shoe Bay was coming that morning. Already voices of authority were +heard approaching, and keeping up their conversation to the very door +of the sacred edifice in marked contrast with the awed and bashful +whisperings in the porch of the ordinary congregation. The worshipers +recognized the voices of Deacons Shadwell and Bradley; in the +reverential hush of the building they seemed charged with undue +importance. + +"It was set back in the road for quiet in the Lord's work," said +Bradley. + +"Yes, but it oughtn't be hidden! Let your light so shine before men, +you know, Brother Bradley," returned a deep voice, unrecognized and +unfamiliar--presumably that of the newcomer. + +"It wouldn't take much to move it--on skids and rollers--nearer to the +road," suggested Shadwell tentatively. + +"No, but if you left it stranded there in the wind and sun, green and +sappy as it is now, ye'd have every seam and crack startin' till the +ribs shone through, and no amount of calkin' would make it watertight +agin. No; my idea is--clear out the brush and shadder around it! Let the +light shine in upon it! Make the waste places glad around it, but keep +it THERE! And that's my idea o' gen'ral missionary work; that's how the +gospel orter be rooted." + +Here the bell, which from the plain open four-posted belfry above +had been clanging with a metallic sharpness that had an odd impatient +worldliness about it, suddenly ceased. + +"That bell," said Bradley's voice, with the same suggestion of conveying +important truths to the listening congregation within, "was took from +the wreck of the Tamalpais. Brother Horley bought it at auction at +Horse Shoe Bay and presented it. You know the Tamalpais ran ashore on +Skinner's Reef, jest off here." + +"Yes, with plenty of sea room, not half a gale o' wind blowing, and her +real course fifty miles to westward! The whole watch must have drunk or +sunk in slothful idleness," returned the deep voice again. A momentary +pause followed, and then the two deacons entered the church with the +stranger. + +He appeared to be a powerfully-built man, with a square, beardless chin; +a face that carried one or two scars of smallpox and a deeper one of +a less peaceful suggestion, set in a complexion weather-beaten to the +color of Spanish leather. Two small, moist gray eyes, that glistened +with every emotion, seemed to contradict the hard expression of the +other features. He was dressed in cheap black, like the two deacons, +with the exception of a loose, black alpaca coat and the usual black +silk neckerchief tied in a large bow under a turndown collar,--the +general sign and symbol of a minister of his sect. He walked directly +to the raised platform at the end of the chapel, where stood a table on +which was a pitcher of water, a glass and hymnbook, and a tall upright +desk holding a Bible. Glancing over these details, he suddenly paused, +carefully lifted some hitherto undetected object from the desk beside +the Bible, and, stooping gently, placed it upon the floor. As it hopped +away the congregation saw that it was a small green frog. The intrusion +was by no means an unusual one, but some odd contrast between this +powerful man and the little animal affected them profoundly. No +one--even the youngest--smiled; every one--even the youngest--became +suddenly attentive. Turning over the leaves of the hymnbook, he then +gave out the first two lines of a hymn. The choir accordion in the front +side bench awoke like an infant into wailing life, and Cissy Appleby, +soprano, took up a little more musically the lugubrious chant. At the +close of the verse the preacher joined in, after a sailor fashion, with +a breezy bass that seemed to fill the little building with the trouble +of the sea. Then followed prayer from Deacon Shadwell, broken by "Amens" +from the preacher, with a nautical suggestion of "Ay, ay," about them, +and he began his sermon. + +It was, as those who knew his methods might have expected, a suggestion +of the conversation they had already overheard. He likened the little +chapel, choked with umbrage and rotting in its dampness, to the gospel +seed sown in crowded places, famishing in the midst of plenty, and +sterile from the absorptions of the more active life around it. He +pointed out again the true work of the pioneer missionary; the +careful pruning and elimination of those forces that grew up with the +Christian's life, which many people foolishly believed were a part of +it. "The WORLD must live and the WORD must live," said they, and there +were easy-going brethren who thought they could live together. But he +warned them that the World was always closing upon--"shaddering"--and +strangling the Word, unless kept down, and that "fair seemin' +settlement," or city, which appeared to be "bustin' and bloomin'" with +life and progress, was really "hustlin' and jostlin'" the Word of God, +even in the midst of these "fancy spires and steeples" it had erected +to its glory. It was the work of the missionary pioneer to keep down or +root out this carnal, worldly growth as much in the settlement as in the +wilderness. Some were for getting over the difficulty by dragging the +mere wasted "letter of the Word," or the rotten and withered husks of +it, into the highways and byways, where the "blazin'" scorn of the World +would finish it. A low, penitential groan from Deacon Shadwell followed +this accusing illustration. But the preacher would tell them that the +only way was to boldly attack this rankly growing World around them; +to clear out fresh paths for the Truth, and let the sunlight of Heaven +stream among them. + +There was little doubt that the congregation was moved. Whatever they +might have thought of the application, the fact itself was patent. The +rheumatic Beaseleys felt the truth of it in their aching bones; it came +home to the fever and ague stricken Filgees in their damp seats against +the sappy wall; it echoed plainly in the chronic cough of Sister Mary +Strutt and Widow Doddridge; and Cissy Appleby, with her round brown eyes +fixed upon the speaker, remembering how the starch had been taken out of +her Sunday frocks, how her long ringlets had become uncurled, her frills +limp, and even her ribbons lustreless, felt that indeed a prophet had +arisen in Israel! + +One or two, however, were disappointed that he had as yet given no +indication of that powerful exhortatory emotion for which he was famed, +and which had been said to excite certain corresponding corybantic +symptoms among his sensitive female worshipers. When the service was +over, and the congregation crowded around him, Sister Mary Strutt, on +the outer fringe of the assembly, confided to Sister Evans that she had +"hearn tell how that when he was over at Soquel he prayed that pow'ful +that all the wimmen got fits and tremblin' spells, and ole Mrs. Jackson +had to be hauled off his legs that she was kneelin' and claspin' while +wrestling with the Sperit." + +"I reckon we seemed kinder strange to him this morning, and he wanted to +jest feel his way to our hearts first," exclaimed Brother Jonas Steers +politely. "He'll be more at home at evenin' service. It's queer that +some of the best exhortin' work is done arter early candlelight. I +reckon he's goin' to stop over with Deacon Bradley to dinner." + +But it appeared that the new preacher, now formally introduced as +Brother Seabright, was intending to walk over to Hemlock Mills to +dinner. He only asked to be directed the nearest way; he would not +trouble Brother Shadwell or Deacon Bradley to come with him. + +"But here's Cissy Appleby lives within a mile o' thar, and you could +go along with her. She'd jest admire to show you the way," interrupted +Brother Shadwell. "Wouldn't you, Cissy?" + +Thus appealed to, the young chorister--a tall girl of sixteen or +seventeen--timidly raised her eyes to Brother Seabright as he was about +to repeat his former protestation, and he stopped. + +"Ef the young lady IS goin' that way, it's only fair to accept her +kindness in a Christian sperit," he said gently. + +Cissy turned with a mingling of apology and bashfulness towards a young +fellow who seemed to be acting as her escort, but who was hesitating +in an equal bashfulness, when Seabright added: "And perhaps our young +friend will come too?" + +But the young friend drew back with a confused laugh, and Brother +Seabright and Cissy passed out from the porch together. For a few +moments they mingled with the stream and conversation of the departing +congregation, but presently Cissy timidly indicated a diverging bypath, +and they both turned into it. + +It was much warmer in the open than it had been in the chapel and +thicket, and Cissy, by way of relieving a certain awkward tension of +silence, took off the waterproof cloak and slung it on her arm. This +disclosed her five long brown cable-like curls that hung down her +shoulders, reaching below her waist in some forgotten fashion of +girlhood. They were Cissy's peculiar adornment, remarkable for their +length, thickness, and the extraordinary youthfulness imparted to a +figure otherwise precociously matured. In some wavering doubt of her +actual years and privileges, Brother Seabright offered to carry +her cloak for her, but she declined it with a rustic and youthful +pertinacity that seemed to settle the question. In fact, Cissy was +as much embarrassed as she was flattered by the company of this +distinguished stranger. However, it would be known to all West Woodland +that he had walked home with her, while nobody but herself would know +that they had scarcely exchanged a word. She noticed how he lounged on +with a heavy, rolling gait, sometimes a little before or behind her as +the path narrowed. At such times when they accidentally came in contact +in passing, she felt a half uneasy, physical consciousness of him, which +she referred to his size, the scars on his face, or some latent hardness +of expression, but was relieved to see that he had not observed it. +Yet this was the man that made grown women cry; she thought of old +Mrs. Jackson fervently grasping the plodding ankles before her, and +a hysteric desire to laugh, with the fear that he might see it on her +face, overcame her. Then she wondered if he was going to walk all the +way home without speaking, yet she knew she would be more embarrassed if +he began to talk to her. + +Suddenly he stopped, and she bumped up against him. + +"Oh, excuse me!" she stammered hurriedly. + +"Eh?" He evidently had not noticed the collision. "Did you speak?" + +"No!--that is--it wasn't anything," returned the girl, coloring. + +But he had quite forgotten her, and was looking intently before him. +They had come to a break in the fringe of woodland, and upon a sudden +view of the ocean. At this point the low line of coast-range which +sheltered the valley of West Woodlands was abruptly cloven by a gorge +that crumbled and fell away seaward to the shore of Horse Shoe Bay. +On its northern trend stretched the settlement of Horse Shoe to the +promontory of Whale Mouth Point, with its outlying reef of rocks curved +inwards like the vast submerged jaw of some marine monster, through +whose blunt, tooth-like projections the ship-long swell of the Pacific +streamed and fell. On the southern shore the light yellow sands of +Punta de las Concepcion glittered like sunshine all the way to the +olive-gardens and white domes of the Mission. The two shores seemed to +typify the two different climates and civilizations separated by the +bay. + +The heavy, woodland atmosphere was quickened by the salt breath of the +sea. The stranger inhaled it meditatively. + +"That's the reef where the Tamalpais struck," he said, "and more'n fifty +miles out of her course--yes, more'n fifty miles from where she should +have bin! It don't look nat'ral. No--it--don't--look--nat'ral!" + +As he seemed to be speaking to himself, the young girl, who had been +gazing with far greater interest at the foreign-looking southern shore, +felt confused and did not reply. Then, as if recalling her presence, +Brother Seabright turned to her and said:-- + +"Yes, young lady; and when you hear the old bell of the Tamalpais, and +think of how it came here, you may rejoice in the goodness of the Lord +that made even those who strayed from the straight course and the true +reckoning the means of testifying onto Him." + +But the young are quicker to detect attitudes and affectation than we +are apt to imagine; and Cissy could distinguish a certain other straying +in this afterthought or moral of the preacher called up by her presence, +and knew that it was not the real interest which the view had evoked. +She had heard that he had been a sailor, and, with the tact of her sex, +answered with what she thought would entertain him:-- + +"I was a little girl when it happened, and I heard that some sailors got +ashore down there, and climbed up this gully from the rocks below. +And they camped that night--for there were no houses at West Woodlands +then--just in the woods where our chapel now stands. It was funny, +wasn't it?--I mean," she corrected herself bashfully, "it was strange +they chanced to come just there?" + +But she had evidently hit the point of interest. + +"What became of them?" he said quickly. "They never came to Horse Shoe +Settlement, where the others landed from the wreck. I never heard of +that boat's crew or of ANY landing HERE." + +"No. They kept on over the range south to the Mission. I reckon they +didn't know there was a way down on this side to Horse Shoe," returned +Cissy. + +Brother Seabright moved on and continued his slow, plodding march. +But he kept a little nearer Cissy, and she was conscious that he +occasionally looked at her. Presently he said:-- + +"You have a heavenly gift, Miss Appleby." + +Cissy flushed, and her hand involuntarily went to one of her long, +distinguishing curls. It might be THAT. The preacher continued:-- + +"Yes; a voice like yours is a heavenly gift. And you have properly +devoted it to His service. Have you been singing long?" + +"About two years. But I've got to study a heap yet." + +"The little birds don't think it necessary to study to praise Him," said +the preacher sententiously. + +It occurred to Cissy that this was very unfair argument. She said +quickly:-- + +"But the little birds don't have to follow words in the hymn-books. You +don't give out lines to larks and bobolinks," and blushed. + +The preacher smiled. It was a very engaging smile, Cissy thought, that +lightened his hard mouth. It enabled her to take heart of grace, and +presently to chatter like the very birds she had disparaged. Oh yes; she +knew she had to learn a great deal more. She had studied "some" already. +She was taking lessons over at Point Concepcion, where her aunt had +friends, and she went three times a week. The gentleman who taught her +was not a Catholic, and, of course, he knew she was a Protestant. She +would have preferred to live there, but her mother and father were both +dead, and had left her with her aunt. She liked it better because it +was sunnier and brighter there. She loved the sun and warmth. She had +listened to what he had said about the dampness and gloom of the chapel. +It was true. The dampness was that dreadful sometimes it just ruined her +clothes, and even made her hoarse. Did he think they would really take +his advice and clear out the woods round the chapel? + +"Would you like it?" he asked pleasantly. + +"Yes." + +"And you think you wouldn't pine so much for the sunshine and warmth of +the Mission? + +"I'm not pining," said Cissy with a toss of her curls, "for anything or +anybody; but I think the woods ought to be cleared out. It's just as it +was when the runaways hid there." + +"When the RUNAWAYS HID THERE!" said Brother Seabright quickly. "What +runaways?" + +"Why, the boat's crew," said Cissy. + +"Why do you call them runaways?" + +"I don't know. Didn't YOU?" said Cissy simply. "Didn't you say they +never came back to Horse Shoe Bay. Perhaps I had it from aunty. But +I know it's damp and creepy; and when I was littler I used to be +frightened to be alone there practicing." + +"Why?" said the preacher quickly. + +"Oh, I don't know," hurried on Cissy, with a vague impression that she +had said too much. "Only my fancy, I guess." + +"Well," said Brother Seabright after a pause; "we'll see what can be +done to make a clearing there. Birds sing best in the sunshine, and YOU +ought to have some say about it." + +Cissy's dimples and blushes came together this time. "That's our +house," she said suddenly, with a slight accent of relief, pointing to a +weather-beaten farmhouse on the edge of the gorge. "I turn off here, but +you keep straight on for the Mills; they're back in the woods a +piece. But," she stammered with a sudden sense of shame of forgotten +hospitality, "won't you come in and see aunty?" + +"No, thank you, not now." He stopped, turning his gaze from the house to +her. "How old is your house? Was it there at the time of the wreck?" + +"Yes," said Cissy. + +"It's odd that the crew did not come there for help, eh?" + +"Maybe they overlooked it in the darkness and the storm," said Cissy +simply. "Good-by, sir." + +The preacher held her hand for an instant in his powerful, but gently +graduated grasp. "Good-by until evening service." + +"Yes, sir," said Cissy. + +The young girl tripped on towards her house a little agitated and +conscious, and yet a little proud as she saw the faces of her aunt, her +uncle, her two cousins, and even her discarded escort, Jo Adams, at the +windows, watching her. + +"So," said her aunt, as she entered breathlessly, "ye walked home with +the preacher! It was a speshal providence and manifestation for ye, +Cissy. I hope ye was mannerly and humble--and profited by the words of +grace." + +"I don't know," said Cissy, putting aside her hat and cloak listlessly. +"He didn't talk much of anything--but the old wreck of the Tamalpais." + +"What?" said her aunt quickly. + +"The wreck of the Tamalpais, and the boat's crew that came up the +gorge," repeated the young girl. + +"And what did HE know about the boat's crew?" said her aunt hurriedly, +fixing her black eyes on Cissy. + +"Nothing except what I told him." + +"What YOU told him!" echoed her aunt, with an ominous color filling the +sallow hollows of her cheek. + +"Yes! He has been a sailor, you know--and I thought it would interest +him; and it did! He thought it strange." + +"Cecilia Jane Appleby," said her aunt shrilly, "do you mean to say that +you threw away your chances of salvation and saving grace just to tell +gossiping tales that you knew was lies, and evil report, and false +witnesses!" + +"I only talked of what I'd heard, aunt Vashti," said Cecilia +indignantly. "And he afterwards talked of--of--my voice, and said I had +a heavenly gift," she added, with a slight quiver of her lip. + +Aunt Vashti regarded the girl sharply. + +"And you may thank the Lord for that heavenly gift," she said, in a +slightly lowered voice; "for ef ye hadn't to use it tonight, I'd shut +ye up in your room, to make it pay for yer foolish gaddin' TONGUE! And +I reckon I'll escort ye to chapel tonight myself, miss, and get shut o' +some of this foolishness." + + +II. + + +The broad plaza of the Mission de la Concepcion had been baking in the +day-long sunlight. Shining drifts from the outlying sand dunes, blown +across the ill-paved roadway, radiated the heat in the faces of the few +loungers like the pricking of liliputian arrows, and invaded even the +cactus hedges. The hot air visibly quivered over the dark red tiles of +the tienda roof as if they were undergoing a second burning. The black +shadow of a chimney on the whitewashed adobe wall was like a door or +cavernous opening in the wall itself; the tops of the olive and pear +trees seen above it were russet and sere already in the fierce light. +Even the moist breath of the sea beyond had quite evaporated before it +crossed the plaza, and now rustled the leaves in the Mission garden with +a dry, crepitant sound. + +Nevertheless, it seemed to Cissy Appleby, as she crossed the plaza, a +very welcome change from West Woodlands. Although the late winter rains +had ceased a month ago,--a few days after the revivalist preacher had +left,--the woods around the chapel were still sodden and heavy, and the +threatened improvement in its site had not taken place. Neither had the +preacher himself alluded to it again; his evening sermon--the only other +one he preached there--was unexciting, and he had, in fact, left West +Woodlands without any display of that extraordinary exhortatory faculty +for which he was famous. Yet Cissy, in spite of her enjoyment of the +dry, hot Mission, remembered him, and also recalled, albeit poutingly, +his blunt suggesting that she was "pining for it." Nevertheless, she +would like to have sung for him HERE--supposing it was possible to +conceive of a Sidon Brotherhood Chapel at the Mission. It was a great +pity, she thought, that the Sidon Brotherhood and the Franciscan +Brotherhood were not more brotherly TOWARDS EACH OTHER. Cissy belonged +to the former by hereditary right, locality, and circumstance, but it is +to be feared that her theology was imperfect. + +She entered a lane between the Mission wall and a lighter iron fenced +inclosure, once a part of the garden, but now the appurtenance of a +private dwelling that was reconstructed over the heavy adobe shell of +some forgotten structure of the old ecclesiastical founders. It was +pierced by many windows and openings, and that sunlight and publicity +which the former padres had jealously excluded was now wooed from long +balconies and verandas by the new proprietor, a well to do American. +Elisha Braggs, whose name was generously and euphoniously translated by +his native neighbors into "Don Eliseo," although a heretic, had given +largess to the church in the way of restoring its earthquake-shaken +tower, and in presenting a new organ to its dilapidated choir. He had +further endeared himself to the conservative Spanish population by +introducing no obtrusive improvements; by distributing his means through +the old channels; by apparently inciting no further alien immigration, +but contenting himself to live alone among them, adopting their habits, +customs, and language. A harmless musical taste, and a disposition to +instruct the young boy choristers, was equally balanced by great skill +in horsemanship and the personal management of a ranche of wild cattle +on the inland plains. + +Consciously pretty, and prettily conscious in her white-starched, +rose-sprigged muslin, her pink parasol, beribboned gypsy hat, and the +long mane-like curls that swung over her shoulders, Cissy entered the +house and was shown to the large low drawing-room on the ground-floor. +She once more inhaled its hot potpourri fragrance, in which the spice of +the Castilian rose-leaves of the garden was dominant. A few boys, whom +she recognized as the choristers of the Mission and her fellow-pupils, +were already awaiting her with some degree of anxiety and impatience. +This fact, and a certain quick animation that sprang to the blue eyes +of the master of the house as the rose-sprigged frock and long curls +appeared at the doorway, showed that Cissy was clearly the favorite +pupil. + +Elisha Braggs was a man of middle age, with a figure somewhat rounded by +the adipose curves of a comfortable life, and an air of fastidiousness +which was, however, occasionally at variance with what seemed to be +his original condition. He greeted Cissy with a certain nervous +overconsciousness of his duties as host and teacher, and then plunged +abruptly into the lesson. It lasted an hour, Cissy tactfully +dividing his somewhat exclusive instruction with the others, and even +interpreting it to their slower comprehension. When it was over, the +choristers shyly departed, according to their usual custom, leaving +Cissy and Don Eliseo--and occasionally one of the padres to more +informal practicing and performance. Neither the ingenuousness of Cissy +nor the worldly caution of aunt Vashti had ever questioned the propriety +of these prolonged and secluded seances; and the young girl herself, +although by no means unaccustomed to the bashful attentions of the youth +of West Woodlands, had never dreamed of these later musical interviews +as being anything but an ordinary recreation of her art. The feeling of +gratitude and kindness she had for Don Eliseo, her aunt's friend, had +never left her conscious or embarrassed when she was alone with him. +But to-day, possibly from his own nervousness and preoccupation, she was +aware of some vague uneasiness, and at an early opportunity rose to go. +But Don Eliseo gently laid his hand on hers and said:-- + +"Don't go yet; I want to talk to you." His touch suddenly reminded her +that once or twice before he had done the same thing, and she had been +disagreeably impressed by it. But she lifted her brown eyes to his with +an unconsciousness that was more crushing than a withdrawal of her hand, +and waited for him to go on. + +"It is such a long way for you to come, and you have so little time to +stay when you are here, that I am thinking of asking your aunt to let +you live here at the Mission, as a pupil, in the house of the Senora +Hernandez, until your lessons are finished. Padre Jose will attend to +the rest of your education. Would you like it?" + +Poor Cissy's eyes leaped up in unaffected and sparkling affirmation +before her tongue replied. To bask in this beloved sunshine for days +together; to have this quaint Spanish life before her eyes, and those +soft Spanish accents in her ears; to forget herself in wandering in the +old-time Mission garden beyond; to have daily access to Mr. Braggs's +piano and the organ of the church--this was indeed the realization +of her fondest dreams! Yet she hesitated. Somewhere in her inherited +Puritan nature was a vague conviction that it was wrong, and it seemed +even to find an echo in the warning of the preacher: this was what she +was "pining for." + +"I don't know," she stammered. "I must ask auntie; I shouldn't like to +leave her; and there's the chapel." + +"Isn't that revivalist preacher enough to run it for a while?" said her +companion, half-sneeringly. + +The remark was not a tactful one. + +"Mr. Seabright hasn't been here for a month," she answered somewhat +quickly. "But he's coming next Sunday, and I'm glad of it. He's a very +good man. And there's nothing he don't notice. He saw how silly it was +to stick the chapel into the very heart of the woods, and he told them +so." + +"And I suppose he'll run up a brand-new meeting-house out on the road," +said Braggs, smiling. + +"No, he's going to open up the woods, and let the sun and light in, and +clear out the underbrush." + +"And what's that for?" + +There was such an utter and abrupt change in the speaker's voice and +manner--which until then had been lazily fastidious and confident--that +Cissy was startled. And the change being rude and dictatorial, she was +startled into opposition. She had wanted to say that the improvement had +been suggested by HER, but she took a more aggressive attitude. + +"Brother Seabright says it's a question of religion and morals. It's a +scandal and a wrong, and a disgrace to the Word, that the chapel should +have been put there." + +Don Eliseo's face turned so white and waxy that Cissy would have noticed +it had she not femininely looked away while taking this attitude. + +"I suppose that's a part of his sensation style, and very effective," he +said, resuming his former voice and manner. "I must try to hear him some +day. But, now, in regard to your coming here, of course I shall consult +your aunt, although I imagine she will have no objection. I only wanted +to know how YOU felt about it." He again laid his hand on hers. + +"I should like to come very much," said Cissy timidly; "and it's very +kind of you, I'm sure; but you'll see what auntie says, won't you?" She +withdrew her hand after momentarily grasping his, as if his own act had +been only a parting salutation, and departed. + +Aunt Vashti received Cissy's account of her interview with a grim +satisfaction. She did not know what ideas young gals had nowadays, but +in HER time she'd been fit to jump outer her skin at such an offer from +such a good man as Elisha Braggs. And he was a rich man, too. And ef he +was goin' to give her an edication free, it wasn't goin' to stop +there. For her part, she didn't like to put ideas in young girls' +heads,--goodness knows they'd enough foolishness already; but if Cissy +made a Christian use of her gifts, and 'tended to her edication and +privileges, and made herself a fit helpmeet for any man, she would say +that there were few men in these parts that was as "comf'ble ketch" as +Lish Braggs, or would make as good a husband and provider. + +The blood suddenly left Cissy's cheeks and then returned with +uncomfortable heat. Her aunt's words had suddenly revealed to her +the meaning of the uneasiness she had felt in Braggs's house that +morning--the old repulsion that had come at his touch. She had never +thought of him as a suitor or a beau before, yet it now seemed perfectly +plain to her that this was the ulterior meaning of his generosity. And +yet she received that intelligence with the same mixed emotions with +which she had received his offer to educate her. She did not conceal +from herself the pride and satisfaction she felt in this presumptive +selection of her as his wife; the worldly advantages that it promised; +nor that it was a destiny far beyond her deserts. Yet she was conscious +of exactly the same sense of wrong-doing in her preferences--something +that seemed vaguely akin to that "conviction of sin" of which she had +heard so much--as when she received his offer of education. It was this +mixture of fear and satisfaction that caused her alternate paling and +flushing, yet this time it was the fear that came first. Perhaps she was +becoming unduly sensitive. The secretiveness of her sex came to her aid +here, and she awkwardly changed the subject. Aunt Vashti, complacently +believing that her words had fallen on fruitful soil, discreetly said no +more. + +It was a hot morning when Cissy walked alone to chapel early next +Sunday. There was a dry irritation in the air which even the northwest +trades, blowing through the seaward gorge, could not temper, and for the +first time in her life she looked forward to the leafy seclusion of the +buried chapel with a feeling of longing. She had avoided her youthful +escort, for she wished to practice alone for an hour before the service +with the new harmonium that had taken the place of the old accordion and +its unskillful performer. Perhaps, too, there was a timid desire to be +at her best on the return of Brother Seabright, and to show him, with +a new performance, that the "heavenly gift" had not been neglected. She +opened the chapel with the key she always carried, "swished" away an +intrusive squirrel, left the door and window open for a moment, until +the beating of frightened wings against the rafters had ceased, and, +after carefully examining the floor for spiders, mice, and other +creeping things, brushed away a few fallen leaves and twigs from the top +of the harmonium. Then, with her long curls tossed over her shoulders +and hanging limply down the back of her new maple-leaf yellow +frock,--which was also a timid recognition of Brother Seabright's +return,--and her brown eyes turned to the rafters, this rustic St. +Cecilia of the Coast Range began to sing. The shell of the little +building dilated with the melody; the sashes of the windows pulsated, +the two ejected linnets joined in timidly from their coign of vantage in +the belfry outside, and the limp vines above the porch swayed like her +curls. Once she thought she heard stealthy footsteps without; once she +was almost certain she felt the brushing of somebody outside against the +thin walls of the chapel, and once she stopped to glance quickly at the +window with a strange instinct that some one was looking at her. But she +quickly reflected that Brother Seabright would come there only when the +deacons did, and with them. Why she should think that it was Brother +Seabright, or why Brother Seabright should come thus and at such a time, +she could not have explained. + +He did not, in fact, make his appearance until later, and after the +congregation had quite filled the chapel; he did not, moreover, appear +to notice her as she sat there, and when he gave out the hymn he +seemed to have quietly overlooked the new harmonium. She sang her best, +however, and more than one of the audience thought that "little Sister +Appleby" had greatly improved. Indeed, it would not have seemed strange +to some--remembering Brother Seabright's discursive oratory--if he had +made some allusion to it. But he did not. His heavy eyes moved slowly +over the congregation, and he began. + +As usual he did not take a text. But he would talk to them that morning +about "The Conviction of Sin" and the sense of wrong-doing that was +innate in the sinner. This included all form of temptation, for what +was temptation but the inborn consciousness of something to struggle +against, and that was sin! At this apparently concise exposition of +her own feelings in regard to Don Eliseo's offer, Cissy felt herself +blushing to the roots of her curls. Could it be possible that Brother +Seabright had heard of her temptation to leave West Woodlands, and +that this warning was intended for her? He did not even look in her +direction. Yet his next sentence seemed to be an answer to her own +mental query. + +"Folks might ask," he continued, "if even the young and inexperienced +should feel this--or was there a state of innocent guilt without +consciousness?" He would answer that question by telling them what had +happened to him that morning. He had come to the chapel, not by the +road, but through the tangled woods behind them (Cissy started)--through +the thick brush and undergrowth that was choking the life out of this +little chapel--the wilderness that he had believed was never before +trodden by human feet, and was known only to roaming beasts and vermin. +But that was where he was wrong. + +In the stillness and listening silence, a sudden cough from some one +in one of the back benches produced that instantaneous diversion of +attention common to humanity on such occasions. Cissy's curls swung +round with the others. But she was surprised to see that Mr. Braggs was +seated in one of the benches near the door, and from the fact of +his holding a handkerchief to his mouth, and being gazed at by his +neighbors, it was evident that it was he who had coughed. Perhaps he +had come to West Woodlands to talk to her aunt! With the preacher +before her, and her probable suitor behind her, she felt herself again +blushing. + +Brother Seabright continued. Yes, he was WRONG, for there before him, in +the depths of the forest, were two children. They were looking at a bush +of "pizon berries,"--the deadly nightshade, as it was fitly called,--and +one was warning the other of its dangerous qualities. + +"But how do you know it's the 'pizon berry'?" asked the other. + +"Because it's larger, and nicer, and bigger, and easier to get than the +real good ones," returned the other. + +And it was so. Thus was the truth revealed from the mouths of babes +and sucklings; even they were conscious of temptation and sin! But here +there was another interruption from the back benches, which proved, +however, to be only the suppressed giggle of a boy--evidently the +youthful hero of the illustration, surprised into nervous hilarity. + +The preacher then passed to the "Conviction of Sin" in its more familiar +phases. Many brothers confounded this with DISCOVERY AND PUBLICITY. It +was not their own sin "finding them out," but others discovering it. +Until that happened, they fancied themselves safe, stilling their +consciences, confounding the blinded eye of the world with the +all-seeing eye of the Lord. But were they safe even then? Did not sooner +or later the sea deliver up its dead, the earth what was buried in it, +the wild woods what its depths had hidden? Was not the foolish secret, +the guilty secret, the forgotten sin, sure to be disclosed? Then if they +could not fly from the testimony of His works, if they could not evade +even their fellow-man, why did they not first turn to Him? Why, from the +penitent child at his mother's knee to the murderer on the scaffold, did +they only at THE LAST confess unto Him? + +His voice and manner had suddenly changed. From the rough note of +accusation and challenge it had passed into the equally rough, but +broken and sympathetic, accents of appeal. Why did they hesitate longer +to confess their sin--not to man--but unto Him? Why did they delay? +Now--that evening! That very moment! This was the appointed time! He +entreated them in the name of religious faith, in the name of a human +brotherly love. His delivery was now no longer deliberate, but +hurried and panting; his speech now no longer chosen, but made up +of reiterations and repetitions, ejaculations, and even incoherent +epithets. His gestures and long intonations which began to take the +place of even that interrupted speech affected them more than his +reasoning! Short sighs escaped them; they swayed to and fro with the +rhythm of his voice and movements. They had begun to comprehend +this exacerbation of emotion--this paroxysmal rhapsody. This was the +dithyrambic exaltation they had ardently waited for. They responded +quickly. First with groans, equally inarticulate murmurs of assent, +shouts of "Glory," and the reckless invocation of sacred names. Then a +wave of hysteria seemed to move the whole mass, and broke into tears +and sobs among the women. In her own excited consciousness it seemed +to Cissy that some actual struggle between good and evil--like unto +the casting out of devils--was shaking the little building. She cast a +hurried glance behind her and saw Mr. Braggs sitting erect, white and +scornful. She knew that she too was shrinking from the speaker,--not +from any sense of conviction, but because he was irritating and +disturbing her innate sense of fitness and harmony,--and she was pained +that Mr. Braggs should see him thus. Meantime the weird, invisible +struggle continued, heightened and, it seemed to her, incited by the +partisan groans and exultant actions of those around her, until suddenly +a wild despairing cry arose above the conflict. A vague fear seized +her--the voice was familiar! She turned in time to see the figure +of aunt Vashti rise in her seat with a hysterical outburst, and fall +convulsively forward upon her knees! She would have rushed to her side, +but the frenzied woman was instantly caught by Deacon Shadwell and +surrounded by a group of her own sex and became hidden. And when Cissy +recovered herself she was astonished to find Brother Seabright--with +every trace of his past emotion vanished from his hard-set face--calmly +taking up his coherent discourse in his ordinary level tones. The +furious struggle of the moment before was over; the chapel and its +congregation had fallen back into an exhausted and apathetic silence! +Then the preacher gave out the hymn--the words were singularly jubilant +among that usually mournful collection in the book before her--and Cissy +began it with a tremulous voice. But it gained strength, clearness, and +volume as she went on, and she felt thrilled throughout with a new human +sympathy she had never known before. The preacher's bass supported her +now for the first time not unmusically--and the service was over. + +Relieved, she turned quickly to join her aunt, but a hand was laid +gently upon her shoulder. It was Brother Seabright, who had just stepped +from the platform. The congregation, knowing her to be the niece of the +hysteric woman, passed out without disturbing them. + +"You have, indeed, improved your gift, Sister Cecilia," he said gravely. +"You must have practiced much." + +"Yes--that is, no!--only a little," stammered Cissy. + +"But, excuse me, I must look after auntie," she added, drawing timidly +away. + +"Your aunt is better, and has gone on with Sister Shadwell. She is not +in need of your help, and really would do better without you just now. I +shall see her myself presently." + +"But YOU made her sick already," said Cissy, with a sudden, half-nervous +audacity. "You even frightened ME." + +"Frightened you?" repeated Seabright, looking at her quickly. + +"Yes," said Cissy, meeting his gaze with brown, truthful eyes. "Yes, +when you--when you--made those faces. I like to hear you talk, but"--she +stopped. + +Brother Seabright's rare smile again lightened his face. But it seemed +sadder than when she had first seen it. + +"Then you have been practicing again at the Mission?" he said quietly; +"and you still prefer it?" + +"Yes," said Cissy. She wanted to appear as loyal to the Mission in +Brother Seabright's presence as she was faithful to West Woodlands +in Mr. Braggs's. She had no idea that this was dangerously near to +coquetry. So she said a little archly, "I don't see why YOU don't like +the Mission. You're a missionary yourself. The old padres came here to +spread the Word. So do you." + +"But not in that way," he said curtly. "I've seen enough of them when +I was knocking round the world a seafaring man and a sinner. I knew +them--receivers of the ill-gotten gains of adventurers, fools, and +scoundrels. I knew them--enriched by the spoils of persecution and +oppression; gathering under their walls outlaws and fugitives from +justice, and flinging an indulgence here and an absolution there, as +they were paid for it. Don't talk to me of THEM--I know them." + +They were passing out of the chapel together, and he made an impatient +gesture as if dismissing the subject. Accustomed though she was to +the sweeping criticism of her Catholic friends by her West Woodlands +associates, she was nevertheless hurt by his brusqueness. She dropped +a little behind, and they separated at the porch. Notwithstanding +her anxiety to see her aunt, she felt she could not now go to Deacon +Shadwell's without seeming to follow him--and after he had assured her +that her help was not required! She turned aside and made her way slowly +towards her home. + +There she found that her aunt had not returned, gathering from her uncle +that she was recovering from a fit of "high strikes" (hysterics), and +would be better alone. Whether he underrated her complaint, or had +a consciousness of his masculine helplessness in such disorders, he +evidently made light of it. And when Cissy, afterwards, a little ashamed +that she had allowed her momentary pique against Brother Seabright to +stand in the way of her duty, determined to go to her aunt, instead of +returning to the chapel that evening, he did not oppose it. She learned +also that Mr. Braggs had called in the morning, but, finding that her +aunt Vashti was at chapel, he had followed her there, intending to +return with her. But he had not been seen since the service, and had +evidently returned to the Mission. + +But when she reached Deacon Shadwell's house she was received by Mrs. +Shadwell only. Her aunt, said that lady, was physically better, but +Brother Seabright had left "partkler word" that she was to see nobody. +It was an extraordinary case of "findin' the Lord," the like of which +had never been known before in West Woodlands, and she (Cissy) would yet +be proud of one of her "fammerly being speshally selected for grace." +But the "workin's o' salvation was not to be finicked away on worldly +things or even the affections of the flesh;" and if Cissy really loved +her aunt, "she wouldn't interfere with her while she was, so to speak, +still on the mourners' bench, wrastlin' with the Sperret in their back +sittin'-room." But she might wait until Brother Seabright's return from +evening chapel after service. + +Cissy waited. Nine o'clock came, but Brother Seabright did not return. +Then a small but inconsequent dignity took possession of her, and she +slightly tossed her long curls from her shoulders. She was not going +to wait for any man's permission to see her own aunt. If auntie did not +want to see her, that was enough. She could go home alone. She didn't +want any one to go with her. + +Lifted and sustained by these lofty considerations, with an erect head +and slightly ruffled mane, well enwrapped in a becoming white merino +"cloud," the young girl stepped out on her homeward journey. She +had certainly enough to occupy her mind and, perhaps, justify her +independence. To have a suitor for her hand in the person of the +superior and wealthy Mr. Braggs,--for that was what his visit that +morning to West Woodlands meant,--and to be personally complimented +on her improvement by the famous Brother Seabright, all within twelve +hours, was something to be proud of, even although it was mitigated +by her aunt's illness, her suitor's abrupt departure, and Brother +Seabright's momentary coldness and impatience. Oddly enough, this last +and apparently trivial circumstance occupied her thoughts more than the +others. She found herself looking out for him in the windings of the +moonlit road, and when, at last, she reached the turning towards the +little wood and chapel, her small feet unconsciously lingered until +she felt herself blushing under her fleecy "cloud." She looked down the +lane. From the point where she was standing the lights of the chapel +should have been plainly visible; but now all was dark. It was nearly +ten o'clock, and he must have gone home by another road. Then a spirit +of adventure seized her. She had the key of the chapel in her pocket. +She remembered she had left a small black Spanish fan--a former gift of +Mr. Braggs lying on the harmonium. She would go and bring it away, and +satisfy herself that Brother Seabright was not there still. It was but a +step, and in the clear moonlight. + +The lane wound before her like a silver stream, except where it was +interrupted and bridged over by jagged black shadows. The chapel itself +was black, the clustering trees around it were black also; the porch +seemed to cover an inky well of shadow; the windows were rayless and +dead, and in the chancel one still left open showed a yawning vault of +obscurity within. Nevertheless, she opened the door softly, glided into +the dark depths, and made her way to the harmonium. But here the sound +of footsteps without startled her; she glanced hurriedly through the +open window, and saw the figure of Elisha Braggs suddenly revealed in +the moonlight as he crossed the path behind the chapel. He was closely +followed by two peons, whom she recognized as his servants at the +Mission, and they each carried a pickaxe. From their manner it was +evident that they had no suspicion of her presence in the chapel. But +they had stopped and were listening. Her heart beat quickly; with +a sudden instinct she ran and bolted the door. But it was evidently +another intruder they were watching, for she presently saw Brother +Seabright quietly cross the lane and approach the chapel. The three men +had disappeared; but there was a sudden shout, the sound of scuffling, +the deep voice of Brother Seabright saying, "Back, there, will you! +Hands off!" and a pause. She could see nothing; she listened in every +pulse. Then the voice of Brother Seabright arose again quite clearly, +slowly, and as deliberately as if it had risen from the platform in the +chapel. + +"Lish Barker! I thought as much! Lish Barker, first mate of the +Tamalpais, who was said to have gone down with a boat's crew and the +ship's treasure after she struck. I THOUGHT I knew that face today." + +"Yes," said the voice of him whom she had known as Elisha Braggs,--"yes, +and I knew YOUR face, Jim Seabright, ex-whaler, slaver, pirate, and +bo's'n of the Highflyer, marooned in the South Pacific, where you found +the Lord--ha! ha!--and became the psalm-singing, converted American +sailor preacher!" + +"I am not ashamed before men of my past, which every one knows," +returned Seabright slowly. "But what of YOURS, Elisha Barker--YOURS +that has made you sham death itself to hide it from them? What of +YOURS--spent in the sloth of your ill-gotten gains! Turn, sinner, turn! +Turn, Elisha Braggs, while there is yet time!" + +"Belay there, Brother Seabright; we're not INSIDE your gospel-shop just +now! Keep your palaver for those that need it. Let me pass, before I +have to teach you that you haven't to deal with a gang of hysterical old +women to-night." + +"But not until you know that one of those women,--Vashti White,--by +God's grace converted of her sins, has confessed her secret and yours, +Elisha Barker! Yes! She has told me how her sister's husband--the father +of the young girl you are trying to lure away--helped you off that night +with your booty, took his miserable reward and lived and died in exile +with the rest of your wretched crew,--afraid to return to his home and +country--whilst you--shameless and impenitent--lived in slothful ease at +the Mission!" + +"Liar! Let me pass!" + +"Not until I know your purpose here to-night." + +"Then take the consequences! Here, Pedro! Ramon! Seize him. Tie him head +and heels together, and toss him in the bush!" + +The sound of scuffling recommenced. The struggle seemed fierce and long, +with no breath wasted in useless outcry. Then there was a bright flash, +a muffled report, and the stinging and fire of gunpowder at the window. + +Transfixed with fear, Cissy cast a despairing glance around her. Ah, +the bell-rope! In another instant she had grasped it frantically in her +hands. + +All the fear, indignation, horror, sympathy, and wild appeal for help +that had arisen helplessly in her throat and yet remained unuttered, now +seemed to thrill through her fingers and the tightened rope, and broke +into frantic voice in the clanging metal above her. The whole chapel, +the whole woodland, the clear, moonlit sky above was filled with its +alarming accents. It shrieked, implored, protested, summoned, and +threatened, in one ceaseless outcry, seeming to roll over and over--as, +indeed, it did--in leaps and bounds that shook the belfry. Never before, +even in the blows of the striking surges, had the bell of the Tamalpais +clamored like that! Once she heard above the turmoil the shaking of the +door against the bolt that still held firmly; once she thought she +heard Seabright's voice calling to her; once she thought she smelled +the strong smoke of burning grass. But she kept on, until the window was +suddenly darkened by a figure, and Brother Seabright, leaping in, caught +her in his arms as she was reeling fainting, but still clinging to the +rope. But his strong presence and some powerful magnetism in his touch +restored her. + +"You have heard all!" he said. + +"Yes." + +"Then for your aunt's sake, for your dead father's sake, FORGET all! +That wretched man has fled with his wounded hirelings--let his sin +go with him. But the village is alarmed--the brethren may be here any +moment! Neither question nor deny what I shall tell them. Fear nothing. +God will forgive the silence that leaves the vengeance to His hands +alone!" Voices and footsteps were heard approaching the chapel. Brother +Seabright significantly pressed her hand and strode towards the door. +Deacon Shadwell was first to enter. + +"You here--Brother Seabright! What has happened?" + +"God be praised!" said Brother Seabright cheerfully, "nothing of +consequence! The danger is over! Yet, but for the courage and presence +of mind of Sister Appleby a serious evil might have been done." He +paused, and with another voice turned half-interrogatively towards her. +"Some children, or a passing tramp, had carelessly thrown matches in +the underbrush, and they were ignited beside the chapel. Sister Appleby, +chancing to return here for"-- + +"For my fan," said Cissy with a timid truthfulness of accent. + +"Found herself unable to cope with it, and it occurred to her to give +the alarm you heard. I happened to be passing and was first to respond. +Happily the flames had made but little headway, and were quickly beaten +down. It is all over now. But let us hope that the speedy clearing out +of the underbrush and the opening of the woods around the chapel will +prevent any recurrence of the alarm of to-night." + +***** + +That the lesson thus reiterated by Brother Seabright was effective, the +following extract, from the columns of the "Whale Point Gazette," may +not only be offered as evidence, but may even give the cautious reader +further light on the episode itself:-- + + +STRANGE DISCOVERY AT WEST WOODLANDS.--THE TAMALPAIS MYSTERY AGAIN. + +The improvements in the clearing around the Sidon Chapel at West +Woodlands, undertaken by the Rev. James Seabright, have disclosed +another link in the mystery which surrounded the loss of the Tamalpais +some years ago at Whale Mouth Point. It will be remembered that the boat +containing Adams & Co.'s treasure, the Tamalpais' first officer, and +a crew of four men was lost on the rocks shortly after leaving the +ill-fated vessel. None of the bodies were ever recovered, and the +treasure itself completely baffled the search of divers and salvers. A +lidless box bearing the mark of Adams & Co., of the kind in which their +treasure was usually shipped, was yesterday found in the woods behind +the chapel, half buried in brush, bark, and windfalls. There were no +other indications, except the traces of a camp-fire at some remote +period, probably long before the building of the chapel. But how and +when the box was transported to the upland, and by whose agency, still +remains a matter of conjecture. Our reporter who visited the Rev. Mr. +Seabright, who has lately accepted the regular ministry of the chapel, +was offered every facility for information, but it was evident that the +early settlers who were cognizant of the fact--if there were any--are +either dead or have left the vicinity. + + + + +THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES. + + +I. + + +For many minutes there had been no sound but the monotonous drumming of +the rain on the roof of the coach, the swishing of wheels through the +gravelly mud, and the momentary clatter of hoofs upon some rocky outcrop +in the road. Conversation had ceased; the light-hearted young editor in +the front seat, more than suspected of dangerous levity, had relapsed +into silence since the heavy man in the middle seat had taken to +regarding the ceiling with ostentatious resignation, and the thin female +beside him had averted her respectable bonnet. An occasional lurch of +the coach brought down a fringe of raindrops from its eaves that filmed +the windows and shut out the sodden prospect already darkening into +night. There had been a momentary relief in their hurried dash through +Summit Springs, and the spectacle of certain newly arrived County +Delegates crowding the veranda of its one hotel; but that was now three +miles behind. The young editor's sole resource was to occasionally steal +a glance at the face of the one passenger who seemed to be in sympathy +with him, but who was too far away for easy conversation. It was the +half-amused, half-perplexed face of a young man who had been for +some time regarding him from a remote corner of the coach with an odd +mingling of admiring yet cogitating interest, which, however, had never +extended to any further encouragement than a faint sad smile. Even this +at last faded out in the growing darkness; the powerful coach lamps on +either side that flashed on the wayside objects gave no light to the +interior. Everybody was slowly falling asleep. Suddenly everybody woke +up to find that the coach was apparently standing still! When it had +stopped no one knew! The young editor lowered his window. The coach lamp +on that side was missing, but nothing was to be seen. In the distance +there appeared to be a faint splashing. + +"Well," called out an impatient voice from the box above; "what do you +make it?" It was the authoritative accents of Yuba Bill, the driver, and +everybody listened eagerly for the reply. + +It came faintly from the distance and the splashing. "Almost four feet +here, and deepening as you go." + +"Dead water?" + +"No--back water from the Fork." + +There was a general movement towards the doors and windows. The +splashing came nearer. Then a light flashed on the trees, the windows, +and--two feet of yellow water peacefully flowing beneath them! The thin +female gave a slight scream. + +"There's no danger," said the Expressman, now wading towards them with +the coach lamp in his hand. "But we'll have to pull round out of it and +go back to the Springs. There's no getting past this break to-night." + +"Why didn't you let us know this before," said the heavy man indignantly +from the window. + +"Jim," said the driver with that slow deliberation which instantly +enforced complete attention. + +"Yes, Bill." + +"Have you got a spare copy of that reg'lar bulletin that the Stage +Kempany issoos every ten minutes to each passenger to tell 'em where we +are, how far it is to the next place, and wots the state o' the weather +gin'rally?" + +"No!" said the Expressman grimly, as he climbed to the box, "there's not +one left. Why?" + +"Cos the Emperor of Chiny's inside wantin' one! Hoop! Keep your seats +down there! G'lang!" the whip cracked, there was a desperate splashing, +a backward and forward jolting of the coach, the glistening wet flanks +and tossing heads of the leaders seen for a moment opposite the windows, +a sickening swirl of the whole body of the vehicle as if parting from +its axles, a long straight dragging pull, and--presently the welcome +sound of hoofs once more beating the firmer ground. + +"Hi! Hold up--driver!" + +It was the editor's quiet friend who was leaning from the window. + +"Isn't Wilkes's ranch just off here?" + +"Yes, half a mile along the ridge, I reckon," returned the driver +shortly. + +"Well, if you're not going on to-night, I'd get off and stop there." + +"I reckon your head's level, stranger," said Bill approvingly; "for +they're about chock full at the Springs' House." + +To descend, the passenger was obliged to pass out by the middle seat +and before the young editor. As he did so he cast a shy look on him and, +leaning over, said hesitatingly, in a lower voice: "I don't think you +will be able to get in at the Springs Hotel. If--if--you care to come +with me to--to--the ranch, I can take care of you." + +The young editor--a man of action--paused for an instant only. Then +seizing his bag, he said promptly: "Thank you," and followed his +newly-found friend to the ground. The whip cracked, the coach rolled +away. + +"You know Wilkes?" he said. + +"Ye-ee-s. He's my father." + +"Ah," said the editor cheerfully, "then you're going home?" + +"Yes." + +It was quite light in the open, and the stranger, after a moment's +survey of the prospect,--a survey that, however, seemed to be +characterized by his previous hesitation,--said: "This way," crossed +the road, and began to follow a quite plain but long disused wagon track +along the slope. His manner was still so embarrassed that the young +editor, after gayly repeating his thanks for his companion's thoughtful +courtesy, followed him in silence. At the end of ten minutes they had +reached some cultivated fields and orchards; the stranger brightened, +although still with a preoccupied air, quickened his pace, and then +suddenly stopped. When the editor reached his side he was gazing with +apparently still greater perplexity upon the level, half obliterated, +and blackened foundations of what had been a large farmhouse. + +"Why, it's been burnt down!" he said thoughtfully. + +The editor stared at him! Burnt down it certainly had been, but by no +means recently. Grasses were already springing up from the charred +beams in the cellar, vines were trailing over the fallen chimneys, +excavations, already old, had been made among the ruins. "When were you +here last?" the editor asked abruptly. + +"Five years ago," said the stranger abstractedly. + +"Five years!--and you knew nothing of THIS?" + +"No. I was in Tahiti, Australia, Japan, and China all the time." + +"And you never heard from home?" + +"No. You see I quo'led with the old man, and ran away." + +"And you didn't write to tell them you were coming?" + +"No." He hesitated, and then added: "Never thought o' coming till I saw +YOU." + +"Me!" + +"Yes; you and--the high water." + +"Do you mean to say," said the young editor sharply, "that you brought +ME--an utter stranger to you--out of that coach to claim the hospitality +of a father you had quarreled with--hadn't seen for five years and +didn't know if he would receive you?" + +"Yes,--you see that's just WHY I did it. You see, I reckoned my chances +would be better to see him along with a cheerful, chipper fellow +like you. I didn't, of course, kalkilate on this," he added, pointing +dejectedly to the ruins. + +The editor gasped; then a sudden conception of the unrivaled absurdity +of the situation flashed upon him,--of his passively following the +amiable idiot at his side in order to contemplate, by the falling rain +and lonely night, a heap of sodden ruins, while the coach was speeding +to Summit Springs and shelter, and, above all, the reason WHY he was +invited,--until, putting down his bag, he leaned upon his stick, and +laughed until the tears came to his eyes. + +At which his companion visibly brightened. "I told you so," he said +cheerfully; "I knew you'd be able to take it--and the old man--in THAT +WAY, and that would have fetched him round." + +"For Heaven's sake! don't talk any more," said the editor, wiping his +eyes, "but try to remember if you ever had any neighbors about here +where we can stay tonight. We can't walk to Summit Springs, and we can't +camp out on these ruins." + +"There didn't use to be anybody nearer than the Springs." + +"But that was five years ago, you say," said the editor impatiently; +"and although your father probably moved away after the house burned +down, the country's been thickly settled since then. That field has been +lately planted. There must be another house beyond. Let's follow the +trail a little farther." + +They tramped along in silence, this time the editor leading. Presently +he stopped. "There's a house--in there--among the trees," he said, +pointing. "Whose is it?" + +The stranger shook his head dubiously. Although apparently unaffected by +any sentimental consideration of his father's misfortune, the spectacle +of the blackened ruins of the homestead had evidently shaken his +preconceived plans. "It wasn't there in MY time," he said musingly. + +"But it IS there in OUR time," responded the editor briskly, "and I +propose to go there. From what you have told me of your father--even if +his house were still standing--our chances of getting supper and a bed +from him would be doubtful! I suppose," he continued as they moved on +together, "you left him in anger--five years ago?" + +"Ye-es." + +"Did he say anything as you left?" + +"I don't remember anything particular that he SAID." + +"Well, what did he DO?" + +"Shot at me from the window!" + +"Ah!" said the young editor softly. Nevertheless they walked on for some +time in silence. Gradually a white picket fence came into view at right +angles with the trail, and a man appeared walking leisurely along what +seemed to be the regularly traveled road, beside it. The editor, who had +taken matters in his own hands, without speaking to his companion, ran +quickly forward and accosted the stranger, briefly stating that he had +left the stage-coach with a companion, because it was stopped by high +water, and asked, without entering into further details, to be directed +to some place where they could pass the night. The man quite as briefly +directed him to the house among the trees, which he said was his own, +and then leisurely pursued his way along the road. The young editor +ran back to his companion, who had halted in the dripping shadow of a +sycamore, and recounted his good fortune. + +"I didn't," he added, "say anything about your father. You can make +inquiries yourself later." + +"I reckon there won't be much need of that," returned his companion. +"You didn't take much note o' that man, did you?" + +"Not much," said the editor. + +"Well, THAT'S MY FATHER, and I reckon that new house must be his." + + +II. + + +The young editor was a little startled. The man he had just quitted +certainly was not dangerous looking, and yet, remembering what his +son had said, there WERE homicidal possibilities. "Look here," he said +quickly, "he's not there NOW. Why don't you seize the opportunity to +slip into the house, make peace with your mother and sisters, and get +them to intercede with your father when he returns?" + +"Thar ain't any mother; she died afore I left. My sister Almiry's a +little girl--though that's four years ago and mebbee she's growed. +My brothers and me didn't pull together much. But I was thinkin' that +mebbee YOU might go in thar for me first, and see how the land lays; +then sorter tell 'em 'bout me in your takin', chipper, easy way; +make 'em laugh, and when you've squared 'em--I'll be hangin' round +outside--you kin call ME in. Don't you see?" + +The young editor DID see. Ridiculous as the proposal would have seemed +to him an hour ago, it now appeared practical, and even commended itself +to his taste. His name was well known in the county and his mediation +might be effective. Perhaps his vanity was slightly flattered by his +companion's faith in him; perhaps he was not free from a certain human +curiosity to know the rest; perhaps he was more interested than he cared +to confess in the helpless home-seeker beside him. + +"But you must tell me something more of yourself, and your fortune and +prospects. They'll be sure to ask questions." + +"Mebbee they won't. But you can say I've done well--made my pile over +in Australia, and ain't comin' on THEM. Remember--say I 'ain't comin' on +them'!" + +The editor nodded, and then, as if fearful of letting his present +impulse cool, ran off towards the house. + +It was large and respectable looking, and augured well for the present +fortunes of the Wilkes's. The editor had determined to attack the +citadel on its weaker, feminine side, and when the front door was opened +to his knock, asked to see Miss Almira Wilkes. The Irish servant showed +him into a comfortable looking sitting-room, and in another moment with +a quick rustle of skirts in the passage a very pretty girl impulsively +entered. From the first flash of her keen blue eyes the editor--a fair +student of the sex--conceived the idea that she had expected somebody +else; from the second that she was an arrant flirt, and did not intend +to be disappointed. This much was in his favor. + +Spurred by her provoking eyes and the novel situation, he stated his +business with an airy lightness and humor that seemed to justify +his late companion's estimate of his powers. But even in his cynical +attitude he was unprepared for the girl's reception of his news. He had +expected some indignation or even harshness towards this man whom he was +beginning to consider as a kind of detrimental outcast or prodigal, but +he was astounded at the complete and utter indifference--the frank and +heartless unconcern--with which she heard of his return. When she had +followed the narrator rather than his story to the end, she languidly +called her brothers from the adjoining room. "This gentleman, Mr. Grey, +of the 'Argus,' has come across Jim--and Jim is calculating to come here +and see father." + +The two brothers stared at Grey, slightly shrugged their shoulders with +the same utter absence of fraternal sympathy or concern which the girl +had shown, and said nothing. + +"One moment," said Grey a little warmly; "I have no desire to penetrate +family secrets, but would you mind telling me if there is any grave +reason why he should not come. Was there any scandalous conduct, +unpardonable offense--let us even say--any criminal act on his part +which makes his return to this roof impossible?" + +The three looked at each other with a dull surprise that ended in a +vacant wondering smile. "No, no," they said in one voice. "No, only"-- + +"Only what?" asked Grey impatiently. + +"Dad just hates him!" + +"Like pizon," smiled Almira. + +The young editor rose with a slight increase of color. "Look here," said +the girl, whose dimples had deepened as she keenly surveyed him, as +if detecting some amorous artifice under his show of interest for her +brother. "Dad's gone down to the sheepfold and won't be back for an +hour. Yo' might bring--YO' FRIEND--in." + +"He ain't wantin' anything? Ain't dead broke? nor nothin', eh?" +suggested one of the brothers dubiously. + +Grey hastened to assure them of Jim's absolute solvency, and even +enlarged considerably on his Australian fortune. They looked relieved +but not interested. + +"Go and fetch him," said the witch, archly hovering near Grey with +dancing eyes; "and mind YO' come back, too!" + +Grey hesitated a moment and then passed out in the dark porch. A +dripping figure emerged from the trees opposite. It was Jim. + +"Your sister and brothers will see you," said Grey hastily, to avoid +embarrassing details. "HE won't be here for an hour. But I'd advise you +to make the most of your time, and get the good-will of your sister." +He would have drawn back to let the prodigal pass in alone, but the man +appealingly seized his arm, and Grey was obliged to re-enter with him. +He noticed, however, that he breathed hard. + +They turned slightly towards their relative, but did not offer to +shake hands with him, nor did he with them. He sat down sideways on an +unoffered chair. "The old house got burnt!" he said, wiping his lips, +and then drying his wet hair with his handkerchief. + +As the remark was addressed to no one in particular it was some seconds +before the elder brother replied: "Yes." + +"Almira's growed." + +Again no one felt called upon to answer, and Almira glanced archly at +the young editor as if he might have added: "and improved." + +"You've done well?" returned one of the brothers tentatively. + +"Yes, I'm all right," said Jim. + +There was another speechless interval. Even the conversational Grey felt +under some unhallowed spell of silence that he could not break. + +"I see the old well is there yet," said Jim, wiping his lips again. + +"Where dad was once goin' to chuck you down for givin' him back talk," +said the younger brother casually. + +To Mr. Grey's relief and yet astonishment, Jim burst into a loud laugh +and rubbed his legs. "That's so--how old times DO come back!" + +"And," said the bright-eyed Almira, "there's that old butternut-tree that +you shinned up one day when we set the hounds on you. Goodness! how you +scooted!" + +Again Jim laughed loudly and nodded. "Yes, the same old butternut. How +you DO remember, Almira?" This admiringly. + +"And don't you remember Delia Short?" continued Almira, pleased at the +admiration, and perhaps a little exalted at the singular attention which +the young editor was giving to those cheerful reminiscences. "She, you +know, you was reg'larly sick after, so that we always allowed she kinder +turned yo' brain afore you went away! Well! all the while you were +courtin' her it appears she was secretly married to Jo--yo' friend--Jo +Stacy. Lord! there was a talk about that! and about yo' all along +thinkin' yo' had chances! Yo' friend here," with an arch glance at Grey, +"who's allus puttin' folks in the newspapers, orter get a hold on that!" + +Jim again laughed louder than the others, and rubbed his lips. Grey, +however, offered only the tribute of a peculiar smile and walked to the +window. "You say your father will return in an hour?" he said, turning +to the elder brother. + +"Yes, unless he kept on to Watson's." + +"Where?" said Jim suddenly. + +It struck Grey that his voice had changed--or rather that he was now +speaking for the first time in his natural tone. + +"Watson's, just over the bridge," explained his brother. "If he went +there he won't be back till ten." + +Jim picked up his India rubber cape and hat, said, "I reckon I'll just +take a turn outside until he gets back," and walked towards the door. +None of his relatives moved nor seemed to offer any opposition. Grey +followed him quickly. "I'll go with you," he said. + +"No," returned Jim with singular earnestness. "You stay here and keep +'em up cheerful like this. They're doing all this for YOU, you know; +Almiry's just this chipper only on your account." + +Seeing the young man was inflexible, Grey returned grimly to the room, +but not until he had noticed, with some surprise, that Jim, immediately +on leaving the house, darted off at a quick run through the rain and +darkness. Preoccupied with this, and perhaps still influenced by the +tone of the previous conversation, he did not respond readily to the +fair Almira's conversational advances, and was speedily left to a seat +by the fire alone. At the end of ten minutes he regretted he had ever +come; when half an hour had passed he wondered if he had not better try +to reach the Summit alone. With the lapse of an hour he began to feel +uneasy at Jim's prolonged absence in spite of the cold indifference +of the household. Suddenly he heard stamping in the porch, a muttered +exclamation, and the voices of the two brothers in the hall. "Why, dad! +what's up? Yo' look half drowned!" + +The door opened upon the sodden, steaming figure of the old man whom he +had met on the road, followed by the two sons. But he was evidently +more occupied and possessed by some mental passion than by his physical +discomfort. Yet strong and dominant over both, he threw off his wet coat +and waistcoat as he entered, and marched directly to the fire. Utterly +ignoring the presence of a stranger, he suddenly turned and faced his +family. + +"Half drowned. Yes! and I might have been hull drowned for that matter. +The back water of the Fork is all over Watson's, and the bridge is gone. +I stumbled onto this end of it in the dark, and went off, head first, +into twenty feet of water! Tried to fight my way out, but the current +was agin me. I'd bin down twice, and was going down for the third +time, when somebody grabbed me by the scruff o' my neck and under the +arm--so!--and swam me to the bank! When I scrambled up I sez: 'I can't +see your face,' sez I, 'I don't know who you are,' sez I, 'but I reckon +you're a white man and clear grit,' sez I, 'and there's my hand on it!' +And he grabs it and sez, 'We're quits,' and scooted out o' my sight. +And," continued the old man staring at their faces and raising his voice +almost to a scream, "who do you think it was? Why, THAT SNEAKIN' HOUND +OF A BROTHER OF YOURS--JIM! Jim! the scallawag that I booted outer the +ranch five years ago, crawlin', writhin' back again after all these +years to insult his old father's gray hairs! And some of you--by +God--once thought that I was hard on him!" + +***** + +The sun was shining brightly the next morning as the young editor halted +the up coach in the now dried hollow. As he was clambering to a seat +beside the driver, his elbow was jogged at the window. Looking down he +saw the face of Jim. + +"We had a gay talk last night, remembering old times, didn't we?" said +the prodigal cheerfully. + +"Yes, but--where are you going now?" + +"Back to Australia, I reckon! But it was mighty good to drop in on the +old homestead once more!" + +"Rather," said the editor, clinging to the window and lingering in +mid-air to the manifest impatience of Yuba Bill; "but I say--look +here!--were you QUITE satisfied?" + +Jim's hand tightened around the young editor's as he answered +cheerfully, "Yes." But his face was turned away from the window. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other +Stories, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S *** + +***** This file should be named 2692.txt or 2692.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/2692/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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