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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Twins of Table Mountain and Other
+Stories, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: June 3, 2006 [EBook #2862]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN AND OTHER STORIES
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I.   THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN
+
+II.  AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG
+
+III. THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY
+
+IV.  A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT
+
+V.   VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN.
+
+
+They lived on the verge of a vast stony level, upheaved so far above
+the surrounding country that its vague outlines, viewed from the nearest
+valley, seemed a mere cloud-streak resting upon the lesser hills. The
+rush and roar of the turbulent river that washed its eastern base were
+lost at that height; the winds that strove with the giant pines that
+half way climbed its flanks spent their fury below the summit; for, at
+variance with most meteorological speculation, an eternal calm seemed
+to invest this serene altitude. The few Alpine flowers seldom
+thrilled their petals to a passing breeze; rain and snow fell alike
+perpendicularly, heavily, and monotonously over the granite bowlders
+scattered along its brown expanse. Although by actual measurement an
+inconsiderable elevation of the Sierran range, and a mere shoulder of
+the nearest white-faced peak that glimmered in the west, it seemed
+to lie so near the quiet, passionless stars, that at night it caught
+something of their calm remoteness.
+
+The articulate utterance of such a locality should have been a whisper;
+a laugh or exclamation was discordant; and the ordinary tones of the
+human voice on the night of the 15th of May, 1868, had a grotesque
+incongruity.
+
+In the thick darkness that clothed the mountain that night, the human
+figure would have been lost, or confounded with the outlines of outlying
+bowlders, which at such times took upon themselves the vague semblance
+of men and animals. Hence the voices in the following colloquy seemed
+the more grotesque and incongruous from being the apparent expression
+of an upright monolith, ten feet high, on the right, and another mass of
+granite, that, reclining, peeped over the verge.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+"Hello yourself!"
+
+"You're late."
+
+"I lost the trail, and climbed up the slide."
+
+Here followed a stumble, the clatter of stones down the mountain-side,
+and an oath so very human and undignified that it at once relieved the
+bowlders of any complicity of expression. The voices, too, were close
+together now, and unexpectedly in quite another locality.
+
+"Anything up?"
+
+"Looey Napoleon's declared war agin Germany."
+
+"Sho-o-o!"
+
+Notwithstanding this exclamation, the interest of the latter speaker was
+evidently only polite and perfunctory. What, indeed, were the political
+convulsions of the Old World to the dwellers on this serene, isolated
+eminence of the New?
+
+"I reckon it's so," continued the first voice. "French Pete and that
+thar feller that keeps the Dutch grocery hev hed a row over it; emptied
+their six-shooters into each other. The Dutchman's got two balls in
+his leg, and the Frenchman's got an onnessary buttonhole in his
+shirt-buzzum, and hez caved in."
+
+This concise, local corroboration of the conflict of remote nations,
+however confirmatory, did not appear to excite any further interest.
+Even the last speaker, now that he was in this calm, dispassionate
+atmosphere, seemed to lose his own concern in his tidings, and to have
+abandoned every thing of a sensational and lower-worldly character in
+the pines below. There were a few moments of absolute silence, and then
+another stumble. But now the voices of both speakers were quite patient
+and philosophical.
+
+"Hold on, and I'll strike a light," said the second speaker. "I brought
+a lantern along, but I didn't light up. I kem out afore sundown, and you
+know how it allers is up yer. I didn't want it, and didn't keer to light
+up. I forgot you're always a little dazed and strange-like when you
+first come up."
+
+There was a crackle, a flash, and presently a steady glow, which the
+surrounding darkness seemed to resent. The faces of the two men thus
+revealed were singularly alike. The same thin, narrow outline of jaw and
+temple; the same dark, grave eyes; the same brown growth of curly beard
+and mustache, which concealed the mouth, and hid what might have been
+any individual idiosyncrasy of thought or expression,--showed them to
+be brothers, or better known as the "Twins of Table Mountain." A certain
+animation in the face of the second speaker,--the first-comer,--a
+certain light in his eye, might have at first distinguished him; but
+even this faded out in the steady glow of the lantern, and had no
+value as a permanent distinction, for, by the time they had reached
+the western verge of the mountain, the two faces had settled into a
+homogeneous calmness and melancholy.
+
+The vague horizon of darkness, that a few feet from the lantern still
+encompassed them, gave no indication of their progress, until their feet
+actually trod the rude planks and thatch that formed the roof of their
+habitation; for their cabin half burrowed in the mountain, and half
+clung, like a swallow's nest, to the side of the deep declivity that
+terminated the northern limit of the summit. Had it not been for the
+windlass of a shaft, a coil of rope, and a few heaps of stone and
+gravel, which were the only indications of human labor in that stony
+field, there was nothing to interrupt its monotonous dead level. And,
+when they descended a dozen well-worn steps to the door of their cabin,
+they left the summit, as before, lonely, silent, motionless, its long
+level uninterrupted, basking in the cold light of the stars.
+
+The simile of a "nest" as applied to the cabin of the brothers was no
+mere figure of speech as the light of the lantern first flashed upon it.
+The narrow ledge before the door was strewn with feathers. A suggestion
+that it might be the home and haunt of predatory birds was promptly
+checked by the spectacle of the nailed-up carcasses of a dozen hawks
+against the walls, and the outspread wings of an extended eagle
+emblazoning the gable above the door, like an armorial bearing. Within
+the cabin the walls and chimney-piece were dazzlingly bedecked with the
+party-colored wings of jays, yellow-birds, woodpeckers, kingfishers, and
+the poly-tinted wood-duck. Yet in that dry, highly-rarefied atmosphere,
+there was not the slightest suggestion of odor or decay.
+
+The first speaker hung the lantern upon a hook that dangled from the
+rafters, and, going to the broad chimney, kicked the half-dead embers
+into a sudden resentful blaze. He then opened a rude cupboard, and,
+without looking around, called, "Ruth!"
+
+The second speaker turned his head from the open doorway where he was
+leaning, as if listening to something in the darkness, and answered
+abstractedly,--
+
+"Rand!"
+
+"I don't believe you have touched grub to-day!"
+
+Ruth grunted out some indifferent reply.
+
+"Thar hezen't been a slice cut off that bacon since I left," continued
+Rand, bringing a side of bacon and some biscuits from the cupboard, and
+applying himself to the discussion of them at the table. "You're gettin'
+off yer feet, Ruth. What's up?"
+
+Ruth replied by taking an uninvited seat beside him, and resting his
+chin on the palms of his hands. He did not eat, but simply transferred
+his inattention from the door to the table.
+
+"You're workin' too many hours in the shaft," continued Rand. "You're
+always up to some such d--n fool business when I'm not yer."
+
+"I dipped a little west to-day," Ruth went on, without heeding the
+brotherly remonstrance, "and struck quartz and pyrites."
+
+"Thet's you!--allers dippin' west or east for quartz and the color,
+instead of keeping on plumb down to the 'cement'!"*
+
+
+     * The local name for gold-bearing alluvial drift,--the bed
+     of a prehistoric river.
+
+
+"We've been three years digging for cement," said Ruth, more in
+abstraction than in reproach,--"three years!"
+
+"And we may be three years more,--may be only three days. Why, you
+couldn't be more impatient if--if--if you lived in a valley."
+
+Delivering this tremendous comparison as an unanswerable climax, Rand
+applied himself once more to his repast. Ruth, after a moment's pause,
+without speaking or looking up, disengaged his hand from under his chin,
+and slid it along, palm uppermost, on the table beside his brother.
+Thereupon Rand slowly reached forward his left hand, the right being
+engaged in conveying victual to his mouth, and laid it on his brother's
+palm. The act was evidently an habitual, half mechanical one; for in
+a few moments the hands were as gently disengaged, without comment or
+expression. At last Rand leaned back in his chair, laid down his knife
+and fork, and, complacently loosening the belt that held his revolver,
+threw it and the weapon on his bed. Taking out his pipe, and chipping
+some tobacco on the table, he said carelessly, "I came a piece through
+the woods with Mornie just now."
+
+The face that Ruth turned upon his brother was very distinct in its
+expression at that moment, and quite belied the popular theory that
+the twins could not be told apart. "Thet gal," continued Rand, without
+looking up, "is either flighty, or--or suthin'," he added in vague
+disgust, pushing the table from him as if it were the lady in question.
+"Don't tell me!"
+
+Ruth's eyes quickly sought his brother's, and were as quickly averted,
+as he asked hurriedly, "How?"
+
+"What gets me," continued Rand in a petulant non sequitur, "is that YOU,
+my own twin-brother, never lets on about her comin' yer, permiskus like,
+when I ain't yer, and you and her gallivantin' and promanadin', and
+swoppin' sentiments and mottoes."
+
+Ruth tried to contradict his blushing face with a laugh of worldly
+indifference.
+
+"She came up yer on a sort of pasear."
+
+"Oh, yes!--a short cut to the creek," interpolated Rand satirically.
+
+"Last Tuesday or Wednesday," continued Ruth, with affected
+forgetfulness.
+
+"Oh, in course, Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday! You've so many folks
+climbing up this yer mountain to call on ye," continued the ironical
+Rand, "that you disremember; only you remembered enough not to tell me.
+SHE did. She took me for you, or pretended to."
+
+The color dropped from Ruth's cheek.
+
+"Took you for me?" he asked, with an awkward laugh.
+
+"Yes," sneered Rand; "chirped and chattered away about OUR picnic, OUR
+nose-gays, and lord knows what! Said she'd keep them blue-jay's wings,
+and wear 'em in her hat. Spouted poetry, too,--the same sort o' rot you
+get off now and then."
+
+Ruth laughed again, but rather ostentatiously and nervously.
+
+"Ruth, look yer!"
+
+Ruth faced his brother.
+
+"What's your little game? Do you mean to say you don't know what thet
+gal is? Do you mean to say you don't know thet she's the laughing-stock
+of the Ferry; thet her father's a d----d old fool, and her mother's a
+drunkard and worse; thet she's got any right to be hanging round yer?
+You can't mean to marry her, even if you kalkilate to turn me out to do
+it, for she wouldn't live alone with ye up here. 'Tain't her kind. And
+if I thought you was thinking of--"
+
+"What?" said Ruth, turning upon his brother quickly.
+
+"Oh, thet's right! holler; swear and yell, and break things, do! Tear
+round!" continued Rand, kicking his boots off in a corner, "just because
+I ask you a civil question. That's brotherly," he added, jerking his
+chair away against the side of the cabin, "ain't it?"
+
+"She's not to blame because her mother drinks, and her father's a
+shyster," said Ruth earnestly and strongly. "The men who make her the
+laughing-stock of the Ferry tried to make her something worse, and
+failed, and take this sneak's revenge on her. 'Laughing-stock!' Yes,
+they knew she could turn the tables on them."
+
+"Of course; go on! She's better than me. I know I'm a fratricide, that's
+what I am," said Rand, throwing himself on the upper of the two berths
+that formed the bedstead of the cabin.
+
+"I've seen her three times," continued Ruth.
+
+"And you've known me twenty years," interrupted his brother.
+
+Ruth turned on his heel, and walked towards the door.
+
+"That's right; go on! Why don't you get the chalk?"
+
+Ruth made no reply. Rand descended from the bed, and, taking a piece of
+chalk from the shelf, drew a line on the floor, dividing the cabin in
+two equal parts.
+
+"You can have the east half," he said, as he climbed slowly back into
+bed.
+
+This mysterious rite was the usual termination of a quarrel between the
+twins. Each man kept his half of the cabin until the feud was forgotten.
+It was the mark of silence and separation, over which no words of
+recrimination, argument, or even explanation, were delivered, until
+it was effaced by one or the other. This was considered equivalent to
+apology or reconciliation, which each were equally bound in honor to
+accept.
+
+It may be remarked that the floor was much whiter at this line of
+demarcation, and under the fresh chalk-line appeared the faint evidences
+of one recently effaced.
+
+Without apparently heeding this potential ceremony, Ruth remained
+leaning against the doorway, looking upon the night, the bulk of whose
+profundity and blackness seemed to be gathered below him. The vault
+above was serene and tranquil, with a few large far-spaced stars; the
+abyss beneath, untroubled by sight or sound. Stepping out upon the
+ledge, he leaned far over the shelf that sustained their cabin,
+and listened. A faint rhythmical roll, rising and falling in long
+undulations against the invisible horizon, to his accustomed ears told
+him the wind was blowing among the pines in the valley. Yet, mingling
+with this familiar sound, his ear, now morbidly acute, seemed to detect
+a stranger inarticulate murmur, as of confused and excited voices,
+swelling up from the mysterious depths to the stars above, and again
+swallowed up in the gulfs of silence below. He was roused from a
+consideration of this phenomenon by a faint glow towards the east, which
+at last brightened, until the dark outline of the distant walls of the
+valley stood out against the sky. Were his other senses participating in
+the delusion of his ears? for with the brightening light came the faint
+odor of burning timber.
+
+His face grew anxious as he gazed. At last he rose, and re-entered the
+cabin. His eyes fell upon the faint chalk-mark, and, taking his soft
+felt hat from his head, with a few practical sweeps of the brim he
+brushed away the ominous record of their late estrangement. Going to the
+bed whereon Rand lay stretched, open-eyed, he would have laid his hand
+upon his arm lightly; but the brother's fingers sought and clasped his
+own. "Get up," he said quietly; "there's a strange fire in the Canyon
+head that I can't make out."
+
+Rand slowly clambered from his shelf, and hand in hand the brothers
+stood upon the ledge. "It's a right smart chance beyond the Ferry, and a
+piece beyond the Mill, too," said Rand, shading his eyes with his hand,
+from force of habit. "It's in the woods where--" He would have added
+where he met Mornie; but it was a point of honor with the twins, after
+reconciliation, not to allude to any topic of their recent disagreement.
+
+Ruth dropped his brother's hand. "It doesn't smell like the woods," he
+said slowly.
+
+"Smell!" repeated Rand incredulously. "Why, it's twenty miles in a
+bee-line yonder. Smell, indeed!"
+
+Ruth was silent, but presently fell to listening again with his former
+abstraction. "You don't hear anything, do you?" he asked after a pause.
+
+"It's blowin' in the pines on the river," said Rand shortly.
+
+"You don't hear anything else?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nothing like--like--like--"
+
+Rand, who had been listening with an intensity that distorted the left
+side of his face, interrupted him impatiently.
+
+"Like what?"
+
+"Like a woman sobbin'?"
+
+"Ruth," said Rand, suddenly looking up in his brother's face, "what's
+gone of you?"
+
+Ruth laughed. "The fire's out," he said, abruptly re-entering the cabin.
+"I'm goin' to turn in."
+
+Rand, following his brother half reproachfully, saw him divest himself
+of his clothing, and roll himself in the blankets of his bed.
+
+"Good-night, Randy!"
+
+Rand hesitated. He would have liked to ask his brother another question;
+but there was clearly nothing to be done but follow his example.
+
+"Good-night, Ruthy!" he said, and put out the light. As he did so, the
+glow in the eastern horizon faded, too, and darkness seemed to well up
+from the depths below, and, flowing in the open door, wrapped them in
+deeper slumber.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+THE CLOUDS GATHER.
+
+
+Twelve months had elapsed since the quarrel and reconciliation, during
+which interval no reference was made by either of the brothers to the
+cause which had provoked it. Rand was at work in the shaft, Ruth having
+that morning undertaken the replenishment of the larder with game
+from the wooded skirt of the mountain. Rand had taken advantage of his
+brother's absence to "prospect" in the "drift,"--a proceeding utterly at
+variance with his previous condemnation of all such speculative essay;
+but Rand, despite his assumption of a superior practical nature, was not
+above certain local superstitions. Having that morning put on his gray
+flannel shirt wrong side out,--an abstraction recognized among the
+miners as the sure forerunner of divination and treasure-discovery,--he
+could not forego that opportunity of trying his luck, without
+hazarding a dangerous example. He was also conscious of feeling
+"chipper,"--another local expression for buoyancy of spirit, not common
+to men who work fifty feet below the surface, without the stimulus of
+air and sunshine, and not to be overlooked as an important factor in
+fortunate adventure. Nevertheless, noon came without the discovery of
+any treasure. He had attacked the walls on either side of the lateral
+"drift" skilfully, so as to expose their quality without destroying
+their cohesive integrity, but had found nothing. Once or twice,
+returning to the shaft for rest and air, its grim silence had seemed to
+him pervaded with some vague echo of cheerful holiday voices above. This
+set him to thinking of his brother's equally extravagant fancy of
+the wailing voices in the air on the night of the fire, and of his
+attributing it to a lover's abstraction.
+
+"I laid it to his being struck after that gal; and yet," Rand continued
+to himself, "here's me, who haven't been foolin' round no gal, and dog
+my skin if I didn't think I heard one singin' up thar!" He put his foot
+on the lower round of the ladder, paused, and slowly ascended a dozen
+steps. Here he paused again. All at once the whole shaft was filled with
+the musical vibrations of a woman's song. Seizing the rope that hung
+idly from the windlass, he half climbed, half swung himself, to the
+surface.
+
+The voice was there; but the sudden transition to the dazzling level
+before him at first blinded his eyes, so that he took in only by degrees
+the unwonted spectacle of the singer,--a pretty girl, standing on tiptoe
+on a bowlder not a dozen yards from him, utterly absorbed in tying a
+gayly-striped neckerchief, evidently taken from her own plump throat, to
+the halliards of a freshly-cut hickory-pole newly reared as a flag-staff
+beside her. The hickory-pole, the halliards, the fluttering scarf,
+the young lady herself, were all glaring innovations on the familiar
+landscape; but Rand, with his hand still on the rope, silently and
+demurely enjoyed it.
+
+For the better understanding of the general reader, who does not live on
+an isolated mountain, it may be observed that the young lady's position
+on the rock exhibited some study of POSE, and a certain exaggeration of
+attitude, that betrayed the habit of an audience; also that her voice
+had an artificial accent that was not wholly unconscious, even in this
+lofty solitude. Yet the very next moment, when she turned, and caught
+Rand's eye fixed upon her, she started naturally, colored slightly,
+uttered that feminine adjuration, "Good Lord! gracious! goodness me!"
+which is seldom used in reference to its effect upon the hearer, and
+skipped instantly from the bowlder to the ground. Here, however, she
+alighted in a POSE, brought the right heel of her neatly-fitting left
+boot closely into the hollowed side of her right instep, at the same
+moment deftly caught her flying skirt, whipped it around her ankles,
+and, slightly raising it behind, permitted the chaste display of an inch
+or two of frilled white petticoat. The most irreverent critic of the sex
+will, I think, admit that it has some movements that are automatic.
+
+"Hope I didn't disturb ye," said Rand, pointing to the flag-staff.
+
+The young lady slightly turned her head. "No," she said; "but I didn't
+know anybody was here, of course. Our PARTY"--she emphasized the word,
+and accompanied it with a look toward the further extremity of the
+plateau, to show she was not alone--"our party climbed this ridge,
+and put up this pole as a sign to show they did it." The ridiculous
+self-complacency of this record in the face of a man who was evidently
+a dweller on the mountain apparently struck her for the first time. "We
+didn't know," she stammered, looking at the shaft from which Rand had
+emerged, "that--that--" She stopped, and, glancing again towards the
+distant range where her friends had disappeared, began to edge away.
+
+"They can't be far off," interposed Rand quietly, as if it were the most
+natural thing in the world for the lady to be there. "Table Mountain
+ain't as big as all that. Don't you be scared! So you thought nobody
+lived up here?"
+
+She turned upon him a pair of honest hazel eyes, which not only
+contradicted the somewhat meretricious smartness of her dress, but was
+utterly inconsistent with the palpable artificial color of her hair,--an
+obvious imitation of a certain popular fashion then known in artistic
+circles as the "British Blonde,"--and began to ostentatiously resume a
+pair of lemon-colored kid gloves. Having, as it were, thus indicated her
+standing and respectability, and put an immeasurable distance between
+herself and her bold interlocutor, she said impressively, "We
+evidently made a mistake: I will rejoin our party, who will, of course,
+apologize."
+
+"What's your hurry?" said the imperturbable Rand, disengaging himself
+from the rope, and walking towards her. "As long as you're up here, you
+might stop a spell."
+
+"I have no wish to intrude; that is, our party certainly has not,"
+continued the young lady, pulling the tight gloves, and smoothing the
+plump, almost bursting fingers, with an affectation of fashionable ease.
+
+"Oh! I haven't any thing to do just now," said Rand, "and it's about
+grub time, I reckon. Yes, I live here, Ruth and me,--right here."
+
+The young woman glanced at the shaft.
+
+"No, not down there," said Rand, following her eye, with a laugh. "Come
+here, and I'll show you."
+
+A strong desire to keep up an appearance of genteel reserve, and an
+equally strong inclination to enjoy the adventurous company of this
+good-looking, hearty young fellow, made her hesitate. Perhaps she
+regretted having undertaken a role of such dignity at the beginning: she
+could have been so perfectly natural with this perfectly natural man,
+whereas any relaxation now might increase his familiarity. And yet she
+was not without a vague suspicion that her dignity and her gloves
+were alike thrown away on him,--a fact made the more evident when
+Rand stepped to her side, and, without any apparent consciousness of
+disrespect or gallantry, laid his large hand, half persuasively, half
+fraternally, upon her shoulder, and said, "Oh, come along, do!"
+
+The simple act either exceeded the limits of her forbearance, or decided
+the course of her subsequent behavior. She instantly stepped back a
+single pace, and drew her left foot slowly and deliberately after her;
+then she fixed her eyes and uplifted eyebrows upon the daring hand,
+and, taking it by the ends of her thumb and forefinger, lifted it, and
+dropped it in mid-air. She then folded her arms. It was the indignant
+gesture with which "Alice," the Pride of Dumballin Village, received the
+loathsome advances of the bloated aristocrat, Sir Parkyns Parkyn, and
+had at Marysville, a few nights before, brought down the house.
+
+This effect was, I think, however, lost upon Rand. The slight color that
+rose to his cheek as he looked down upon his clay-soiled hands was due
+to the belief that he had really contaminated her outward superfine
+person. But his color quickly passed: his frank, boyish smile returned,
+as he said, "It'll rub off. Lord, don't mind that! Thar, now--come on!"
+
+The young woman bit her lip. Then nature triumphed; and she laughed,
+although a little scornfully. And then Providence assisted her with the
+sudden presentation of two figures, a man and woman, slowly climbing up
+over the mountain verge, not far from them. With a cry of "There's Sol,
+now!" she forgot her dignity and her confusion, and ran towards them.
+
+Rand stood looking after her neat figure, less concerned in the advent
+of the strangers than in her sudden caprice. He was not so young and
+inexperienced but that he noted certain ambiguities in her dress and
+manner: he was by no means impressed by her dignity. But he could not
+help watching her as she appeared to be volubly recounting her late
+interview to her companions; and, still unconscious of any impropriety
+or obtrusiveness, he lounged down lazily towards her. Her humor had
+evidently changed; for she turned an honest, pleased face upon him, as
+she girlishly attempted to drag the strangers forward.
+
+The man was plump and short; unlike the natives of the locality, he was
+closely cropped and shaven, as if to keep down the strong blue-blackness
+of his beard and hair, which nevertheless asserted itself over his round
+cheeks and upper lip like a tattooing of Indian ink. The woman at his
+side was reserved and indistinctive, with that appearance of being an
+unenthusiastic family servant peculiar to some men's wives. When Rand
+was within a few feet of him, he started, struck a theatrical attitude,
+and, shading his eyes with his hand, cried, "What, do me eyes deceive
+me!" burst into a hearty laugh, darted forward, seized Rand's hand, and
+shook it briskly.
+
+"Pinkney, Pinkney, my boy! how are you? And this is your little 'prop'?
+your quarter-section, your country-seat, that we've been trespassing on,
+eh? A nice little spot, cool, sequestered, remote,--a trifle unimproved;
+carriage-road as yet unfinished. Ha, ha! But to think of our making
+a discovery of this inaccessible mountain, climbing it, sir, for two
+mortal hours, christening it 'Sol's Peak,' getting up a flag-pole,
+unfurling our standard to the breeze, sir, and then, by Gad, winding up
+by finding Pinkney, the festive Pinkney, living on it at home!"
+
+Completely surprised, but still perfectly good-humored, Rand shook the
+stranger's right hand warmly, and received on his broad shoulders a
+welcoming thwack from the left, without question. "She don't mind her
+friends making free with ME evidently," said Rand to himself, as he
+tried to suggest that fact to the young lady in a meaning glance.
+
+The stranger noted his glance, and suddenly passed his hand thoughtfully
+over his shaven cheeks. "No," he said--"yes, surely, I forget--yes, I
+see; of course you don't! Rosy," turning to his wife, "of course Pinkney
+doesn't know Phemie, eh?"
+
+"No, nor ME either, Sol," said that lady warningly.
+
+"Certainly!" continued Sol. "It's his misfortune. You weren't with me
+at Gold Hill.--Allow me," he said, turning to Rand, "to present Mrs. Sol
+Saunders, wife of the undersigned, and Miss Euphemia Neville, otherwise
+known as the 'Marysville Pet,' the best variety actress known on the
+provincial boards. Played Ophelia at Marysville, Friday; domestic drama
+at Gold Hill, Saturday; Sunday night, four songs in character, different
+dress each time, and a clog-dance. The best clog-dance on the Pacific
+Slope," he added in a stage aside. "The minstrels are crazy to get her
+in 'Frisco. But money can't buy her--prefers the legitimate drama to
+this sort of thing." Here he took a few steps of a jig, to which the
+"Marysville Pet" beat time with her feet, and concluded with a laugh
+and a wink--the combined expression of an artist's admiration for her
+ability, and a man of the world's scepticism of feminine ambition.
+
+Miss Euphemia responded to the formal introduction by extending her hand
+frankly with a re-assuring smile to Rand, and an utter obliviousness of
+her former hauteur. Rand shook it warmly, and then dropped carelessly on
+a rock beside them.
+
+"And you never told me you lived up here in the attic, you rascal!"
+continued Sol with a laugh.
+
+"No," replied Rand simply. "How could I? I never saw you before, that I
+remember."
+
+Miss Euphemia stared at Sol. Mrs. Sol looked up in her lord's face, and
+folded her arms in a resigned expression. Sol rose to his feet again,
+and shaded his eyes with his hand, but this time quite seriously, and
+gazed at Rand's smiling face.
+
+"Good Lord! Do you mean to say your name isn't Pinkney?" he asked, with
+a half embarrassed laugh.
+
+"It IS Pinkney," said Rand; "but I never met you before."
+
+"Didn't you come to see a young lady that joined my troupe at Gold Hill
+last month, and say you'd meet me at Keeler's Ferry in a day or two?"
+
+"No-o-o," said Rand, with a good-humored laugh. "I haven't left this
+mountain for two months."
+
+He might have added more; but his attention was directed to Miss
+Euphemia, who during this short dialogue, having stuffed alternately her
+handkerchief, the corner of her mantle, and her gloves, into her mouth,
+restrained herself no longer, but gave way to an uncontrollable fit
+of laughter. "O Sol!" she gasped explanatorily, as she threw herself
+alternately against him, Mrs. Sol, and a bowlder, "you'll kill me yet!
+O Lord! first we take possession of this man's property, then we claim
+HIM." The contemplation of this humorous climax affected her so that
+she was fain at last to walk away, and confide the rest of her speech to
+space.
+
+Sol joined in the laugh until his wife plucked his sleeve, and whispered
+something in his ear. In an instant his face became at once mysterious
+and demure. "I owe you an apology," he said, turning to Rand, but in a
+voice ostentatiously pitched high enough for Miss Euphemia to overhear:
+"I see I have made a mistake. A resemblance--only a mere resemblance,
+as I look at you now--led me astray. Of course you don't know any young
+lady in the profession?"
+
+"Of course he doesn't, Sol," said Miss Euphemia. "I could have told you
+that. He didn't even know ME!"
+
+The voice and mock-heroic attitude of the speaker was enough to relieve
+the general embarrassment with a laugh. Rand, now pleasantly conscious
+of only Miss Euphemia's presence, again offered the hospitality of his
+cabin, with the polite recognition of her friends in the sentence, "and
+you might as well come along too."
+
+"But won't we incommode the lady of the house?" said Mrs. Sol politely.
+
+"What lady of the house"? said Rand almost angrily.
+
+"Why, Ruth, you know!"
+
+It was Rand's turn to become hilarious. "Ruth," he said, "is short
+for Rutherford, my brother." His laugh, however, was echoed only by
+Euphemia.
+
+"Then you have a brother?" said Mrs. Sol benignly.
+
+"Yes," said Rand: "he will be here soon." A sudden thought dropped the
+color from his cheek. "Look here," he said, turning impulsively upon
+Sol. "I have a brother, a twin-brother. It couldn't be HIM--"
+
+Sol was conscious of a significant feminine pressure on his right arm.
+He was equal to the emergency. "I think not," he said dubiously, "unless
+your brother's hair is much darker than yours. Yes! now I look at you,
+yours is brown. He has a mole on his right cheek hasn't he?"
+
+The red came quickly back to Rand's boyish face. He laughed. "No, sir:
+my brother's hair is, if any thing, a shade lighter than mine, and nary
+mole. Come along!"
+
+And leading the way, Rand disclosed the narrow steps winding down to the
+shelf on which the cabin hung. "Be careful," said Rand, taking the now
+unresisting hand of the "Marysville Pet" as they descended: "a step that
+way, and down you go two thousand feet on the top of a pine-tree."
+
+But the girl's slight cry of alarm was presently changed to one of
+unaffected pleasure as they stood on the rocky platform. "It isn't a
+house: it's a NEST, and the loveliest!" said Euphemia breathlessly.
+
+"It's a scene, a perfect scene, sir!" said Sol, enraptured. "I shall
+take the liberty of bringing my scene-painter to sketch it some day.
+It would do for 'The Mountaineer's Bride' superbly, or," continued
+the little man, warming through the blue-black border of his face with
+professional enthusiasm, "it's enough to make a play itself. 'The Cot on
+the Crags.' Last scene--moonlight--the struggle on the ledge! The Lady
+of the Crags throws herself from the beetling heights!--A shriek from
+the depths--a woman's wail!"
+
+"Dry up!" sharply interrupted Rand, to whom this speech recalled his
+brother's half-forgotten strangeness. "Look at the prospect."
+
+In the full noon of a cloudless day, beneath them a tumultuous sea of
+pines surged, heaved, rode in giant crests, stretched and lost itself
+in the ghostly, snow-peaked horizon. The thronging woods choked every
+defile, swept every crest, filled every valley with its dark-green
+tilting spears, and left only Table Mountain sunlit and bare. Here and
+there were profound olive depths, over which the gray hawk hung lazily,
+and into which blue jays dipped. A faint, dull yellowish streak marked
+an occasional watercourse; a deeper reddish ribbon, the mountain road
+and its overhanging murky cloud of dust.
+
+"Is it quite safe here?" asked Mrs. Sol, eying the little cabin. "I mean
+from storms?"
+
+"It never blows up here," replied Rand, "and nothing happens."
+
+"It must be lovely," said Euphemia, clasping her hands.
+
+"It IS that," said Rand proudly. "It's four years since Ruth and I took
+up this yer claim, and raised this shanty. In that four years we haven't
+left it alone a night, or cared to. It's only big enough for two, and
+them two must be brothers. It wouldn't do for mere pardners to live here
+alone,--they couldn't do it. It wouldn't be exactly the thing for man
+and wife to shut themselves up here alone. But Ruth and me know
+each other's ways, and here we'll stay until we've made a pile. We
+sometimes--one of us--takes a pasear to the Ferry to buy provisions; but
+we're glad to crawl up to the back of old 'Table' at night."
+
+"You're quite out of the world here, then?" suggested Mrs. Sol.
+
+"That's it, just it! We're out of the world,--out of rows, out of
+liquor, out of cards, out of bad company, out of temptation. Cussedness
+and foolishness hez got to follow us up here to find us, and there's too
+many ready to climb down to them things to tempt 'em to come up to us."
+
+There was a little boyish conceit in his tone, as he stood there, not
+altogether unbecoming his fresh color and simplicity. Yet, when his
+eyes met those of Miss Euphemia, he colored, he hardly knew why, and the
+young lady herself blushed rosily.
+
+When the neat cabin, with its decorated walls, and squirrel and wild-cat
+skins, was duly admired, the luncheon-basket of the Saunders party was
+re-enforced by provisions from Rand's larder, and spread upon the
+ledge; the dimensions of the cabin not admitting four. Under the potent
+influence of a bottle, Sol became hilarious and professional. The "Pet"
+was induced to favor the company with a recitation, and, under the plea
+of teaching Rand, to perform the clog-dance with both gentlemen. Then
+there was an interval, in which Rand and Euphemia wandered a little way
+down the mountain-side to gather laurel, leaving Mr. Sol to his siesta
+on a rock, and Mrs. Sol to take some knitting from the basket, and sit
+beside him.
+
+When Rand and his companion had disappeared, Mrs. Sol nudged her
+sleeping partner. "Do you think that WAS the brother?"
+
+Sol yawned. "Sure of it. They're as like as two peas, in looks."
+
+"Why didn't you tell him so, then?"
+
+"Will you tell me, my dear, why you stopped me when I began?"
+
+"Because something was said about Ruth being here; and I supposed Ruth
+was a woman, and perhaps Pinkney's wife, and knew you'd be putting your
+foot in it by talking of that other woman. I supposed it was for fear of
+that he denied knowing you."
+
+"Well, when HE--this Rand--told me he had a twin-brother, he looked so
+frightened that I knew he knew nothing of his brother's doings with that
+woman, and I threw him off the scent. He's a good fellow, but awfully
+green, and I didn't want to worry him with tales. I like him, and I
+think Phemie does too."
+
+"Nonsense! He's a conceited prig! Did you hear his sermon on the world
+and its temptations? I wonder if he thought temptation had come up to
+him in the person of us professionals out on a picnic. I think it was
+positively rude."
+
+"My dear woman, you're always seeing slights and insults. I tell you
+he's taken a shine to Phemie; and he's as good as four seats and a
+bouquet to that child next Wednesday evening, to say nothing of the
+eclat of getting this St. Simeon--what do you call him?--Stalactites?"
+
+"Stylites," suggested Mrs. Sol.
+
+"Stylites, off from his pillar here. I'll have a paragraph in the paper,
+that the hermit crabs of Table Mountain--"
+
+"Don't be a fool, Sol!"
+
+"The hermit twins of Table Mountain bespoke the chaste performance."
+
+"One of them being the protector of the well-known Mornie
+Nixon," responded Mrs. Sol, viciously accenting the name with her
+knitting-needles.
+
+"Rosy, you're unjust. You're prejudiced by the reports of the town.
+Mr. Pinkney's interest in her may be a purely artistic one, although
+mistaken. She'll never make a good variety-actress: she's too heavy.
+And the boys don't give her a fair show. No woman can make a debut in my
+version of 'Somnambula,' and have the front row in the pit say to her in
+the sleepwalking scene, 'You're out rather late, Mornie. Kinder forgot
+to put on your things, didn't you? Mother sick, I suppose, and you're
+goin' for more gin? Hurry along, or you'll ketch it when ye get home.'
+Why, you couldn't do it yourself, Rosy!"
+
+To which Mrs. Sol's illogical climax was, that, "bad as Rutherford might
+be, this Sunday-school superintendent, Rand, was worse."
+
+Rand and his companion returned late, but in high spirits. There was
+an unnecessary effusiveness in the way in which Euphemia kissed
+Mrs. Sol,--the one woman present, who UNDERSTOOD, and was to be
+propitiated,--which did not tend to increase Mrs. Sol's good humor.
+She had her basket packed all ready for departure; and even the earnest
+solicitation of Rand, that they would defer their going until sunset,
+produced no effect.
+
+"Mr. Rand--Mr. Pinkney, I mean--says the sunsets here are so lovely,"
+pleaded Euphemia.
+
+"There is a rehearsal at seven o'clock, and we have no time to lose,"
+said Mrs. Sol significantly.
+
+"I forgot to say," said the "Marysville Pet" timidly, glancing at Mrs.
+Sol, "that Mr. Rand says he will bring his brother on Wednesday night,
+and wants four seats in front, so as not to be crowded."
+
+Sol shook the young man's hand warmly. "You'll not regret it, sir: it's
+a surprising, a remarkable performance."
+
+"I'd like to go a piece down the mountain with you," said Rand, with
+evident sincerity, looking at Miss Euphemia; "but Ruth isn't here yet,
+and we make a rule never to leave the place alone. I'll show you the
+slide: it's the quickest way to go down. If you meet any one who looks
+like me, and talks like me, call him 'Ruth,' and tell him I'm waitin'
+for him yer."
+
+Miss Phemia, the last to go, standing on the verge of the declivity,
+here remarked, with a dangerous smile, that, if she met any one who
+bore that resemblance, she might be tempted to keep him with her,--a
+playfulness that brought the ready color to Rand's cheek. When she
+added to this the greater audacity of kissing her hand to him, the
+young hermit actually turned away in sheer embarrassment. When he looked
+around again, she was gone, and for the first time in his experience the
+mountain seemed barren and lonely.
+
+The too sympathetic reader who would rashly deduce from this any newly
+awakened sentiment in the virgin heart of Rand would quite misapprehend
+that peculiar young man. That singular mixture of boyish inexperience
+and mature doubt and disbelief, which was partly the result of his
+temperament, and partly of his cloistered life on the mountain, made him
+regard his late companions, now that they were gone, and his intimacy
+with them, with remorseful distrust. The mountain was barren and lonely,
+because it was no longer HIS. It had become a part of the great world,
+which four years ago he and his brother had put aside, and in which, as
+two self-devoted men, they walked alone. More than that, he believed
+he had acquired some understanding of the temptations that assailed
+his brother, and the poor little vanities of the "Marysville Pet" were
+transformed into the blandishments of a Circe. Rand, who would have
+succumbed to a wicked, superior woman, believed he was a saint in
+withstanding the foolish weakness of a simple one.
+
+
+He did not resume his work that day. He paced the mountain, anxiously
+awaiting his brother's return, and eager to relate his experiences. He
+would go with him to the dramatic entertainment; from his example and
+wisdom, Ruth should learn how easily temptation might be overcome. But,
+first of all, there should be the fullest exchange of confidences
+and explanations. The old rule should be rescinded for once, the old
+discussion in regard to Mornie re-opened, and Rand, having convinced his
+brother of error, would generously extend his forgiveness.
+
+The sun sank redly. Lingering long upon the ledge before their cabin, it
+at last slipped away almost imperceptibly, leaving Rand still wrapped in
+revery. Darkness, the smoke of distant fires in the woods, and the faint
+evening incense of the pines, crept slowly up; but Ruth came not. The
+moon rose, a silver gleam on the farther ridge; and Rand, becoming
+uneasy at his brother's prolonged absence, resolved to break another
+custom, and leave the summit, to seek him on the trail. He buckled on
+his revolvers, seized his gun, when a cry from the depths arrested him.
+He leaned over the ledge, and listened. Again the cry arose, and this
+time more distinctly. He held his breath: the blood settled around his
+heart in superstitious terror. It was the wailing voice of a woman.
+
+"Ruth, Ruth! for God's sake come and help me!"
+
+The blood flew back hotly to Rand's cheek. It was Mornie's voice. By
+leaning over the ledge, he could distinguish something moving along the
+almost precipitous face of the cliff, where an abandoned trail, long
+since broken off and disrupted by the fall of a portion of the ledge,
+stopped abruptly a hundred feet below him. Rand knew the trail, a
+dangerous one always: in its present condition a single mis-step
+would be fatal. Would she make that mis-step? He shook off a horrible
+temptation that seemed to be sealing his lips, and paralyzing his
+limbs, and almost screamed to her, "Drop on your face, hang on to the
+chaparral, and don't move!"
+
+In another instant, with a coil of rope around his arm, he was dashing
+down the almost perpendicular "slide." When he had nearly reached the
+level of the abandoned trail, he fastened one end of the rope to a
+jutting splinter of granite, and began to "lay out," and work his
+way laterally along the face of the mountain. Presently he struck the
+regular trail at the point from which the woman must have diverged.
+
+"It is Rand," she said, without lifting her head.
+
+"It is," replied Rand coldly. "Pass the rope under your arms, and I'll
+get you back to the trail."
+
+"Where is Ruth?" she demanded again, without moving. She was trembling,
+but with excitement rather than fear.
+
+"I don't know," returned Rand impatiently. "Come! the ledge is already
+crumbling beneath our feet."
+
+"Let it crumble!" said the woman passionately.
+
+Rand surveyed her with profound disgust, then passed the rope around her
+waist, and half lifted, half swung her from her feet. In a few moments
+she began to mechanically help herself, and permitted him to guide her
+to a place of safety. That reached, she sank down again.
+
+The rising moon shone full upon her face and figure. Through his growing
+indignation Rand was still impressed and even startled with the change
+the few last months had wrought upon her. In place of the silly,
+fanciful, half-hysterical hoyden whom he had known, a matured woman,
+strong in passionate self-will, fascinating in a kind of wild, savage
+beauty, looked up at him as if to read his very soul.
+
+"What are you staring at?" she said finally. "Why don't you help me on?"
+
+"Where do you want to go?" said Rand quietly.
+
+"Where! Up there!"--she pointed savagely to the top of the
+mountain,--"to HIM! Where else should I go?" she said, with a bitter
+laugh.
+
+"I've told you he wasn't there," said Rand roughly. "He hasn't
+returned."
+
+"I'll wait for him--do you hear?--wait for him; stay there till he
+comes. If you won't help me, I'll go alone."
+
+She made a step forward but faltered, staggered, and was obliged to lean
+against the mountain for support. Stains of travel were on her dress;
+lines of fatigue and pain, and traces of burning passionate tears, were
+on her face; her black hair flowed from beneath her gaudy bonnet; and,
+shamed out of his brutality, Rand placed his strong arm round her waist,
+and half carrying, half supporting her, began the ascent. Her head
+dropped wearily on his shoulder; her arm encircled his neck; her hair,
+as if caressingly, lay across his breast and hands; her grateful eyes
+were close to his; her breath was upon his cheek: and yet his only
+consciousness was of the possibly ludicrous figure he might present to
+his brother, should he meet him with Mornie Nixon in his arms. Not a
+word was spoken by either till they reached the summit. Relieved at
+finding his brother still absent, he turned not unkindly toward the
+helpless figure on his arm. "I don't see what makes Ruth so late," he
+said. "He's always here by sundown. Perhaps--"
+
+"Perhaps he knows I'm here," said Mornie, with a bitter laugh.
+
+"I didn't say that," said Rand, "and I don't think it. What I meant
+was, he might have met a party that was picnicking here to-day,--Sol.
+Saunders and wife, and Miss Euphemia--"
+
+Mornie flung his arm away from her with a passionate gesture. "THEY
+here!--picnicking HERE!--those people HERE!"
+
+"Yes," said Rand, unconsciously a little ashamed. "They came here
+accidentally."
+
+Mornie's quick passion had subsided: she had sunk again wearily and
+helplessly on a rock beside him. "I suppose," she said, with a weak
+laugh--"I suppose, they talked of ME. I suppose they told you how, with
+their lies and fair promises, they tricked me out, and set me before an
+audience of brutes and laughing hyenas to make merry over. Did they tell
+you of the insults that I received?--how the sins of my parents were
+flung at me instead of bouquets? Did they tell you they could have
+spared me this, but they wanted the few extra dollars taken in at the
+door? No!"
+
+"They said nothing of the kind," replied Rand surlily.
+
+"Then you must have stopped them. You were horrified enough to know that
+I had dared to take the only honest way left me to make a living. I know
+you, Randolph Pinkney! You'd rather see Joaquin Muriatta, the Mexican
+bandit, standing before you to-night with a revolver, than the helpless,
+shamed, miserable Mornie Nixon. And you can't help yourself, unless you
+throw me over the cliff. Perhaps you'd better," she said, with a bitter
+laugh that faded from her lips as she leaned, pale and breathless,
+against the bowlder.
+
+"Ruth will tell you--" began Rand.
+
+"D--n Ruth!"
+
+Rand turned away.
+
+"Stop!" she said suddenly, staggering to her feet. "I'm sick--for all
+I know, dying. God grant that it may be so! But, if you are a man, you
+will help me to your cabin--to some place where I can lie down NOW, and
+be at rest. I'm very, very tired."
+
+She paused. She would have fallen again; but Rand, seeing more in her
+face than her voice interpreted to his sullen ears, took her sullenly
+in his arms, and carried her to the cabin. Her eyes glanced around the
+bright party-colored walls, and a faint smile came to her lips as she
+put aside her bonnet, adorned with a companion pinion of the bright
+wings that covered it.
+
+"Which is Ruth's bed?" she asked.
+
+Rand pointed to it.
+
+"Lay me there!"
+
+Rand would have hesitated, but, with another look at her face, complied.
+
+She lay quite still a moment. Presently she said, "Give me some brandy
+or whiskey!"
+
+Rand was silent and confused.
+
+"I forgot," she added half bitterly. "I know you have not that commonest
+and cheapest of vices."
+
+She lay quite still again. Suddenly she raised herself partly on her
+elbow, and in a strong, firm voice, said, "Rand!"
+
+"Yes, Mornie."
+
+"If you are wise and practical, as you assume to be, you will do what I
+ask you without a question. If you do it AT ONCE, you may save yourself
+and Ruth some trouble, some mortification, and perhaps some remorse and
+sorrow. Do you hear me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Go to the nearest doctor, and bring him here with you."
+
+"But YOU!"
+
+Her voice was strong, confident, steady, and patient. "You can safely
+leave me until then."
+
+In another moment Rand was plunging down the "slide." But it was past
+midnight when he struggled over the last bowlder up the ascent, dragging
+the half-exhausted medical wisdom of Brown's Ferry on his arm.
+
+"I've been gone long, doctor," said Rand feverishly, "and she looked SO
+death-like when I left. If we should be too late!"
+
+The doctor stopped suddenly, lifted his head, and pricked his ears like
+a hound on a peculiar scent. "We ARE too late," he said, with a slight
+professional laugh.
+
+Indignant and horrified, Rand turned upon him.
+
+"Listen," said the doctor, lifting his hand.
+
+Rand listened, so intently that he heard the familiar moan of the river
+below; but the great stony field lay silent before him. And then, borne
+across its bare barren bosom, like its own articulation, came faintly
+the feeble wail of a new-born babe.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+STORM.
+
+
+The doctor hurried ahead in the darkness. Rand, who had stopped
+paralyzed at the ominous sound, started forward again mechanically; but
+as the cry arose again more distinctly, and the full significance of
+the doctor's words came to him, he faltered, stopped, and, with cheeks
+burning with shame and helpless indignation, sank upon a stone beside
+the shaft, and, burying his face in his hands, fairly gave way to a
+burst of boyish tears. Yet even then the recollection that he had not
+cried since, years ago, his mother's dying hands had joined his and
+Ruth's childish fingers together, stung him fiercely, and dried his
+tears in angry heat upon his cheeks.
+
+How long he sat there, he remembered not; what he thought, he recalled
+not. But the wildest and most extravagant plans and resolves availed him
+nothing in the face of this forever desecrated home, and this shameful
+culmination of his ambitious life on the mountain. Once he thought of
+flight; but the reflection that he would still abandon his brother to
+shame, perhaps a self-contented shame, checked him hopelessly. Could he
+avert the future? He MUST; but how? Yet he could only sit and stare into
+the darkness in dumb abstraction.
+
+Sitting there, his eyes fell upon a peculiar object in a crevice of
+the ledge beside the shaft. It was the tin pail containing his dinner,
+which, according to their custom, it was the duty of the brother who
+staid above ground to prepare and place for the brother who worked
+below. Ruth must, consequently, have put it there before he left that
+morning, and Rand had overlooked it while sharing the repast of the
+strangers at noon. At the sight of this dumb witness of their mutual
+cares and labors, Rand sighed, half in brotherly sorrow, half in a
+selfish sense of injury done him.
+
+He took up the pail mechanically, removed its cover, and--started; for
+on top of the carefully bestowed provisions lay a little note, addressed
+to him in Ruth's peculiar scrawl.
+
+He opened it with feverish hands, held it in the light of the peaceful
+moon, and read as follows:
+
+
+DEAR, DEAR BROTHER,--When you read this, I shall be far away. I go
+because I shall not stay to disgrace you, and because the girl that I
+brought trouble upon has gone away too, to hide her disgrace and mine;
+and where she goes, Rand, I ought to follow her, and, please God, I
+will! I am not as wise or as good as you are, but it seems the best I
+can do; and God bless you, dear old Randy, boy! Times and times again
+I've wanted to tell you all, and reckoned to do so; but whether you was
+sitting before me in the cabin, or working beside me in the drift, I
+couldn't get to look upon your honest face, dear brother, and say what
+things I'd been keeping from you so long. I'll stay away until I've done
+what I ought to do, and if you can say, "Come, Ruth," I will come; but,
+until you can say it, the mountain is yours, Randy, boy, the mine is
+yours, the cabin is yours, ALL is yours. Rub out the old chalk-marks,
+Rand, as I rub them out here in my--[A few words here were blurred and
+indistinct, as if the moon had suddenly become dim-eyed too]. God bless
+you, brother!
+
+P.S.--You know I mean Mornie all the time. It's she I'm going to seek;
+but don't you think so bad of her as you do, I am so much worse than
+she. I wanted to tell you that all along, but I didn't dare. She's run
+away from the Ferry half crazy; said she was going to Sacramento, and
+I am going there to find her alive or dead. Forgive me, brother! Don't
+throw this down right away; hold it in your hand a moment, Randy, boy,
+and try hard to think it's my hand in yours. And so good-by, and God
+bless you, old Randy!
+
+From your loving brother,
+
+RUTH.
+
+
+A deep sense of relief overpowered every other feeling in Rand's breast.
+It was clear that Ruth had not yet discovered the truth of Mornie's
+flight: he was on his way to Sacramento, and before he could return,
+Mornie could be removed. Once despatched in some other direction, with
+Ruth once more returned and under his brother's guidance, the separation
+could be made easy and final. There was evidently no marriage as yet;
+and now, the fear of an immediate meeting over, there should be none.
+For Rand had already feared this; had recalled the few infelicitous
+relations, legal and illegal, which were common to the adjoining
+camp,--the flagrantly miserable life of the husband of a San Francisco
+anonyma who lived in style at the Ferry, the shameful carousals and more
+shameful quarrels of the Frenchman and Mexican woman who "kept house"
+at "the Crossing," the awful spectacle of the three half-bred Indian
+children who played before the cabin of a fellow miner and townsman.
+Thank Heaven, the Eagle's Nest on Table Mountain should never be pointed
+at from the valley as another--
+
+A heavy hand upon his arm brought him trembling to his feet. He turned,
+and met the half-anxious, half-contemptuous glance of the doctor.
+
+"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said dryly; "but it's about time you or
+somebody else put in an appearance at that cabin. Luckily for HER, she's
+one woman in a thousand; has had her wits about her better than some
+folks I know, and has left me little to do but make her comfortable. But
+she's gone through too much,--fought her little fight too gallantly,--is
+altogether too much of a trump to be played off upon now. So rise up
+out of that, young man, pick up your scattered faculties, and fetch a
+woman--some sensible creature of her own sex--to look after her; for,
+without wishing to be personal, I'm d----d if I trust her to the likes
+of you."
+
+There was no mistaking Dr. Duchesne' s voice and manner; and Rand
+was affected by it, as most people were throughout the valley of the
+Stanislaus. But he turned upon him his frank and boyish face, and said
+simply, "But I don't know any woman, or where to get one."
+
+The doctor looked at him again. "Well, I'll find you some one," he said,
+softening.
+
+"Thank you!" said Rand.
+
+The doctor was disappearing. With an effort Rand recalled him. "One
+moment, doctor." He hesitated, and his cheeks were glowing. "You'll
+please say nothing about this down there"--he pointed to the
+valley--"for a time. And you'll say to the woman you send--"
+
+Dr. Duchesne, whose resolute lips were sealed upon the secrets of half
+Tuolumne County, interrupted him scornfully. "I cannot answer for the
+woman--you must talk to her yourself. As for me, generally I keep
+my professional visits to myself; but--" he laid his hand on Rand's
+arm--"if I find out you're putting on any airs to that poor creature,
+if, on my next visit, her lips or her pulse tell me you haven't been
+acting on the square to her, I'll drop a hint to drunken old Nixon where
+his daughter is hidden. I reckon she could stand his brutality better
+than yours. Good-night!"
+
+In another moment he was gone. Rand, who had held back his quick tongue,
+feeling himself in the power of this man, once more alone, sank on a
+rock, and buried his face in his hands. Recalling himself in a moment,
+he rose, wiped his hot eyelids, and staggered toward the cabin. It was
+quite still now. He paused on the topmost step, and listened: there
+was no sound from the ledge, or the Eagle's Nest that clung to it. Half
+timidly he descended the winding steps, and paused before the door
+of the cabin. "Mornie," he said, in a dry, metallic voice, whose
+only indication of the presence of sickness was in the lowness of its
+pitch,--"Mornie!" There was no reply. "Mornie," he repeated impatiently,
+"it's me,--Rand. If you want anything, you're to call me. I am just
+outside." Still no answer came from the silent cabin. He pushed open the
+door gently, hesitated, and stepped over the threshold.
+
+A change in the interior of the cabin within the last few hours showed
+a new presence. The guns, shovels, picks, and blankets had disappeared;
+the two chairs were drawn against the wall, the table placed by the
+bedside. The swinging-lantern was shaded towards the bed,--the object of
+Rand's attention. On that bed, his brother's bed, lay a helpless woman,
+pale from the long black hair that matted her damp forehead, and clung
+to her hollow cheeks. Her face was turned to the wall, so that the
+softened light fell upon her profile, which to Rand at that moment
+seemed even noble and strong. But the next moment his eye fell upon the
+shoulder and arm that lay nearest to him, and the little bundle, swathed
+in flannel, that it clasped to her breast. His brow grew dark as
+he gazed. The sleeping woman moved. Perhaps it was an instinctive
+consciousness of his presence; perhaps it was only the current of
+cold air from the opened door: but she shuddered slightly, and, still
+unconscious, drew the child as if away from HIM, and nearer to her
+breast. The shamed blood rushed to Rand's face; and saying half aloud,
+"I'm not going to take your precious babe away from you," he turned in
+half-boyish pettishness away. Nevertheless he came back again shortly to
+the bedside, and gazed upon them both. She certainly did look altogether
+more ladylike, and less aggressive, lying there so still: sickness, that
+cheap refining process of some natures, was not unbecoming to her. But
+this bundle! A boyish curiosity, stronger than even his strong objection
+to the whole episode, was steadily impelling him to lift the blanket
+from it. "I suppose she'd waken if I did," said Rand; "but I'd like to
+know what right the doctor had to wrap it up in my best flannel shirt."
+This fresh grievance, the fruit of his curiosity, sent him away again to
+meditate on the ledge. After a few moments he returned again, opened the
+cupboard at the foot of the bed softly, took thence a piece of chalk,
+and scrawled in large letters upon the door of the cupboard, "If you
+want anything, sing out: I'm just outside.--RAND." This done, he took a
+blanket and bear-skin from the corner, and walked to the door. But here
+he paused, looked back at the inscription (evidently not satisfied with
+it), returned, took up the chalk, added a line, but rubbed it out
+again, repeated this operation a few times until he produced the polite
+postscript,--"Hope you'll be better soon." Then he retreated to the
+ledge, spread the bear-skin beside the door, and, rolling himself in
+a blanket, lit his pipe for his night-long vigil. But Rand, although
+a martyr, a philosopher, and a moralist, was young. In less than ten
+minutes the pipe dropped from his lips, and he was asleep.
+
+
+He awoke with a strange sense of heat and suffocation, and with
+difficulty shook off his covering. Rubbing his eyes, he discovered that
+an extra blanket had in some mysterious way been added in the night; and
+beneath his head was a pillow he had no recollection of placing there
+when he went to sleep. By degrees the events of the past night forced
+themselves upon his benumbed faculties, and he sat up. The sun was
+riding high; the door of the cabin was open. Stretching himself, he
+staggered to his feet, and looked in through the yawning crack at the
+hinges. He rubbed his eyes again. Was he still asleep, and followed by
+a dream of yesterday? For there, even in the very attitude he remembered
+to have seen her sitting at her luncheon on the previous day, with her
+knitting on her lap, sat Mrs. Sol Saunders! What did it mean? or had she
+really been sitting there ever since, and all the events that followed
+only a dream?
+
+A hand was laid upon his arm; and, turning, he saw the murky black eyes
+and Indian-inked beard of Sol beside him. That gentleman put his finger
+on his lips with a theatrical gesture, and then, slowly retreating in
+the well-known manner of the buried Majesty of Denmark, waved him, like
+another Hamlet, to a remoter part of the ledge. This reached, he grasped
+Rand warmly by the hand, shook it heartily, and said, "It's all right,
+my boy; all right!"
+
+"But--" began Rand. The hot blood flowed to his cheeks: he stammered,
+and stopped short.
+
+"It's all right, I say! Don't you mind! We'll pull you through."
+
+"But, Mrs. Sol! what does she--"
+
+"Rosey has taken the matter in hand, sir; and when that woman takes a
+matter in hand, whether it's a baby or a rehearsal, sir, she makes it
+buzz."
+
+"But how did she know?" stammered Rand.
+
+"How? Well, sir, the scene opened something like this," said Sol
+professionally. "Curtain rises on me and Mrs. Sol. Domestic
+interior: practicable chairs, table, books, newspapers. Enter Dr.
+Duchesne,--eccentric character part, very popular with the
+boys,--tells off-hand affecting story of strange woman--one 'more
+unfortunate'--having baby in Eagle's Nest, lonely place on 'peaks
+of Snowdon,' midnight; eagles screaming, you know, and far down
+unfathomable depths; only attendant, cold-blooded ruffian, evidently
+father of child, with sinister designs on child and mother."
+
+"He didn't say THAT!" said Rand, with an agonized smile.
+
+"Order! Sit down in front!" continued Sol easily. "Mrs. Sol--highly
+interested, a mother herself--demands name of place. 'Table Mountain.'
+No; it cannot be--it is! Excitement. Mystery! Rosey rises to
+occasion--comes to front: 'Some one must go; I--I--will go myself!'
+Myself, coming to center: 'Not alone, dearest; I--I will accompany you!'
+A shriek at right upper center. Enter the 'Marysville Pet.' 'I
+have heard all. 'Tis a base calumny. It cannot be HE--Randolph!
+Never!'--'Dare you accompany us will!' Tableau.
+
+"Is Miss Euphemia--here?" gasped Rand, practical even in his
+embarrassment.
+
+"Or-r-rder! Scene second. Summit of mountain--moonlight Peaks of Snowdon
+in distance. Right--lonely cabin. Enter slowly up defile, Sol, Mrs. Sol,
+the 'Pet.' Advance slowly to cabin. Suppressed shriek from the
+'Pet,' who rushes to recumbent figure--Left--discovered lying beside
+cabin-door. ''Tis he! Hist! he sleeps!' Throws blanket over him, and
+retires up stage--so." Here Sol achieved a vile imitation of the "Pet's"
+most enchanting stage-manner. "Mrs. Sol advances--Center--throws open
+door. Shriek! ''Tis Mornie, the lost found!' The 'Pet' advances: 'And
+the father is?'--'Not Rand!' The 'Pet' kneeling: 'Just Heaven, I thank
+thee!' No, it is--'"
+
+"Hush!" said Rand appealingly, looking toward the cabin.
+
+"Hush it is!" said the actor good-naturedly. "But it's all right, Mr.
+Rand: we'll pull you through."
+
+Later in the morning, Rand learned that Mornie's ill-fated connection
+with the Star Variety Troupe had been a source of anxiety to Mrs. Sol,
+and she had reproached herself for the girl's infelicitous debut.
+
+"But, Lord bless you, Mr. Rand!" said Sol, "it was all in the way of
+business. She came to us--was fresh and new. Her chance, looking at
+it professionally, was as good as any amateur's; but what with her
+relations here, and her bein' known, she didn't take. We lost money on
+her! It's natural she should feel a little ugly. We all do when we get
+sorter kicked back onto ourselves, and find we can't stand alone. Why,
+you wouldn't believe it," he continued, with a moist twinkle of his
+black eyes; "but the night I lost my little Rosey, of diphtheria in Gold
+Hill, the child was down on the bills for a comic song; and I had to
+drag Mrs. Sol on, cut up as she was, and filled up with that much of Old
+Bourbon to keep her nerves stiff, so she could do an old gag with me
+to gain time, and make up the 'variety.' Why, sir, when I came to the
+front, I was ugly! And when one of the boys in the front row sang out,
+'Don't expose that poor child to the night air, Sol,'--meaning Mrs.
+Sol,--I acted ugly. No, sir, it's human nature; and it was quite natural
+that Mornie, when she caught sight o' Mrs. Sol's face last night, should
+rise up and cuss us both. Lord, if she'd only acted like that! But the
+old lady got her quiet at last; and, as I said before, it's all right,
+and we'll pull her through. But don't YOU thank us: it's a little matter
+betwixt us and Mornie. We've got everything fixed, so that Mrs. Sol can
+stay right along. We'll pull Mornie through, and get her away from this,
+and her baby too, as soon as we can. You won't get mad if I tell you
+something?" said Sol, with a half-apologetic laugh. "Mrs. Sol was
+rather down on you the other day, hated you on sight, and preferred
+your brother to you; but when she found he'd run off and left YOU,
+you,--don't mind my sayin',--a 'mere boy,' to take what oughter be
+HIS place, why, she just wheeled round agin' him. I suppose he
+got flustered, and couldn't face the music. Never left a word of
+explanation? Well, it wasn't exactly square, though I tell the old woman
+it's human nature. He might have dropped a hint where he was goin'.
+Well, there, I won't say a word more agin' him. I know how you feel.
+Hush it is."
+
+It was the firm conviction of the simple-minded Sol that no one knew
+the various natural indications of human passion better than himself.
+Perhaps it was one of the fallacies of his profession that the
+expression of all human passion was limited to certain conventional
+signs and sounds. Consequently, when Rand colored violently, became
+confused, stammered, and at last turned hastily away, the good-hearted
+fellow instantly recognized the unfailing evidence of modesty and
+innocence embarrassed by recognition. As for Rand, I fear his shame
+was only momentary. Confirmed in the belief of his ulterior wisdom and
+virtue, his first embarrassment over, he was not displeased with this
+halfway tribute, and really believed that the time would come when
+Mr. Sol should eventually praise his sagacity and reservation,
+and acknowledge that he was something more than a mere boy. He,
+nevertheless, shrank from meeting Mornie that morning, and was glad that
+the presence of Mrs. Sol relieved him from that duty.
+
+The day passed uneventfully. Rand busied himself in his usual
+avocations, and constructed a temporary shelter for himself and Sol
+beside the shaft, besides rudely shaping a few necessary articles of
+furniture for Mrs. Sol.
+
+"It will be a little spell yet afore Mornie's able to be moved,"
+suggested Sol, "and you might as well be comfortable."
+
+Rand sighed at this prospect, yet presently forgot himself in the
+good humor of his companion, whose admiration for himself he began to
+patronizingly admit. There was no sense of degradation in accepting the
+friendship of this man who had traveled so far, seen so much, and yet,
+as a practical man of the world, Rand felt was so inferior to himself.
+The absence of Miss Euphemia, who had early left the mountain, was a
+source of odd, half-definite relief. Indeed, when he closed his eyes to
+rest that night, it was with a sense that the reality of his situation
+was not as bad as he had feared. Once only, the figure of his
+brother--haggard, weary, and footsore, on his hopeless quest, wandering
+in lonely trails and lonelier settlements--came across his fancy; but
+with it came the greater fear of his return, and the pathetic figure was
+banished. "And, besides, he's in Sacramento by this time, and like
+as not forgotten us all," he muttered; and, twining this poppy and
+mandragora around his pillow, he fell asleep.
+
+His spirits had quite returned the next morning, and once or twice he
+found himself singing while at work in the shaft. The fear that Ruth
+might return to the mountain before he could get rid of Mornie, and
+the slight anxiety that had grown upon him to know something of his
+brother's movements, and to be able to govern them as he wished, caused
+him to hit upon the plan of constructing an ingenious advertisement to
+be published in the San Francisco journals, wherein the missing Ruth
+should be advised that news of his quest should be communicated to him
+by "a friend," through the same medium, after an interval of two weeks.
+Full of this amiable intention, he returned to the surface to dinner.
+Here, to his momentary confusion, he met Miss Euphemia, who, in absence
+of Sol, was assisting Mrs. Sol in the details of the household.
+
+If the honest frankness with which that young lady greeted him was not
+enough to relieve his embarrassment, he would have forgotten it in
+the utterly new and changed aspect she presented. Her extravagant
+walking-costume of the previous day was replaced by some bright calico,
+a little white apron, and a broad-brimmed straw-hat, which seemed to
+Rand, in some odd fashion, to restore her original girlish simplicity.
+The change was certainly not unbecoming to her. If her waist was not
+as tightly pinched, a la mode, there still was an honest, youthful
+plumpness about it; her step was freer for the absence of her high-heel
+boots; and even the hand she extended to Rand, if not quite so small as
+in her tight gloves, and a little brown from exposure, was magnetic in
+its strong, kindly grasp. There was perhaps a slight suggestion of the
+practical Mr. Sol in her wholesome presence; and Rand could not help
+wondering if Mrs. Sol had ever been a Gold Hill "Pet" before her
+marriage with Mr. Sol. The young girl noticed his curious glance.
+
+"You never saw me in my rehearsal dress before," she said, with a laugh.
+"But I'm not 'company' to-day, and didn't put on my best harness to
+knock round in. I suppose I look dreadful."
+
+"I don't think you look bad," said Rand simply.
+
+"Thank you," said Euphemia, with a laugh and a courtesy. "But this isn't
+getting the dinner."
+
+As part of that operation evidently was the taking-off of her hat,
+the putting-up of some thick blond locks that had escaped, and the
+rolling-up of her sleeves over a pair of strong, rounded arms, Rand
+lingered near her. All trace of the "Pet's" previous professional
+coquetry was gone,--perhaps it was only replaced by a more natural one;
+but as she looked up, and caught sight of Rand's interested face, she
+laughed again, and colored a little. Slight as was the blush, it was
+sufficient to kindle a sympathetic fire in Rand's own cheeks, which was
+so utterly unexpected to him that he turned on his heel in confusion. "I
+reckon she thinks I'm soft and silly, like Ruth," he soliloquized, and,
+determining not to look at her again, betook himself to a distant and
+contemplative pipe. In vain did Miss Euphemia address herself to the
+ostentatious getting of the dinner in full view of him; in vain did
+she bring the coffee-pot away from the fire, and nearer Rand, with the
+apparent intention of examining its contents in a better light; in vain,
+while wiping a plate, did she, absorbed in the distant prospect, walk
+to the verge of the mountain, and become statuesque and forgetful. The
+sulky young gentleman took no outward notice of her.
+
+Mrs. Sol's attendance upon Mornie prevented her leaving the cabin, and
+Rand and Miss Euphemia dined in the open air alone. The ridiculousness
+of keeping up a formal attitude to his solitary companion caused Rand
+to relax; but, to his astonishment, the "Pet" seemed to have become
+correspondingly distant and formal. After a few moments of discomfort,
+Rand, who had eaten little, arose, and "believed he would go back to
+work."
+
+"Ah, yes!" said the "Pet," with an indifferent air, "I suppose you must.
+Well, good-by, Mr. Pinkney."
+
+Rand turned. "YOU are not going?" he asked, in some uneasiness.
+
+"I'VE got some work to do too," returned Miss Euphemia a little curtly.
+
+"But," said the practical Rand, "I thought you allowed that you were
+fixed to stay until to-morrow?"
+
+But here Miss Euphemia, with rising color and slight acerbity of voice,
+was not aware that she was "fixed to stay" anywhere, least of all when
+she was in the way. More than that, she MUST say--although perhaps it
+made no difference, and she ought not to say it--that she was not in
+the habit of intruding upon gentlemen who plainly gave her to understand
+that her company was not desirable. She did not know why she said
+this--of course it could make no difference to anybody who didn't, of
+course, care--but she only wanted to say that she only came here
+because her dear friend, her adopted mother,--and a better woman never
+breathed,--had come, and had asked her to stay. Of course, Mrs. Sol was
+an intruder herself--Mr. Sol was an intruder--they were all intruders:
+she only wondered that Mr. Pinkney had borne with them so long. She knew
+it was an awful thing to be here, taking care of a poor--poor, helpless
+woman; but perhaps Mr. Rand's BROTHER might forgive them, if he
+couldn't. But no matter, she would go--Mr. Sol would go--ALL would go;
+and then, perhaps, Mr, Rand--
+
+She stopped breathless; she stopped with the corner of her apron against
+her tearful hazel eyes; she stopped with--what was more remarkable than
+all--Rand's arm actually around her waist, and his astonished, alarmed
+face within a few inches of her own.
+
+"Why, Miss Euphemia, Phemie, my dear girl! I never meant anything like
+THAT," said Rand earnestly. "I really didn't now! Come now!"
+
+"You never once spoke to me when I sat down," said Miss Euphemia, feebly
+endeavoring to withdraw from Rand's grasp.
+
+"I really didn't! Oh, come now, look here! I didn't! Don't! There's a
+dear--THERE!"
+
+This last conclusive exposition was a kiss. Miss Euphemia was not quick
+enough to release herself from his arms. He anticipated that act a full
+half-second, and had dropped his own, pale and breathless.
+
+The girl recovered herself first. "There, I declare, I'm forgetting Mrs.
+Sol's coffee!" she exclaimed hastily, and, snatching up the coffee-pot,
+disappeared. When she returned, Rand was gone. Miss Euphemia busied
+herself demurely in clearing up the dishes, with the tail of her
+eye sweeping the horizon of the summit level around her. But no Rand
+appeared. Presently she began to laugh quietly to herself. This occurred
+several times during her occupation, which was somewhat prolonged. The
+result of this meditative hilarity was summed up in a somewhat grave
+and thoughtful deduction as she walked slowly back to the cabin: "I do
+believe I'm the first woman that that boy ever kissed."
+
+Miss Euphemia staid that day and the next, and Rand forgot his
+embarrassment. By what means I know not, Miss Euphemia managed to
+restore Rand's confidence in himself and in her, and in a little ramble
+on the mountain-side got him to relate, albeit somewhat reluctantly, the
+particulars of his rescue of Mornie from her dangerous position on the
+broken trail.
+
+"And, if you hadn't got there as soon as you did, she'd have fallen?"
+asked the "Pet."
+
+"I reckon," returned Rand gloomily: "she was sorter dazed and crazed
+like."
+
+"And you saved her life?"
+
+"I suppose so, if you put it that way," said Rand sulkily.
+
+"But how did you get her up the mountain again?"
+
+"Oh! I got her up," returned Rand moodily.
+
+"But how? Really, Mr. Rand, you don't know how interesting this is. It's
+as good as a play," said the "Pet," with a little excited laugh.
+
+"Oh, I carried her up!"
+
+"In your arms?"
+
+"Y-e-e-s."
+
+Miss Euphemia paused, and bit off the stalk of a flower, made a wry
+face, and threw it away from her in disgust.
+
+Then she dug a few tiny holes in the earth with her parasol, and buried
+bits of the flower-stalk in them, as if they had been tender memories.
+"I suppose you knew Mornie very well?" she asked.
+
+"I used to run across her in the woods," responded Rand shortly, "a year
+ago. I didn't know her so well then as--" He stopped.
+
+"As what? As NOW?" asked the "Pet" abruptly. Rand, who was coloring
+over his narrow escape from a topic which a delicate kindness of Sol had
+excluded from their intercourse on the mountain, stammered, "as YOU do,
+I meant."
+
+The "Pet" tossed her head a little. "Oh! I don't know her at all--except
+through Sol."
+
+Rand stared hard at this. The "Pet," who was looking at him intently,
+said, "Show me the place where you saw Mornie clinging that night."
+
+"It's dangerous," suggested Rand.
+
+"You mean I'd be afraid! Try me! I don't believe she was SO dreadfully
+frightened!"
+
+"Why?" asked Rand, in astonishment.
+
+"Oh--because--"
+
+Rand sat down in vague wonderment.
+
+"Show it to me," continued the "Pet," "or--I'll find it ALONE!"
+
+Thus challenged, he rose, and, after a few moments' climbing, stood with
+her upon the trail. "You see that thorn-bush where the rock has fallen
+away. It was just there. It is not safe to go farther. No, really! Miss
+Euphemia! Please don't! It's almost certain death!"
+
+But the giddy girl had darted past him, and, face to the wall of
+the cliff, was creeping along the dangerous path. Rand followed
+mechanically. Once or twice the trail crumbled beneath her feet; but
+she clung to a projecting root of chaparral, and laughed. She had almost
+reached her elected goal, when, slipping, the treacherous chaparral she
+clung to yielded in her grasp, and Rand, with a cry, sprung forward.
+
+But the next instant she quickly transferred her hold to a cleft in
+the cliff, and was safe. Not so her companion. The soil beneath him,
+loosened by the impulse of his spring, slipped away: he was falling with
+it, when she caught him sharply with her disengaged hand, and together
+they scrambled to a more secure footing.
+
+"I could have reached it alone," said the "Pet," "if you'd left me
+alone."
+
+"Thank Heaven, we're saved!" said Rand gravely.
+
+"AND WITHOUT A ROPE," said Miss Euphemia significantly.
+
+Rand did not understand her. But, as they slowly returned to the summit,
+he stammered out the always difficult thanks of a man who has been
+physically helped by one of the weaker sex. Miss Euphemia was quick to
+see her error.
+
+"I might have made you lose your footing by catching at you," she said
+meekly. "But I was so frightened for you, and could not help it."
+
+The superior animal, thoroughly bamboozled, thereupon complimented her
+on her dexterity.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing!" she said, with a sigh. "I used to do the
+flying-trapeze business with papa when I was a child, and I've not
+forgotten it." With this and other confidences of her early life, in
+which Rand betrayed considerable interest, they beguiled the tedious
+ascent. "I ought to have made you carry me up," said the lady, with a
+little laugh, when they reached the summit; "but you haven't known me as
+long as you have Mornie, have you?" With this mysterious speech she bade
+Rand "good-night," and hurried off to the cabin.
+
+And so a week passed by,--the week so dreaded by Rand, yet passed so
+pleasantly, that at times it seemed as if that dread were only a trick
+of his fancy, or as if the circumstances that surrounded him were
+different from what he believed them to be. On the seventh day the
+doctor had staid longer than usual; and Rand, who had been sitting with
+Euphemia on the ledge by the shaft, watching the sunset, had barely
+time to withdraw his hand from hers, as Mrs. Sol, a trifle pale and
+wearied-looking, approached him.
+
+"I don't like to trouble you," she said,--indeed, they had seldom
+troubled him with the details of Mornie's convalescence, or even her
+needs and requirements,--"but the doctor is alarmed about Mornie, and
+she has asked to see you. I think you'd better go in and speak to her.
+You know," continued Mrs. Sol delicately, "you haven't been in there
+since the night she was taken sick, and maybe a new face might do her
+good."
+
+The guilty blood flew to Rand's face as he stammered, "I thought I'd be
+in the way. I didn't believe she cared much to see me. Is she worse?"
+
+"The doctor is looking very anxious," said Mrs. Sol simply.
+
+The blood returned from Rand's face, and settled around his heart. He
+turned very pale. He had consoled himself always for his complicity
+in Ruth's absence, that he was taking good care of Mornie, or--what
+is considered by most selfish natures an equivalent--permitting or
+encouraging some one else to "take good care of her;" but here was
+a contingency utterly unforeseen. It did not occur to him that this
+"taking good care" of her could result in anything but a perfect
+solution of her troubles, or that there could be any future to her
+condition but one of recovery. But what if she should die? A sudden
+and helpless sense of his responsibility to Ruth, to HER, brought him
+trembling to his feet.
+
+He hurried to the cabin, where Mrs. Sol left him with a word of caution:
+"You'll find her changed and quiet,--very quiet. If I was you, I
+wouldn't say anything to bring back her old self."
+
+The change which Rand saw was so great, the face that was turned to him
+so quiet, that, with a new fear upon him, he would have preferred the
+savage eyes and reckless mien of the old Mornie whom he hated. With his
+habitual impulsiveness he tried to say something that should express
+that fact not unkindly, but faltered, and awkwardly sank into the chair
+by her bedside.
+
+"I don't wonder you stare at me now," she said in a far-off voice. "It
+seems to you strange to see me lying here so quiet. You are thinking how
+wild I was when I came here that night. I must have been crazy, I think.
+I dreamed that I said dreadful things to you; but you must forgive me,
+and not mind it. I was crazy then." She stopped, and folded the blanket
+between her thin fingers. "I didn't ask you to come here to tell you
+that, or to remind you of it; but--but when I was crazy, I said so many
+worse, dreadful things of HIM; and you--YOU will be left behind to tell
+him of it."
+
+Rand was vaguely murmuring something to the effect that "he knew she
+didn't mean anything," that "she musn't think of it again," that "he'd
+forgotten all about it," when she stopped him with a tired gesture.
+
+"Perhaps I was wrong to think, that, after I am gone, you would care to
+tell him anything. Perhaps I'm wrong to think of it at all, or to care
+what he will think of me, except for the sake of the child--his child,
+Rand--that I must leave behind me. He will know that IT never abused
+him. No, God bless its sweet heart! IT never was wild and wicked and
+hateful, like its cruel, crazy mother. And he will love it; and you,
+perhaps, will love it too--just a little, Rand! Look at it!" She tried
+to raise the helpless bundle beside her in her arms, but failed. "You
+must lean over," she said faintly to Rand. "It looks like him, doesn't
+it?"
+
+Rand, with wondering, embarrassed eyes, tried to see some resemblance,
+in the little blue-red oval, to the sad, wistful face of his brother,
+which even then was haunting him from some mysterious distance. He
+kissed the child's forehead, but even then so vaguely and perfunctorily,
+that the mother sighed, and drew it closer to her breast.
+
+"The doctor says," she continued in a calmer voice, "that I'm not doing
+as well as I ought to. I don't think," she faltered, with something of
+her old bitter laugh, "that I'm ever doing as well as I ought to, and
+perhaps it's not strange now that I don't. And he says that, in case
+anything happens to me, I ought to look ahead. I have looked ahead.
+It's a dark look ahead, Rand--a horror of blackness, without kind faces,
+without the baby, without--without HIM!"
+
+She turned her face away, and laid it on the bundle by her side. It was
+so quiet in the cabin, that, through the open door beyond, the faint,
+rhythmical moan of the pines below was distinctly heard.
+
+"I know it's foolish; but that is what 'looking ahead' always meant to
+me," she said, with a sigh. "But, since the doctor has been gone, I've
+talked to Mrs. Sol, and find it's for the best. And I look ahead, and
+see more clearly. I look ahead, and see my disgrace removed far away
+from HIM and you. I look ahead, and see you and HE living together
+happily, as you did before I came between you. I look ahead, and see
+my past life forgotten, my faults forgiven; and I think I see you both
+loving my baby, and perhaps loving me a little for its sake. Thank you,
+Rand, thank you!"
+
+For Rand's hand had caught hers beside the pillow, and he was standing
+over her, whiter than she. Something in the pressure of his hand
+emboldened her to go on, and even lent a certain strength to her voice.
+
+"When it comes to THAT, Rand, you'll not let these people take the baby
+away. You'll keep it HERE with you until HE comes. And something tells
+me that he will come when I am gone. You'll keep it here in the pure air
+and sunlight of the mountain, and out of those wicked depths below; and
+when I am gone, and they are gone, and only you and Ruth and baby
+are here, maybe you'll think that it came to you in a cloud on the
+mountain,--a cloud that lingered only long enough to drop its burden,
+and faded, leaving the sunlight and dew behind. What is it, Rand? What
+are you looking at?"
+
+"I was thinking," said Rand in a strange altered voice, "that I must
+trouble you to let me take down those duds and furbelows that hang on
+the wall, so that I can get at some traps of mine behind them." He
+took some articles from the wall, replaced the dresses of Mrs. Sol, and
+answered Mornie's look of inquiry.
+
+"I was only getting at my purse and my revolver," he said, showing them.
+"I've got to get some stores at the Ferry by daylight."
+
+Mornie sighed. "I'm giving you great trouble, Rand, I know; but it won't
+be for long."
+
+He muttered something, took her hand again, and bade her "good-night."
+When he reached the door, he looked back. The light was shining full
+upon her face as she lay there, with her babe on her breast, bravely
+"looking ahead."
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+THE CLOUDS PASS.
+
+
+It was early morning at the Ferry. The "up coach" had passed, with
+lights unextinguished, and the "outsides" still asleep. The ferryman had
+gone up to the Ferry Mansion House, swinging his lantern, and had found
+the sleepy-looking "all night" bar-keeper on the point of withdrawing
+for the day on a mattress under the bar. An Indian half-breed, porter
+of the Mansion House, was washing out the stains of recent nocturnal
+dissipation from the bar-room and veranda; a few birds were twittering
+on the cotton-woods beside the river; a bolder few had alighted upon
+the veranda, and were trying to reconcile the existence of so much
+lemon-peel and cigar-stumps with their ideas of a beneficent Creator.
+A faint earthly freshness and perfume rose along the river banks. Deep
+shadow still lay upon the opposite shore; but in the distance, four
+miles away, Morning along the level crest of Table Mountain walked with
+rosy tread.
+
+The sleepy bar-keeper was that morning doomed to disappointment; for
+scarcely had the coach passed, when steps were heard upon the veranda,
+and a weary, dusty traveller threw his blanket and knapsack to the
+porter, and then dropped into a vacant arm-chair, with his eyes fixed
+on the distant crest of Table Mountain. He remained motionless for some
+time, until the bar-keeper, who had already concocted the conventional
+welcome of the Mansion House, appeared with it in a glass, put it upon
+the table, glanced at the stranger, and then, thoroughly awake, cried
+out,--
+
+"Ruth Pinkney--or I'm a Chinaman!"
+
+The stranger lifted his eyes wearily. Hollow circles were around their
+orbits; haggard lines were in his checks. But it was Ruth.
+
+He took the glass, and drained it at a single draught. "Yes," he said
+absently, "Ruth Pinkney," and fixed his eyes again on the distant rosy
+crest.
+
+"On your way up home?" suggested the bar-keeper, following the direction
+of Ruth's eyes.
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Been upon a pasear, hain't yer? Been havin' a little tear round
+Sacramento,--seein' the sights?"
+
+Ruth smiled bitterly. "Yes."
+
+The bar-keeper lingered, ostentatiously wiping a glass. But Ruth again
+became abstracted in the mountain, and the barkeeper turned away.
+
+How pure and clear that summit looked to him! how restful and steadfast
+with serenity and calm! how unlike his own feverish, dusty, travel-worn
+self! A week had elapsed since he had last looked upon it,--a week of
+disappointment, of anxious fears, of doubts, of wild imaginings, of
+utter helplessness. In his hopeless quest of the missing Mornie, he
+had, in fancy, seen this serene eminence haunting his remorseful,
+passion-stricken soul. And now, without a clew to guide him to her
+unknown hiding-place, he was back again, to face the brother whom he had
+deceived, with only the confession of his own weakness. Hard as it was
+to lose forever the fierce, reproachful glances of the woman he loved,
+it was still harder, to a man of Ruth's temperament, to look again
+upon the face of the brother he feared. A hand laid upon his shoulder
+startled him. It was the bar-keeper.
+
+"If it's a fair question, Ruth Pinkney, I'd like to ask ye how long ye
+kalkilate to hang around the Ferry to-day."
+
+"Why?" demanded Ruth haughtily.
+
+"Because, whatever you've been and done, I want ye to have a square
+show. Ole Nixon has been cavoortin' round yer the last two days,
+swearin' to kill you on sight for runnin' off with his darter. Sabe?
+Now, let me ax ye two questions. FIRST, Are you heeled?"
+
+Ruth responded to this dialectical inquiry affirmatively by putting his
+hand on his revolver.
+
+"Good! Now, SECOND, Have you got the gal along here with you?"
+
+"No," responded Ruth in a hollow voice.
+
+"That's better yet," said the man, without heeding the tone of
+the reply. "A woman--and especially THE woman in a row of this
+kind--handicaps a man awful." He paused, and took up the empty glass.
+"Look yer, Ruth Pinkney, I'm a square man, and I'll be square with you.
+So I'll just tell you you've got the demdest odds agin' ye. Pr'aps ye
+know it, and don't keer. Well, the boys around yer are all sidin' with
+the old man Nixon. It's the first time the old rip ever had a hand in
+his favor: so the boys will see fair play for Nixon, and agin' YOU. But
+I reckon you don't mind him!"
+
+"So little, I shall never pull trigger on him," said Ruth gravely.
+
+The bar-keeper stared, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, thar's
+that Kanaka Joe, who used to be sorter sweet on Mornie,--he's an ugly
+devil,--he's helpin' the old man."
+
+The sad look faded from Ruth's eyes suddenly. A certain wild Berserker
+rage--a taint of the blood, inherited from heaven knows what Old-World
+ancestry, which had made the twin-brothers' Southwestern eccentricities
+respected in the settlement--glowed in its place. The barkeeper noted
+it, and augured a lively future for the day's festivities. But it faded
+again; and Ruth, as he rose, turned hesitatingly towards him.
+
+"Have you seen my brother Rand lately?"
+
+"Nary."
+
+"He hasn't been here, or about the Ferry?"
+
+"Nary time."
+
+"You haven't heard," said Ruth, with a faint attempt at a smile, "if
+he's been around here asking after me,--sorter looking me up, you know?"
+
+"Not much," returned the bar-keeper deliberately. "Ez far ez I know
+Rand,--that ar brother o' yours,--he's one of yer high-toned chaps ez
+doesn't drink, thinks bar-rooms is pizen, and ain't the sort to come
+round yer, and sling yarns with me."
+
+Ruth rose; but the hand that he placed upon the table, albeit a powerful
+one, trembled so that it was with difficulty he resumed his knapsack.
+When he did so, his bent figure, stooping shoulders, and haggard face,
+made him appear another man from the one who had sat down. There was a
+slight touch of apologetic deference and humility in his manner as he
+paid his reckoning, and slowly and hesitatingly began to descend the
+steps.
+
+The bar-keeper looked after him thoughtfully. "Well, dog my skin!"
+he ejaculated to himself, "ef I hadn't seen that man--that same Ruth
+Pinkney--straddle a friend's body in this yer very room, and dare a
+whole crowd to come on, I'd swar that he hadn't any grit in him. Thar's
+something up!"
+
+But here Ruth reached the last step, and turned again.
+
+"If you see old man Nixon, say I'm in town; if you see that --------
+----" (I regret to say that I cannot repeat his exact, and brief
+characterization of the present condition and natal antecedents of
+Kanaka Joe), "say I'm looking out for him," and was gone.
+
+He wandered down the road, towards the one long, straggling street of
+the settlement. The few people who met him at that early hour greeted
+him with a kind of constrained civility; certain cautious souls hurried
+by without seeing him; all turned and looked after him; and a few
+followed him at a respectful distance. A somewhat notorious practical
+joker and recognized wag at the Ferry apparently awaited his coming with
+something of invitation and expectation, but, catching sight of Ruth's
+haggard face and blazing eyes, became instantly practical, and by no
+means jocular in his greeting. At the top of the hill, Ruth turned to
+look once more upon the distant mountain, now again a mere cloud-line
+on the horizon. In the firm belief that he would never again see the sun
+rise upon it, he turned aside into a hazel-thicket, and, tearing out a
+few leaves from his pocket-book, wrote two letters,--one to Rand, and
+one to Mornie, but which, as they were never delivered, shall not burden
+this brief chronicle of that eventful day. For, while transcribing them,
+he was startled by the sounds of a dozen pistol-shots in the direction
+of the hotel he had recently quitted. Something in the mere sound
+provoked the old hereditary fighting instinct, and sent him to his feet
+with a bound, and a slight distension of the nostrils, and sniffing of
+the air, not unknown to certain men who become half intoxicated by
+the smell of powder. He quickly folded his letters, and addressed
+them carefully, and, taking off his knapsack and blanket, methodically
+arranged them under a tree, with the letters on top. Then he examined
+the lock of his revolver, and then, with the step of a man ten years
+younger, leaped into the road. He had scarcely done so when he was
+seized, and by sheer force dragged into a blacksmith's shop at the
+roadside. He turned his savage face and drawn weapon upon his assailant,
+but was surprised to meet the anxious eyes of the bar-keeper of the
+Mansion House.
+
+"Don't be a d----d fool," said the man quickly. "Thar's fifty agin' you
+down thar. But why in h-ll didn't you wipe out old Nixon when you had
+such a good chance?"
+
+"Wipe out old Nixon?" repeated Ruth.
+
+"Yes; just now, when you had him covered."
+
+"What!"
+
+The bar-keeper turned quickly upon Ruth, stared at him, and then
+suddenly burst into a fit of laughter. "Well, I've knowed you two were
+twins, but damn me if I ever thought I'd be sold like this!" And he
+again burst into a roar of laughter.
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Ruth savagely.
+
+"What do I mean?" returned the barkeeper. "Why, I mean this. I mean that
+your brother Rand, as you call him, he'z bin--for a young feller, and
+a pious feller--doin' about the tallest kind o' fightin' to-day that's
+been done at the Ferry. He laid out that ar Kanaka Joe and two of his
+chums. He was pitched into on your quarrel, and he took it up for you
+like a little man. I managed to drag him off, up yer in the hazel-bush
+for safety, and out you pops, and I thought you was him. He can't be
+far away. Halloo! There they're comin'; and thar's the doctor, trying to
+keep them back!"
+
+A crowd of angry, excited faces, filled the road suddenly; but before
+them Dr. Duchesne, mounted, and with a pistol in his hand, opposed their
+further progress.
+
+"Back in the bush!" whispered the barkeeper. "Now's your time!"
+
+But Ruth stirred not. "Go you back," he said in a low voice, "find Rand,
+and take him away. I will fill his place here." He drew his revolver,
+and stepped into the road.
+
+A shout, a report, and the spatter of red dust from a bullet near his
+feet, told him he was recognized. He stirred not; but another shout, and
+a cry, "There they are--BOTH of 'em!" made him turn.
+
+His brother Rand, with a smile on his lip and fire in his eye, stood by
+his side. Neither spoke. Then Rand, quietly, as of old, slipped his hand
+into his brother's strong palm. Two or three bullets sang by them;
+a splinter flew from the blacksmith's shed: but the brothers, hard
+gripping each other's hands, and looking into each other's faces with a
+quiet joy, stood there calm and imperturbable.
+
+There was a momentary pause. The voice of Dr. Duchesne rose above the
+crowd.
+
+"Keep back, I say! keep back! Or hear me!--for five years I've worked
+among you, and mended and patched the holes you've drilled through
+each other's carcasses--Keep back, I say!--or the next man that pulls
+trigger, or steps forward, will get a hole from me that no surgeon can
+stop. I'm sick of your bungling ball practice! Keep back!--or, by the
+living Jingo, I'll show you where a man's vitals are!"
+
+There was a burst of laughter from the crowd, and for a moment the twins
+were forgotten in this audacious speech and coolly impertinent presence.
+
+"That's right! Now let that infernal old hypocritical drunkard, Mat
+Nixon, step to the front."
+
+The crowd parted right and left, and half pushed, half dragged Nixon
+before him.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the doctor, "this is the man who has just shot at Rand
+Pinkney for hiding his daughter. Now, I tell you, gentlemen, and I tell
+him, that for the last week his daughter, Mornie Nixon, has been under
+my care as a patient, and my protection as a friend. If there's anybody
+to be shot, the job must begin with me!"
+
+There was another laugh, and a cry of "Bully for old Sawbones!" Ruth
+started convulsively, and Rand answered his look with a confirming
+pressure of his hand.
+
+"That isn't all, gentlemen: this drunken brute has just shot at a
+gentleman whose only offence, to my knowledge, is, that he has, for the
+last week, treated her with a brother's kindness, has taken her into his
+own home, and cared for her wants as if she were his own sister."
+
+Ruth's hand again grasped his brother's. Rand colored and hung his head.
+
+"There's more yet, gentlemen. I tell you that that girl, Mornie Nixon,
+has, to my knowledge, been treated like a lady, has been cared for as
+she never was cared for in her father's house, and, while that father
+has been proclaiming her shame in every bar-room at the Ferry, has had
+the sympathy and care, night and day, of two of the most accomplished
+ladies of the Ferry,--Mrs. Sol Saunders, gentlemen, and Miss Euphemia."
+
+There was a shout of approbation from the crowd. Nixon would have
+slipped away, but the doctor stopped him.
+
+"Not yet! I've one thing more to say. I've to tell you, gentlemen, on my
+professional word of honor, that, besides being an old hypocrite, this
+same old Mat Nixon is the ungrateful, unnatural GRANDFATHER of the first
+boy born in the district."
+
+A wild huzza greeted the doctor's climax. By a common consent the crowd
+turned toward the Twins, who, grasping each other's hands, stood apart.
+The doctor nodded his head. The next moment the Twins were surrounded,
+and lifted in the arms of the laughing throng, and borne in triumph to
+the bar-room of the Mansion House.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the bar-keeper, "call for what you like: the Mansion
+House treats to-day in honor of its being the first time that Rand
+Pinkney has been admitted to the bar."
+
+*****
+
+It was agreed, that, as her condition was still precarious, the news
+should be broken to her gradually and indirectly. The indefatigable
+Sol had a professional idea, which was not displeasing to the Twins. It
+being a lovely summer afternoon, the couch of Mornie was lifted out on
+the ledge, and she lay there basking in the sunlight, drinking in the
+pure air, and looking bravely ahead in the daylight as she had in the
+darkness, for her couch commanded a view of the mountain flank. And,
+lying there, she dreamed a pleasant dream, and in her dream saw Rand
+returning up the mountain-trail. She was half conscious that he had good
+news for her; and, when he at last reached her bedside, he began gently
+and kindly to tell his news. But she heard him not, or rather in her
+dream was most occupied with his ways and manners, which seemed unlike
+him, yet inexpressibly sweet and tender. The tears were fast coming in
+her eyes, when he suddenly dropped on his knees beside her, threw away
+Rand's disguising hat and coat, and clasped her in his arms. And by that
+she KNEW it was Ruth.
+
+But what they said; what hurried words of mutual explanation and
+forgiveness passed between them; what bitter yet tender recollections
+of hidden fears and doubts, now forever chased away in the rain of tears
+and joyous sunshine of that mountain-top, were then whispered;
+whatever of this little chronicle that to the reader seems strange and
+inconsistent (as all human record must ever be strange and imperfect,
+except to the actors) was then made clear,--was never divulged by them,
+and must remain with them forever. The rest of the party had withdrawn,
+and they were alone. But when Mornie turned, and placed the baby in its
+father's arms, they were so isolated in their happiness, that the lower
+world beneath them might have swung and drifted away, and left that
+mountain-top the beginning and creation of a better planet.
+
+*****
+
+"You know all about it now," said Sol the next day, explaining the
+previous episodes of this history to Ruth: "you've got the whole plot
+before you. It dragged a little in the second act, for the actors
+weren't up in their parts. But for an amateur performance, on the whole,
+it wasn't bad."
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure," said Rand impulsively, "how we'd have got on
+without Euphemia. It's too bad she couldn't be here to-day."
+
+"She wanted to come," said Sol; "but the gentleman she's engaged to came
+up from Marysville last night."
+
+"Gentleman--engaged!" repeated Rand, white and red by turns.
+
+"Well, yes. I say, 'gentleman,' although he's in the variety profession.
+She always said," said Sol, quietly looking at Rand, "that she'd never
+marry OUT of it."
+
+
+
+
+AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
+
+
+The first intimation given of the eccentricity of the testator was, I
+think, in the spring of 1854. He was at that time in possession of a
+considerable property, heavily mortgaged to one friend, and a wife of
+some attraction, on whose affections another friend held an encumbering
+lien. One day it was found that he had secretly dug, or caused to be
+dug, a deep trap before the front-door of his dwelling, into which a few
+friends, in the course of the evening, casually and familiarly dropped.
+This circumstance, slight in itself, seemed to point to the existence of
+a certain humor in the man, which might eventually get into literature,
+although his wife's lover--a man of quick discernment, whose leg was
+broken by the fall--took other views. It was some weeks later, that,
+while dining with certain other friends of his wife, he excused
+himself from the table to quietly re-appear at the front-window with a
+three-quarter inch hydraulic pipe, and a stream of water projected at
+the assembled company. An attempt was made to take public cognizance of
+this; but a majority of the citizens of Red Dog, who were not at dinner,
+decided that a man had a right to choose his own methods of diverting
+his company. Nevertheless, there were some hints of his insanity; his
+wife recalled other acts clearly attributable to dementia; the crippled
+lover argued from his own experience that the integrity of her limbs
+could only be secured by leaving her husband's house; and the mortgagee,
+fearing a further damage to his property, foreclosed. But here the cause
+of all this anxiety took matters into his own hands, and disappeared.
+
+When we next heard from him, he had, in some mysterious way, been
+relieved alike of his wife and property, and was living alone
+at Rockville fifty miles away, and editing a newspaper. But that
+originality he had displayed when dealing with the problems of his own
+private life, when applied to politics in the columns of "The Rockville
+Vanguard" was singularly unsuccessful. An amusing exaggeration,
+purporting to be an exact account of the manner in which the opposing
+candidate had murdered his Chinese laundryman, was, I regret to
+say, answered only by assault and battery. A gratuitous and purely
+imaginative description of a great religious revival in Calaveras, in
+which the sheriff of the county--a notoriously profane sceptic--was
+alleged to have been the chief exhorter, resulted only in the withdrawal
+of the county advertising from the paper. In the midst of this practical
+confusion he suddenly died. It was then discovered, as a crowning
+proof of his absurdity, that he had left a will, bequeathing his entire
+effects to a freckle-faced maid-servant at the Rockville Hotel. But that
+absurdity became serious when it was also discovered that among these
+effects were a thousand shares in the Rising Sun Mining Company, which a
+day or two after his demise, and while people were still laughing at
+his grotesque benefaction, suddenly sprang into opulence and celebrity.
+Three millions of dollars was roughly estimated as the value of the
+estate thus wantonly sacrificed. For it is only fair to state, as a
+just tribute to the enterprise and energy of that young and thriving
+settlement, that there was not probably a single citizen who did not
+feel himself better able to control the deceased humorist's property.
+Some had expressed a doubt of their ability to support a family; others
+had felt perhaps too keenly the deep responsibility resting upon them
+when chosen from the panel as jurors, and had evaded their public
+duties; a few had declined office and a low salary: but no one shrank
+from the possibility of having been called upon to assume the functions
+of Peggy Moffat, the heiress.
+
+The will was contested,--first by the widow, who it now appeared had
+never been legally divorced from the deceased; next by four of his
+cousins, who awoke, only too late, to a consciousness of his moral
+and pecuniary worth. But the humble legatee--a singularly plain,
+unpretending, uneducated Western girl--exhibited a dogged pertinacity
+in claiming her rights. She rejected all compromises. A rough sense of
+justice in the community, while doubting her ability to take care of the
+whole fortune, suggested that she ought to be content with three hundred
+thousand dollars. "She's bound to throw even THAT away on some derned
+skunk of a man, natoorally; but three millions is too much to give a
+chap for makin' her onhappy. It's offerin' a temptation to cussedness."
+The only opposing voice to this counsel came from the sardonic lips of
+Mr. Jack Hamlin. "Suppose," suggested that gentleman, turning abruptly
+on the speaker,--"suppose, when you won twenty thousand dollars of me
+last Friday night--suppose that, instead of handing you over the money
+as I did--suppose I'd got up on my hind-legs, and said, 'Look yer, Bill
+Wethersbee, you're a d----d fool. If I give ye that twenty thousand,
+you'll throw it away in the first skin-game in 'Frisco, and hand it over
+to the first short-card sharp you'll meet. There's a thousand,--enough
+for you to fling away,--take it and get!' Suppose what I'd said to you
+was the frozen truth, and you know'd it, would that have been the square
+thing to play on you?" But here Wethersbee quickly pointed out the
+inefficiency of the comparison by stating that HE had won the money
+fairly with a STAKE. "And how do you know," demanded Hamlin savagely,
+bending his black eyes on the astounded casuist,--"how do you know that
+the gal hezn't put down a stake?" The man stammered an unintelligible
+reply. The gambler laid his white hand on Wethersbee's shoulder. "Look
+yer, old man," he said, "every gal stakes her WHOLE pile,--you can bet
+your life on that,--whatever's her little game. If she took to keerds
+instead of her feelings, if she'd put up 'chips' instead o' body and
+soul, she'd bust every bank 'twixt this and 'Frisco! You hear me?"
+
+Somewhat of this idea was conveyed, I fear not quite as sentimentally,
+to Peggy Moffat herself. The best legal wisdom of San Francisco,
+retained by the widow and relatives, took occasion, in a private
+interview with Peggy, to point out that she stood in the quasi-criminal
+attitude of having unlawfully practised upon the affections of an insane
+elderly gentleman, with a view of getting possession of his property,
+and suggested to her that no vestige of her moral character would remain
+after the trial, if she persisted in forcing her claims to that issue.
+It is said that Peggy, on hearing this, stopped washing the plate she
+had in her hands, and, twisting the towel around her fingers, fixed her
+small pale blue eyes at the lawyer.
+
+"And ez that the kind o' chirpin these critters keep up?"
+
+"I regret to say, my dear young lady," responded the lawyer, "that the
+world is censorious. I must add," he continued, with engaging frankness,
+"that we professional lawyers are apt to study the opinion of the world,
+and that such will be the theory of--our side."
+
+"Then," said Peggy stoutly, "ez I allow I've got to go into court to
+defend my character, I might as well pack in them three millions too."
+
+There is hearsay evidence that Peg added to this speech a wish and
+desire to "bust the crust" of her traducers, and, remarking that "that
+was the kind of hairpin" she was, closed the conversation with an
+unfortunate accident to the plate, that left a severe contusion on the
+legal brow of her companion. But this story, popular in the bar-rooms
+and gulches, lacked confirmation in higher circles. Better authenticated
+was the legend related of an interview with her own lawyer. That
+gentleman had pointed out to her the advantage of being able to show
+some reasonable cause for the singular generosity of the testator.
+
+"Although," he continued, "the law does not go back of the will for
+reason or cause for its provisions, it would be a strong point with the
+judge and jury--particularly if the theory of insanity were set up--for
+us to show that the act was logical and natural. Of course you have--I
+speak confidently, Miss Moffat--certain ideas of your own why the late
+Mr. Byways was so singularly generous to you."
+
+"No, I haven't," said Peg decidedly.
+
+"Think again. Had he not expressed to you--you understand that this is
+confidential between us, although I protest, my dear young lady, that
+I see no reason why it should not be made public--had he not given
+utterance to sentiments of a nature consistent with some future
+matrimonial relations?" But here Miss Peg's large mouth, which had been
+slowly relaxing over her irregular teeth, stopped him.
+
+"If you mean he wanted to marry me--No!"
+
+"I see. But were there any conditions--of course you know the law takes
+no cognizance of any not expressed in the will; but still, for the sake
+of mere corroboration of the bequest--do you know of any conditions on
+which he gave you the property?"
+
+"You mean did he want anything in return?"
+
+"Exactly, my dear young lady."
+
+Peg's face on one side turned a deep magenta color, on the other a
+lighter cherry, while her nose was purple, and her forehead an Indian
+red. To add to the effect of this awkward and discomposing dramatic
+exhibition of embarrassment, she began to wipe her hands on her dress,
+and sat silent.
+
+"I understand," said the lawyer hastily. "No matter--the conditions WERE
+fulfilled."
+
+"No!" said Peg amazedly. "How could they be until he was dead?"
+
+It was the lawyer's turn to color and grow embarrassed.
+
+"He DID say something, and make some conditions," continued Peg, with a
+certain firmness through her awkwardness; "but that's nobody's business
+but mine and his'n. And it's no call o' yours or theirs."
+
+"But, my dear Miss Moffat, if these very conditions were proofs of his
+right mind, you surely would not object to make them known, if only to
+enable you to put yourself in a condition to carry them out."
+
+"But," said Peg cunningly, "s'pose you and the Court didn't think 'em
+satisfactory? S'pose you thought 'em QUEER? Eh?"
+
+With this helpless limitation on the part of the defence, the case came
+to trial. Everybody remembers it,--how for six weeks it was the daily
+food of Calaveras County; how for six weeks the intellectual and moral
+and spiritual competency of Mr. James Byways to dispose of his property
+was discussed with learned and formal obscurity in the court, and with
+unlettered and independent prejudice by camp-fires and in bar-rooms. At
+the end of that time, when it was logically established that at least
+nine-tenths of the population of Calaveras were harmless lunatics, and
+everybody else's reason seemed to totter on its throne, an exhausted
+jury succumbed one day to the presence of Peg in the court-room. It was
+not a prepossessing presence at any time; but the excitement, and an
+injudicious attempt to ornament herself, brought her defects into a
+glaring relief that was almost unreal. Every freckle on her face
+stood out and asserted itself singly; her pale blue eyes, that gave no
+indication of her force of character, were weak and wandering, or
+stared blankly at the judge; her over-sized head, broad at the base,
+terminating in the scantiest possible light-colored braid in the middle
+of her narrow shoulders, was as hard and uninteresting as the wooden
+spheres that topped the railing against which she sat.
+
+The jury, who for six weeks had had her described to them by the
+plaintiffs as an arch, wily enchantress, who had sapped the failing
+reason of Jim Byways, revolted to a man. There was something so
+appallingly gratuitous in her plainness, that it was felt that three
+millions was scarcely a compensation for it. "Ef that money was give to
+her, she earned it SURE, boys: it wasn't no softness of the old man,"
+said the foreman. When the jury retired, it was felt that she had
+cleared her character: when they re-entered the room with their verdict,
+it was known that she had been awarded three millions damages for its
+defamation.
+
+She got the money. But those who had confidently expected to see
+her squander it were disappointed: on the contrary, it was presently
+whispered that she was exceedingly penurious. That admirable woman, Mrs.
+Stiver of Red Dog, who accompanied her to San Francisco to assist her in
+making purchases, was loud in her indignation. "She cares more for two
+bits than I do for five dollars. She wouldn't buy anything at the 'City
+of Paris,' because it was 'too expensive,' and at last rigged herself
+out, a perfect guy, at some cheap slop-shops in Market Street. And after
+all the care Jane and me took of her, giving up our time and experience
+to her, she never so much as made Jane a single present." Popular
+opinion, which regarded Mrs. Stiver's attention as purely speculative,
+was not shocked at this unprofitable denouement; but when Peg refused to
+give anything to clear the mortgage off the new Presbyterian Church, and
+even declined to take shares in the Union Ditch, considered by many
+as an equally sacred and safe investment, she began to lose favor.
+Nevertheless, she seemed to be as regardless of public opinion as she
+had been before the trial; took a small house, in which she lived with
+an old woman who had once been a fellow-servant, on apparently terms of
+perfect equality, and looked after her money. I wish I could say that
+she did this discreetly; but the fact is, she blundered. The same dogged
+persistency she had displayed in claiming her rights was visible in
+her unsuccessful ventures. She sunk two hundred thousand dollars in
+a worn-out shaft originally projected by the deceased testator; she
+prolonged the miserable existence of "The Rockville Vanguard" long after
+it had ceased to interest even its enemies; she kept the doors of
+the Rockville Hotel open when its custom had departed; she lost the
+co-operation and favor of a fellow-capitalist through a trifling
+misunderstanding in which she was derelict and impenitent; she had three
+lawsuits on her hands that could have been settled for a trifle. I note
+these defects to show that she was by no means a heroine. I quote her
+affair with Jack Folinsbee to show she was scarcely the average woman.
+
+That handsome, graceless vagabond had struck the outskirts of Red Dog
+in a cyclone of dissipation which left him a stranded but still rather
+interesting wreck in a ruinous cabin not far from Peg Moffat's virgin
+bower. Pale, crippled from excesses, with a voice quite tremulous from
+sympathetic emotion more or less developed by stimulants, he lingered
+languidly, with much time on his hands, and only a few neighbors. In
+this fascinating kind of general deshabille of morals, dress, and the
+emotions, he appeared before Peg Moffat. More than that, he occasionally
+limped with her through the settlement. The critical eye of Red Dog took
+in the singular pair,--Jack, voluble, suffering, apparently overcome by
+remorse, conscience, vituperation, and disease; and Peg, open-mouthed,
+high-colored, awkward, yet delighted; and the critical eye of Red Dog,
+seeing this, winked meaningly at Rockville. No one knew what passed
+between them; but all observed that one summer day Jack drove down the
+main street of Red Dog in an open buggy, with the heiress of that town
+beside him. Jack, albeit a trifle shaky, held the reins with something
+of his old dash; and Mistress Peggy, in an enormous bonnet with
+pearl-colored ribbons a shade darker than her hair, holding in her
+short, pink-gloved fingers a bouquet of yellow roses, absolutely glowed
+crimson in distressful gratification over the dash-board. So these two
+fared on, out of the busy settlement, into the woods, against the rosy
+sunset. Possibly it was not a pretty picture: nevertheless, as the dim
+aisles of the solemn pines opened to receive them, miners leaned upon
+their spades, and mechanics stopped in their toil to look after them.
+The critical eye of Red Dog, perhaps from the sun, perhaps from the
+fact that it had itself once been young and dissipated, took on a kindly
+moisture as it gazed.
+
+The moon was high when they returned. Those who had waited to
+congratulate Jack on this near prospect of a favorable change in his
+fortunes were chagrined to find, that, having seen the lady safe home,
+he had himself departed from Red Dog. Nothing was to be gained from Peg,
+who, on the next day and ensuing days, kept the even tenor of her way,
+sunk a thousand or two more in unsuccessful speculation, and made no
+change in her habits of personal economy. Weeks passed without any
+apparent sequel to this romantic idyl. Nothing was known definitely
+until Jack, a month later, turned up in Sacramento, with a billiard-cue
+in his hand, and a heart overcharged with indignant emotion. "I don't
+mind saying to you, gentlemen, in confidence," said Jack to a circle of
+sympathizing players,--"I don't mind telling you regarding this thing,
+that I was as soft on that freckled-faced, red-eyed, tallow-haired gal,
+as if she'd been--a--a--an actress. And I don't mind saying, gentlemen,
+that, as far as I understand women, she was just as soft on me. You
+kin laugh; but it's so. One day I took her out buggy-riding,--in style,
+too,--and out on the road I offered to do the square thing, just as if
+she'd been a lady,--offered to marry her then and there. And what did
+she do?" said Jack with a hysterical laugh. "Why, blank it all! OFFERED
+ME TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS A WEEK ALLOWANCE--PAY TO BE STOPPED WHEN I WASN'T
+AT HOME!" The roar of laughter that greeted this frank confession was
+broken by a quiet voice asking, "And what did YOU say?"--"Say?" screamed
+Jack, "I just told her to go to ---- with her money."--"They say,"
+continued the quiet voice, "that you asked her for the loan of two
+hundred and fifty dollars to get you to Sacramento--and that you got
+it."--"Who says so roared Jack. Show me the blank liar." There was a
+dead silence. Then the possessor of the quiet voice, Mr. Jack Hamlin,
+languidly reached under the table, took the chalk, and, rubbing the end
+of his billiard-cue, began with gentle gravity: "It was an old friend of
+mine in Sacramento, a man with a wooden leg, a game eye, three fingers
+on his right hand, and a consumptive cough. Being unable, naturally,
+to back himself, he leaves things to me. So, for the sake of argument,"
+continued Hamlin, suddenly laying down his cue, and fixing his wicked
+black eyes on the speaker, "say it's ME!"
+
+I am afraid that this story, whether truthful or not, did not tend
+to increase Peg's popularity in a community where recklessness and
+generosity condoned for the absence of all the other virtues; and it is
+possible, also, that Red Dog was no more free from prejudice than other
+more civilized but equally disappointed matchmakers. Likewise, during
+the following year, she made several more foolish ventures, and lost
+heavily. In fact, a feverish desire to increase her store at almost any
+risk seemed to possess her. At last it was announced that she intended
+to reopen the infelix Rockville Hotel, and keep it herself.
+
+Wild as this scheme appeared in theory, when put into practical
+operation there seemed to be some chance of success. Much, doubtless,
+was owing to her practical knowledge of hotel-keeping, but more to
+her rigid economy and untiring industry. The mistress of millions,
+she cooked, washed, waited on table, made the beds, and labored like
+a common menial. Visitors were attracted by this novel spectacle. The
+income of the house increased as their respect for the hostess lessened.
+No anecdote of her avarice was too extravagant for current belief. It
+was even alleged that she had been known to carry the luggage of guests
+to their rooms, that she might anticipate the usual porter's gratuity.
+She denied herself the ordinary necessaries of life. She was poorly
+clad, she was ill-fed--but the hotel was making money.
+
+A few hinted of insanity; others shook their heads, and said a curse was
+entailed on the property. It was believed, also, from her appearance,
+that she could not long survive this tax on her energies, and already
+there was discussion as to the probable final disposition of her
+property.
+
+It was the particular fortune of Mr. Jack Hamlin to be able to set the
+world right on this and other questions regarding her.
+
+A stormy December evening had set in when he chanced to be a guest of
+the Rockville Hotel. He had, during the past week, been engaged in the
+prosecution of his noble profession at Red Dog, and had, in the graphic
+language of a coadjutor, "cleared out the town, except his fare in the
+pockets of the stage-driver." "The Red Dog Standard" had bewailed his
+departure in playful obituary verse, beginning, "Dearest Johnny, thou
+hast left us," wherein the rhymes "bereft us" and "deplore" carried
+a vague allusion to "a thousand dollars more." A quiet contentment
+naturally suffused his personality, and he was more than usually lazy
+and deliberate in his speech. At midnight, when he was about to retire,
+he was a little surprised, however, by a tap on his door, followed by
+the presence of Mistress Peg Moffat, heiress, and landlady of Rockville
+hotel.
+
+Mr. Hamlin, despite his previous defence of Peg, had no liking for her.
+His fastidious taste rejected her uncomeliness; his habits of thought
+and life were all antagonistic to what he had heard of her niggardliness
+and greed. As she stood there, in a dirty calico wrapper, still redolent
+with the day's cuisine, crimson with embarrassment and the recent heat
+of the kitchen range, she certainly was not an alluring apparition.
+Happily for the lateness of the hour, her loneliness, and the infelix
+reputation of the man before her, she was at least a safe one. And I
+fear the very consciousness of this scarcely relieved her embarrassment.
+
+"I wanted to say a few words to ye alone, Mr. Hamlin," she began, taking
+an unoffered seat on the end of his portmanteau, "or I shouldn't hev
+intruded. But it's the only time I can ketch you, or you me; for I'm
+down in the kitchen from sunup till now."
+
+She stopped awkwardly, as if to listen to the wind, which was rattling
+the windows, and spreading a film of rain against the opaque darkness
+without. Then, smoothing her wrapper over her knees, she remarked, as if
+opening a desultory conversation, "Thar's a power of rain outside."
+
+Mr. Hamlin's only response to this meteorological observation was a
+yawn, and a preliminary tug at his coat as he began to remove it.
+
+"I thought ye couldn't mind doin' me a favor," continued Peg, with a
+hard, awkward laugh, "partik'ly seein' ez folks allowed you'd sorter bin
+a friend o' mine, and hed stood up for me at times when you hedn't any
+partikler call to do it. I hevn't" she continued, looking down on her
+lap, and following with her finger and thumb a seam of her gown,--"I
+hevn't so many friends ez slings a kind word for me these times that
+I disremember them." Her under lip quivered a little here; and, after
+vainly hunting for a forgotten handkerchief, she finally lifted the hem
+of her gown, wiped her snub nose upon it, but left the tears still in
+her eyes as she raised them to the man, Mr. Hamlin, who had by this time
+divested himself of his coat, stopped unbuttoning his waistcoat, and
+looked at her.
+
+"Like ez not thar'll be high water on the North Fork, ef this rain keeps
+on," said Peg, as if apologetically, looking toward the window.
+
+The other rain having ceased, Mr. Hamlin began to unbutton his waistcoat
+again.
+
+"I wanted to ask ye a favor about Mr.--about--Jack Folinsbee," began Peg
+again hurriedly. "He's ailin' agin, and is mighty low. And he's losin'
+a heap o' money here and thar, and mostly to YOU. You cleaned him out of
+two thousand dollars last night--all he had."
+
+"Well?" said the gambler coldly.
+
+"Well, I thought ez you woz a friend o' mine, I'd ask ye to let up a
+little on him," said Peg, with an affected laugh. "You kin do it. Don't
+let him play with ye."
+
+"Mistress Margaret Moffat," said Jack, with lazy deliberation, taking
+off his watch, and beginning to wind it up, "ef you're that much stuck
+after Jack Folinsbee, YOU kin keep him off of me much easier than I kin.
+You're a rich woman. Give him enough money to break my bank, or break
+himself for good and all; but don't keep him forlin' round me in hopes
+to make a raise. It don't pay, Mistress Moffat--it don't pay!"
+
+A finer nature than Peg's would have misunderstood or resented the
+gambler's slang, and the miserable truths that underlaid it. But she
+comprehended him instantly, and sat hopelessly silent.
+
+"Ef you'll take my advice," continued Jack, placing his watch and chain
+under his pillow, and quietly unloosing his cravat, "you'll quit this
+yer forlin', marry that chap, and hand over to him the money and the
+money-makin' that's killin' you. He'll get rid of it soon enough. I
+don't say this because I expect to git it; for, when he's got that
+much of a raise, he'll make a break for 'Frisco, and lose it to some
+first-class sport THERE. I don't say, neither, that you mayn't be in
+luck enough to reform him. I don't say, neither--and it's a derned sight
+more likely!--that you mayn't be luckier yet, and he'll up and die afore
+he gits rid of your money. But I do say you'll make him happy NOW; and,
+ez I reckon you're about ez badly stuck after that chap ez I ever saw
+any woman, you won't be hurtin' your own feelin's either."
+
+The blood left Peg's face as she looked up. "But that's WHY I can't give
+him the money--and he won't marry me without it."
+
+Mr. Hamlin's hand dropped from the last button of his waistcoat.
+"Can't--give--him--the--money?" he repeated slowly.
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--because I LOVE him."
+
+Mr. Hamlin rebuttoned his waistcoat, and sat down patiently on the bed.
+Peg arose, and awkwardly drew the portmanteau a little nearer to him.
+
+"When Jim Byways left me this yer property," she began, looking
+cautiously around, "he left it to me on CONDITIONS; not conditions ez
+waz in his WRITTEN will, but conditions ez waz SPOKEN. A promise I made
+him in this very room, Mr. Hamlin,--this very room, and on that very bed
+you're sittin' on, in which he died."
+
+Like most gamblers, Mr. Hamlin was superstitious. He rose hastily from
+the bed, and took a chair beside the window. The wind shook it as if the
+discontented spirit of Mr. Byways were without, re-enforcing his last
+injunction.
+
+"I don't know if you remember him," said Peg feverishly, "he was a man
+ez hed suffered. All that he loved--wife, fammerly, friends--had gone
+back on him. He tried to make light of it afore folks; but with me,
+being a poor gal, he let himself out. I never told anybody this. I don't
+know why he told ME; I don't know," continued Peg, with a sniffle, "why
+he wanted to make me unhappy too. But he made me promise, that, if he
+left me his fortune, I'd NEVER, NEVER--so help me God!--never share it
+with any man or woman that I LOVED; I didn't think it would be hard to
+keep that promise then, Mr. Hamlin; for I was very poor, and hedn't a
+friend nor a living bein' that was kind to me, but HIM."
+
+"But you've as good as broken your promise already," said Hamlin.
+"You've given Jack money, as I know."
+
+"Only what I made myself. Listen to me, Mr. Hamlin. When Jack proposed
+to me, I offered him about what I kalkilated I could earn myself. When
+he went away, and was sick and in trouble, I came here and took this
+hotel. I knew that by hard work I could make it pay. Don't laugh at me,
+please. I DID work hard, and DID make it pay--without takin' one cent of
+the fortin'. And all I made, workin' by night and day, I gave to him. I
+did, Mr. Hamlin. I ain't so hard to him as you think, though I might be
+kinder, I know."
+
+Mr. Hamlin rose, deliberately resumed his coat, watch, hat, and
+overcoat. When he was completely dressed again, he turned to Peg. "Do
+you mean to say that you've been givin' all the money you made here to
+this A 1 first-class cherubim?"
+
+"Yes; but he didn't know where I got it. O Mr. Hamlin! he didn't know
+that."
+
+"Do I understand you, that he's bin buckin agin Faro with the money that
+you raised on hash? And YOU makin' the hash?"
+
+"But he didn't know that, he wouldn't hev took it if I'd told him."
+
+"No, he'd hev died fust!" said Mr. Hamlin gravely. "Why, he's that
+sensitive--is Jack Folinsbee--that it nearly kills him to take money
+even of ME. But where does this angel reside when he isn't fightin' the
+tiger, and is, so to speak, visible to the naked eye?"
+
+"He--he--stops here," said Peg, with an awkward blush.
+
+"I see. Might I ask the number of his room--or should I be a--disturbing
+him in his meditations?" continued Jack Hamlin, with grave politeness.
+
+"Oh! then you'll promise? And you'll talk to him, and make HIM promise?"
+
+"Of course," said Hamlin quietly.
+
+"And you'll remember he's sick--very sick? His room's No. 44, at the end
+of the hall. Perhaps I'd better go with you?"
+
+"I'll find it."
+
+"And you won't be too hard on him?"
+
+"I'll be a father to him," said Hamlin demurely, as he opened the door
+and stepped into the hall. But he hesitated a moment, and then turned,
+and gravely held out his hand. Peg took it timidly. He did not seem
+quite in earnest; and his black eyes, vainly questioned, indicated
+nothing. But he shook her hand warmly, and the next moment was gone.
+
+He found the room with no difficulty. A faint cough from within, and
+a querulous protest, answered his knock. Mr. Hamlin entered without
+further ceremony. A sickening smell of drugs, a palpable flavor of stale
+dissipation, and the wasted figure of Jack Folinsbee, half-dressed,
+extended upon the bed, greeted him. Mr. Hamlin was for an instant
+startled. There were hollow circles round the sick man's eyes; there
+was palsy in his trembling limbs; there was dissolution in his feverish
+breath.
+
+"What's up?" he asked huskily and nervously.
+
+"I am, and I want YOU to get up too."
+
+"I can't, Jack. I'm regularly done up." He reached his shaking hand
+towards a glass half-filled with suspicious, pungent-smelling liquid;
+but Mr. Hamlin stayed it.
+
+"Do you want to get back that two thousand dollars you lost?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, get up, and marry that woman down stairs."
+
+Folinsbee laughed half hysterically, half sardonically.
+
+"She won't give it to me."
+
+"No; but I will."
+
+"YOU?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Folinsbee, with an attempt at a reckless laugh, rose, trembling and with
+difficulty, to his swollen feet. Hamlin eyed him narrowly, and then bade
+him lie down again. "To-morrow will do," he said, "and then--"
+
+"If I don't--"
+
+"If you don't," responded Hamlin, "why, I'll just wade in and CUT YOU
+OUT!"
+
+But on the morrow Mr. Hamlin was spared that possible act of disloyalty;
+for, in the night, the already hesitating spirit of Mr. Jack Folinsbee
+took flight on the wings of the south-east storm. When or how it
+happened, nobody knew. Whether this last excitement and the near
+prospect of matrimony, or whether an overdose of anodyne, had hastened
+his end, was never known. I only know, that, when they came to awaken
+him the next morning, the best that was left of him--a face still
+beautiful and boy-like--looked up coldly at the tearful eyes of Peg
+Moffat. "It serves me right, it's a judgment," she said in a low whisper
+to Jack Hamlin; "for God knew that I'd broken my word, and willed all my
+property to him."
+
+She did not long survive him. Whether Mr. Hamlin ever clothed with
+action the suggestion indicated in his speech to the lamented Jack that
+night, is not of record. He was always her friend, and on her demise
+became her executor. But the bulk of her property was left to a distant
+relation of handsome Jack Folinsbee, and so passed out of the control of
+Red Dog forever.
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY
+
+
+It was growing quite dark in the telegraph-office at Cottonwood,
+Tuolumne County, California. The office, a box-like enclosure, was
+separated from the public room of the Miners' Hotel by a thin partition;
+and the operator, who was also news and express agent at Cottonwood,
+had closed his window, and was lounging by his news-stand preparatory
+to going home. Without, the first monotonous rain of the season was
+dripping from the porches of the hotel in the waning light of a December
+day. The operator, accustomed as he was to long intervals of idleness,
+was fast becoming bored.
+
+The tread of mud-muffled boots on the veranda, and the entrance of two
+men, offered a momentary excitement. He recognized in the strangers two
+prominent citizens of Cottonwood; and their manner bespoke business. One
+of them proceeded to the desk, wrote a despatch, and handed it to the
+other interrogatively.
+
+"That's about the way the thing p'ints," responded his companion
+assentingly.
+
+"I reckoned it only squar to use his dientical words?"
+
+"That's so."
+
+The first speaker turned to the operator with the despatch.
+
+"How soon can you shove her through?"
+
+The operator glanced professionally over the address and the length of
+the despatch.
+
+"Now," he answered promptly.
+
+"And she gets there?"
+
+"To-night. But there's no delivery until to-morrow."
+
+"Shove her through to-night, and say there's an extra twenty left here
+for delivery."
+
+The operator, accustomed to all kinds of extravagant outlay for
+expedition, replied that he would lay this proposition with the
+despatch, before the San Francisco office. He then took it and read
+it--and re-read it. He preserved the usual professional apathy,--had
+doubtless sent many more enigmatical and mysterious messages,--but
+nevertheless, when he finished, he raised his eyes inquiringly to his
+customer. That gentleman, who enjoyed a reputation for equal spontaneity
+of temper and revolver, met his gaze a little impatiently. The operator
+had recourse to a trick. Under the pretence of misunderstanding the
+message, he obliged the sender to repeat it aloud for the sake of
+accuracy, and even suggested a few verbal alterations, ostensibly
+to insure correctness, but really to extract further information.
+Nevertheless, the man doggedly persisted in a literal transcript of his
+message. The operator went to his instrument hesitatingly.
+
+"I suppose," he added half-questioningly, "there ain't no chance of
+a mistake. This address is Rightbody, that rich old Bostonian that
+everybody knows. There ain't but one?"
+
+"That's the address," responded the first speaker coolly.
+
+"Didn't know the old chap had investments out here," suggested the
+operator, lingering at his instrument.
+
+"No more did I," was the insufficient reply.
+
+For some few moments nothing was heard but the click of the instrument,
+as the operator worked the key, with the usual appearance of imparting
+confidence to a somewhat reluctant hearer who preferred to talk himself.
+The two men stood by, watching his motions with the usual awe of
+the unprofessional. When he had finished, they laid before him two
+gold-pieces. As the operator took them up, he could not help saying,--
+
+"The old man went off kinder sudden, didn't he? Had no time to write?"
+
+"Not sudden for that kind o' man," was the exasperating reply.
+
+But the speaker was not to be disconcerted. "If there is an answer--" he
+began.
+
+"There ain't any," replied the first speaker quietly.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because the man ez sent the message is dead."
+
+"But it's signed by you two."
+
+"On'y ez witnesses--eh?" appealed the first speaker to his comrade.
+
+"On'y ez witnesses," responded the other.
+
+The operator shrugged his shoulders. The business concluded, the first
+speaker slightly relaxed. He nodded to the operator, and turned to the
+bar-room with a pleasing social impulse. When their glasses were set
+down empty, the first speaker, with a cheerful condemnation of the hard
+times and the weather, apparently dismissed all previous proceedings
+from his mind, and lounged out with his companion. At the corner of the
+street they stopped.
+
+"Well, that job's done," said the first speaker, by way of relieving the
+slight social embarrassment of parting.
+
+"Thet's so," responded his companion, and shook his hand.
+
+They parted. A gust of wind swept through the pines, and struck a faint
+Aeolian cry from the wires above their heads; and the rain and the
+darkness again slowly settled upon Cottonwood.
+
+The message lagged a little at San Francisco, laid over half an hour
+at Chicago, and fought longitude the whole way; so that it was past
+midnight when the "all night" operator took it from the wires at Boston.
+But it was freighted with a mandate from the San Francisco office; and
+a messenger was procured, who sped with it through dark snow-bound
+streets, between the high walls of close-shuttered rayless houses, to
+a certain formal square ghostly with snow-covered statues. Here he
+ascended the broad steps of a reserved and solid-looking mansion, and
+pulled a bronze bell-knob, that somewhere within those chaste recesses,
+after an apparent reflective pause, coldly communicated the fact that a
+stranger was waiting without--as he ought. Despite the lateness of the
+hour, there was a slight glow from the windows, clearly not enough
+to warm the messenger with indications of a festivity within, but yet
+bespeaking, as it were, some prolonged though subdued excitement. The
+sober servant who took the despatch, and receipted for it as gravely as
+if witnessing a last will and testament, respectfully paused before
+the entrance of the drawing-room. The sound of measured and rhetorical
+speech, through which the occasional catarrhal cough of the New-England
+coast struggled, as the only effort of nature not wholly repressed, came
+from its heavily-curtained recesses; for the occasion of the evening had
+been the reception and entertainment of various distinguished persons,
+and, as had been epigrammatically expressed by one of the guests, "the
+history of the country" was taking its leave in phrases more or less
+memorable and characteristic. Some of these valedictory axioms were
+clever, some witty, a few profound, but always left as a genteel
+contribution to the entertainer. Some had been already prepared, and,
+like a card, had served and identified the guest at other mansions.
+
+The last guest departed, the last carriage rolled away, when the servant
+ventured to indicate the existence of the despatch to his master,
+who was standing on the hearth-rug in an attitude of wearied
+self-righteousness. He took it, opened it, read it, re-read it, and
+said,--
+
+"There must be some mistake! It is not for me. Call the boy, Waters."
+
+Waters, who was perfectly aware that the boy had left, nevertheless
+obediently walked towards the hall-door, but was recalled by his master.
+
+"No matter--at present!"
+
+"It's nothing serious, William?" asked Mrs. Rightbody, with languid
+wifely concern.
+
+"No, nothing. Is there a light in my study?"
+
+"Yes. But, before you go, can you give me a moment or two?"
+
+Mr. Rightbody turned a little impatiently towards his wife. She had
+thrown herself languidly on the sofa; her hair was slightly disarranged,
+and part of a slippered foot was visible. She might have been a
+finely-formed woman; but even her careless deshabille left the general
+impression that she was severely flannelled throughout, and that any
+ostentation of womanly charm was under vigorous sanitary SURVEILLANCE.
+
+"Mrs. Marvin told me to-night that her son made no secret of his serious
+attachment for our Alice, and that, if I was satisfied, Mr. Marvin would
+be glad to confer with you at once."
+
+The information did not seem to absorb Mr. Rightbody's wandering
+attention, but rather increased his impatience. He said hastily, that he
+would speak of that to-morrow; and partly by way of reprisal, and partly
+to dismiss the subject, added--
+
+"Positively James must pay some attention to the register and the
+thermometer. It was over 70 degrees to-night, and the ventilating
+draught was closed in the drawing-room."
+
+"That was because Professor Ammon sat near it, and the old gentleman's
+tonsils are so sensitive."
+
+"He ought to know from Dr. Dyer Doit that systematic and regular
+exposure to draughts stimulates the mucous membrane; while fixed air
+over 60 degrees invariably--"
+
+"I am afraid, William," interrupted Mrs. Rightbody, with feminine
+adroitness, adopting her husband's topic with a view of thereby
+directing him from it,--"I'm afraid that people do not yet appreciate
+the substitution of bouillon for punch and ices. I observed that Mr.
+Spondee declined it, and, I fancied, looked disappointed. The fibrine
+and wheat in liqueur-glasses passed quite unnoticed too."
+
+"And yet each half-drachm contained the half-digested substance of
+a pound of beef. I'm surprised at Spondee!" continued Mr. Rightbody
+aggrievedly. "Exhausting his brain and nerve force by the highest
+creative efforts of the Muse, he prefers perfumed and diluted alcohol
+flavored with carbonic acid gas. Even Mrs. Faringway admitted to me
+that the sudden lowering of the temperature of the stomach by the
+introduction of ice--"
+
+"Yes; but she took a lemon ice at the last Dorothea Reception, and asked
+me if I had observed that the lower animals refused their food at a
+temperature over 60 degrees."
+
+Mr. Rightbody again moved impatiently towards the door. Mrs. Rightbody
+eyed him curiously.
+
+"You will not write, I hope? Dr. Keppler told me to-night that your
+cerebral symptoms interdicted any prolonged mental strain."
+
+"I must consult a few papers," responded Mr. Rightbody curtly, as he
+entered his library.
+
+It was a richly-furnished apartment, morbidly severe in its decorations,
+which were symptomatic of a gloomy dyspepsia of art, then quite
+prevalent. A few curios, very ugly, but providentially equally rare,
+were scattered about. There were various bronzes, marbles, and casts,
+all requiring explanation, and so fulfilling their purpose of promoting
+conversation, and exhibiting the erudition of their owner. There were
+souvenirs of travel with a history, old bric-a-brac with a pedigree,
+but little or nothing that challenged attention for itself alone. In all
+cases the superiority of the owner to his possessions was admitted. As
+a natural result, nobody ever lingered there, the servants avoided the
+room, and no child was ever known to play in it.
+
+Mr. Rightbody turned up the gas, and from a cabinet of drawers,
+precisely labelled, drew a package of letters. These he carefully
+examined. All were discolored, and made dignified by age; but some, in
+their original freshness, must have appeared trifling, and inconsistent
+with any correspondent of Mr. Rightbody. Nevertheless, that gentleman
+spent some moments in carefully perusing them, occasionally referring
+to the telegram in his hand. Suddenly there was a knock at the door.
+Mr. Rightbody started, made a half-unconscious movement to return the
+letters to the drawer, turned the telegram face downwards, and then,
+somewhat harshly, stammered,--
+
+"Eh? Who's there? Come in."
+
+"I beg your pardon, papa," said a very pretty girl, entering, without,
+however, the slightest trace of apology or awe in her manner, and taking
+a chair with the self-possession and familiarity of an habitue of the
+room; "but I knew it was not your habit to write late, so I supposed you
+were not busy. I am on my way to bed."
+
+She was so very pretty, and withal so utterly unconscious of it, or
+perhaps so consciously superior to it, that one was provoked into a
+more critical examination of her face. But this only resulted in a
+reiteration of her beauty, and perhaps the added facts that her dark
+eyes were very womanly, her rich complexion eloquent, and her chiselled
+lips fell enough to be passionate or capricious, notwithstanding that
+their general effect suggested neither caprice, womanly weakness, nor
+passion.
+
+With the instinct of an embarrassed man, Mr. Rightbody touched the topic
+he would have preferred to avoid.
+
+"I suppose we must talk over to-morrow," he hesitated, "this matter of
+yours and Mr. Marvin's? Mrs. Marvin has formally spoken to your mother."
+
+Miss Alice lifted her bright eyes intelligently, but not joyfully;
+and the color of action, rather than embarrassment, rose to her round
+cheeks.
+
+"Yes, HE said she would," she answered simply.
+
+"At present," continued Mr. Rightbody still awkwardly, "I see no
+objection to the proposed arrangement."
+
+Miss Alice opened her round eyes at this.
+
+"Why, papa, I thought it had been all settled long ago! Mamma knew it,
+you knew it. Last July, mamma and you talked it over."
+
+"Yes, yes," returned her father, fumbling his papers; "that is--well, we
+will talk of it to-morrow." In fact, Mr. Rightbody HAD intended to
+give the affair a proper attitude of seriousness and solemnity by due
+precision of speech, and some apposite reflections, when he should
+impart the news to his daughter, but felt himself unable to do it now.
+"I am glad, Alice," he said at last, "that you have quite forgotten your
+previous whims and fancies. You see WE are right."
+
+"Oh! I dare say, papa, if I'm to be married at all, that Mr. Marvin is
+in every way suitable."
+
+Mr. Rightbody looked at his daughter narrowly. There was not the
+slightest impatience nor bitterness in her manner: it was as well
+regulated as the sentiment she expressed.
+
+"Mr. Marvin is--" he began.
+
+"I know what Mr. Marvin IS," interrupted Miss Alice; "and he has
+promised me that I shall be allowed to go on with my studies the same as
+before. I shall graduate with my class; and, if I prefer to practise my
+profession, I can do so in two years after our marriage."
+
+"In two years?" queried Mr. Rightbody curiously.
+
+"Yes. You see, in case we should have a child, that would give me time
+enough to wean it."
+
+Mr. Rightbody looked at this flesh of his flesh, pretty and palpable
+flesh as it was; but, being confronted as equally with the brain of his
+brain, all he could do was to say meekly,--
+
+"Yes, certainly. We will see about all that to-morrow."
+
+Miss Alice rose. Something in the free, unfettered swing of her arms as
+she rested them lightly, after a half yawn, on her lithe hips, suggested
+his next speech, although still distrait and impatient.
+
+"You continue your exercise with the health-lift yet, I see."
+
+"Yes, papa; but I had to give up the flannels. I don't see how mamma
+could wear them. But my dresses are high-necked, and by bathing I
+toughen my skin. See!" she added, as, with a child-like unconsciousness,
+she unfastened two or three buttons of her gown, and exposed the white
+surface of her throat and neck to her father, "I can defy a chill."
+
+Mr. Rightbody, with something akin to a genuine playful, paternal laugh,
+leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
+
+"It's getting late, Ally," he said parentally, but not dictatorially.
+"Go to bed."
+
+"I took a nap of three hours this afternoon," said Miss Alice, with
+a dazzling smile, "to anticipate this dissipation. Good-night, papa.
+To-morrow, then."
+
+"To-morrow," repeated Mr. Rightbody, with his eyes still fixed upon the
+girl vaguely. "Good-night."
+
+Miss Alice tripped from the room, possibly a trifle the more
+light-heartedly that she had parted from her father in one of his rare
+moments of illogical human weakness. And perhaps it was well for the
+poor girl that she kept this single remembrance of him, when, I fear, in
+after-years, his methods, his reasoning, and indeed all he had tried to
+impress upon her childhood, had faded from her memory.
+
+For, when she had left, Mr. Rightbody fell again to the examination of
+his old letters. This was quite absorbing; so much so, that he did not
+notice the footsteps of Mrs. Rightbody, on the staircase as she passed
+to her chamber, nor that she had paused on the landing to look through
+the glass half-door on her husband, as he sat there with the letters
+beside him, and the telegram opened before him. Had she waited a
+moment later, she would have seen him rise, and walk to the sofa with a
+disturbed air and a slight confusion; so that, on reaching it, he seemed
+to hesitate to lie down, although pale and evidently faint. Had she
+still waited, she would have seen him rise again with an agonized
+effort, stagger to the table, fumblingly refold and replace the papers
+in the cabinet, and lock it, and, although now but half-conscious, hold
+the telegram over the gas-flame till it was consumed.
+
+For, had she waited until this moment, she would have flown
+unhesitatingly to his aid, as, this act completed, he staggered again,
+reached his hand toward the bell, but vainly, and then fell prone upon
+the sofa.
+
+But alas! no providential nor accidental hand was raised to save him,
+or anticipate the progress of this story. And when, half an hour later,
+Mrs. Rightbody, a little alarmed, and more indignant at his violation of
+the doctor's rules, appeared upon the threshold, Mr. Rightbody lay upon
+the sofa, dead!
+
+With bustle, with thronging feet, with the irruption of strangers, and
+a hurrying to and fro, but, more than all, with an impulse and emotion
+unknown to the mansion when its owner was in life, Mrs. Rightbody
+strove to call back the vanished life, but in vain. The highest medical
+intelligence, called from its bed at this strange hour, saw only the
+demonstration of its theories made a year before. Mr. Rightbody was
+dead--without doubt, without mystery, even as a correct man should
+die--logically, and indorsed by the highest medical authority.
+
+But even in the confusion, Mrs. Rightbody managed to speed a messenger
+to the telegraph-office for a copy of the despatch received by Mr.
+Rightbody, but now missing.
+
+In the solitude of her own room, and without a confidant, she read these
+words:--
+
+
+                           "[Copy.]
+
+  "To MR. ADAMS RIGHTBODY, BOSTON, MASS.
+
+  "Joshua Silsbie died suddenly this morning.  His last request was
+   that you should remember your sacred compact with him of thirty
+   years ago.
+         (Signed)                       "SEVENTY-FOUR.
+                                        "SEVENTY-FIVE."
+
+
+In the darkened home, and amid the formal condolements of their friends
+who had called to gaze upon the scarcely cold features of their late
+associate, Mrs. Rightbody managed to send another despatch. It was
+addressed to "Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five," Cottonwood. In a few hours
+she received the following enigmatical response:--
+
+"A horse-thief named Josh Silsbie was lynched yesterday morning by the
+Vigilantes at Deadwood."
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+The spring of 1874 was retarded in the California sierras; so much so,
+that certain Eastern tourists who had early ventured into the Yo
+Semite Valley found themselves, one May morning, snow-bound against the
+tempestuous shoulders of El Capitan. So furious was the onset of the
+wind at the Upper Merced Canyon, that even so respectable a lady as Mrs.
+Rightbody was fain to cling to the neck of her guide to keep her seat
+in the saddle; while Miss Alice, scorning all masculine assistance,
+was hurled, a lovely chaos, against the snowy wall of the chasm. Mrs.
+Rightbody screamed; Miss Alice raged under her breath, but scrambled to
+her feet again in silence.
+
+"I told you so!" said Mrs. Rightbody, in an indignant whisper, as
+her daughter again ranged beside her. "I warned you especially,
+Alice--that--that--"
+
+"What?" interrupted Miss Alice curtly.
+
+"That you would need your chemiloons and high boots," said Mrs.
+Rightbody, in a regretful undertone, slightly increasing her distance
+from the guides.
+
+Miss Alice shrugged her pretty shoulders scornfully, but ignored her
+mother's implication.
+
+"You were particularly warned against going into the valley at this
+season," she only replied grimly.
+
+Mrs. Rightbody raised her eyes impatiently.
+
+"You know how anxious I was to discover your poor father's strange
+correspondent, Alice. You have no consideration."
+
+"But when YOU HAVE discovered him--what then?" queried Miss Alice.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Yes. My belief is, that you will find the telegram only a mere business
+cipher, and all this quest mere nonsense."
+
+"Alice! Why, YOU yourself thought your father's conduct that night very
+strange. Have you forgotten?"
+
+The young lady had NOT, but, for some far-reaching feminine reason,
+chose to ignore it at that moment, when her late tumble in the snow was
+still fresh in her mind.
+
+"And this woman, whoever she may be--" continued Mrs. Rightbody.
+
+"How do you know there's a woman in the case?" interrupted Miss Alice,
+wickedly I fear.
+
+"How do--I--know--there's a woman?" slowly ejaculated Mrs. Rightbody,
+floundering in the snow and the unexpected possibility of such a
+ridiculous question. But here her guide flew to her assistance, and
+estopped further speech. And, indeed, a grave problem was before them.
+
+The road that led to their single place of refuge--a cabin, half hotel,
+half trading-post, scarce a mile away--skirted the base of the rocky
+dome, and passed perilously near the precipitous wall of the
+valley. There was a rapid descent of a hundred yards or more to
+this terrace-like passage; and the guides paused for a moment of
+consultation, cooly oblivious, alike to the terrified questioning of
+Mrs. Rightbody, or the half-insolent independence of the daughter. The
+elder guide was russet-bearded, stout, and humorous: the younger was
+dark-bearded, slight, and serious.
+
+"Ef you kin git young Bunker Hill to let you tote her on your shoulders,
+I'll git the Madam to hang on to me," came to Mrs. Rightbody's horrified
+ears as the expression of her particular companion.
+
+"Freeze to the old gal, and don't reckon on me if the daughter starts in
+to play it alone," was the enigmatical response of the younger guide.
+
+Miss Alice overheard both propositions; and, before the two men returned
+to their side, that high-spirited young lady had urged her horse down
+the declivity.
+
+Alas! at this moment a gust of whirling snow swept down upon her. There
+was a flounder, a mis-step, a fatal strain on the wrong rein, a fall,
+a few plucky but unavailing struggles, and both horse and rider slid
+ignominiously down toward the rocky shelf. Mrs. Rightbody screamed.
+Miss Alice, from a confused debris of snow and ice, uplifted a vexed and
+coloring face to the younger guide, a little the more angrily, perhaps,
+that she saw a shade of impatience on his face.
+
+"Don't move, but tie one end of the 'lass' under your arms, and throw me
+the other," he said quietly.
+
+"What do you mean by 'lass'--the lasso?" asked Miss Alice disgustedly.
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Then why don't you say so?"
+
+"O Alice!" reproachfully interpolated Mrs. Rightbody, encircled by the
+elder guide's stalwart arm.
+
+Miss Alice deigned no reply, but drew the loop of the lasso over her
+shoulders, and let it drop to her round waist. Then she essayed to
+throw the other end to her guide. Dismal failure! The first fling nearly
+knocked her off the ledge; the second went all wild against the
+rocky wall; the third caught in a thorn-bush, twenty feet below her
+companion's feet. Miss Alice's arm sunk helplessly to her side, at which
+signal of unqualified surrender, the younger guide threw himself half
+way down the slope, worked his way to the thorn-bush, hung for a moment
+perilously over the parapet, secured the lasso, and then began to pull
+away at his lovely burden. Miss Alice was no dead weight, however, but
+steadily half-scrambled on her hands and knees to within a foot or two
+of her rescuer. At this too familiar proximity, she stood up, and leaned
+a little stiffly against the line, causing the guide to give an extra
+pull, which had the lamentable effect of landing her almost in his arms.
+
+As it was, her intelligent forehead struck his nose sharply, and I
+regret to add, treating of a romantic situation, caused that somewhat
+prominent sign and token of a hero to bleed freely. Miss Alice instantly
+clapped a handful of snow over his nostrils.
+
+"Now elevate your right arm," she said commandingly.
+
+He did as he was bidden, but sulkily.
+
+"That compresses the artery."
+
+No man, with a pretty woman's hand and a handful of snow over his mouth
+and nose, could effectively utter a heroic sentence, nor, with his arm
+elevated stiffly over his head, assume a heroic attitude. But, when his
+mouth was free again, he said half-sulkily, half-apologetically,--
+
+"I might have known a girl couldn't throw worth a cent."
+
+"Why?" demanded Miss Alice sharply.
+
+"Because--why--because--you see--they haven't got the experience," he
+stammered feebly.
+
+"Nonsense! they haven't the CLAVICLE--that's all! It's because I'm a
+woman, and smaller in the collar-bone, that I haven't the play of the
+fore-arm which you have. See!" She squared her shoulders slightly, and
+turned the blaze of her dark eyes full on his. "Experience, indeed! A
+girl can learn anything a boy can."
+
+Apprehension took the place of ill-humor in her hearer. He turned his
+eyes hastily away, and glanced above him. The elder guide had gone
+forward to catch Miss Alice's horse, which, relieved of his rider, was
+floundering toward the trail. Mrs. Rightbody was nowhere to be seen. And
+these two were still twenty feet below the trail!
+
+There was an awkward pause.
+
+"Shall I put you up the same way?" he queried. Miss Alice looked at
+his nose, and hesitated. "Or will you take my hand?" he added in surly
+impatience. To his surprise, Miss Alice took his hand, and they began
+the ascent together.
+
+But the way was difficult and dangerous. Once or twice her feet slipped
+on the smoothly-worn rock beneath; and she confessed to an inward
+thankfulness when her uncertain feminine hand-grip was exchanged for his
+strong arm around her waist. Not that he was ungentle; but Miss Alice
+angrily felt that he had once or twice exercised his superior masculine
+functions in a rough way; and yet the next moment she would have
+probably rejected the idea that she had even noticed it. There was no
+doubt, however, that he WAS a little surly.
+
+A fierce scramble finally brought them back in safety to the trail;
+but in the action Miss Alice's shoulder, striking a projecting bowlder,
+wrung from her a feminine cry of pain, her first sign of womanly
+weakness. The guide stopped instantly.
+
+"I am afraid I hurt you?"
+
+She raised her brown lashes, a trifle moist from suffering, looked in
+his eyes, and dropped her own. Why, she could not tell. And yet he had
+certainly a kind face, despite its seriousness; and a fine face, albeit
+unshorn and weather-beaten. Her own eyes had never been so near to any
+man's before, save her lover's; and yet she had never seen so much in
+even his. She slipped her hand away, not with any reference to him,
+but rather to ponder over this singular experience, and somehow felt
+uncomfortable thereat.
+
+Nor was he less so. It was but a few days ago that he had accepted the
+charge of this young woman from the elder guide, who was the recognized
+escort of the Rightbody party, having been a former correspondent of her
+father's. He had been hired like any other guide, but had undertaken
+the task with that chivalrous enthusiasm which the average Californian
+always extends to the sex so rare to him. But the illusion had passed;
+and he had dropped into a sulky, practical sense of his situation,
+perhaps fraught with less danger to himself. Only when appealed to by
+his manhood or her weakness, he had forgotten his wounded vanity.
+
+He strode moodily ahead, dutifully breaking the path for her in the
+direction of the distant canyon, where Mrs. Rightbody and her friend
+awaited them. Miss Alice was first to speak. In this trackless,
+uncharted terra incognita of the passions, it is always the woman who
+steps out to lead the way.
+
+"You know this place very well. I suppose you have lived here long?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You were not born here--no?"
+
+A long pause.
+
+"I observe they call you 'Stanislaus Joe.' Of course that is not your
+real name?" (Mem.--Miss Alice had never called him ANYTHING, usually
+prefacing any request with a languid, "O-er-er, please, mister-er-a!"
+explicit enough for his station.)
+
+"No."
+
+Miss Alice (trotting after him, and bawling in his ear).--"WHAT name did
+you say?"
+
+The Man (doggedly).--"I don't know." Nevertheless, when they reached the
+cabin, after an half-hour's buffeting with the storm, Miss Alice applied
+herself to her mother's escort, Mr. Ryder.
+
+"What's the name of the man who takes care of my horse?"
+
+"Stanislaus Joe," responded Mr. Ryder.
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"No. Sometimes he's called Joe Stanislaus."
+
+Miss Alice (satirically).--"I suppose it's the custom here to send young
+ladies out with gentlemen who hide their names under an alias?"
+
+Mr. Ryder (greatly perplexed).--"Why, dear me, Miss Alice, you allers
+'peared to me as a gal as was able to take keer--"
+
+Miss Alice (interrupting with a wounded, dove-like timidity).--"Oh,
+never mind, please!"
+
+The cabin offered but scanty accommodation to the tourists; which fact,
+when indignantly presented by Mrs. Rightbody, was explained by the
+good-humored Ryder from the circumstance that the usual hotel was only a
+slight affair of boards, cloth, and paper, put up during the season, and
+partly dismantled in the fall. "You couldn't be kept warm enough there,"
+he added. Nevertheless Miss Alice noticed that both Mr. Ryder and
+Stanislaus Joe retired there with their pipes, after having prepared the
+ladies' supper, with the assistance of an Indian woman, who apparently
+emerged from the earth at the coming of the party, and disappeared as
+mysteriously.
+
+The stars came out brightly before they slept; and the next morning
+a clear, unwinking sun beamed with almost summer power through the
+shutterless window of their cabin, and ironically disclosed the details
+of its rude interior. Two or three mangy, half-eaten buffalo-robes,
+a bearskin, some suspicious-looking blankets, rifles and saddles,
+deal-tables, and barrels, made up its scant inventory. A strip of faded
+calico hung before a recess near the chimney, but so blackened by
+smoke and age that even feminine curiosity respected its secret. Mrs.
+Rightbody was in high spirits, and informed her daughter that she was at
+last on the track of her husband's unknown correspondent. "Seventy-Four
+and Seventy-Five represent two members of the Vigilance Committee, my
+dear, and Mr. Ryder will assist me to find them."
+
+"Mr. Ryder!" ejaculated Miss Alice, in scornful astonishment.
+
+"Alice," said Mrs. Rightbody, with a suspicious assumption of sudden
+defence, "you injure yourself, you injure me, by this exclusive
+attitude. Mr. Ryder is a friend of your father's, an exceedingly
+well-informed gentleman. I have not, of course, imparted to him the
+extent of my suspicions. But he can help me to what I must and will
+know. You might treat him a little more civilly--or, at least, a little
+better than you do his servant, your guide. Mr. Ryder is a gentleman,
+and not a paid courier."
+
+Miss Alice was suddenly attentive. When she spoke again, she asked,
+"Why do you not find out something about this Silsbie--who died--or was
+hung--or something of that kind?"
+
+"Child!" said Mrs. Rightbody, "don't you see there was no Silsbie, or,
+if there was, he was simply the confidant of that--woman?"
+
+A knock at the door, announcing the presence of Mr. Ryder and Stanislaus
+Joe with the horses, checked Mrs. Rightbody's speech. As the animals
+were being packed, Mrs. Rightbody for a moment withdrew in confidential
+conversation with Mr. Ryder, and, to the young lady's still greater
+annoyance, left her alone with Stanislaus Joe. Miss Alice was not in
+good temper, but she felt it necessary to say something.
+
+"I hope the hotel offers better quarters for travellers than this in
+summer," she began.
+
+"It does."
+
+"Then this does not belong to it?"
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"Who lives here, then?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"I beg your pardon," stammered Miss Alice, "I thought you lived where we
+hired--where we met you--in--in--You must excuse me."
+
+"I'm not a regular guide; but as times were hard, and I was out of grub,
+I took the job."
+
+"Out of grub!" "job!" And SHE was the "job." What would Henry Marvin
+say? It would nearly kill him. She began herself to feel a little
+frightened, and walked towards the door.
+
+"One moment, miss!"
+
+The young girl hesitated. The man's tone was surly, and yet indicated a
+certain kind of half-pathetic grievance. HER curiosity got the better of
+her prudence, and she turned back.
+
+"This morning," he began hastily, "when we were coming down the valley,
+you picked me up twice."
+
+"I picked YOU up?" repeated the astonished Alice.
+
+"Yes, CONTRADICTED me: that's what I mean,--once when you said those
+rocks were volcanic, once when you said the flower you picked was a
+poppy. I didn't let on at the time, for it wasn't my say; but all the
+while you were talking I might have laid for you--"
+
+"I don't understand you," said Alice haughtily.
+
+"I might have entrapped you before folks. But I only want you to know
+that I'M right, and here are the books to show it."
+
+He drew aside the dingy calico curtain, revealed a small shelf of
+bulky books, took down two large volumes,--one of botany, one
+of geology,--nervously sought his text, and put them in Alice's
+outstretched hands.
+
+"I had no intention--" she began, half-proudly, half-embarrassedly.
+
+"Am I right, miss?" he interrupted.
+
+"I presume you are, if you say so."
+
+"That's all, ma'am. Thank you!"
+
+Before the girl had time to reply, he was gone. When he again returned,
+it was with her horse, and Mrs. Rightbody and Ryder were awaiting her.
+But Miss Alice noticed that his own horse was missing.
+
+"Are you not going with us?" she asked.
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"Oh, indeed!"
+
+Miss Alice felt her speech was a feeble conventionalism; but it was all
+she could say. She, however, DID something. Hitherto it had been her
+habit to systematically reject his assistance in mounting to her seat.
+Now she awaited him. As he approached, she smiled, and put out her
+little foot. He instantly stooped; she placed it in his hand, rose
+with a spring, and for one supreme moment Stanislaus Joe held her
+unresistingly in his arms. The next moment she was in the saddle; but
+in that brief interval of sixty seconds she had uttered a volume in a
+single sentence,--
+
+"I hope you will forgive me!"
+
+He muttered a reply, and turned his face aside quickly as if to hide it.
+
+Miss Alice cantered forward with a smile, but pulled her hat down over
+her eyes as she joined her mother. She was blushing.
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+Mr. Ryder was as good as his word. A day or two later he entered Mrs.
+Rightbody's parlor at the Chrysopolis Hotel in Stockton, with the
+information that he had seen the mysterious senders of the despatch, and
+that they were now in the office of the hotel waiting her pleasure. Mr.
+Ryder further informed her that these gentlemen had only stipulated that
+they should not reveal their real names, and that they be introduced to
+her simply as the respective "Seventy-Four" and "Seventy-Five" who had
+signed the despatch sent to the late Mr. Rightbody.
+
+Mrs. Rightbody at first demurred to this; but, on the assurance from Mr.
+Ryder that this was the only condition on which an interview would be
+granted, finally consented.
+
+"You will find them square men, even if they are a little rough, ma'am.
+But, if you'd like me to be present, I'll stop; though I reckon, if
+ye'd calkilated on that, you'd have had me take care o' your business by
+proxy, and not come yourself three thousand miles to do it."
+
+Mrs. Rightbody believed it better to see them alone.
+
+"All right, ma'am. I'll hang round out here; and ef ye should happen to
+have a ticklin' in your throat, and a bad spell o' coughin', I'll drop
+in, careless like, to see if you don't want them drops. Sabe?"
+
+And with an exceedingly arch wink, and a slight familiar tap on Mrs.
+Rightbody's shoulder, which might have caused the late Mr. Rightbody to
+burst his sepulchre, he withdrew.
+
+A very timid, hesitating tap on the door was followed by the entrance of
+two men, both of whom, in general size, strength, and uncouthness,
+were ludicrously inconsistent with their diffident announcement.
+They proceeded in Indian file to the centre of the room, faced Mrs.
+Rightbody, acknowledged her deep courtesy by a strong shake of the hand,
+and, drawing two chairs opposite to her, sat down side by side.
+
+"I presume I have the pleasure of addressing--" began Mrs. Rightbody.
+
+The man directly opposite Mrs. Rightbody turned to the other
+inquiringly.
+
+The other man nodded his head, and replied,--
+
+"Seventy-Four."
+
+"Seventy-Five," promptly followed the other.
+
+Mrs. Rightbody paused, a little confused.
+
+"I have sent for you," she began again, "to learn something more of
+the circumstances under which you gentlemen sent a despatch to my late
+husband."
+
+"The circumstances," replied Seventy-Four quietly, with a side-glance at
+his companion, "panned out about in this yer style. We hung a man named
+Josh Silsbie, down at Deadwood, for hoss-stealin'. When I say WE, I
+speak for Seventy-Five yer as is present, as well as representin', so to
+speak, seventy-two other gents as is scattered. We hung Josh Silsbie on
+squar, pretty squar, evidence. Afore he was strung up, Seventy-Five yer
+axed him, accordin' to custom, ef ther was enny thing he had to say,
+or enny request that he allowed to make of us. He turns to Seventy-Five
+yer, and--"
+
+Here he paused suddenly, looking at his companion.
+
+"He sez, sez he," began Seventy-Five, taking up the narrative,--"he sez,
+'Kin I write a letter?' sez he. Sez I, 'Not much, ole man: ye've got
+no time.' Sez he, 'Kin I send a despatch by telegraph?' I sez, 'Heave
+ahead.' He sez,--these is his dientikal words,--'Send to Adam Rightbody,
+Boston. Tell him to remember his sacred compack with me thirty years
+ago.'"
+
+"'His sacred compack with me thirty years ago,'" echoed
+Seventy-Four,--"his dientikal words."
+
+"What was the compact?" asked Mrs. Rightbody anxiously.
+
+Seventy-Four looked at Seventy-Five, and then both arose, and retired
+to the corner of the parlor, where they engaged in a slow but whispered
+deliberation. Presently they returned, and sat down again.
+
+"We allow," said Seventy-Four, quietly but decidedly, "that YOU know
+what that sacred compact was."
+
+Mrs. Rightbody lost her temper and her truthfulness together. "Of
+course," she said hurriedly, "I know. But do you mean to say that you
+gave this poor man no further chance to explain before you murdered
+him?"
+
+Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five both rose again slowly, and retired.
+When they returned again, and sat down, Seventy-Five, who by this time,
+through some subtile magnetism, Mrs. Rightbody began to recognize as the
+superior power, said gravely,--
+
+"We wish to say, regarding this yer murder, that Seventy-Four and me
+is equally responsible; that we reckon also to represent, so to
+speak, seventy-two other gentlemen as is scattered; that we are ready,
+Seventy-Four and me, to take and holt that responsibility, now and at
+any time, afore every man or men as kin be fetched agin us. We wish to
+say that this yer say of ours holds good yer in Californy, or in any
+part of these United States."
+
+"Or in Canady," suggested Seventy-Four.
+
+"Or in Canady. We wouldn't agree to cross the water, or go to furrin
+parts, unless absolutely necessary. We leaves the chise of weppings to
+your principal, ma'am, or being a lady, ma'am, and interested, to
+any one you may fetch to act for him. An advertisement in any of the
+Sacramento papers, or a playcard or handbill stuck unto a tree near
+Deadwood, saying that Seventy-Four or Seventy-Five will communicate with
+this yer principal or agent of yours, will fetch us--allers."
+
+Mrs. Rightbody, a little alarmed and desperate, saw her blunder. "I mean
+nothing of the kind," she said hastily. "I only expected that you might
+have some further details of this interview with Silsbie; that perhaps
+you could tell me--" a bold, bright thought crossed Mrs. Rightbody's
+mind--"something more about HER."
+
+The two men looked at each other.
+
+"I suppose your society have no objection to giving me information about
+HER," said Mrs. Rightbody eagerly.
+
+Another quiet conversation in the corner, and the return of both men.
+
+"We want to say that we've no objection."
+
+Mrs. Rightbody's heart beat high. Her boldness had made her penetration
+good. Yet she felt she must not alarm the men heedlessly.
+
+"Will you inform me to what extent Mr. Rightbody, my late husband, was
+interested in her?"
+
+This time it seemed an age to Mrs. Rightbody before the men returned
+from their solemn consultation in the corner. She could both hear
+and feel that their discussion was more animated than their previous
+conferences. She was a little mortified, however, when they sat down, to
+hear Seventy-Four say slowly,--
+
+"We wish to say that we don't allow to say HOW much."
+
+"Do you not think that the 'sacred compact' between Mr. Rightbody and
+Mr. Silsbie referred to her?"
+
+"We reckon it do."
+
+Mrs. Rightbody, flushed and animated, would have given worlds had her
+daughter been present to hear this undoubted confirmation of her theory.
+Yet she felt a little nervous and uncomfortable even on this threshold
+of discovery.
+
+"Is she here now?"
+
+"She's in Tuolumne," said Seventy-Four.
+
+"A little better looked arter than formerly," added Seventy-Five.
+
+"I see. Then Mr. Silsbie ENTICED her away?"
+
+"Well, ma'am, it WAS allowed as she runned away. But it wasn't proved,
+and it generally wasn't her style."
+
+Mrs. Rightbody trifled with her next question.
+
+"She was pretty, of course?"
+
+The eyes of both men brightened.
+
+"She was THAT!" said Seventy-Four emphatically.
+
+"It would have done you good to see her!" added Seventy-Five.
+
+Mrs. Rightbody inwardly doubted it; but, before she could ask another
+question, the two men again retired to the corner for consultation. When
+they came back, there was a shade more of kindliness and confidence in
+their manner; and Seventy-Four opened his mind more freely.
+
+"We wish to say, ma'am, looking at the thing, by and large, in a
+far-minded way, that, ez YOU seem interested, and ez Mr. Rightbody was
+interested, and was, according to all accounts, deceived and led away by
+Silsbie, that we don't mind listening to any proposition YOU might make,
+as a lady--allowin' you was ekally interested."
+
+"I understand," said Mrs. Rightbody quickly. "And you will furnish me
+with any papers?"
+
+The two men again consulted.
+
+"We wish to say, ma'am, that we think she's got papers, but--"
+
+"I MUST have them, you understand," interrupted Mrs. Rightbody, "at any
+price.
+
+"We was about to say, ma'am," said Seventy-Four slowly, "that,
+considerin' all things,--and you being a lady--you kin have HER, papers,
+pedigree, and guaranty, for twelve hundred dollars."
+
+It has been alleged that Mrs. Rightbody asked only one question more,
+and then fainted. It is known, however, that by the next day it
+was understood in Deadwood that Mrs. Rightbody had confessed to the
+Vigilance Committee that her husband, a celebrated Boston millionaire,
+anxious to gain possession of Abner Springer's well-known sorrel mare,
+had incited the unfortunate Josh Silsbie to steal it; and that finally,
+failing in this, the widow of the deceased Boston millionaire was now in
+personal negotiation with the owners.
+
+Howbeit, Miss Alice, returning home that afternoon, found her mother
+with a violent headache.
+
+"We will leave here by the next steamer," said Mrs. Rightbody languidly.
+"Mr. Ryder has promised to accompany us."
+
+"But, mother--"
+
+"The climate, Alice, is over-rated. My nerves are already suffering
+from it. The associations are unfit for you, and Mr. Marvin is naturally
+impatient."
+
+Miss Alice colored slightly.
+
+"But your quest, mother?"
+
+"I've abandoned it."
+
+"But I have not," said Alice quietly. "Do you remember my guide at the
+Yo Semite,--Stanislaus Joe? Well, Stanislaus Joe is--who do you think?"
+
+Mrs. Rightbody was languidly indifferent.
+
+"Well, Stanislaus Joe is the son of Joshua Silsbie."
+
+Mrs. Rightbody sat upright in astonishment
+
+"Yes. But mother, he knows nothing of what we know. His father treated
+him shamefully, and set him cruelly adrift years ago; and, when he was
+hung, the poor fellow, in sheer disgrace, changed his name."
+
+"But, if he knows nothing of his father's compact, of what interest is
+this?"
+
+"Oh, nothing! Only I thought it might lead to something."
+
+Mrs. Rightbody suspected that "something," and asked sharply, "And pray
+how did YOU find it out? You did not speak of it in the valley."
+
+"Oh! I didn't find it out till to-day," said Miss Alice, walking to the
+window. "He happened to be here, and--told me."
+
+
+PART IV.
+
+
+If Mrs. Rightbody's friends had been astounded by her singular and
+unexpected pilgrimage to California so soon after her husband's decease,
+they were still more astounded by the information, a year later, that
+she was engaged to be married to a Mr. Ryder, of whom only the scant
+history was known, that he was a Californian, and former correspondent
+of her husband. It was undeniable that the man was wealthy, and
+evidently no mere adventurer; it was rumored that he was courageous and
+manly: but even those who delighted in his odd humor were shocked at his
+grammar and slang.
+
+It was said that Mr. Marvin had but one interview with his father-in-law
+elect, and returned so supremely disgusted, that the match was broken
+off. The horse-stealing story, more or less garbled, found its way
+through lips that pretended to decry it, yet eagerly repeated it. Only
+one member of the Rightbody family--and a new one--saved them from utter
+ostracism. It was young Mr. Ryder, the adopted son of the prospective
+head of the household, whose culture, manners, and general elegance,
+fascinated and thrilled Boston with a new sensation. It seemed to many
+that Miss Alice should, in the vicinity of this rare exotic, forget her
+former enthusiasm for a professional life; but the young man was pitied
+by society, and various plans for diverting him from any mesalliance
+with the Rightbody family were concocted.
+
+It was a wintry night, and the second anniversary of Mr. Rightbody's
+death, that a light was burning in his library. But the dead man's chair
+was occupied by young Mr. Ryder, adopted son of the new proprietor of
+the mansion; and before him stood Alice, with her dark eyes fixed on the
+table.
+
+"There must have been something in it, Joe, believe me. Did you never
+hear your father speak of mine?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"But you say he was college-bred, and born a gentleman, and in his youth
+he must have had many friends."
+
+"Alice," said the young man gravely, "when I have done something to
+redeem my name, and wear it again before these people, before YOU, it
+would be well to revive the past. But till then--"
+
+But Alice was not to be put down. "I remember," she went on, scarcely
+heeding him, "that, when I came in that night, papa was reading a
+letter, and seemed to be disconcerted."
+
+"A letter?"
+
+"Yes; but," added Alice, with a sigh, "when we found him here
+insensible, there was no letter on his person. He must have destroyed
+it."
+
+"Did you ever look among his papers? If found, it might be a clew."
+
+The young man glanced toward the cabinet. Alice read his eyes, and
+answered,--
+
+"Oh, dear, no! The cabinet contained only his papers, all perfectly
+arranged,--you know how methodical were his habits,--and some old
+business and private letters, all carefully put away."
+
+"Let us see them," said the young man, rising.
+
+They opened drawer after drawer; files upon files of letters and
+business papers, accurately folded and filed. Suddenly Alice uttered a
+little cry, and picked up a quaint ivory paper-knife lying at the bottom
+of a drawer.
+
+"It was missing the next day, and never could be found: he must have
+mislaid it here. This is the drawer," said Alice eagerly.
+
+Here was a clew. But the lower part of the drawer was filled with
+old letters, not labelled, yet neatly arranged in files. Suddenly he
+stopped, and said, "Put them back, Alice, at once."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Some of these letters are in my father's handwriting."
+
+"The more reason why I should see them," said the girl imperatively.
+"Here, you take part, and I'll take part, and we'll get through
+quicker."
+
+There was a certain decision and independence in her manner which he had
+learned to respect. He took the letters, and in silence read them
+with her. They were old college letters, so filled with boyish dreams,
+ambitions, aspirations, and utopian theories, that I fear neither of
+these young people even recognized their parents in the dead ashes of
+the past. They were both grave, until Alice uttered a little hysterical
+cry, and dropped her face in her hands. Joe was instantly beside her.
+
+"It's nothing, Joe, nothing. Don't read it, please; please, don't. It's
+so funny! it's so very queer!"
+
+But Joe had, after a slight, half-playful struggle, taken the letter
+from the girl. Then he read aloud the words written by his father thirty
+years ago.
+
+"I thank you, dear friend, for all you say about my wife and boy. I
+thank you for reminding me of our boyish compact. He will be ready
+to fulfil it, I know, if he loves those his father loves, even if you
+should marry years later. I am glad for your sake, for both our sakes,
+that it is a boy. Heaven send you a good wife, dear Adams, and a
+daughter, to make my son equally happy."
+
+Joe Silsbie looked down, took the half-laughing, half-tearful face in
+his hands, kissed her forehead, and, with tears in his grave eyes, said,
+"Amen!"
+
+*****
+
+I am inclined to think that this sentiment was echoed heartily by Mrs.
+Rightbody's former acquaintances, when, a year later, Miss Alice was
+united to a professional gentleman of honor and renown, yet who was
+known to be the son of a convicted horse-thief. A few remembered the
+previous Californian story, and found corroboration therefor; but a
+majority believed it a just reward to Miss Alice for her conduct to Mr.
+Marvin, and, as Miss Alice cheerfully accepted it in that light, I do
+not see why I may not end my story with happiness to all concerned.
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT.
+
+
+It was the sacred hour of noon at Sammtstadt. Everybody was at dinner;
+and the serious Kellner of "Der Wildemann" glanced in mild reproach at
+Mr. James Clinch, who, disregarding that fact and the invitatory
+table d'hote, stepped into the street. For Mr. Clinch had eaten a
+late breakfast at Gladbach, was dyspeptic and American, and, moveover,
+preoccupied with business. He was consequently indignant, on entering
+the garden-like court and cloister-like counting-house of "Von Becheret,
+Sons, Uncles, and Cousins," to find the comptoir deserted even by the
+porter, and was furious at the maidservant, who offered the sacred
+shibboleth "Mittagsessen" as a reasonable explanation of the solitude.
+"A country," said Mr. Clinch to himself, "that stops business at mid-day
+to go to dinner, and employs women-servants to talk to business-men, is
+played out."
+
+He stepped from the silent building into the equally silent Kronprinzen
+Strasse. Not a soul to be seen anywhere. Rows on rows of two-storied,
+gray-stuccoed buildings that might be dwellings, or might be offices,
+all showing some traces of feminine taste and supervision in a flower
+or a curtain that belied the legended "Comptoir," or "Direction," over
+their portals. Mr. Clinch thought of Boston and State Street, of New
+York and Wall Street, and became coldly contemptuous.
+
+Yet there was clearly nothing to do but to walk down the formal rows of
+chestnuts that lined the broad Strasse, and then walk back again. At the
+corner of the first cross-street he was struck with the fact that two
+men who were standing in front of a dwelling-house appeared to be as
+inconsistent, and out of proportion to the silent houses, as were the
+actors on a stage to the painted canvas thoroughfares before which they
+strutted. Mr. Clinch usually had no fancies, had no eye for quaintness;
+besides, this was not a quaint nor romantic district, only an entrepot
+for silks and velvets, and Mr. Clinch was here, not as a tourist, but as
+a purchaser. The guidebooks had ignored Sammtstadt, and he was too
+good an American to waste time in looking up uncatalogued curiosities.
+Besides, he had been here once before,--an entire day!
+
+One o'clock. Still a full hour and a half before his friend would
+return to business. What should he do? The Verein where he had once
+been entertained was deserted even by its waiters; the garden, with its
+ostentatious out-of-door tables, looked bleak and bare. Mr. Clinch was
+not artistic in his tastes; but even he was quick to detect the affront
+put upon Nature by this continental, theatrical gardening, and turned
+disgustedly away. Born near a "lake" larger than the German Ocean,
+he resented a pool of water twenty-five feet in diameter under that
+alluring title; and, a frequenter of the Adirondacks, he could scarce
+contain himself over a bit of rock-work twelve feet high. "A country,"
+said Mr. Clinch, "that--" but here he remembered that he had once seen
+in a park in his native city an imitation of the Drachenfels in plaster,
+on a scale of two inches to the foot, and checked his speech.
+
+He turned into the principal allee of the town. There was a long white
+building at one end,--the Bahnhof: at the other end he remembered a
+dye-house. He had, a year ago, met its hospitable proprietor: he would
+call upon him now.
+
+But the same solitude confronted him as he passed the porter's lodge
+beside the gateway. The counting-house, half villa, half factory, must
+have convoked its humanity in some out-of-the-way refectory, for the
+halls and passages were tenantless. For the first time he began to be
+impressed with a certain foreign quaintness in the surroundings; he
+found himself also recalling something he had read when a boy, about
+an enchanted palace whose inhabitants awoke on the arrival of
+a long-predestined Prince. To assure himself of the absolute
+ridiculousness of this fancy, he took from his pocket the business-card
+of its proprietor, a sample of dye, and recalled his own personality in
+a letter of credit. Having dismissed this idea from his mind, he lounged
+on again through a rustic lane that might have led to a farmhouse, yet
+was still, absurdly enough, a part of the factory gardens. Crossing
+a ditch by a causeway, he presently came to another ditch and another
+causeway, and then found himself idly contemplating a massive, ivy-clad,
+venerable brick wall. As a mere wall it might not have attracted his
+attention; but it seemed to enter and bury itself at right angles in the
+side-wall of a quite modern-looking dwelling. After satisfying himself
+of this fact, he passed on before the dwelling, but was amazed to see
+the wall reappear on the other side exactly the same--old, ivy-grown,
+sturdy, uncompromising, and ridiculous.
+
+Could it actually be a part of the house? He turned back, and repassed
+the front of the building. The entrance door was hospitably open. There
+was a hall and a staircase, but--by all that was preposterous!--they
+were built OVER and AROUND the central brick intrusion. The wall
+actually ran through the house! "A country," said Mr. Clinch to himself,
+"where they build their houses over ruins to accommodate them, or save
+the trouble of removal, is,--" but a very pleasant voice addressing him
+here stopped his usual hasty conclusion.
+
+"Guten Morgen!"
+
+Mr. Clinch looked hastily up. Leaning on the parapet of what appeared
+to be a garden on the roof of the house was a young girl, red-cheeked,
+bright-eyed, blond-haired. The voice was soft, subdued, and mellow; it
+was part of the new impression he was receiving, that it seemed to be
+in some sort connected with the ivy-clad wall before him. His hat was in
+his hand as he answered,--
+
+"Guten Morgen!"
+
+"Was the Herr seeking anything?"
+
+"The Herr was only waiting a longtime-coming friend, and had strayed
+here to speak with the before-known proprietor."
+
+"So? But, the before-known proprietor sleeping well at present after
+dinner, would the Herr on the terrace still a while linger?"
+
+The Herr would, but looked around in vain for the means to do it. He
+was thinking of a scaling-ladder, when the young woman reappeared at the
+open door, and bade him enter.
+
+Following the youthful hostess, Mr. Clinch mounted the staircase, but,
+passing the mysterious wall, could not forbear an allusion to it. "It is
+old, very old," said the girl: "it was here when I came."
+
+"That was not very long ago," said Mr. Clinch gallantly.
+
+"No; but my grandfather found it here too."
+
+"And built over it?"
+
+"Why not? It is very, very hard, and SO thick."
+
+Mr. Clinch here explained, with masculine superiority, the existence of
+such modern agents as nitro-glycerine and dynamite, persuasive in their
+effects upon time-honored obstructions and encumbrances.
+
+"But there was not then what you call--this--ni--nitro-glycerine."
+
+"But since then?"
+
+The young girl gazed at him in troubled surprise. "My great-grandfather
+did not take it away when he built the house: why should we?"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+They had passed through a hall and dining-room, and suddenly stepped
+out of a window upon a gravelled terrace. From this a few stone steps
+descended to another terrace, on which trees and shrubs were growing;
+and yet, looking over the parapet, Mr. Clinch could see the road some
+twenty feet below. It was nearly on a level with, and part of, the
+second story of the house. Had an earthquake lifted the adjacent
+ground? or had the house burrowed into a hill? Mr. Clinch turned to his
+companion, who was standing close beside him, breathing quite audibly,
+and leaving an impression on his senses as of a gentle and fragrant
+heifer.
+
+"How was all this done?"
+
+The maiden did not know. "It was always here."
+
+Mr. Clinch reascended the steps. He had quite forgotten his impatience.
+Possibly it was the gentle, equable calm of the girl, who, but for her
+ready color, did not seem to be moved by anything; perhaps it was the
+peaceful repose of this mausoleum of the dead and forgotten wall that
+subdued him, but he was quite willing to take the old-fashioned chair
+on the terrace which she offered him, and follow her motions with not
+altogether mechanical eyes as she drew out certain bottles and glasses
+from a mysterious closet in the wall. Mr. Clinch had the weakness of a
+majority of his sex in believing that he was a good judge of wine and
+women. The latter, as shown in the specimen before him, he would have
+invoiced as a fair sample of the middle-class German woman,--healthy,
+comfort-loving, home-abiding, the very genius of domesticity. Even in
+her virgin outlines the future wholesome matron was already forecast,
+from the curves of her broad hips, to the flat lines of her back and
+shoulders. Of the wine he was to judge later. THAT required an even more
+subtle and unimpassioned intellect.
+
+She placed two bottles before him on the table,--one, the traditional
+long-necked, amber-colored Rheinflasche; the other, an old, quaint,
+discolored, amphorax-patterned glass jug. The first she opened.
+
+"This," she said, pointing to the other, "cannot be opened."
+
+Mr. Clinch paid his respects first to the opened bottle, a good quality
+of Niersteiner. With his intellect thus clarified, he glanced at the
+other.
+
+"It is from my great-grandfather. It is old as the wall."
+
+Mr. Clinch examined the bottle attentively. It seemed to have no cork.
+Formed of some obsolete, opaque glass, its twisted neck was apparently
+hermetically sealed by the same material. The maiden smiled, as she
+said,--
+
+"It cannot be opened now without breaking the bottle. It is not good
+luck to do so. My grandfather and my father would not."
+
+But Mr. Clinch was still examining the bottle. Its neck was flattened
+towards the mouth; but a close inspection showed it was closed by some
+equally hard cement, but not glass.
+
+"If I can open it without breaking the bottle, have I your permission?"
+
+A mischievous glance rested on Mr. Clinch, as the maiden answered,--
+
+"I shall not object; but for what will you do it?"
+
+"To taste it, to try it."
+
+"You are not afraid?"
+
+There was just enough obvious admiration of Mr. Clinch's audacity in the
+maiden's manner to impel him to any risk. His only answer was to take
+from his pocket a small steel instrument. Holding the neck of the bottle
+firmly in one hand, he passed his thumb and the steel twice or thrice
+around it. A faint rasping, scratching sound was all the wondering girl
+heard. Then, with a sudden, dexterous twist of his thumb and finger, to
+her utter astonishment he laid the top of the neck, neatly cut off, in
+her hand.
+
+"There's a better and more modern bottle than you had before," he said,
+pointing to the cleanly-divided neck, "and any cork will fit it now."
+
+But the girl regarded him with anxiety. "And you still wish to taste the
+wine?"
+
+"With your permission, yes!"
+
+He looked up in her eyes. There was permission: there was something
+more, that was flattering to his vanity. He took the wine-glass, and,
+slowly and in silence, filled it from the mysterious flask.
+
+The wine fell into the glass clearly, transparently, heavily, but
+still and cold as death. There was no sparkle, no cheap ebullition,
+no evanescent bubble. Yet it was so clear, that, but for a faint
+amber-tinting, the glass seemed empty. There was no aroma, no ethereal
+diffusion from its equable surface. Perhaps it was fancy, perhaps it was
+from nervous excitement; but a slight chill seemed to radiate from the
+still goblet, and bring down the temperature of the terrace. Mr. Clinch
+and his companion both insensibly shivered.
+
+But only for a moment. Mr. Clinch raised the glass to his lips. As he
+did so, he remembered seeing distinctly, as in a picture before him, the
+sunlit terrace, the pretty girl in the foreground,--an amused spectator
+of his sacrilegious act,--the outlying ivy-crowned wall, the grass-grown
+ditch, the tall factory chimneys rising above the chestnuts, and the
+distant poplars that marked the Rhine.
+
+The wine was delicious; perhaps a TRIFLE, only a trifle, heady. He was
+conscious of a slight exaltation. There was also a smile upon the girl's
+lip and a roguish twinkle in her eye as she looked at him.
+
+"Do you find the wine to your taste?" she asked.
+
+"Fair enough, I warrant," said Mr. Clinch with ponderous gallantry; "but
+methinks 'tis nothing compared with the nectar that grows on those ruby
+lips. Nay, by St. Ursula, I swear it!"
+
+No sooner had this solemnly ridiculous speech passed the lips of the
+unfortunate man than he would have given worlds to have recalled it. He
+knew that he must be intoxicated; that the sentiment and language were
+utterly unlike him, he was miserably aware; that he did not even know
+exactly what it meant, he was also hopelessly conscious. Yet feeling all
+this,--feeling, too, the shame of appearing before her as a man who had
+lost his senses through a single glass of wine,--nevertheless he rose
+awkwardly, seized her hand, and by sheer force drew her towards him, and
+kissed her. With an exclamation that was half a cry and half a laugh,
+she fled from him, leaving him alone and bewildered on the terrace.
+
+For a moment Mr. Clinch supported himself against the open window,
+leaning his throbbing head on the cold glass. Shame, mortification, an
+hysterical half-consciousness of his utter ridiculousness, and yet an
+odd, undefined terror of something, by turns possessed him. Was he ever
+before guilty of such perfect folly? Had he ever before made such a
+spectacle of himself? Was it possible that he, Mr. James Clinch, the
+coolest head at a late supper,--he, the American, who had repeatedly
+drunk Frenchmen and Englishmen under the table--could be transformed
+into a sentimental, stagey idiot by a single glass of wine? He was
+conscious, too, of asking himself these very questions in a stilted sort
+of rhetoric, and with a rising brutality of anger that was new to
+him. And then everything swam before him, and he seemed to lose all
+consciousness.
+
+But only for an instant. With a strong effort of his will he again
+recalled himself, his situation, his surroundings, and, above all, his
+appointment. He rose to his feet, hurriedly descended the terrace-steps,
+and, before he well knew how, found himself again on the road. Once
+there, his faculties returned in full vigor; he was again himself.
+He strode briskly forward toward the ditch he had crossed only a few
+moments before, but was suddenly stopped. It was filled with water. He
+looked up and down. It was clearly the same ditch; but a flowing stream
+thirty feet wide now separated him from the other bank.
+
+The appearance of this unlooked-for obstacle made Mr. Clinch doubt the
+full restoration of his faculties. He stepped to the brink of the flood
+to bathe his head in the stream, and wash away the last vestiges of his
+potations. But as he approached the placid depths, and knelt down he
+again started back, and this time with a full conviction of his own
+madness; for reflected from its mirror-like surface was a figure he
+could scarcely call his own, although here and there some trace of his
+former self remained.
+
+His close-cropped hair, trimmed a la mode, had given way to long,
+curling locks that dropped upon his shoulders. His neat mustache was
+frightfully prolonged, and curled up at the ends stiffly. His Piccadilly
+collar had changed shape and texture, and reached--a mass of lace--to a
+point midway of his breast! His boots,--why had he not noticed his boots
+before?--these triumphs of his Parisian bootmaker, were lost in hideous
+leathern cases that reached half way up his thighs. In place of his
+former high silk hat, there lay upon the ground beside him the awful
+thing he had just taken off,--a mass of thickened felt, flap, feather,
+and buckle that weighed at least a stone.
+
+A single terrible idea now took possession of him. He had been "sold,"
+"taken in," "done for." He saw it all. In a state of intoxication he
+had lost his way, had been dragged into some vile den, stripped of his
+clothes and valuables, and turned adrift upon the quiet town in this
+shameless masquerade. How should he keep his appointment? how inform
+the police of this outrage upon a stranger and an American citizen? how
+establish his identity? Had they spared his papers? He felt feverishly
+in his breast. Ah!--his watch? Yes, a watch--heavy, jewelled,
+enamelled--and, by all that was ridiculous, FIVE OTHERS! He ran his
+hands into his capacious trunk hose. What was this? Brooches, chains,
+finger-rings,--one large episcopal one,--ear-rings, and a handful
+of battered gold and silver coins. His papers, his memorandums, his
+passport--all proofs of his identity--were gone! In their place was the
+unmistakable omnium gatherum of an accomplished knight of the road. Not
+only was his personality, but his character, gone forever.
+
+It was a part of Mr. Clinch's singular experience that this last stroke
+of ill fortune seemed to revive in him something of the brutal instinct
+he had felt a moment before. He turned eagerly about with the intention
+of calling some one--the first person he met--to account. But the house
+that he had just quitted was gone. The wall! Ah, there it was, no
+longer purposeless, intrusive, and ivy-clad, but part of the buttress
+of another massive wall that rose into battlements above him. Mr. Clinch
+turned again hopelessly toward Sammtstadt. There was the fringe of
+poplars on the Rhine, there were the outlying fields lit by the same
+meridian sun; but the characteristic chimneys of Sammtstadt were gone.
+Mr. Clinch was hopelessly lost.
+
+The sound of a horn breaking the stillness recalled his senses. He now
+for the first time perceived that a little distance below him, partly
+hidden in the trees, was a queer, tower-shaped structure with chains
+and pulleys, that in some strange way recalled his boyish reading.
+A drawbridge and portcullis! And on the battlement a figure in a
+masquerading dress as absurd as his own, flourishing a banner and
+trumpet, and trying to attract his attention.
+
+"Was wollen Sie?"
+
+"I want to see the proprietor," said Mr. Clinch, choking back his rage.
+
+There was a pause, and the figure turned apparently to consult with
+some one behind the battlements. After a moment he reappeared, and in a
+perfunctory monotone, with an occasional breathing spell on the trumpet,
+began,--
+
+"You do give warranty as a good knight and true, as well as by the bones
+of the blessed St. Ursula, that you bear no ill will, secret enmity,
+wicked misprise or conspiracy, against the body of our noble lord
+and master Von Kolnsche? And you bring with you no ambush, siege, or
+surprise of retainers, neither secret warrant nor lettres de cachet, nor
+carry on your knightly person poisoned dagger, magic ring, witch-powder,
+nor enchanted bullet, and that you have entered into no unhallowed
+alliance with the Prince of Darkness, gnomes, hexies, dragons, Undines,
+Loreleis, nor the like?"
+
+"Come down out of that, you d----d old fool!" roared Mr. Clinch, now
+perfectly beside himself with rage,--"come down, and let me in!"
+
+As Mr. Clinch shouted out the last words, confused cries of recognition
+and welcome, not unmixed with some consternation, rose from the
+battlements: "Ach Gott!" "Mutter Gott--it is he! It is Jann, Der
+Wanderer. It is himself." The chains rattled, the ponderous drawbridge
+creaked and dropped; and across it a medley of motley figures rushed
+pellmell. But, foremost among them, the very maiden whom he had left not
+ten minutes before flew into his arms, and with a cry of joyful greeting
+sank upon his breast. Mr. Clinch looked down upon the fair head and long
+braids. It certainly was the same maiden, his cruel enchantress; but
+where did she get those absurd garments?
+
+"Willkommen," said a stout figure, advancing with some authority, and
+seizing his disengaged hand, "where hast thou been so long?"
+
+Mr. Clinch, by no means placated, coldly dropped the extended hand.
+It was NOT the proprietor he had known. But there was a singular
+resemblance in his face to some one of Mr. Clinch's own kin; but who,
+he could not remember. "May I take the liberty of asking your name?" he
+asked coldly.
+
+The figure grinned. "Surely; but, if thou standest upon punctilio, it
+is for ME to ask thine, most noble Freiherr," said he, winking upon his
+retainers. "Whom have I the honor of entertaining?"
+
+"My name is Clinch,--James Clinch of Chicago, Ill."
+
+A shout of laughter followed. In the midst of his rage and mortification
+Mr. Clinch fancied he saw a shade of pain and annoyance flit across the
+face of the maiden. He was puzzled, but pressed her hand, in spite of
+his late experiences, reassuringly. She made a gesture of silence to
+him, and then slipped away in the crowd.
+
+"Schames K'l'n'sche von Schekargo," mimicked the figure, to the
+unspeakable delight of his retainers. "So! THAT is the latest French
+style. Holy St. Ursula! Hark ye, nephew! I am not a travelled man. Since
+the Crusades we simple Rhine gentlemen have staid at home. But I call
+myself Kolnsche of Koln, at your service."
+
+"Very likely you are right," said Mr. Clinch hotly, disregarding the
+caution of his fair companion; "but, whoever YOU are, I am a stranger
+entitled to protection. I have been robbed."
+
+If Mr. Clinch had uttered an exquisite joke instead of a very angry
+statement, it could not have been more hilariously received. He paused,
+grew confused, and then went on hesitatingly,--
+
+"In place of my papers and credentials I find only these." And he
+produced the jewelry from his pockets.
+
+Another shout of laughter and clapping of hands followed this second
+speech; and the baron, with a wink at his retainers, prolonged the
+general mirth by saying, "By the way, nephew, there is little doubt but
+there has been robbery--somewhere."
+
+"It was done," continued Mr. Clinch, hurrying to make an end of his
+explanation, "while I was inadvertently overcome with liquor,--drugged
+liquor."
+
+The laughter here was so uproarious that the baron, albeit with tears
+of laughter in his own eyes, made a peremptory gesture of silence. The
+gesture was peculiar to the baron, efficacious and simple. It consisted
+merely in knocking down the nearest laugher. Having thus restored
+tranquillity, he strode forward, and took Mr. Clinch by the hand. "By
+St. Adolph, I did doubt thee a moment ago, nephew; but this last frank
+confession of thine shows me I did thee wrong. Willkommen zu Hause,
+Jann, drunk or sober, willcommen zu Cracowen."
+
+More and more mystified, but convinced of the folly of any further
+explanation, Mr. Clinch took the extended hand of his alleged uncle, and
+permitted himself to be led into the castle. They passed into a large
+banqueting-hall adorned with armor and implements of the chase. Mr.
+Clinch could not help noticing, that, although the appointments were
+liberal and picturesque, the ventilation was bad, and the smoke from the
+huge chimney made the air murky. The oaken tables, massive in carving
+and rich in color, were unmistakably greasy; and Mr. Clinch slipped on
+a piece of meat that one of the dozen half-wild dogs who were occupying
+the room was tearing on the floor. The dog, yelping, ran between the
+legs of a retainer, precipitating him upon the baron, who instantly,
+with the "equal foot" of fate, kicked him and the dog into a corner.
+
+"And whence came you last?" asked the baron, disregarding the little
+contretemps, and throwing himself heavily on an oaken settle, while
+he pushed a queer, uncomfortable-looking stool, with legs like a
+Siamese-twin-connected double X, towards his companion.
+
+Mr. Clinch, who had quite given himself up to fate, answered
+mechanically,--
+
+"Paris."
+
+The baron winked his eye with unutterable, elderly wickedness. "Ach
+Gott! it is nothing to what it was when I was your age. Ah! there was
+Manon,--Sieur Manon we used to call her. I suppose she's getting old
+now. How goes on the feud between the students and the citizens? Eh? Did
+you go to the bal in la Cite?"
+
+Mr. Clinch stopped the flow of those Justice-Shallow-like reminiscences
+by an uneasy exclamation. He was thinking of the maiden who had
+disappeared so suddenly. The baron misinterpreted his nervousness. "What
+ho, within there!--Max, Wolfgang,--lazy rascals! Bring some wine."
+
+At the baleful word Mr. Clinch started to his feet. "Not for me! Bring
+me none of your body-and-soul-destroying poison! I've enough of it!"
+
+The baron stared. The servitors stared also.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Clinch, recalling himself slowly; "but I
+fear that Rhine wine does not agree with me."
+
+The baron grinned. Perceiving, however, that the three servitors grinned
+also, he kicked two of them into obscurity, and felled the third to
+the floor with his fist. "Hark ye, nephew," he said, turning to the
+astonished Clinch, "give over this nonsense! By the mitre of Bishop
+Hatto, thou art as big a fool as he!"
+
+"Hatto," repeated Clinch mechanically. "What! he of the Mouse Tower?"
+
+"Ay, of the Mouse Tower!" sneered the baron. "I see you know the story."
+
+"Why am I like him?" asked Mr. Clinch in amazement.
+
+The baron grinned. "HE punished the Rhenish wine as thou dost, without
+judgment. He had--"
+
+"The jim-jams," said Mr. Clinch mechanically again.
+
+The baron frowned. "I know not what gibberish thou sayest by 'jim-jams';
+but he had, like thee, the wildest fantasies and imaginings; saw snakes,
+toads, rats, in his boots, but principally rats; said they pursued him,
+came to his room, his bed--ach Gott!"
+
+"Oh!" said Mr. Clinch, with a sudden return to his firmer self and his
+native inquiring habits; "then THAT is the fact about Bishop Hatto of
+the story?"
+
+"His enemies made it the subject of a vile slander of an old friend of
+mine," said the baron; "and those cursed poets, who believe everything,
+and then persuade others to do so,--may the Devil fly away with
+them!--kept it up."
+
+Here were facts quite to Mr. Clinch's sceptical mind. He forgot himself
+and his surroundings.
+
+"And that story of the Drachenfels?" he asked insinuatingly,--"the
+dragon, you know. Was he too--"
+
+The baron grinned. "A boar transformed by the drunken brains of the
+Bauers of the Siebengebirge. Ach Gott! Ottefried had many a hearty laugh
+over it; and it did him, as thou knowest, good service with the nervous
+mother of the silly maiden."
+
+"And the seven sisters of Schonberg?" asked Mr. Clinch persuasively.
+
+"'Schonberg! Seven sisters!' What of them?" demanded the baron sharply.
+
+"Why, you know,--the maidens who were so coy to their suitors,
+and--don't you remember?--jumped into the Rhine to avoid them."
+
+"'Coy? Jumped into the Rhine to avoid suitors'?" roared the baron,
+purple with rage. "Hark ye, nephew! I like not this jesting. Thou
+knowest I married one of the Schonberg girls, as did thy father. How
+'coy' they were is neither here nor there; but mayhap WE might tell
+another story. Thy father, as weak a fellow as thou art where a
+petticoat is concerned, could not as a gentleman do other than he did.
+And THIS is his reward? Ach Gott! 'Coy!' And THIS, I warrant, is the way
+the story is delivered in Paris."
+
+Mr. Clinch would have answered that this was the way he read it in a
+guidebook, but checked himself at the hopelessness of the explanation.
+Besides, he was on the eve of historic information; he was, as it were,
+interviewing the past; and, whether he would ever be able to profit by
+the opportunity or not, he could not bear to lose it. "And how about the
+Lorelei--is she, too, a fiction?" he asked glibly.
+
+"It was said," observed the baron sardonically, "that when thou
+disappeared with the gamekeeper's daughter at Obercassel--Heaven knows
+where!--thou wast swallowed up in a whirlpool with some creature. Ach
+Gott! I believe it! But a truce to this balderdash. And so thou wantest
+to know of the 'coy' sisters of Schoenberg? Hark ye, Jann, that cousin
+of thine is a Schonberg. Call you her 'coy'? Did I not see thy greeting?
+Eh? By St. Adolph, knowing thee as she does to be robber and thief, call
+you her greeting 'coy'?"
+
+Furious as Mr. Clinch inwardly became under these epithets, he felt that
+his explanation would hardly relieve the maiden from deceit, or himself
+from weakness. But out of his very perplexity and turmoil a bright idea
+was born. He turned to the baron,--
+
+"Then you have no faith in the Rhine legends?"
+
+The baron only replied with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders.
+
+"But what if I told you a new one?"
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes; a part of my experience?"
+
+The baron was curious. It was early in the afternoon, just after dinner.
+He might be worse bored.
+
+"I've only one condition," added Mr. Clinch: "the young lady--I mean, of
+course, my cousin--must hear it too."
+
+"Oh, ay! I see. Of course--the old trick! Well, call the jade. But mark
+ye, Sir Nephew, no enchanted maidens and knights. Keep to thyself. Be as
+thou art, vagabond Jann Kolnische, knight of the road.--What ho there,
+scoundrels! Call the Lady Wilhemina."
+
+It was the first time Mr. Clinch had heard his fair friend's name; but
+it was not, evidently, the first time she had seen him, as the very
+decided wink the gentle maiden dropped him testified. Nevertheless,
+with hands lightly clasped together, and downcast eyes, she stood before
+them.
+
+Mr. Clinch began. Without heeding the baron's scornful grin, he
+graphically described his meeting, two years before, with a Lorelei, her
+usual pressing invitation, and his subsequent plunge into the Rhine.
+
+"I am free to confess," added Mr. Clinch, with an affecting glance to
+Wilhelmina, "that I was not enamoured of the graces of the lady, but was
+actuated by my desire to travel, and explore hitherto unknown regions. I
+wished to travel, to visit--"
+
+"Paris," interrupted the baron sarcastically.
+
+"America," continued Mr. Clinch.
+
+"What?"--"America."
+
+"'Tis a gnome-like sounding name, this Meriker. Go on, nephew: tell us
+of Meriker."
+
+With the characteristic fluency of his nation, Mr. Clinch described his
+landing on those enchanted shores, viz, the Rhine Whirlpool and Hell
+Gate, East River, New York. He described the railways, tram-ways,
+telegraphs, hotels, phonograph, and telephone. An occasional oath broke
+from the baron, but he listened attentively; and in a few moments Mr.
+Clinch had the raconteur's satisfaction of seeing the vast hall slowly
+filling with open-eyed and open-mouthed retainers hanging upon his
+words. Mr. Clinch went on to describe his astonishment at meeting on
+these very shores some of his own blood and kin. "In fact," said Mr.
+Clinch, "here were a race calling themselves 'Clinch,' but all claiming
+to have descended from Kolnische."
+
+"And how?" sneered the baron.
+
+"Through James Kolnische and Wilhelmina his wife," returned Mr. Clinch
+boldly. "They emigrated from Koln and Crefeld to Philadelphia, where
+there is a quarter named Crefeld." Mr. Clinch felt himself shaky as to
+his chronology, but wisely remembered that it was a chronology of the
+future to his hearers, and they could not detect an anachronism. With
+his eyes fixed upon those of the gentle Wilhelmina, Mr. Clinch now
+proceeded to describe his return to his fatherland, but his astonishment
+at finding the very face of the country changed, and a city standing
+on those fields he had played in as a boy; and how he had wandered
+hopelessly on, until he at last sat wearily down in a humble cottage
+built upon the ruins of a lordly castle. "So utterly travel-worn and
+weak had I become," said Mr. Clinch, with adroitly simulated pathos,
+"that a single glass of wine offered me by the simple cottage maiden
+affected me like a prolonged debauch."
+
+A long-drawn snore was all that followed this affecting climax. The
+baron was asleep; the retainers were also asleep. Only one pair of eyes
+remained open,--arch, luminous, blue,--Wilhelmina's.
+
+"There is a subterranean passage below us to Linn. Let us fly!" she
+whispered.
+
+"But why?"
+
+"They always do it in the legends," she murmured modestly.
+
+"But your father?"
+
+"He sleeps. Do you not hear him?"
+
+Certainly somebody was snoring. But, oddly enough, it seemed to be
+Wilhelmina. Mr. Clinch suggested this to her.
+
+"Fool, it is yourself!"
+
+Mr. Clinch, struck with the idea, stopped to consider. She was right. It
+certainly WAS himself.
+
+With a struggle he awoke. The sun was shining. The maiden was looking at
+him. But the castle--the castle was gone!
+
+"You have slept well," said the maiden archly. "Everybody does after
+dinner at Sammtstadt. Father has just awakened, and is coming."
+
+Mr. Clinch stared at the maiden, at the terrace, at the sky, at the
+distant chimneys of Sammtstadt, at the more distant Rhine, at the table
+before him, and finally at the empty glass. The maiden smiled. "Tell
+me," said Mr. Clinch, looking in her eyes, "is there a secret passage
+underground between this place and the Castle of Linn?"
+
+"An underground passage?"
+
+"Ay--whence the daughter of the house fled with a stranger knight."
+
+"They say there is," said the maiden, with a gentle blush.
+
+"Can you show it to me?"
+
+She hesitated. "Papa is coming: I'll ask him."
+
+I presume she did. At least the Herr Consul at Sammtstadt informs me of
+a marriage-certificate issued to one Clinch of Chicago, and Kolnische of
+Koln; and there is an amusing story extant in the Verein at Sammtstadt,
+of an American connoisseur of Rhine wines, who mistook a flask of Cognac
+and rock-candy, used for "craftily qualifying" lower grades of wine to
+the American standard, for the rarest Rudesheimerberg.
+
+
+
+
+VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION
+
+
+Outside of my window, two narrow perpendicular mirrors, parallel
+with the casement, project into the street, yet with a certain
+unobtrusiveness of angle that enables them to reflect the people who
+pass, without any reciprocal disclosure of their own. The men and women
+hurrying by not only do not know they are observed, but, what is worse,
+do not even see their own reflection in this hypocritical plane, and
+are consequently unable, through its aid, to correct any carelessness
+of garb, gait, or demeanor. At first this seems to be taking an unfair
+advantage of the human animal, who invariably assumes an attitude
+when he is conscious of being under human focus. But I observe that my
+neighbors' windows, right and left, have a similar apparatus, that this
+custom is evidently a local one, and the locality is German. Being
+an American stranger, I am quite willing to leave the morality of the
+transaction with the locality, and adapt myself to the custom: indeed,
+I had thought of offering it, figuratively, as an excuse for any
+unfairness of observation I might make in these pages. But my German
+mirrors reflect without prejudice, selection, or comment; and the
+American eye, I fear, is but mortal, and like all mortal eyes,
+figuratively as well as in that literal fact noted by an eminent
+scientific authority, infinitely inferior to the work of the best German
+opticians.
+
+And this leads me to my first observation, namely, that a majority of
+those who pass my mirror have weak eyes, and have already invoked the
+aid of the optician. Why are these people, physically in all else so
+much stronger than my countrymen, deficient in eyesight? Or, to omit the
+passing testimony of my Spion, and take my own personal experience, why
+does my young friend Max, brightest of all schoolboys, who already
+wears the cap that denotes the highest class,--why does he shock me by
+suddenly drawing forth a pair of spectacles, that upon his fresh, rosy
+face would be an obvious mocking imitation of the Herr Papa--if German
+children could ever, by any possibility, be irreverent? Or why does the
+Fraulein Marie, his sister, pink as Aurora, round as Hebe, suddenly
+veil her blue eyes with a golden lorgnette in the midst of our polyglot
+conversation? Is it to evade the direct, admiring glance of the
+impulsive American? Dare I say NO? Dare I say that that frank, clear,
+honest, earnest return of the eye, which has on the Continent most
+unfairly brought my fair countrywomen under criticism, is quite as
+common to her more carefully-guarded, tradition-hedged German sisters?
+No, it is not that. Is it any thing in these emerald and opal tinted
+skies, which seem so unreal to the American eye, and for the first time
+explain what seemed the unreality of German art? in these mysterious yet
+restful Rhine fogs, which prolong the twilight, and hang the curtain
+of romance even over mid-day? Surely not. Is it not rather, O Herr
+Professor profound in analogy and philosophy!--is it not rather
+this abominable black-letter, this elsewhere-discarded, uncouth,
+slowly-decaying text known as the German Alphabet, that plucks out the
+bright eyes of youth, and bristles the gateways of your language with a
+chevaux de frise of splintered rubbish? Why must I hesitate whether it
+is an accident of the printer's press, or the poor quality of the paper,
+that makes this letter a "k" or a "t"? Why must I halt in an emotion or
+a thought because "s" and "f" are so nearly alike? Is it not enough that
+I, an impulsive American, accustomed to do a thing first, and reflect
+upon it afterwards, must grope my way through a blind alley of
+substantives and adjectives, only to find the verb of action in an
+obscure corner, without ruining my eyesight in the groping?
+
+But I dismiss these abstract reflections for a fresh and active
+resentment. This is the fifth or sixth dog that has passed my Spion,
+harnessed to a small barrow-like cart, and tugging painfully at a
+burden so ludicrously disproportionate to his size, that it would seem a
+burlesque, but for the poor dog's sad sincerity. Perhaps it is because
+I have the barbarian's fondness for dogs, and for their lawless, gentle,
+loving uselessness, that I rebel against this unnatural servitude. It
+seems as monstrous as if a child were put between the shafts, and made
+to carry burdens; and I have come to regard those men and women, who in
+the weakest perfunctory way affect to aid the poor brute by laying
+idle hands on the barrow behind, as I would unnatural parents.
+Pegasus harnessed to the Thracian herdsman's plough was no more of a
+desecration. I fancy the poor dog seems to feel the monstrosity of the
+performance, and, in sheer shame for his master, forgivingly tries to
+assume it is PLAY; and I have seen a little "colley" running along,
+barking, and endeavoring to leap and gambol in the shafts, before a load
+that any one out of this locality would have thought the direst cruelty.
+Nor do the older or more powerful dogs seem to become accustomed to
+it. When his cruel taskmaster halts with his wares, instantly the dog,
+either by sitting down in his harness, or crawling over the shafts, or
+by some unmistakable dog-like trick, utterly scatters any such delusion
+of even the habit of servitude. The few of his race who do not work in
+this ducal city seem to have lost their democratic canine sympathies,
+and look upon him with something of that indifferent calm with which
+yonder officer eyes the road-mender in the ditch below him. He loses
+even the characteristics of species. The common cur and mastiff look
+alike in harness. The burden levels all distinctions. I have said that
+he was generally sincere in his efforts. I recall but one instance to
+the contrary. I remember a young colley who first attracted my attention
+by his persistent barking. Whether he did this, as the plough-boy
+whistled, "for want of thought," or whether it was a running protest
+against his occupation, I could not determine, until one day I noticed,
+that, in barking, he slightly threw up his neck and shoulders, and that
+the two-wheeled barrow-like vehicle behind him, having its weight evenly
+poised on the wheels by the trucks in the hands of its driver, enabled
+him by this movement to cunningly throw the center of gravity and the
+greater weight on the man,--a fact which that less sagacious brute never
+discerned. Perhaps I am using a strong expression regarding his driver.
+It may be that the purely animal wants of the dog, in the way of food,
+care, and shelter, are more bountifully supplied in servitude than in
+freedom; becoming a valuable and useful property, he may be cared for
+and protected as such (an odd recollection that this argument had been
+used forcibly in regard to human slavery in my own country strikes me
+here); but his picturesqueness and poetry are gone, and I cannot
+help thinking that the people who have lost this gentle, sympathetic,
+characteristic figure from their domestic life and surroundings have not
+acquired an equal gain through his harsh labors.
+
+To the American eye there is, throughout the length and breadth of
+this foreign city, no more notable and striking object than the average
+German house-servant. It is not that she has passed my Spion a dozen
+times within the last hour,--for here she is messenger, porter, and
+commissionnaire, as well as housemaid and cook,--but that she is always
+a phenomenon to the American stranger, accustomed to be abused in
+his own country by his foreign Irish handmaiden. Her presence is as
+refreshing and grateful as the morning light, and as inevitable and
+regular. When I add that with the novelty of being well served is
+combined the satisfaction of knowing that you have in your household an
+intelligent being who reads and writes with fluency, and yet does not
+abstract your books, nor criticise your literary composition; who is
+cleanly clad, and neat in her person, without the suspicion of having
+borrowed her mistress's dresses; who may be good-looking without the
+least imputation of coquetry or addition to her followers; who is
+obedient without servility, polite without flattery, willing and replete
+with supererogatory performance, without the expectation of immediate
+pecuniary return, what wonder that the American householder translated
+into German life feels himself in a new Eden of domestic possibilities
+unrealized in any other country, and begins to believe in a present and
+future of domestic happiness! What wonder that the American bachelor
+living in German lodgings feels half the terrors of the conjugal future
+removed, and rushes madly into love--and housekeeping! What wonder that
+I, a long-suffering and patient master, who have been served by the
+reticent but too imitative Chinaman; who have been "Massa" to the
+childlike but untruthful negro; who have been the recipient of the
+brotherly but uncertain ministrations of the South-Sea Islander, and
+have been proudly disregarded by the American aborigine, only in due
+time to meet the fate of my countrymen at the hands of Bridget the
+Celt,--what wonder that I gladly seize this opportunity to sing the
+praises of my German handmaid! Honor to thee, Lenchen, wherever
+thou goest! Heaven bless thee in thy walks abroad! whether with that
+tightly-booted cavalryman in thy Sunday gown and best, or in blue
+polka-dotted apron and bare head as thou trottest nimbly on mine
+errands,--errands which Bridget o'Flaherty would scorn to undertake, or,
+undertaking, would hopelessly blunder in. Heaven bless thee, child,
+in thy early risings and in thy later sittings, at thy festive board
+overflowing with Essig and Fett, in the mysteries of thy Kuchen, in the
+fulness of thy Bier, and in thy nightly suffocations beneath mountainous
+and multitudinous feathers! Good, honest, simple-minded, cheerful,
+duty-loving Lenchen! Have not thy brothers, strong and dutiful as thou,
+lent their gravity and earnestness to sweeten and strengthen the fierce
+youth of the Republic beyond the seas? and shall not thy children
+inherit the broad prairies that still wait for them, and discover the
+fatness thereof, and send a portion transmuted in glittering shekels
+back to thee?
+
+Almost as notable are the children whose round faces have as frequently
+been reflected in my Spion. Whether it is only a fancy of mine that
+the average German retains longer than any other race his childish
+simplicity and unconsciousness, or whether it is because I am more
+accustomed to the extreme self-assertion and early maturity of American
+children, I know not; but I am inclined to believe that among no
+other people is childhood as perennial, and to be studied in such
+characteristic and quaint and simple phases as here. The picturesqueness
+of Spanish and Italian childhood has a faint suspicion of the pantomime
+and the conscious attitudinizing of the Latin races. German children are
+not exuberant or volatile: they are serious,--a seriousness, however,
+not to be confounded with the grave reflectiveness of age, but only the
+abstract wonderment of childhood; for all those who have made a loving
+study of the young human animal will, I think, admit that its dominant
+expression is GRAVITY, and not playfulness, and will be satisfied
+that he erred pitifully who first ascribed "light-heartedness" and
+"thoughtlessness" as part of its phenomena. These little creatures I
+meet upon the street,--whether in quaint wooden shoes and short woollen
+petticoats, or neatly booted and furred, with school knapsacks jauntily
+borne upon little square shoulders,--all carry likewise in their round
+chubby faces their profound wonderment and astonishment at the big busy
+world into which they have so lately strayed. If I stop to speak with
+this little maid who scarcely reaches to the top-boots of yonder cavalry
+officer, there is less of bashful self-consciousness in her sweet little
+face than of grave wonder at the foreign accent and strange ways of
+this new figure obtruded upon her limited horizon. She answers honestly,
+frankly, prettily, but gravely. There is a remote possibility that I
+might bite; and, with this suspicion plainly indicated in her round
+blue eyes, she quietly slips her little red hand from mine, and moves
+solemnly away. I remember once to have stopped in the street with a fair
+countrywoman of mine to interrogate a little figure in sabots,--the
+one quaint object in the long, formal perspective of narrow, gray
+bastard-Italian facaded houses of a Rhenish German Strasse. The sweet
+little figure wore a dark-blue woollen petticoat that came to its knees;
+gray woollen stockings covered the shapely little limbs below; and
+its very blonde hair, the color of a bright dandelion, was tied in a
+pathetic little knot at the back of its round head, and garnished with
+an absurd green ribbon. Now, although this gentlewoman's sympathies were
+catholic and universal, unfortunately their expression was limited to
+her own mother-tongue. She could not help pouring out upon the child the
+maternal love that was in her own womanly breast, nor could she withhold
+the "baby-talk" through which it was expressed. But, alas! it was in
+English. Hence ensued a colloquy, tender and extravagant on the part of
+the elder, grave and wondering on the part of the child. But the lady
+had a natural feminine desire for reciprocity, particularly in the
+presence of our emotion-scorning sex, and as a last resource she emptied
+the small silver of her purse into the lap of the coy maiden. It was
+a declaration of love, susceptible of translation at the nearest
+cake-shop. But the little maid, whose dress and manner certainly did not
+betray an habitual disregard of gifts of this kind, looked at the coin
+thoughtfully, but not regretfully. Some innate sense of duty, equally
+strong with that of being polite to strangers, filled her consciousness.
+With the utterly unexpected remark that her father 'did not allow her
+to take money', the queer little figure moved away, leaving the two
+Americans covered with mortification. The rare American child who could
+have done this would have done it with an attitude. This little German
+bourgeoise did it naturally. I do not intend to rush to the deduction
+that German children of the lower classes habitually refuse pecuniary
+gratuities: indeed, I remember to have wickedly suggested to my
+companion, that, to avoid impoverishment in a foreign land, she should
+not repeat the story nor the experiment. But I simply offer it as a
+fact, and to an American, at home or abroad, a novel one.
+
+I owe to these little figures another experience quite as strange.
+It was at the close of a dull winter's day,--a day from which all
+out-of-door festivity seemed to be naturally excluded: there was a
+baleful promise of snow in the air and a dismal reminiscence of it under
+foot, when suddenly, in striking contrast with the dreadful bleakness
+of the street, a half dozen children, masked and bedizened with cheap
+ribbons, spangles, and embroidery, flashed across my Spion. I was quick
+to understand the phenomenon. It was the Carnival season. Only the night
+before I had been to the great opening masquerade,--a famous affair, for
+which this art-loving city is noted, and to which strangers are drawn
+from all parts of the Continent. I remember to have wondered if
+the pleasure-loving German in America had not broken some of his
+conventional shackles in emigration; for certainly I had found the
+Carnival balls of the "Lieder Kranz Society" in New York, although
+decorous and fashionable to the American taste, to be wild dissipations
+compared with the practical seriousness of this native performance, and
+I hailed the presence of these children in the open street as a promise
+of some extravagance, real, untrammelled, and characteristic. I seized
+my hat and--OVERCOAT,--a dreadful incongruity to the spangles that had
+whisked by, and followed the vanishing figures round the corner. Here
+they were re-enforced by a dozen men and women, fantastically, but not
+expensively arrayed, looking not unlike the supernumeraries of some
+provincial opera troupe. Following the crowd, which already began to
+pour in from the side-streets, in a few moments I was in the broad,
+grove-like allee, and in the midst of the masqueraders.
+
+I remember to have been told that this was a characteristic annual
+celebration of the lower classes, anticipated with eagerness, and
+achieved with difficulty, indeed, often only through the alternative of
+pawning clothing and furniture to provide the means for this ephemeral
+transformation. I remember being warned, also, that the buffoonery was
+coarse, and some of the slang hardly fit for "ears polite." But I am
+afraid that I was not shocked at the prodigality of these poor people,
+who purchased a holiday on such hard conditions; and, as to the
+coarseness of the performance, I felt that I certainly might go where
+these children could.
+
+At first the masquerading figures appeared to be mainly composed of
+young girls of ages varying from nine to eighteen. Their costumes--if
+what was often only the addition of a broad, bright-colored stripe to
+the hem of a short dress could be called a COSTUME--were plain, and
+seemed to indicate no particular historical epoch or character. A
+general suggestion of the peasant's holiday attire was dominant in
+all the costumes. Everybody was closely masked. All carried a short,
+gayly-striped baton of split wood, called a Pritsche, which, when struck
+sharply on the back or shoulders of some spectator or sister-masker,
+emitted a clattering, rasping sound. To wander hand in hand down this
+broad allee, to strike almost mechanically, and often monotonously,
+at each other with their batons, seemed to be the extent of that wild
+dissipation. The crowd thickened. Young men with false noses, hideous
+masks, cheap black or red cotton dominoes, soldiers in uniform, crowded
+past each other, up and down the promenade, all carrying a Pritsche,
+and exchanging blows with each other, but always with the same slow
+seriousness of demeanor, which, with their silence, gave the performance
+the effect of a religious rite. Occasionally some one shouted: perhaps a
+dozen young fellows broke out in song; but the shout was provocative of
+nothing, the song faltered as if the singers were frightened at their
+own voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-capped
+shoulders, began to dance; but, on the crowd stopping to observe
+him seriously, he apparently thought better of it, and slipped away.
+Nevertheless, the solemn beating of Pritschen over each other's backs
+went on. I remember that I was followed the whole length of the allee by
+a little girl scarcely twelve years old, in a bright striped skirt and
+black mask, who from time to time struck me over the shoulders with a
+regularity and sad persistency that was peculiarly irresistible to
+me; the more so, as I could not help thinking that it was not half as
+amusing to herself. Once only did the ordinary brusque gallantry of the
+Carnival spirit show itself. A man with an enormous pair of horns, like
+a half-civilized satyr, suddenly seized a young girl and endeavored to
+kiss her. A slight struggle ensued, in which I fancied I detected in the
+girl's face and manner the confusion and embarrassment of one who
+was obliged to overlook, or seem to accept, a familiarity that was
+distasteful, rather than be laughed at for prudishness or ignorance. But
+the incident was exceptional. Indeed, it was particularly notable to my
+American eyes to find such decorum where there might easily have been
+the greatest license. I am afraid that an American mob of this class
+would have scarcely been as orderly and civil under the circumstances.
+They might have shown more humor; but there would have probably been
+more effrontery: they might have been more exuberant; they would
+certainly have been drunker. I did not notice a single masquerader
+unduly excited by liquor: there was not a word or motion from the
+lighter sex that could have been construed into an impropriety. There
+was something almost pathetic to me in this attempt to wrest gayety and
+excitement out of these dull materials; to fight against the blackness
+of that wintry sky, and the stubborn hardness of the frozen soil, with
+these painted sticks of wood; to mock the dreariness of their poverty
+with these flaunting raiments. It did not seem like them, or rather,
+consistent with my idea of them. There was incongruity deeper than their
+bizarre externals; a half-melancholy, half-crazy absurdity in their
+action, the substitution of a grim spasmodic frenzy for levity, that
+rightly or wrongly impressed me. When the increasing gloom of the
+evening made their figures undistinguishable, I turned into the first
+cross-street. As I lifted my hat to my persistent young friend with the
+Pritsche, I fancied she looked as relieved as myself. If, however, I
+was mistaken; if that child's pathway through life be strewn with rosy
+recollections of the unresisting back of the stranger American; if any
+burden, O Gretchen! laid upon thy young shoulders, be lighter for the
+trifling one thou didst lay upon mine,--know, then, that I, too, am
+content.
+
+And so, day by day, has my Spion reflected the various changing forms
+of life before it. It has seen the first flush of spring in the broad
+allee, when the shadows of tiny leaflets overhead were beginning to
+checker the cool, square flagstones. It has seen the glare and fulness
+of summer sunshine and shadow, the flying of November gold through the
+air, the gaunt limbs, and stark, rigid, death-like whiteness of winter.
+It has seen children in their queer, wicker baby-carriages, old men and
+women, and occasionally that grim usher of death, in sable cloak and
+cocked hat,--a baleful figure for the wandering invalid tourist to
+meet,--who acts as undertaker for this ducal city, and marshals the
+last melancholy procession. I well remember my first meeting with this
+ominous functionary. It was an early autumnal morning; so early, that
+the long formal perspective of the allee, and the decorous, smooth
+vanishing-lines of cream-and-gray fronted houses, were unrelieved by a
+single human figure. Suddenly a tall black spectre, as theatrical and
+as unreal as the painted scenic distance, turned the corner from a
+cross-street, and moved slowly towards me. A long black cloak, falling
+from its shoulders to its feet, floated out on either side like sable
+wings; a cocked hat trimmed with crape, and surmounted by a hearse-like
+feather, covered a passionless face; and its eyes, looking neither left
+nor right, were fixed fatefully upon some distant goal. Stranger as I
+was to this Continental ceremonial figure, there was no mistaking his
+functions as the grim messenger, knocking "with equal foot" on every
+door; and, indeed, so perfectly did he act and look his role, that there
+was nothing ludicrous in the extraordinary spectacle. Facial expression
+and dignity of bearing were perfect; the whole man seemed saturated with
+the accepted sentiment of his office. Recalling the half-confused
+and half-conscious ostentatious hypocrisy of the American sexton, the
+shameless absurdities of the English mutes and mourners, I could not
+help feeling, that, if it were demanded that Grief and Fate should be
+personified, it were better that it should be well done. And it is
+one observation of my Spion, that this sincerity and belief is the
+characteristic of all Continental functionaries.
+
+It is possible that my Spion has shown me little that is really
+characteristic of the people, and the few observations I have made I
+offer only as an illustration of the impressions made upon two-thirds of
+American strangers in the larger towns of Germany. Assimilation goes on
+more rapidly than we are led to imagine. As I have seen my friend Karl,
+fresh and awkward in his first uniform, lounging later down the allee
+with the blase listlessness of a full-blown militaire, so I have seen
+American and English residents gradually lose their peculiarities, and
+melt and merge into the general mass. Returning to my Spion after
+a flying trip through Belgium and France, as I look down the long
+perspective of the Strasse, I am conscious of recalling the same style
+of architecture and humanity at Aachen, Brussels, Lille, and Paris, and
+am inclined to believe that, even as I would have met, in a journey of
+the same distance through a parallel of the same latitude in America, a
+greater diversity of type and character, and a more distinct flavor of
+locality, even so would I have met a more heterogeneous and picturesque
+display from a club window on Fifth Avenue, New York, or Montgomery
+Street, San Francisco.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Twins of Table Mountain and Other
+Stories, by Bret Harte
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