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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other
+Tales, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales
+       With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends,
+       and Earlier Papers
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: August 1, 2004 [eBook #6373]
+[Most recently updated: August 28, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Skip Doughty, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+Revised by Richard Tonsing.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF BRET HARTE ***
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP AND OTHER TALES
+
+With Condensed Novels, Spanish And American Legends, And Earlier Papers
+
+From The Writings Of Bret Harte
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+_With an Introduction by the Author_
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
+
+
+In 1882, it was felt to be desirable that Mr. Harte’s scattered work
+should be brought together in convenient form, and the result was
+a compact edition of five volumes. After that date, as before, he
+continued to produce poems, tales, sketches, and romances in steady
+succession, and in 1897 his publishers undertook a uniform and orderly
+presentation of the results of more than thirty years of his literary
+activity. The fourteen volumes that embodied those results were enriched
+by Introductions and a Glossary prepared by Mr. Harte himself.
+
+The present Riverside Edition is based on the collection made in 1897,
+but is enlarged by the inclusion of later work.
+
+Boston, 4 Park Street, Autumn, 1902.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+GENERAL INTRODUCTION
+
+THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP AND OTHER SKETCHES. The Luck Of Roaring Camp.
+The Outcasts Of Poker Flat. Miggles Tennessee’s Partner. The Idyl Of Red
+Gulch Brown Of Calaveras
+
+CONDENSED NOVELS. Muck-A-Muck: A Modern Indian Novel. Selina Sedilia.
+The Ninety-Nine Guardsmen. Miss Mix. Mr. Midshipman Breezy: A Naval
+Officer. Guy Heavystone; Or, “Entire:” A Muscular Novel John Jenkins; Or,
+The Smoker Reformed Fantine. After The French Of Victor Hugo “La Femme”.
+After The French Of M. Michelet The Dweller Of The Threshold N. N.:
+Being A Novel In The French Paragraphic Style No Title. Handsome Is As
+Handsome Does. Lothaw; Or, The Adventures Of A Young Gentleman In Search
+Of A Religion. The Haunted Man: A Christmas Story. Terence Denville.
+Mary McGillup. The Hoodlum Band; Or, The Boy Chief. The Infant
+Politician, And The Pirate Prodigy.
+
+EARLIER SKETCHES. M’liss: An Idyl Of Red Mountain. Chapter I Smith’s
+Pocket. Chapter II Which Contains A Dream Of The Just Aristides.
+Chapter III Under The Greenwood Tree. Chapter IV Which Has A Good
+Moral Tendency. Chapter V “Open Sesame”. Chapter VI The Trials Of Mrs.
+Morpher. Chapter VII The People vs John Doe Waters. Chapter VIII The
+Author To The Reader—Explanatory. Chapter IX Cleaning Up. Chapter X The
+Red Rock High-Water Mark. A Lonely Ride. The Man Of No Account. Notes
+By Flood And Field. Waiting For The Ship: A Fort Point Idyl. A Night At
+Wingdam.
+
+SPANISH AND AMERICAN LEGENDS. The Legend Of Monte Del Diablo. The Right
+Eye Of The Commander. The Legend Of Devil’s Point. The Adventure Of
+Padre Vicentio: A Legend Of San Francisco. The Devil And The Broker: A
+Mediaeval Legend. The Ogress Of Silver Land; Or, The Diverting History Of
+Prince Badfellah And Prince Bulleboye. The Christmas Gift That Came To
+Rupert: A Story For Little Soldiers.
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The opportunity here offered [Footnote: By the appearance in England
+several years ago of an edition of the author’s writings as then
+collected.] to give some account of the genesis of these Californian
+sketches, and the conditions under which they were conceived, is
+peculiarly tempting to an author who has been obliged to retain a decent
+professional reticence under a cloud of ingenious surmise, theory, and
+misinterpretation. He very gladly seizes this opportunity to establish
+the chronology of the sketches, and incidentally to show that what are
+considered the “happy accidents” of literature are very apt to be the
+results of quite logical and often prosaic processes.
+
+The author’s _first_ volume was published in 1865 in a thin book of
+verse, containing, besides the titular poem, “The Lost Galleon,” various
+patriotic contributions to the lyrics of the Civil War, then raging,
+and certain better known humorous pieces, which have been hitherto
+interspersed with his later poems in separate volumes, but are now
+restored to their former companionship. This was followed in 1867 by
+“The Condensed Novels,” originally contributed to the “San Francisco
+Californian,” a journal then edited by the author, and a number of local
+sketches entitled “Bohemian Papers,” making a single not very plethoric
+volume, the author’s first book of prose. But he deems it worthy of
+consideration that during this period, i.e. from 1862 to 1866,
+he produced “The Society upon the Stanislaus” and “The Story of
+M’liss,”—the first a dialectical poem, the second a Californian
+romance,—his first efforts toward indicating a peculiarly
+characteristic Western American literature. He would like to offer these
+facts as evidence of his very early, half-boyish but very enthusiastic
+belief in such a possibility,—a belief which never deserted him, and
+which, a few years later, from the better-known pages of “The Overland
+Monthly,” he was able to demonstrate to a larger and more cosmopolitan
+audience in the story of “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and the poem of the
+“Heathen Chinee.” But it was one of the anomalies of the very condition
+of life that he worked amidst, and endeavored to portray, that these
+first efforts were rewarded by very little success; and, as he will
+presently show, even “The Luck of Roaring Camp” depended for its
+recognition in California upon its success elsewhere. Hence the critical
+reader will observe that the bulk of these earlier efforts, as shown in
+the first two volumes, were marked by very little flavor of the soil,
+but were addressed to an audience half foreign in their sympathies, and
+still imbued with Eastern or New England habits and literary traditions.
+“Home” was still potent with these voluntary exiles in their moments
+of relaxation. Eastern magazines and current Eastern literature
+formed their literary recreation, and the sale of the better class of
+periodicals was singularly great. Nor was the taste confined to American
+literature. The illustrated and satirical English journals were as
+frequently seen in California as in Massachusetts; and the author
+records that he has experienced more difficulty in procuring a copy of
+“Punch” in an English provincial town than was his fortune at “Red Dog”
+ or “One-Horse Gulch.” An audience thus liberally equipped and familiar
+with the best modern writers was naturally critical and exacting, and
+no one appreciates more than he does the salutary effects of this severe
+discipline upon his earlier efforts.
+
+When the first number of “The Overland Monthly” appeared, the author,
+then its editor, called the publisher’s attention to the lack of any
+distinctive Californian romance in its pages, and averred that, should
+no other contribution come in, he himself would supply the omission
+in the next number. No other contribution was offered, and the author,
+having the plot and general idea already in his mind, in a few days sent
+the manuscript of “The Luck of Roaring Camp” to the printer. He had
+not yet received the proof-sheets when he was suddenly summoned to the
+office of the publisher, whom he found standing the picture of dismay
+and anxiety with the proof before him. The indignation and stupefaction
+of the author can be well understood when he was told that the printer,
+instead of returning the proofs to him, submitted them to the publisher,
+with the emphatic declaration that the matter thereof was so indecent,
+irreligious, and improper that his proof-reader—a young lady—had
+with difficulty been induced to continue its perusal, and that he, as a
+friend of the publisher and a well-wisher of the magazine, was impelled
+to present to him personally this shameless evidence of the manner
+in which the editor was imperilling the future of that enterprise. It
+should be premised that the critic was a man of character and standing,
+the head of a large printing establishment, a church member, and, the
+author thinks, a deacon. In which circumstances the publisher frankly
+admitted to the author that, while he could not agree with all of the
+printer’s criticisms, he thought the story open to grave objection, and
+its publication of doubtful expediency.
+
+Believing only that he was the victim of some extraordinary
+typographical blunder, the author at once sat down and read the proof.
+In its new dress, with the metamorphosis of type,—that metamorphosis
+which every writer so well knows changes his relations to it and makes
+it no longer seem a part of himself,—he was able to read it with
+something of the freshness of an untold tale. As he read on he found
+himself affected, even as he had been affected in the conception and
+writing of it—a feeling so incompatible with the charges against
+it, that he could only lay it down and declare emphatically, albeit
+hopelessly, that he could really see nothing objectionable in it. Other
+opinions were sought and given. To the author’s surprise, he found
+himself in the minority. Finally, the story was submitted to three
+gentlemen of culture and experience, friends of publisher and
+author,—who were unable, however, to come to any clear decision.
+It was, however, suggested to the author that, assuming the natural
+hypothesis that his editorial reasoning might be warped by his literary
+predilections in a consideration of one of his own productions, a
+personal sacrifice would at this juncture be in the last degree heroic.
+This last suggestion had the effect of ending all further discussion,
+for he at once informed the publisher that the question of the propriety
+of the story was no longer at issue: the only question was of his
+capacity to exercise the proper editorial judgment; and that unless he
+was permitted to test that capacity by the publication of the story, and
+abide squarely by the result, he must resign his editorial position. The
+publisher, possibly struck with the author’s confidence, possibly from
+kindliness of disposition to a younger man, yielded, and “The Luck of
+Roaring Camp” was published in the current number of the magazine for
+which it was written, as it was written, without emendation, omission,
+alteration, or apology. A not inconsiderable part of the grotesqueness
+of the situation was the feeling, which the author retained throughout
+the whole affair, of the perfect sincerity, good faith, and seriousness
+of his friend’s—the printer’s—objection, and for many days
+thereafter he was haunted by a consideration of the sufferings of this
+conscientious man, obliged to assist materially in disseminating the
+dangerous and subversive doctrines contained in this baleful fiction.
+What solemn protests must have been laid with the ink on the rollers and
+impressed upon those wicked sheets! what pious warnings must have been
+secretly folded and stitched in that number of “The Overland Monthly”!
+Across the chasm of years and distance the author stretches forth
+the hand of sympathy and forgiveness, not forgetting the gentle
+proof-reader, that chaste and unknown nymph, whose mantling cheeks and
+downcast eyes gave the first indications of warning.
+
+But the troubles of the “Luck” were far from ended. It had secured an
+entrance into the world, but, like its own hero, it was born with an
+evil reputation, and to a community that had yet to learn to love it.
+The secular press, with one or two exceptions, received it coolly,
+and referred to its “singularity;” the religious press frantically
+excommunicated it, and anathematized it as the offspring of evil; the
+high promise of “The Overland Monthly” was said to have been ruined by
+its birth; Christians were cautioned against pollution by its contact;
+practical business men were gravely urged to condemn and frown upon
+this picture of Californian society that was not conducive to Eastern
+immigration; its hapless author was held up to obloquy as a man who had
+abused a sacred trust. If its life and reputation had depended on its
+reception in California, this edition and explanation would alike have
+been needless. But, fortunately, the young “Overland Monthly” had in
+its first number secured a hearing and position throughout the American
+Union, and the author waited the larger verdict. The publisher, albeit
+his worst fears were confirmed, was not a man to weakly regret a
+position he had once taken, and waited also. The return mail from
+the East brought a letter addressed to the “Editor of the ‘Overland
+Monthly,’” enclosing a letter from Fields, Osgood & Co., the publishers
+of “The Atlantic Monthly,” addressed to the—to them—unknown “Author of
+‘The Luck of Roaring Camp.’” This the author opened, and found to be a
+request, upon the most flattering terms, for a story for the “Atlantic”
+ similar to the “Luck.” The same mail brought newspapers and reviews
+welcoming the little foundling of Californian literature with an
+enthusiasm that half frightened its author; but with the placing of that
+letter in the hands of the publisher, who chanced to be standing by his
+side, and who during those dark days had, without the author’s faith,
+sustained the author’s position, he felt that his compensation was full
+and complete.
+
+Thus encouraged, “The Luck of Roaring Camp” was followed by “The
+Outcasts of Poker Flat,” “Miggles,” “Tennessee’s Partner,” and those
+various other characters who had impressed the author when, a mere
+truant schoolboy, he had lived among them. It is hardly necessary to say
+to any observer of human nature that at this time he was advised by
+kind and well-meaning friends to content himself with the success of
+the “Luck,” and not tempt criticism again; or that from that moment
+ever after he was in receipt of that equally sincere contemporaneous
+criticism which assured him gravely that each successive story was
+a falling off from the last. Howbeit, by reinvigorated confidence in
+himself and some conscientious industry, he managed to get together in a
+year six or eight of these sketches, which, in a volume called “The
+Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches,” gave him that encouragement
+in America and England that has since seemed to justify him in swelling
+these records of a picturesque passing civilization into the compass of
+the present edition.
+
+A few words regarding the peculiar conditions of life and society that
+are here rudely sketched, and often but barely outlined. The author is
+aware that, partly from a habit of thought and expression, partly from
+the exigencies of brevity in his narratives, and partly from the habit
+of addressing an audience familiar with the local scenery, he often
+assumes, as premises already granted by the reader, the existence of
+a peculiar and romantic state of civilization, the like of which few
+English readers are inclined to accept without corroborative facts and
+figures. These he could only give by referring to the ephemeral records
+of Californian journals of that date, and the testimony of far-scattered
+witnesses, survivors of the exodus of 1849. He must beg the reader to
+bear in mind that this emigration was either across a continent almost
+unexplored, or by the way of a long and dangerous voyage around Cape
+Horn, and that the promised land itself presented the singular spectacle
+of a patriarchal Latin race who had been left to themselves, forgotten
+by the world, for nearly three hundred years. The faith, courage, vigor,
+youth, and capacity for adventure necessary to this emigration produced
+a body of men as strongly distinctive as the companions of Jason. Unlike
+most pioneers, the majority were men of profession and education; all
+were young, and all had staked their future in the enterprise. Critics
+who have taken large and exhaustive views of mankind and society from
+club windows in Pall Mall or the Fifth Avenue can only accept for
+granted the turbulent chivalry that thronged the streets of San
+Francisco in the gala days of her youth, and must read the blazon of
+their deeds like the doubtful quarterings of the shield of Amadis de
+Gaul. The author has been frequently asked if such and such incidents
+were real,—if he had ever met such and such characters. To this he must
+return the one answer, that in only a single instance was he conscious
+of drawing purely from his imagination and fancy for a character and a
+logical succession of incidents drawn therefrom. A few weeks after
+his story was published, he received a letter, authentically signed,
+_correcting some of the minor details of his facts_ (!), and enclosing
+as corroborative evidence a slip from an old newspaper, wherein the main
+incident of his supposed fanciful creation was recorded with a largeness
+of statement that far transcended his powers of imagination.
+
+He has been repeatedly cautioned, kindly and unkindly, intelligently
+and unintelligently, against his alleged tendency to confuse recognized
+standards of morality by extenuating lives of recklessness, and often
+criminality, with a single solitary virtue. He might easily show that
+he has never written a sermon, that he has never moralized or commented
+upon the actions of his heroes, that he has never voiced a creed or
+obtrusively demonstrated an ethical opinion. He might easily allege
+that this merciful effect of his art arose from the reader’s weak human
+sympathies, and hold himself irresponsible. But he would be conscious of
+a more miserable weakness in thus divorcing himself from his fellow-men
+who in the domain of art must ever walk hand in hand with him. So he
+prefers to say that, of all the various forms in which Cant presents
+itself to suffering humanity, he knows of none so outrageous, so
+illogical, so undemonstrable, so marvelously absurd, as the Cant of
+“Too Much Mercy.” When it shall be proven to him that communities are
+degraded and brought to guilt and crime, suffering or destitution,
+from a predominance of this quality; when he shall see pardoned
+ticket-of-leave men elbowing men of austere lives out of situation and
+position, and the repentant Magdalen supplanting the blameless virgin in
+society,—then he will lay aside his pen and extend his hand to the
+new Draconian discipline in fiction. But until then he will, without
+claiming to be a religious man or a moralist, but simply as an artist,
+reverently and humbly conform to the rules laid down by a Great Poet
+who created the parable of the “Prodigal Son” and the “Good Samaritan,”
+ whose works have lasted eighteen hundred years, and will remain when the
+present writer and his generation are forgotten. And he is conscious of
+uttering no original doctrine in this, but of only voicing the beliefs
+of a few of his literary brethren happily living, and one gloriously
+dead, who never made proclamation of this “from the housetops.”
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+       THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, AND
+
+       OTHER STORIES AND SKETCHES
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP
+
+
+There was commotion in Roaring Camp. It could not have been a fight,
+for in 1850 that was not novel enough to have called together the entire
+settlement. The ditches and claims were not only deserted, but “Tuttle’s
+grocery” had contributed its gamblers, who, it will be remembered,
+calmly continued their game the day that French Pete and Kanaka Joe shot
+each other to death over the bar in the front room. The whole camp
+was collected before a rude cabin on the outer edge of the clearing.
+Conversation was carried on in a low tone, but the name of a woman
+was frequently repeated. It was a name familiar enough in the
+camp,—“Cherokee Sal.”
+
+Perhaps the less said of her the better. She was a coarse and, it is to
+be feared, a very sinful woman. But at that time she was the only woman
+in Roaring Camp, and was just then lying in sore extremity, when she
+most needed the ministration of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned, and
+irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyrdom hard enough to bear
+even when veiled by sympathizing womanhood, but now terrible in her
+loneliness. The primal curse had come to her in that original isolation
+which must have made the punishment of the first transgression so
+dreadful. It was, perhaps, part of the expiation of her sin that, at a
+moment when she most lacked her sex’s intuitive tenderness and care, she
+met only the half-contemptuous faces of her masculine associates. Yet
+a few of the spectators were, I think, touched by her sufferings. Sandy
+Tipton thought it was “rough on Sal,” and, in the contemplation of her
+condition, for a moment rose superior to the fact that he had an ace and
+two bowers in his sleeve.
+
+It will be seen also that the situation was novel. Deaths were by no
+means uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was a new thing. People had
+been dismissed the camp effectively, finally, and with no possibility of
+return; but this was the first time that anybody had been introduced _ab
+initio_. Hence the excitement.
+
+“You go in there, Stumpy,” said a prominent citizen known as “Kentuck,”
+ addressing one of the loungers. “Go in there, and see what you kin do.
+You’ve had experience in them things.”
+
+Perhaps there was a fitness in the selection. Stumpy, in other climes,
+had been the putative head of two families; in fact, it was owing to
+some legal informality in these proceedings that Roaring Camp—a city of
+refuge—was indebted to his company. The crowd approved the choice, and
+Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. The door closed on the
+extempore surgeon and midwife, and Roaring Camp sat down outside, smoked
+its pipe, and awaited the issue.
+
+The assemblage numbered about a hundred men. One or two of these
+were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were
+reckless. Physically they exhibited no indication of their past lives
+and character. The greatest scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion
+of blonde hair; Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy air and
+intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet; the coolest and most courageous
+man was scarcely over five feet in height, with a soft voice and an
+embarrassed, timid manner. The term “roughs” applied to them was a
+distinction rather than a definition. Perhaps in the minor details of
+fingers, toes, ears, etc., the camp may have been deficient, but
+these slight omissions did not detract from their aggregate force. The
+strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand; the best shot had
+but one eye.
+
+Such was the physical aspect of the men that were dispersed around
+the cabin. The camp lay in a triangular valley between two hills and a
+river. The only outlet was a steep trail over the summit of a hill that
+faced the cabin, now illuminated by the rising moon. The suffering woman
+might have seen it from the rude bunk whereon she lay,—seen it winding
+like a silver thread until it was lost in the stars above.
+
+A fire of withered pine boughs added sociability to the gathering. By
+degrees the natural levity of Roaring Camp returned. Bets were freely
+offered and taken regarding the result. Three to five that “Sal would
+get through with it;” even that the child would survive; side bets as
+to the sex and complexion of the coming stranger. In the midst of an
+excited discussion an exclamation came from those nearest the door, and
+the camp stopped to listen. Above the swaying and moaning of the pines,
+the swift rush of the river, and the crackling of the fire rose a sharp,
+querulous cry,—a cry unlike anything heard before in the camp. The
+pines stopped moaning, the river ceased to rush, and the fire to
+crackle. It seemed as if Nature had stopped to listen too.
+
+The camp rose to its feet as one man! It was proposed to explode a
+barrel of gunpowder; but in consideration of the situation of the
+mother, better counsels prevailed, and only a few revolvers were
+discharged; for whether owing to the rude surgery of the camp, or some
+other reason, Cherokee Sal was sinking fast. Within an hour she had
+climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so
+passed out of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame, forever. I do not think
+that the announcement disturbed them much, except in speculation as
+to the fate of the child. “Can he live now?” was asked of Stumpy. The
+answer was doubtful. The only other being of Cherokee Sal’s sex
+and maternal condition in the settlement was an ass. There was some
+conjecture as to fitness, but the experiment was tried. It was less
+problematical than the ancient treatment of Romulus and Remus, and
+apparently as successful.
+
+When these details were completed, which exhausted another hour, the
+door was opened, and the anxious crowd of men, who had already formed
+themselves into a queue, entered in single file. Beside the low bunk or
+shelf, on which the figure of the mother was starkly outlined below
+the blankets, stood a pine table. On this a candle-box was placed,
+and within it, swathed in staring red flannel, lay the last arrival at
+Roaring Camp. Beside the candle-box was placed a hat. Its use was
+soon indicated. “Gentlemen,” said Stumpy, with a singular mixture of
+authority and _ex officio_ complacency,—“gentlemen will please pass in
+at the front door, round the table, and out at the back door. Them as
+wishes to contribute anything toward the orphan will find a hat handy.”
+ The first man entered with his hat on; he uncovered, however, as he
+looked about him, and so unconsciously set an example to the next. In
+such communities good and bad actions are catching. As the procession
+filed in comments were audible,—criticisms addressed perhaps rather
+to Stumpy in the character of showman: “Is that him?” “Mighty
+small specimen;” “Hasn’t more’n got the color;” “Ain’t bigger nor a
+derringer.” The contributions were as characteristic: A silver tobacco
+box; a doubloon; a navy revolver, silver mounted; a gold specimen; a
+very beautifully embroidered lady’s handkerchief (from Oakhurst the
+gambler); a diamond breastpin; a diamond ring (suggested by the pin,
+with the remark from the giver that he “saw that pin and went two
+diamonds better”); a slung-shot; a Bible (contributor not detected); a
+golden spur; a silver teaspoon (the initials, I regret to say, were not
+the giver’s); a pair of surgeon’s shears; a lancet; a Bank of England
+note for £5; and about $200 in loose gold and silver coin. During these
+proceedings Stumpy maintained a silence as impassive as the dead on his
+left, a gravity as inscrutable as that of the newly born on his
+right. Only one incident occurred to break the monotony of the curious
+procession. As Kentuck bent over the candle-box half curiously, the
+child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at his groping finger,
+and held it fast for a moment. Kentuck looked foolish and embarrassed.
+Something like a blush tried to assert itself in his weather-beaten
+cheek. “The d—d little cuss!” he said, as he extricated his finger,
+with perhaps more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed
+capable of showing. He held that finger a little apart from its fellows
+as he went out, and examined it curiously. The examination provoked the
+same original remark in regard to the child. In fact, he seemed to
+enjoy repeating it. “He rastled with my finger,” he remarked to Tipton,
+holding up the member, “the d—d little cuss!”
+
+It was four o’clock before the camp sought repose. A light burnt in the
+cabin where the watchers sat, for Stumpy did not go to bed that night.
+Nor did Kentuck. He drank quite freely, and related with great gusto his
+experience, invariably ending with his characteristic condemnation of
+the newcomer. It seemed to relieve him of any unjust implication of
+sentiment, and Kentuck had the weaknesses of the nobler sex. When
+everybody else had gone to bed, he walked down to the river and
+whistled reflectingly. Then he walked up the gulch past the cabin,
+still whistling with demonstrative unconcern. At a large redwood-tree he
+paused and retraced his steps, and again passed the cabin. Halfway down
+to the river’s bank he again paused, and then returned and knocked at
+the door. It was opened by Stumpy. “How goes it?” said Kentuck, looking
+past Stumpy toward the candle-box. “All serene!” replied Stumpy.
+“Anything up?” “Nothing.” There was a pause—an embarrassing one—Stumpy
+still holding the door. Then Kentuck had recourse to his finger, which
+he held up to Stumpy. “Rastled with it,—the d—d little cuss,” he said,
+and retired.
+
+The next day Cherokee Sal had such rude sepulture as Roaring Camp
+afforded. After her body had been committed to the hillside, there was
+a formal meeting of the camp to discuss what should be done with her
+infant. A resolution to adopt it was unanimous and enthusiastic. But an
+animated discussion in regard to the manner and feasibility of providing
+for its wants at once sprang up. It was remarkable that the argument
+partook of none of those fierce personalities with which discussions
+were usually conducted at Roaring Camp. Tipton proposed that they should
+send the child to Red Dog,—a distance of forty miles,—where female
+attention could be procured. But the unlucky suggestion met with fierce
+and unanimous opposition. It was evident that no plan which entailed
+parting from their new acquisition would for a moment be entertained.
+“Besides,” said Tom Ryder, “them fellows at Red Dog would swap it, and
+ring in somebody else on us.” A disbelief in the honesty of other camps
+prevailed at Roaring Camp, as in other places.
+
+The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection.
+It was argued that no decent woman could be prevailed to accept Roaring
+Camp as her home, and the speaker urged that “they didn’t want any more
+of the other kind.” This unkind allusion to the defunct mother, harsh as
+it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety,—the first symptom of the
+camp’s regeneration. Stumpy advanced nothing. Perhaps he felt a certain
+delicacy in interfering with the selection of a possible successor in
+office. But when questioned, he averred stoutly that he and “Jinny”—the
+mammal before alluded to—could manage to rear the child. There was
+something original, independent, and heroic about the plan that pleased
+the camp. Stumpy was retained. Certain articles were sent for to
+Sacramento. “Mind,” said the treasurer, as he pressed a bag of gold-dust
+into the expressman’s hand, “the best that can be got,—lace, you know,
+and filigree-work and frills,—d—n the cost!” Strange to say, the
+child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of the mountain camp was
+compensation for material deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her
+broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foothills,—that
+air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal cordial at once bracing
+and exhilarating,—he may have found food and nourishment, or a subtle
+chemistry that transmuted ass’s milk to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy
+inclined to the belief that it was the latter and good nursing. “Me and
+that ass,” he would say, “has been father and mother to him! Don’t you,”
+ he would add, apostrophizing the helpless bundle before him, “never go
+back on us.”
+
+By the time he was a month old the necessity of giving him a name became
+apparent. He had generally been known as “The Kid,” “Stumpy’s Boy,”
+ “The Coyote” (an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by Kentuck’s
+endearing diminutive of “The d—d little cuss.” But these were felt to
+be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another
+influence. Gamblers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and
+Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought “the luck” to
+Roaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been successful.
+“Luck” was the name agreed upon, with the prefix of Tommy for greater
+convenience. No allusion was made to the mother, and the father was
+unknown. “It’s better,” said the philosophical Oakhurst, “to take a
+fresh deal all round. Call him Luck, and start him fair.” A day was
+accordingly set apart for the christening. What was meant by this
+ceremony the reader may imagine who has already gathered some idea of
+the reckless irreverence of Roaring Camp. The master of ceremonies
+was one “Boston,” a noted wag, and the occasion seemed to promise the
+greatest facetiousness. This ingenious satirist had spent two days
+in preparing a burlesque of the Church service, with pointed local
+allusions. The choir was properly trained, and Sandy Tipton was to stand
+godfather. But after the procession had marched to the grove with music
+and banners, and the child had been deposited before a mock altar,
+Stumpy stepped before the expectant crowd. “It ain’t my style to spoil
+fun, boys,” said the little man, stoutly eying the faces around him,
+“but it strikes me that this thing ain’t exactly on the squar. It’s
+playing it pretty low down on this yer baby to ring in fun on him that
+he ain’t goin’ to understand. And ef there’s goin’ to be any godfathers
+round, I’d like to see who’s got any better rights than me.” A silence
+followed Stumpy’s speech. To the credit of all humorists be it said that
+the first man to acknowledge its justice was the satirist thus stopped
+of his fun. “But,” said Stumpy, quickly following up his advantage,
+“we’re here for a christening, and we’ll have it. I proclaim you Thomas
+Luck, according to the laws of the United States and the State of
+California, so help me God.” It was the first time that the name of the
+Deity had been otherwise uttered than profanely in the camp. The form
+of christening was perhaps even more ludicrous than the satirist had
+conceived; but strangely enough, nobody saw it and nobody laughed.
+“Tommy” was christened as seriously as he would have been under a
+Christian roof, and cried and was comforted in as orthodox fashion.
+
+And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp. Almost
+imperceptibly a change came over the settlement. The cabin assigned to
+“Tommy Luck”—or “The Luck,” as he was more frequently called—first
+showed signs of improvement. It was kept scrupulously clean and
+whitewashed. Then it was boarded, clothed, and papered. The rosewood,
+cradle, packed eighty miles by mule, had, in Stumpy’s way of putting it,
+“sorter killed the rest of the furniture.” So the rehabilitation of the
+cabin became a necessity. The men who were in the habit of lounging
+in at Stumpy’s to see “how ‘The Luck’ got on” seemed to appreciate
+the change, and in self-defense the rival establishment of “Tuttle’s
+grocery” bestirred itself and imported a carpet and mirrors. The
+reflections of the latter on the appearance of Roaring Camp tended to
+produce stricter habits of personal cleanliness. Again Stumpy imposed a
+kind of quarantine upon those who aspired to the honor and privilege of
+holding The Luck. It was a cruel mortification to Kentuck—who, in the
+carelessness of a large nature and the habits of frontier life, had
+begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle, which, like a snake’s,
+only sloughed off through decay—to be debarred this privilege from
+certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the subtle influence of
+innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly every afternoon in a
+clean shirt and face still shining from his ablutions. Nor were moral
+and social sanitary laws neglected. “Tommy,” who was supposed to spend
+his whole existence in a persistent attempt to repose, must not be
+disturbed by noise. The shouting and yelling, which had gained the camp
+its infelicitous title, were not permitted within hearing distance of
+Stumpy’s. The men conversed in whispers or smoked with Indian gravity.
+Profanity was tacitly given up in these sacred precincts, and throughout
+the camp a popular form of expletive, known as “D—n the luck!” and
+“Curse the luck!” was abandoned, as having a new personal bearing.
+Vocal music was not interdicted, being supposed to have a soothing,
+tranquilizing quality; and one song, sung by “Man-o’-War Jack,” an
+English sailor from her Majesty’s Australian colonies, was quite popular
+as a lullaby. It was a lugubrious recital of the exploits of “the
+Arethusa, Seventy-four,” in a muffled minor, ending with a prolonged
+dying fall at the burden of each verse, “On b-oo-o-ard of the Arethusa.”
+ It was a fine sight to see Jack holding The Luck, rocking from side
+to side as if with the motion of a ship, and crooning forth this naval
+ditty. Either through the peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his
+song,—it contained ninety stanzas, and was continued with conscientious
+deliberation to the bitter end,—the lullaby generally had the desired
+effect. At such times the men would lie at full length under the trees
+in the soft summer twilight, smoking their pipes and drinking in
+the melodious utterances. An indistinct idea that this was pastoral
+happiness pervaded the camp. “This ’ere kind o’ think,” said the Cockney
+Simmons, meditatively reclining on his elbow, “is ’evingly.” It reminded
+him of Greenwich.
+
+On the long summer days The Luck was usually carried to the gulch from
+whence the golden store of Roaring Camp was taken. There, on a blanket
+spread over pine boughs, he would lie while the men were working in the
+ditches below. Latterly there was a rude attempt to decorate this bower
+with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs, and generally some one would
+bring him a cluster of wild honeysuckles, azaleas, or the painted
+blossoms of Las Mariposas. The men had suddenly awakened to the fact
+that there were beauty and significance in these trifles, which they
+had so long trodden carelessly beneath their feet. A flake of glittering
+mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a bright pebble from the bed of
+the creek, became beautiful to eyes thus cleared and strengthened,
+and were invariably put aside for The Luck. It was wonderful how many
+treasures the woods and hillsides yielded that “would do for Tommy.”
+ Surrounded by playthings such as never child out of fairyland had
+before, it is to be hoped that Tommy was content. He appeared to be
+serenely happy, albeit there was an infantine gravity about him, a
+contemplative light in his round gray eyes, that sometimes worried
+Stumpy. He was always tractable and quiet, and it is recorded that once,
+having crept beyond his “corral,”—a hedge of tessellated pine boughs,
+which surrounded his bed,—he dropped over the bank on his head in
+the soft earth, and remained with his mottled legs in the air in that
+position for at least five minutes with unflinching gravity. He was
+extricated without a murmur. I hesitate to record the many other
+instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfortunately, upon the
+statements of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a tinge
+of superstition. “I crep’ up the bank just now,” said Kentuck one day,
+in a breathless state of excitement, “and dern my skin if he wasn’t
+a-talking to a jaybird as was a-sittin’ on his lap. There they was, just
+as free and sociable as anything you please, a-jawin’ at each other just
+like two cherrybums.” Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine boughs or
+lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above him, to him the
+birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed. Nature was
+his nurse and playfellow. For him she would let slip between the leaves
+golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within his grasp; she would
+send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay and resinous
+gum; to him the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the
+bumblebees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumberous accompaniment.
+
+Such was the golden summer of Roaring Camp. They were “flush times,” and
+the luck was with them. The claims had yielded enormously. The camp
+was jealous of its privileges and looked suspiciously on strangers. No
+encouragement was given to immigration, and, to make their seclusion
+more perfect, the land on either side of the mountain wall that
+surrounded the camp they duly preempted. This, and a reputation for
+singular proficiency with the revolver, kept the reserve of Roaring
+Camp inviolate. The expressman—their only connecting link with the
+surrounding world—sometimes told wonderful stories of the camp. He
+would say, “They’ve a street up there in ‘Roaring’ that would lay over
+any street in Red Dog. They’ve got vines and flowers round their houses,
+and they wash themselves twice a day. But they’re mighty rough on
+strangers, and they worship an Ingin baby.”
+
+With the prosperity of the camp came a desire for further improvement.
+It was proposed to build a hotel in the following spring, and to invite
+one or two decent families to reside there for the sake of The Luck, who
+might perhaps profit by female companionship. The sacrifice that this
+concession to the sex cost these men, who were fiercely skeptical in
+regard to its general virtue and usefulness, can only be accounted for
+by their affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But the resolve
+could not be carried into effect for three months, and the minority
+meekly yielded in the hope that something might turn up to prevent it.
+And it did.
+
+The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foothills. The snow
+lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river,
+and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a
+tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant
+trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had
+been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned. “Water put
+the gold into them gulches,” said Stumpy. “It’s been here once and will
+be here again!” And that night the North Fork suddenly leaped over its
+banks and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring Camp.
+
+In the confusion of rushing water, crashing trees, and crackling timber,
+and the darkness which seemed to flow with the water and blot out the
+fair valley, but little could be done to collect the scattered camp.
+When the morning broke, the cabin of Stumpy, nearest the river-bank, was
+gone. Higher up the gulch they found the body of its unlucky owner; but
+the pride, the hope, the joy, The Luck, of Roaring Camp had disappeared.
+They were returning with sad hearts when a shout from the bank recalled
+them.
+
+It was a relief-boat from down the river. They had picked up, they
+said, a man and an infant, nearly exhausted, about two miles below. Did
+anybody know them, and did they belong here?
+
+It needed but a glance to show them Kentuck lying there, cruelly crushed
+and bruised, but still holding The Luck of Roaring Camp in his arms. As
+they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they saw that the child was
+cold and pulseless. “He is dead,” said one. Kentuck opened his eyes.
+“Dead?” he repeated feebly. “Yes, my man, and you are dying too.” A
+smile lit the eyes of the expiring Kentuck. “Dying!” he repeated; “he’s
+a-taking me with him. Tell the boys I’ve got The Luck with me now;” and
+the strong man, clinging to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to
+cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever
+to the unknown sea.
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT
+
+
+As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker
+Flat on the morning of the 23d of November, 1850, he was conscious of a
+change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or
+three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and
+exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air,
+which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.
+
+Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these
+indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was
+another question. “I reckon they’re after somebody,” he reflected;
+“likely it’s me.” He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which
+he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat
+boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.
+
+In point of fact, Poker Flat was “after somebody.” It had lately
+suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and
+a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction,
+quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked
+it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper
+persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then
+hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in
+the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I regret to
+say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however,
+to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in
+such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to
+sit in judgment.
+
+Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this
+category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible
+example and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets of
+the sums he had won from them. “It’s agin justice,” said Jim Wheeler,
+“to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp—an entire stranger—carry
+away our money.” But a crude sentiment of equity residing in the
+breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst
+overruled this narrower local prejudice.
+
+Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the
+less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was
+too much of a gambler not to accept fate. With him life was at best an
+uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the
+dealer.
+
+A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to
+the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to
+be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed
+escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman
+familiarly known as “The Duchess;” another who had won the title of
+“Mother Shipton;” and “Uncle Billy,” a suspected, sluice-robber
+and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the
+spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only when the gulch
+which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader
+spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return at
+the peril of their lives.
+
+As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a
+few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother
+Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The
+philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother
+Shipton’s desire to cut somebody’s heart out, to the repeated statements
+of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths
+that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode forward. With the
+easy good humor characteristic of his class, he insisted upon exchanging
+his own riding-horse, “Five-Spot,” for the sorry mule which the Duchess
+rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer sympathy.
+The young woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble,
+faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of “Five-Spot” with
+malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the whole party in one sweeping
+anathema.
+
+The road to Sandy Bar—a camp that, not having as yet experienced the
+regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer some
+invitation to the emigrants—lay over a steep mountain range. It was
+distant a day’s severe travel. In that advanced season the party soon
+passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foothills into
+the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was narrow and
+difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon the
+ground, declared her intention of going no farther, and the party
+halted.
+
+The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre,
+surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped
+gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked the valley.
+It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp, had camping been
+advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half the journey to Sandy
+Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped or provisioned
+for delay. This fact he pointed out to his companions curtly, with a
+philosophic commentary on the folly of “throwing up their hand before
+the game was played out.” But they were furnished with liquor, which in
+this emergency stood them in place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience.
+In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long before they were more or
+less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose
+state into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton
+snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a rock,
+calmly surveying them.
+
+Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which
+required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his own
+language, he “couldn’t afford it.” As he gazed at his recumbent fellow
+exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah trade, his habits of life,
+his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him. He bestirred
+himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands and face, and
+other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits, and for a
+moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his weaker and
+more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not
+help feeling the want of that excitement which, singularly enough, was
+most conducive to that calm equanimity for which he was notorious. He
+looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above the
+circling pines around him, at the sky ominously clouded, at the valley
+below, already deepening into shadow; and, doing so, suddenly he heard
+his own name called.
+
+A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the
+newcomer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as “The
+Innocent,” of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over
+a “little game,” and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire
+fortune—amounting to some forty dollars—of that guileless youth. After
+the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator behind
+the door and thus addressed him: “Tommy, you’re a good little man, but
+you can’t gamble worth a cent. Don’t try it over again.” He then handed
+him his money hack, pushed him gently from the room, and so made a
+devoted slave of Tom Simson.
+
+There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic greeting
+of Mr. Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat to seek
+his fortune. “Alone?” No, not exactly alone; in fact (a giggle), he had
+run away with Piney Woods. Didn’t Mr. Oakhurst remember Piney? She that
+used to wait on the table at the Temperance House? They had been engaged
+a long time, but old Jake Woods had objected, and so they had run away,
+and were going to Poker Flat to be married, and here they were. And they
+were tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a place to camp, and
+company. All this the Innocent delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout,
+comely damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind the pine-tree, where she
+had been blushing unseen, and rode to the side of her lover.
+
+Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less with
+propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not fortunate.
+He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to kick Uncle
+Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough
+to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst’s kick a superior power that would not
+bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying
+further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there was no
+provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, the Innocent met
+this objection by assuring the party that he was provided with an extra
+mule loaded with provisions, and by the discovery of a rude attempt at a
+log house near the trail. “Piney can stay with Mrs. Oakhurst,” said the
+Innocent, pointing to the Duchess, “and I can shift for myself.”
+
+Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst’s admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from
+bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire
+up the canon until he could recover his gravity. There he confided the
+joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of
+his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned to the party, he
+found them seated by a fire—for the air had grown strangely chill
+and the sky overcast—in apparently amicable conversation. Piney was
+actually talking in an impulsive girlish fashion to the Duchess, who
+was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown for many
+days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently with equal effect,
+to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into
+amiability. “Is this yer a d—d picnic?” said Uncle Billy, with inward
+scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the
+tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the
+alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular
+nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist
+into his mouth.
+
+As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked the
+tops of the pine-trees and moaned through their long and gloomy aisles.
+The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine boughs, was set apart
+for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly exchanged a
+kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard above the
+swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother Shipton were
+probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity,
+and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was replenished, the
+men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes were asleep.
+
+Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed and
+cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing
+strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood to leave
+it,—snow!
+
+He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers,
+for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had been
+lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain, and a curse
+to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been tethered—they
+were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly disappearing in
+the snow.
+
+The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with
+his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered
+peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the virgin
+Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended
+by celestial guardians; and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his blanket over his
+shoulders, stroked his mustaches and waited for the dawn. It came slowly
+in a whirling mist of snowflakes that dazzled and confused the eye. What
+could be seen of the landscape appeared magically changed. He looked
+over the valley, and summed up the present and future in two words,
+“Snowed in!”
+
+A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the party,
+had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious fingers of
+Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence they might
+last ten days longer. “That is,” said Mr. Oakhurst _sotto voce_ to the
+Innocent, “if you’re willing to board us. If you ain’t—and perhaps
+you’d better not—you can wait till Uncle Billy gets back with
+provisions.” For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could not bring
+himself to disclose Uncle Billy’s rascality, and so offered the
+hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally
+stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother
+Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate’s defection.
+“They’ll find out the truth about us _all_ when they find out anything,”
+ he added significantly, “and there’s no good frightening them now.”
+
+Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr.
+Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion.
+“We’ll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow’ll melt, and we’ll
+all go back together.” The cheerful gayety of the young man and Mr.
+Oakhurst’s calm infected the others. The Innocent, with the aid of pine
+boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless cabin, and the Duchess
+directed Piney in the rearrangement of the interior with a taste and
+tact that opened the blue eyes of that provincial maiden to their
+fullest extent. “I reckon now you’re used to fine things at Poker Flat,”
+ said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharply to conceal something that
+reddened her cheeks through their professional tint, and Mother Shipton
+requested Piney not to “chatter.” But when Mr. Oakhurst returned from a
+weary search for the trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter
+echoed from the rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and his thoughts first
+naturally reverted to the whiskey, which he had prudently cached. “And
+yet it don’t somehow sound like whiskey,” said the gambler. It was not
+until he caught sight of the blazing fire through the still blinding
+storm, and the group around it, that he settled to the conviction that
+it was “square fun.”
+
+Whether Mr. Oakhurst had cached his cards with the whiskey as something
+debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say. It was certain
+that, in Mother Shipton’s words, he “didn’t say ‘cards’ once” during
+that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an accordion, produced
+somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his pack. Notwithstanding
+some difficulties attending the manipulation of this instrument, Piney
+Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys, to
+an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the
+crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting
+hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness and
+vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanter’s swing
+to its chorus, rather than any devotional quality, caused it speedily to
+infect the others, who at last joined in the refrain:—
+
+  “I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord, And I’m bound to die
+  in His army.”
+
+The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable
+group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in token
+of the vow.
+
+At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the
+stars glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose
+professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible
+amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson somehow managed
+to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused himself
+to the Innocent by saying that he had “often been a week without sleep.”
+ “Doing what?” asked Tom. “Poker!” replied Oakhurst sententiously. “When
+a man gets a streak of luck,—nigger-luck,—he don’t get tired. The luck
+gives in first. Luck,” continued the gambler reflectively, “is a mighty
+queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it’s bound to
+change. And it’s finding out when it’s going to change that makes you.
+We’ve had a streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat,—you come
+along, and slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your cards
+right along you’re all right. For,” added the gambler, with cheerful
+irrelevance—
+
+  “‘I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord, And I’m bound to die
+  in His army.’”
+
+The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained
+valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of
+provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that
+mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry
+landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it
+revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut,—a hopeless,
+uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which
+the castaways still clung. Through the marvelously clear air the smoke
+of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles away. Mother Shipton
+saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness hurled in that
+direction a final malediction. It was her last vituperative attempt, and
+perhaps for that reason was invested with a certain degree of sublimity.
+It did her good, she privately informed the Duchess. “Just you go out
+there and cuss, and see.” She then set herself to the task of amusing
+“the child,” as she and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Piney
+was no chicken, but it was a soothing and original theory of the pair
+thus to account for the fact that she didn’t swear and wasn’t improper.
+
+When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the
+accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the
+flickering campfire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching
+void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by
+Piney,—story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions
+caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have failed
+too, but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced upon a
+stray copy of Mr. Pope’s ingenious translation of the Iliad. He now
+proposed to narrate the principal incidents of that poem—having
+thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words—in the
+current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that night the
+Homeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily Greek
+wrestled in the winds, and the great pines in the canon seemed to bow
+to the wrath of the son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet
+satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the fate of
+“Ash-heels,” as the Innocent persisted in denominating the “swift-footed
+Achilles.”
+
+So, with small food and much of Homer and the accordion, a week passed
+over the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again
+from leaden skies the snowflakes were sifted over the land. Day by day
+closer around them drew the snowy circle, until at last they looked from
+their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white, that towered twenty
+feet above their heads. It became more and more difficult to replenish
+their fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now half hidden in
+the drifts. And yet no one complained. The lovers turned from the dreary
+prospect and looked into each other’s eyes, and were happy. Mr. Oakhurst
+settled himself coolly to the losing game before him. The Duchess,
+more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother
+Shipton—once the strongest of the party—seemed to sicken and fade. At
+midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to her side. “I’m going,”
+ she said, in a voice of querulous weakness, “but don’t say anything
+about it. Don’t waken the kids. Take the bundle from under my head, and
+open it.” Mr. Oakhurst did so. It contained Mother Shipton’s rations for
+the last week, untouched. “Give ’em to the child,” she said, pointing to
+the sleeping Piney. “You’ve starved yourself,” said the gambler. “That’s
+what they call it,” said the woman querulously, as she lay down again,
+and, turning her face to the wall, passed quietly away.
+
+The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was
+forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to the
+snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a pair of
+snow-shoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-saddle.
+
+“There’s one chance in a hundred to save her yet,” he said, pointing to
+Piney; “but it’s there,” he added, pointing toward Poker Flat. “If you
+can reach there in two days she’s safe.”
+
+“And you?” asked Tom Simson. “I’ll stay here,” was the curt reply.
+The lovers parted with a long embrace.
+
+“You are not going, too?” said the Duchess, as she saw Mr. Oakhurst
+apparently waiting to accompany him. “As far as the canon,” he
+replied. He turned suddenly and kissed the Duchess, leaving her
+pallid face aflame, and her trembling limbs rigid with amazement.
+
+Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and the
+whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some one
+had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days longer.
+The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney.
+
+The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each other’s
+faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke, but Piney, accepting the
+position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around the
+Duchess’s waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of the day. That
+night the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the
+protecting vines, invaded the very hut.
+
+Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which
+gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept
+closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: “Piney, can you
+pray?” “No, dear,” said Piney simply. The Duchess, without knowing
+exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney’s shoulder,
+spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the
+head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they fell asleep.
+
+The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of snow,
+shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white winged birds, and
+settled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted clouds
+looked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain, all trace
+of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifully
+flung from above.
+
+They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices
+and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers
+brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told from
+the equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had sinned. Even
+the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them
+still locked in each other’s arms.
+
+But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees, they
+found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It bore
+the following, written in pencil in a firm hand:—
+
+  BENEATH THIS TREE LIES THE BODY OF JOHN OAKHURST, WHO STRUCK A
+  STREAK OF BAD LUCK ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER 1850. AND HANDED IN HIS
+  CHECKS ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.
+
+And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in his
+heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at
+once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.
+
+
+
+
+MIGGLES
+
+
+We were eight including the driver. We had not spoken during the passage
+of the last six miles, since the jolting of the heavy vehicle over the
+roughening road had spoiled the Judge’s last poetical quotation. The
+tall man beside the Judge was asleep, his arm passed through the swaying
+strap and his head resting upon it,—altogether a limp, helpless looking
+object, as if he had hanged himself and been cut down too late. The
+French lady on the back seat was asleep too, yet in a half-conscious
+propriety of attitude, shown even in the disposition of the handkerchief
+which she held to her forehead and which partially veiled her face. The
+lady from Virginia City, traveling with her husband, had long since
+lost all individuality in a wild confusion of ribbons, veils, furs, and
+shawls. There was no sound but the rattling of wheels and the dash of
+rain upon the roof. Suddenly the stage stopped and we became dimly aware
+of voices. The driver was evidently in the midst of an exciting colloquy
+with some one in the road,—a colloquy of which such fragments as
+“bridge gone,” “twenty feet of water,” “can’t pass,” were occasionally
+distinguishable above the storm. Then came a lull, and a mysterious
+voice from the road shouted the parting adjuration—
+
+“Try Miggles’s.”
+
+We caught a glimpse of our leaders as the vehicle slowly turned, of a
+horseman vanishing through the rain, and we were evidently on our way to
+Miggles’s.
+
+Who and where was Miggles? The Judge, our authority, did not remember
+the name, and he knew the country thoroughly. The Washoe traveler
+thought Miggles must keep a hotel. We only knew that we were stopped by
+high water in front and rear, and that Miggles was our rock of refuge.
+A ten minutes’ splashing through a tangled byroad, scarcely wide enough
+for the stage, and we drew up before a barred and boarded gate in a
+wide stone wall or fence about eight feet high. Evidently Miggles’s, and
+evidently Miggles did not keep a hotel.
+
+The driver got down and tried the gate. It was securely locked.
+
+“Miggles! O Miggles!”
+
+No answer.
+
+“Migg-ells! You Miggles!” continued the driver, with rising wrath.
+
+“Migglesy!” joined in the expressman persuasively. “O Miggy! Mig!”
+
+But no reply came from the apparently insensate Miggles. The Judge,
+who had finally got the window down, put his head out and propounded
+a series of questions, which if answered categorically would have
+undoubtedly elucidated the whole mystery, but which the driver evaded
+by replying that “if we didn’t want to sit in the coach all night we had
+better rise up and sing out for Miggles.”
+
+So we rose up and called on Miggles in chorus, then separately. And when
+we had finished, a Hibernian fellow passenger from the roof called for
+“Maygells!” whereat we all laughed. While we were laughing the driver
+cried, “Shoo!”
+
+We listened. To our infinite amazement the chorus of “Miggles” was
+repeated from the other side of the wall, even to the final and
+supplemental “Maygells.”
+
+“Extraordinary echo!” said the Judge.
+
+“Extraordinary d—d skunk!” roared the driver contemptuously. “Come out
+of that, Miggles, and show yourself! Be a man, Miggles! Don’t hide in
+the dark; I wouldn’t if I were you, Miggles,” continued Yuba Bill, now
+dancing about in an excess of fury.
+
+“Miggles!” continued the voice, “O Miggles!”
+
+“My good man! Mr. Myghail!” said the Judge, softening the asperities of
+the name as much as possible. “Consider the inhospitality of refusing
+shelter from the inclemency of the weather to helpless females. Really,
+my dear sir”—But a succession of “Miggles,” ending in a burst of
+laughter, drowned his voice.
+
+Yuba Bill hesitated no longer. Taking a heavy stone from the road, he
+battered down the gate, and with the expressman entered the inclosure.
+We followed. Nobody was to be seen. In the gathering darkness all that
+we could distinguish was that we were in a garden—from the rose bushes
+that scattered over us a minute spray from their dripping leaves—and
+before a long, rambling wooden building.
+
+“Do you know this Miggles?” asked the Judge of Yuba Bill.
+
+“No, nor don’t want to,” said Bill shortly, who felt the Pioneer Stage
+Company insulted in his person by the contumacious Miggles.
+
+“But, my dear sir,” expostulated the Judge, as he thought of the barred
+gate.
+
+“Lookee here,” said Yuba Bill, with fine irony, “hadn’t you better go
+back and sit in the coach till yer introduced? I’m going in,” and he
+pushed open the door of the building.
+
+A long room, lighted only by the embers of a fire that was dying on the
+large hearth at its farther extremity; the walls curiously papered, and
+the flickering firelight bringing out its grotesque pattern; someone
+sitting in a large armchair by the fireplace. All this we saw as we
+crowded together into the room after the driver and expressman. “Hello!
+be you Miggles?” said Yuba Bill to the solitary occupant.
+
+The figure neither spoke nor stirred. Yuba Bill walked wrathfully toward
+it and turned the eye of his coach-lantern upon its face. It was a man’s
+face, prematurely old and wrinkled, with very large eyes, in which
+there was that expression of perfectly gratuitous solemnity which I had
+sometimes seen in an owl’s. The large eyes wandered from Bill’s face
+to the lantern, and finally fixed their gaze on that luminous object
+without further recognition.
+
+Bill restrained himself with an effort.
+
+“Miggles! be you deaf? You ain’t dumb anyhow, you know,” and Yuba Bill
+shook the insensate figure by the shoulder.
+
+To our great dismay, as Bill removed his hand, the venerable
+stranger apparently collapsed, sinking into half his size and an
+indistinguishable heap of clothing.
+
+“Well, dern my skin,” said Bill, looking appealingly at us, and
+hopelessly retiring from the contest.
+
+The Judge now stepped forward, and we lifted the mysterious invertebrate
+back into his original position. Bill was dismissed with the lantern to
+reconnoitre outside, for it was evident that, from the helplessness of
+this solitary man, there must be attendants near at hand, and we all
+drew around the fire. The Judge, who had regained his authority, and had
+never lost his conversational amiability,—standing before us with his
+back to the hearth,—charged us, as an imaginary jury, as follows:—
+
+“It is evident that either our distinguished friend here has reached
+that condition described by Shakespeare as ‘the sere and yellow leaf,’
+or has suffered some premature abatement of his mental and physical
+faculties. Whether he is really the Miggles”—
+
+Here he was interrupted by “Miggles! O Miggles! Migglesy! Mig!” and, in
+fact, the whole chorus of Miggles in very much the same key as it had
+once before been delivered unto us.
+
+We gazed at each other for a moment in some alarm. The Judge, in
+particular, vacated his position quickly, as the voice seemed to come
+directly over his shoulder. The cause, however, was soon discovered in
+a large magpie who was perched upon a shelf over the fireplace, and
+who immediately relapsed into a sepulchral silence, which contrasted
+singularly with his previous volubility. It was, undoubtedly, his voice
+which we had heard in the road, and our friend in the chair was not
+responsible for the discourtesy. Yuba Bill, who reentered the room after
+an unsuccessful search, was both to accept the explanation, and still
+eyed the helpless sitter with suspicion. He had found a shed in which
+he had put up his horses, but he came back dripping and skeptical. “Thar
+ain’t nobody but him within ten mile of the shanty, and that ar d—d old
+skeesicks knows it.”
+
+But the faith of the majority proved to be securely based. Bill had
+scarcely ceased growling before we heard a quick step upon the porch,
+the trailing of a wet skirt, the door was flung open, and with a flash
+of white teeth, a sparkle of dark eyes, and an utter absence of ceremony
+or diffidence, a young woman entered, shut the door, and, panting,
+leaned back against it.
+
+“Oh, if you please, I’m Miggles!”
+
+And this was Miggles! this bright-eyed, full-throated young woman, whose
+wet gown of coarse blue stuff could not hide the beauty of the feminine
+curves to which it clung; from the chestnut crown of whose head, topped
+by a man’s oil-skin sou’wester, to the little feet and ankles, hidden
+somewhere in the recesses of her boy’s brogans, all was grace,—this was
+Miggles, laughing at us, too, in the most airy, frank, off-hand manner
+imaginable.
+
+“You see, boys,” said she, quite out of breath, and holding one little
+hand against her side, quite unheeding the speechless discomfiture of
+our party or the complete demoralization of Yuba Bill, whose
+features had relaxed into an expression of gratuitous and imbecile
+cheerfulness,—“you see, boys, I was mor’n two miles away when you
+passed down the road. I thought you might pull up here, and so I ran
+the whole way, knowing nobody was home but Jim,—and—and—I’m out of
+breath—and—that lets me out.” And here Miggles caught her dripping
+oilskin hat from her head, with a mischievous swirl that scattered a
+shower of raindrops over us; attempted to put back her hair; dropped two
+hairpins in the attempt; laughed, and sat down beside Yuba Bill, with
+her hands crossed lightly on her lap.
+
+The Judge recovered himself first and essayed an extravagant compliment.
+
+“I’ll trouble you for that ha’rpin,” said Miggles gravely. Half a dozen
+hands were eagerly stretched forward; the missing hairpin was restored
+to its fair owner; and Miggles, crossing the room, looked keenly in
+the face of the invalid. The solemn eyes looked back at hers with an
+expression we had never seen before. Life and intelligence seemed to
+struggle back into the rugged face. Miggles laughed again,—it was a
+singularly eloquent laugh,—and turned her black eyes and white teeth
+once more towards us.
+
+“This afflicted person is”—hesitated the Judge.
+
+“Jim!” said Miggles.
+
+“Your father?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Brother?”
+
+“No?”
+
+“Husband?”
+
+Miggles darted a quick, half-defiant glance at the two lady passengers,
+who I had noticed did not participate in the general masculine
+admiration of Miggles, and said gravely, “No; it’s Jim!” There was
+an awkward pause. The lady passengers moved closer to each other;
+the Washoe husband looked abstractedly at the fire, and the tall man
+apparently turned his eyes inward for self-support at this emergency.
+But Miggles’s laugh, which was very infectious, broke the silence.
+
+“Come,” she said briskly, “you must be hungry. Who’ll bear a hand to
+help me get tea?”
+
+She had no lack of volunteers. In a few moments Yuba Bill was engaged
+like Caliban in bearing logs for this Miranda; the expressman was
+grinding coffee on the veranda; to myself the arduous duty of slicing
+bacon was assigned; and the Judge lent each man his good-humored
+and voluble counsel. And when Miggles, assisted by the Judge and
+our Hibernian “deck-passenger,” set the table with all the available
+crockery, we had become quite joyous, in spite of the rain that beat
+against the windows, the wind that whirled down the chimney, the two
+ladies who whispered together in the corner, or the magpie, who uttered
+a satirical and croaking commentary on their conversation from his perch
+above. In the now bright, blazing fire we could see that the walls were
+papered with illustrated journals, arranged with feminine taste
+and discrimination. The furniture was extemporized and adapted from
+candle-boxes and packing-cases, and covered with gay calico or the
+skin of some animal. The armchair of the helpless Jim was an ingenious
+variation of a flour-barrel. There was neatness, and even a taste for
+the picturesque, to be seen in the few details of the long, low room.
+
+The meal was a culinary success. But more, it was a social
+triumph,—chiefly, I think, owing to the rare tact of Miggles in
+guiding the conversation, asking all the questions herself, yet bearing
+throughout a frankness that rejected the idea of any concealment on
+her own part, so that we talked of ourselves, of our prospects, of the
+journey, of the weather, of each other,—of everything but our host
+and hostess. It must be confessed that Miggles’s conversation was never
+elegant, rarely grammatical, and that at times she employed expletives
+the use of which had generally been yielded to our sex. But they were
+delivered with such a lighting up of teeth and eyes, and were usually
+followed by a laugh—a laugh peculiar to Miggles—so frank and honest
+that it seemed to clear the moral atmosphere.
+
+Once during the meal we heard a noise like the rubbing of a heavy body
+against the outer walls of the house. This was shortly followed by a
+scratching and sniffling at the door. “That’s Joaquin,” said Miggles, in
+reply to our questioning glances; “would you like to see him?” Before
+we could answer she had opened the door, and disclosed a half-grown
+grizzly, who instantly raised himself on his haunches, with his fore
+paws hanging down in the popular attitude of mendicancy, and looked
+admiringly at Miggles, with a very singular resemblance in his manner to
+Yuba Bill. “That’s my watch-dog,” said Miggles, in explanation. “Oh,
+he don’t bite,” she added, as the two lady passengers fluttered into
+a corner. “Does he, old Toppy?” (the latter remark being addressed
+directly to the sagacious Joaquin). “I tell you what, boys,” continued
+Miggles, after she had fed and closed the door on Ursa Minor, “you
+were in big luck that Joaquin wasn’t hanging round when you dropped in
+to-night.”
+
+“Where was he?” asked the Judge.
+
+“With me,” said Miggles. “Lord love you! he trots round with me nights
+like as if he was a man.”
+
+We were silent for a few moments, and listened to the wind. Perhaps
+we all had the same picture before us,—of Miggles walking through the
+rainy woods with her savage guardian at her side. The Judge, I remember,
+said something about Una and her lion; but Miggles received it, as she
+did other compliments, with quiet gravity. Whether she was altogether
+unconscious of the admiration she excited,—she could hardly have been
+oblivious of Yuba Bill’s adoration,—I know not; but her very frankness
+suggested a perfect sexual equality that was cruelly humiliating to the
+younger members of our party.
+
+The incident of the bear did not add anything in Miggles’s favor to the
+opinions of those of her own sex who were present. In fact, the repast
+over, a chillness radiated from the two lady passengers that no pine
+boughs brought in by Yuba Bill and cast as a sacrifice upon the hearth
+could wholly overcome. Miggles felt it; and suddenly declaring that it
+was time to “turn in,” offered to show the ladies to their bed in an
+adjoining room. “You, boys, will have to camp out here by the fire as
+well as you can,” she added, “for thar ain’t but the one room.”
+
+Our sex—by which, my dear sir, I allude of course to the stronger
+portion of humanity—has been generally relieved from the imputation of
+curiosity or a fondness for gossip. Yet I am constrained to say,
+that hardly had the door closed on Miggles than we crowded together,
+whispering, snickering, smiling, and exchanging suspicions, surmises,
+and a thousand speculations in regard to our pretty hostess and her
+singular companion. I fear that we even hustled that imbecile paralytic,
+who sat like a voiceless Memnon in our midst, gazing with the serene
+indifference of the Past in his passionless eyes upon our wordy
+counsels. In the midst of an exciting discussion the door opened again
+and Miggles reentered.
+
+But not, apparently, the same Miggles who a few hours before had flashed
+upon us. Her eyes were downcast, and as she hesitated for a moment on
+the threshold, with a blanket on her arm, she seemed to have left behind
+her the frank fearlessness which had charmed us a moment before. Coming
+into the room, she drew a low stool beside the paralytic’s chair, sat
+down, drew the blanket over her shoulders, and saying, “If it’s all the
+same to you, boys, as we’re rather crowded, I’ll stop here to-night,”
+ took the invalid’s withered hand in her own, and turned her eyes upon
+the dying fire. An instinctive feeling that this was only premonitory
+to more confidential relations, and perhaps some shame at our previous
+curiosity, kept us silent. The rain still beat upon the roof, wandering
+gusts of wind stirred the embers into momentary brightness, until, in a
+lull of the elements, Miggles suddenly lifted up her head, and, throwing
+her hair over her shoulder, turned her face upon the group and asked,—
+
+“Is there any of you that knows me?”
+
+There was no reply.
+
+“Think again! I lived at Marysville in ’53. Everybody knew me there, and
+everybody had the right to know me. I kept the Polka Saloon until I came
+to live with Jim. That’s six years ago. Perhaps I’ve changed some.”
+
+The absence of recognition may have disconcerted her. She turned her
+head to the fire again, and it was some seconds before she again spoke,
+and then more rapidly—
+
+“Well, you see I thought some of you must have known me. There’s no
+great harm done anyway. What I was going to say was this: Jim here”—she
+took his hand in both of hers as she spoke—“used to know me, if you
+didn’t, and spent a heap of money upon me. I reckon he spent all he had.
+And one day—it’s six years ago this winter—Jim came into my back room,
+sat down on my sofy, like as you see him in that chair, and never moved
+again without help. He was struck all of a heap, and never seemed to
+know what ailed him. The doctors came and said as how it was caused all
+along of his way of life,—for Jim was mighty free and wild-like,—and
+that he would never get better, and couldn’t last long anyway. They
+advised me to send him to Frisco to the hospital, for he was no good to
+any one and would be a baby all his life. Perhaps it was something in
+Jim’s eye, perhaps it was that I never had a baby, but I said ‘No.’
+I was rich then, for I was popular with everybody,—gentlemen like
+yourself, sir, came to see me,—and I sold out my business and bought
+this yer place, because it was sort of out of the way of travel, you
+see, and I brought my baby here.”
+
+With a woman’s intuitive tact and poetry, she had, as she spoke, slowly
+shifted her position so as to bring the mute figure of the ruined man
+between her and her audience, hiding in the shadow behind it, as if
+she offered it as a tacit apology for her actions. Silent and
+expressionless, it yet spoke for her; helpless, crushed, and smitten
+with the Divine thunderbolt, it still stretched an invisible arm around
+her.
+
+Hidden in the darkness, but still holding his hand, she went on:—
+
+“It was a long time before I could get the hang of things about yer, for
+I was used to company and excitement. I couldn’t get any woman to help
+me, and a man I dursn’t trust; but what with the Indians hereabout,
+who’d do odd jobs for me, and having everything sent from the North
+Fork, Jim and I managed to worry through. The Doctor would run up from
+Sacramento once in a while. He’d ask to see ‘Miggles’s baby’ as
+he called Jim, and when he’d go away, he’d say, ‘Miggles, you’re a
+trump,—God bless you,’ and it didn’t seem so lonely after that. But
+the last time he was here he said, as he opened the door to go, ‘Do you
+know, Miggles, your baby will grow up to be a man yet and an honor to
+his mother; but not here, Miggles, not here!’ And I thought he went away
+sad,—and—and”—and here Miggles’s voice and head were somehow both
+lost completely in the shadow.
+
+“The folks about here are very kind,” said Miggles, after a pause,
+coming a little into the light again. “The men from the Fork used to
+hang around here, until they found they wasn’t wanted, and the women are
+kind, and don’t call. I was pretty lonely until I picked up Joaquin in
+the woods yonder one day, when he wasn’t so high, and taught him to beg
+for his dinner; and then thar’s Polly—that’s the magpie—she knows no
+end of tricks, and makes it quite sociable of evenings with her talk,
+and so I don’t feel like as I was the only living being about the ranch.
+And Jim here,” said Miggles, with her old laugh again, and coming out
+quite into the firelight,—“Jim—Why, boys, you would admire to see how
+much he knows for a man like him. Sometimes I bring him flowers, and he
+looks at ’em just as natural as if he knew ’em; and times, when we’re
+sitting alone, I read him those things on the wall. Why, Lord!” said
+Miggles, with her frank laugh, “I’ve read him that whole side of the
+house this winter. There never was such a man for reading as Jim.”
+
+“Why,” asked the Judge, “do you not marry this man to whom you have
+devoted your youthful life?”
+
+“Well, you see,” said Miggles, “it would be playing it rather low down
+on Jim to take advantage of his being so helpless. And then, too, if we
+were man and wife, now, we’d both know that I was _bound_ to do what I
+do now of my own accord.”
+
+“But you are young yet and attractive”—
+
+“It’s getting late,” said Miggles gravely, “and you’d better all turn
+in. Good-night, boys;” and throwing the blanket over her head, Miggles
+laid herself down beside Jim’s chair, her head pillowed on the low stool
+that held his feet, and spoke no more. The fire slowly faded from the
+hearth; we each sought our blankets in silence; and presently there was
+no sound in the long room but the pattering of the rain upon the roof
+and the heavy breathing of the sleepers.
+
+It was nearly morning when I awoke from a troubled dream. The storm had
+passed, the stars were shining, and through the shutterless window the
+full moon, lifting itself over the solemn pines without, looked into
+the room. It touched the lonely figure in the chair with an infinite
+compassion, and seemed to baptize with a shining flood the lowly head of
+the woman whose hair, as in the sweet old story, bathed the feet of him
+she loved. It even lent a kindly poetry to the rugged outline of Yuba
+Bill, half reclining on his elbow between them and his passengers, with
+savagely patient eyes keeping watch and ward. And then I fell asleep
+and only woke at broad day, with Yuba Bill standing over me, and “All
+aboard” ringing in my ears.
+
+Coffee was waiting for us on the table, but Miggles was gone. We
+wandered about the house and lingered long after the horses were
+harnessed, but she did not return. It was evident that she wished to
+avoid a formal leave-taking, and had so left us to depart as we had
+come. After we had helped the ladies into the coach, we returned to
+the house and solemnly shook hands with the paralytic Jim, as solemnly
+setting him back into position after each handshake. Then we looked for
+the last time around the long low room, at the stool where Miggles had
+sat, and slowly took our seats in the waiting coach. The whip cracked,
+and we were off!
+
+But as we reached the highroad, Bill’s dexterous hand laid the six
+horses back on their haunches, and the stage stopped with a jerk. For
+there, on a little eminence beside the road, stood Miggles, her hair
+flying, her eyes sparkling, her white handkerchief waving, and her white
+teeth flashing a last “good-by.” We waved our hats in return. And then
+Yuba Bill, as if fearful of further fascination, madly lashed his horses
+forward, and we sank back in our seats.
+
+We exchanged not a word until we reached the North Fork and the stage
+drew up at the Independence House. Then, the Judge leading, we walked
+into the bar-room and took our places gravely at the bar.
+
+“Are your glasses charged, gentlemen?” said the Judge, solemnly taking
+off his white hat.
+
+They were.
+
+“Well, then, here’s to _Miggles_—GOD BLESS HER!”
+
+Perhaps He had. Who knows?
+
+
+
+
+TENNESSEE’S PARTNER
+
+
+I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it
+certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in
+1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these appellatives were
+derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of “Dungaree
+Jack;” or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in “Saleratus Bill,”
+ so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread;
+or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in “The Iron Pirate,” a mild,
+inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate
+mispronunciation of the term “iron pyrites.” Perhaps this may have been
+the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that
+it was because a man’s real name in that day rested solely upon his own
+unsupported statement. “Call yourself Clifford, do you?” said Boston,
+addressing a timid newcomer with infinite scorn; “hell is full of such
+Cliffords!” He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name happened
+to be really Clifford, as “Jaybird Charley,”—an unhallowed inspiration
+of the moment that clung to him ever after.
+
+But to return to Tennessee’s Partner, whom we never knew by any other
+than this relative title. That he had ever existed as a separate and
+distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he
+left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure a wife. He
+never got any farther than Stockton. At that place he was attracted by
+a young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his
+meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile
+not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over
+his upturned, serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He
+followed her, and emerged a few moments later, covered with more toast
+and victory. That day week they were married by a justice of the peace,
+and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more might be
+made of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at Sandy
+Bar,—in the gulches and bar-rooms,—where all sentiment was modified by
+a strong sense of humor.
+
+Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps for the reason
+that Tennessee, then living with his partner, one day took occasion to
+say something to the bride on his own account, at which, it is said,
+she smiled not unkindly and chastely retreated,—this time as far
+as Marysville, where Tennessee followed her, and where they went to
+housekeeping without the aid of a justice of the peace. Tennessee’s
+Partner took the loss of his wife simply and seriously, as was his
+fashion. But to everybody’s surprise, when Tennessee one day returned
+from Marysville, without his partner’s wife,—she having smiled and
+retreated with somebody else,—Tennessee’s Partner was the first man to
+shake his hand and greet him with affection. The boys who had gathered
+in the canon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their
+indignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look
+in Tennessee’s Partner’s eye that indicated a lack of humorous
+appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady application to
+practical detail which was unpleasant in a difficulty.
+
+Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar.
+He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these
+suspicions Tennessee’s Partner was equally compromised; his continued
+intimacy with Tennessee after the affair above quoted could only be
+accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last
+Tennessee’s guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his
+way to Red Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled
+the time with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but illogically
+concluded the interview in the following words: “And now, young man,
+I’ll trouble you for your knife, your pistols, and your money. You see
+your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog, and your money’s a
+temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your address was
+San Francisco. I shall endeavor to call.” It may be stated here that
+Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business preoccupation
+could wholly subdue.
+
+This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar made common cause
+against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very much the same
+fashion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around him,
+he made a desperate dash through the Bar, emptying his revolver at the
+crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Canon; but at its
+farther extremity he was stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The
+men looked at each other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both
+self-possessed and independent, and both types of a civilization that
+in the seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but in the
+nineteenth simply “reckless.”
+
+“What have you got there?—I call,” said Tennessee quietly.
+
+“Two bowers and an ace,” said the stranger as quietly, showing two
+revolvers and a bowie-knife.
+
+“That takes me,” returned Tennessee; and, with this gambler’s epigram,
+he threw away his useless pistol and rode back with his captor.
+
+It was a warm night. The cool breeze which usually sprang up with the
+going down of the sun behind the chaparral-crested mountain was that
+evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little canon was stifling with
+heated resinous odors, and the decaying driftwood on the Bar sent forth
+faint sickening exhalations. The feverishness of day and its fierce
+passions still filled the camp. Lights moved restlessly along the bank
+of the river, striking no answering reflection from its tawny current.
+Against the blackness of the pines the windows of the old loft above the
+express-office stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless
+panes the loungers below could see the forms of those who were even then
+deciding the fate of Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the dark
+firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and passionless, crowned with remoter
+passionless stars.
+
+The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent with a
+judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in
+their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and indictment. The
+law of Sandy Bar was implacable, but not vengeful. The excitement and
+personal feeling of the chase were over; with Tennessee safe in their
+hands, they were ready to listen patiently to any defense, which they
+were already satisfied was insufficient. There being no doubt in their
+own minds, they were willing to give the prisoner the benefit of any
+that might exist. Secure in the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged on
+general principles, they indulged him with more latitude of defense
+than his reckless hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more
+anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise unconcerned, evidently took
+a grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. “I don’t take any
+hand in this yer game,” had been his invariable but good-humored reply
+to all questions. The Judge—who was also his captor—for a moment
+vaguely regretted that he had not shot him “on sight” that morning,
+but presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial
+mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said
+that Tennessee’s Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was
+admitted at once without question. Perhaps the younger members of the
+jury, to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed
+him as a relief.
+
+For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout, with
+a square face, sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose
+duck “jumper” and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his
+aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even
+ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpetbag he
+was carrying, it became obvious, from partially developed legends and
+inscriptions, that the material with which his trousers had been patched
+had been originally intended for a less ambitious covering. Yet he
+advanced with great gravity, and after shaking the hand of each person
+in the room with labored cordiality, he wiped his serious perplexed face
+on a red bandana handkerchief, a shade lighter than his complexion, laid
+his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and thus addressed
+the Judge:—
+
+“I was passin’ by,” he began, by way of apology, “and I thought I’d
+just step in and see how things was gittin’ on with Tennessee thar,—my
+pardner. It’s a hot night. I disremember any sich weather before on the
+Bar.”
+
+He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological
+recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and for
+some moments mopped his face diligently.
+
+“Have you anything to say on behalf of the prisoner?” said the Judge
+finally.
+
+“Thet’s it,” said Tennessee’s Partner, in a tone of relief. “I come yar
+as Tennessee’s pardner,—knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet
+and dry, in luck and out o’ luck. His ways ain’t aller my ways, but thar
+ain’t any p’ints in that young man, thar ain’t any liveliness as
+he’s been up to, as I don’t know. And you sez to me, sez
+you,—confidential-like, and between man and man,—sez you, ‘Do you know
+anything in his behalf?’ and I sez to you, sez I,—confidential-like, as
+between man and man,—‘What should a man know of his pardner?’”
+
+“Is this all you have to say?” asked the Judge impatiently, feeling,
+perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize
+the court.
+
+“Thet’s so,” continued Tennessee’s Partner. “It ain’t for me to say
+anything agin’ him. And now, what’s the case? Here’s Tennessee wants
+money, wants it bad, and doesn’t like to ask it of his old pardner.
+Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches
+that stranger; and you lays for _him_, and you fetches _him_; and the
+honors is easy. And I put it to you, bein’ a fa’r-minded man, and to
+you, gentlemen all, as fa’r-minded men, ef this isn’t so.”
+
+“Prisoner,” said the Judge, interrupting, “have you any questions to ask
+this man?”
+
+“No! no!” continued Tennessee’s Partner hastily. “I play this yer hand
+alone. To come down to the bed-rock, it’s just this: Tennessee, thar,
+has played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a stranger, and on
+this yer camp. And now, what’s the fair thing? Some would say more, some
+would say less. Here’s seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a
+watch,—it’s about all my pile,—and call it square!” And before a
+hand could be raised to prevent him, he had emptied the contents of the
+carpetbag upon the table.
+
+For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or two men sprang to their
+feet, several hands groped for hidden weapons, and a suggestion to
+“throw him from the window” was only overridden by a gesture from the
+Judge. Tennessee laughed. And apparently oblivious of the excitement,
+Tennessee’s Partner improved the opportunity to mop his face again
+with his handkerchief. When order was restored, and the man was made
+to understand, by the use of forcible figures and rhetoric, that
+Tennessee’s offense could not be condoned by money, his face took a more
+serious and sanguinary hue, and those who were nearest to him noticed
+that his rough hand trembled slightly on the table. He hesitated a
+moment as he slowly returned the gold to the carpetbag, as if he had
+not yet entirely caught the elevated sense of justice which swayed the
+tribunal, and was perplexed with the belief that he had not offered
+enough. Then he turned to the Judge, and saying, “This yer is a lone
+hand, played alone, and without my pardner,” he bowed to the jury and
+was about to withdraw, when the Judge called him back:—
+
+“If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you had better say it now.”
+
+For the first time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and his strange
+advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and saying,
+“Euchred, old man!” held out his hand. Tennessee’s Partner took it in
+his own, and saying, “I just dropped in as I was passin’ to see how
+things was gettin’ on,” let the hand passively fall, and adding that
+“it was a warm night,” again mopped his face with his handkerchief, and
+without another word withdrew.
+
+The two men never again met each other alive. For the unparalleled
+insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch—who, whether bigoted, weak,
+or narrow, was at least incorruptible—firmly fixed in the mind of that
+mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee’s fate; and
+at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the
+top of Marley’s Hill.
+
+How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused to say anything, how
+perfect were the arrangements of the committee, were all duly reported,
+with the addition of a warning moral and example to all future
+evil-doers, in the “Red Dog Clarion,” by its editor, who was present,
+and to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the
+beauty of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and
+sky, the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal
+and promise of Nature, and above all, the infinite serenity that
+thrilled through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the
+social lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a
+life, with its possibilities and responsibilities, had passed out of the
+misshapen thing that dangled between earth and sky, the birds sang, the
+flowers bloomed, the sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the
+“Red Dog Clarion” was right.
+
+Tennessee’s Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous
+tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn to the
+singular appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at the side of
+the road. As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable
+“Jenny” and the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessee’s Partner,
+used by him in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces distant the
+owner of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye-tree, wiping the
+perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, he said he
+had come for the body of the “diseased,” “if it was all the same to the
+committee.” He didn’t wish to “hurry anything;” he could “wait.” He
+was not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with the
+“diseased,” he would take him. “Ef thar is any present,” he added, in
+his simple, serious way, “as would care to jine in the fun’l, they
+kin come.” Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already
+intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar,—perhaps it was from something
+even better than that, but two thirds of the loungers accepted the
+invitation at once.
+
+It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the hands of
+his partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that
+it contained a rough oblong box,—apparently made from a section of
+sluicing,—and half filled with bark and the tassels of pine. The
+cart was further decorated with slips of willow and made fragrant with
+buckeye-blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box, Tennessee’s
+Partner drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the
+narrow seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged the little
+donkey forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace
+which was habitual with Jenny even under less solemn circumstances. The
+men—half curiously, half jestingly, but all good-humoredly—strolled
+along beside the cart, some in advance, some a little in the rear of the
+homely catafalque. But whether from the narrowing of the road or some
+present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell to the
+rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the external show
+of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the outset played a
+funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, desisted from
+a lack of sympathy and appreciation,—not having, perhaps, your true
+humorist’s capacity to be content with the enjoyment of his own fun.
+
+The way led through Grizzly Canon, by this time clothed in funereal
+drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in
+the red soil, stood in Indian file along the track, trailing an uncouth
+benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare,
+surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the
+ferns by the roadside as the cortege went by. Squirrels hastened to gain
+a secure outlook from higher boughs; and the blue-jays, spreading their
+wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts of
+Sandy Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessee’s Partner.
+
+Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a
+cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines,
+the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the
+California miner, were all here with the dreariness of decay superadded.
+A few paces from the cabin there was a rough inclosure, which, in the
+brief days of Tennessee’s Partner’s matrimonial felicity, had been used
+as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we approached it, we
+were surprised to find that what we had taken for a recent attempt at
+cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave.
+
+The cart was halted before the inclosure, and rejecting the offers of
+assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed
+throughout, Tennessee’s Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back, and
+deposited it unaided within the shallow grave. He then nailed down the
+board which served as a lid, and mounting the little mound of earth
+beside it, took off his hat and slowly mopped his face with his
+handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech, and they
+disposed themselves variously on stumps and boulders, and sat expectant.
+
+“When a man,” began Tennessee’s Partner slowly, “has been running free
+all day, what’s the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home. And
+if he ain’t in a condition to go home, what can his best friend do?
+Why, bring him home. And here’s Tennessee has been running free, and we
+brings him home from his wandering.” He paused and picked up a fragment
+of quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: “It ain’t
+the first time that I’ve packed him on my back, as you see’d me now.
+It ain’t the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he
+couldn’t help himself; it ain’t the first time that I and Jinny have
+waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him home,
+when he couldn’t speak and didn’t know me. And now that it’s the last
+time, why”—he paused and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeve—“you
+see it’s sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen” he added
+abruptly, picking up his long-handled shovel, “the fun’l’s over; and my
+thanks, and Tennessee’s thanks, to you for your trouble.”
+
+Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave,
+turning his back upon the crowd, that after a few moments’ hesitation
+gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy
+Bar from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessee’s
+Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his
+knees, and his face buried in his red bandana handkerchief. But it was
+argued by others that you couldn’t tell his face from his handkerchief
+at that distance, and this point remained undecided.
+
+In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day,
+Tennessee’s Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had
+cleared him of any complicity in Tennessee’s guilt, and left only a
+suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on
+him, and proffering various uncouth but well-meant kindnesses. But from
+that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline;
+and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were
+beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessee’s grave, he took
+to his bed.
+
+One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the storm and
+trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and rush of
+the swollen river were heard below, Tennessee’s Partner lifted his head
+from the pillow, saying, “It is time to go for Tennessee; I must put
+Jinny in the cart;” and would have risen from his bed but for the
+restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still pursued his singular
+fancy: “There, now, steady, Jinny,—steady, old girl. How dark it is!
+Look out for the ruts,—and look out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes,
+you know, when he’s blind drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep
+on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. Thar! I told you
+so!—thar he is,—coming this way, too,—all by himself, sober, and his
+face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!”
+
+And so they met.
+
+
+
+
+THE IDYL OF BED GULCH
+
+
+Sandy was very drunk. He was lying under an azalea-bush, in pretty much
+the same attitude in which he had fallen some hours before. How long
+he had been lying there he could not tell, and didn’t care; how long
+he should lie there was a matter equally indefinite and unconsidered.
+A tranquil philosophy, born of his physical condition, suffused and
+saturated his moral being.
+
+The spectacle of a drunken man, and of this drunken man in particular,
+was not, I grieve to say, of sufficient novelty in Red Gulch to
+attract attention. Earlier in the day some local satirist had erected a
+temporary tombstone at Sandy’s head, bearing the inscription, “Effects
+of McCorkle’s whiskey—kills at forty rods,” with a hand pointing to
+McCorkle’s saloon. But this, I imagine, was, like most local satire,
+personal; and was a reflection upon the unfairness of the process
+rather than a commentary upon the impropriety of the result. With this
+facetious exception, Sandy had been undisturbed. A wandering mule,
+released from his pack, had cropped the scant herbage beside him, and
+sniffed curiously at the prostrate man; a vagabond dog, with that deep
+sympathy which the species have for drunken men, had licked his dusty
+boots and curled himself up at his feet, and lay there, blinking one eye
+in the sunlight, with a simulation of dissipation that was ingenious and
+dog-like in its implied flattery of the unconscious man beside him.
+
+Meanwhile the shadows of the pine-trees had slowly swung around until
+they crossed the road, and their trunks barred the open meadow with
+gigantic parallels of black and yellow. Little puffs of red dust, lifted
+by the plunging hoofs of passing teams, dispersed in a grimy shower upon
+the recumbent man. The sun sank lower and lower, and still Sandy stirred
+not. And then the repose of this philosopher was disturbed, as other
+philosophers have been, by the intrusion of an unphilosophical sex.
+
+“Miss Mary,” as she was known to the little flock that she had just
+dismissed from the log schoolhouse beyond the pines, was taking her
+afternoon walk. Observing an unusually fine cluster of blossoms on the
+azalea-bush opposite, she crossed the road to pluck it, picking her
+way through the red dust, not without certain fierce little shivers of
+disgust and some feline circumlocution. And then she came suddenly upon
+Sandy!
+
+Of course she uttered the little staccato cry of her sex. But when she
+had paid that tribute to her physical weakness she became overbold
+and halted for a moment,—at least six feet from this prostrate
+monster,—with her white skirts gathered in her hand, ready for flight.
+But neither sound nor motion came from the bush. With one little foot
+she then overturned the satirical headboard, and muttered “Beasts!”—an
+epithet which probably, at that moment, conveniently classified in
+her mind the entire male population of Red Gulch. For Miss Mary,
+being possessed of certain rigid notions of her own, had not, perhaps,
+properly appreciated the demonstrative gallantry for which the
+Californian has been so justly celebrated by his brother Californians,
+and had, as a newcomer, perhaps fairly earned the reputation of being
+“stuck up.”
+
+As she stood there she noticed, also, that the slant sunbeams were
+heating Sandy’s head to what she judged to be an unhealthy temperature,
+and that his hat was lying uselessly at his side. To pick it up and to
+place it over his face was a work requiring some courage, particularly
+as his eyes were open. Yet she did it and made good her retreat. But
+she was somewhat concerned, on looking back, to see that the hat was
+removed, and that Sandy was sitting up and saying something.
+
+The truth was, that in the calm depths of Sandy’s mind he was satisfied
+that the rays of the sun were beneficial and healthful; that from
+childhood he had objected to lying down in a hat; that no people but
+condemned fools, past redemption, ever wore hats; and that his right
+to dispense, with them when he pleased was inalienable. This was
+the statement of his inner consciousness. Unfortunately, its outward
+expression was vague, being limited to a repetition of the following
+formula: “Su’shine all ri’! Wasser maar, eh? Wass up, su’shine?”
+
+Miss Mary stopped, and, taking fresh courage from her vantage of
+distance, asked him if there was anything that he wanted.
+
+“Wass up? Wasser maar?” continued Sandy, in a very high key.
+
+“Get up, you horrid man!” said Miss Mary, now thoroughly incensed; “get
+up and go home.”
+
+Sandy staggered to his feet. He was six feet high, and Miss Mary
+trembled. He started forward a few paces and then stopped.
+
+“Wass I go home for?” he suddenly asked, with great gravity.
+
+“Go and take a bath,” replied Miss Mary, eying his grimy person with
+great disfavor.
+
+To her infinite dismay, Sandy suddenly pulled off his coat and vest,
+threw them on the ground, kicked off his boots, and, plunging wildly
+forward, darted headlong over the hill in the direction of the river.
+
+“Goodness heavens! the man will be drowned!” said Miss Mary; and then,
+with feminine inconsistency, she ran back to the schoolhouse and locked
+herself in. That night, while seated at supper with her hostess, the
+blacksmith’s wife, it came to Miss Mary to ask, demurely, if her husband
+ever got drunk. “Abner,” responded Mrs. Stidger reflectively,—“let’s
+see! Abner hasn’t been tight since last ’lection.” Miss Mary would have
+liked to ask if he preferred lying in the sun on these occasions, and
+if a cold bath would have hurt him; but this would have involved an
+explanation, which she did not then care to give. So she contented
+herself with opening her gray eyes widely at the red-cheeked Mrs.
+Stidger,—a fine specimen of Southwestern efflorescence,—and then
+dismissed the subject altogether. The next day she wrote to her dearest
+friend in Boston: “I think I find the intoxicated portion of this
+community the least objectionable, I refer, my dear, to the men, of
+course. I do not know anything that could make the women tolerable.”
+
+In less than a week Miss Mary had forgotten this episode, except that
+her afternoon walks took thereafter, almost unconsciously, another
+direction. She noticed, however, that every morning a fresh cluster of
+azalea blossoms appeared among the flowers on her desk. This was not
+strange, as her little flock were aware of her fondness for flowers, and
+invariably kept her desk bright with anemones, syringas, and lupines;
+but, on questioning them, they one and all professed ignorance of the
+azaleas. A few days later, Master Johnny Stidger, whose desk was nearest
+to the window, was suddenly taken with spasms of apparently gratuitous
+laughter, that threatened the discipline of the school. All that Miss
+Mary could get from him was, that some one had been “looking in the
+winder.” Irate and indignant, she sallied from her hive to do battle
+with the intruder. As she turned the corner of the schoolhouse she came
+plump upon the quondam drunkard, now perfectly sober, and inexpressibly
+sheepish and guilty-looking.
+
+These facts Miss Mary was not slow to take a feminine advantage of, in
+her present humor. But it was somewhat confusing to observe, also,
+that the beast, despite some faint signs of past dissipation, was
+amiable-looking,—in fact, a kind of blond Samson, whose corn-colored
+silken beard apparently had never yet known the touch of barber’s razor
+or Delilah’s shears. So that the cutting speech which quivered on
+her ready tongue died upon her lips, and she contented herself with
+receiving his stammering apology with supercilious eyelids and the
+gathered skirts of uncontamination. When she reentered the schoolroom,
+her eyes fell upon the azaleas with a new sense of revelation; and
+then she laughed, and the little people all laughed, and they were all
+unconsciously very happy.
+
+It was a hot day, and not long after this, that two short-legged boys
+came to grief on the threshold of the school with a pail of water,
+which they had laboriously brought from the spring, and that Miss Mary
+compassionately seized the pail and started for the spring herself. At
+the foot of the hill a shadow crossed her path, and a blue-shirted arm
+dexterously but gently relieved her of her burden. Miss Mary was both
+embarrassed and angry. “If you carried more of that for yourself,” she
+said spitefully to the blue arm, without deigning to raise her lashes
+to its owner, “you’d do better.” In the submissive silence that followed
+she regretted the speech, and thanked him so sweetly at the door that
+he stumbled. Which caused the children to laugh again,—a laugh in which
+Miss Mary joined, until the color came faintly into her pale cheek.
+The next day a barrel was mysteriously placed beside the door, and as
+mysteriously filled with fresh spring-water every morning.
+
+Nor was this superior young person without other quiet attentions.
+“Profane Bill,” driver of the Slumgullion Stage, widely known in the
+newspapers for his “gallantry” in invariably offering the box-seat to
+the fair sex, had excepted Miss Mary from this attention, on the ground
+that he had a habit of “cussin’ on up grades,” and gave her half the
+coach to herself. Jack Hamlin, a gambler, having once silently ridden
+with her in the same coach, afterward threw a decanter at the head of
+a confederate for mentioning her name in a bar-room. The over-dressed
+mother of a pupil whose paternity was doubtful had often lingered near
+this astute Vestal’s temple, never daring to enter its sacred precincts,
+but content to worship the priestess from afar.
+
+With such unconscious intervals the monotonous procession of blue skies,
+glittering sunshine, brief twilights, and starlit nights passed over Red
+Gulch. Miss Mary grew fond of walking in the sedate and proper woods.
+Perhaps she believed, with Mrs. Stidger, that the balsamic odors of
+the firs “did her chest good,” for certainly her slight cough was less
+frequent and her step was firmer; perhaps she had learned the unending
+lesson which the patient pines are never weary of repeating to heedful
+or listless ears. And so one day she planned a picnic on Buckeye Hill,
+and took the children with her. Away from the dusty road, the straggling
+shanties, the yellow ditches, the clamor of restless engines, the cheap
+finery of shop-windows, the deeper glitter of paint and colored glass,
+and the thin veneering which barbarism takes upon itself in such
+localities, what infinite relief was theirs! The last heap of ragged
+rock and clay passed, the last unsightly chasm crossed,—how the waiting
+woods opened their long files to receive them! How the children—perhaps
+because they had not yet grown quite away from the breast of the
+bounteous Mother—threw themselves face downward on her brown bosom with
+uncouth caresses, filling the air with their laughter; and how Miss Mary
+herself—felinely fastidious and intrenched as she was in the purity of
+spotless skirts, collar, and cuffs—forgot all, and ran like a crested
+quail at the head of her brood, until, romping, laughing, and panting,
+with a loosened braid of brown hair, a hat hanging by a knotted ribbon
+from her throat, she came suddenly and violently, in the heart of the
+forest, upon the luckless Sandy!
+
+The explanations, apologies, and not overwise conversation that ensued
+need not be indicated here. It would seem, however, that Miss Mary had
+already established some acquaintance with this ex-drunkard. Enough that
+he was soon accepted as one of the party; that the children, with that
+quick intelligence which Providence gives the helpless, recognized a
+friend, and played with his blond beard and long silken mustache, and
+took other liberties,—as the helpless are apt to do. And when he had
+built a fire against a tree, and had shown them other mysteries of
+woodcraft, their admiration knew no bounds. At the close of two such
+foolish, idle, happy hours he found himself lying at the feet of the
+schoolmistress, gazing dreamily in her face as she sat upon the sloping
+hillside weaving wreaths of laurel and syringa, in very much the same
+attitude as he had lain when first they met. Nor was the similitude
+greatly forced. The weakness of an easy, sensuous nature, that had found
+a dreamy exaltation in liquor, it is to be feared was now finding an
+equal intoxication in love.
+
+I think that Sandy was dimly conscious of this himself. I know that he
+longed to be doing something,—slaying a grizzly, scalping a savage,
+or sacrificing himself in some way for the sake of this sallow-faced,
+gray-eyed schoolmistress. As I should like to present him in an heroic
+attitude, I stay my hand with great difficulty at this moment, being
+only withheld from introducing such an episode by a strong conviction
+that it does not usually occur at such times. And I trust that my
+fairest reader, who remembers that, in a real crisis, it is always some
+uninteresting stranger or unromantic policeman, and not Adolphus, who
+rescues, will forgive the omission.
+
+So they sat there undisturbed,—the woodpeckers chattering overhead and
+the voices of the children coming pleasantly from the hollow below.
+What they said matters little. What they thought—which might have been
+interesting—did not transpire. The woodpeckers only learned how Miss
+Mary was an orphan; how she left her uncle’s house to come to California
+for the sake of health and independence; how Sandy was an orphan too;
+how he came to California for excitement; how he had lived a wild
+life, and how he was trying to reform; and other details, which, from a
+woodpecker’s view-point, undoubtedly must have seemed stupid and a waste
+of time. But even in such trifles was the afternoon spent; and when
+the children were again gathered, and Sandy, with a delicacy which
+the schoolmistress well understood, took leave of them quietly at the
+outskirts of the settlement, it had seemed the shortest day of her weary
+life.
+
+As the long, dry summer withered to its roots, the school term of Red
+Gulch—to use a local euphuism—“dried up” also. In another day Miss
+Mary would be free, and for a season, at least, Red Gulch would know her
+no more. She was seated alone in the schoolhouse, her cheek resting on
+her hand, her eyes half closed in one of those daydreams in which Miss
+Mary, I fear, to the danger of school discipline, was lately in the
+habit of indulging. Her lap was full of mosses, ferns, and other
+woodland memories. She was so preoccupied with these and her own
+thoughts that a gentle tapping at the door passed unheard, or translated
+itself into the remembrance of far-off woodpeckers. When at last it
+asserted itself more distinctly, she started up with a flushed cheek and
+opened the door. On the threshold stood a woman, the self-assertion
+and audacity of whose dress were in singular contrast to her timid,
+irresolute bearing. Miss Mary recognized at a glance the dubious mother
+of her anonymous pupil. Perhaps she was disappointed, perhaps she
+was only fastidious; but as she coldly invited her to enter, she half
+unconsciously settled her white cuffs and collar, and gathered closer
+her own chaste skirts. It was, perhaps, for this reason that the
+embarrassed stranger, after a moment’s hesitation, left her gorgeous
+parasol open and sticking in the dust beside the door, and then sat down
+at the farther end of a long bench. Her voice was husky as she began,—
+
+“I heerd tell that you were goin’ down to the Bay to-morrow, and I
+couldn’t let you go until I came to thank you for your kindness to my
+Tommy.” Tommy, Miss Mary said, was a good boy, and deserved more than
+the poor attention she could give him.
+
+“Thank you, miss; thank ye!” cried the stranger, brightening even
+through the color which Red Gulch knew facetiously as her “war paint,”
+ and striving, in her embarrassment, to drag the long bench nearer the
+schoolmistress. “I thank you, miss, for that; and if I am his mother,
+there ain’t a sweeter, dearer, better boy lives than him. And if I ain’t
+much as says it, thar ain’t a sweeter, dearer, angeler teacher lives
+than he’s got.”
+
+Miss Mary, sitting primly behind her desk, with a ruler over her
+shoulder, opened her gray eyes widely at this, but said nothing.
+
+“It ain’t for you to be complimented by the like of me, I know,” she
+went on hurriedly. “It ain’t for me to be comin’ here, in broad day, to
+do it, either; but I come to ask a favor,—not for me, miss,—not for
+me, but for the darling boy.”
+
+Encouraged by a look in the young schoolmistress’s eye, and putting her
+lilac-gloved hands together, the fingers downward, between her knees,
+she went on, in a low voice:—
+
+“You see, miss, there’s no one the boy has any claim on but me, and I
+ain’t the proper person to bring him up. I thought some, last year, of
+sending him away to Frisco to school, but when they talked of bringing
+a schoolma’am here, I waited till I saw you, and then I knew it was all
+right, and I could keep my boy a little longer. And, oh! miss, he loves
+you so much; and if you could hear him talk about you in his pretty way,
+and if he could ask you what I ask you now, you couldn’t refuse him.
+
+“It is natural,” she went on rapidly, in a voice that trembled strangely
+between pride and humility,—“it’s natural that he should take to you,
+miss, for his father, when I first knew him, was a gentleman,—and the
+boy must forget me, sooner or later,—and so I ain’t a-goin’ to cry
+about that. For I come to ask you to take my Tommy,—God bless him for
+the bestest, sweetest boy that lives,—to—to—take him with you.”
+
+She had risen and caught the young girl’s hand in her own, and had
+fallen on her knees beside her.
+
+“I’ve money plenty, and it’s all yours and his. Put him in some good
+school, where you can go and see him, and help him to—to—to forget his
+mother. Do with him what you like. The worst you can do will be kindness
+to what he will learn with me. Only take him out of this wicked life,
+this cruel place, this home of shame and sorrow. You will! I know you
+will,—won’t you? You will,—you must not, you cannot say no! You will
+make him as pure, as gentle as yourself; and when he has grown-up, you
+will tell him his father’s name,—the name that hasn’t passed my lips
+for years,—the name of Alexander Morton, whom they call here Sandy!
+Miss Mary!—do not take your hand away! Miss Mary, speak to me! You will
+take my boy? Do not put your face from me. I know it ought not to look
+on such as me. Miss Mary!—my God, be merciful!—she is leaving me!”
+ Miss Mary had risen, and, in the gathering twilight, had felt her way to
+the open window. She stood there, leaning against the casement, her
+eyes fixed on the last rosy tints that were fading from the western sky.
+There was still some of its light on her pure young forehead, on her
+white collar, on her clasped white hands, but all fading slowly away.
+The suppliant had dragged herself, still on her knees, beside her.
+
+“I know it takes time to consider. I will wait here all night; but I
+cannot go until you speak. Do not deny me now. You will!—I see it in
+your sweet face,—such a face as I have seen in my dreams. I see it in
+your eyes, Miss Mary!—you will take my boy!”
+
+The last red beam crept higher, suffused Miss Mary’s eyes with something
+of its glory, flickered, and faded, and went out. The sun had set on Red
+Gulch. In the twilight and silence Miss Mary’s voice sounded pleasantly.
+
+“I will take the boy. Send him to me to-night.”
+
+The happy mother raised the hem of Miss Mary’s skirts to her lips. She
+would have buried her hot face in its virgin folds, but she dared not.
+She rose to her feet.
+
+“Does—this man—know of your intention?” asked Miss Mary suddenly.
+
+“No, nor cares. He has never even seen the child to know it.”
+
+“Go to him at once—to-night—now! Tell him what you have done. Tell him
+I have taken his child, and tell him—he must never see—see—the child
+again. Wherever it may be, he must not come; wherever I may take it, he
+must not follow! There, go now, please,—I’m weary, and—have much yet
+to do!”
+
+They walked together to the door. On the threshold the woman turned.
+
+“Good-night!”
+
+She would have fallen at Miss Mary’s feet. But at the same moment the
+young girl reached out her arms, caught the sinful woman to her own pure
+breast for one brief moment, and then closed and locked the door.
+
+It was with a sudden sense of great responsibility that Profane Bill
+took the reins of the Slumgullion stage the next morning, for the
+schoolmistress was one of his passengers. As he entered the highroad, in
+obedience to a pleasant voice from the “inside,” he suddenly reined up
+his horses and respectfully waited, as Tommy hopped out at the command
+of Miss Mary.
+
+“Not that bush, Tommy,—the next.”
+
+Tommy whipped out his new pocket-knife, and cutting a branch from a tall
+azalea-bush, returned with it to Miss Mary. “All right now?”
+
+“All right!”
+
+And the stage-door closed on the Idyl of Red Gulch.
+
+
+
+
+BROWN OF CALAVERAS
+
+
+A subdued tone of conversation, and the absence of cigar-smoke and
+boot-heels at the windows of the Wingdam stagecoach, made it evident
+that one of the inside passengers was a woman. A disposition on the part
+of loungers at the stations to congregate before the window, and some
+concern in regard to the appearance of coats, hats, and collars, further
+indicated that she was lovely. All of which Mr. Jack Hamlin, on the
+box-seat, noted with the smile of cynical philosophy. Not that he
+depreciated the sex, but that he recognized therein a deceitful element,
+the pursuit of which sometimes drew mankind away from the equally
+uncertain blandishments of poker,—of which it may be remarked that Mr.
+Hamlin was a professional exponent.
+
+So that, when he placed his narrow boot on the wheel and leaped down,
+he did not even glance at the window from which a green veil was
+fluttering, but lounged up and down with that listless and grave
+indifference of his class, which was, perhaps, the next thing to
+good-breeding. With his closely buttoned figure and self-contained air
+he was a marked contrast to the other passengers, with their feverish
+restlessness and boisterous emotion; and even Bill Masters, a graduate
+of Harvard, with his slovenly dress, his over-flowing vitality, his
+intense appreciation of lawlessness and barbarism, and his mouth filled
+with crackers and cheese, I fear cut but an unromantic figure beside
+this lonely calculator of chances, with his pale Greek face and Homeric
+gravity.
+
+The driver called “All aboard!” and Mr. Hamlin returned to the coach.
+His foot was upon the wheel, and his face raised to the level of the
+open window, when, at the same moment, what appeared to him to be the
+finest eyes in the world suddenly met his. He quietly dropped down
+again, addressed a few words to one of the inside passengers, effected
+an exchange of seats, and as quietly took his place inside. Mr. Hamlin
+never allowed his philosophy to interfere with decisive and prompt
+action.
+
+I fear that this irruption of Jack cast some restraint upon the other
+passengers, particularly those who were making themselves most agreeable
+to the lady. One of them leaned forward, and apparently conveyed to
+her information regarding Mr. Hamlin’s profession in a single epithet.
+Whether Mr. Hamlin heard it, or whether he recognized in the informant
+a distinguished jurist, from whom, but a few evenings before, he had won
+several thousand dollars, I cannot say. His colorless face betrayed no
+sign; his black eyes, quietly observant, glanced indifferently past the
+legal gentleman, and rested on the much more pleasing features of
+his neighbor. An Indian stoicism—said to be an inheritance from his
+maternal ancestor—stood him in good service, until the rolling wheels
+rattled upon the river gravel at Scott’s Ferry, and the stage drew up at
+the International Hotel for dinner. The legal gentleman and a member of
+Congress leaped out, and stood ready to assist the descending goddess,
+while Colonel Starbottle of Siskiyou took charge of her parasol and
+shawl. In this multiplicity of attention there was a momentary confusion
+and delay. Jack Hamlin quietly opened the _opposite_ door of the coach,
+took the lady’s hand, with that decision and positiveness which a
+hesitating and undecided sex know how to admire, and in an instant had
+dexterously and gracefully swung her to the ground and again lifted her
+to the platform. An audible chuckle on the box, I fear, came from that
+other cynic, Yuba Bill, the driver. “Look keerfully arter that baggage,
+Kernel,” said the expressman, with affected concern, as he looked after
+Colonel Starbottle, gloomily bringing up the rear of the triumphant
+procession to the waiting-room.
+
+Mr. Hamlin did not stay for dinner. His horse was already saddled and
+awaiting him. He dashed over the ford, up the gravelly hill, and out
+into the dusty perspective of the Wingdam road, like one leaving an
+unpleasant fancy behind him. The inmates of dusty cabins by the roadside
+shaded their eyes with their hands and looked after him, recognizing the
+man by his horse, and speculating what “was up with Comanche Jack.” Yet
+much of this interest centred in the horse, in a community where the
+time made by “French Pete’s” mare, in his run from the Sheriff of
+Calaveras, eclipsed all concern in the ultimate fate of that worthy.
+
+The sweating flanks of his gray at length recalled him to himself.
+He checked his speed, and turning into a byroad, sometimes used as a
+cut-off, trotted leisurely along, the reins hanging listlessly from
+his fingers. As he rode on, the character of the landscape changed and
+became more pastoral. Openings in groves of pine and sycamore disclosed
+some rude attempts at cultivation,—a flowering vine trailed over the
+porch of one cabin, and a woman rocked her cradled babe under the roses
+of another. A little farther on, Mr. Hamlin came upon some bare-legged
+children wading in the willowy creek, and so wrought upon them with a
+badinage peculiar to himself, that they were emboldened to climb up
+his horse’s legs and over his saddle, until he was fain to develop an
+exaggerated ferocity of demeanor, and to escape, leaving behind some
+kisses and coin. And then, advancing deeper into the woods, where all
+signs of habitation failed, he began to sing, uplifting a tenor so
+singularly sweet, and shaded by a pathos so subdued and tender, that I
+wot the robins and linnets stopped to listen. Mr. Hamlin’s voice was
+not cultivated; the subject of his song was some sentimental lunacy,
+borrowed from the negro minstrels; but there thrilled through all some
+occult quality of tone and expression that was unspeakably touching.
+Indeed, it was a wonderful sight to see this sentimental blackleg, with
+a pack of cards in his pocket and a revolver at his back, sending his
+voice before him through the dim woods with a plaint about his
+“Nelly’s grave,” in a way that overflowed the eyes of the listener. A
+sparrow-hawk, fresh from his sixth victim, possibly recognizing in Mr.
+Hamlin a kindred spirit, stared at him in surprise, and was fain to
+confess the superiority of man. With a superior predatory capacity _he_
+couldn’t sing.
+
+But Mr. Hamlin presently found himself again on the highroad and at his
+former pace. Ditches and banks of gravel, denuded hillsides, stumps,
+and decayed trunks of trees, took the place of woodland and ravine, and
+indicated his approach to civilization. Then a church-steeple came in
+sight, and he knew that he had reached home. In a few moments he was
+clattering down the single narrow street that lost itself in a chaotic
+ruin of races, ditches, and tailings at the foot of the hill, and
+dismounted before the gilded windows of the Magnolia saloon. Passing
+through the long bar-room, he pushed open a green-baize door, entered a
+dark passage, opened another door with a passkey, and found himself in
+a dimly lighted room, whose furniture, though elegant and costly for the
+locality, showed signs of abuse. The inlaid centre-table was overlaid
+with stained disks that were not contemplated in the original design,
+the embroidered armchairs were discolored, and the green velvet lounge,
+on which Mr. Hamlin threw himself, was soiled at the foot with the red
+soil of Wingdam.
+
+Mr. Hamlin did not sing in his cage. He lay still, looking at a highly
+colored painting above him, representing a young creature of opulent
+charms. It occurred to him then, for the first time, that he had never
+seen exactly that kind of a woman, and that, if he should, he would
+not, probably, fall in love with her. Perhaps he was thinking of another
+style of beauty. But just then some one knocked at the door. Without
+rising, he pulled a cord that apparently shot back a bolt, for the door
+swung open, and a man entered.
+
+The new-comer was broad-shouldered and robust,—a vigor not borne out in
+the face, which, though handsome, was singularly weak and disfigured by
+dissipation. He appeared to be, also, under the influence of liquor, for
+he started on seeing Mr. Hamlin, and said, “I thought Kate was here;”
+ stammered, and seemed confused and embarrassed.
+
+Mr. Hamlin smiled the smile which he had before worn on the Wingdam
+coach, and sat up, quite refreshed and ready for business.
+
+“You didn’t come up on the stage,” continued the newcomer, “did you?”
+
+“No,” replied Hamlin; “I left it at Scott’s Ferry. It isn’t due for half
+an hour yet. But how’s luck, Brown?”
+
+“D—d bad,” said Brown, his face suddenly assuming an expression of weak
+despair. “I’m cleaned out again, Jack,” he continued, in a whining tone,
+that formed a pitiable contrast to his bulky figure; “can’t you help me
+with a hundred till to-morrow’s clean-up? You see I’ve got to send money
+home to the old woman, and—you’ve won twenty times that amount from
+me.”
+
+The conclusion was, perhaps, not entirely logical, but Jack overlooked
+it, and handed the sum to his visitor. “The old-woman business is about
+played out, Brown,” he added, by way of commentary; “why don’t you say
+you want to buck ag’in’ faro? You know you ain’t married!”
+
+“Fact, sir,” said Brown, with a sudden gravity, as if the mere contact
+of the gold with the palm of the hand had imparted some dignity to his
+frame. “I’ve got a wife—a d—d good one, too, if I do say it—in the
+States. It’s three years since I’ve seen her, and a year since I’ve writ
+to her. When things is about straight, and we get down to the lead, I’m
+going to send for her.”
+
+“And Kate?” queried Mr. Hamlin, with his previous smile.
+
+Mr. Brown of Calaveras essayed an archness of glance to cover his
+confusion, which his weak face and whiskey-muddled intellect but poorly
+carried out, and said,—
+
+“D—n it, Jack, a man must have a little liberty, you know. But
+come, what do you say to a little game? Give us a show to double this
+hundred.”
+
+Jack Hamlin looked curiously at his fatuous friend. Perhaps he knew that
+the man was predestined to lose the money, and preferred that it should
+flow back into his own coffers rather than any other. He nodded his
+head, and drew his chair toward the table. At the same moment there came
+a rap upon the door.
+
+“It’s Kate,” said Mr. Brown.
+
+Mr. Hamlin shot back the bolt and the door opened. But, for the first
+time in his life, he staggered to his feet utterly unnerved and abashed,
+and for the first time in his life the hot blood crimsoned his colorless
+cheeks to his forehead. For before him stood the lady he had lifted
+from the Wingdam coach, whom Brown, dropping his cards with a hysterical
+laugh, greeted as,—
+
+“My old woman, by thunder!”
+
+They say that Mrs. Brown burst into tears and reproaches of her husband.
+I saw her in 1857 at Marysville, and disbelieve the story. And the
+“Wingdam Chronicle” of the next week, under the head of “Touching
+Reunion,” said: “One of those beautiful and touching incidents, peculiar
+to California life, occurred last week in our city. The wife of one of
+Wingdam’s eminent pioneers, tired of the effete civilization of the East
+and its inhospitable climate, resolved to join her noble husband
+upon these golden shores. Without informing him of her intention,
+she undertook the long journey, and arrived last week. The joy of the
+husband may be easier imagined than described. The meeting is said
+to have been indescribably affecting. We trust her example may be
+followed.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whether owing to Mrs. Brown’s influence, or to some more successful
+speculations, Mr. Brown’s financial fortune from that day steadily
+improved. He bought out his partners in the “Nip and Tuck” lead, with
+money which was said to have been won at poker a week or two after his
+wife’s arrival, but which rumor, adopting Mrs. Brown’s theory that Brown
+had forsworn the gaming-table, declared to have been furnished by Mr.
+Jack Hamlin. He built and furnished the Wingdam House, which pretty Mrs.
+Brown’s great popularity kept overflowing with guests. He was elected
+to the Assembly, and gave largess to churches. A street in Wingdam was
+named in his honor.
+
+Yet it was noted that in proportion as he waxed wealthy and fortunate,
+he grew pale, thin, and anxious. As his wife’s popularity increased,
+he became fretful and impatient. The most uxorious of husbands, he
+was absurdly jealous. If he did not interfere with his wife’s social
+liberty, it was because it was maliciously whispered that his first and
+only attempt was met by an outburst from Mrs. Brown that terrified him
+into silence. Much of this kind of gossip came from those of her own sex
+whom she had supplanted in the chivalrous attentions of Wingdam, which,
+like most popular chivalry, was devoted to an admiration of power,
+whether of masculine force or feminine beauty. It should be remembered,
+too, in her extenuation, that, since her arrival, she had been the
+unconscious priestess of a mythological worship, perhaps not more
+ennobling to her womanhood than that which distinguished an older Greek
+democracy. I think that Brown was dimly conscious of this. But his only
+confidant was Jack Hamlin, whose infelix reputation naturally precluded
+any open intimacy with the family, and whose visits were infrequent.
+
+It was midsummer and a moonlit night, and Mrs. Brown, very rosy,
+large-eyed, and pretty, sat upon the piazza, enjoying the fresh incense
+of the mountain breeze, and, it is to be feared, another incense
+which was not so fresh nor quite as innocent. Beside her sat Colonel
+Starbottle and Judge Boompointer, and a later addition to her court in
+the shape of a foreign tourist. She was in good spirits.
+
+“What do you see down the road?” inquired the gallant Colonel, who had
+been conscious, for the last few minutes, that Mrs. Brown’s attention
+was diverted.
+
+“Dust,” said Mrs. Brown, with a sigh. “Only Sister Anne’s ‘flock of
+sheep.’”
+
+The Colonel, whose literary recollections did not extend farther back
+than last week’s paper, took a more practical view. “It ain’t sheep,” he
+continued; “it’s a horseman. Judge, ain’t that Jack Hamlin’s gray?”
+
+But the Judge didn’t know; and, as Mrs. Brown suggested the air was
+growing too cold for further investigations, they retired to the parlor.
+
+Mr. Brown was in the stable, where he generally retired after dinner.
+Perhaps it was to show his contempt for his wife’s companions; perhaps,
+like other weak natures, he found pleasure in the exercise of absolute
+power over inferior animals. He had a certain gratification in the
+training of a chestnut mare, whom he could beat or caress as pleased
+him, which he couldn’t do with Mrs. Brown. It was here that he
+recognized a certain gray horse which had just come in, and, looking
+a little farther on, found his rider. Brown’s greeting was cordial
+and hearty; Mr. Hamlin’s somewhat restrained. But, at Brown’s urgent
+request, he followed him up the back stairs to a narrow corridor, and
+thence to a small room looking out upon the stable-yard. It was plainly
+furnished with a bed, a table, a few chairs, and a rack for guns and
+whips.
+
+“This yer’s my home, Jack,” said Brown with a sigh, as he threw himself
+upon the bed and motioned his companion to a chair. “Her room’s t’ other
+end of the hall. It’s more’n six months since we’ve lived together, or
+met, except at meals. It’s mighty rough papers on the head of the house,
+ain’t it?” he said with a forced laugh. “But I’m glad to see you,
+Jack, d—d glad,” and he reached from the bed, and again shook the
+unresponsive hand of Jack Hamlin.
+
+“I brought ye up here, for I didn’t want to talk in the stable; though,
+for the matter of that, it’s all round town. Don’t strike a light. We
+can talk here in the moonshine. Put up your feet on that winder and sit
+here beside me. Thar’s whiskey in that jug.”
+
+Mr. Hamlin did not avail himself of the information. Brown of Calaveras
+turned his face to the wall, and continued,—
+
+“If I didn’t love the woman, Jack, I wouldn’t mind. But it’s loving her,
+and seeing her day arter day goin’ on at this rate, and no one to put
+down the brake; that’s what gits me! But I’m glad to see ye, Jack, d—d
+glad.”
+
+In the darkness he groped about until he had found and wrung his
+companion’s hand again. He would have detained it, but Jack slipped it
+into the buttoned breast of his coat, and asked listlessly, “How long
+has this been going on?”
+
+“Ever since she came here; ever since the day she walked into the
+Magnolia. I was a fool then; Jack, I’m a fool now; but I didn’t know how
+much I loved her till then. And she hasn’t been the same woman since.
+
+“But that ain’t all, Jack; and it’s what I wanted to see you about, and
+I’m glad you’ve come. It ain’t that she doesn’t love me any more; it
+ain’t that she fools with every chap that comes along; for perhaps I
+staked her love and lost it, as I did everything else at the Magnolia;
+and perhaps foolin’ is nateral to some women, and thar ain’t no great
+harm done, ’cept to the fools. But, Jack, I think,—I think she loves
+somebody else. Don’t move, Jack! don’t move; if your pistol hurts ye,
+take it off.
+
+“It’s been more’n six months now that she’s seemed unhappy and lonesome,
+and kinder nervous and scared-like. And sometimes I’ve ketched her
+lookin’ at me sort of timid and pitying. And she writes to somebody. And
+for the last week she’s been gathering her own things,—trinkets, and
+furbelows, and jew’lry,—and, Jack, I think she’s goin’ off. I could
+stand all but that. To have her steal away like a thief!” He put his
+face downward to the pillow, and for a few moments there was no sound
+but the ticking of a clock on the mantel. Mr. Hamlin lit a cigar, and
+moved to the open window. The moon no longer shone into the room, and
+the bed and its occupant were in shadow. “What shall I do, Jack?” said
+the voice from the darkness.
+
+The answer came promptly and clearly from the window-side, “Spot the
+man, and kill him on sight.”
+
+“But, Jack”—
+
+“He’s took the risk!”
+
+“But will that bring her back?”
+
+Jack did not reply, but moved from the window towards the door.
+
+“Don’t go yet, Jack; light the candle and sit by the table. It’s a
+comfort to see ye, if nothin’ else.”
+
+Jack hesitated and then complied. He drew a pack of cards from his
+pocket and shuffled them, glancing at the bed. But Brown’s face was
+turned to the wall. When Mr. Hamlin had shuffled the cards, he cut them,
+and dealt one card on the opposite side of the table towards the bed,
+and another on his side of the table for himself. The first was a deuce;
+his own card a king. He then shuffled and cut again. This time “dummy”
+ had a queen and himself a four-spot. Jack brightened up for the third
+deal. It brought his adversary a deuce and himself a king again. “Two
+out of three,” said Jack audibly.
+
+“What’s that, Jack?” said Brown.
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+Then Jack tried his hand with dice; but he always threw sixes and his
+imaginary opponent aces. The force of habit is sometimes confusing.
+
+Meanwhile some magnetic influence in Mr. Hamlin’s presence, or the
+anodyne of liquor, or both, brought surcease of sorrow, and Brown slept.
+Mr. Hamlin moved his chair to the window and looked out on the town
+of Wingdam, now sleeping peacefully, its harsh outlines softened and
+subdued, its glaring colors mellowed and sobered in the moonlight that
+flowed over all. In the hush he could hear the gurgling of water in the
+ditches and the sighing of the pines beyond the hill. Then he looked
+up at the firmament, and as he did so a star shot across the twinkling
+field. Presently another, and then another. The phenomenon suggested to
+Mr. Hamlin a fresh augury. If in another fifteen minutes another star
+should fall—He sat there, watch in hand, for twice that time, but the
+phenomenon was not repeated.
+
+The clock struck two, and Brown still slept. Mr. Hamlin approached the
+table and took from his pocket a letter, which he read by the flickering
+candlelight. It contained only a single line, written in pencil, in a
+woman’s hand,—
+
+“Be at the corral with the buggy at three.”
+
+The sleeper moved uneasily and then awoke. “Are you there, Jack?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Don’t go yet. I dreamed just now, Jack,—dreamed of old times. I
+thought that Sue and me was being married agin, and that the parson,
+Jack, was—who do you think?—you!”
+
+The gambler laughed, and seated himself on the bed, the paper still in
+his hand.
+
+“It’s a good sign, ain’t it?” queried Brown.
+
+“I reckon! Say, old man, hadn’t you better get up?”
+
+The “old man,” thus affectionately appealed to, rose, with the
+assistance of Hamlin’s outstretched hand.
+
+“Smoke?”
+
+Brown mechanically took the proffered cigar.
+
+“Light?”
+
+Jack had twisted the letter into a spiral, lit it, and held it for his
+companion. He continued to hold it until it was consumed, and dropped
+the fragment—a fiery star—from the open window. He watched it as it
+fell, and then returned to his friend.
+
+“Old man,” he said, placing his hands upon Brown’s shoulders, “in ten
+minutes I’ll be on the road, and gone like that spark. We won’t see each
+other agin; but, before I go, take a fool’s advice: sell out all you’ve
+got, take your wife with you, and quit the country. It ain’t no place
+for you nor her. Tell her she must go; make her go if she won’t. Don’t
+whine because you can’t be a saint and she ain’t an angel. Be a man, and
+treat her like a woman. Don’t be a d-d fool. Good-by.”
+
+He tore himself from Brown’s grasp and leaped down the stairs like a
+deer. At the stable-door he collared the half-sleeping hostler, and
+backed him against the wall. “Saddle my horse in two minutes, or
+I’ll”—The ellipsis was frightfully suggestive.
+
+“The missis said you was to have the buggy,” stammered the man.
+
+“D—n the buggy!” The horse was saddled as fast as the nervous hands of
+the astounded hostler could manipulate buckle and strap.
+
+“Is anything up, Mr. Hamlin?” said the man, who, like all his class,
+admired the elan of his fiery patron, and was really concerned in his
+welfare.
+
+“Stand aside!”
+
+The man fell back. With an oath, a bound, and clatter, Jack was into the
+road. In another moment, to the man’s half-awakened eyes, he was but a
+moving cloud of dust in the distance, towards which a star just loosed
+from its brethren was trailing a stream of fire.
+
+But early that morning the dwellers by the Wingdam turnpike, miles
+aways, heard a voice, pure as a sky-lark’s, singing afield. They who
+were asleep turned over on their rude couches to dream of youth, and
+love, and olden days. Hard-faced men and anxious gold-seekers, already
+at work, ceased their labors and leaned upon their picks to listen to a
+romantic vagabond ambling away against the rosy sunrise.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+       CONDENSED NOVELS
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MUCK-A-MUCK
+
+A MODERN INDIAN NOVEL
+
+AFTER COOPER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It was toward the close of a bright October day. The last rays of the
+setting sun were reflected from one of those sylvan lakes peculiar to
+the Sierras of California. On the right the curling smoke of an Indian
+village rose between the columns of the lofty pines, while to the left
+the log cottage of Judge Tompkins, embowered in buckeyes, completed the
+enchanting picture.
+
+Although the exterior of the cottage was humble and unpretentious,
+and in keeping with the wildness of the landscape, its interior gave
+evidence of the cultivation and refinement of its inmates. An aquarium,
+containing goldfishes, stood on a marble centre-table at one end of the
+apartment, while a magnificent grand piano occupied the other. The floor
+was covered with a yielding tapestry carpet, and the walls were adorned
+with paintings from the pencils of Van Dyke, Rubens, Tintoretto, Michael
+Angelo, and the productions of the more modern Turner, Kensett, Church,
+and Bierstadt. Although Judge Tompkins had chosen the frontiers of
+civilization as his home, it was impossible for him to entirely forego
+the habits and tastes of his former life. He was seated in a luxurious
+armchair, writing at a mahogany escritoire, while his daughter, a lovely
+young girl of seventeen summers, plied her crotchet-needle on an ottoman
+beside him. A bright fire of pine logs flickered and flamed on the ample
+hearth.
+
+Genevra Octavia Tompkins was Judge Tompkins’s only child. Her mother had
+long since died on the Plains. Reared in affluence, no pains had been
+spared with the daughter’s education. She was a graduate of one of the
+principal seminaries, and spoke French with a perfect Benicia accent.
+Peerlessly beautiful, she was dressed in a white moire antique robe
+trimmed with tulle. That simple rosebud, with which most heroines
+exclusively decorate their hair, was all she wore in her raven locks.
+
+The Judge was the first to break the silence.
+
+“Genevra, the logs which compose yonder fire seem to have been
+incautiously chosen. The sibilation produced by the sap, which exudes
+copiously therefrom, is not conducive to composition.”
+
+“True, father, but I thought it would be preferable to the constant
+crepitation which is apt to attend the combustion of more seasoned
+ligneous fragments.”
+
+The Judge looked admiringly at the intellectual features of the graceful
+girl, and half forgot the slight annoyances of the green wood in the
+musical accents of his daughter. He was smoothing her hair tenderly,
+when the shadow of a tall figure, which suddenly darkened the doorway,
+caused him to look up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+It needed but a glance at the new-comer to detect at once the form and
+features of the haughty aborigine,—the untaught and untrammeled son
+of the forest. Over one shoulder a blanket, negligently but gracefully
+thrown, disclosed a bare and powerful breast, decorated with a quantity
+of three-cent postage-stamps which he had despoiled from an Overland
+Mail stage a few weeks previous. A cast-off beaver of Judge Tompkins’s,
+adorned by a simple feather, covered his erect head, from beneath which
+his straight locks descended. His right hand hung lightly by his side,
+while his left was engaged in holding on a pair of pantaloons, which the
+lawless grace and freedom of his lower limbs evidently could not brook.
+
+“Why,” said the Indian, in a low sweet tone,—“why does the Pale Face
+still follow the track of the Red Man? Why does he pursue him, even as
+O-kee chow, the wild cat, chases Ka-ka, the skunk? Why are the feet
+of Sorrel-top, the white chief, among the acorns of Muck-a-Muck, the
+mountain forest? Why,” he repeated, quietly but firmly abstracting a
+silver spoon from the table,—“why do you seek to drive him from the
+wigwams of his fathers? His brothers are already gone to the happy
+hunting-grounds. Will the Pale Face seek him there?” And, averting his
+face from the Judge, he hastily slipped a silver cake-basket beneath his
+blanket, to conceal his emotion.
+
+“Muck-a-Muck has spoken,” said Genevra softly. “Let him now listen. Are
+the acorns of the mountain sweeter than the esculent and nutritious bean
+of the Pale Face miner? Does my brother prize the edible qualities of
+the snail above that of the crisp and oleaginous bacon? Delicious are
+the grasshoppers that sport on the hillside,—are they better than the
+dried apples of the Pale Faces? Pleasant is the gurgle of the torrent,
+Kish-Kish, but is it better than the cluck-cluck of old Bourbon from the
+old stone bottle?”
+
+“Ugh!” said the Indian,—“ugh! good. The White Rabbit is wise. Her words
+fall as the snow on Tootoonolo, and the rocky heart of Muck-a-Muck is
+hidden. What says my brother the Gray Gopher of Dutch Flat?”
+
+“She has spoken, Muck-a-Muck,” said the Judge, gazing fondly on his
+daughter. “It is well. Our treaty is concluded. No, thank you,—you need
+_not_ dance the Dance of Snow-shoes, or the Moccasin Dance, the Dance
+of Green Corn, or the Treaty Dance. I would be alone. A strange sadness
+overpowers me.”
+
+
+“I go,” said the Indian. “Tell your great chief in Washington, the
+Sachem Andy, that the Red Man is retiring before the footsteps of the
+adventurous pioneer. Inform him, if you please, that westward the star
+of empire takes its way, that the chiefs of the Pi-Ute nation are for
+Reconstruction to a man, and that Klamath will poll a heavy Republican
+vote in the fall.”
+
+And folding his blanket more tightly around him, Muck-a-Muck withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Genevra Tompkins stood at the door of the log-cabin, looking after the
+retreating Overland Mail stage which conveyed her father to Virginia
+City. “He may never return again,” sighed the young girl, as she glanced
+at the frightfully rolling vehicle and wildly careering horses,—“at
+least, with unbroken bones. Should he meet with an accident! I mind
+me now a fearful legend, familiar to my childhood. Can it be that the
+drivers on this line are privately instructed to dispatch all passengers
+maimed by accident, to prevent tedious litigation? No, no. But why this
+weight upon my heart?”
+
+She seated herself at the piano and lightly passed her hand over the
+keys. Then, in a clear mezzo-soprano voice, she sang the first verse of
+one of the most popular Irish ballads:—
+
+  “O _Arrah ma dheelish_, the distant _dudheen_
+   Lies soft in the moonlight, _ma bouchal vourneen_:
+   The springing _gossoons_ on the heather are still,
+   And the _caubeens_ and _colleens_ are heard on the hill.”
+
+But as the ravishing notes of her sweet voice died upon the air, her
+hands sank listlessly to her side. Music could not chase away the
+mysterious shadow from her heart. Again she rose. Putting on a white
+crape bonnet, and carefully drawing a pair of lemon-colored gloves over
+her taper fingers, she seized her parasol and plunged into the depths of
+the pine forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Genevra had not proceeded many miles before a weariness seized upon
+her fragile limbs, and she would fain seat herself upon the trunk of a
+prostrate pine, which she previously dusted with her handkerchief.
+The sun was just sinking below the horizon, and the scene was one of
+gorgeous and sylvan beauty. “How beautiful is nature!” murmured the
+innocent girl, as, reclining gracefully against the root of the tree,
+she gathered up her skirts and tied a handkerchief around her throat.
+But a low growl interrupted her meditation. Starting to her feet, her
+eyes met a sight which froze her blood with terror.
+
+The only outlet to the forest was the narrow path, barely wide enough
+for a single person, hemmed in by trees and rocks, which she had just
+traversed. Down this path, in Indian file, came a monstrous grizzly,
+closely followed by a California lion, a wild cat, and a buffalo, the
+rear being brought up by a wild Spanish bull. The mouths of the three
+first animals were distended with frightful significance, the horns of
+the last were lowered as ominously. As Genevra was preparing to faint,
+she heard a low voice behind her.
+
+“Eternally dog-gone my skin ef this ain’t the puttiest chance yet!” At
+the same moment, a long, shining barrel dropped lightly from behind her,
+and rested over her shoulder.
+
+Genevra shuddered.
+
+“Dern ye—don’t move!”
+
+Genevra became motionless.
+
+The crack of a rifle rang through the woods. Three frightful yells were
+heard, and two sullen roars. Five animals bounded into the air and five
+lifeless bodies lay upon the plain. The well-aimed bullet had done its
+work. Entering the open throat of the grizzly it had traversed his body
+only to enter the throat of the California lion, and in like manner the
+catamount, until it passed through into the respective foreheads of
+the bull and the buffalo, and finally fell flattened from the rocky
+hillside.
+
+Genevra turned quickly. “My preserver!” she shrieked, and fell into the
+arms of Natty Bumpo, the celebrated Pike Ranger of Donner Lake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The moon rose cheerfully above Donner Lake. On its placid bosom a
+dug-out canoe glided rapidly, containing Natty Bumpo and Genevra
+Tompkins.
+
+Both were silent. The same thought possessed each, and perhaps there was
+sweet companionship even in the unbroken quiet. Genevra bit the handle
+of her parasol, and blushed. Natty Bumpo took a fresh chew of tobacco.
+At length Genevra said, as if in half-spoken reverie:—
+
+“The soft shining of the moon and the peaceful ripple of the waves seem
+to say to us various things of an instructive and moral tendency.”
+
+“You may bet yer pile on that, miss,” said her companion gravely. “It’s
+all the preachin’ and psalm-singin’ I’ve heern since I was a boy.”
+ “Noble being!” said Miss Tompkins to herself, glancing at the stately
+Pike as he bent over his paddle to conceal his emotion. “Reared in this
+wild seclusion, yet he has become penetrated with visible consciousness
+of a Great First Cause.” Then, collecting herself, she said aloud:
+“Methinks ’t were pleasant to glide ever thus down the stream of life,
+hand in hand with the one being whom the soul claims as its affinity.
+But what am I saying?”—and the delicate-minded girl hid her face in her
+hands.
+
+A long silence ensued, which was at length broken by her companion.
+
+“Ef you mean you’re on the marry,” he said thoughtfully, “I ain’t in no
+wise partikler.”
+
+“My husband!” faltered the blushing girl; and she fell into his arms.
+
+
+In ten minutes more the loving couple had landed at Judge Tompkins’s.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+A year has passed away. Natty Bumpo was returning from Gold Hill, where
+he had been to purchase provisions. On his way to Donner Lake, rumors of
+an Indian uprising met his ears. “Dern their pesky skins, ef they dare
+to touch my Jenny,” he muttered between his clenched teeth.
+
+It was dark when he reached the borders of the lake. Around a glittering
+fire he dimly discerned dusky figures dancing. They were in war paint.
+Conspicuous among them was the renowned Muck-a-Muck. But why did the
+fingers of Natty Bumpo tighten convulsively around his rifle?
+
+The chief held in his hand long tufts of raven hair. The heart of the
+pioneer sickened as he recognized the clustering curls of Genevra. In
+a moment his rifle was at his shoulder, and with a sharp “ping”
+ Muck-a-Muck leaped into the air a corpse. To knock out the brains of
+the remaining savages, tear the tresses from the stiffening hand of
+Muck-a-Muck, and dash rapidly forward to the cottage of Judge Tompkins,
+was the work of a moment.
+
+He burst open the door. Why did he stand transfixed with open mouth
+and distended eyeballs? Was the sight too horrible to be borne? On the
+contrary, before him, in her peerless beauty, stood Genevra Tompkins,
+leaning on her father’s arm.
+
+“Ye’r not scalped, then!” gasped her lover.
+
+“No. I have no hesitation in saying that I am not; but why this
+abruptness?” responded Genevra.
+
+Bumpo could not speak, but frantically produced the silken tresses.
+Genevra turned her face aside.
+
+“Why, that’s her waterfall!” said the Judge.
+
+Bumpo sank fainting to the floor.
+
+The famous Pike chieftain never recovered from the deceit, and refused
+to marry Genevra, who died, twenty years afterwards, of a broken heart.
+Judge Tompkins lost his fortune in Wild Cat. The stage passes twice
+a week the deserted cottage at Donner Lake. Thus was the death of
+Muck-a-Muck avenged.
+
+
+
+
+SELINA SEDILIA
+
+BY MISS M. E. B-DD-N AND MRS. H-N-Y W-D.
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The sun was setting over Sloperton Grange, and reddened the window of
+the lonely chamber in the western tower, supposed to be haunted by Sir
+Edward Sedilia, the founder of the Grange. In the dreamy distance arose
+the gilded mausoleum of Lady Felicia Sedilia, who haunted that portion
+of Sedilia Manor known as “Stiff-uns Acre.” A little to the left of the
+Grange might have been seen a mouldering ruin, known as “Guy’s Keep,”
+ haunted by the spirit of Sir Guy Sedilia, who was found, one morning,
+crushed by one of the fallen battlements. Yet, as the setting sun gilded
+these objects, a beautiful and almost holy calm seemed diffused about
+the Grange.
+
+The Lady Selina sat by an oriel window overlooking the park. The sun
+sank gently in the bosom of the German Ocean, and yet the lady did not
+lift her beautiful head from the finely curved arm and diminutive hand
+which supported it. When darkness finally shrouded the landscape she
+started, for the sound of horse-hoofs clattered over the stones of the
+avenue. She had scarcely risen, before an aristocratic young man fell on
+his knees before her.
+
+“My Selina!”
+
+“Edgardo! You here?”
+
+“Yes, dearest.”
+
+“And—you—you—have—seen nothing?” said the lady in an agitated voice
+and nervous manner, turning her face aside to conceal her emotion.
+
+“Nothing—that is, nothing of any account,” said Edgardo. “I passed the
+ghost of your aunt in the park, noticed the spectre of your uncle in the
+ruined keep, and observed the familiar features of the spirit of your
+great-grandfather at his usual post. But nothing beyond these trifles,
+my Selina. Nothing more, love, absolutely nothing.”
+
+The young man turned his dark, liquid orbs fondly upon the ingenuous
+face of his betrothed.
+
+“My own Edgardo!—and you still love me? You still would marry me in
+spite of this dark mystery which surrounds me? In spite of the fatal
+history of my race? In spite of the ominous predictions of my aged
+nurse?”
+
+“I would, Selina;” and the young man passed his arm around her yielding
+waist. The two lovers gazed at each other’s faces in unspeakable bliss.
+Suddenly Selina started.
+
+“Leave me, Edgardo! leave me! A mysterious something—a fatal
+misgiving—a dark ambiguity—an equivocal mistrust oppresses me. I would
+be alone!”
+
+The young man arose, and cast a loving glance on the lady. “Then we will
+be married on the seventeenth.”
+
+“The seventeenth,” repeated Selina, with a mysterious shudder.
+
+They embraced and parted. As the clatter of hoofs in the courtyard died
+away, the Lady Selina sank into the chair she had just quitted.
+
+“The seventeenth,” she repeated slowly, with the same fateful shudder.
+“Ah!—what if he should know that I have another husband living? Dare
+I reveal to him that I have two legitimate and three natural children?
+Dare I repeat to him the history of my youth? Dare I confess that at
+the age of seven I poisoned my sister, by putting verdigris in her
+cream-tarts,—that I threw my cousin from a swing at the age of twelve?
+That the lady’s maid who incurred the displeasure of my girlhood now
+lies at the bottom of the horse-pond? No! no! he is too pure,—too
+good,—too innocent,—to hear such improper conversation!” and her whole
+body writhed as she rocked to and fro in a paroxysm of grief.
+
+But she was soon calm. Rising to her feet, she opened a secret panel in
+the wall, and revealed a slow-match ready for lighting.
+
+“This match,” said the Lady Selina, “is connected with a mine beneath
+the western tower, where my three children are confined; another
+branch of it lies under the parish church, where the record of my first
+marriage is kept. I have only to light this match and the whole of
+my past life is swept away!” She approached the match with a lighted
+candle.
+
+But a hand was laid upon her arm, and with a shriek the Lady Selina fell
+on her knees before the spectre of Sir Guy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+“Forbear, Selina,” said the phantom in a hollow voice.
+
+“Why should I forbear?” responded Selina haughtily, as she recovered her
+courage. “You know the secret of our race?”
+
+“I do. Understand me,—I do not object to the eccentricities of your
+youth. I know the fearful destiny which, pursuing you, led you to poison
+your sister and drown your lady’s maid. I know the awful doom which
+I have brought upon this house. But if you make away with these
+children”—
+
+“Well,” said the Lady Selina hastily.
+
+“They will haunt you!”
+
+“Well, I fear them not,” said Selina, drawing her superb figure to its
+full height.
+
+“Yes, but, my dear child, what place are they to haunt? The ruin is
+sacred to your uncle’s spirit. Your aunt monopolizes the park, and, I
+must be allowed to state, not unfrequently trespasses upon the grounds
+of others. The horse-pond is frequented by the spirit of your maid, and
+your murdered sister walks these corridors. To be plain, there is no
+room at Sloperton Grange for another ghost. I cannot have them in my
+room,—for you know I don’t like children. Think of this, rash girl, and
+forbear! Would you, Selina,” said the phantom mournfully,—“would you
+force your great-grandfather’s spirit to take lodgings elsewhere?”
+
+Lady Selina’s hand trembled; the lighted candle fell from her nerveless
+fingers.
+
+“No,” she cried passionately; “never!” and fell fainting to the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Edgardo galloped rapidly towards Sloperton. When the outline of the
+Grange had faded away in the darkness, he reined his magnificent steed
+beside the ruins of Guy’s Keep.
+
+“It wants but a few minutes of the hour,” he said, consulting his watch
+by the light of the moon. “He dare not break his word. He will come.” He
+paused, and peered anxiously into the darkness. “But come what may, she
+is mine,” he continued, as his thoughts reverted fondly to the fair lady
+he had quitted. “Yet if she knew all. If she knew that I am a disgraced
+and ruined man,—a felon and an outcast. If she knew that at the age of
+fourteen I murdered my Latin tutor and forged my uncle’s will. If she
+knew that I had three wives already, and that the fourth victim of
+misplaced confidence and my unfortunate peculiarity is expected to be at
+Sloperton by to-night’s train with her baby. But no; she must not know
+it. Constance must not arrive; Burke the Slogger must attend to that.
+
+“Ha! here he is! Well?”
+
+These words were addressed to a ruffian in a slouched hat, who suddenly
+appeared from Guy’s Keep.
+
+“I he’s here, measter,” said the villain, with a disgracefully low
+accent and complete disregard of grammatical rules.
+
+“It is well. Listen: I’m in possession of facts that will send you to
+the gallows. I know of the murder of Bill Smithers, the robbery of the
+tollgate-keeper, and the making away of the youngest daughter of Sir
+Reginald de Walton. A word from me, and the officers of justice are on
+your track.”
+
+Burke the Slogger trembled.
+
+“Hark ye! serve my purpose, and I may yet save you. The 5.30 train from
+Clapham will be due at Sloperton at 9.25. _It must not arrive!_”
+
+The villain’s eyes sparkled as he nodded at Edgardo.
+
+“Enough,—you understand; leave me!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+About half a mile from Sloperton Station the South Clapham and Medway
+line crossed a bridge over Sloperton-on-Trent. As the shades of evening
+were closing, a man in a slouched hat might have been seen, carrying a
+saw and axe under his arm, hanging about the bridge. From time to time
+he disappeared in the shadow of its abutments, but the sound of a
+saw and axe still betrayed his vicinity. At exactly nine o’clock he
+reappeared, and crossing to the Sloperton side, rested his shoulder
+against the abutment and gave a shove. The bridge swayed a moment, and
+then fell with a splash into the water, leaving a space of one hundred
+feet between the two banks. This done, Burke the Slogger,—for it was
+he,—with a fiendish chuckle seated himself on the divided railway track
+and awaited the coming of the train.
+
+A shriek from the woods announced its approach. For an instant Burke the
+Slogger saw the glaring of a red lamp. The ground trembled. The train
+was going with fearful rapidity. Another second and it had reached the
+bank. Burke the Slogger uttered a fiendish laugh. But the next moment
+the train leaped across the chasm, striking the rails exactly even, and
+dashing out the life of Burke the Slogger, sped away to Sloperton.
+
+The first object that greeted Edgardo, as he rode up to the station on
+the arrival of the train, was the body of Burke the Slogger hanging on
+the cowcatcher; the second was the face of his deserted wife looking
+from the window of a second-class carriage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+A nameless terror seemed to have taken possession of Clarissa, Lady
+Selina’s maid, as she rushed into the presence of her mistress.
+
+“Oh, my lady, such news!”
+
+“Explain yourself,” said her mistress, rising.
+
+“An accident has happened on the railway, and a man has been killed.”
+
+“What—not Edgardo!” almost screamed Selina.
+
+“No, Burke the Slogger, your ladyship!”
+
+“My first husband!” said Lady Selina, sinking on her knees. “Just
+Heaven, I thank thee!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The morning of the seventeenth dawned brightly over Sloperton. “A fine
+day for the wedding,” said the sexton to Swipes, the butler of Sloperton
+Grange. The aged retainer shook his head sadly. “Alas! there’s no
+trusting in signs!” he continued. “Seventy-five years ago, on a day like
+this, my young mistress”—but he was cut short by the appearance of a
+stranger.
+
+“I would see Sir Edgardo,” said the new-comer impatiently.
+
+The bridegroom, who, with the rest of the wedding-train, was about
+stepping into the carriage to proceed to the parish church, drew the
+stranger aside.
+
+“I’s done!” said the stranger, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+“Ah! and you buried her?”
+
+“With the others!”
+
+“Enough. No more at present. Meet me after the ceremony, and you shall
+have your reward.”
+
+The stranger shuffled away, and Edgardo returned to his bride. “A
+trifling matter of business I had forgotten, my dear Selina; let us
+proceed.” And the young man pressed the timid hand of his blushing
+bride as he handed her into the carriage. The cavalcade rode out of
+the courtyard. At the same moment, the deep bell on Guy’s Keep tolled
+ominously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Scarcely had the wedding-train left the Grange, than Alice Sedilia,
+youngest daughter of Lady Selina, made her escape from the western
+tower, owing to a lack of watchfulness on the part of Clarissa. The
+innocent child, freed from restraint, rambled through the lonely
+corridors, and finally, opening a door, found herself in her mother’s
+boudoir. For some time she amused herself by examining the various
+ornaments and elegant trifles with which it was filled. Then, in
+pursuance of a childish freak, she dressed herself in her mother’s laces
+and ribbons. In this occupation she chanced to touch a peg which proved
+to be a spring that opened a secret panel in the wall. Alice uttered a
+cry of delight as she noticed what, to her childish fancy, appeared to
+be the slow-match of a firework. Taking a lucifer match in her hand she
+approached the fuse. She hesitated a moment. What would her mother and
+her nurse say?
+
+Suddenly the ringing of the chimes of Sloperton parish church met her
+ear. Alice knew that the sound signified that the marriage-party had
+entered the church, and that she was secure from interruption. With a
+childish smile upon her lips, Alice Sedilia touched off the slow-match.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+At exactly two o’clock on the seventeenth, Rupert Sedilia, who had
+just returned from India, was thoughtfully descending the hill toward
+Sloperton manor. “If I can prove that my aunt, Lady Selina, was married
+before my father died, I can establish my claim to Sloperton Grange,”
+ he uttered, half aloud. He paused, for a sudden trembling of the earth
+beneath his feet, and a terrific explosion, as of a park of artillery,
+arrested his progress. At the same moment he beheld a dense cloud of
+smoke envelop the churchyard of Sloperton, and the western tower of the
+Grange seemed to be lifted bodily from its foundation. The air seemed
+filled with falling fragments, and two dark objects struck the earth
+close at his feet. Rupert picked them up. One seemed to be a heavy
+volume bound in brass. A cry burst from, his lips.
+
+“The Parish Records.” He opened the volume hastily. It contained the
+marriage of Lady Selina to “Burke the Slogger.”
+
+The second object proved to be a piece of parchment. He tore it open
+with trembling fingers. It was the missing will of Sir James Sedilia!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+When the bells again rang on the new parish church of Sloperton it
+was for the marriage of Sir Rupert Sedilia and his cousin, the only
+remaining members of the family.
+
+Five more ghosts were added to the supernatural population of Sloperton
+Grange. Perhaps this was the reason why Sir Rupert sold the property
+shortly afterward, and that for many years a dark shadow seemed to hang
+over the ruins of Sloperton Grange.
+
+
+
+
+THE NINETY-NINE GUARDSMEN
+
+BY AL-X-D-R D-M-S
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SHOWING THE QUALITY OF THE CUSTOMERS OF THE INNKEEPER OF PROVINS
+
+
+Twenty years after, the gigantic innkeeper of Provins stood looking at a
+cloud of dust on the highway.
+
+This cloud of dust betokened the approach of a traveler. Travelers had
+been rare that season on the highway between Paris and Provins.
+
+The heart of the innkeeper rejoiced. Turning to Dame Perigord, his wife,
+he said, stroking his white apron,—
+
+“St. Denis! make haste and spread the cloth. Add a bottle of Charlevoix
+to the table. This traveler, who rides so fast, by his pace must be a
+monseigneur.”
+
+Truly the traveler, clad in the uniform of a musketeer, as he drew up
+to the door of the hostelry, did not seem to have spared his horse.
+Throwing his reins to the landlord, he leaped lightly to the ground.
+He was a young man of four and twenty, and spoke with a slight Gascon
+accent.
+
+“I am hungry, morbleu! I wish to dine!”
+
+The gigantic innkeeper bowed and led the way to a neat apartment, where
+a table stood covered with tempting viands. The musketeer at once set to
+work. Fowls, fish, and pates disappeared before him. Perigord sighed as
+he witnessed the devastations. Only once the stranger paused.
+
+“Wine!” Perigord brought wine. The stranger drank a dozen bottles.
+Finally he rose to depart. Turning to the expectant landlord, he said,—
+
+“Charge it.”
+
+“To whom, your highness?” said Perigord anxiously.
+
+“To his Eminence!”
+
+“Mazarin?” ejaculated the innkeeper.
+
+“The same. Bring me my horse,” and the musketeer, remounting his
+favorite animal, rode away.
+
+The innkeeper slowly turned back into the inn. Scarcely had he reached
+the courtyard before the clatter of hoofs again called him to the
+doorway. A young musketeer of a light and graceful figure rode up.
+
+“Parbleu, my dear Perigord, I am famishing. What have you got for
+dinner?”
+
+“Venison, capons, larks, and pigeons, your excellency,” replied the
+obsequious landlord, bowing to the ground.
+
+“Enough!” The young musketeer dismounted, and entered the inn. Seating
+himself at the table replenished by the careful Perigord, he speedily
+swept it as clean as the first comer.
+
+“Some wine, my brave Perigord,” said the graceful young musketeer, as
+soon as he could find utterance.
+
+Perigord brought three dozen of Charlevoix. The young man emptied them
+almost at a draught.
+
+“By-by, Perigord,” he said lightly, waving his hand, as, preceding the
+astonished landlord, he slowly withdrew.
+
+“But, your highness,—the bill,” said the astounded Perigord.
+
+“Ah, the bill. Charge it!”
+
+“To whom?”
+
+“The Queen!”
+
+“What, Madame?”
+
+“The same. Adieu, my good Perigord.” And the graceful stranger rode
+away. An interval of quiet succeeded, in which the innkeeper gazed
+woefully at his wife. Suddenly he was startled by a clatter of hoofs,
+and an aristocratic figure stood in the doorway.
+
+“Ah,” said the courtier good-naturedly. “What, do my eyes deceive
+me? No, it is the festive and luxurious Perigord. Perigord, listen. I
+famish. I languish. I would dine.”
+
+The innkeeper again covered the table with viands. Again it was swept
+clean as the fields of Egypt before the miraculous swarm of locusts. The
+stranger looked up.
+
+“Bring me another fowl, my Perigord.”
+
+“Impossible, your excellency; the larder is stripped clean.”
+
+“Another flitch of bacon, then.”
+
+“Impossible, your highness; there is no more.”
+
+“Well, then, wine!”
+
+The landlord brought one hundred and forty-four bottles. The courtier
+drank them all.
+
+“One may drink if one cannot eat,” said the aristocratic stranger
+good-humoredly.
+
+The innkeeper shuddered.
+
+The guest rose to depart. The innkeeper came slowly forward with his
+bill, to which he had covertly added the losses which he had suffered
+from the previous strangers.
+
+“Ah, the bill. Charge it.”
+
+“Charge it! to whom?”
+
+“To the King,” said the guest.
+
+“What! his Majesty?”
+
+“Certainly. Farewell, Perigord.”
+
+The innkeeper groaned. Then he went out and took down his sign. Then
+remarked to his wife,—
+
+“I am a plain man, and don’t understand politics. It seems, however,
+that the country is in a troubled state. Between his Eminence the
+Cardinal, his Majesty the King, and her Majesty the Queen, I am a ruined
+man.”
+
+“Stay,” said Dame Perigord, “I have an idea.”
+
+“And that is”—
+
+“Become yourself a musketeer.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE COMBAT
+
+
+On leaving Provins the first musketeer proceeded to Nangis, where he was
+reinforced by thirty-three followers. The second musketeer, arriving at
+Nangis at the same moment, placed himself at the head of thirty-three
+more. The third guest of the landlord of Provins arrived at Nangis in
+time to assemble together thirty-three other musketeers.
+
+The first stranger led the troops of his Eminence.
+
+The second led the troops of the Queen.
+
+The third led the troops of the King.
+
+The fight commenced. It raged terribly for seven hours. The first
+musketeer killed thirty of the Queen’s troops. The second musketeer
+killed thirty of the King’s troops. The third musketeer killed thirty of
+his Eminence’s troops.
+
+By this time it will be perceived the number of musketeers had been
+narrowed down to four on each side.
+
+Naturally the three principal warriors approached each other.
+
+They simultaneously uttered a cry.
+
+“Aramis!”
+
+“Athos!”
+
+“D’Artagnan!”
+
+They fell into each other’s arms.
+
+“And it seems that we are fighting against each other, my children,”
+ said the Count de la Fere mournfully.
+
+“How singular!” exclaimed Aramis and D’Artagnan.
+
+“Let us stop this fratricidal warfare,” said Athos.
+
+“We will!” they exclaimed together.
+
+“But how to disband our followers?” queried D’Artagnan.
+
+Aramis winked. They understood each other. “Let us cut ’em down!”
+
+They cut ’em down. Aramis killed three. D’Artagnan three. Athos three.
+
+The friends again embraced. “How like old times!” said Aramis. “How
+touching!” exclaimed the serious and philosophic Count de la Fere.
+
+The galloping of hoofs caused them to withdraw from each other’s
+embraces. A gigantic figure rapidly approached.
+
+“The innkeeper of Provins!” they cried, drawing their swords.
+
+“Perigord! down with him!” shouted D’Artagnan.
+
+“Stay,” said Athos.
+
+The gigantic figure was beside them. He uttered a cry.
+
+“Athos, Aramis, D’Artagnan!”
+
+“Porthos!” exclaimed the astonished trio.
+
+“The same.” They all fell in each other’s arms.
+
+The Count de la Fere slowly raised his hands to heaven. “Bless you!
+Bless us, my children! However different our opinion may be in regard to
+politics, we have but one opinion in regard to our own merits. Where can
+you find a better man than Aramis?”
+
+“Than Porthos?” said Aramis.
+
+“Than D’Artagnan?” said Porthos.
+
+“Than Athos?” said D’Artagnan.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SHOWING HOW THE KING OF FRANCE WENT UP A LADDER
+
+
+The King descended into the garden. Proceeding cautiously along the
+terraced walk, he came to the wall immediately below the windows of
+Madame. To the left were two windows, concealed by vines. They opened
+into the apartments of La Valliere.
+
+The King sighed.
+
+“It is about nineteen feet to that window,” said the King. “If I had a
+ladder about nineteen feet long, it would reach to that window. This is
+logic.”
+
+Suddenly the King stumbled over something. “St. Denis!” he exclaimed,
+looking down. It was a ladder, just nineteen feet long.
+
+The King placed it against the wall. In so doing, he fixed the lower end
+upon the abdomen of a man who lay concealed by the wall. The man did
+not utter a cry or wince. The King suspected nothing. He ascended the
+ladder.
+
+The ladder was too short. Louis the Grand was not a tall man. He was
+still two feet below the window.
+
+“Dear me!” said the King.
+
+Suddenly the ladder was lifted two feet from below. This enabled the
+King to leap in the window. At the farther end of the apartment stood
+a young girl, with red hair and a lame leg. She was trembling with
+emotion.
+
+“Louise!”
+
+“The King!”
+
+“Ah, my God, mademoiselle.”
+
+“Ah, my God, sire.”
+
+But a low knock at the door interrupted the lovers. The King uttered
+a cry of rage; Louise one of despair. The door opened and D’Artagnan
+entered.
+
+“Good-evening, sire,” said the musketeer.
+
+The King touched a bell. Porthos appeared in the doorway.
+
+“Good-evening, sire.”
+
+“Arrest M. D’Artagnan.”
+
+Porthos looked at D’Artagnan, and did not move.
+
+The King almost turned purple with rage. He again touched the bell.
+Athos entered. “Count, arrest Porthos and D’Artagnan.”
+
+The Count de la Fere glanced at Porthos and D’Artagnan, and smiled
+sweetly.
+
+“Sacre! Where is Aramis?” said the King violently.
+
+“Here, sire,” and Aramis entered.
+
+“Arrest Athos, Porthos, and D’Artagnan.”
+
+Aramis bowed and folded his arms.
+
+“Arrest yourself!”
+
+Aramis did not move.
+
+The King shuddered and turned pale. “Am I not King of France?”
+
+“Assuredly, sire, but we are also, severally, Porthos, Aramis,
+D’Artagnan, and Athos.”
+
+“Ah!” said the King.
+
+“Yes, sire.”
+
+“What does this mean?”
+
+“It means, your Majesty,” said Aramis, stepping forward, “that your
+conduct as a married man is highly improper. I am an abbe, and I object
+to these improprieties. My friends here, D’Artagnan, Athos, and Porthos,
+pure-minded young men, are also terribly shocked. Observe, sire, how
+they blush!”
+
+Athos, Porthos, and D’Artagnan blushed.
+
+“Ah,” said the King thoughtfully. “You teach me a lesson. You are
+devoted and noble young gentlemen, but your only weakness is your
+excessive modesty. From this moment I make you all marshals and dukes,
+with the exception of Aramis.”
+
+“And me, sire?” said Aramis.
+
+“You shall be an archbishop!”
+
+The four friends looked up and then rushed into each other’s arms. The
+King embraced Louise de la Valliere, by way of keeping them company. A
+pause ensued. At last Athos spoke,—
+
+“Swear, my children, that, next to yourselves, you will respect—the
+King of France; and remember that ‘Forty years after’ we will meet
+again.”
+
+
+
+
+MISS MIX
+
+BY CH-L-TTE BR-NTE
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+My earliest impressions are of a huge, misshapen rock, against which the
+hoarse waves beat unceasingly. On this rock three pelicans are standing
+in a defiant attitude. A dark sky lowers in the background, while
+two sea-gulls and a gigantic cormorant eye with extreme disfavor the
+floating corpse of a drowned woman in the foreground. A few bracelets,
+coral necklaces, and other articles of jewelry, scattered around
+loosely, complete this remarkable picture.
+
+It is one which, in some vague, unconscious way, symbolizes, to my
+fancy, the character of a man. I have never been able to explain exactly
+why. I think I must have seen the picture in some illustrated volume
+when a baby, or my mother may have dreamed it before I was born.
+
+As a child I was not handsome. When I consulted the triangular bit of
+looking-glass which I always carried with me, it showed a pale, sandy,
+and freckled face, shaded by locks like the color of seaweed when the
+sun strikes it in deep water. My eyes were said to be indistinctive;
+they were a faint, ashen gray; but above them rose—my only beauty—a
+high, massive, domelike forehead, with polished temples, like door-knobs
+of the purest porcelain.
+
+Our family was a family of governesses. My mother had been one, and
+my sisters had the same occupation. Consequently, when, at the age of
+thirteen, my eldest sister handed me the advertisement of Mr.
+Rawjester, clipped from that day’s “Times,” I accepted it as my destiny.
+Nevertheless, a mysterious presentiment of an indefinite future haunted
+me in my dreams that night, as I lay upon my little snow-white bed. The
+next morning, with two band-boxes tied up in silk handkerchiefs, and a
+hair trunk, I turned my back upon Minerva Cottage forever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Blunderbore Hall, the seat of James Rawjester, Esq., was encompassed by
+dark pines and funereal hemlocks on all sides. The wind sang weirdly in
+the turrets and moaned through the long-drawn avenues of the park. As
+I approached the house I saw several mysterious figures flit before
+the windows, and a yell of demoniac laughter answered my summons at the
+bell. While I strove to repress my gloomy forebodings, the housekeeper,
+a timid, scared-looking old woman, showed me into the library.
+
+I entered, overcome with conflicting emotions. I was dressed in a narrow
+gown of dark serge, trimmed with black bugles. A thick green shawl was
+pinned across my breast. My hands were encased with black half-mittens
+worked with steel beads; on my feet were large pattens, originally the
+property of my deceased grandmother. I carried a blue cotton umbrella.
+As I passed before a mirror I could not help glancing at it, nor could I
+disguise from myself the fact that I was not handsome.
+
+Drawing a chair into a recess, I sat down with folded hands, calmly
+awaiting the arrival of my master. Once or twice a fearful yell rang
+through the house, or the rattling of chains, and curses uttered in a
+deep, manly voice, broke upon the oppressive stillness. I began to feel
+my soul rising with the emergency of the moment. “You look alarmed,
+miss. You don’t hear anything, my dear, do you?” asked the housekeeper
+nervously.
+
+“Nothing whatever,” I remarked calmly, as a terrific scream, followed
+by the dragging of chairs and tables in the room above, drowned for a
+moment my reply. “It is the silence, on the contrary, which has made me
+foolishly nervous.”
+
+The housekeeper looked at me approvingly, and instantly made some tea
+for me.
+
+I drank seven cups; as I was beginning the eighth, I heard a crash, and
+the next moment a man leaped into the room through the broken window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The crash startled me from my self-control. The housekeeper bent toward
+me and whispered,—
+
+“Don’t be excited. It’s Mr. Rawjester,—he prefers to come in sometimes
+in this way. It’s his playfulness, ha! ha! ha!”
+
+“I perceive,” I said calmly. “It’s the unfettered impulse of a lofty
+soul breaking the tyrannizing bonds of custom.” And I turned toward him.
+
+He had never once looked at me. He stood with his back to the fire,
+which set off the herculean breadth of his shoulders. His face was dark
+and expressive; his under jaw squarely formed, and remarkably heavy. I
+was struck with his remarkable likeness to a gorilla.
+
+As he absently tied the poker into hard knots with his nervous fingers,
+I watched him with some interest. Suddenly he turned toward me:—
+
+“Do you think I’m handsome, young woman?”
+
+“Not classically beautiful,” I returned calmly; “but you have, if I
+may so express myself, an abstract manliness,—a sincere and wholesome
+barbarity which, involving as it does the naturalness”—But I stopped,
+for he yawned at that moment,—an action which singularly developed
+the immense breadth of his lower jaw,—and I saw he had forgotten me.
+Presently he turned to the housekeeper,—
+
+“Leave us.”
+
+The old woman withdrew with a curtsey.
+
+Mr. Rawjester deliberately turned his back upon me and remained silent
+for twenty minutes. I drew my shawl the more closely around my shoulders
+and closed my eyes.
+
+“You are the governess?” at length he said.
+
+“I am, sir.”
+
+“A creature who teaches geography, arithmetic, and the use of the
+globes—ha!—a wretched remnant of femininity,—a skimp pattern of
+girlhood with a premature flavor of tea-leaves and morality. Ugh!”
+
+I bowed my head silently.
+
+“Listen to me, girl!” he said sternly; “this child you have come
+to teach—my ward—is not legitimate. She is the offspring of my
+mistress,—a common harlot. Ah! Miss Mix, what do you think of me now?”
+
+“I admire,” I replied calmly, “your sincerity. A mawkish regard for
+delicacy might have kept this disclosure to yourself. I only recognize
+in your frankness that perfect community of thought and sentiment which
+should exist between original natures.” I looked up; he had already
+forgotten my presence, and was engaged in pulling off his boots and
+coat. This done, he sank down in an armchair before the fire, and ran
+the poker wearily through his hair. I could not help pitying him.
+
+The wind howled dismally without, and the rain beat furiously against
+the windows. I crept toward him and seated myself on a low stool beside
+his chair.
+
+Presently he turned, without seeing me, and placed his foot absently in
+my lap. I affected not to notice it. But he started and looked down.
+
+“You here yet—Carrothead? Ah, I forgot. Do you speak French?”
+
+“Oui, Monsieur.”
+
+“Taisez-vous!” he said sharply, with singular purity of accent. I
+complied. The wind moaned fearfully in the chimney, and the light burned
+dimly. I shuddered in spite of myself. “Ah, you tremble, girl!”
+
+“It is a fearful night.”
+
+“Fearful! Call you this fearful? Ha! ha! ha! Look! you wretched little
+atom, look!” and he dashed forward, and, leaping out of the window,
+stood like a statue in the pelting storm, with folded arms. He did not
+stay long, but in a few minutes returned by way of the hall chimney. I
+saw from the way that he wiped his feet on my dress that he had again
+forgotten my presence.
+
+“You are a governess. What can you teach?” he asked, suddenly and
+fiercely thrusting his face in mine.
+
+“Manners!” I replied calmly.
+
+“Ha! teach _me!_”
+
+“You mistake yourself,” I said, adjusting my mittens. “Your manners
+require not the artificial restraint of society. You are radically
+polite; this impetuosity and ferociousness is simply the sincerity which
+is the basis of a proper deportment. Your instincts are moral; your
+better nature, I see, is religious. As St. Paul justly remarks—see
+chap. 6, 8, 9, and 10”—
+
+He seized a heavy candlestick, and threw it at me. I dodged it
+submissively but firmly.
+
+“Excuse me,” he remarked, as his under jaw slowly relaxed. “Excuse me,
+Miss Mix—but I can’t stand St. Paul! Enough—you are engaged.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+I followed the housekeeper as she led the way timidly to my room. As we
+passed into a dark hall in the wing, I noticed that it was closed by
+an iron gate with a grating. Three of the doors on the corridor were
+likewise grated. A strange noise, as of shuffling feet and the howling
+of infuriated animals, rang through the hall. Bidding the housekeeper
+good-night, and taking the candle, I entered my bedchamber.
+
+I took off my dress, and putting on a yellow flannel nightgown, which
+I could not help feeling did not agree with my complexion, I composed
+myself to rest by reading Blair’s “Rhetoric” and Paley’s “Moral
+Philosophy.” I had just put out the light, when I heard voices in the
+corridor. I listened attentively. I recognized Mr. Rawjester’s stern
+tones.
+
+“Have you fed No. One?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said a gruff voice, apparently belonging to a domestic.
+
+“How’s No. Two?”
+
+“She’s a little off her feed, just now, but will pick up in a day or
+two.”
+
+“And No. Three?”
+
+“Perfectly furious, sir. Her tantrums are ungovernable.”
+
+“Hush!”
+
+The voices died away, and I sank into a fitful slumber.
+
+I dreamed that I was wandering through a tropical forest. Suddenly I saw
+the figure of a gorilla approaching me. As it neared me, I recognized
+the features of Mr. Rawjester. He held his hand to his side as if in
+pain. I saw that he had been wounded. He recognized me and called me by
+name, but at the same moment the vision changed to an Ashantee
+village, where, around the fire, a group of negroes were dancing and
+participating in some wild Obi festival. I awoke with the strain still
+ringing in my ears.
+
+“Hokee-pokee wokee fum!”
+
+Good Heavens! could I be dreaming? I heard the voice distinctly on the
+floor below, and smelt something burning. I arose, with an indistinct
+presentiment of evil, and hastily putting some cotton in my ears and
+tying a towel about my head, I wrapped myself in a shawl and rushed
+downstairs. The door of Mr. Rawjester’s room was open. I entered.
+
+Mr. Rawjester lay apparently in a deep slumber, from which even the
+clouds of smoke that came from the burning curtains of his bed could
+not rouse him. Around the room a large and powerful negress, scantily
+attired, with her head adorned with feathers, was dancing wildly,
+accompanying herself with bone castanets. It looked like some terrible
+fetich.
+
+I did not lose my calmness. After firmly emptying the pitcher, basin,
+and slop-jar on the burning bed, I proceeded cautiously to the garden,
+and returning with the garden engine, I directed a small stream at Mr.
+Rawjester.
+
+At my entrance the gigantic negress fled. Mr. Rawjester yawned and woke.
+I explained to him, as he rose dripping from the bed, the reason of my
+presence. He did not seem to be excited, alarmed, or discomposed. He
+gazed at me curiously.
+
+“So you risked your life to save mine, eh? you canary-colored teacher of
+infants.”
+
+I blushed modestly, and drew my shawl tightly over my yellow flannel
+nightgown.
+
+“You love me, Mary Jane,—don’t deny it! This trembling shows it!”
+ He drew me closely toward him, and said, with his deep voice tenderly
+modulated,—“How’s her pooty tootens,—did she get her ’ittle tootens
+wet,—b’ess her?”
+
+I understood his allusion to my feet. I glanced down and saw that in
+my hurry I had put on a pair of his old india-rubbers. My feet were not
+small or pretty, and the addition did not add to their beauty.
+
+“Let me go, sir,” I remarked quietly. “This is entirely improper; it
+sets a bad example for your child.” And I firmly but gently extricated
+myself from his grasp. I approached the door. He seemed for a moment
+buried in deep thought.
+
+“You say this was a negress?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Humph, Number One, I suppose.”
+
+“Who is Number One, sir?”
+
+“My _first_,” he remarked, with a significant and sarcastic smile. Then,
+relapsing into his old manner, he threw his boots at my head, and bade
+me begone. I withdrew calmly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+My pupil was a bright little girl, who spoke French with a perfect
+accent. Her mother had been a “French ballet-dancer, which probably
+accounted for it. Although she was only six years old, it was easy to
+perceive that she had been several times in love. She once said to me,—
+
+“Miss Mix, did you ever have the grande passion? Did you ever feel a
+fluttering here?” and she placed her hand upon her small chest, and
+sighed quaintly; “a kind of distaste for bonbons and caramels, when the
+world seemed as tasteless and hollow as a broken cordial drop?”
+
+“Then you have felt it, Nina?” I said quietly.
+
+“Oh, dear, yes. There was Buttons,—that was our page, you know,—I
+loved him dearly, but papa sent him away. Then there was Dick, the
+groom; but he laughed at me, and I suffered misery!” and she struck a
+tragic French attitude. “There is to be company here to-morrow,”
+ she added, rattling on with childish naivete, “and papa’s
+sweetheart—Blanche Marabout—is to be here. You know they say she is to
+be my mamma.”
+
+What thrill was this shot through me? But I rose calmly, and
+administering a slight correction to the child, left the apartment.
+
+Blunderbore House, for the next week, was the scene of gayety and
+merriment. That portion of the mansion closed with a grating was walled
+up, and the midnight shrieks no longer troubled me.
+
+But I felt more keenly the degradation of my situation. I was obliged
+to help Lady Blanche at her toilet and help her to look beautiful. For
+what? To captivate him? Oh—no, no,—but why this sudden thrill and
+faintness? Did he really love her? I had seen him pinch and swear at
+her. But I reflected that he had thrown a candlestick at my head, and my
+foolish heart was reassured.
+
+It was a night of festivity, when a sudden message obliged Mr. Rawjester
+to leave his guests for a few hours. “Make yourselves merry, idiots,”
+ he added, under his breath, as he passed me. The door closed and he was
+gone.
+
+A half-hour passed. In the midst of the dancing a shriek was heard, and
+out of the swaying crowd of fainting women and excited men a wild figure
+strode into the room. One glance showed it to be a highwayman, heavily
+armed, holding a pistol in each hand.
+
+“Let no one pass out of this room!” he said, in a voice of thunder. “The
+house is surrounded and you cannot escape. The first one who crosses
+yonder threshold will be shot like a dog. Gentlemen, I’ll trouble you to
+approach in single file, and hand me your purses and watches.”
+
+Finding resistance useless, the order was ungraciously obeyed.
+
+“Now, ladies, please to pass up your jewelry and trinkets.”
+
+This order was still more ungraciously complied with. As Blanche handed
+to the bandit captain her bracelet, she endeavored to conceal a diamond
+necklace, the gift of Mr. Rawjester, in her bosom. But, with a demoniac
+grin, the powerful brute tore it from its concealment, and administering
+a hearty box on the ear of the young girl, flung her aside.
+
+It was now my turn. With a beating heart I made my way to the robber
+chieftain, and sank at his feet. “Oh, sir, I am nothing but a poor
+governess, pray let me go.”
+
+“Oho! A governess? Give me your last month’s wages, then. Give me what
+you have stolen from your master!” and he laughed fiendishly.
+
+I gazed at him quietly, and said, in a low voice: “I have stolen nothing
+from you, Mr. Rawjester!”
+
+“Ah, discovered! Hush! listen, girl!” he hissed, in a fierce whisper;
+“utter a syllable to frustrate my plans, and you die; aid me, and”—But
+he was gone.
+
+In a few moments the party, with the exception of myself, were gagged
+and locked in the cellar. The next moment torches were applied to the
+rich hangings, and the house was in flames. I felt a strong hand seize
+me, and bear me out in the open air and place me up on the hillside,
+where I could overlook the burning mansion. It was Mr. Rawjester.
+“Burn!” he said, as he shook his fist at the flames. Then sinking on his
+knees before me, he said hurriedly,—
+
+“Mary Jane, I love you; the obstacles to our union are or will be soon
+removed. In yonder mansion were confined my three crazy wives. One of
+them, as you know, attempted to kill me! Ha! this is vengeance! But will
+you be mine?”
+
+I fell, without a word, upon his neck.
+
+
+
+
+MR. MIDSHIPMAN BREEZY
+
+A NAVAL OFFICER
+
+BY CAPTAIN M-RRY-T, R. N.
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+My father was a north-country surgeon. He had retired, a widower, from
+her Majesty’s navy many years before, and had a small practice in his
+native village. When I was seven years old he employed me to carry
+medicines to his patients. Being of a lively disposition, I sometimes
+amused myself, during my daily rounds, by mixing the contents of the
+different phials. Although I had no reason to doubt that the general
+result of this practice was beneficial, yet, as the death of a
+consumptive curate followed the addition of a strong mercurial lotion to
+his expectorant, my father concluded to withdraw me from the profession
+and send me to school.
+
+
+Grubbins, the schoolmaster, was a tyrant, and it was not long before my
+impetuous and self-willed nature rebelled against his authority. I
+soon began to form plans of revenge. In this I was assisted by Tom
+Snaffle,—a schoolfellow. One day Tom suggested,—
+
+“Suppose we blow him up. I’ve got two pounds of powder!”
+
+“No, that’s too noisy,” I replied.
+
+Tom was silent for a minute, and again spoke:—
+
+“You remember how you flattened out the curate, Pills? Couldn’t you give
+Grubbins something—something to make him leathery sick—eh?” A flash
+of inspiration crossed my mind. I went to the shop of the village
+apothecary. He knew me; I had often purchased vitriol, which I poured
+into Grubbins’s inkstand to corrode his pens and burn up his coat-tail,
+on which he was in the habit of wiping them. I boldly asked for an ounce
+of chloroform. The young apothecary winked and handed me the bottle.
+
+It was Grubbins’s custom to throw his handkerchief over his head,
+recline in his chair, and take a short nap during recess. Watching my
+opportunity, as he dozed, I managed to slip his handkerchief from his
+face and substitute my own, moistened with chloroform. In a few minutes
+he was insensible. Tom and I then quickly shaved his head, beard, and
+eyebrows, blackened his face with a mixture of vitriol and burnt cork,
+and fled. There was a row and scandal the next day. My father always
+excused me by asserting that Grubbins had got drunk,—but somehow found
+it convenient to procure me an appointment in her Majesty’s navy at an
+early day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+An official letter, with the Admiralty seal, informed me that I was
+expected to join H. M. ship Belcher, Captain Boltrope, at Portsmouth,
+without delay. In a few days I presented myself to a tall, stern-visaged
+man, who was slowly pacing the leeward side of the quarter-deck. As I
+touched my hat he eyed me sternly:—
+
+“So ho! Another young suckling. The service is going to the devil.
+Nothing but babes in the cockpit and grannies in the board. Boatswain’s
+mate, pass the word for Mr. Cheek!”
+
+Mr. Cheek, the steward, appeared and touched his hat.
+
+“Introduce Mr. Breezy to the young gentlemen. Stop! Where’s Mr.
+Swizzle?”
+
+“At the masthead, sir.”
+
+“Where’s Mr. Lankey?”
+
+“At the masthead, sir.”
+
+
+“Mr. Briggs?”
+
+“Masthead, too, sir.”
+
+“And the rest of the young gentlemen?” roared the enraged officer.
+
+“All masthead, sir.”
+
+“Ah!” said Captain Boltrope, as he smiled grimly, “under the
+circumstances, Mr. Breezy, you had better go to the masthead too.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+At the masthead I made the acquaintance of two youngsters of about my
+own age, one of whom informed me that he had been there three hundred
+and thirty-two days out of the year.
+
+“In rough weather, when the old cock is out of sorts, you know, we never
+come down,” added a young gentleman of nine years, with a dirk nearly
+as long as himself, who had been introduced to me as Mr. Briggs. “By the
+way, Pills,” he continued, “how did you come to omit giving the captain
+a naval salute?”
+
+“Why, I touched my hat,” I said innocently.
+
+“Yes, but that isn’t enough, you know. That will do very well at
+other times. He expects the naval salute when you first come on
+board—greeny!”
+
+I began to feel alarmed, and begged him to explain.
+
+“Why, you see, after touching your hat, you should have touched him
+lightly with your forefinger in his waistcoat, so, and asked, ‘How’s his
+nibs?’—you see?”
+
+“How’s his nibs?” I repeated.
+
+“Exactly. He would have drawn back a little, and then you should
+have repeated the salute, remarking, ‘How’s his royal nibs?’ asking
+cautiously after his wife and family, and requesting to be introduced to
+the gunner’s daughter.”
+
+“The gunner’s daughter?”
+
+“The same; you know she takes care of us young gentlemen; now don’t
+forget, Pillsy!”
+
+When we were called down to the deck I thought it a good chance to
+profit by this instruction. I approached Captain Boltrope and repeated
+the salute without conscientiously omitting a single detail. He remained
+for a moment livid and speechless. At length he gasped out,—
+
+“Boatswain’s mate!”
+
+“If you please, sir,” I asked tremulously, “I should like to be
+introduced to the gunner’s daughter!”
+
+“Oh, very good, sir!” screamed Captain Boltrope, rubbing his hands and
+absolutely capering about the deck with rage. “Oh, d—n you! Of course
+you shall! Oh, ho! the gunner’s daughter! Oh, h—ll! this is too much!
+Boatswain’s mate!” Before I well knew where I was, I was seized, borne
+to an eight-pounder, tied upon it, and flogged!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+As we sat together in the cockpit, picking the weevils out of our
+biscuit, Briggs consoled me for my late mishap, adding that the “naval
+salute,” as a custom, seemed just then to be honored more in the
+_breach_ than the observance. I joined in the hilarity occasioned by the
+witticism, and in a few moments we were all friends. Presently Swizzle
+turned to me:—
+
+“We have just been planning how to confiscate a keg of claret, which
+Nips, the purser, keeps under his bunk. The old nipcheese lies there
+drunk half the day, and there’s no getting at it.”
+
+“Let’s get beneath the stateroom and bore through the deck, and so tap
+it,” said Lankey.
+
+The proposition was received with a shout of applause. A long half-inch
+auger and bit was procured from Chips, the carpenter’s mate, and
+Swizzle, after a careful examination of the timbers beneath the
+wardroom, commenced operations. The auger at last disappeared, when
+suddenly there was a slight disturbance on the deck above. Swizzle
+withdrew the auger hurriedly; from its point a few bright red drops
+trickled.
+
+“Huzza! send her up again!” cried Lankey.
+
+The auger was again applied. This time a shriek was heard from the
+purser’s cabin. Instantly the light was doused, and the party retreated
+hurriedly to the cockpit. A sound of snoring was heard as the sentry
+stuck his head into the door. “All right, sir,” he replied in answer to
+the voice of the officer of the deck.
+
+The next morning we heard that Nips was in the surgeon’s hands, with a
+bad wound in the fleshy part of his leg, and that the auger had _not_
+struck claret.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+“Now, Pills, you’ll have a chance to smell powder,” said Briggs as he
+entered the cockpit and buckled around his waist an enormous cutlass.
+“We have just sighted a French ship.”
+
+We went on deck. Captain Boltrope grinned as we touched our hats. He
+hated the purser. “Come, young gentlemen, if you’re boring for French
+claret, yonder’s a good quality. Mind your con, sir,” he added, turning
+to the quartermaster, who was grinning.
+
+The ship was already cleared for action. The men, in their eagerness,
+had started the coffee from the tubs and filled them with shot.
+Presently the Frenchman yawed, and a shot from a long thirty-two came
+skipping over the water. It killed the quartermaster and took off both
+of Lankey’s legs. “Tell the purser our account is squared,” said the
+dying boy, with a feeble smile.
+
+The fight raged fiercely for two hours. I remember killing the French
+admiral, as we boarded, but on looking around for Briggs, after the
+smoke had cleared away, I was intensely amused at witnessing the
+following novel sight:
+
+Briggs had pinned the French captain against the mast with his cutlass,
+and was now engaged, with all the hilarity of youth, in pulling the
+Captain’s coat-tails between his legs, in imitation of a dancing-jack.
+As the Frenchman lifted his legs and arms, at each jerk of Briggs’s, I
+could not help participating in the general mirth.
+
+“You young devil, what are you doing?” said a stifled voice behind me.
+I looked up and beheld Captain Boltrope, endeavoring to calm his stern
+features, but the twitching around his mouth betrayed his intense
+enjoyment of the scene. “Go to the masthead—up with you, sir!” he
+repeated sternly to Briggs.
+
+“Very good, sir,” said the boy, coolly preparing to mount the shrouds.
+“Good-by, Johnny Crapaud. Humph!” he added, in a tone intended for my
+ear, “a pretty way to treat a hero. The service is going to the devil!”
+
+I thought so too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+We were ordered to the West Indies. Although Captain Boltrope’s manner
+toward me was still severe, and even harsh, I understood that my name
+had been favorably mentioned in the dispatches.
+
+Reader, were you ever at Jamaica? If so, you remember the negresses, the
+oranges, Port Royal Tom—the yellow fever. After being two weeks at
+the station, I was taken sick of the fever. In a month I was delirious.
+During my paroxysms, I had a wild distempered dream of a stern face
+bending anxiously over my pillow, a rough hand smoothing my hair, and a
+kind voice saying:—
+
+“B’ess his ’ittle heart! Did he have the naughty fever?” This face
+seemed again changed to the well-known stern features of Captain
+Boltrope.
+
+When I was convalescent, a packet edged in black was put in my hand. It
+contained the news of my father’s death, and a sealed letter which he
+had requested to be given to me on his decease. I opened it tremblingly.
+It read thus:—
+
+MY DEAR BOY,—I regret to inform you that in all probability you are not
+my son. Your mother, I am grieved to say, was a highly improper person.
+Who your father may be, I really cannot say, but perhaps the Honorable
+Henry Boltrope, Captain R. N., may be able to inform you. Circumstances
+over which I have no control have deferred this important disclosure.
+YOUR STRICKEN PARENT.
+
+And so Captain Boltrope was my father. Heavens! Was it a dream?
+I recalled his stern manner, his observant eye, his ill-concealed
+uneasiness when in my presence. I longed to embrace him. Staggering
+to my feet, I rushed in my scanty apparel to the deck, where Captain
+Boltrope was just then engaged in receiving the Governor’s wife and
+daughter. The ladies shrieked; the youngest, a beautiful girl, blushed
+deeply. Heeding them not, I sank at his feet, and, embracing them,
+cried,—
+
+“My father!”
+
+“Chuck him overboard!” roared Captain Boltrope.
+
+“Stay,” pleaded the soft voice of Clara Maitland, the Governor’s
+daughter.
+
+“Shave his head! he’s a wretched lunatic!” continued Captain Boltrope,
+while his voice trembled with excitement.
+
+“No, let me nurse and take care of him,” said the lovely girl, blushing
+as she spoke. “Mamma, can’t we take him home?”
+
+The daughter’s pleading was not without effect. In the meantime I
+had fainted. When I recovered my senses I found myself in Governor
+Maitland’s mansion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The reader will guess what followed. I fell deeply in love with Clara
+Maitland, to whom I confided the secret of my birth. The generous girl
+asserted that she had detected the superiority of my manner at once. We
+plighted our troth, and resolved to wait upon events.
+
+Briggs called to see me a few days afterward. He said that the purser
+had insulted the whole cockpit, and all the midshipmen had called him
+out. But he added thoughtfully: “I don’t see how we can arrange the
+duel. You see there are six of us to fight him.”
+
+“Very easily,” I replied. “Let your fellows all stand in a row, and take
+his fire; that, you see, gives him six chances to one, and he must be a
+bad shot if he can’t hit one of you; while, on the other hand, you see,
+he gets a volley from you six, and one of you’ll be certain to fetch
+him.”
+
+“Exactly;” and away Briggs went, but soon returned to say that the
+purser had declined,—“like a d—d coward,” he added.
+
+But the news of the sudden and serious illness of Captain Boltrope put
+off the duel. I hastened to his bedside, but too late,—an hour previous
+he had given up the ghost.
+
+I resolved to return to England. I made known the secret of my birth,
+and exhibited my adopted father’s letter to Lady Maitland, who at once
+suggested my marriage with her daughter, before I returned to claim the
+property. We were married, and took our departure next day.
+
+I made no delay in posting at once, in company with my wife and my
+friend Briggs, to my native village. Judge of my horror and surprise
+when my late adopted father came out of his shop to welcome me.
+
+“Then you are not dead!” I gasped.
+
+“No, my dear boy.”
+
+“And this letter?”
+
+My father—as I must still call him—glanced on the paper, and
+pronounced it a forgery. Briggs roared with laughter. I turned to him
+and demanded an explanation.
+
+“Why, don’t you see, Greeny, it’s all a joke,—a midshipman’s joke!”
+
+“But”—I asked.
+
+“Don’t be a fool. You’ve got a good wife,—be satisfied.”
+
+I turned to Clara, and was satisfied. Although Mrs. Maitland never
+forgave me, the jolly old Governor laughed heartily over the joke, and
+so well used his influence that I soon became, dear reader, Admiral
+Breezy, K. C. B.
+
+
+
+
+GUY HEAVYSTONE; OR, “ENTIRE”
+
+A MUSCULAR NOVEL
+
+BY THE AUTHOR OF “SWORD AND GUN”
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+“NEREI REPANDIROSTRUM INCURVICERVICUM PECUS.”
+
+A Dingy, swashy, splashy afternoon in October; a school-yard filled with
+a mob of riotous boys. A lot of us standing outside.
+
+Suddenly came a dull, crashing sound from the schoolroom. At the ominous
+interruption I shuddered involuntarily, and called to Smithsye,—
+
+“What’s up, Smithums?”
+
+“Guy’s cleaning out the fourth form,” he replied.
+
+At the same moment George de Coverly passed me, holding his nose, from
+whence the bright Norman blood streamed redly. To him the plebeian
+Smithsye laughingly,—
+
+“Cully! how’s his nibs?”
+
+I pushed the door of the schoolroom open. There are some spectacles
+which a man never forgets. The burning of Troy probably seemed a
+large-sized conflagration to the pious Aeneas, and made an impression on
+him which he carried away with the feeble Anchises.
+
+In the centre of the room, lightly brandishing the piston-rod of a
+steam-engine, stood Guy Heavystone alone. I say alone, for the pile of
+small boys on the floor in the corner could hardly be called company.
+
+I will try and sketch him for the reader. Guy Heavystone was then only
+fifteen. His broad, deep chest, his sinewy and quivering flank, his
+straight pastern, showed him to be a thoroughbred. Perhaps he was a
+trifle heavy in the fetlock, but he held his head haughtily erect. His
+eyes were glittering but pitiless. There was a sternness about the lower
+part of his face,—the old Heavystone look,—a sternness heightened,
+perhaps, by the snaffle-bit which, in one of his strange freaks, he wore
+in his mouth to curb his occasional ferocity. His dress was well adapted
+to his square-set and herculean frame. A striped knit undershirt,
+close-fitting striped tights, and a few spangles set off his figure; a
+neat Glengarry cap adorned his head. On it was displayed the Heavystone
+crest, a cock _regardant_ on a dunghill _or_, and the motto, “Devil a
+better!”
+
+I thought of Horatius on the bridge, of Hector before the walls. I
+always make it a point to think of something classical at such times.
+
+He saw me, and his sternness partly relaxed. Something like a smile
+struggled through his grim lineaments. It was like looking on the
+Jungfrau after having seen Mont Blanc,—a trifle, only a trifle less
+sublime and awful. Resting his hand lightly on the shoulder of the
+headmaster, who shuddered and collapsed under his touch, he strode
+toward me.
+
+His walk was peculiar. You could not call it a stride. It was like the
+“crest-tossing Bellerophon,”—a kind of prancing gait. Guy Heavystone
+pranced toward me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+  “Lord Lovel he stood at the garden gate,
+  A-combing his milk-white steed.”
+
+It was the winter of 186– when I next met Guy Heavystone. He had left
+the university and had entered the 79th “Heavies.” “I have exchanged the
+gown for the sword, you see,” he said, grasping my hand, and fracturing
+the bones of my little finger, as he shook it.
+
+I gazed at him with unmixed admiration. He was squarer, sterner, and in
+every way smarter and more remarkable than ever. I began to feel toward
+this man as Phalaster felt towards Phyrgino, as somebody must have felt
+toward Archididasculus, as Boswell felt toward Johnson.
+
+“Come into my den,” he said; and lifting me gently by the seat of my
+pantaloons he carried me upstairs and deposited me, before I could
+apologize, on the sofa. I looked around the room. It was a bachelor’s
+apartment, characteristically furnished in the taste of the proprietor.
+A few claymores and battleaxes were ranged against the wall, and a
+culverin, captured by Sir Ralph Heavystone, occupied the corner,
+the other end of the room being taken up by a light battery. Foils,
+boxing-gloves, saddles, and fishing-poles lay around carelessly. A
+small pile of billets-doux lay upon a silver salver. The man was not an
+anchorite, nor yet a Sir Galahad.
+
+I never could tell what Guy thought of women. “Poor little beasts,”
+ he would often say when the conversation turned on any of his fresh
+conquests. Then, passing his hand over his marble brow, the old look of
+stern fixedness of purpose and unflinching severity would straighten the
+lines of his mouth, and he would mutter, half to himself, “S’death!”
+
+“Come with me to Heavystone Grange. The Exmoor hounds throw off
+to-morrow. I’ll give you a mount,” he said, as he amused himself by
+rolling up a silver candlestick between his fingers. “You shall have
+Cleopatra. But stay,” he added thoughtfully; “now I remember, I ordered
+Cleopatra to be shot this morning.”
+
+“And why?” I queried.
+
+“She threw her rider yesterday and fell on him”—
+
+“And killed him?”
+
+“No. That’s the reason why I have ordered her to be shot. I keep no
+animals that are not dangerous—I should add—_deadly!_” He hissed the
+last sentence between his teeth, and a gloomy frown descended over his
+calm brow.
+
+I affected to turn over the tradesmen’s bills that lay on the table,
+for, like all of the Heavystone race, Guy seldom paid cash, and said,—
+
+“You remind me of the time when Leonidas”—
+
+“Oh, bother Leonidas and your classical allusions. Come!”
+
+We descended to dinner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+  “He carries weight, he rides a race,
+   ’Tis for a thousand pound.”
+
+“There is Flora Billingsgate, the greatest coquette and hardest rider
+in the country,” said my companion, Ralph Mortmain, as we stood upon
+Dingleby Common before the meet.
+
+I looked up and beheld Guy Heavystone bending haughtily over the saddle,
+as he addressed a beautiful brunette. She was indeed a splendidly
+groomed and high-spirited woman. We were near enough to overhear the
+following conversation, which any high-toned reader will recognize as
+the common and natural expression of the higher classes.
+
+“When Diana takes the field the chase is not wholly confined to objects
+ferae nature,” said Guy, darting a significant glance at his companion.
+Flora did not shrink either from the glance or the meaning implied in
+the sarcasm.
+
+“If I were looking for an Endymion, now,”—she said archly, as she
+playfully cantered over a few hounds and leaped a five-barred gate.
+
+Guy whispered a few words, inaudible to the rest of the party, and
+curveting slightly, cleverly cleared two of the huntsmen in a flying
+leap, galloped up the front steps of the mansion, and, dashing at full
+speed through the hall, leaped through the drawing-room window and
+rejoined me, languidly, on the lawn.
+
+“Be careful of Flora Billingsgate,” he said to me, in low stern tones,
+while his pitiless eye shot a baleful fire. “Gardez-vous!”
+
+“Gnothi seauton,” I replied calmly, not wishing to appear to be behind
+him in perception or verbal felicity.
+
+Guy started off in high spirits. He was well carried. He and the first
+whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence, while the
+hounds were rolling over their fox a hundred yards farther in the open.
+
+But an unexpected circumstance occurred. Coming back, his chestnut mare
+refused a ten-foot wall. She reared and fell backward. Again he led her
+up to it lightly; again she refused, falling heavily from the coping.
+Guy started to his feet. The old pitiless fire shone in his eyes; the
+old stern look settled around his mouth. Seizing the mare by the tail
+and mane he threw her over the wall. She landed twenty feet on the other
+side, erect and trembling. Lightly leaping the same obstacle himself, he
+remounted her. She did not refuse the wall the next time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+“He holds him by his glittering eye.”
+
+Guy was in the north of Ireland, cock-shooting. So Ralph Mortmain told
+me, and also that the match between Mary Brandagee and Guy had been
+broken off by Flora Billingsgate. “I don’t like those Billingsgates,”
+ said Ralph, “they’re a bad stock. Her father, Smithfield de
+Billingsgate, had an unpleasant way of turning up the knave from the
+bottom of the pack. But nous varrons; let us go and see Guy.”
+
+The next morning we started for Fin-ma-Coul’s Crossing. When I reached
+the shooting-box, where Guy was entertaining a select company of
+friends, Flora Billingsgate greeted me with a saucy smile. Guy was even
+squarer and sterner than ever. His gusts of passion were more frequent,
+and it was with difficulty that he could keep an able-bodied servant in
+his family. His present retainers were more or less maimed from exposure
+to the fury of their master. There was a strange cynicism, a cutting
+sarcasm in his address, piercing through his polished manner. I thought
+of Timon, etc., etc.
+
+One evening, we were sitting over our Chambertin, after a hard day’s
+work, and Guy was listlessly turning over some letters, when suddenly he
+uttered a cry. Did you ever hear the trumpeting of a wounded elephant?
+It was like that.
+
+I looked at him with consternation. He was glancing at a letter which he
+held at arm’s length, and snorting, as it were, at it as he gazed. The
+lower part of his face was stern, but not as rigid as usual. He was
+slowly grinding between his teeth the fragments of the glass he had just
+been drinking from.
+
+Suddenly he seized one of his servants, and forcing the wretch upon his
+knees, exclaimed, with the roar of a tiger,—
+
+“Dog! why was this kept from me?”
+
+“Why, please sir, Miss Flora said as how it was a reconciliation from
+Miss Brandagee, and it was to be kept from you where you would not be
+likely to see it,—and—and”—
+
+“Speak, dog! and you”—
+
+“I put it among your bills, sir!”
+
+With a groan, like distant thunder, Guy fell swooning to the floor.
+
+He soon recovered, for the next moment a servant came rushing into the
+room with the information that a number of the ingenuous peasantry of
+the neighborhood were about to indulge that evening in the national
+pastime of burning a farmhouse and shooting a landlord. Guy smiled
+a fearful smile, without, however, altering his stern and pitiless
+expression.
+
+“Let them come,” he said calmly; “I feel like entertaining company.”
+
+We barricaded the doors and windows, and then chose our arms from the
+armory. Guy’s choice was a singular one: it was a landing-net with a
+long handle, and a sharp cavalry sabre.
+
+We were not destined to remain long in ignorance of its use. A howl was
+heard from without, and a party of fifty or sixty armed men precipitated
+themselves against the door.
+
+Suddenly the window opened. With the rapidity of lightning, Guy
+Heavystone cast the net over the head of the ringleader, ejaculated
+“Habet!” and with a backstroke of his cavalry sabre severed the member
+from its trunk, and drawing the net back again, cast the gory head upon
+the floor, saying quietly,—
+
+“One.”
+
+Again the net was cast, the steel flashed, the net was withdrawn, and an
+ominous “Two!” accompanied the head as it rolled on the floor.
+
+“Do you remember what Pliny says of the gladiator?” said Guy, calmly
+wiping his sabre. “How graphic is that passage commencing ‘Inter nos,’
+etc.” The sport continued until the heads of twenty desperadoes had
+been gathered in. The rest seemed inclined to disperse. Guy incautiously
+showed himself at the door; a ringing shot was heard, and he staggered
+back, pierced through the heart. Grasping the doorpost in the last
+unconscious throes of his mighty frame, the whole side of the house
+yielded to that earthquake tremor, and we had barely time to escape
+before the whole building fell in ruins. I thought of Samson, the giant
+judge, etc., etc.; but all was over.
+
+Guy Heavystone had died as he had lived,—_hard._
+
+
+
+
+JOHN JENKINS
+
+OR
+
+THE SMOKER REFORMED
+
+BY T. S. A-TH-R
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+“One cigar a day!” said Judge Boompointer.
+
+“One cigar a day!” repeated John Jenkins, as with trepidation he dropped
+his half-consumed cigar under his work-bench.
+
+“One cigar a day is three cents a day,” remarked Judge Boompointer
+gravely; “and do you know, sir, what one cigar a day, or three cents a
+day, amounts to in the course of four years?”
+
+John Jenkins, in his boyhood, had attended the village school, and
+possessed considerable arithmetical ability. Taking up a shingle which
+lay upon his work-bench, and producing a piece of chalk, with a feeling
+of conscious pride he made an exhaustive calculation.
+
+“Exactly forty-three dollars and eighty cents,” he replied, wiping the
+perspiration from his heated brow, while his face flushed with honest
+enthusiasm.
+
+“Well, sir, if you saved three cents a day, instead of wasting it, you
+would now be the possessor of a new suit of clothes, an illustrated
+Family Bible, a pew in the church, a complete set of Patent Office
+Reports, a hymnbook, and a paid subscription to ‘Arthur’s Home
+Magazine,’ which could be purchased for exactly forty-three dollars and
+eighty cents; and,” added the Judge, with increasing sternness, “if you
+calculate leap-year, which you seem to have strangely omitted, you have
+three cents more, sir—_three cents more!_ What would that buy you,
+sir?”
+
+“A cigar,” suggested John Jenkins; but, coloring again deeply, he hid
+his face.
+
+“No, sir,” said the Judge, with a sweet smile of benevolence stealing
+over his stern features; “properly invested, it would buy you that which
+passeth all price. Dropped into the missionary-box, who can tell what
+heathen, now idly and joyously wantoning in nakedness and sin, might be
+brought to a sense of his miserable condition, and made, through that
+three cents, to feel the torments of the wicked?”
+
+With these words the Judge retired, leaving John Jenkins buried in
+profound thought. “Three cents a day,” he muttered. “In forty years I
+might be worth four hundred and thirty-eight dollars and ten cents,—and
+then I might marry Mary. Ah, Mary!” The young carpenter sighed, and
+drawing a twenty-five cent daguerreotype from his vest-pocket, gazed
+long and fervidly upon the features of a young girl in book muslin and
+a coral necklace. Then, with a resolute expression, he carefully locked
+the door of his work-shop, and departed.
+
+Alas! his good resolutions were too late. We trifle with the tide of
+fortune, which too often nips us in the bud and casts the dark shadow
+of misfortune over the bright lexicon of youth! That night the
+half-consumed fragment of John Jenkins’s cigar set fire to his work-shop
+and burned it up, together with all his tools and materials. There was
+no insurance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE DOWNWARD PATH
+
+
+“Then you still persist in marrying John Jenkins?” queried Judge
+Boompointer, as he playfully, with paternal familiarity, lifted the
+golden curls of the village belle, Mary Jones.
+
+“I do,” replied the fair young girl, in a low voice that resembled rock
+candy in its saccharine firmness,—“I do. He has promised to reform.
+Since he lost all his property by fire”—
+
+“The result of his pernicious habit, though he illogically persists in
+charging it to me,” interrupted the Judge.
+
+“Since then,” continued the young girl, “he has endeavored to break
+himself of the habit. He tells me that he has substituted the stalks
+of the Indian rattan, the outer part of a leguminous plant called the
+smoking-bean, and the fragmentary and unconsumed remainder of cigars,
+which occur at rare and uncertain intervals along the road, which, as he
+informs me, though deficient in quality and strength, are comparatively
+inexpensive.” And blushing at her own eloquence, the young girl hid her
+curls on the Judge’s arm.
+
+“Poor thing!” muttered Judge Boompointer. “Dare I tell her all? Yet I
+must.”
+
+“I shall cling to him,” continued the young girl, rising with her theme,
+“as the young vine clings to some hoary ruin. Nay, nay, chide me not,
+Judge Boompointer. I will marry John Jenkins!”
+
+The Judge was evidently affected. Seating himself at the table, he wrote
+a few lines hurriedly upon a piece of paper, which he folded and placed
+in the fingers of the destined bride of John Jenkins.
+
+“Mary Jones,” said the Judge, with impressive earnestness, “take
+this trifle as a wedding gift from one who respects your fidelity and
+truthfulness. At the altar let it be a reminder of me.” And covering his
+face hastily with a handkerchief, the stern and iron-willed man left the
+room. As the door closed, Mary unfolded the paper. It was an order on
+the corner grocery for three yards of flannel, a paper of needles, four
+pounds of soap, one pound of starch, and two boxes of matches!
+
+“Noble and thoughtful man!” was all Mary Jones could exclaim, as she hid
+her face in her hands and burst into a flood of tears.
+
+The bells of Cloverdale are ringing merrily. It is a wedding. “How
+beautiful they look!” is the exclamation that passes from lip to lip,
+as Mary Jones, leaning timidly on the arm of John Jenkins, enters the
+church. But the bride is agitated, and the bridegroom betrays a feverish
+nervousness. As they stand in the vestibule, John Jenkins fumbles
+earnestly in his vest-pocket. Can it be the ring he is anxious about?
+No. He draws a small brown substance from his pocket, and biting off a
+piece, hastily replaces the fragment and gazes furtively around. Surely
+no one saw him? Alas! the eyes of two of that wedding party saw the
+fatal act. Judge Boompointer shook his head sternly. Mary Jones sighed
+and breathed a silent prayer. Her husband chewed!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III AND LAST
+
+
+“What! more bread?” said John Jenkins gruffly. “You’re always asking
+for money for bread. D—nation! Do you want to ruin me by your
+extravagance?” and as he uttered these words he drew from his pocket a
+bottle of whiskey, a pipe, and a paper of tobacco. Emptying the first
+at a draught, he threw the empty bottle at the head of his eldest boy,
+a youth of twelve summers. The missile struck the child full in the
+temple, and stretched him a lifeless corpse. Mrs. Jenkins, whom the
+reader will hardly recognize as the once gay and beautiful Mary Jones,
+raised the dead body of her son in her arms, and carefully placing
+the unfortunate youth beside the pump in the back yard, returned with
+saddened step to the house. At another time, and in brighter days, she
+might have wept at the occurrence. She was past tears now.
+
+“Father, your conduct is reprehensible!” said little Harrison Jenkins,
+the youngest boy. “Where do you expect to go when you die?”
+
+“Ah!” said John Jenkins fiercely; “this comes of giving children a
+liberal education; this is the result of Sabbath-schools. Down, viper!”
+
+A tumbler thrown from the same parental fist laid out the youthful
+Harrison cold. The four other children had, in the mean time, gathered
+around the table with anxious expectancy. With a chuckle, the now
+changed and brutal John Jenkins produced four pipes, and filling them
+with tobacco, handed one to each of his offspring and bade them smoke.
+“It’s better than bread!” laughed the wretch hoarsely.
+
+Mary Jenkins, though of a patient nature, felt it her duty now to speak.
+“I have borne much, John Jenkins,” she said. “But I prefer that the
+children should not smoke. It is an unclean habit, and soils their
+clothes. I ask this as a special favor!”
+
+John Jenkins hesitated,—the pangs of remorse began to seize him.
+
+“Promise me this, John!” urged Mary upon her knees.
+
+“I promise!” reluctantly answered John.
+
+“And you will put the money in a savings-bank?”
+
+“I will,” repeated her husband; “and I’ll give up smoking, too.”
+
+“’Tis well, John Jenkins!” said Judge Boompointer, appearing suddenly
+from behind the door, where he had been concealed during this interview.
+“Nobly said! my man. Cheer up! I will see that the children are decently
+buried.” The husband and wife fell into each other’s arms. And Judge
+Boompointer, gazing upon the affecting spectacle, burst into tears.
+
+From that day John Jenkins was an altered man.
+
+
+
+
+FANTINE
+
+AFTER THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+  As long as there shall exist three paradoxes, a moral Frenchman, a
+  religious   atheist, and a believing skeptic; so long, in fact, as
+  booksellers shall wait—say twenty-live years—for a new gospel;
+  so long as paper shall remain cheap and ink three sous a bottle, I
+  have no hesitation in saying that such books as these are not
+  utterly profitless. VICTOR HUGO.
+
+To be good is to be queer. What is a good man? Bishop Myriel.
+
+My friend, you will possibly object to this. You will say you know what
+a good man is. Perhaps you will say your clergyman is a good man,
+for instance. Bah! you are mistaken; you are an Englishman, and an
+Englishman is a beast.
+
+Englishmen think they are moral when they are only serious. These
+Englishmen also wear ill-shaped hats, and dress horribly!
+
+Bah! they are canaille.
+
+Still, Bishop Myriel was a good man,—quite as good as you. Better than
+you, in fact.
+
+One day M. Myriel was in Paris. This angel used to walk about the
+streets like any other man. He was not proud, though fine-looking. Well,
+three gamins de Paris called him bad names. Says one,—
+
+“Ah, mon Dieu! there goes a priest; look out for your eggs and
+chickens!” What did this good man do? He called to them kindly.
+
+“My children,” said he, “this is clearly not your fault. I recognize
+in this insult and irreverence only the fault of your immediate
+progenitors. Let us pray for your immediate progenitors.”
+
+They knelt down and prayed for their immediate progenitors.
+
+The effect was touching.
+
+The Bishop looked calmly around.
+
+“On reflection,” said he gravely, “I was mistaken; this is clearly the
+fault of Society. Let us pray for Society.”
+
+They knelt down and prayed for Society.
+
+The effect was sublimer yet. What do you think of that? You, I mean.
+
+Everybody remembers the story of the Bishop and Mother Nez Retrousse.
+Old Mother Nez Retrousse sold asparagus. She was poor; there’s a great
+deal of meaning in that word, my friend. Some people say “poor but
+honest.” I say, Bah!
+
+Bishop Myriel bought six bunches of asparagus. This good man had one
+charming failing: he was fond of asparagus. He gave her a franc, and
+received three sous change.
+
+The sous were bad,—counterfeit. What did this good Bishop do? He said:
+“I should not have taken change from a poor woman.”
+
+Then afterwards, to his housekeeper: “Never take change from a poor
+woman.”
+
+Then he added to himself: “For the sous will probably be bad.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+When a man commits a crime, Society claps him in prison. A prison is one
+of the worst hotels imaginable.
+
+The people there are low and vulgar. The butter is bad, the coffee is
+green. Ah, it is horrible!
+
+In prison, as in a bad hotel, a man soon loses, not only his morals, but
+what is much worse to a Frenchman, his sense of refinement and delicacy.
+
+Jean Valjean came from prison with confused notions of Society. He
+forgot the modern peculiarities of hospitality. So he walked off with
+the Bishop’s candlesticks.
+
+Let us consider. Candlesticks were stolen; that was evident. Society put
+Jean Valjean in prison; that was evident, too. In prison, Society took
+away his refinement; that is evident, likewise.
+
+Who is Society?
+
+You and I are Society.
+
+My friend, you and I stole those candlesticks!
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The Bishop thought so, too. He meditated profoundly for six days. On the
+morning of the seventh he went to the Prefecture of Police.
+
+He said: “Monsieur, have me arrested. I have stolen candlesticks.”
+
+The official was governed by the law of Society, and refused.
+
+What did this Bishop do?
+
+He had a charming ball and chain made, affixed to his leg, and wore it
+the rest of his life. This is a fact!
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Love is a mystery.
+
+A little friend of mine down in the country, at Auvergne, said to me one
+day: “Victor, Love is the world,—it contains everything.”
+
+She was only sixteen, this sharp-witted little girl, and a beautiful
+blonde. She thought everything of me.
+
+Fantine was one of those women who do wrong in the most virtuous and
+touching manner. This is a peculiarity of French grisettes.
+
+
+You are an Englishman, and you don’t understand. Learn, my friend,
+learn. Come to Paris and improve your morals.
+
+Fantine was the soul of modesty. She always wore high-neck dresses.
+High-neck dresses are a sign of modesty.
+
+Fantine loved Tholmoyes. Why? My God! What are you to do? It was the
+fault of her parents, and she hadn’t any. How shall you teach her? You
+must teach the parent if you wish to educate the child. How would you
+become virtuous?
+
+Teach your grandmother!
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+When Tholmoyes ran away from Fantine,—which was done in a charming,
+gentlemanly manner,—Fantine became convinced that a rigid sense of
+propriety might look upon her conduct as immoral. She was a creature of
+sensitiveness,—and her eyes were opened.
+
+She was virtuous still, and resolved to break off the liaison at once.
+
+So she put up her wardrobe and baby in a bundle, child as she was, she
+loved them both,—then left Paris.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Fantine’s native place had changed.
+
+M. Madeline—an angel, and inventor of jet-work—had been teaching the
+villagers how to make spurious jet.
+
+This is a progressive age. Those Americans—children of the West,—they
+make nutmegs out of wood.
+
+I, myself, have seen hams made of pine, in the wigwams of those children
+of the forest.
+
+But civilization has acquired deception too. Society is made up of
+deception. Even the best French society.
+
+Still there was one sincere episode.
+
+Eh?
+
+The French Revolution!
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+M. Madeline was, if anything, better than Myriel.
+
+M. Myriel was a saint. M. Madeline a good man.
+
+M. Myriel was dead. M. Madeline was living.
+
+That made all the difference.
+
+M. Madeline made virtue profitable. I have seen it written,—
+
+“Be virtuous and you will be happy.”
+
+Where did I see this written? In the modern Bible? No. In the Koran? No.
+In Rousseau? No. Diderot? No. Where then?
+
+In a copy-book.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+M. Madeline was M. le Maire.
+
+This is how it came about.
+
+For a long time he refused the honor. One day an old woman, standing on
+the steps, said,—
+
+“Bah, a good mayor is a good thing.
+
+“You are a good thing.
+
+“Be a good mayor.”
+
+This woman was a rhetorician. She understood inductive ratiocination.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+When this good M. Madeline, who, the reader will perceive, must have
+been a former convict, and a very bad man, gave himself up to justice
+as the real Jean Valjean, about this same time, Fantine was turned away
+from the manufactory, and met with a number of losses from Society.
+Society attacked her, and this is what she lost:—
+
+First her lover.
+
+Then her child.
+
+Then her place.
+
+Then her hair.
+
+Then her teeth.
+
+Then her liberty.
+
+Then her life.
+
+What do you think of Society after that? I tell you the present social
+system is a humbug.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+This is necessarily the end of Fantine.
+
+There are other things that will be stated in other volumes to follow.
+Don’t be alarmed; there are plenty of miserable people left.
+
+Au revoir—my friend.
+
+
+
+
+“LA FEMME”
+
+AFTER THE FRENCH OF M. MICHELET
+
+
+I
+
+WOMEN AS AN INSTITUTION
+
+
+“If it were not for women, few of us would at present be in existence.”
+ This is the remark of a cautious and discreet writer. He was also
+sagacious and intelligent.
+
+Woman! Look upon her and admire her. Gaze upon her and love her. If
+she wishes to embrace you, permit her. Remember she is weak and you are
+strong.
+
+But don’t treat her unkindly. Don’t make love to another woman before
+her face, even if she be your wife. Don’t do it. Always be polite, even
+should she fancy somebody better than you.
+
+If your mother, my dear Amadis, had not fancied your father better than
+somebody, you might have been that somebody’s son. Consider this. Always
+be a philosopher, even about women.
+
+Few men understand women. Frenchmen, perhaps, better than any one else.
+I am a Frenchman.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE INFANT
+
+
+She is a child—a little thing—an infant.
+
+She has a mother and father. Let us suppose, for example, they are
+married. Let us be moral if we cannot be happy and free—they are
+married—perhaps—they love one another—who knows?
+
+But she knows nothing of this; she is an infant—a small thing—a
+trifle!
+
+She is not lovely at first. It is cruel, perhaps, but she is red, and
+positively ugly. She feels this keenly, and cries. She weeps. Ah,
+my God, how she weeps! Her cries and lamentations now are really
+distressing.
+
+Tears stream from her in floods. She feels deeply and copiously, like M.
+Alphonse de Lamartine in his “Confessions.”
+
+If you are her mother, Madame, you will fancy worms; you will examine
+her linen for pins, and what not. Ah, hypocrite! you, even _you_,
+misunderstand her.
+
+Yet she has charming natural impulses. See how she tosses her dimpled
+arms. She looks longingly at her mother. She has a language of her own.
+She says, “goo, goo,” and “ga, ga.” She demands something—this infant!
+
+She is faint, poor thing. She famishes. She wishes to be restored.
+Restore her, Mother! _It is the first duty of a mother to restore her
+child!_
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE DOLL
+
+
+She is hardly able to walk; she already totters under the weight of a
+doll.
+
+It is a charming and elegant affair. It has pink cheeks and purple-black
+hair. She prefers brunettes, for she has already, with the quick
+knowledge of a French infant, perceived she is a blonde, and that her
+doll cannot rival her. Mon Dieu, how touching! Happy child! She spends
+hours in preparing its toilet. She begins to show her taste in the
+exquisite details of its dress. She loves it madly, devotedly. She will
+prefer it to bonbons. She already anticipates the wealth of love she
+will hereafter pour out on her lover, her mother, her father, and
+finally, perhaps, her husband.
+
+This is the time the anxious parent will guide these first outpourings.
+She will read her extracts from Michelet’s “L’Amour,” Rousseau’s
+“Heloise,” and the “Revue des deux Mondes.”
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE MUD PIE
+
+
+She was in tears to-day.
+
+She had stolen away from her bonne and was with some rustic infants.
+They had noses in the air, and large, coarse hands and feet.
+
+They had seated themselves around a pool in the road, and were
+fashioning fantastic shapes in the clayey soil with their hands. Her
+throat swelled and her eyes sparkled with delight as, for the first
+time, her soft palms touched the plastic mud. She made a graceful and
+lovely pie. She stuffed it with stones for almonds and plums. She forgot
+everything. It was being baked in the solar rays, when madame came and
+took her away.
+
+She weeps. It is night, and she is weeping still.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE FIRST LOVE
+
+
+She no longer doubts her beauty. She is loved.
+
+She saw him secretly. He is vivacious and sprightly. He is famous. He
+has already had an affair with Finfin, the fille de chambre, and poor
+Finfin is desolate. He is noble. She knows he is the son of Madame la
+Baronne Couturiere. She adores him.
+
+She affects not to notice him. Poor little thing! Hippolyte is
+distracted—annihilated—inconsolable and charming.
+
+She admires his boots, his cravat, his little gloves—his exquisite
+pantaloons—his coat, and cane.
+
+She offers to run away with him. He is transported, but magnanimous. He
+is wearied, perhaps. She sees him the next day offering flowers to the
+daughter of Madame la Comtesse Blanchisseuse.
+
+She is again in tears.
+
+She reads “Paul et Virginie.” She is secretly transported. When she
+reads how the exemplary young woman laid down her life rather than
+appear en deshabille to her lover, she weeps again. Tasteful and
+virtuous Bernardin de Saint-Pierre!—the daughters of France admire you!
+
+All this time her doll is headless in the cabinet. The mud pie is broken
+on the road.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE WIFE
+
+
+She is tired of loving, and she marries.
+
+Her mother thinks it, on the whole, the best thing. As the day
+approaches, she is found frequently in tears. Her mother will not permit
+the affianced one to see her, and he makes several attempts to commit
+suicide.
+
+But something happens. Perhaps it is winter, and the water is cold.
+Perhaps there are not enough people present to witness his heroism.
+
+In this way her future husband is spared to her. The ways of Providence
+are indeed mysterious. At this time her mother will talk with her. She
+will offer philosophy. She will tell her she was married herself.
+
+But what is this new and ravishing light that breaks upon her? The
+toilet and wedding clothes! She is in a new sphere.
+
+
+She makes out her list in her own charming writing. Here it is. Let
+every mother heed it. [Footnote: The delicate reader will appreciate the
+omission of certain articles for which English synonyms are forbidden.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She is married. On the day after, she meets her old lover, Hippolyte. He
+is again transported.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+HER OLD AGE
+
+
+A Frenchwoman never grows old.
+
+
+
+
+THE DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD
+
+BY SIR ED-D L-TT-N B-LW-R
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE PROMPTINGS OF THE IDEAL
+
+
+It was noon. Sir Edward had stepped from his brougham, and was
+proceeding on foot down the Strand. He was dressed with his usual
+faultless taste, but in alighting from his vehicle his foot had slipped,
+and a small round disk of conglomerated soil, which instantly appeared
+on his high arched instep, marred the harmonious glitter of his boots.
+Sir Edward was fastidious. Casting his eyes around, at a little distance
+he perceived the stand of a youthful bootblack. Thither he sauntered,
+and carelessly placing his foot on the low stool, he waited the
+application of the polisher’s art. “’Tis true,” said Sir Edward to
+himself, yet half aloud, “the contact of the Foul and the Disgusting
+mars the general effect of the Shiny and the Beautiful—and, yet, why am
+I here? I repeat it, calmly and deliberately—why am I here? Ha! Boy!”
+
+The Boy looked up—his dark Italian eyes glanced intelligently at the
+Philosopher, and as with one hand he tossed back his glossy curls from
+his marble brow, and with the other he spread the equally glossy Day &
+Martin over the Baronet’s boot, he answered in deep, rich tones: “The
+Ideal is subjective to the Real. The exercise of apperception gives a
+distinctiveness to idiocracy, which is, however, subject to the limits
+of ME. You are an admirer of the Beautiful, sir. You wish your boots
+blacked. The Beautiful is attainable by means of the Coin.”
+
+“Ah,” said Sir Edward thoughtfully, gazing upon the almost supernal
+beauty of the Child before him; “you speak well. You have read Kant.”
+
+The Boy blushed deeply. He drew a copy of Kant from his blouse, but
+in his confusion several other volumes dropped from his bosom on the
+ground. The Baronet picked them up.
+
+“Ah!” said the Philosopher, “what’s this? Cicero’s ‘De Sonertute,’—at
+your age, too! Martial’s ‘Epigrams,’ Caesar’s ‘Commentaries.’ What! a
+classical scholar?”
+
+“E pluribus Unum. Nux vomica. Nil desperandum. Nihil fit!” said the Boy
+enthusiastically. The Philosopher gazed at the Child. A strange presence
+seemed to transfuse and possess him. Over the brow of the Boy glittered
+the pale nimbus of the Student.
+
+“Ah, and Schiller’s ‘Robbers,’ too?” queried the Philosopher.
+
+“Das ist ausgespielt,” said the Boy modestly.
+
+“Then you have read my translation of Schiller’s ‘Ballads’?” continued
+the Baronet, with some show of interest.
+
+“I have, and infinitely prefer them to the original,” said the Boy, with
+intellectual warmth. “You have shown how in Actual life we strive for a
+Goal we cannot reach; how in the Ideal the Goal is attainable, and there
+effort is victory. You have given us the Antithesis which is a key to
+the Remainder, and constantly balances before us the conditions of the
+Actual and the privileges of the Ideal.”
+
+“My very words,” said the Baronet; “wonderful, wonderful!” and he gazed
+fondly at the Italian boy, who again resumed his menial employment.
+Alas! the wings of the Ideal were folded. The Student had been absorbed
+in the Boy.
+
+But Sir Edward’s boots were blacked, and he turned to depart. Placing
+his hand upon the clustering tendrils that surrounded the classic nob of
+the infant Italian, he said softly, like a strain of distant music,—
+
+“Boy, you have done well. Love the Good. Protect the Innocent. Provide
+for the Indigent. Respect the Philosopher.... Stay! Can you tell me what
+_is_ The True, The Beautiful, The Innocent, The Virtuous?”
+
+“They are things that commence with a capital letter,” said the Boy
+promptly.
+
+“Enough! Respect everything that commences with a capital letter!
+Respect ME!” and dropping a halfpenny in the hand of the boy, he
+departed.
+
+The Boy gazed fixedly at the coin. A frightful and instantaneous change
+overspread his features. His noble brow was corrugated with baser lines
+of calculation. His black eye, serpent-like, glittered with suppressed
+passion. Dropping upon his hands and feet, he crawled to the curbstone,
+and hissed after the retreating form of the Baronet the single word—
+
+“Bilk!”
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+IN THE WORLD
+
+
+“Eleven years ago,” said Sir Edward to himself, as his brougham slowly
+rolled him toward the Committee Room, “just eleven years ago my natural
+son disappeared mysteriously. I have no doubt in the world but that
+this little bootblack is he. His mother died in Italy. He resembles his
+mother very much. Perhaps I ought to provide for him. Shall I disclose
+myself? No! no! Better he should taste the sweets of Labor. Penury
+ennobles the mind and kindles the Love of the Beautiful. I will act to
+him, not like a Father, not like a Guardian, not like a Friend—but like
+a Philosopher!” With these words, Sir Edward entered the Committee Room.
+His Secretary approached him. “Sir Edward, there are fears of a division
+in the House, and the Prime Minister has sent for you.”
+
+“I will be there,” said Sir Edward, as he placed his hand on his chest
+and uttered a hollow cough!
+
+No one who heard the Baronet that night, in his sarcastic and withering
+speech on the Drainage and Sewerage Bill, would have recognized the
+Lover of the Ideal and the Philosopher of the Beautiful. No one who
+listened to his eloquence would have dreamed of the Spartan resolution
+this iron man had taken in regard to the Lost Boy—his own beloved
+Lionel. None!
+
+“A fine speech from Sir Edward to-night,” said Lord Billingsgate, as,
+arm and arm with the Premier, he entered his carriage.
+
+“Yes! but how dreadfully he coughs!”
+
+“Exactly. Dr. Bolus says his lungs are entirely gone; he breathes
+entirely by an effort of will, and altogether independent of pulmonary
+assistance.”
+
+“How strange!” And the carriage rolled away.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD
+
+
+“Adon Ai, appear! appear!”
+
+And as the Seer spoke, the awful Presence glided out of Nothingness, and
+sat, sphinx-like, at the feet of the Alchemist.
+
+“I am come!” said the Thing.
+
+“You should say, ‘I have come,’—it’s better grammar,” said the
+Boy-Neophyte, thoughtfully accenting the substituted expression.
+
+“Hush, rash Boy,” said the Seer sternly. “Would you oppose your feeble
+knowledge to the infinite intelligence of the Unmistakable? A word, and
+you are lost forever.”
+
+The Boy breathed a silent prayer, and handing a sealed package to the
+Seer, begged him to hand it to his father in case of his premature
+decease.
+
+“You have sent for me,” hissed the Presence. “Behold me,
+Apokatharticon,—the Unpronounceable. In me all things exist that are
+not already coexistent. I am the Unattainable, the Intangible, the
+Cause, and the Effect. In me observe the Brahma of Mr. Emerson; not only
+Brahma himself, but also the sacred musical composition rehearsed by the
+faithful Hindoo. I am the real Gyges. None others are genuine.”
+
+And the veiled Son of the Starbeam laid himself loosely about the room,
+and permeated Space generally.
+
+“Unfathomable Mystery,” said the Rosicrucian in a low, sweet voice.
+“Brave Child with the Vitreous Optic! Thou who pervadest all things
+and rubbest against us without abrasion of the cuticle. I command thee,
+speak!”
+
+And the misty, intangible, indefinite Presence spoke.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+MYSELF
+
+
+After the events related in the last chapter, the reader will perceive
+that nothing was easier than to reconcile Sir Edward to his son Lionel,
+nor to resuscitate the beautiful Italian girl, who, it appears, was not
+dead, and to cause Sir Edward to marry his first and boyish love, whom
+he had deserted. They were married in St. George’s, Hanover Square. As
+the bridal party stood before the altar, Sir Edward, with a sweet, sad
+smile, said in quite his old manner,—
+
+“The Sublime and Beautiful are the Real; the only Ideal is the
+Ridiculous and Homely. Let us always remember this. Let us through life
+endeavor to personify the virtues, and always begin ’em with a capital
+letter. Let us, whenever we can find an opportunity, deliver our
+sentiments in the form of roundhand copies. Respect the Aged. Eschew
+Vulgarity. Admire Ourselves. Regard the Novelist.”
+
+
+
+
+N N.
+
+BEING A NOVEL IN THE FRENCH PARAGRAPHIC STYLE
+
+
+—Mademoiselle, I swear to you that I love you.
+
+—You who read these pages. You who turn your burning eyes upon these
+words—words that I trace—ah, heaven! the thought maddens me.
+
+—I will be calm. I will imitate the reserve of the festive Englishman,
+who wears a spotted handkerchief which he calls a Belchio, who eats
+biftek, and caresses a bulldog. I will subdue myself like him.
+
+—Ha! Poto-beer! All right—Goddam!
+
+—Or, I will conduct myself as the free-born American—the gay Brother
+Jonathan. I will whittle me a stick. I will whistle to myself “Yankee
+Doodle,” and forget my passion in excessive expectoration.
+
+—Ho! ho!—wake snakes and walk chalks.
+
+The world is divided into two great divisions,—Paris and the provinces.
+There is but one Paris. There are several provinces, among which may be
+numbered England, America, Russia, and Italy.
+
+N N. was a Parisian.
+
+But N N. did not live in Paris. Drop a Parisian in the provinces, and
+you drop a part of Paris with him. Drop him in Senegambia, and in three
+days he will give you an omelette soufflee, or a pate de foie gras,
+served by the neatest of Senegambian filles, whom he will call
+mademoiselle. In three weeks he will give you an opera.
+
+N N. was not dropped in Senegambia, but in San Francisco,—quite as
+awkward.
+
+They find gold in San Francisco, but they don’t understand gilding.
+
+N N. existed three years in this place. He became bald on the top of his
+head, as all Parisians do. Look down from your box at the Opera Comique,
+mademoiselle, and count the bald crowns of the fast young men in the
+pit. Ah—you tremble! They show where the arrows of love have struck and
+glanced off.
+
+N N. was almost near-sighted, as all Parisians finally become. This is a
+gallant provision of nature to spare them the mortification of observing
+that their lady friends grow old. After a certain age every woman is
+handsome to a Parisian.
+
+One day, N N. was walking down Washington Street. Suddenly he stopped.
+
+He was standing before the door of a mantua-maker. Beside the counter,
+at the farther extremity of the shop, stood a young and elegantly formed
+woman. Her face was turned from N N. He entered. With a plausible excuse
+and seeming indifference, he gracefully opened conversation with the
+mantua-maker as only a Parisian can. But he had to deal with a Parisian.
+His attempts to view the features of the fair stranger by the counter
+were deftly combated by the shopwoman. He was obliged to retire.
+
+N N. went home and lost his appetite. He was haunted by the elegant
+basque and graceful shoulders of the fair unknown, during the whole
+night.
+
+The next day he sauntered by the mantua-maker. Ah! Heavens! A thrill ran
+through his frame, and his fingers tingled with a delicious electricity.
+The fair inconnue was there! He raised his hat gracefully. He was not
+certain, but he thought that a slight motion of her faultless bonnet
+betrayed recognition. He would have wildly darted into the shop, but
+just then the figure of the mantua-maker appeared in the doorway.
+
+—Did monsieur wish anything?
+
+—Misfortune! Desperation. N N. purchased a bottle of Prussic acid, a
+sack of charcoal, and a quire of pink note-paper, and returned home. He
+wrote a letter of farewell to the closely fitting basque, and opened the
+bottle of Prussic acid.
+
+Some one knocked at his door. It was a Chinaman, with his weekly linen.
+
+These Chinese are docile, but not intelligent. They are ingenious, but
+not creative. They are cunning in expedients, but deficient in tact. In
+love they are simply barbarous. They purchase their wives openly,
+and not constructively by attorney. By offering small sums for their
+sweethearts, they degrade the value of the sex.
+
+Nevertheless, N N. felt he was saved. He explained all to the faithful
+Mongolian, and exhibited the letter he had written. He implored him to
+deliver it.
+
+The Mongolian assented. The race are not cleanly or sweet-savored, but
+N N. fell upon his neck. He embraced him with one hand, and closed
+his nostrils with the other. Through him, he felt he clasped the
+close-fitting basque.
+
+The next day was one of agony and suspense. Evening came, but no mercy.
+N N. lit the charcoal. But, to compose his nerves, he closed his door
+and first walked mildly up and down Montgomery Street. When he returned,
+he found the faithful Mongolian on the steps.
+
+—All lity!
+
+These Chinese are not accurate in their pronunciation. They avoid the
+_r_, like the English nobleman.
+
+N N. gasped for breath. He leaned heavily against the Chinaman.
+
+—Then you have seen her, Ching Long?
+
+—Yes. All lity. She cum. Top side of house.
+
+The docile barbarian pointed up the stairs, and chuckled.
+
+—She here—impossible! Ah, Heaven! do I dream?
+
+—Yes. All lity,—top side of house. Good-by, John.
+
+This is the familiar parting epithet of the Mongolian. It is equivalent
+to our au revoir.
+
+N N. gazed with a stupefied air on the departing servant.
+
+He placed his hand on his throbbing heart. She here,—alone beneath this
+roof? Oh, heavens,—what happiness!
+
+But how? Torn from her home. Ruthlessly dragged, perhaps, from her
+evening devotions, by the hands of a relentless barbarian. Could she
+forgive him?
+
+He dashed frantically up the stairs. He opened the door.
+
+She was standing beside his couch with averted face.
+
+A strange giddiness overtook him. He sank upon his knees at the
+threshold.
+
+—Pardon, pardon. My angel, can you forgive me?
+
+A terrible nausea now seemed added to the fearful giddiness. His
+utterance grew thick and sluggish.
+
+—Speak, speak, enchantress. Forgiveness is all I ask. My Love, my Life!
+
+She did not answer. He staggered to his feet. As he rose, his eyes fell
+on the pan of burning charcoal. A terrible suspicion flashed across his
+mind. This giddiness—this nausea. The ignorance of the barbarian. This
+silence. Oh, merciful heavens! she was dying!
+
+He crawled toward her. He touched her. She fell forward with a lifeless
+sound upon the floor. He uttered a piercing shriek, and threw himself
+beside her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A file of gendarmes, accompanied by the Chef Burke, found him the next
+morning lying lifeless upon the floor. They laughed brutally—these
+cruel minions of the law—and disengaged his arm from the waist of the
+wooden dummy which they had come to reclaim, from the mantua-maker.
+
+Emptying a few bucketfuls of water over his form, they finally succeeded
+in robbing him, not only of his mistress, but of that Death he had
+coveted without her.
+
+Ah! we live in a strange world, messieurs.
+
+
+
+
+NO TITLE
+
+BY W-LK-E C-LL-NS
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+The following advertisement appeared in the “Times” of the 17th of June,
+1845:—
+
+WANTED.—A few young men for a light, genteel employment. Address J. W.,
+P. O.
+
+In the same paper, of same date, in another column:—
+
+TO LET.—That commodious and elegant family mansion, No. 27 Limehouse
+Road, Pultneyville, will be rented low to a respectable tenant if
+applied for immediately, the family being about to remove to the
+Continent.
+
+Under the local intelligence, in another column:—
+
+MISSING.—An unknown elderly gentleman a week ago left his lodgings in
+the Kent Road, since which nothing has been heard of him. He left no
+trace of his identity except a portmanteau containing a couple of shirts
+marked “209, Ward.”
+
+To find the connection between the mysterious disappearance of the
+elderly gentleman and the anonymous communication, the relevancy of both
+these incidents to the letting of a commodious family mansion, and the
+dead secret involved in the three occurrences, is the task of the writer
+of this history.
+
+A slim young man with spectacles, a large hat, drab gaiters, and a
+notebook, sat late that night with a copy of the “Times” before him, and
+a pencil which he rattled nervously between his teeth in the coffee-room
+of the Blue Dragon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MARY JONES’S NARRATIVE
+
+
+I am upper housemaid to the family that live at No. 27 Limehouse Road,
+Pultneyville. I have been requested by Mr. Wilkey Collings, which I
+takes the liberty of here stating is a gentleman born and bred, and
+has some consideration for the feelings of servants, and is not above
+rewarding them for their trouble, which is more than you can say for
+some who ask questions and gets short answers enough, gracious knows, to
+tell what I know about them. I have been requested to tell my story in
+my own langwidge, though, being no schollard, mind cannot conceive. I
+think my master is a brute. Do not know that he has ever attempted to
+poison my missus,—which is too good for him, and how she ever came to
+marry him, heart only can tell,—but believe him to be capable of any
+such hatrosity. Have heard him swear dreadful because of not having his
+shaving-water at nine o’clock precisely. Do not know whether he ever
+forged a will or tried to get my missus’s property, although, not
+having confidence in the man, should not be surprised if he had done
+so. Believe that there was always something mysterious in his conduct.
+Remember distinctly how the family left home to go abroad. Was putting
+up my back hair, last Saturday morning, when I heard a ring. Says cook,
+“That’s missus’s bell, and mind you hurry or the master ’ill know why.”
+ Says I, “Humbly thanking you, mem, but taking advice of them as is
+competent to give it, I’ll take my time.” Found missus dressing herself
+and master growling as usual. Says missus, quite cairn and easy-like,
+“Mary, we begin to pack to-day.” “What for, mem?” says I, taken aback.
+“What’s that hussy asking?” says master from the bedclothes quite
+savage-like. “For the Continent—Italy,” says missus. “Can you go,
+Mary?” Her voice was quite gentle and saintlike, but I knew the struggle
+it cost, and says I, “With you, mem, to India’s torrid clime, if
+required, but with African Gorillas,” says I, looking toward the bed,
+“never.” “Leave the room,” says master, starting up and catching of
+his bootjack. “Why, Charles!” says missus, “how you talk!” affecting
+surprise. “Do go, Mary,” says she, slipping a half-crown into my hand. I
+left the room, scorning to take notice of the odious wretch’s conduct.
+
+Cannot say whether my master and missus were ever legally married.
+What with the dreadful state of morals nowadays and them stories in the
+circulating libraries, innocent girls don’t know into what society
+they might be obliged to take situations. Never saw missus’s marriage
+certificate, though I have quite accidental-like looked in her desk when
+open, and would have seen it. Do not know of any lovers missus might
+have had. Believe she had a liking for John Thomas, footman, for she was
+always spiteful-like—poor lady—when we were together—though there was
+nothing between us, as cook well knows, and dare not deny, and missus
+needn’t have been jealous. Have never seen arsenic or Prussian acid in
+any of the private drawers—but have seen paregoric and camphor. One
+of my master’s friends was a Count Moscow, a Russian papist—which I
+detested.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SLIM YOUNG MAN’S STORY
+
+
+I am by profession a reporter, and writer for the press. I live at
+Pultneyville. I have always had a passion for the marvelous, and have
+been distinguished for my facility in tracing out mysteries, and solving
+enigmatical occurrences. On the night of the 17th June, 1845, I left my
+office and walked homeward. The night was bright and starlight. I was
+revolving in my mind the words of a singular item I had just read in the
+“Times.” I had reached the darkest portion of the road, and found
+myself mechanically repeating: “An elderly gentleman a week ago left his
+lodgings on the Kent Road,” when suddenly I heard a step behind me.
+
+I turned quickly, with an expression of horror in my face, and by the
+light of the newly risen moon beheld an elderly gentleman, with green
+cotton umbrella, approaching me. His hair, which was snow white, was
+parted over a broad, open forehead. The expression of his face, which
+was slightly flushed, was that of amiability verging almost upon
+imbecility. There was a strange, inquiring look about the widely opened
+mild blue eye,—a look that might have been intensified to insanity or
+modified to idiocy. As he passed me, he paused and partly turned his
+face, with a gesture of inquiry. I see him still, his white locks
+blowing in the evening breeze, his hat a little on the back of his head,
+and his figure painted in relief against the dark blue sky.
+
+Suddenly he turned his mild eye full upon me. A weak smile played about
+his thin lips. In a voice which had something of the tremulousness
+of age and the self-satisfied chuckle of imbecility in it, he asked,
+pointing to the rising moon, “Why?—Hush!”
+
+He had dodged behind me, and appeared to be looking anxiously down the
+road. I could feel his aged frame shaking with terror as he laid his
+thin hands upon my shoulders and faced me in the direction of the
+supposed danger.
+
+“Hush! did you not hear them coming?”
+
+I listened; there was no sound but the soughing of the roadside trees in
+the evening wind. I endeavored to reassure him, with such success that
+in a few moments the old weak smile appeared on his benevolent face.
+
+“Why?”—But the look of interrogation was succeeded by a hopeless
+blankness.
+
+“Why?” I repeated with assuring accents.
+
+“Why,” he said, a gleam of intelligence flickering over his face, “is
+yonder moon, as she sails in the blue empyrean, casting a flood of light
+o’er hill and dale, like—Why,” he repeated, with a feeble smile,
+“is yonder moon, as she sails in the blue empyrean”—He
+hesitated,—stammered,—and gazed at me hopelessly, with the tears
+dripping from his moist and widely opened eyes.
+
+I took his hand kindly in my own. “Casting a shadow o’er hill and dale,”
+ I repeated quietly, leading him up to the subject, “like—Come, now.”
+
+“Ah!” he said, pressing my hand tremulously, “you know it?”
+
+“I do. Why is it like—the—eh—the commodious mansion on the Limehouse
+Road?”
+
+A blank stare only followed. He shook his head sadly.
+
+“Like the young men wanted for a light, genteel employment?”
+
+He wagged his feeble old head cunningly.
+
+“Or, Mr. Ward,” I said, with bold confidence, “like the mysterious
+disappearance from the Kent Road?” The moment was full of suspense. He
+did not seem to hear me. Suddenly he turned.
+
+“Ha!”
+
+I darted forward. But he had vanished in the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+NO. 27 LIMEHOUSE ROAD
+
+
+It was a hot midsummer evening. Limehouse Road was deserted save by
+dust and a few rattling butchers’ carts, and the bell of the muffin and
+crumpet man. A commodious mansion, which stood on the right of the road
+as you enter Pultneyville, surrounded by stately poplars and a high
+fence surmounted by a cheval de frise of broken glass, looked to
+the passing and footsore pedestrian like the genius of seclusion and
+solitude. A bill announcing in the usual terms that the house was to let
+hung from the bell at the servants’ entrance.
+
+As the shades of evening closed, and the long shadows of the poplars
+stretched across the road, a man carrying a small kettle stopped and
+gazed, first at the bill and then at the house. When he had reached the
+corner of the fence, he again stopped and looked cautiously up and
+down the road. Apparently satisfied with the result of his scrutiny, he
+deliberately sat himself down in the dark shadow of the fence, and
+at once busied himself in some employment, so well concealed as to be
+invisible to the gaze of passers-by. At the end of an hour he retired
+cautiously.
+
+But not altogether unseen. A slim young man, with spectacles and
+notebook, stepped from behind a tree as the retreating figure of the
+intruder was lost in the twilight, and transferred from the fence to his
+notebook the freshly stenciled inscription, “S—T—1860—X.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+COUNT MOSCOW’S NARRATIVE
+
+
+I am a foreigner. Observe! To be a foreigner in England is to be
+mysterious, suspicious, intriguing. M. Collins has requested the
+history of my complicity with certain occurrences. It is nothing, bah!
+absolutely nothing. I write with ease and fluency. Why should I not
+write? Tra-la-la! I am what you English call corpulent. Ha, ha! I am a
+pupil of Macchiavelli. I find it much better to disbelieve everything,
+and to approach my subject and wishes circuitously than in a direct
+manner. You have observed that playful animal, the cat. Call it, and it
+does not come to you directly, but rubs itself against all the furniture
+in the room, and reaches you finally—and scratches. Ah, ha, scratches!
+I am of the feline species. People call me a villain—bah!
+
+I know the family living No. 27 Limehouse Road. I respect the
+gentleman,—a fine, burly specimen of your Englishman,—and madame,
+charming, ravishing, delightful. When it became known to me that they
+designed to let their delightful residence, and visit foreign shores,
+I at once called upon them. I kissed the hand of madame. I embraced the
+great Englishman. Madame blushed slightly. The great Englishman shook my
+hand like a mastiff.
+
+I began in that dexterous, insinuating manner of which I am truly proud.
+I thought madame was ill. Ah, no. A change, then, was all that was
+required. I sat down at the piano and sang. In a few minutes madame
+retired. I was alone with my friend.
+
+Seizing his hand, I began with every demonstration of courteous
+sympathy. I do not repeat my words, for my intention was conveyed more
+in accent, emphasis, and manner, than speech. I hinted to him that he
+had another wife living. I suggested that this was balanced—ha!—by his
+wife’s lover. That, possibly, he wished to fly; hence the letting of his
+delightful mansion. That he regularly and systematically beat his wife
+in the English manner, and that she repeatedly deceived him. I talked
+of hope, of consolation, of remedy. I carelessly produced a bottle of
+strychnine and a small vial of stramonium from my pocket, and enlarged
+on the efficiency of drugs. His face, which had gradually become
+convulsed, suddenly became fixed with a frightful expression. He started
+to his feet, and roared, “You d—d Frenchman!”
+
+I instantly changed my tactics, and endeavored to embrace him. He kicked
+me twice, violently. I begged permission to kiss madame’s hand. He
+replied by throwing me downstairs.
+
+I am in bed with my head bound up, and beefsteaks upon my eyes, but
+still confident and buoyant. I have not lost faith in Macchiavelli.
+Tra-la-la! as they sing in the opera. I kiss everybody’s hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DR. DIGGS’S STATEMENT
+
+
+My name is David Diggs. I am a surgeon, living at No. 9 Tottenham Court.
+On the 15th of June, 1854, I was called to see an elderly gentleman
+lodging on the Kent Road. Found him highly excited, with strong febrile
+symptoms, pulse 120, increasing. Repeated incoherently what I judged to
+be the popular form of a conundrum. On closer examination found acute
+hydrocephalus, and both lobes of the brain rapidly filling with water.
+In consultation with an eminent phrenologist, it was further discovered
+that all the organs were more or less obliterated, except that of
+Comparison. Hence the patient was enabled to only distinguish the most
+common points of resemblance between objects, without drawing upon other
+faculties, such as Ideality or Language, for assistance. Later in
+the day found him sinking,—being evidently unable to carry the most
+ordinary conundrum to a successful issue. Exhibited Tinct. Val., Ext.
+Opii, and Camphor, and prescribed quiet and emollients. On the 17th the
+patient was missing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LAST
+
+STATEMENT OF THE PUBLISHER
+
+
+On the 18th of June, Mr. Wilkie Collins left a roll of manuscript with
+us for publication, without title or direction, since which time he
+has not been heard from. In spite of the care of the proof-readers, and
+valuable literary assistance, it is feared that the continuity of the
+story has been destroyed by some accidental misplacing of chapters
+during its progress. How and what chapters are so misplaced, the
+publisher leaves to an indulgent public to discover.
+
+
+
+
+HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES
+
+BY CH-S R-DE
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Dodds were dead. For twenty years they had slept under the green
+graves of Kittery churchyard. The townfolk still spoke of them kindly.
+The keeper of the alehouse, where David had smoked his pipe, regretted
+him regularly, and Mistress Kitty, Mrs. Dodd’s maid, whose trim figure
+always looked well in her mistress’s gowns, was inconsolable. The
+Hardins were in America. Raby was aristocratically gouty; Mrs. Raby,
+religious. Briefly, then, we have disposed of—
+
+1. Mr. and Mrs. Dodd (dead).
+
+2. Mr. and Mrs. Hardin (translated).
+
+3. Raby, baron et femme. (Yet I don’t know about the former; he came of
+a long-lived family, and the gout is an uncertain-disease.)
+
+We have active at the present writing (place aux dames)—
+
+1. Lady Caroline Coventry, niece of Sir Frederick.
+
+2. Faraday Huxley Little, son of Henry and Graco Little deceased.
+
+_Sequitur_ to the above, A HERO AND HEROINE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+On the death of his parents, Faraday Little was taken to Raby Hall.
+In accepting his guardianship, Mr. Raby struggled stoutly against two
+prejudices: Faraday was plain-looking and skeptical.
+
+“Handsome is as handsome does, sweetheart,” pleaded Jael, interceding
+for the orphan with arms that were still beautiful. “Dear knows, it is
+not his fault if he does not look like—his father,” she added with
+a great gulp. Jael was a woman, and vindicated her womanhood by never
+entirely forgiving a former rival.
+
+“It’s not that alone, madam,” screamed Raby, “but, d—m it, the little
+rascal’s a scientist,—an atheist, a radical, a scoffer! Disbelieves
+in the Bible, ma’am; is full of this Darwinian stuff about natural
+selection and descent. Descent, forsooth! In my day, madam, gentlemen
+were content to trace their ancestors back to gentlemen, and not
+to—monkeys!”
+
+“Dear heart, the boy is clever,” urged Jael.
+
+“Clever!” roared Raby; “what does a gentleman want with cleverness?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Young Little _was_ clever. At seven he had constructed a telescope; at
+nine, a flying-machine. At ten he saved a valuable life.
+
+Norwood Park was the adjacent estate,—a lordly domain dotted with red
+deer and black trunks, but scrupulously kept with graveled roads as
+hard and blue as steel. There Little was strolling one summer morning,
+meditating on a new top with concealed springs. At a little distance
+before him he saw the flutter of lace and ribbons. A young lady, a
+very young lady,—say of seven summers,—tricked out in the crying
+abominations of the present fashion, stood beside a low bush. Her
+nursery-maid was not present, possibly owing to the fact that John the
+footman was also absent.
+
+  Suddenly Little came towards her. “Excuse me, but do you know what
+  those berries are?” He was pointing to the low bush filled with dark
+  clusters of shining—suspiciously shining—fruit.
+
+“Certainly; they are blueberries.”
+
+“Pardon me; you are mistaken. They belong to quite another family.”
+
+Miss Impudence drew herself up to her full height (exactly three feet
+nine and a half inches), and, curling an eighth of an inch of scarlet
+lip, said scornfully, “_Your_ family, perhaps.”
+
+Faraday Little smiled in the superiority of boyhood over girlhood.
+
+“I allude to the classification. That plant is the belladonna, or deadly
+nightshade. Its alkaloid is a narcotic poison.”
+
+Sauciness turned pale. “I—have—just—eaten—some!” And began to
+whimper. “Oh dear, what shall I do?” Then did it, i. e., wrung her small
+fingers, and cried.
+
+“Pardon me one moment.” Little passed his arm around her neck, and with
+his thumb opened widely the patrician-veined lids of her sweet blue
+eyes. “Thank Heaven, there is yet no dilation of the pupil; it is not
+too late!” He cast a rapid glance around. The nozzle and about three
+feet of garden hose lay near him.
+
+“Open your mouth, quick!”
+
+It was a pretty, kissable mouth. But young Little meant business. He put
+the nozzle down her pink throat as far as it would go.
+
+“Now, don’t move.”
+
+He wrapped his handkerchief around a hoop-stick. Then he inserted both
+in the other end of the stiff hose. It fitted snugly. He shoved it in
+and then drew it back.
+
+Nature abhors a vacuum. The young patrician was as amenable to this law
+as the child of the lowest peasant. She succumbed. It was all over in a
+minute. Then she burst into a small fury.
+
+“You nasty, bad—_ugly_ boy.”
+
+Young Little winced, but smiled.
+
+“Stimulants,” he whispered to the frightened nurserymaid, who
+approached; “good-evening.” He was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The breach between young Little and Mr. Raby was slowly widening. Little
+found objectionable features in the Hall. “This black oak ceiling and
+wainscoting is not as healthful as plaster; besides, it absorbs the
+light. The bedroom ceiling is too low; the Elizabethan architects knew
+nothing of ventilation. The color of that oak paneling which you admire
+is due to an excess of carbon and the exuvia from the pores of your
+skin”—
+
+“Leave the house,” bellowed Raby, “before the roof falls on your
+sacrilegious head!”
+
+As Little left the house, Lady Caroline and a handsome boy of about
+Little’s age entered. Lady Caroline recoiled, and then—blushed. Little
+glared; he instinctively felt the presence of a rival.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Little worked hard. He studied night and day. In five years he became a
+lecturer, then a professor.
+
+He soared as high as the clouds, he dipped as low as the cellars of the
+London poor. He analyzed the London fog, and found it two parts smoke,
+one disease, one unmentionable abominations. He published a pamphlet,
+which was violently attacked. Then he knew he had done something.
+
+But he had not forgotten Caroline. He was walking one day in the
+Zoological Gardens, and he came upon a pretty picture,—flesh and blood,
+too.
+
+Lady Caroline feeding buns to the bears! An exquisite thrill passed
+through his veins. She turned her sweet face and their eyes met. They
+recollected their first meeting seven years before, but it was his turn
+to be shy and timid. Wonderful power of age and sex! She met him with
+perfect self-possession.
+
+“Well meant, but indigestible, I fear” (he alluded to the buns).
+
+“A clever person like yourself can easily correct that” (she, the
+slyboots, was thinking of something else).
+
+In a few moments they were chatting gayly. Little eagerly descanted upon
+the different animals; she listened with delicious interest. An hour
+glided delightfully away.
+
+After this sunshine, clouds.
+
+To them suddenly entered Mr. Raby and a handsome young man. The
+gentlemen bowed stiffly and looked vicious—as they felt. The lady of
+this quartette smiled amiably—as she did not feel.
+
+“Looking at your ancestors, I suppose,” said Mr. Raby, pointing to the
+monkeys; “we will not disturb you. Come.” And he led Caroline away.
+
+Little was heart-sick. He dared not follow them. But an hour later he
+saw something which filled his heart with bliss unspeakable.
+
+Lady Caroline, with a divine smile on her face, feeding the monkeys!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Encouraged by love, Little worked hard upon his new flying-machine. His
+labors were lightened by talking of the beloved one with her French maid
+Therese, whom he had discreetly bribed. Mademoiselle Therese was venal,
+like all her class, but in this instance I fear she was not bribed by
+British gold. Strange as it may seem to the British mind, it was British
+genius, British eloquence, British thought, that brought her to the feet
+of this young savan.
+
+“I believe,” said Lady Caroline, one day, interrupting her maid in a
+glowing eulogium upon the skill of “M. Leetell,”—“I believe you are
+in love with this professor.” A quick flush crossed the olive cheek of
+Therese, which Lady Caroline afterward remembered.
+
+The eventful day of trial came. The public were gathered, impatient and
+scornful as the pig-headed public are apt to be. In the open area a long
+cylindrical balloon, in shape like a Bologna sausage, swayed above the
+machine, from which, like some enormous bird caught in a net, it tried
+to free itself. A heavy rope held it fast to the ground.
+
+Little was waiting for the ballast, when his eye caught Lady Caroline’s
+among the spectators. The glance was appealing. In a moment he was at
+her side.
+
+“I should like so much to get into the machine,” said the arch-hypocrite
+demurely.
+
+“Are you engaged to marry young Raby?” said Little bluntly.
+
+“As you please,” she said with a curtsey; “do I take this as a refusal?”
+
+Little was a gentleman. He lifted her and her lap-dog into the car.
+
+“How nice! it won’t go off?”
+
+“No, the rope is strong, and the ballast is not yet in.”
+
+A report like a pistol, a cry from the spectators, a thousand hands
+stretched to grasp the parted rope, and the balloon darted upward.
+
+Only one hand of that thousand caught the rope,—Little’s! But in the
+same instant the horror-stricken spectators saw him whirled from his
+feet and borne upward, still clinging to the rope, into space.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII [Footnote: The right of dramatization of this and succeeding
+chapters is reserved by the writer.]
+
+
+Lady Caroline fainted. The cold, watery nose of her dog on her cheek
+brought her to herself. She dared not look over the edge of the car;
+she dared not look up to the bellowing monster above her, bearing her to
+death. She threw herself on the bottom of the car, and embraced the only
+living thing spared her,—the poodle. Then she cried. Then a clear voice
+came apparently out of the circumambient air,—
+
+“May I trouble you to look at the barometer?”
+
+She put her head over the car. Little was hanging at the end of a long
+rope. She put her head back again.
+
+In another moment he saw her perplexed, blushing face over the
+edge,—blissful sight.
+
+“Oh, please don’t think of coming up! Stay there, do!”
+
+Little stayed. Of course she could make nothing out of the barometer,
+and said so. Little smiled.
+
+“Will you kindly send it down to me?”
+
+But she had no string or cord. Finally she said, “Wait a moment.” Little
+waited. This time her face did not appear. The barometer came slowly
+down at the end of—a stay-lace.
+
+The barometer showed a frightful elevation. Little looked up at the
+valve and said nothing. Presently he heard a sigh. Then a sob. Then,
+rather sharply,—
+
+“Why don’t you do something?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Little came up the rope hand over hand. Lady Caroline crouched in the
+farther side of the car. Fido, the poodle, whined.
+
+“Poor thing,” said Lady Caroline, “it’s hungry.”
+
+“Do you wish to save the dog?” said Little.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Give me your parasol.”
+
+She handed Little a good-sized affair of lace and silk and whalebone.
+(None of your “sunshades.”) Little examined its ribs carefully.
+
+“Give me the dog.”
+
+Lady Caroline hurriedly slipped a note under the dog’s collar, and
+passed over her pet.
+
+Little tied the dog to the handle of the parasol and launched them both
+into space. The next moment they were slowly, but tranquilly, sailing to
+the earth.
+
+“A parasol and a parachute are distinct, but not different. Be not
+alarmed, he will get his dinner at some farmhouse.”
+
+“Where are we now?”
+
+“That opaque spot you see is London fog. Those twin clouds are North and
+South America. Jerusalem and Madagascar are those specks to the right.”
+
+Lady Caroline moved nearer; she was becoming interested. Then she
+recalled herself, and said freezingly, “How are we going to descend?”
+
+“By opening the valve.”
+
+“Why don’t you open it then?”
+
+“BECAUSE THE VALVE-STRING IS BROKEN!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Lady Caroline fainted. When she revived it was dark. They were
+apparently cleaving their way through a solid block of black marble. She
+moaned and shuddered.
+
+“I wish we had a light.”
+
+“I have no lucifers,” said Little. “I observe, however, that you wear
+a necklace of amber. Amber under certain conditions becomes highly
+electrical. Permit me.”
+
+He took the amber necklace and rubbed it briskly. Then he asked her to
+present her knuckle to the gem. A bright spark was the result. This was
+repeated for some hours. The light was not brilliant, but it was enough
+for the purposes of propriety, and satisfied the delicately minded girl.
+
+Suddenly there was a tearing, hissing noise and a smell of gas. Little
+looked up and turned pale. The balloon, at what I shall call the pointed
+end of the Bologna sausage, was evidently bursting from increased
+pressure. The gas was escaping, and already they were beginning to
+descend. Little was resigned but firm.
+
+“If the silk gives way, then we are lost. Unfortunately I have no rope
+nor material for binding it.”
+
+The woman’s instinct had arrived at the same conclusion sooner than the
+man’s reason. But she was hesitating over a detail.
+
+“Will you go down the rope for a moment?” she said, with a sweet smile.
+
+Little went down. Presently she called to him. She held something in her
+hand,—a wonderful invention of the seventeenth century, improved and
+perfected in this: a pyramid of sixteen circular hoops of light yet
+strong steel, attached to each other by cloth bands.
+
+With a cry of joy Little seized them, climbed to the balloon, and fitted
+the elastic hoops over its conical end. Then he returned to the car.
+
+“We are saved.” Lady Caroline, blushing, gathered her slim but antique
+drapery against the other end of the car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+They were slowly descending. Presently Lady Caroline distinguished the
+outlines of Raby Hall.
+
+“I think I will get out here,” she said.
+
+Little anchored the balloon, and prepared to follow her.
+
+“Not so, my friend,” she said, with an arch smile. “We must not be seen
+together. People might talk. Farewell.”
+
+Little sprang again into the balloon and sped away to America. He came
+down in California, oddly enough in front of Hardin’s door, at Dutch
+Flat. Hardin was just examining a specimen of ore.
+
+“You are a scientist; can you tell me if that is worth anything?” he
+said, handing it to Little.
+
+Little held it to the light. “It contains ninety per cent of silver.”
+
+Hardin embraced him. “Can I do anything for you, and why are you here?”
+
+Little told his story. Hardin asked to see the rope. Then he examined it
+carefully.
+
+“Ah, this was cut, not broken!”
+
+“With a knife?” asked Little.
+
+“No. Observe both sides are equally indented. It was done with a
+_scissors_!”
+
+“Just Heaven!” gasped Little. “Therese!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Little returned to London. Passing through London one day he met a
+dog-fancier.
+
+“Buy a nice poodle, sir?”
+
+Something in the animal attracted his attention.
+
+“Fido!” he gasped.
+
+The dog yelped.
+
+Little bought him. On taking off his collar a piece of paper rustled to
+the floor. He knew the handwriting and kissed it. It ran:—
+
+To THE HONORABLE AUGUSTUS RABY—I cannot marry you. If I marry any one
+[sly puss] it will be the man who has twice saved my life, Professor
+Little. CAROLINE COVENTRY.
+
+And she did.
+
+
+
+
+LOTHAW
+
+OR
+
+THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION
+
+BY MR. BENJAMINS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+“I remember him a little boy,” said the Duchess. “His mother was a dear
+friend of mine; you know she was one of my bridesmaids.”
+
+“And you have never seen him since, mamma?” asked the oldest married
+daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother.
+
+“Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached myself,
+but it is so difficult to see boys.”
+
+This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning-room of
+Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat involved in the
+sacred privacy of a circle of her married daughters. One dexterously
+applied golden knitting-needles to the fabrication of a purse of floss
+silk of the rarest texture, which none who knew the almost fabulous
+wealth of the Duke would believe was ever destined to hold in its silken
+meshes a less sum than 1,000,000 pounds; another adorned a slipper
+exclusively with seed pearls; a third emblazoned a page with rare
+pigments and the finest quality of gold leaf. Beautiful forms leaned
+over frames glowing with embroidery, and beautiful frames leaned over
+forms inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Others, more remote, occasionally
+burst into melody as they tried the passages of a new and exclusive air
+given to them in MS. by some titled and devoted friend, for the private
+use of the aristocracy alone, and absolutely prohibited for publication.
+
+The Duchess, herself the superlative of beauty, wealth, and position,
+was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms. Those who talked
+about such matters said that their progeny were exactly like their
+parents,—a peculiarity of the aristocratic and wealthy. They all looked
+like brothers and sisters, except their parents, who, such was their
+purity of blood, the perfection of their manners, and the opulence of
+their condition, might have been taken for their own children’s elder
+son and daughter. The daughters, with one exception, were all married to
+the highest nobles in the land. That exception was the Lady Coriander,
+who, there being no vacancy above a marquis and a rental of 1,000,000
+pounds, waited. Gathered around the refined and sacred circle of their
+breakfast-table, with their glittering coronets, which, in filial
+respect to their father’s Tory instincts and their mother’s Ritualistic
+tastes, they always wore on their regal brows, the effect was dazzling
+as it was refined. It was this peculiarity and their strong family
+resemblance which led their brother-in-law, the good-humored St.
+Addlegourd, to say that, “’Pon my soul, you know, the whole precious mob
+looked like a ghastly pack of court cards, you know.” St. Addlegourd was
+a radical. Having a rent-roll of 15,000,000 pounds, and belonging to one
+of the oldest families in Britain, he could afford to be.
+
+“Mamma, I’ve just dropped a pearl,” said the Lady Coriander, bending
+over the Persian hearth-rug.
+
+“From your lips, sweet friend?” said Lothaw, who came of age and entered
+the room at the same moment.
+
+“No, from my work. It was a very valuable pearl, mamma; papa gave Isaacs
+Sons 50,000 pounds for the two.”
+
+“Ah, indeed,” said the Duchess, languidly rising; “let us go to
+luncheon.”
+
+“But, your Grace,” interposed Lothaw, who was still quite young, and
+had dropped on all fours on the carpet in search of the missing gem,
+“consider the value”—
+
+“Dear friend,” interposed the Duchess with infinite tact, gently lifting
+him by the tails of his dress coat, “I am waiting for your arm.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Lothaw was immensely rich. The possessor of seventeen castles, fifteen
+villas, nine shooting-boxes, and seven town houses, he had other estates
+of which he had not even heard.
+
+Everybody at Plusham played croquet, and none badly. Next to their
+purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this
+accomplishment. Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after seriously
+damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to “tight
+croquet” the Lady Aniseed’s ball, he limped away to join the Duchess.
+
+“I’m going to the hennery,” she said.
+
+
+“Let me go with you; I dearly love fowls—broiled,” he added
+thoughtfully.
+
+“The Duke gave Lady Montairy some large Cochins the other day,”
+ continued the Duchess, changing the subject with delicate tact.
+
+        “Lady Montairy
+        Quite contrairy,
+    How do your Cochins grow?”
+
+sang Lothaw gayly.
+
+The Duchess looked shocked. After a prolonged silence Lothaw abruptly
+and gravely said:—
+
+“If you please, ma’am, when I come into my property I should like to
+build some improved dwellings for the poor, and marry Lady Coriander.”
+
+“You amaze me, dear friend; and yet both your aspirations are noble and
+eminently proper,” said the Duchess.
+
+“Coriander is but a child,—and yet,” she added, looking graciously upon
+her companion, “for the matter of that, so are you.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mr. Putney Giles’s was Lothaw’s first grand dinner-party. Yet, by
+carefully watching the others, he managed to acquit himself creditably,
+and avoided drinking out of the finger-bowl by first secretly testing
+its contents with a spoon. The conversation was peculiar and singularly
+interesting.
+
+“Then you think that monogamy is simply a question of the thermometer?”
+ said Mrs. Putney Giles to her companion.
+
+“I certainly think that polygamy should be limited by isothermal lines,”
+ replied Lothaw.
+
+“I should say it was a matter of latitude,” observed a loud, talkative
+man opposite. He was an Oxford professor with a taste for satire,
+and had made himself very obnoxious to the company, during dinner,
+by speaking disparagingly of a former well-known chancellor of the
+exchequer,—a great statesman and brilliant novelist,—whom he feared
+and hated.
+
+Suddenly there was a sensation in the room; among the females it
+absolutely amounted to a nervous thrill. His Eminence, the Cardinal, was
+announced. He entered with great suavity of manner, and after shaking
+hands with everybody, asking after their relatives, and chucking the
+more delicate females under the chin with a high-bred grace peculiar to
+his profession, he sat down, saying, “And how do we all find ourselves
+this evening, my dears?” in several different languages, which he spoke
+fluently.
+
+Lothaw’s heart was touched. His deeply religious convictions were
+impressed. He instantly went up to this gifted being, confessed, and
+received absolution. “To-morrow,” he said to himself, “I will partake
+of the communion, and endow the Church with my vast estates. For the
+present I’ll let the improved cottages go.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+As Lothaw turned to leave the Cardinal, he was struck by a beautiful
+face. It was that of a matron, slim but shapely as an Ionic column. Her
+face was Grecian, with Corinthian temples; Hellenic eyes that looked
+from jutting eyebrows, like dormer-windows in an Attic forehead,
+completed her perfect Athenian outline. She wore a black frock-coat
+tightly buttoned over her bloomer trousers, and a standing collar.
+
+“Your lordship is struck by that face?” said a social parasite.
+
+“I am; who is she?”
+
+“Her name is Mary Ann. She is married to an American, and has lately
+invented a new religion.”
+
+“Ah!” said Lothaw eagerly, with difficulty restraining himself from
+rushing toward her.
+
+“Yes; shall I introduce you?”
+
+Lothaw thought of Lady Coriander’s High Church proclivities, of the
+Cardinal, and hesitated: “No, I thank you, not now.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Lothaw was maturing. He had attended two womens’ rights conventions,
+three Fenian meetings, had dined at White’s, and had danced _vis-a-vis_
+to a prince of the blood, and eaten off gold plates at Crecy House.
+
+His stables were near Oxford, and occupied more ground than the
+University. He was driving over there one day, when he perceived
+some rustics and menials endeavoring to stop a pair of runaway horses
+attached to a carriage in which a lady and gentleman were seated. Calmly
+awaiting the termination of the accident, with high-bred courtesy Lothaw
+forbore to interfere until the carriage was overturned, the occupants
+thrown out, and the runaways secured by the servants, when he advanced
+and offered the lady the exclusive use of his Oxford stables.
+
+Turning upon him a face whose perfect Hellenic details he remembered,
+she slowly dragged a gentleman from under the wheels into the light,
+and presented him with ladylike dignity as her husband, Major-General
+Camperdown, an American.
+
+“Ah,” said Lothaw carelessly, “I believe I have some land there. If
+I mistake not, my agent, Mr. Putney Giles, lately purchased the State
+of—Illinois—I think you call it.”
+
+“Exactly. As a former resident of the city of Chicago, let me introduce
+myself as your tenant.”
+
+Lothaw bowed graciously to the gentleman, who, except that he
+seemed better dressed than most Englishmen, showed no other signs of
+inferiority and plebeian extraction.
+
+“We have met before,” said Lothaw to the lady as she leaned on his arm,
+while they visited his stables, the University, and other places of
+interest in Oxford, “Pray tell me, what is this new religion of yours?”
+
+“It is Woman Suffrage, Free Love, Mutual Affinity, and Communism.
+Embrace it and me.”
+
+Lothaw did not know exactly what to do. She, however, soothed and
+sustained his agitated frame, and sealed with an embrace his speechless
+form. The General approached and coughed slightly with gentlemanly tact.
+
+“My husband will be too happy to talk with you further on this subject,”
+ she said with quiet dignity, as she regained the General’s side. “Come
+with us to Oneida. Brook Farm is a thing of the past.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+As Lothaw drove toward his country-seat, The Mural Inclosure, he
+observed a crowd, apparently of the working-class, gathered around a
+singular-looking man in the picturesque garb of an Ethiopian serenader.
+“What does he say?” inquired Lothaw of his driver.
+
+The man touched his hat respectfully, and said, “My Mary Ann.”
+
+“‘My Mary Ann!’” Lothaw’s heart beat rapidly. Who was this mysterious
+foreigner? He had heard from Lady Coriander of a certain Popish plot;
+but could he connect Mr. Camperdown with it?
+
+The spectacle of two hundred men at arms, who advanced to meet him at
+the gates of The Mural Inclosure, drove all else from the still youthful
+and impressible mind of Lothaw. Immediately behind them, on the steps of
+the baronial halls, were ranged his retainers, led by the chief cook and
+bottle-washer and head crumb-remover. On either side were two companies
+of laundry-maids, preceded by the chief crimper and flutter, supporting a
+long Ancestral Line, on which depended the family linen, and under which
+the youthful lord of the manor passed into the halls of his fathers.
+Twenty-four scullions carried the massive gold and silver plate of the
+family on their shoulders, and deposited it at the feet of their master.
+The spoons were then solemnly counted by the steward, and the perfect
+ceremony ended.
+
+Lothaw sighed. He sought out the gorgeously gilded “Taj,” or sacred
+mausoleum erected to his grandfather in the second-story front room, and
+wept over the man he did not know.
+
+He wandered alone in his magnificent park, and then, throwing himself
+on a grassy bank, pondered on the Great First Cause and the necessity
+of religion. “I will send Mary Ann a handsome present,” said Lothaw
+thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+“Each of these pearls, my lord, is worth fifty thousand guineas,” said
+Mr. Amethyst, the fashionable jeweler, as he lightly lifted a large
+shovelful from a convenient bin behind his counter.
+
+“Indeed,” said Lothaw carelessly, “I should prefer to see some expensive
+ones.”
+
+“Some number sixes, I suppose,” said Mr. Amethyst, taking a couple from
+the apex of a small pyramid that lay piled on the shelf. “These are
+about the size of the Duchess of Billingsgate’s, but they are in finer
+condition. The fact is, her Grace permits her two children, the Marquis
+of Smithfield and the Duke of St. Giles,—two sweet pretty boys, my
+lord,—to use them as marbles in their games. Pearls require some
+attention, and I go down there regularly twice a week to clean them.
+Perhaps your lordship would like some ropes of pearls?”
+
+“About half a cable’s length,” said Lothaw shortly, “and send them to my
+lodgings.”
+
+Mr. Amethyst became thoughtful. “I am afraid I have not the exact
+number—that is—excuse me one moment. I will run over to the Tower and
+borrow a few from the crown jewels.” And before Lothaw could prevent
+him, he seized his hat and left Lothaw alone.
+
+His position certainly was embarrassing. He could not move without
+stepping on costly gems which had rolled from the counter; the rarest
+diamonds lay scattered on the shelves; untold fortunes in priceless
+emeralds lay within his grasp. Although such was the aristocratic purity
+of his blood and the strength of his religious convictions that he
+probably would not have pocketed a single diamond, still he could not
+help thinking that he might be accused of taking some. “You can search
+me, if you like,” he said when Mr. Amethyst returned; “but I assure you,
+upon the honor of a gentleman, that I have taken nothing.”
+
+“Enough, my lord,” said Mr. Amethyst, with a low bow; “we never search
+the aristocracy.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+As Lothaw left Mr. Amethyst’s, he ran against General Camperdown. “How
+is Mary Ann?” he asked hurriedly.
+
+“I regret to state that she is dying,” said the General, with a grave
+voice, as he removed his cigar from his lips, and lifted his hat to
+Lothaw.
+
+“Dying!” said Lothaw incredulously.
+
+“Alas, too true!” replied the General. “The engagements of a long
+lecturing season, exposure in traveling by railway during the winter,
+and the imperfect nourishment afforded by the refreshments along the
+road, have told on her delicate frame. But she wants to see you before
+she dies. Here is the key of my lodging. I will finish my cigar out
+here.”
+
+Lothaw hardly recognized those wasted Hellenic outlines as he entered
+the dimly lighted room of the dying woman. She was already a classic
+ruin,—as wrecked and yet as perfect as the Parthenon. He grasped her
+hand silently.
+
+“Open-air speaking twice a week, and Saleratus bread in the rural
+districts, have brought me to this,” she said feebly; “but it is well.
+The cause progresses. The tyrant man succumbs.”
+
+Lothaw could only press her hand.
+
+“Promise me one thing. Don’t—whatever you do—become a Catholic.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“The Church does not recognize divorce. And now embrace me. I would
+prefer at this supreme moment to introduce myself to the next world
+through the medium of the best society in this. Good-by. When I am dead,
+be good enough to inform my husband of the fact.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Lothaw spent the next six months on an Aryan island, in an Aryan
+climate, and with an Aryan race.
+
+“This is an Aryan landscape,” said his host, “and that is a Mary Ann
+statue.” It was, in fact, a full-length figure in marble of Mrs. General
+Camperdown.
+
+“If you please, I should like to become a Pagan,” said Lothaw, one day,
+after listening to an impassioned discourse on Greek art from the lips
+of his host.
+
+But that night, on consulting a well-known spiritual medium, Lothaw
+received a message from the late Mrs. General Camperdown, advising him
+to return to England. Two days later he presented himself at Plusham.
+
+“The young ladies are in the garden,” said the Duchess. “Don’t you want
+to go and pick a rose?” she added with a gracious smile, and the nearest
+approach to a wink that was consistent with her patrician bearing and
+aquiline nose.
+
+Lothaw went and presently returned with the blushing Coriander upon his
+arm.
+
+“Bless you, my children,” said the Duchess. Then turning to Lothaw, she
+said: “You have simply fulfilled and accepted your inevitable destiny.
+It was morally impossible for you to marry out of this family. For the
+present, the Church of England is safe.”
+
+
+
+
+THE HAUNTED MAN
+
+BY CH—R—S D—CK—N—S.
+
+A CHRISTMAS STORY
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE FIRST PHANTOM
+
+
+Don’t tell me that it wasn’t a knocker. I had seen it often enough, and
+I ought to know. So ought the three-o’clock beer, in dirty high-lows,
+swinging himself over the railing, or executing a demoniacal jig upon
+the doorstep; so ought the butcher, although butchers as a general thing
+are scornful of such trifles; so ought the postman, to whom knockers of
+the most extravagant description were merely human weaknesses, that were
+to be pitied and used. And so ought for the matter of that, etc., etc.,
+etc.
+
+But then it was _such_ a knocker. A wild, extravagant, and utterly
+incomprehensible knocker. A knocker so mysterious and suspicious that
+policeman X 37, first coming upon it, felt inclined to take it instantly
+in custody, but compromised with his professional instincts by sharply
+and sternly noting it with an eye that admitted of no nonsense, but
+confidently expected to detect its secret yet. An ugly knocker; a
+knocker with a hard human face, that was a type of the harder human
+face within. A human face that held between its teeth a brazen rod. So
+hereafter, in the mysterious future should be held, etc., etc.
+
+But if the knocker had a fierce human aspect in the glare of day,
+you should have seen it at night, when it peered out of the gathering
+shadows and suggested an ambushed figure; when the light of the street
+lamps fell upon it, and wrought a play of sinister expression in its
+hard outlines; when it seemed to wink meaningly at a shrouded figure
+who, as the night fell darkly, crept up the steps and passed into the
+mysterious house; when the swinging door disclosed a black passage
+into which the figure seemed to lose itself and become a part of the
+mysterious gloom; when the night grew boisterous and the fierce wind
+made furious charges at the knocker, as if to wrench it off and carry it
+away in triumph. Such a night as this.
+
+It was a wild and pitiless wind. A wind that had commenced life as a
+gentle country zephyr, but, wandering through manufacturing towns, had
+become demoralized, and, reaching the city, had plunged into extravagant
+dissipation and wild excesses. A roistering wind that indulged in
+Bacchanalian shouts on the street corners, that knocked off the hats
+from the heads of helpless passengers, and then fulfilled its duties by
+speeding away, like all young prodigals,—to sea.
+
+He sat alone in a gloomy library listening to the wind that roared in
+the chimney. Around him novels and storybooks were strewn thickly; in
+his lap he held one with its pages freshly cut, and turned the leaves
+wearily until his eyes rested upon a portrait in its frontispiece. And
+as the wind howled the more fiercely, and the darkness without fell
+blacker, a strange and fateful likeness to that portrait appeared above
+his chair and leaned upon his shoulder. The Haunted Man gazed at the
+portrait and sighed. The figure gazed at the portrait and sighed too.
+
+“Here again?” said the Haunted Man.
+
+“Here again,” it repeated in a low voice.
+
+“Another novel?”
+
+“Another novel.”
+
+“The old story?”
+
+“The old story.”
+
+“I see a child,” said the Haunted Man, gazing from the pages of the
+book into the fire,—“a most unnatural child, a model infant. It is
+prematurely old and philosophic. It dies in poverty to slow music. It
+dies surrounded by luxury to slow music. It dies with an accompaniment
+of golden water and rattling carts to slow music. Previous to its
+decease it makes a will; it repeats the Lord’s Prayer, it kisses the
+‘boofer lady.’ That child”—
+
+“Is mine,” said the phantom.
+
+“I see a good woman, undersized. I see several charming women, but they
+are all undersized. They are more or less imbecile and idiotic, but
+always fascinating and undersized. They wear coquettish caps and aprons.
+I observe that feminine virtue is invariably below the medium height,
+and that it is always simple and infantine. These women”—
+
+“Are mine.”
+
+“I see a haughty, proud, and wicked lady. She is tall and queenly.
+I remark that all proud and wicked women are tall and queenly. That
+woman”—
+
+“Is mine,” said the phantom, wringing his hands.
+
+“I see several things continually impending. I observe that whenever an
+accident, a murder, or death is about to happen, there is something in
+the furniture, in the locality, in the atmosphere, that foreshadows
+and suggests it years in advance. I cannot say that in real life I have
+noticed it,—the perception of this surprising fact belongs”—
+
+“To me!” said the phantom. The Haunted Man continued, in a despairing
+tone,—
+
+“I see the influence of this in the magazines and daily papers; I see
+weak imitators rise up and enfeeble the world with senseless formula.
+I am getting tired of it. It won’t do, Charles! it won’t do!” and the
+Haunted Man buried his head in his hands and groaned. The figure looked
+down upon him sternly; the portrait in the frontispiece frowned as he
+gazed.
+
+“Wretched man,” said the phantom, “and how have these things affected
+you?”
+
+“Once I laughed and cried, but then I was younger. Now, I would forget
+them if I could.”
+
+“Have then your wish. And take this with you, man whom I renounce. From
+this day henceforth you shall live with those whom I displace. Without
+forgetting me, ’twill be your lot to walk through life as if we had not
+met. But first you shall survey these scenes that henceforth must be
+yours. At one to-night, prepare to meet the phantom I have raised.
+Farewell!”
+
+The sound of its voice seemed to fade away with the dying wind, and the
+Haunted Man was alone. But the firelight flickered gayly, and the light
+danced on the walls, making grotesque figures of the furniture.
+
+“Ha, ha!” said the Haunted Man, rubbing his hands gleefully; “now for a
+whiskey punch and a cigar.”
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE SECOND PHANTOM
+
+
+One! The stroke of the far-off bell had hardly died before the front
+door closed with a reverberating clang. Steps were heard along the
+passage; the library door swung open of itself, and the Knocker—yes,
+the Knocker—slowly strode into the room. The Haunted Man rubbed his
+eyes,—no! there could be no mistake about it,—it was the Knocker’s
+face, mounted on a misty, almost imperceptible body. The brazen rod was
+transferred from its mouth to its right hand, where it was held like a
+ghostly truncheon.
+
+“It’s a cold evening,” said the Haunted Man.
+
+“It is,” said the Goblin, in a hard, metallic voice.
+
+“It must be pretty cold out there,” said the Haunted Man, with vague
+politeness. “Do you ever—will you—take some hot water and brandy?”
+
+“No,” said the Goblin.
+
+“Perhaps you’d like it cold, by way of change?” continued the Haunted
+Man, correcting himself, as he remembered the peculiar temperature with
+which the Goblin was probably familiar.
+
+“Time flies,” said the Goblin coldly. “We have no leisure for idle talk.
+Come!” He moved his ghostly truncheon toward the window, and laid his
+hand upon the other’s arm. At his touch the body of the Haunted Man
+seemed to become as thin and incorporeal as that of the Goblin himself,
+and together they glided out of the window into the black and blowy
+night.
+
+In the rapidity of their flight the senses of the Haunted Man seemed to
+leave him. At length they stopped suddenly.
+
+“What do you see?” asked the Goblin.
+
+“I see a battlemented mediaeval castle. Gallant men in mail ride over
+the drawbridge, and kiss their gauntleted fingers to fair ladies, who
+wave their lily hands in return. I see fight and fray and tournament.
+I hear roaring heralds bawling the charms of delicate women, and
+shamelessly proclaiming their lovers. Stay. I see a Jewess about to leap
+from a battlement. I see knightly deeds, violence, rapine, and a good
+deal of blood. I’ve seen pretty much the same at Astley’s.”
+
+“Look again.”
+
+“I see purple moors, glens, masculine women, bare-legged men, priggish
+book-worms, more violence, physical excellence, and blood. Always
+blood,—and the superiority of physical attainments.”
+
+“And how do you feel now?” said the Goblin.
+
+The Haunted Man shrugged his shoulders. “None the better for being
+carried back and asked to sympathize with a barbarous age.”
+
+The Goblin smiled and clutched his arm; they again sped rapidly away
+through the black night, and again halted.
+
+“What do you see?” said the Goblin.
+
+“I see a barrack-room, with a mess-table, and a group of intoxicated
+Celtic officers telling funny stories, and giving challenges to duel. I
+see a young Irish gentleman capable of performing prodigies of valor.
+I learn incidentally that the acme of all heroism is the cornetcy of a
+dragoon regiment. I hear a good deal of French! No, thank you,” said the
+Haunted Man hurriedly, as he stayed the waving hand of the Goblin; “I
+would rather _not_ go to the Peninsula, and don’t care to have a private
+interview with Napoleon.”
+
+Again the Goblin flew away with the unfortunate man, and from a strange
+roaring below them he judged they were above the ocean. A ship hove in
+sight, and the Goblin stayed its flight. “Look,” he said, squeezing his
+companion’s arm.
+
+The Haunted Man yawned. “Don’t you think, Charles, you’re rather running
+this thing into the ground? Of course it’s very moral and instructive,
+and all that. But ain’t there a little too much pantomime about it? Come
+now!”
+
+“Look!” repeated the Goblin, pinching his arm malevolently. The Haunted
+Man groaned.
+
+“Oh, of course, I see her Majesty’s ship Arethusa. Of course I am
+familiar with her stern First Lieutenant, her eccentric Captain, her one
+fascinating and several mischievous midshipmen. Of course I know it’s
+a splendid thing to see all this, and not to be seasick. Oh, there, the
+young gentlemen are going to play a trick on the purser. For God’s sake,
+let us go,” and the unhappy man absolutely dragged the Goblin away with
+him.
+
+When they next halted, it was at the edge of a broad and boundless
+prairie, in the middle of an oak opening.
+
+“I see,” said the Haunted Man, without waiting for his cue, but
+mechanically, and as if he were repeating a lesson which the Goblin had
+taught him,—“I see the Noble Savage. He is very fine to look at! But I
+observe, under his war-paint, feathers, and picturesque blanket, dirt,
+disease, and an unsymmetrical contour. I observe beneath his inflated
+rhetoric deceit and hypocrisy; beneath his physical hardihood cruelty,
+malice, and revenge. The Noble Savage is a humbug. I remarked the same
+to Mr. Catlin.”
+
+“Come,” said the phantom.
+
+The Haunted Man sighed, and took out his watch. “Couldn’t we do the rest
+of this another time?”
+
+“My hour is almost spent, irreverent being, but there is yet a chance
+for your reformation. Come!”
+
+Again they sped through the night, and again halted. The sound of
+delicious but melancholy music fell upon their ears.
+
+“I see,” said the Haunted Man, with something of interest in his
+manner,—“I see an old moss-covered manse beside a sluggish, flowing
+river. I see weird shapes: witches, Puritans, clergymen, little
+children, judges, mesmerized maidens, moving to the sound of melody that
+thrills me with its sweetness and purity. But, although carried
+along its calm and evenly flowing current, the shapes are strange and
+frightful: an eating lichen gnaws at the heart of each. Not only the
+clergymen, but witch, maiden, judge, and Puritan, all wear Scarlet
+Letters of some kind burned upon their hearts. I am fascinated and
+thrilled, but I feel a morbid sensitiveness creeping over me. I—I beg
+your pardon.” The Goblin was yawning frightfully. “Well, perhaps we had
+better go.” “One more, and the last,” said the Goblin.
+
+They were moving home. Streaks of red were beginning to appear in the
+eastern sky. Along the banks of the blackly flowing river by moorland
+and stagnant fens, by low houses, clustering close to the water’s edge,
+like strange mollusks crawled upon the beach to dry; by misty black
+barges, the more misty and indistinct seen through its mysterious veil,
+the river fog was slowly rising. So rolled away and rose from the heart
+of the Haunted Man, etc., etc.
+
+They stopped before a quaint mansion of red brick. The Goblin waved his
+hand without speaking.
+
+“I see,” said the Haunted Man, “a gay drawing-room. I see my old friends
+of the club, of the college, of society, even as they lived and moved. I
+see the gallant and unselfish men whom I have loved, and the snobs
+whom I have hated. I see strangely mingling with them, and now and then
+blending with their forms, our old friends Dick Steele, Addison, and
+Congreve. I observe, though, that these gentlemen have a habit of
+getting too much in the way. The royal standard of Queen Anne, not in
+itself a beautiful ornament, is rather too prominent in the picture. The
+long galleries of black oak, the formal furniture, the old portraits,
+are picturesque, but depressing. The house is damp. I enjoy myself
+better here on the lawn, where they are getting up a Vanity Fair. See,
+the bell rings, the curtain is rising, the puppets are brought out for a
+new play. Let me see.”
+
+The Haunted Man was pressing forward in his eagerness, but the hand of
+the Goblin stayed him, and pointing to his feet he saw, between him and
+the rising curtain, a new made grave. And bending above the grave in
+passionate grief, the Haunted Man beheld the phantom of the previous
+night. The Haunted Man started, and—woke. The bright sunshine streamed
+into the room. The air was sparkling with frost. He ran joyously to the
+window and opened it. A small boy saluted him with “Merry Christmas.”
+ The Haunted Man instantly gave him a Bank of England note. “How much
+like Tiny Tim, Tom, and Bobby that boy looked,—bless my soul, what a
+genius this Dickens has!”
+
+A knock at the door, and Boots entered.
+
+“Consider your salary doubled instantly. Have you read ‘David
+Copperfield’?”
+
+“Yezzur.”
+
+“Your salary is quadrupled. What do you think of the ‘Old Curiosity
+Shop’?”
+
+The man instantly burst into a torrent of tears, and then into a roar of
+laughter.
+
+“Enough! Here are five thousand pounds. Open a porter-house, and call it
+‘Our Mutual Friend.’ Huzza! I feel so happy!” And the Haunted Man danced
+about the room.
+
+And so, bathed in the light of that blessed sun, and yet glowing with
+the warmth of a good action, the Haunted Man, haunted no longer, save
+by those shapes which make the dreams of children beautiful, reseated
+himself in his chair, and finished “Our Mutual Friend.”
+
+
+
+
+TERENCE DENVILLE
+
+BY CH-L-S L-V-R
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MY HOME
+
+
+The little village of Pilwiddle is one of the smallest and obscurest
+hamlets on the western coast of Ireland. On a lofty crag, overlooking
+the hoarse Atlantic, stands “Denville’s Shot Tower,” a corruption by the
+peasantry of “D’Enville’s Chateau,” so called from my great-grandfather,
+Phelim St. Remy d’Enville, who assumed the name and title of a French
+heiress with whom he ran away. To this fact my familiar knowledge and
+excellent pronunciation of the French language may be attributed, as
+well as many of the events which covered my after life.
+
+The Denvilles were always passionately fond of field sports. At the
+age of four, I was already the boldest rider and the best shot in
+the country. When only eight, I won the St. Remy Cup at the Pilwiddle
+races,—riding my favorite blood-mare Hellfire. As I approached the
+stand amidst the plaudits of the assembled multitude, and cries of,
+“Thrue for ye, Mashter Terence,” and “oh, but it’s a Dinville!” there
+was a slight stir among the gentry, who surrounded the Lord Lieutenant
+and other titled personages whom the race had attracted thither. “How
+young he is,—a mere child, and yet how noble-looking,” said a sweet low
+voice, which thrilled my soul.
+
+I looked up and met the full liquid orbs of the Hon. Blanche Fitzroy
+Sackville, youngest daughter of the Lord Lieutenant. She blushed deeply.
+I turned pale and almost fainted. But the cold, sneering tones of a
+masculine voice sent the blood back again into my youthful cheek.
+
+“Very likely the ragged scion of one of these banditti Irish gentry,
+who has taken naturally to ‘the road.’ He should be at school—though
+I warrant me his knowledge of Terence will not extend beyond his own
+name,” said Lord Henry Somerset, aid-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant.
+
+A moment and I was perfectly calm, though cold as ice. Dismounting, and
+stepping to the side of the speaker, I said in a low firm voice:—
+
+“Had your lordship read Terence more carefully, you would have
+learned that banditti are sometimes proficient in other arts beside
+horsemanship,” and I touched his holster significantly with my hand. I
+had not read Terence myself, but with the skillful audacity of my race I
+calculated that a vague allusion, coupled with a threat, would embarrass
+him. It did.
+
+“Ah—what mean you?” he said, white with rage.
+
+“Enough, we are observed,” I replied; “Father Tom will wait on you this
+evening; and to-morrow morning, my lord, in the glen below Pilwiddle, we
+will meet again.”
+
+“Father Tom—glen!” ejaculated the Englishman, with genuine surprise.
+“What? do priests carry challenges and act as seconds in your infernal
+country?”
+
+“Yes,” I answered scornfully; “why should they not? Their services are
+more often necessary than those of a surgeon,” I added significantly,
+turning away.
+
+The party slowly rode off, with the exception of the Hon. Blanche
+Sackville, who lingered for a moment behind. In an instant I was at her
+side. Bending her blushing face over the neck of her white filly, she
+said hurriedly:—
+
+“Words have passed between Lord Somerset and yourself. You are about to
+fight. Don’t deny it—but hear me. You will meet him—I know your skill
+of weapons. He will be at your mercy. I entreat you to spare his life!”
+
+I hesitated. “Never!” I cried passionately; “he has insulted a
+Denville!”
+
+“Terence,” she whispered, “Terence—_for my sake?_”
+
+The blood rushed to my cheeks, and her eyes sought the ground in bashful
+confusion.
+
+“You love him then?” I cried bitterly.
+
+“No, no,” she said agitatedly,—“no, you do me wrong. I—I—cannot
+explain myself. My father!—the Lady Dowager Sackville—the estate
+of Sackville—the borough—my uncle, Fitzroy Somerset. Ah! what am I
+saying? Forgive me. Oh, Terence,” she said, as her beautiful head sank
+on my shoulder, “you know not what I suffer!”
+
+I seized her hand and covered it with passionate kisses.
+
+But the high-bred English girl, recovering something of her former
+hauteur, said hastily, “Leave me, leave me, but promise!”
+
+“I promise,” I replied enthusiastically; “I _will_ spare his life!”
+
+“Thanks, Terence,—thanks!” and disengaging her hand from my lips she
+rode rapidly away.
+
+The next morning, the Hon. Captain Henry Somerset and myself exchanged
+nineteen shots in the glen, and at each fire I shot away a button from
+his uniform. As my last bullet shot off the last button from his sleeve,
+I remarked quietly, “You seem now, my lord, to be almost as ragged as
+the gentry you sneered at,” and rode haughtily away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FIGHTING FIFTY-SIXTH
+
+
+When I was nineteen years old my father sold the Chateau d’ Enville, and
+purchased my commission in the “Fifty-sixth” with the proceeds. “I
+say, Denville,” said young McSpadden, a boy-faced ensign, who had just
+joined, “you’ll represent the estate in the Army, if you won’t in the
+House.” Poor fellow, he paid for his meaningless joke with his life, for
+I shot him through the heart the next morning. “You’re a good fellow,
+Denville,” said the poor boy faintly, as I knelt beside him; “good-by!”
+ For the first time since my grandfather’s death I wept. I could not
+help thinking that I would have been a better man if Blanche—But why
+proceed? Was she not now in Florence—the belle of the English embassy?
+
+But Napoleon had returned from Elba. Europe was in a blaze of
+excitement. The Allies were preparing to resist the Man of Destiny.
+We were ordered from Gibraltar home, and were soon again en route for
+Brussels. I did not regret that I was to be placed in active service. I
+was ambitious, and longed for an opportunity to distinguish myself. My
+garrison life in Gibraltar had been monotonous and dull. I had killed
+five men in duel, and had an affair with the colonel of my regiment, who
+handsomely apologized before the matter assumed a serious aspect. I
+had been twice in love. Yet these were but boyish freaks and follies. I
+wished to be a man.
+
+The time soon came,—the morning of Waterloo. But why describe that
+momentous battle, on which the fate of the entire world was hanging?
+Twice were the Fifty-sixth surrounded by French cuirassiers, and twice
+did we mow them down by our fire. I had seven horses shot under me, and
+was mounting the eighth, when an orderly rode up hastily, touched his
+cap, and, handing me a dispatch, galloped rapidly away.
+
+I opened it hurriedly and read:—
+
+“LET PICTON ADVANCE IMMEDIATELY ON THE RIGHT.”
+
+I saw it all at a glance. I had been mistaken for a general officer.
+But what was to be done? Picton’s division was two miles away, only
+accessible through a heavy cross-fire of artillery and musketry. But my
+mind was made up.
+
+In an instant I was engaged with an entire squadron of cavalry, who
+endeavored to surround me. Cutting my way through them, I advanced
+boldly upon a battery and sabred the gunners before they could
+bring their pieces to bear. Looking around, I saw that I had in fact
+penetrated the French centre. Before I was well aware of the locality, I
+was hailed by a sharp voice in French,—
+
+“Come here, sir!”
+
+I obeyed, and advanced to the side of a little man in a cocked hat.
+
+“Has Grouchy come?”
+
+“Not yet, sire,” I replied,—for it was the Emperor.
+
+“Ha!” he said suddenly, bending his piercing eyes on my uniform; “a
+prisoner?”
+
+“No, sire,” I said proudly.
+
+“A spy?”
+
+I placed my hand upon my sword, but a gesture from the Emperor bade me
+forbear.
+
+“You are a brave man,” he said.
+
+I took my snuff-box from my pocket, and, taking a pinch, replied by
+handing it, with a bow, to the Emperor.
+
+His quick eye caught the cipher on the lid.
+
+“What! a D’Enville? Ha! this accounts for the purity of your accent. Any
+relation to Roderick d’Enville?”
+
+“My father, sire.”
+
+“He was my schoolfellow at the Ecole Polytechnique. Embrace me!” And
+the Emperor fell upon my neck in the presence of his entire staff. Then,
+recovering himself, he gently placed in my hand his own magnificent
+snuff-box, in exchange for mine, and hanging upon my breast the cross
+of the Legion of Honor which he took from his own, he bade one of his
+marshals conduct me back to my regiment.
+
+I was so intoxicated with the honor of which I had been the recipient,
+that on reaching our lines I uttered a shout of joy and put spurs to my
+horse. The intelligent animal seemed to sympathize with my feelings, and
+fairly flew over the ground. On a rising eminence a few yards before me
+stood a gray-haired officer, surrounded by his staff. I don’t know what
+possessed me, but putting spurs to my horse, I rode at him boldly, and
+with one bound cleared him, horse and all. A shout of indignation arose
+from the assembled staff. I wheeled suddenly, with the intention of
+apologizing, but my mare misunderstood me, and, again dashing forward,
+once more vaulted over the head of the officer, this time unfortunately
+uncovering him by a vicious kick of her hoof. “Seize him!” roared the
+entire army. I was seized. As the soldiers led me away, I asked the name
+of the gray-haired officer. “That—why, that’s the DUKE OF WELLINGTON!”
+
+I fainted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For six months I had brain fever. During my illness ten grapeshot were
+extracted from my body which I had unconsciously received during the
+battle. When I opened my eyes I met the sweet glance of a Sister of
+Charity.
+
+“Blanche!” I stammered feebly.
+
+“The same,” she replied.
+
+“You here?”
+
+“Yes, dear; but hush! It’s a long story. You see, dear Terence, your
+grandfather married my great-aunt’s sister, and your father again
+married my grandmother’s niece, who, dying without a will, was,
+according to the French law”—
+
+“But I do not comprehend,” I said.
+
+“Of course not,” said Blanche, with her old sweet smile; “you’ve had
+brain fever; so go to sleep.”
+
+I understood, however, that Blanche loved me; and I am now, dear reader,
+Sir Terence Sackville, K. C. B., and Lady Blanche is Lady Sackville.
+
+
+
+
+MARY McGILLUP
+
+A SOUTHERN NOVEL
+
+AFTER BELLE BOYD
+
+WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. A. S-LA
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+“Will you write me up?”
+
+The scene was near Temple Bar. The speaker was the famous rebel Mary
+McGillup,—a young girl of fragile frame, and long, lustrous black hair.
+I must confess that the question was a peculiar one, and, under the
+circumstances, somewhat puzzling. It was true I had been kindly treated
+by the Northerners, and, though prejudiced against them, was to some
+extent under obligations to them. It was true that I knew little or
+nothing of American politics, history, or geography. But when did
+an English writer ever weigh such trifles? Turning to the speaker, I
+inquired with some caution the amount of pecuniary compensation offered
+for the work.
+
+“Sir!” she said, drawing her fragile form to its full height, “you
+insult me,—you insult the South.”
+
+“But look ye here, d’ye see—the tin—the blunt—the ready—the stiff,
+you know. Don’t ye see, we can’t do without that, you know!”
+
+“It shall be contingent on the success of the story,” she answered
+haughtily. “In the mean time take this precious gem.” And drawing a
+diamond ring from her finger, she placed it with a roll of MSS. in my
+hands, and vanished.
+
+Although unable to procure more than 1 pound 2s. 6d. from an intelligent
+pawnbroker to whom I stated the circumstances and with whom I pledged
+the ring, my sympathies with the cause of a downtrodden and chivalrous
+people were at once enlisted. I could not help wondering that in rich
+England, the home of the oppressed and the free, a young and lovely
+woman like the fair author of those pages should be obliged to thus pawn
+her jewels—her marriage gift—for the means to procure her bread! With
+the exception of the English aristocracy,—who much resemble them,—I
+do not know of a class of people that I so much admire as the Southern
+planters. May I become better acquainted with both!
+
+Since writing the above, the news of Mr. Lincoln’s assassination has
+reached me. It is enough for me to say that I am dissatisfied with the
+result. I do not attempt to excuse the assassin. Yet there will be men
+who will charge this act upon the chivalrous South. This leads me to
+repeat a remark once before made by me in this connection, which has
+become justly celebrated. It is this:—
+
+“It is usual, in cases of murder, to look for the criminal among those
+who expect to be benefited by the crime. In the death of Lincoln, his
+immediate successor in office alone receives the benefit of his dying.”
+
+If her Majesty Queen Victoria were assassinated, which Heaven forbid,
+the one most benefited by her decease would, of course, be his Royal
+Highness the Prince of Wales, her immediate successor. It would be
+unnecessary to state that suspicion would at once point to the real
+culprit, which would of course be his Royal Highness. This is logic.
+
+But I have done. After having thus stated my opinion in favor of
+the South, I would merely remark that there is One who judgeth all
+things,—who weigheth the cause between brother and brother,—and
+awardeth the perfect retribution; and whose ultimate decision I, as a
+British subject, have only anticipated.
+
+G. A. S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Every reader of Belle Boyd’s narrative will remember an allusion to a
+“lovely, fragile-looking girl of nineteen,” who rivaled Belle Boyd in
+devotion to the Southern cause, and who, like her, earned the enviable
+distinction of being a “rebel spy.”
+
+I am that “fragile” young creature. Although on friendly terms with
+the late Miss Boyd, now Mrs. Hardinge, candor compels me to state that
+nothing but our common politics prevents me from exposing the ungenerous
+spirit she has displayed in this allusion. To be dismissed in a single
+paragraph after years of—But I anticipate. To put up with this feeble
+and forced acknowledgment of services rendered would be a confession of
+a craven spirit, which, thank God, though “fragile” and only “nineteen,”
+ I do not possess. I may not have the “blood of a Howard” in my veins, as
+some people, whom I shall not disgrace myself by naming, claim to have,
+but I have yet to learn that the race of McGillup ever yet brooked
+slight or insult. I shall not say that attention in certain quarters
+seems to have turned _some people’s_ heads; nor that it would have been
+more delicate if certain folks had kept quiet on the subject of their
+courtship, and the rejection of certain offers, when it is known that
+their forward conduct was all that procured them a husband! Thank
+Heaven, the South has some daughters who are above such base
+considerations! While nothing shall tempt me to reveal the promises to
+share equally the fame of certain enterprises, which were made by one
+who shall now be nameless, I have deemed it only just to myself to put
+my own adventures upon record. If they are not equal to those of another
+individual, it is because, though “fragile,” my education has taught me
+to have some consideration for the truth. I am done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+I was born in Missouri. My dislike for the Northern scum was inherent.
+This was shown, at an early age, in the extreme distaste I exhibited for
+Webster’s spelling-book,—the work of a well-known Eastern Abolitionist.
+I cannot be too grateful for the consideration shown by my chivalrous
+father,—a gentleman of the old school,—who resisted to the last an
+attempt to introduce Mitchell’s Astronomy and Geography into the public
+school of our district. When I state that this same Mitchell became
+afterward a hireling helot in the Yankee Army, every intelligent reader
+will appreciate the prophetic discrimination of this true son of the
+South.
+
+I was eight years old when I struck the first blow for Southern freedom
+against the Northern Tyrant. It is hardly necessary to state that
+in this instance the oppressor was a pale, overworked New England
+“schoolmarm.” The principle for which I was contending, I felt, however,
+to be the same. Resenting an affront put upon me, I one day heaved a
+rock [Footnote: NOTE, BY G. A. S.—In the Southwest, any stone
+larger than a pea is termed “a rock.”] at the head of the Vandal
+schoolmistress. I was seized and overpowered. My pen falters as I reach
+the climax. English readers will not give credit to this sickening
+story,—the civilized world will avert its head,—but I, Mary McGillup,
+was publicly SPANKED!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+But the chaotic vortex of civil war approached, and fell destruction,
+often procrastinated, brooded in storm. [Footnote: I make no pretension
+to fine writing, but perhaps Mrs. Hardinge can lay over that. Oh, of
+course! M. McG.] As the English people may like to know what was really
+the origin of the Rebellion, I have no hesitation in giving them the
+true and only cause. Slavery had nothing to do with it, although the
+violation of the Declaration of Independence, in the disregard by
+the North of the Fugitive Slave Law, [Footnote: The Declaration of
+Independence grants to each subject “the pursuit of life, liberty, and
+happiness.” A fugitive slave may be said to personify “life, liberty,
+and happiness.” Hence his pursuit is really legal. This is logic.
+G.A.S.] might have provoked a less fiery people than the Southrons. At
+the inception of the struggle a large amount of Southern indebtedness
+was held by the people of the North. To force payment from the
+generous but insolvent debtor—to obtain liquidation from the Southern
+planter—was really the soulless and mercenary object of the craven
+Northerners. Let the common people of England look to this. Let the
+improvident literary hack, the starved impecunious Grub Street debtor,
+the newspaper frequenter of sponging-houses, remember this in their
+criticisms of the vile and slavish Yankee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The roasting of an Abolitionist, by a greatly infuriated community, was
+my first taste of the horrors of civil war. Heavens! Why will the North
+persist in this fratricidal warfare? The expulsion of several Union
+refugees, which soon followed, now fairly plunged my beloved State into
+the seething vortex.
+
+I was sitting at the piano one afternoon, singing that stirring refrain,
+so justly celebrated, but which a craven spirit, unworthy of England,
+has excluded from some of her principal restaurants, and was dwelling
+with some enthusiasm on the following line:—
+
+  “Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!”
+
+when a fragment of that scum, clothed in that detestable blue uniform
+which is the symbol of oppression, entered the apartment.
+
+“I have the honor of addressing the celebrated rebel spy, Miss
+McGillup?” said the Vandal officer.
+
+In a moment I was perfectly calm. With the exception of slightly
+expectorating twice in the face of the minion, I did not betray my
+agitation. Haughtily, yet firmly, I replied,—
+
+“I am.”
+
+“You looked as if you might be,” the brute replied, as he turned on his
+heel to leave the apartment.
+
+In an instant I threw myself before him. “You shall not leave here
+thus,” I shrieked, grappling him with an energy which no one, seeing
+my frail figure, would have believed. “I know the reputation of your
+hireling crew. I read your dreadful purpose in your eye. Tell me not
+that your designs are not sinister. You came here to insult me,—to kiss
+me, perhaps. You shan’t,—you naughty man. Go away!”
+
+The blush of conscious degradation rose to the cheek of the Lincoln
+hireling as he turned his face away from mine.
+
+In an instant I drew my pistol from my belt, which, in anticipation of
+some such outrage, I always carried, and shot him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+  “Thy forte was less to act than speak, Maryland! Thy politics were
+  changed each week, Maryland! With Northern Vandals thou wast meek,
+  With sympathizers thou wouldst shriek, I know thee—oh, ’twas like
+  thy cheek! Maryland! my Maryland!”
+
+After committing the act described in the preceding chapter, which every
+English reader will pardon, I went upstairs, put on a clean pair of
+stockings, and, placing a rose in my lustrous black hair, proceeded at
+once to the camp of Generals Price and Mosby to put them in possession
+of information which would lead to the destruction of a portion of
+the Federal Army. During a great part of my flight I was exposed to a
+running fire from the Federal pickets of such coarse expressions as,
+“Go it, Sally Reb,” “Dust it, my Confederate Beauty,” but I succeeded in
+reaching the glorious Southern camp uninjured.
+
+In a week afterwards I was arrested, by a lettre de cachet of Mr.
+Stanton, and placed in the Bastile. British readers of my story will
+express surprise at these terms, but I assure them that not only these
+articles but tumbrils, guillotines, and conciergeries were in active
+use among the Federals. If substantiation be required, I refer to the
+Charleston “Mercury,” the only reliable organ, next to the New York
+“Daily News,” published in the country. At the Bastile I made
+the acquaintance of the accomplished and elegant author of “Guy
+Livingstone,” [Footnote: The recent conduct of Mr. Livingstone renders
+him unworthy of my notice. His disgusting praise of Belle Boyd, and
+complete ignoring of my claims, show the artfulness of some females and
+puppyism of some men. M. McG.] to whom I presented a curiously carved
+thigh-bone of a Union officer, and from whom I received the following
+beautiful acknowledgment:—
+
+DEMOISELLE:—Should I ever win hame to my ain countrie, I make mine avow
+to enshrine in my reliquaire this elegant bijouterie and offering of La
+belle Rebelle. Nay, methinks this fraction of man’s anatomy were some
+compensation for the rib lost by the “grand old gardener,” Adam.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Released at last from durance vile, and placed on board of an Erie
+canal-boat, on my way to Canada, I for a moment breathed the sweets of
+liberty. Perhaps the interval gave me opportunity to indulge in certain
+reveries which I had hitherto sternly dismissed. Henry Breckinridge
+Folair, a consistent Copperhead, captain of the canal-boat, again and
+again pressed that suit I had so often rejected.
+
+It was a lovely moonlight night. We sat on the deck of the gliding
+craft. The moonbeam and the lash of the driver fell softly on the
+flanks of the off horse, and only the surging of the tow-rope broke the
+silence. Folair’s arm clasped my waist. I suffered it to remain. Placing
+in my lap a small but not ungrateful roll of checkerberry lozenges, he
+took the occasion to repeat softly in my ear the words of a motto he had
+just unwrapped—with its graceful covering of the tissue paper—from a
+sugar almond. The heart of the wicked little rebel, Mary McGillup, was
+won!
+
+
+The story of Mary McGillup is done. I might have added the journal of
+my husband, Henry Breckinridge Folair, but as it refers chiefly to
+his freights and a schedule of his passengers, I have been obliged,
+reluctantly, to suppress it.
+
+It is due to my friends to say that I have been requested not to
+write this book. Expressions have reached my ears, the reverse of
+complimentary. I have been told that its publication will probably
+insure my banishment for life. Be it so. If the cause for which I
+labored have been subserved, I am content.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOODLUM BAND
+
+OR
+
+THE BOY CHIEF, THE INFANT POLITICIAN, AND THE PIRATE PRODIGY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+It was a quiet New England village. Nowhere in the valley of the
+Connecticut the autumn sun shone upon a more peaceful, pastoral,
+manufacturing community. The wooden nutmegs were slowly ripening on the
+trees, and the white-pine hams for Western consumption were gradually
+rounding into form under the deft manipulation of the hardy American
+artisan. The honest Connecticut farmer was quietly gathering from
+his threshing-floor the shoe-pegs, which, when intermixed with a fair
+proportion of oats, offered a pleasing substitute for fodder to the
+effete civilizations of Europe. An almost Sabbath-like stillness
+prevailed. Doemville was only seven miles from Hartford, and the
+surrounding landscape smiled with the conviction of being fully insured.
+
+Few would have thought that this peaceful village was the home of the
+three young heroes whose exploits would hereafter—But we anticipate.
+
+Doemville Academy was the principal seat of learning in the county.
+Under the grave and gentle administration of the venerable Doctor
+Context, it had attained just popularity. Yet the increasing infirmities
+of age obliged the doctor to relinquish much of his trust to his
+assistants, who, it is needless to say, abused his confidence. Before
+long their brutal tyranny and deep-laid malevolence became apparent.
+Boys were absolutely forced to study their lessons. The sickening fact
+will hardly be believed, but during school-hours they were obliged to
+remain in their seats with the appearance, at least, of discipline. It
+is stated by good authority that the rolling of croquet-balls across the
+floor during recitation was objected to, under the fiendish excuse
+of its interfering with their studies. The breaking of windows by
+baseballs, and the beating of small scholars with bats, was declared
+against. At last, bloated and arrogant with success, the under-teachers
+threw aside all disguise, and revealed themselves in their true colors.
+A cigar was actually taken out of a day-scholar’s mouth during prayers!
+A flask of whiskey was dragged from another’s desk, and then thrown out
+of the window. And finally, Profanity, Hazing, Theft, and Lying were
+almost discouraged.
+
+Could the youth of America, conscious of their power, and a literature
+of their own, tamely submit to this tyranny? Never! We repeat it firmly.
+Never! We repeat it to parents and guardians. Never! But the fiendish
+tutors, chuckling in their glee, little knew what was passing through
+the cold, haughty intellect of Charles Francis Adams Golightly, aged
+ten; what curled the lip of Benjamin Franklin Jenkins, aged seven; or
+what shone in the bold, blue eyes of Bromley Chitterlings, aged six and
+a half, as they sat in the corner of the playground at recess. Their
+only other companion and confidant was the negro porter and janitor of
+the school, known as “Pirate Jim.”
+
+Fitly, indeed, was he named, as the secrets of his early wild
+career—confessed freely to his noble young friends—plainly showed.
+A slaver at the age of seventeen, the ringleader of a mutiny on the
+African coast at the age of twenty, a privateersman during the last
+war with England, the commander of a fire-ship and its sole survivor at
+twenty-five, with a wild, intermediate career of unmixed piracy, until
+the Rebellion called him to civil service again as a blockade runner,
+and peace and a desire for rural repose led him to seek the janitorship
+of the Doemville Academy, where no questions were asked and references
+not exchanged—he was, indeed, a fit mentor for our daring youth.
+Although a man whose days had exceeded the usual space allotted to
+humanity, the various episodes of his career footing his age up to
+nearly one hundred and fifty-nine years, he scarcely looked it, and was
+still hale and vigorous.
+
+“Yes,” continued Pirate Jim critically; “I don’t think he was any bigger
+nor you, Master Chitterlings, if as big, when he stood on the fork’stle
+of my ship and shot the captain o’ that East Injyman dead. We used to
+call him little Weevils, he was so young-like. But, bless your hearts,
+boys! he wa’n’t anything to Little Sammy Barlow, ez once crep’ up inter
+the captain’s stateroom on a Rooshin frigate, stabbed him to the heart
+with a jack-knife, then put on the captain’s uniform and his cocked hat,
+took command of the ship, and fout her hisself.”
+
+“Wasn’t the captain’s clothes big for him?” asked B. Franklin Jenkins
+anxiously.
+
+The janitor eyed young Jenkins with pained dignity.
+
+“Didn’t I say the Rooshin captain was a small, a very small, man?
+Rooshins is small, likewise Greeks.”
+
+A noble enthusiasm beamed in the faces of the youthful heroes.
+
+“Was Barlow as large as me?” asked C. F. Adams Golightly, lifting his
+curls from his Jove-like brow.
+
+“Yes; but, then, he hed hed, so to speak, experiences. It was allowed
+that he had pizened his schoolmaster afore he went to sea. But it’s dry
+talking, boys.”
+
+Golightly drew a flask from his jacket and handed it to the janitor.
+It was his father’s best brandy. The heart of the honest old seaman was
+touched.
+
+“Bless ye, my own pirate boy!” he said in a voice suffocating with
+emotion.
+
+“I’ve got some tobacco,” said the youthful Jenkins, “but it’s fine cut;
+I use only that now.”
+
+“I kin buy some plug at the corner grocery,” said Pirate Jim, “only I
+left my portmoney at home.”
+
+“Take this watch,” said young Golightly; “’tis my father’s. Since he
+became a tyrant and usurper, and forced me to join a corsair’s band,
+I’ve begun by dividing the property.”
+
+“This is idle trifling,” said young Chitterlings wildly. “Every moment
+is precious. Is this an hour to give to wine and wassail? Ha, we want
+action—action! We must strike the blow for freedom to-night—ay, this
+very night. The scow is already anchored in the mill-dam, freighted with
+provisions for a three months’ voyage. I have a black flag in my pocket.
+Why, then, this cowardly delay?”
+
+The two elder youths turned with a slight feeling of awe and shame to
+gaze on the glowing cheeks and high, haughty crest of their youngest
+comrade—the bright, the beautiful Bromley Chitterlings. Alas! that very
+moment of forgetfulness and mutual admiration was fraught with danger. A
+thin, dyspeptic, half-starved tutor approached.
+
+“It is time to resume your studies, young gentlemen,” he said, with
+fiendish politeness.
+
+They were his last words on earth.
+
+“Down, Tyrant!” screamed Chitterlings.
+
+“Sic him—I mean, sic semper tyrannis!” said the classical Golightly.
+
+A heavy blow on the head from a baseball bat, and the rapid projection
+of a baseball against his empty stomach, brought the tutor a limp and
+lifeless mass to the ground. Golightly shuddered. Let not my young
+readers blame him too rashly. It was his first homicide. “Search his
+pockets,” said the practical Jenkins.
+
+They did so, and found nothing hut a Harvard Triennial Catalogue.
+
+“Let us fly,” said Jenkins.
+
+“Forward to the boats!” cried the enthusiastic Chitterlings.
+
+But C. F. Adams Golightly stood gazing thoughtfully at the prostrate
+tutor.
+
+“This,” he said calmly, “is the result of a too free government and the
+common-school system. What the country needs is reform. I cannot go with
+you, boys.”
+
+“Traitor!” screamed the others.
+
+C. F. A. Golightly smiled sadly.
+
+“You know me not. I shall not become a pirate—but a Congressman!”
+
+Jenkins and Chitterlings turned pale.
+
+“I have already organized two caucuses in a baseball club, and bribed
+the delegates of another. Nay, turn not away. Let us be friends,
+pursuing through various ways one common end. Farewell!” They shook
+hands.
+
+“But where is Pirate Jim?” asked Jenkins.
+
+“He left us but for a moment to raise money on the watch to purchase
+armament for the scow. Farewell!”
+
+And so the gallant, youthful spirits parted, bright with the sunrise of
+hope.
+
+That night a conflagration raged in Doemville. The Doemville Academy,
+mysteriously fired, first fell a victim to the devouring element. The
+candy-shop and cigar-store, both holding heavy liabilities against the
+academy, quickly followed. By the lurid gleams of the flames, a long,
+low, sloop-rigged scow, with every mast gone except one, slowly worked
+her way out of the mill-dam towards the Sound. The next day three
+boys were missing—C. F. Adams Golightly, B. F. Jenkins, and Bromley
+Chitterlings. Had they perished in the flames? Who shall say? Enough
+that never more under these names did they again appear in the homes of
+their ancestors.
+
+Happy, indeed, would it have been for Doemville had the mystery ended
+here. But a darker interest and scandal rested upon the peaceful
+village. During that awful night the boarding-school of Madame
+Brimborion was visited stealthily, and two of the fairest heiresses of
+Connecticut—daughters of the president of a savings bank and insurance
+director—were the next morning found to have eloped. With them
+also disappeared the entire contents of the savings bank, and on the
+following day the Flamingo Fire Insurance Company failed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Let my young readers now sail with me to warmer and more hospitable
+climes. Off the coast of Patagonia a long, low, black schooner proudly
+rides the seas, that break softly upon the vine-clad shores of that
+luxuriant land. Who is this that, wrapped in Persian rugs, and dressed
+in the most expensive manner, calmly reclines on the quarter-deck of the
+schooner, toying lightly ever and anon with the luscious fruits of
+the vicinity, held in baskets of solid gold by Nubian slaves? or at
+intervals, with daring grace, guides an ebony velocipede over the
+polished black walnut decks, and in and out the intricacies of the
+rigging? Who is it? well may be asked. What name is it that blanches
+with terror the cheeks of the Patagonian navy? Who but the Pirate
+Prodigy—the relentless Boy Scourer of Patagonian seas? Voyagers slowly
+drifting by the Silurian beach, coasters along the Devonian shore, still
+shudder at the name of Bromley Chitterlings—the Boy Avenger, late of
+Hartford, Connecticut.
+
+It has been often asked by the idly curious, Why Avenger, and of what?
+Let us not seek to disclose the awful secret hidden under that youthful
+jacket. Enough that there may have been that of bitterness in his past
+life that they “Whose soul would sicken o’er the heaving wave,” or
+“whose soul would heave above the sickening wave,” did not understand.
+Only one knew him, perhaps too well—a queen of the Amazons taken
+prisoner off Terra del Fuego a week previous. She loved the Boy Avenger.
+But in vain; his youthful heart seemed obdurate.
+
+“Hear me,” at last he said, when she had for the seventh time wildly
+proffered her hand and her kingdom in marriage, “and know once and
+forever why I must decline your flattering proposal. I love another.”
+
+With a wild, despairing cry she leaped into the sea, but was instantly
+rescued by the Pirate Prodigy. Yet, even in that supreme moment, such
+was his coolness, that on his way to the surface he captured a mermaid,
+and placing her in charge of his steward, with directions to give her
+a stateroom, with hot and cold water, calmly resumed his place by the
+Amazon’s side. When the cabin door closed on his faithful servant,
+bringing champagne and ices to the interesting stranger, Chitterlings
+resumed his narrative with a choking voice—
+
+“When I first fled from the roof of a tyrannical parent I loved the
+beautiful and accomplished Eliza J. Sniffen. Her father was president of
+the Workingmen’s Savings Bank, and it was perfectly understood that in
+the course of time the entire deposits would be his. But, like a vain
+fool, I wished to anticipate the future, and in a wild moment persuaded
+Miss Sniffen to elope with me; and with the entire cash assets of the
+bank, we fled together.” He paused, overcome with emotion. “But fate
+decreed it otherwise. In my feverish haste, I had forgotten to place
+among the stores of my pirate craft that peculiar kind of chocolate
+caramel to which Eliza Jane was most partial. We were obliged to put
+into New Rochelle on the second day out, to enable Miss Sniffen to
+procure that delicacy at the nearest confectioner’s, and match some
+zephyr worsteds at the first fancy shop. Fatal mistake. She went—she
+never returned!” In a moment he resumed, in a choking voice, “After
+a week’s weary waiting, I was obliged to put to sea again, bearing a
+broken heart and the broken bank of her father. I have never seen her
+since.”
+
+“And you still love her?” asked the Amazon queen excitedly.
+
+“Ay, forever!”
+
+“Noble youth. Here, take the reward of thy fidelity; for know, Bromley
+Chitterlings, that I am Eliza Jane. Wearied with waiting, I embarked on
+a Peruvian guano ship—it’s a long story, dear.”
+
+“And altogether too thin,” said the Boy Avenger, fiercely releasing
+himself from her encircling arms. “Eliza Jane’s age, a year ago, was
+only thirteen, and you are forty, if a day.”
+
+“True,” she returned sadly, “but I have suffered much, and time passes
+rapidly, and I’ve grown. You would scarcely believe that this is my own
+hair.”
+
+“I know not,” he replied, in gloomy abstraction.
+
+“Forgive my deceit,” she returned. “If you are affianced to another, let
+me at least be—a mother to you.”
+
+The Pirate Prodigy started, and tears came to his eyes. The scene was
+affecting in the extreme. Several of the oldest seamen—men who had
+gone through scenes of suffering with tearless eyes and unblanched
+cheeks—now retired to the spirit room to conceal their emotion. A few
+went into caucus in the forecastle, and returned with the request that
+the Amazonian queen should hereafter be known as the “Queen of the
+Pirates’ Isle.”
+
+“Mother!” gasped the Pirate Prodigy.
+
+“My son!” screamed the Amazonian queen.
+
+They embraced. At the same moment a loud flop was heard on the
+quarter-deck. It was the forgotten mermaid, who, emerging from her
+stateroom, and ascending the companion-way at that moment, had fainted
+at the spectacle. The Pirate Prodigy rushed to her side with a bottle of
+smelling-salts.
+
+She recovered slowly. “Permit me,” she said, rising with dignity, “to
+leave the ship. I am unaccustomed, to such conduct.”
+
+“Hear me—she is my mother!”
+
+“She certainly is old enough to be,” replied the mermaid. “And to
+speak of that being her own hair!” she said, as she rearranged with
+characteristic grace, a comb, and a small hand-mirror, her own luxuriant
+tresses.
+
+“If I couldn’t afford any other clothes, I might wear a switch, too!”
+ hissed the Amazonian queen. “I suppose you don’t dye it on account of
+the salt water? But perhaps you prefer green, dear?”
+
+“A little salt water might improve your own complexion, love.”
+
+“Fishwoman!” screamed the Amazonian queen.
+
+“Bloomerite!” shrieked the mermaid.
+
+In another instant they had seized each other.
+
+“Mutiny! Overboard with them!” cried the Pirate Prodigy, rising to the
+occasion, and casting aside all human affection in the peril of the
+moment.
+
+A plank was brought and the two women placed upon it.
+
+“After you, dear,” said the mermaid significantly to the Amazonian
+queen; “you’re the oldest.”
+
+“Thank you!” said the Amazonian queen, stepping back. “Fish is always
+served first.”
+
+Stung by the insult, with a wild scream of rage the mermaid grappled her
+in her arms and leaped into the sea.
+
+As the waters closed over them forever, the Pirate Prodigy sprung to his
+feet. “Up with the black flag, and bear away for New London,” he shouted
+in trumpet-like tones.
+
+“Ha! ha! Once more the Rover is free!”
+
+Indeed it was too true. In that fatal moment he had again loosed himself
+from the trammels of human feeling and was once more the Boy Avenger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Again I must ask my young readers to mount my hippogriff and hie with
+me to the almost inaccessible heights of the Rocky Mountains. There, for
+years, a band of wild and untamable savages, known as the Pigeon Feet,
+had resisted the blankets and Bibles of civilization. For years the
+trails leading to their camp were marked by the bones of teamsters and
+broken wagons, and the trees were decked with the dying scalp-locks of
+women and children. The boldest of military leaders hesitated to attack
+them in their fortresses, and prudently left the scalping-knives,
+rifles, powder, and shot provided by a paternal government for their
+welfare lying on the ground a few miles from their encampment, with
+the request that they were not to be used until the military had safely
+retired. Hitherto, save an occasional incursion into the territory of
+the Knock-knees, a rival tribe, they had limited their depredations to
+the vicinity.
+
+But lately a baleful change had come over them. Acting under some evil
+influence, they now pushed their warfare into the white settlements,
+carrying fire and destruction with them. Again and again had the
+Government offered them a free pass to Washington and the privilege of
+being photographed, but under the same evil guidance they refused. There
+was a singular mystery in their mode of aggression. Schoolhouses were
+always burned, the schoolmasters taken into captivity, and never again
+heard from. A palace car on the Union Pacific Railway, containing an
+excursion party of teachers en route to San Francisco, was surrounded,
+its inmates captured, and—their vacancies in the school catalogue
+never again filled. Even a hoard of educational examiners, proceeding
+to Cheyenne, were taken prisoners, and obliged to answer questions they
+themselves had proposed, amidst horrible tortures. By degrees these
+atrocities were traced to the malign influence of a new chief of
+the tribe. As yet little was known of him but through his baleful
+appellations, “Young Man who Goes for His Teacher,” and “He Lifts
+the Hair of the School-Marm.” He was said to be small and exceedingly
+youthful in appearance. Indeed, his earlier appellative, “He Wipes His
+Nose on His Sleeve,” was said to have been given to him to indicate his
+still boy-like habits.
+
+It was night in the encampment and among the lodges of the Pigeon Toes.
+Dusky maidens flitted in and out among the campfires like brown moths,
+cooking the toothsome buffalo-hump, frying the fragrant bear’s-meat, and
+stewing the esculent bean for the braves. For a few favored ones sput
+grasshoppers were reserved as a rare delicacy, although the proud
+Spartan soul of their chief scorned all such luxuries.
+
+He was seated alone in his wigwam, attended only by the gentle
+Mushymush, fairest of the Pigeon Feet maidens. Nowhere were the
+characteristics of her great tribe more plainly shown than in the little
+feet that lapped over each other in walking. A single glance at the
+chief was sufficient to show the truth of the wild rumors respecting
+his youth. He was scarcely twelve, of proud and lofty bearing, and clad
+completely in wrappings of various-colored scalloped cloths, which
+gave him the appearance of a somewhat extra-sized penwiper. An enormous
+eagle’s feather, torn from the wing of a bald eagle who once attempted
+to carry him away, completed his attire. It was also the memento of
+one of his most superhuman feats of courage. He would undoubtedly have
+scalped the eagle but that nature had anticipated him.
+
+“Why is the Great Chief sad?” said Mushymush softly. “Does his soul
+still yearn for the blood of the palefaced teachers? Did not the
+scalping of two professors of geology in the Yale exploring party
+satisfy his warrior’s heart yesterday? Has he forgotten that Gardener
+and King are still to follow? Shall his own Mushymush bring him a
+botanist to-morrow? Speak, for the silence of my brother lies on my
+heart like the snow on the mountain, and checks the flow of my speech.”
+
+Still the proud Boy Chief sat silent. Suddenly he said, “Hiss!” and rose
+to his feet. Taking a long rifle from the ground he adjusted its sight.
+Exactly seven miles away on the slope of the mountain the figure of a
+man was seen walking. The Boy Chief raised the rifle to his unerring eye
+and fired. The man fell.
+
+A scout was dispatched to scalp and search the body. He presently
+returned.
+
+“Who was the paleface?” eagerly asked the chief.
+
+“A life insurance agent.”
+
+A dark scowl settled on the face of the chief.
+
+“I thought it was a book peddler.”
+
+“Why is my brother’s heart sore against the book peddler?” asked
+Mushymush.
+
+“Because,” said the Boy Chief fiercely, “I am again without my regular
+dime novel—and I thought he might have one in his pack. Hear me,
+Mushymush. The United States mails no longer bring me my ‘Young America’
+or my ‘Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly.’ I find it impossible, even with
+my fastest scouts, to keep up with the rear of General Howard, and
+replenish my literature from the sutler’s wagon. Without a dime novel or
+a ‘Young America,’ how am I to keep up this Injin business?”
+
+Mushymush remained in meditation a single moment. Then she looked up
+proudly.
+
+“My brother has spoken. It is well. He shall have his dime novel. He
+shall know the kind of hairpin his sister Mushymush is.”
+
+And she arose and gamboled lightly as the fawn out of his presence.
+
+In two hours she returned. In one hand she held three small flaxen
+scalps, in the other “The Boy Marauder,” complete in one volume, price
+ten cents.
+
+“Three palefaced children,” she gasped, “were reading it in the tail-end
+of an emigrant wagon. I crept up to them softly. Their parents are still
+unaware of the accident,” and she sank helpless at his feet.
+
+
+“Noble girl!” said the Boy Chief, gazing proudly on her prostrate form;
+“and these are the people that a military despotism expects to subdue!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+But the capture of several wagon-loads of commissary whiskey, and
+the destruction of two tons of stationery intended for the general
+commanding, which interfered with his regular correspondence with the
+War Department, at last awakened the United States military authorities
+to active exertion. A quantity of troops were massed before the Pigeon
+Feet encampment, and an attack was hourly imminent.
+
+“Shine your boots, sir?”
+
+It was the voice of a youth in humble attire, standing before the flap
+of the commanding general’s tent.
+
+The general raised his head from his correspondence.
+
+“Ah,” he said, looking down on the humble boy, “I see; I shall write
+that the appliances of civilization move steadily forward with the
+army. Yes,” he added, “you may shine my military boots. You understand,
+however, that to get your pay you must first”—
+
+“Make a requisition on the commissary-general, have it certified to by
+the quartermaster, countersigned by the post-adjutant, and submitted by
+you to the War Department”—
+
+“And charged as stationery” added the general gently. “You are, I see,
+an intelligent and thoughtful boy. I trust you neither use whiskey,
+tobacco, nor are ever profane?”
+
+“I promised my sainted mother”—
+
+“Enough! Go on with your blacking; I have to lead the attack on the
+Pigeon Feet at eight precisely. It is now half past seven” said the
+general, consulting a large kitchen clock that stood in the corner of
+his tent.
+
+The little bootblack looked up—the general was absorbed in his
+correspondence. The bootblack drew a tin putty-blower from his pocket,
+took unerring aim, and nailed in a single shot the minute hand to the
+dial. Going on with his blacking, yet stopping ever and anon to glance
+over the general’s plan of campaign, spread on the table before him, he
+was at last interrupted by the entrance of an officer.
+
+“Everything is ready for the attack, general. It is now eight o’clock”
+
+“Impossible! It is only half past seven.”
+
+“But my watch, and the watches of the staff”—
+
+“Are regulated by my kitchen clock, that has been in my family for
+years. Enough! it is only half past seven.”
+
+The officer retired; the bootblack had finished one boot. Another
+officer appeared.
+
+“Instead of attacking the enemy, general, we are attacked ourselves. Our
+pickets are already driven in.”
+
+“Military pickets should not differ from other pickets” said the
+bootblack modestly. “To stand firmly they should be well driven in.”
+ “Ha! there is something in that,” said the general thoughtfully. “But
+who are you, who speak thus?”
+
+Rising to his full height, the bootblack threw off his outer rags, and
+revealed the figure of the Boy Chief of the Pigeon Feet.
+
+“Treason!” shrieked the general. “Order an advance along the whole
+line.”
+
+But in vain. The next moment he fell beneath the tomahawk of the Boy
+Chief, and within the next quarter of an hour the United States army was
+dispersed. Thus ended the battle of Bootblack Creek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+And yet the Boy Chief was not entirely happy. Indeed, at times he
+seriously thought of accepting the invitation extended by the Great
+Chief at Washington immediately after the massacre of his soldiers, and
+once more revisiting the haunts of civilization, His soul sickened
+in feverish inactivity; schoolmasters palled on his taste; he had
+introduced baseball, blind hooky, marbles, and peg-top among his Indian
+subjects, but only with indifferent success. The squaws persisted in
+boring holes through the china alleys and wearing them as necklaces; his
+warriors stuck pipes in their baseball bats, and made war-clubs of them.
+He could not but feel, too, that the gentle Mushymush, although devoted
+to her paleface brother, was deficient in culinary education. Her
+mince-pies were abominable; her jam far inferior to that made by his
+Aunt Sally of Doemville. Only an unexpected incident kept him equally
+from the extreme of listless sybaritic indulgence or of morbid cynicism.
+Indeed, at the age of twelve, he already had become disgusted with
+existence.
+
+He had returned to his wigwam after an exhausting buffalo hunt, in which
+he had slain two hundred and seventy-five buffaloes with his own hand,
+not counting the individual buffalo on which he had leaped, so as to
+join the herd, and which he afterward led into the camp a captive and a
+present to the lovely Mushymush. He had scalped two express riders, and
+a correspondent of the “New York Herald;” had despoiled the Overland
+Mail stage of a quantity of vouchers which enabled him to draw double
+rations from the Government, and was reclining on a bearskin, smoking
+and thinking of the vanity of human endeavor, when a scout entered,
+saying that a paleface youth had demanded access to his person.
+
+“Is he a commissioner? If so, say that the red man is rapidly passing
+to the happy hunting-grounds of his fathers, and now desires only
+peace, blankets, and ammunition; obtain the latter, and then scalp the
+commissioner.”
+
+“But it is only a youth who asks an interview.”
+
+“Does he look like an insurance agent? If so, say that I have already
+policies in three Hartford companies. Meanwhile prepare the stake, and
+see that the squaws are ready with their implements of torture.”
+
+The youth was admitted; he was evidently only half the age of the Boy
+Chief. As he entered the wigwam, and stood revealed to his host, they
+both started. In another moment they were locked in each other’s arms.
+“Jenky, old boy!”
+
+“Bromley, old fel!”
+
+B. F. Jenkins, for such was the name of the Boy Chief, was the first to
+recover his calmness. Turning to his warriors he said proudly,—
+
+“Let my children retire while I speak to the agent of our Great Father
+in Washington. Hereafter no latch-keys will be provided for the wigwams
+of the warriors. The practice of late hours must be discouraged.”
+
+“How!” said the warriors, and instantly retired.
+
+“Whisper!” said Jenkins, drawing his friend aside. “I am known here only
+as the Boy Chief of the Pigeon Toes.”
+
+“And I,” said Bromley Chitterlings proudly, “am known everywhere as the
+Pirate Prodigy—the Boy Avenger of the Patagonian coast.”
+
+“But how came you here?”
+
+“Listen! My pirate brig, the Lively Mermaid, now lies at Meiggs’s wharf
+in San Francisco, disguised as a Mendocino lumber vessel. My pirate crew
+accompanied me here in a palace car from San Francisco.”
+
+“It must have been expensive,” said the prudent Jenkins. “It was,
+but they defrayed it by a collection from the other passengers, you
+understand. The papers will be full of it to-morrow. Do you take in the
+‘New York Sun’?”
+
+“No; I dislike their Indian policy. But why are you here?”
+
+“Hear me, Jenk! ’T is a long and a sad story. The lovely Eliza J.
+Sniffen, who fled with me from Doemville, was seized by her parents and
+torn from my arms at New Rochelle. Reduced to poverty by the breaking of
+the savings bank of which he was president—a failure to which I
+largely contributed, and the profits of which I enjoyed—I have
+since ascertained that Eliza Jane Sniffen was forced to become a
+schoolmistress, departed to take charge of a seminary in Colorado, and
+since then has never been heard from.”
+
+Why did the Boy Chief turn pale, and clutch at the tent-pole for
+support? Why, indeed?
+
+“Eliza Jane Sniffen,” gasped Jenkins,—“aged fourteen, red-haired, with
+a slight tendency to strabismus?”
+
+“The same.”
+
+“Heaven help me! She died by my mandate!”
+
+“Traitor!” shrieked Chitterlings, rushing at Jenkins with a drawn
+poniard.
+
+But a figure interposed. The slight girlish form of Mushymush with
+outstretched hands stood between the exasperated Pirate Prodigy and the
+Boy Chief.
+
+“Forbear,” she said sternly to Chitterlings; “you know not what you do.”
+
+The two youths paused.
+
+“Hear me,” she said rapidly. “When captured in a confectioner’s shop at
+New Rochelle, E. J. Sniffen was taken back to poverty. She resolved
+to become a schoolmistress. Hearing of an opening in the West, she
+proceeded to Colorado to take exclusive charge of the pensionnat of
+Mdme. Choflie, late of Paris. On the way thither she was captured by the
+emissaries of the Boy Chief”—
+
+“In consummation of a fatal vow I made, never to spare educational
+instructors,” interrupted Jenkins.
+
+“But in her captivity,” continued Mushymush, “she managed to stain her
+face with poke-berry juice, and mingling with the Indian maidens was
+enabled to pass for one of the tribe. Once undetected, she boldly
+ingratiated herself with the Boy Chief,—how honestly and devotedly he
+best can tell,—for I, Mushymush, the little sister of the Boy Chief, am
+Eliza Jane Sniffen.”
+
+The Pirate Prodigy clasped her in his arms. The Boy Chief, raising his
+hand, ejaculated,—
+
+“Bless you, my children!”
+
+“There is but one thing wanting to complete this reunion,” said
+Chitterlings, after a pause, but the hurried entrance of a scout stopped
+his utterance.
+
+“A commissioner from the Great Father in Washington.”
+
+“Scalp him!” shrieked the Boy Chief; “this is no time for diplomatic
+trifling.”
+
+“We have; but he still insists upon seeing you, and has sent in his
+card.”
+
+The Boy Chief took it, and read aloud, in agonized accents,—
+
+“Charles Francis Adams Golightly, late page in United States Senate, and
+acting commissioner of United States.”
+
+In another moment, Golightly, pale, bleeding, and, as it were,
+prematurely bald, but still cold and intellectual, entered the wigwam.
+They fell upon his neck and begged his forgiveness.
+
+“Don’t mention it,” he said quietly; “these things must and will happen
+under our present system of government. My story is brief. Obtaining
+political influence through caucuses, I became at last page in the
+Senate. Through the exertions of political friends, I was appointed
+clerk to the commissioner whose functions I now represent. Knowing
+through political spies in your own camp who you were, I acted upon the
+physical fears of the commissioner, who was an ex-clergyman, and easily
+induced him to deputize me to consult with you. In doing so, I have lost
+my scalp, but as the hirsute signs of juvenility have worked against my
+political progress, I do not regret it. As a partially bald young man I
+shall have more power. The terms that I have to offer are simply this:
+you can do everything you want, go anywhere you choose, if you will only
+leave this place. I have a hundred-thousand-dollar draft on the United
+States Treasury in my pocket at your immediate disposal.”
+
+“But what’s to become of me?” asked Chitterlings.
+
+“Your case has already been under advisement. The Secretary of State,
+who is an intelligent man, has determined to recognize you as _de
+jure_ and _de facto_ the only loyal representative of the Patagonian
+Government. You may safely proceed to Washington as its envoy
+extraordinary. I dine with the secretary next week.”
+
+“And yourself, old fellow?”
+
+“I only wish that twenty years from now you will recognize by your
+influence and votes the rights of C. F. A. Golightly to the presidency.”
+
+And here ends our story. Trusting that my dear young friends may take
+whatever example or moral their respective parents and guardians may
+deem fittest from these pages, I hope in future years to portray further
+the career of those three young heroes I have already introduced in the
+springtime of life to their charitable consideration.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+       EARLIER SKETCHES
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+M’LISS
+
+AN IDYL OF RED MOUNTAIN
+
+
+[Pagenote: There are two forms of this tale. The earlier one is that
+printed originally in _The Golden Era_ and afterward and until this
+time included in Mr. Harte’s collected writings. It is comprised in four
+chapters and occupies about thirty pages. When the present edition was
+under consideration, Mr. Harte called his publishers’ attention to the
+fact that the editor of the same paper proposed to him some time later
+to continue it as a serial. In order to do this, he found himself
+obliged to make some changes in the earlier incidents. Accordingly he
+republished the story in its first form, but with some interpolations
+and alterations, and then proceeded with other chapters, making ten
+in all, “concluding it,” he says, “rather abruptly when I found it was
+inartistically prolonged.” This was in 1863. But even thus the story was
+not to be let alone. Ten years later, in 1873, another writer took the
+tale up at the end of the tenth chapter, added fifty more, and issued
+the whole in _The Golden Era_. When the continuation had been running
+some time, Mr. Harte discovered the fraud, and inserted a card in the
+same paper, advising the public that he had nothing whatever to do with
+this further amplification of his story. Afterward, when the whole was
+published in book form, he instituted legal proceedings and suppressed
+the sale.
+
+The present form is Mr. Harte’s revision and extension of his first, and
+is reprinted from _The Golden Era_ with his consent. EDITOR.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SMITH’S POCKET
+
+
+Just where the Sierra Nevada begins to subside in gentle undulations,
+and the rivers grow less rapid and yellow, on the side of a great red
+mountain stands Smith’s Pocket. Seen from the red road at sunset, in the
+red light and the red dust, its white houses look like the outcroppings
+of quartz on the mountain side. The red stage, topped with red-shirted
+passengers, is lost to view half a dozen times in the tortuous descent,
+turning up unexpectedly in out-of-the-way places, and vanishing
+altogether within a hundred yards of the town. It is probably owing to
+this sudden twist in the road that the advent of a stranger at Smith’s
+Pocket is usually attended with a peculiar circumstance. Dismounting
+from the vehicle at the stage office the too-confident traveler is apt
+to walk straight out of town under the impression that it lies in quite
+another direction. It is related that one of the tunnel men, two miles
+from town, met one of these self-reliant passengers with a carpetbag,
+umbrella, “Harper’s Magazine,” and other evidences of “civilization and
+refinement,” plodding along over the road he had just ridden, vainly
+endeavoring to find the settlement of Smith’s Pocket.
+
+Had he been an observant traveler he might have found some compensation
+for his disappointment in the weird aspect of that vicinity. There
+were huge fissures on the hillside, and displacements of the red soil,
+resembling more the chaos of some primary elementary upheaval than the
+work of man; while, halfway down, a long flume straddled its narrow body
+and disproportionate legs over the chasm, like an enormous fossil of
+some forgotten antediluvian. At every step smaller ditches crossed the
+road, hiding in their shallow depths unlovely streams that crept away to
+a clandestine union with the great yellow torrent below. Here and there
+the ruins of some cabin, with the chimney alone left intact and the
+hearthstone open to the skies, gave such a flat contradiction to the
+poetic delusion of Lares and Penates that the heart of the traveler must
+have collapsed as he gazed, and even the bar-room of the National Hotel
+have afterward seemed festive, and invested with preternatural comfort
+and domesticity.
+
+The settlement of Smith’s Pocket owed its origin to the finding of a
+“pocket” on its site by a veritable Smith. Five thousand dollars were
+taken out of it in one half-hour by Smith. Three thousand dollars were
+expended by Smith and others in erecting a flume and in tunneling. And
+then Smith’s Pocket was found to be only a pocket, and subject like
+other pockets to depletion. Although Smith pierced the bowels of the
+great red mountain, that five thousand dollars was the first and the
+last return of his labor. The mountain grew reticent of its golden
+secrets, and the flume steadily ebbed away the remainder of Smith’s
+fortune. Then Smith went into quartz mining. Then into quartz milling.
+Then into hydraulics and ditching, and then by easy degrees into saloon
+keeping. Presently it was whispered that Smith was drinking a good deal;
+then it was known that Smith was an habitual drunkard; and then people
+began to think, as they are apt to, that he had never been anything
+else. But the settlement of Smith’s Pocket, like that of most
+discoveries, was happily not dependent on the fortune of its pioneer,
+and other parties projected tunnels and found pockets. So Smith’s Pocket
+became a settlement with its two fancy stores, its two hotels, its one
+express office, and its two first families. Occasionally its one long
+straggling street was overawed by the assumption of the latest San
+Francisco fashions, imported per express, exclusively to the first
+families; making outraged nature, in the ragged outline of her furrowed
+surface, look still more homely, and putting personal insult on that
+greater portion of the population to whom the Sabbath, with a change of
+linen, brought merely the necessity of cleanliness without the luxury of
+adornment. Then there was a Methodist church, and hard by a monte bank,
+and a little beyond, on the mountain side, a graveyard; and then a
+little schoolhouse.
+
+“The master,” as he was known to his little flock, sat alone one night
+in the schoolhouse, with some open copybooks before him, carefully
+making those bold and full characters which are supposed to combine the
+extremes of chirographical and moral excellence, and had got as far as
+“Riches are deceitful,” and was elaborating the noun with an insincerity
+of flourish that was quite in the spirit of his text, when he heard a
+gentle tapping. The woodpeckers had been busy about the roof, during
+the day, and the noise did not disturb his work. But the opening of the
+door, and the tapping continuing from the inside, caused him to look
+up. He was slightly startled by the figure of a young girl, dirty,
+and shabbily clad. Still her great black eyes, her coarse uncombed
+lusterless black hair falling over her sunburned face, her red arms
+and feet streaked with the red soil, were all familiar to him. It was
+Melissa Smith—Smith’s motherless child.
+
+“What can she want here?” thought the master. Everybody knew “M’liss,”
+ as she was called, throughout the length and height of Red Mountain.
+Everybody knew her as an incorrigible girl. Her fierce, ungovernable
+disposition, her mad freaks and lawless character, were in their way as
+proverbial as the story of her father’s weakness, and as philosophically
+accepted by the townsfolk. She wrangled with and fought the schoolboys
+with keener invective and quite as powerful arm. She followed the trails
+with woodman’s craft, and the master had met her before, miles away,
+shoeless, stockingless, and bareheaded on the mountain road. The miners’
+camps along the stream supplied her with subsistence during these
+voluntary pilgrimages, in freely offered alms. Not but that a larger
+protection had been previously extended to M’liss. The Rev. Joshua
+McSnagley, “stated” preacher, had placed her in the hotel as servant, by
+way of preliminary refinement, and had introduced her to his scholars
+at Sunday-school. But she threw plates occasionally at the landlord, and
+quickly retorted to the cheap witticisms of the guests, and created
+in the Sabbath-school a sensation that was so inimical to the orthodox
+dullness and placidity of that institution, that, with a decent
+regard for the starched frocks and unblemished morals of the two
+pink-and-white-faced children of the first families, the reverend
+gentleman had her ignominiously expelled. Such were the antecedents and
+such the character of M’liss, as she stood before the master. It was
+shown in the ragged dress, the unkempt hair and bleeding feet, and asked
+his pity. It flashed from her black fearless eyes, and commanded his
+respect.
+
+“I come here to-night,” she said rapidly and boldly, keeping her hard
+glance on his, “because I knew you was alone. I wouldn’t come here when
+them gals was here. I hate ’em and they hates me. That’s why. You keep
+school,—don’t you? I want to be teached!”
+
+If to the shabbiness of her apparel and uncomeliness of her tangled hair
+and dirty face she had added the humility of tears the master would have
+extended to her the usual moiety of pity, and nothing more. But with the
+natural though illogical instincts of his species, her boldness
+awakened in him something of that respect which all original natures pay
+unconsciously to one another in any grade. And he gazed at her the more
+fixedly as she went on still rapidly, her hand on the door-latch and her
+eyes on his.
+
+“My name is M’liss—M’liss Smith! You can bet your life on that. My
+father’s Old Smith—Old Bummer Smith—that’s what’s the matter with him.
+M’liss Smith—and I’m comin’ to school!”
+
+“Well?” said the master.
+
+Accustomed to be thwarted and opposed, often wantonly and cruelly, for
+no other purpose than to excite the violent impulses of her nature, the
+master’s phlegm evidently took her by surprise. She stopped. She began
+to twist a lock of her hair between her fingers; and the rigid line
+of upper lip, drawn over the wicked little teeth, relaxed and quivered
+slightly. Then her eyes dropped, and something like a blush struggled up
+to her cheek, and tried to assert itself through the splashes of redder
+soil and the sunburn of years. Suddenly she threw herself forward,
+calling on God to strike her dead, and fell quite weak and helpless,
+with her face on the master’s desk, crying and sobbing as if her heart
+would break.
+
+The master lifted her gently, and waited for the paroxysm to pass. When,
+with face still averted, she was repeating between her sobs the mea
+culpa of childish penitence—that “she’d be good, she didn’t mean to,”
+ etc., it came to him to ask her why she had left Sabbath-school.
+
+Why had she left Sabbath-school? Why? Oh, yes. What did he (McSnagley)
+want to tell her she was wicked for? What did he tell her that God hated
+her for? If God hated her, what did she want to go to Sabbath school
+for? _She_ didn’t want to be beholden to anybody who hated her.
+
+Had she told McSnagley this?
+
+Yes, she had.
+
+The master laughed. It was a hearty laugh, and echoed so oddly in the
+little schoolhouse, and seemed so inconsistent and discordant with the
+sighing of the pines without, that he shortly corrected himself with
+a sigh. The sigh was quite as sincere in its way, however, and after a
+moment of serious silence he asked about her father.
+
+Her father. What father? Whose father? What had he ever done for her?
+Why did the girls hate her? Come, now! What made the folks say, “Old
+Bummer Smith’s M’liss” when she passed? Yes; oh, yes. She wished he was
+dead—she was dead—everybody was dead; and her sobs broke forth anew.
+
+The master then, leaning over her, told her, as well as he could, what
+you or I might have said after hearing such unnatural theories from
+childish lips, only bearing in mind perhaps better than you or I
+the unnatural facts of her ragged dress, her bleeding feet, and the
+omnipresent shadow of her drunken father. Then raising her to her feet,
+he wrapped his shawl around her, and bidding her come early in the
+morning he walked with her down the road. Then he bade her “good-night.”
+ The moon shone brightly on the narrow path before them. He stood and
+watched the bent little figure as it staggered down the road, and waited
+until it had passed the little graveyard and reached the curve of the
+hill, where it turned and stood for a moment, a mere atom of suffering
+outlined against the far-off patient stars. Then he went back to his
+work. But the lines of the copybook thereafter faded into long parallels
+of never-ending road, over which childish figures seemed to pass sobbing
+and crying to the night. Then, the little schoolhouse seeming lonelier
+than before, he shut the door and went home.
+
+The next morning M’liss came to school. Her face had been washed, and
+her coarse black hair bore evidence of recent struggles with the
+comb, in which both had evidently suffered. The old defiant look shone
+occasionally in her eyes, but her manner was tamer and more subdued.
+Then began a series of little trials and self-sacrifices in which master
+and pupil bore an equal part, and which increased the confidence and
+sympathy between them. Although obedient under the master’s eye, at
+times during recess, if thwarted or stung by a fancied slight, M’liss
+would rage in ungovernable fury, and many a palpitating young savage,
+finding himself matched with his own weapons of torment, would seek
+the master with torn jacket and scratched face, and complaints of the
+dreadful M’liss. There was a serious division among the townspeople on
+the subject; some threatening to withdraw their children from such evil
+companionship, and others as warmly upholding the course of the master
+in his work of reclamation. Meanwhile, with a steady persistence that
+seemed quite astonishing to him on looking back afterward, the Master
+drew M’liss gradually out of the shadow of her past life, as though it
+were but her natural progress down the narrow path on which he had set
+her feet the moonlight night of their first meeting. Remembering the
+experience of the evangelical McSnagley, he carefully avoided that Rock
+of Ages on which that unskillful pilot had shipwrecked her young faith.
+But if, in the course of her reading, she chanced to stumble upon those
+few words which have lifted such as she above the level of the older,
+the wiser, and the more prudent,—if she learned something of a faith
+that is symbolized by suffering, and the old light softened in her eyes,
+it did not take the shape of a lesson. A few of the plainer people had
+made up a little sum by which the ragged M’liss was enabled to assume
+the garments of respect and civilization, and often a rough shake of the
+hand and words of commendation from a red-shirted and burly figure, sent
+a glow to the cheek of the young master and set him to thinking if it
+was altogether deserved.
+
+Three months had passed, from the time of their first meeting, and
+the master was sitting late one evening over the moral and sententious
+copies, when there came a tap at the door, and again M’liss stood before
+him. She was neatly clad and clean-faced, and there was nothing perhaps
+but the long black hair and bright black eyes to remind him of his
+former apparition. “Are you busy?” she asked; “can you come with me?”
+ and on his signifying his readiness, in her old willful way she said,
+“Come, then, quick!”
+
+They passed out of the door together and into the dark road. As they
+entered the town, the master asked her whither she was going. She
+replied, “to see her father.”
+
+It was the first time he had heard her use that filial expression, or,
+indeed, allude to him in any other way than “Old Smith” or the “Old
+Man.” It was the first time in many weeks that she had spoken of him at
+all. He had been missed from the settlement for the past fortnight,
+and the master had credited the rumors of the townsfolk that Smith had
+“struck something rich” on the “North Fork,” about ten miles from the
+village. As they neared the settlement, the master gathered from M’liss
+that the rumor was untrue, and that she had seen her father that day.
+As she grew reticent to further questioning, and as the master was
+satisfied from her manner that she had some definite purpose beyond her
+usual willfulness, he passively resigned himself and followed her.
+
+Through remote groggeries, restaurants, and saloons; in gambling-hells
+and dance-houses, the master, preceded by M’liss, passed and repassed.
+In the reeking smoke and blasphemous outcries of noisome dens, the
+child, holding the master’s hand, pursued her search with a strange
+familiarity, perfect self-possession, and implied protection of himself,
+that even in his anxiety seemed ludicrous. Some of the revelers,
+recognizing M’liss, called to her to sing and dance for them, and would
+have forced liquor upon her but for the master’s interference. Others
+mutely made way for them. So an hour slipped by, and as yet their search
+was fruitless. The master had yawned once or twice and whistled,—two
+fatal signs of failing interest,—and finally came to a full stop.
+
+“It’s half past eleven, Melissa,” said he, consulting his watch by a
+broad pencil of light from an open shutter,—“half past eleven; and it
+strikes me that our old friends, the woodpeckers, must have gone to bed
+some hours ago, unless they are waiting up for us. I’m much obliged
+to you for the evening’s entertainment, but I’m afraid that even the
+pretext of looking for a parent won’t excuse further dissipation. We’d
+better put this off till to-morrow. What do you say, Melissa? Why! what
+ails the child? What’s that noise? Why, a pistol!—You’re not afraid of
+that?”
+
+Few children brought up in the primeval seclusion of Smith’s Pocket were
+unfamiliar with those quick and sharp notes which usually rendered the
+evening zephyrs of that locality vocal; certainly not M’liss, to have
+started when that report rang on the clear night air. The echoes caught
+it as usual, and carried it round and round Red Mountain, and set the
+dogs to barking all along the streams. The lights seemed to dance and
+move quickly on the outskirts of the town for a few moments afterward,
+the stream suddenly rippled quite audibly behind them, a few stones
+loosened themselves from the hillside and splashed into the stream, a
+heavy wind seemed to suage the branches of the funereal pines, and then
+the silence fell again, heavier, deadlier than ever.
+
+When the last echo had died away, the master felt his companion’s
+hand relax its grasp. Taking advantage of this outward expression of
+tractability, he drew her gently with him until they reached the
+hotel, which—in her newer aspect of a guest whose board was secured by
+responsible parties—had forgivingly opened its hospitable doors to the
+vagrant child. Here the master lingered a moment to assure her that
+she might count upon his assistance to-morrow; and having satisfied
+his conscience by this anticipated duty, bade her good-night. In the
+darkness of the road—going astray several times on his way home, and
+narrowly escaping the yawning ditches in the trail—he had reason to
+commend his foresight in dissuading M’liss from a further search that
+night, and in this pleasant reflection went to hed and slept soundly.
+
+For some hours after a darkness thick and heavy brooded over the
+settlement. The sombre pines encompassing the village seemed to close
+threateningly about it as if to reclaim the wilderness that had been
+wrested from them. A low rustling as of dead leaves, and the damp breath
+of forest odors filled the lonely street. Emboldened by the darkness
+other shadows slipped by, leaving strange footprints in the moist
+ditches for people to point at next day, until the moon, round and full,
+was lifted above the crest of the opposite hill, and all was magically
+changed.
+
+The shadows shrank away, leaving the straggling street sleeping in a
+beauty it never knew by day. All that was unlovely, harsh, and repulsive
+in its jagged outlines was subdued and softened by that uncertain light.
+It smoothed the rough furrows and unsightly chasms of the mountain with
+an ineffable love and tenderness. It fell upon the face of the sleeping
+M’liss, and left a tear glittering on her black lashes and a smile on
+her lip, which would have been rare to her at any other time; and fell
+also on the white upturned face of “Old Smith,” with a pistol in his
+hand and a bullet in his heart, lying dead beside his empty pocket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WHICH CONTAINS A DREAM OF THE JUST ARISTIDES
+
+
+The opinion which McSnagley expressed in reference to a “change of
+heart,” as experienced by M’liss, was more forcibly described in the
+gulches and tunnels. It was thought there that M’liss had struck a “good
+lead.” And when there was a new grave added to the little inclosure,
+and—at the expense of the master—a little board and inscription put
+above it, the “Red Mountain Banner” came out quite handsomely and
+did the correct thing for the memory of one of “our oldest pioneers,”
+ alluding gracefully to that “bane of noble intellects,” touching
+slightly on the “vicissitudes of fortune,” and otherwise assisting our
+dear brother into genteel obscurity. “He leaves an only child to mourn
+his loss,” said the “Banner,” “who is now an exemplary scholar, thanks
+to the efforts of the Rev. J. McSnagley.” That reverend gentleman,
+in fact, made a strong point of M’liss’s conversion, and, indirectly
+attributing to her former bad conduct the suicide of her father, made
+affecting allusions in Sunday-school to the beneficial effects of the
+“silent tomb,” and in that cheerful contemplation froze most of the
+children into speechless horror, and caused the fair-complexioned scions
+of the first families to howl dismally and refuse to be comforted.
+
+Of the homes that were offered to M’liss when her conversion became
+known, the master had preferred that of Mrs. Morpher, a womanly and
+kind-hearted specimen of Southwestern efflorescence, known in her
+maidenhood as the “Per-ra-rie Rose.” By a steady system of struggle
+and self-sacrifice, she had at last subjugated her naturally careless
+disposition to principles of “order,” which as a pious woman she
+considered, with Pope, as “Heaven’s first law.” But she could not
+entirely govern the orbits of her satellites, however regular her own
+movements, and her old nature asserted itself in her children. Lycurgus
+dipped in the cupboard “between meals,” and Aristides came home from
+school without shoes, leaving those important articles at the threshold,
+for the delights of a barefooted walk down the ditches. Octavia and
+Cassandra were “keerless” of their clothes. So that with but one
+exception, however the “Prairie Rose” might have trimmed, pruned, and
+trained her own natural luxuriance, the little shoots came up defiantly
+wild and straggling. That one exception was Clytemnestra Morpher, aged
+fifteen. She was the realization of her mother’s most extravagant dream.
+I stay my hand with difficulty at this moment, for I long to describe
+this model of deportment; but the progress of my story just at present
+supplants Clytemnestra in the larger prominence it gives to another
+member of the family,—the just Aristides.
+
+The long dry summer had come. As each fierce day seemed to burn itself
+out in little whiffs of pearl gray smoke on the mountain summits, and
+as the upspringing breeze scattered what might have been its red embers
+over the landscape, the green wave which, in early spring, had upheaved
+above Smith’s grave grew sere and dry and hard. In those days, the
+master, strolling in the little churchyard of a Sabbath afternoon, was
+sometimes surprised to find a few wild flowers, plucked from the damp
+pine forest, scattered there, and oftener rude wreaths hung upon the
+little pine cross. Most of these wreaths were formed of a sweet-scented
+grass which the children loved to keep in their desks, entwined with
+the pompon-like plumes of the buckeye and syringa, the wood anemone, and
+here and there the master noticed the dark blue cowl of the monk’s-hood
+or deadly aconite. One day, during a walk, in crossing a wooded ridge,
+he came upon M’liss in the heart of the forest, perched upon a prostrate
+pine, on a fantastic throne, formed by the hanging plumes of lifeless
+branches, her lap full of grasses and pine burrs, and crooning to the
+just Aristides, who sat humbly at her feet, one of the negro melodies
+of her younger life. It was perhaps the influence of the season, or the
+memory of this sylvan enjoyment, which caused Aristides, one midsummer
+day, to have a singular vision.
+
+The just Aristides had begun that morning with a serious error.
+Loitering on his way to school, occasionally stopping to inspect the
+footprints of probable bears, or indulging in cheerful badinage with the
+tunnel men,—to whom the apparition of a short-legged boy weighed
+down by a preternaturally large satchel was an object of boisterous
+solicitude,—Aristides suddenly found that he was an hour and a half too
+late for school. Whether this circumstance was purely accidental or not
+is a question of some uncertainty, for Aristides, on finding himself
+occupying this criminal position, at once resolved to play truant. I
+shall not stop to inquire by what system of logic this result presented
+itself to that just youth as a consistent deduction, or whether some
+indistinct apprehension of another and a better world beyond the
+settlement, where there were no schools and blackberries were plenty,
+had not influenced him in taking this fatal step. Enough that he entered
+on his rash career by instantly eating the dinner which he carried with
+him, and having propitiated that terrible god whose seat is every small
+boy’s stomach, with a feeling of inexpressible guiltiness creeping over
+him, he turned his back upon the schoolhouse and ran into the woods.
+
+Away from the glare of the red road, how deliciously cool was the damp
+breath and twilight dimness of the stately pines. How they seemed to
+welcome him in their deepest recesses, ranging themselves silently
+around him as he ran, shutting out the world and its schoolhouses, and
+the pursuit of indignant parents and vindictive teachers. How in the
+forest depths the blue jay called to him mockingly, and the kingbird,
+spreading his tail like a crimson pennant, beckoned him onward. How
+there was recognition and greeting even in the squirrel that scampered
+past him, mischievously whisking his ridiculous tail within an inch of
+his outstretched fingers. And how Aristides, at last flinging away hat,
+shoes, and satchel, uttered a shrill whoop and dashed forward like a
+youthful savage. But are not these things written in the dog’s-eared
+pages of every boy’s memory, even though they seemed afterward to the
+just Aristides a part and parcel of his own strange vision?
+
+Yet even such delights had their hour of culmination, and Aristides
+found himself at high noon back on the road again in a state of feverish
+excitement, carrying a ravished jay’s nest, two pine cones, a dead hare,
+and a plume of the white syringa. Somewhat overpowered by the weight
+of these trophies, which he had collected in the vague belief that
+they would be of future service to him, he began to look about for some
+convenient place to bestow his booty. It was nearly time for the great
+Wingdam stage to go by, and when it came at last with a sharp rattle of
+wheels and prancing of horses, and a red pillar of dust hanging over it
+that partook of both the fiery and cloudy attributes of the Israelitish
+sign, Aristides exchanged epithets with the driver, and, although
+standing knee-deep in red dust, felt a thrill of joy in the recognition
+which no future honor or dignity might ever give him.
+
+Retracing his steps, the truant presently came to a semicircular opening
+in the side of Red Mountain, which inclosed, like the walls of some
+vast amphitheatre, what had been the arena of the early struggles of
+the gladiators of fortune. There were terrible traces of that struggle
+still—in the rock blasted by fire—in the bank furrowed by water—and
+in the debris of Red Mountain scattered along the gulch two miles
+in extent. Their forgotten engines were lying half buried in
+the ditches—the primeval structure which had served them for a
+banking-house was roofless, and held the hoards of field-mice and
+squirrels. The unshapely stumps of ancient pines dotted the ground, and
+Aristides remembered that under the solitary redwood, which of all
+its brothers remained still standing, one of those early pioneers lay
+buried. No wonder that, as the gentle breeze of that summer day swept
+through its branches, the just Aristides might have heard, as part
+of his wonderful dream, some echo of its far off brothers of Lebanon,
+saying, “Since thou art fallen, no feller has risen up against us!”
+
+But the short legs of Aristides were aching, and he was getting thirsty.
+There was a rough cavern close at hand; and as most of these openings
+condensed their general dampness somewhere in quiet pools, Aristides
+turned into the first one. When he had slaked his thirst, he looked
+around him and recognized Smith’s Pocket.
+
+It had undergone little change in the last two years. The winter
+rains had detached those portions of the wall which were not upheld by
+decaying timbers. It was certainly a dirty pocket—a pocket filled
+with rubbish—a shabby pocket—a worn-out and ragged pocket. It was
+so unpromising in its present exterior, so graphic in its story of
+misfortune, and so terrible in its recent memories, that the most
+sanguine prospector would have passed it by, as though the hopeless
+sentence of Dante had been written over its ragged portal.
+
+The active mind of Aristides, however, saw in the lurking shadows of
+its arches much promise as a future play-room, to which he intended to
+induct hereafter his classical brother Lycurgus. In this reflection he
+threw himself on the ground, and luxuriously burying his bare feet in
+the cool, loose soil, gave himself up to serene meditation. But the heat
+and exertion were beginning to exert a certain influence over him,
+and once or twice his eyes closed. The water rippled beside him with
+a sleepy sound. The sunlight on the hill without made him wink. The
+long-drawn cawing of a crow on the opposite hillside, and the buzzing
+of a bluebottle fly who had sought retreat in the cavern, had a like
+effect, and he felt himself falling asleep. How long he slept, or if
+he slept at all, he could not remember, for he started suddenly, and,
+listening a moment, sprang to his feet. The low, heavy blows of a pick
+came deadened and muffled from the extremity of the cavern.
+
+At first a terrible fear took possession of him; for an instant the
+white, rigid face of Smith, as he had seen it on the day of the inquest,
+when an irresistible curiosity led him to creep into the room where the
+dead man was lying—for an instant only, this fearful remembrance seemed
+to rise before him out of the gloom of the pit. The terror passed away.
+
+Ghosts were historically unknown to Aristides, and even had his
+imaginative faculty been more prominent, the education of Smith’s
+Pocket was not of a kind to foster such weaknesses. Except a twinge of
+conscience, a momentary recollection of the evil that comes to bad boys
+through the severe pages of Sunday-school books—with this exception,
+Aristides was not long in recovering his self-possession. He did not run
+away, for his curiosity was excited. The same instinct which prompted
+an examination of bear-tracks gave a fascination to the situation, and a
+nervous energy to his frame.
+
+The regular blows of the pick still resounded through the cavern. He
+crept cautiously to the deepest recesses of the pocket, and held his
+breath and listened. The sound seemed to come from the bowels of the
+mountain. There was no sign of opening or ingress; an impenetrable veil
+of quartz was between him and the mysterious laborer. He was creeping
+back, between the displaced rafters, when a light glanced suddenly in
+his face, and flashed on the wet roof above him. Looking fearfully down,
+Aristides beheld between the interstices of the rafters, which formed
+a temporary flooring, that there was another opening below, and in that
+opening a man was working. In the queer fantasy of Aristides’s dream, it
+took the aspect of a second pocket and a duplicate Smith!
+
+He had no time to utter his astonishment, for at that moment an ominous
+rattling of loose soil upon his back made him look up, and he had barely
+time to spring away before a greater portion of the roof of Smith’s
+Pocket, loosened by the displacement of its supports in his search, fell
+heavily to the ground. But in the fall a long-handled shovel which had
+been hidden somewhere in the crevices of the rock above came rattling
+down with it, and, seizing this as a trophy, Aristides emerged
+from Smith’s Pocket, at a rate of speed which seemed singularly
+disproportionate with his short legs and round stomach.
+
+When he reached the road the sun was setting. Inspecting his prize by
+that poetic light, he found that the shovel was a new one, and bore
+neither mark of use nor exposure. Shouldering it again, with the
+intention of presenting it as a peace-offering to propitiate the
+just wrath of his parents, Aristides had gone but a few rods when an
+unexpected circumstance occurred which dashed his fond hope, and to the
+conscientious child seemed the shadow of an inevitable Nemesis. At the
+curve of the road, as the settlement of Smith’s Pocket came into view,
+with its straggling street, and its church spire that seemed a tongue of
+flame in the setting sun, a broad-shouldered figure sprang, apparently,
+from out of the bank, and stood in the path of that infelix infant.
+
+“Where are you going with that shovel, you young devil?”
+
+Aristides looked up and saw that his interlocutor was a man of powerful
+figure, whose face, though partially concealed by a red handkerchief,
+even in that uncertain light was not prepossessing. Children are quick
+physiognomists, and Aristides, feeling the presence of evil, from the
+depths of his mighty little soul then and there took issue with the
+giant.
+
+“Where are you going with that shovel; d—n you, do you hear?” said he
+of the red handkerchief impatiently.
+
+“Home,” said Aristides stoutly.
+
+“Home, eh!” said the stranger sneeringly. “And where did you steal it,
+you young thief?”
+
+The Morpher stock not being of a kind to receive opprobrious epithets
+meekly, Aristides slowly, and with an evident effort, lifted the shovel
+in a menacing attitude.
+
+A single step was all that separated six feet of Strength from three
+feet of Valor. The stranger eyed Aristides with an expression of surly
+amazement, and hesitated. The elephant quailed before the gad-fly. As
+that precocious infant waved the threatening shovel, his youthful lips
+slowly fashioned this tremendous sentence:—
+
+“_You let me pass and I won’t hit you!_”
+
+And here I must pause. I would that for the sake of poetry I could leave
+my hero, bathed in that heroic light, erect and menacing. But alas, in
+this practical world of ours, the battle is too often to the strong. And
+I hasten over the humiliating spectacle of Aristides, spanked, cuffed,
+and kicked, and pick him from the ditch into which he was at last
+ignominiously tossed, a defeated but still struggling warrior, and so
+bring him, as the night closes charitably around him, in contrite tears
+and muddy garments to his father’s door.
+
+When the master stopped at Mrs. Morpher’s to inquire after his errant
+pupil that night, he found Aristides in bed, smelling strongly of soap
+and water, and sinking into a feverish sleep. As he muttered from time
+to time some incoherent sentence, tossing restlessly in his cot, the
+master turned to those about him and asked what it was he said.
+
+It was nothing. Aristides had been dreaming, and that was his dream.
+
+That was all. Yet a dream that foreshadowed a slow-coming but unerring
+justice, that should give the little dreamer in after years some credit
+to the title of Aristides the Just.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE
+
+
+It was an amiable weakness of Mrs. Morpher to imagine that, of all her
+classical progeny, Clytemnestra was particularly the model for M’liss.
+Following this fallacy she threw “Clytie” at the head of M’liss when
+she was “bad,” and set her up before the child for adoration in her
+penitential moments. It was not therefore surprising to the master
+to hear that Clytie was coming to school, obviously as a favor to the
+master and as an example for M’liss and others. For Clytie was quite
+a young lady. Inheriting her mother’s physical peculiarities, and in
+obedience to the climatic laws of the Red Mountain region, she was an
+early bloomer. The youth of Smith’s Pocket, to whom this kind of flower
+was rare, sighed for her in April and languished in May. Enamored swains
+haunted the schoolhouse at the hour of dismissal. A few were jealous of
+the master.
+
+Perhaps it was this latter circumstance that opened the master’s eyes
+to another. He could not help noticing that Clytie was romantic; that
+in school she required a great deal of attention; that her pens were
+uniformly bad and wanted fixing; that she usually accompanied the
+request with a certain expectation in her eye that was somewhat
+disproportionate to the quality of service she verbally required; that
+she sometimes allowed the curves of a round plump white arm to rest on
+his when he was writing her copies; that she always blushed and flung
+back her blond curls when she did so. I don’t remember whether I have
+stated that the master was a young man—it’s of little consequence,
+however. He had been severely educated in the school in which Clytie was
+taking her first lesson, and on the whole withstood the flexible curves
+and facetious glance like the fine young Spartan that he was. Perhaps
+an insufficient quality of food may have tended to this asceticism.
+He generally avoided Clytie; but one evening when she returned to the
+schoolhouse after something she had forgotten,—and did not find it
+until the master walked home with her,—I hear that he endeavored to
+make himself particularly agreeable, partly from the fact, I imagine,
+that his conduct was adding gall and bitterness to the already
+overcharged hearts of Clytemnestra’s admirers.
+
+The morning after this affecting episode, M’liss did not come to
+school. Noon came, but not M’liss. Questioning Clytie on the subject, it
+appeared that they had left for school together, but the willful M’liss
+had taken another road. The afternoon brought her not. In the evening
+he called on Mrs. Morpher, whose motherly heart was really alarmed. Mr.
+Morpher had spent all day in search of her, without discovering a trace
+that might lead to her discovery. Aristides was summoned as a probable
+accomplice, but that equitable infant succeeding in impressing
+the household with his innocence, Mrs. Morpher entertained a vivid
+impression that the child would yet be found drowned in a ditch,
+or—what was almost as terrible—mud-dyed and soiled beyond the
+redemption of soap and water. Sick at heart, the master returned to the
+schoolhouse. As he lit his lamp and seated himself at his desk, he found
+a note lying before him, addressed to himself in M’liss’s handwriting.
+It seemed to be written on a leaf torn from some old memorandum-book,
+and, to prevent sacrilegious trifling, had been sealed with six broken
+wafers. Opening it almost tenderly, the master read as follows:—
+
+RESPECTED SIR: When you read this, I am run away. Never to come back.
+Never _Never_ NEVER. You can give my beeds to Mary Jennings, and my
+Amerika’s Pride [a, highly colored lithograph from a tobacco box] to
+Sally Flanders. But don’t you give anything to Clytie Morpher. Don’t
+you dair to. Do you know what my opinion is of her, it is this, she
+is perfekly disgustin. That is all and no more at present from MELISSA
+SMITH.
+
+The master mused for some time over this characteristic epistle. As he
+was mechanically refolding it his eye caught a sentence written on the
+back in pencil, in another handwriting, somewhat blurred and indistinct
+from the heavy incisive strokes of M’liss’s pen on the other side. It
+seemed to be a memorandum belonging to the book from which the leaf was
+originally torn:—
+
+July 17th. 5 hours in drift—dipping west—took out 20 oz.; cleaned up
+40 oz. Mem.—saw M. S.
+
+“July 17th,” said the master, opening his desk and taking out a file of
+the “Red Mountain Banner.” “July 17th,” he repeated, running over the
+pages till he came to a paragraph headed “DISTRESSING SUICIDE.” “July
+17th—why, that’s the day Smith killed himself. That’s funny!”
+
+In a strict etymological sense there was nothing so very ludicrous in
+this coincidence, nor did the master’s face betray any expression of
+the kind. Perhaps the epithet was chosen to conceal the vague uneasiness
+which it produced in his mind. We are all of us more affected by
+these coincidences than we care to confess to one another. If the most
+matter-of-fact reader of these pages were to find a hearse standing
+in front of his door for three consecutive mornings, although the
+circumstance might be satisfactorily explained,—shall I go further and
+say, _because_ the circumstance might be satisfactorily explained,—he
+would vaguely wish it hadn’t happened. Philosophize as we may, the
+simple fact of two remote lines crossing each other always seems to us
+of tremendous significance, and quite overshadows the more important
+truth that the real parallels of life’s journey are the lines that never
+meet. It will do us good to remember these things, and look more kindly
+on our brothers of Borrioboola-Gha and their fetich superstitions, when
+we drop our silver in the missionary box next Sabbath.
+
+“I wonder where that memorandum came from,” said the master, as he rose
+at last and buttoned up his coat. “Who is ‘M. S.’? M. S. stands for
+manuscript and Melissa Smith. Why don’t”—But checking an impulsive
+query as to why people don’t make their private memoranda generally
+intelligible, the master put the letter in his pocket and went home.
+
+At sunrise the next morning he was picking his way through the palm-like
+fern and thick underbrush of the pine forest, starting the hare from its
+form, and awakening a querulous protest from a few dissipated crows, who
+had evidently been making a night of it, and so came to the wooded ridge
+where he had once found M’liss. There he found the prostrate pine and
+tessellated branches, but the throne was vacant. As he drew nearer, what
+might have been some frightened animal started through the crackling
+limbs. It ran up the tossed arms of the fallen monarch, and sheltered
+itself in some friendly foliage. The master, reaching the old seat,
+found the nest still warm; looking up in the intertwining branches,
+he met the black eyes of the errant M’liss. They gazed at each other
+without speaking. She was first to break the silence.
+
+“What do you want?” she asked curtly.
+
+The master had decided on a course of action. “I want some crab apples,”
+ he said humbly.
+
+“Shan’t have ’em! go away! Why don’t you get ’em of Clytemnerestera?”
+ It seemed to be a relief to M’liss to express her contempt in additional
+syllables to that classical young woman’s already long-drawn title. “Oh,
+you wicked thing!”
+
+“I am hungry, Lissy. I have eaten nothing since dinner yesterday. I
+am famished!” and the young man, in a state of remarkable exhaustion,
+leaned against the tree.
+
+Melissa’s heart was touched. In the bitter days of her gypsy life
+she had known the sensation he so artfully simulated. Overcome by his
+heartbroken tone, but not entirely divested of suspicion, she said:—
+
+“Dig under the tree near the roots, and you’ll find lots: but mind
+you don’t tell,” for M’liss had _her_ hoards as well as the rats and
+squirrels.
+
+But the master of course was unable to find them, the effects of hunger
+probably blinding his senses. M’liss grew uneasy. At length she peered
+at him through the leaves in an elfish way, and questioned:—
+
+“If I come down and give you some, you’ll promise you won’t touch me?”
+
+The master promised.
+
+“Hope you’ll die if you do?”
+
+The master accepted instant dissolution as a forfeit. M’liss slid down
+the tree. The duties of hospitality fulfilled, she seated herself at a
+little distance and eyed the master with extreme caution.
+
+“Why didn’t you eat your breakfast, you bad man?”
+
+“Because I’ve run away.”
+
+“Where to?” said M’liss, her eyes twinkling.
+
+“Anywhere—anywhere, away from here!” responded that deceitful wretch
+with tragic wildness of demeanor.
+
+“What made you?—bad boy!” said M’liss, with a sudden respect of
+conventionalities, and a rare touch of tenderness in her tones. “You’d
+better go back where your vittals are.”
+
+“What are victuals to a wounded spirit?” asked the young man
+dramatically. He had reached the side of M’liss during this dialogue,
+and had taken her unresisting hand. He was too wise to notice his
+victory, however; and drawing Melissa’s note from his pocket, opened it
+before her.
+
+“Couldn’t you find any paper in the schoolhouse without tearing a leaf
+out of my memorandum book, Melissa?” he asked.
+
+“It ain’t out of your memorandum book,” responded M’liss fiercely.
+
+“Indeed,” said the master, turning to the lines in pencil; “I thought it
+was my handwriting.”
+
+M’liss, who had been looking over his shoulder, suddenly seized the
+paper and snatched it out of his hand.
+
+“It’s father’s writing!” she said, after a pause, in a softer tone.
+
+“Where did you get it, M’liss?”
+
+“Aristides gave it to me.”
+
+“Where did he get it?”
+
+“Don’t know. He had the book in his pocket when I told him I was going
+to write to you, and he tore the leaf out. There now—don’t bother me
+any more.” M’liss had turned her face away, and the black hair had hid
+her downcast eyes.
+
+Something in her gesture and expression reminded him of her father.
+Something, and more that was characteristic to her at such moments, made
+him fancy another resemblance, and caused him to ask impulsively, and
+less cautiously than was his wont:—
+
+“Do you remember your mother, M’liss?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Did you never see her?”
+
+“No—didn’t I tell you not to bother, and you’re a-goin’ and doin’ it,”
+ said M’liss savagely.
+
+The master was silent a moment. “Did you ever think you would like to
+have a mother, M’liss?” he asked again.
+
+“No-o-o-o!”
+
+The master rose; M’liss looked up.
+
+“Does Aristides come to school to-day?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Are you going back? You’d better,” she said.
+
+“Well!—perhaps I may. Good-by!”
+
+He had proceeded a few steps when, as he expected, she called him back.
+He turned. She was standing by the tree, with tears glistening in her
+eyes. The master felt the right moment had come. Going up to her,
+he took both her hands in his, and looking in her tearful eyes, said
+gravely:—
+
+“M’liss, do you remember the first evening you came to see me?”
+
+M’liss remembered.
+
+“You asked me if you might come to school, and I said—”
+
+“Come!” responded the child softly.
+
+“If I told you I was lonely without my little scholar, and that I wanted
+her to come, what would you say?”
+
+The child hung her head in silence. The master waited patiently. Tempted
+by the quiet, a hare ran close to the couple, and raising her bright
+eyes and velvet fore paws, gazed at them fearlessly. A squirrel ran
+halfway down the furrowed bark of the fallen tree, and there stopped.
+
+“_We_ are waiting, Lissy,” said the master in a whisper, and the child
+smiled. Stirred by a passing breeze, the treetops rocked, and a slanting
+sunbeam stole through their interlaced boughs and fell on the doubting
+face and irresolute little figure. But a step in the dry branches and a
+rustling in the underbrush broke the spell.
+
+A man dressed as a miner, carrying a long-handled shovel, came slowly
+through the woods. A red handkerchief tied around his head under his
+hat, with the loose ends hanging from beneath, did not add much favor
+to his unprepossessing face. He did not perceive the master and M’liss
+until he was close upon them. When he did, he stopped suddenly and gazed
+at them with an expression of lowering distrust. M’liss drew nearer to
+the master.
+
+“Good-mornin’—picknickin’, eh?” he asked, with an attempt at geniality
+that was more repulsive than his natural manner.
+
+“How are you—prospecting, eh?” said the master quietly, after the
+established colloquial formula of Red Mountain.
+
+“Yes—a little in that way.”
+
+The stranger still hesitated, apparently waiting for them to go first, a
+matter which M’liss decided by suddenly taking the master’s hand in her
+quick way. What she said was scarcely audible, but the master, parting
+her hair over her forehead, kissed her, and so, hand in hand, they
+passed out of the damp aisles and forest odors into the open sunlit
+road. But M’liss, looking back, saw that her old seat was occupied by
+the hopeful prospector, and fancied that in the shadows of her former
+throne something of a gratified leer overspread his face. “He’ll have to
+dig deep to find the crab apples,” said the child to the master, as they
+came to the Red Mountain road.
+
+When Aristides came to school that day he was confronted by M’liss. But
+neither threats nor entreaties could extract from that reticent youth
+the whereabout of the memorandum book nor where he got it. Two or three
+days afterward, during recess, he approached M’liss, and beckoned her
+one side.
+
+“Well,” said M’liss impatiently.
+
+“Did you ever read the story of ‘Ali Baba’?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Do you believe it?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well,” said that sage infant, wheeling around on his stout legs, “_it’s
+true!_”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WHICH HAS A GOOD MORAL TENDENCY
+
+
+Somewhat less spiteful in her intercourse with the other scholars,
+M’liss still retained an offensive attitude toward Clytemnestra. Perhaps
+the jealous element was not entirely stilled in her passionate little
+breast. Perhaps it was that Clytemnestra’s round curves and plump
+outlines afforded an extensive pinching surface. But while these
+ebullitions were under the master’s control, her enmity occasionally
+took a new and irresponsible form.
+
+In his first estimate of the child’s character he could not conceive
+that she had ever possessed a doll. But the master, like many other
+professed readers of character, was safer in _a posteriori_ than _a
+priori_ reasoning, for M’liss had a doll. But then it was a peculiar
+doll,—a frightful perversion of wax and sawdust,—a doll fearfully and
+wonderfully made,—a smaller edition of M’liss. Its unhappy existence
+had been a secret discovered accidentally by Mrs. Morpher. It had been
+the oldtime companion of M’liss’s wanderings, and bore evident marks
+of suffering. Its original complexion was long since washed away by the
+weather, and anointed by the slime of ditches. It looked very much
+as M’liss had in days past. Its one gown of faded stuff was dirty and
+ragged as hers had been. M’liss had never been known to apply to it any
+childish term of endearment. She never exhibited it in the presence of
+other children. It was put severely to bed in a hollow tree near
+the schoolhouse, and only allowed exercise during M’liss’s rambles.
+Fulfilling a stern duty to her doll—as she would to herself—it knew no
+luxuries.
+
+Now, Mrs. Morpher, obeying a commendable impulse, bought another doll
+and gave it to M’liss. The child received it gravely and curiously. The
+master, on looking at it one day, fancied he saw a slight resemblance
+in its round red cheeks and mild blue eyes to Clytemnestra. It became
+evident before long that M’liss had also noticed the same resemblance.
+Accordingly she hammered its waxen head on the rocks when she was
+alone, and sometimes dragged it with a string round its neck to and from
+school. At other times, setting it up on her desk, she made a pincushion
+of its patient and inoffensive body. Whether this was done in revenge
+of what she considered a second figurative obtrusion of Clytie’s
+excellencies upon her; or whether she had an intuitive appreciation
+of the rites of certain other heathens, and indulging in that “fetich”
+ ceremony imagined that the original of her wax model would pine away and
+finally die, is a metaphysical question I shall not now consider.
+
+In spite of these moral vagaries, the master could not help noticing
+in her different tasks the workings of a quick, restless, and vigorous
+perception. She knew neither the hesitancy nor the doubts of childhood.
+Her answers in class were always slightly dashed with audacity. Of
+course she was not infallible. But her courage and daring in venturing
+beyond her own depth and that of the floundering little swimmers around
+her, in their minds outweighed all errors of judgment. Children are
+no better than grown people in this respect, I fancy; and whenever the
+little red hand flashed above her desk, there was a wondering silence,
+and even the master was sometimes oppressed with a doubt of his own
+experience and judgment.
+
+Nevertheless, certain attributes which at first amused and entertained
+his fancy began to affect him with grave doubts. He could not but see
+that M’liss was revengeful, irreverent, and willful. But there was
+one better quality which pertained to her semi-savage disposition—the
+faculty of physical fortitude and self-sacrifice, and another—though
+not always an attribute of the noble savage—truth. M’liss was both
+fearless and sincere—perhaps in such a character the adjectives were
+synonymous.
+
+The master had been doing some hard thinking on this subject, and had
+arrived at that conclusion quite common to all who think sincerely, that
+he was generally the slave of his own prejudices, when he determined to
+call on the Rev. Mr. McSnagley for advice. This decision was somewhat
+humiliating to his pride, as he and McSnagley were not friends. But he
+thought of M’liss, and the evening of their first meeting; and perhaps
+with a pardonable superstition that it was not chance alone that
+had guided her willful feet to the schoolhouse, and perhaps with a
+complacent consciousness of the rare magnanimity of the act, he choked
+back his dislike and went to McSnagley.
+
+The reverend gentleman was glad to see him. Moreover, he observed
+that the master was looking “peartish” and hoped he had got over the
+“neuralgy” and “rheumatiz.” He himself had been troubled with a dumb
+“ager” since last conference. But he had learned to “rastle and pray.”
+
+Pausing a moment to enable the master to write this certain method
+of curing the dumb “ager” upon the book and volume of his brain,
+Mr. McSnagley proceeded to inquire after Sister Morpher. “She is an
+adornment to Chris_tew_anity, and has a likely, growin’ young family,”
+ added Mr. McSnagley; “and there is that mannerly young gal—so well
+behaved—Miss Clytie.” In fact, Clytie’s perfections seemed to affect
+him to such an extent that he dwelt for several minutes upon them. The
+master was doubly embarrassed. In the first place, there was an enforced
+contrast with poor M’liss in all this praise of Clytie. Secondly, there
+was something unpleasantly confidential in his tone of speaking of
+Morpher’s earliest born. So that the master, after a few futile
+efforts to say something natural, found it convenient to recall another
+engagement and left without asking the information required, but in his
+after reflections somewhat unjustly giving the Rev. Mr. McSnagley the
+full benefit of having refused it.
+
+But the master obtained the advice in another and unexpected direction.
+
+The resident physician of Smith’s Pocket was a Dr. Duchesne, or as
+he was better known to the locality, “Dr. Doochesny.” Of a naturally
+refined nature and liberal education, he had steadily resisted the
+aggressions and temptations of Smith’s Pocket, and represented to the
+master a kind of connecting link between his present life and the past.
+So that an intimacy sprang up between the two men, involving prolonged
+interviews in the doctor’s little back shop, often to the exclusion of
+other suffering humanity and their physical ailments. It was in one of
+these interviews that the master mentioned the coincidence of the date
+of the memoranda on the back of M’liss’s letter and the day of Smith’s
+suicide.
+
+“If it were Smith’s own handwriting, as the child says it is,” said the
+master, “it shows a queer state of mind that could contemplate suicide
+and indite private memoranda within the same twenty-four hours.”
+
+Dr. Duchesne removed his cigar from his lips and looked attentively at
+his friend.
+
+“The only hypothesis,” continued the master, “is that Smith was either
+drunk or crazy, and the fatal act was in a measure unpremeditated.”
+
+“Every man who commits suicide,” returned the doctor gravely, “is in
+my opinion insane, or, what is nearly the same thing, becomes through
+suffering an irresponsible agent. In my professional experience I have
+seen most of the forms of mental and physical agony, and know what
+sacrifices men will make to preserve even an existence that to me seemed
+little better than death, so long as their intellect remained unclouded.
+When you come to reflect on the state of mind that chooses death as a
+preferable alternative, you generally find an exaltation and enthusiasm
+that differs very little from the ordinary diagnosis of delirium. Smith
+was not drunk,” added the doctor in his usual careless tone; “I saw his
+body.”
+
+The master remained buried in reflection. Presently the doctor removed
+his cigar.
+
+“Perhaps I might help you to explain the coincidence you speak of.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Very easily. But this is a professional secret, you understand.”
+
+“Yes, I understand,” said the master hastily, with an ill-defined
+uneasiness creeping over him.
+
+“Do you know anything of the phenomena of death by gunshot wounds?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Then you must take certain facts as granted. Smith, you remember, was
+killed _instantly!_ The nature of his wound and the manner of his death
+were such as would have caused an instantaneous and complete relaxation
+of _all_ the muscles. Rigidity and contraction would have supervened
+of course, but only after life was extinct and consciousness fled. Now
+Smith was found with his hand tightly grasping a pistol.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, my dear boy, he must have grasped it after he was dead, or have
+prevailed on some friend to stiffen his fingers round it.”
+
+“Do you mean that he was murdered?”
+
+Dr. Duchesne rose and closed the door. “We have different names for
+these things in Smith’s Pocket. I mean to say that he didn’t kill
+himself—that’s all.”
+
+“But, doctor,” said the master earnestly; “do you think you have
+done right in concealing this fact? Do you think it just—do you
+think it consistent with your duty to his orphan child?”
+
+“That’s why I have said nothing about it,” replied the doctor
+coolly,—“because of my consideration for his orphan child.”
+
+The master breathed quickly, and stared at the doctor.
+
+“Doctor! you don’t think that M’liss”—
+
+“Hush!—don’t get excited, my young friend. Remember I am not a
+lawyer—only a doctor.”
+
+“But M’liss was with me the very night he must have been killed. We were
+walking together when we heard the report—that is—a report—which must
+have been the one”—stammered the master.
+
+“When was that?”
+
+“At half past eleven. I remember looking at my watch.”
+
+“Humph!—when did you meet her first?”
+
+“At half past eight. Come, doctor, you have made a mistake here at
+least,” said the young man with an assumption of ease he was far from
+feeling. “Give M’liss the benefit of the doubt.”
+
+Dr. Duchesne replied by opening a drawer of his desk. After rummaging
+among the powders and mysterious looking instruments with which it was
+stored, he finally brought forth a longitudinal slip of folded white
+paper. It was appropriately labeled “_Poison._”
+
+“Look here,” said the doctor, opening the paper. It contained two or
+three black coarse hairs. “Do you know them?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Look again!”
+
+“It looks something like Melissa’s hair,” said the master, with a
+fathomless sinking of the heart.
+
+“When I was called to look at the body,” continued the doctor with the
+deliberate cautiousness of a professional diagnosis, “my suspicions were
+aroused by the circumstance I told you of. I managed to get possession
+of the pistol, and found these hairs twisted around the lock as though
+they had been accidentally caught and violently disentangled. I don’t
+think that any one else saw them. I removed them without observation,
+and—they are at your service.”
+
+The master sank back in his seat and pressed his hand to his forehead.
+The image of M’liss rose before him with flashing eye and long black
+hair, and seemed to beat down and resist defiantly the suspicion that
+crept slowly over his heart.
+
+“I forbore to tell you this, my friend,” continued the doctor slowly and
+gravely, “because when I learned that you had taken this strange child
+under your protection I did not wish to tell you that which—though I
+contend does not alter her claims to man’s sympathy and kindness—still
+might have prejudiced her in your eyes. Her improvement under your care
+has proven my position correct. I have, as you know, peculiar ideas of
+the extent to which humanity is responsible. I find in my heart—looking
+back over that child’s career—no sentiment but pity. I am mistaken in
+you if I thought this circumstance aroused any other feeling in yours.”
+
+Still the figure of M’liss stood before the master as he bent before the
+doctor’s words, in the same defiant attitude, with something of scorn
+in the great dark eyes, that made the blood tingle in his cheeks, and
+seemed to make the reasoning of the speaker but meaningless and empty
+words. At length he rose. As he stood with his hand on the latch he
+turned to Dr. Duchesne, who was watching him with careful solicitude.
+
+“I don’t know but that you have done well to keep this from me. At
+all events it has not—cannot, and should not alter my opinion toward
+M’liss. You will of course keep it a secret. In the mean time you must
+not blame me if I cling to my instincts in preference to your judgment.
+I still believe that you are mistaken in regard to her.”
+
+“Stay, one moment,” said the doctor; “promise me you will not say
+anything of this, nor attempt to prosecute the matter further till you
+have consulted with me.”
+
+“I promise. Good-night.”
+
+“Good-night;” and so they parted.
+
+True to that promise and his own instinctive promptings the master
+endeavored to atone for his momentary disloyalty by greater solicitude
+for M’liss. But the child had noticed some change in the master’s
+thoughtful manner, and in one of their long post-prandial walks she
+stopped suddenly, and mounting a stump, looked full in his face with big
+searching eyes.
+
+“You ain’t mad?” said she, with an interrogative shake of the black
+braids.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor bothered?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor hungry?” (Hunger was to M’liss a sickness that might attack a
+person at any moment.)
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor thinking of her?”
+
+“Of whom, Lissy?”
+
+“That white girl.” (This was the latest epithet invented by M’liss, who
+was a very dark brunette, to express Clytemnestra.)
+
+“No.”
+
+“Upon your word?” (A substitute for “Hope you’ll die!” proposed by the
+master.)
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And sacred honor?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Then M’liss gave him a fierce little kiss, and hopping down, fluttered
+off. For two or three days after that she condescended to appear like
+other children and be, as she expressed it, “good.”
+
+When the summer was about spent, and the last harvest had been gathered
+in the valleys, the master bethought him of gathering in a few
+ripened shoots of the young idea, and of having his Harvest Home, or
+Examination. So the savans and professionals of Smith’s Pocket were
+gathered to witness that time-honored custom of placing timid children
+in a constrained position, and bullying them as in a witness-box. As
+usual in such cases, the most audacious and self-possessed were the
+lucky recipients of the honors. The reader will imagine that in the
+present instance M’liss and Clytie were preeminent and divided public
+attention: M’liss with her clearness of material perception and
+self-reliance, and Clytie with her placid self-esteem and saintlike
+correctness of deportment. The other little ones were timid and
+blundering. M’liss’s readiness and brilliancy, of course, captivated
+the greatest number, and provoked the greatest applause, and M’liss’s
+antecedents had unconsciously awakened the strongest sympathies of the
+miners, whose athletic forms were ranged against the walls, or whose
+handsome bearded faces looked in at the window. But M’liss’s popularity
+was overthrown by an unexpected circumstance.
+
+McSnagley had invited himself, and had been going through the pleasing
+entertainment of frightening the more timid pupils by the vaguest and
+most ambiguous questions, delivered in an impressive, funereal tone;
+and M’liss had soared into astronomy, and was tracking the course of our
+“spotted ball” through space, and defining the “tethered orbits” of the
+planets, when McSnagley deliberately arose.
+
+“Meelissy, ye were speaking of the revolutions of this yer yearth, and
+its movements with regard to the sun, and I think you said it had been
+a-doin’ of it since the creation, eh?”
+
+M’liss nodded a scornful affirmative.
+
+“Well, was that the truth?” said McSnagley, folding his arms.
+
+“Yes,” said M’liss, shutting up her little red lips tightly.
+
+The handsome outlines at the windows peered further into the schoolroom,
+and a saintly, Raphael-like face, with blond beard and soft blue eyes,
+belonging to the biggest scamp in the diggings, turned toward the child
+and whispered:—
+
+“Stick to it, M’liss! It’s only a big bluff of the parson.”
+
+The reverend gentleman heaved a deep sigh, and cast a compassionate
+glance at the master, then at the children, and then rested his eye on
+Clytemnestra. That young woman softly elevated her round, white arm.
+Its seductive curves were enhanced by a gorgeous and massive specimen
+bracelet, the gift of one of her humblest worshipers, worn in honor of
+the occasion. There was a momentary pause. Clytie’s round cheeks
+were very pink and soft. Clytie’s big eyes were very bright and blue.
+Clytie’s low-necked white book-muslin rested softly on Clytie’s white,
+plump shoulders. Clytie looked at the master, and the master nodded.
+Then Clytie spoke softly:
+
+“Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and it obeyed him.”
+
+There was a low hum of applause in the schoolroom, a triumphant
+expression on McSnagley’s face, a grave shadow on the master’s, and
+a comical look of disappointment reflected from the windows. M’liss
+skimmed rapidly over her astronomy, and then shut the book with a loud
+snap. A groan burst from McSnagley, an expression of astonishment from
+the schoolroom, and a yell from the windows, as M’liss brought her red
+fist down on the desk, with the emphatic declaration:—
+
+“It’s a d—n lie. I don’t believe it!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+“OPEN SESAME”
+
+
+The long wet season had drawn near its close. Signs of spring were
+visible in the swelling buds and rushing torrents. The pine forests
+exhaled a fresher spicery. The azaleas were already budding; the
+ceanothus getting ready its lilac livery for spring. On the green upland
+which climbed the Red Mountain at its southern aspect, the long spike of
+the monk’s-hood shot up from its broad-leaved stool and once more shook
+its dark blue bells. Again the billow above Smith’s grave was soft and
+green, its crest just tossed with the foam of daisies and buttercups.
+The little graveyard had gathered a few new dwellers in the past year,
+and the mounds were placed two by two by the little paling until
+they reached Smith’s grave, and there, there was but one. General
+superstition had shunned the enforced companionship. The plot beside
+Smith was vacant.
+
+It was the custom of the driver of the great Wingdam stage to whip up
+his horses at the foot of the hill, and soenter Smith’s Pocket at that
+remarkable pace which the woodcuts in the hotel bar-room represented
+to credulous humanity as the usual rate of speed of that conveyance. At
+least, Aristides Morpher thought so as he stood one Sunday afternoon,
+uneasily conscious of his best jacket and collar, waiting its approach.
+Nor could anything shake his belief that regularly on that occasion the
+horses ran away with the driver, and that that individual from motives
+of deep policy pretended not to notice it until they were stopped.
+
+“Anybody up from below, Bill?” said the landlord as the driver slowly
+descended from his perch.
+
+“Nobody for you,” responded Bill shortly. “Dusenberry kem up as usual,
+and got off at the old place. You can’t make a livin’ off him, I
+reckon.”
+
+“Have you found out what his name is yet?” continued the landlord,
+implying that “Dusenberry” was simply a playful epithet of the driver.
+
+“He says his name is Waters,” returned Bill. “Jake said he saw him at
+the North Fork in ’50—called himself Moore then. Guess he ain’t no
+good, nowhow. What’s he doin’ round here?”
+
+“Says he’s prospectin’,” replied the landlord. “He has a claim somewhere
+in the woods. Gambles a little too, I reckon. He don’t travel on his
+beauty anyhow.”
+
+“If you had seen him makin’ up to a piece of calico inside, last trip,
+and she a-makin’ up to him quite confidential-like, I guess you’d think
+he was a lady-killer. My eye, but wasn’t she a stunner! Clytie Morpher
+wasn’t nowhere to begin with her.”
+
+“Who was she, Bill?” asked half a dozen masculine voices.
+
+“Don’t know. We picked her up this side of ‘Coyote.’ Fancy? I tell
+you!—pretty little hat and pink ribbings—eyes that ud bore you through
+at a hundred yards—white teeth—brown gaiters, and such an ankle! She
+didn’t want to show it,—oh, no!” added the sarcastic Bill with deep
+significance.
+
+“Where did you leave her, Bill?” asked a gentle village swain who had
+been fired by the glowing picture of the fair unknown.
+
+“That’s what’s the matter. You see after we picked her up, she said she
+was goin’ through to Wingdam. Of course there wasn’t anything in the
+stage or on the road too good to offer her. Old Major Spaffler wanted
+to treat her to lemonade at every station. Judge Plunkett kep’ a-pullin’
+down the blinds and a-h’istin’ of them up to keep out the sun and let in
+the air. Blest if old McSnagley didn’t want to carry her travelin’-bag.
+There wasn’t any attention, boys, she didn’t get—but it wasn’t no
+use—bless you! She never so much as passed the time of day with them.”
+
+“But where did she go?” inquired another anxious auditor.
+
+“Keep your foot off the drag, and I’ll tell you. Arter we left Ring
+Tail Canon, Dusenberry, as usual, got on. Presently one of the outsides
+turned round to me, and says he, ‘D—d if Ugly Mug ain’t got the inside
+track of all of you this time!’ I looked down, and dern my skin if there
+wasn’t Dusenberry a-sittin’ up alongside of the lady, quite comfortable,
+as if they had ben children together. At the next station Dusenberry
+gets off. So does the lady. ‘Ain’t you goin’ on to Wingdam,’ says I.
+‘No,’ says she. ‘Mayn’t we have the pleasure of your kempany further?’
+says the judge, taking off his hat. ‘No, I’ve changed my mind,’ says
+she, and off she got, and off she walked arm in arm with him as cool as
+you please.”
+
+“Wonder if that wa’n’t the party that passed through here last July?”
+ asked the blacksmith, joining the loungers in front of the stage-office.
+“Waters brought up a buggy to get the axle bolted. There was a woman
+setting in the buggy, but the hood was drawn down, and I didn’t get
+to see her face.” During this conversation Aristides, after a long,
+lingering glance at the stage, had at last torn himself away from its
+fascinations, and was now lounging down the long straggling street in
+a peculiarly dissipated manner, with his hat pushed on the back part of
+his head, his right hand and a greater portion of his right arm buried
+in his trousers pocket. This might have been partly owing to the
+shortness of his legs and the comparative amplitude of his trousers,
+which to the casual observer seemed to obviate the necessity of any
+other garment. But when he reached the bottom of the street, and further
+enlivened his progress by whistling shrilly between his fingers, and
+finally drew a fragment of a cigar from his pocket and placed it between
+his teeth, it was evident that there was a moral as well as physical
+laxity in his conduct. The near fact was that Aristides had that
+afternoon evaded the Sunday-school, and was open to any kind of infant
+iniquity.
+
+The main street of Smith’s Pocket gradually lost its civilized
+character, and after one or two futile attempts at improvement at its
+lower extremity, terminated impotently in a chaos of ditches, races, and
+trailings. Out of this again a narrow trail started along the mountain
+side, and communicated with that vast amphitheatre which still exhibited
+the pioneer efforts of the early settlers. It was this trail that
+Aristides took that Sunday afternoon, and which he followed until he
+reached the hillside a few rods below the yawning fissure of Smith’s
+Pocket. After a careful examination of the vicinity, he cleared away
+the underbrush beside a fallen pine that lay near, and sat down in the
+attitude of patient and deliberate expectancy.
+
+Five minutes passed—ten, twenty—and finally a half-hour was gone.
+Aristides threw away his cigar, which he had lacked determination to
+light, and peeled small slips from the inner bark of the pine-tree, and
+munched them gravely. Another five, ten, and twenty minutes passed, and
+the sun began to drop below the opposite hillside. Another ten minutes,
+and the whole of the amphitheatre above was in heavy shadow. Ten minutes
+more, and the distant windows in the settlement flamed redly. Five
+minutes, and the spire of the Methodist church caught the glow—and then
+the underbrush crackled.
+
+Aristides, looking up, saw the trunk of the prostrate pine slowly
+lifting itself before him.
+
+A second glance showed the fearless and self-possessed boy that the
+apparent phenomenon was simply and easily explained. The tree had
+fallen midway and at right angles across the trunk of another prostrate
+monarch. So accurately and evenly was it balanced that the child
+was satisfied, from a liberal experience of the application of these
+principles to the game of “seesaw,” that a very slight impulse to either
+end was sufficient to destroy the equilibrium. That impulse proceeded
+from his end of the tree, as he saw when the uplifted trunk disclosed
+an opening in the ground beneath it, and the head and shoulders of a man
+emerging therefrom.
+
+Aristides threw himself noiselessly on his stomach. The thick clump of
+an azalea hid him from view, though it did not obstruct his survey of
+the stranger, whom he at once recognized as his former enemy,—the man
+with the red handkerchief,—the hopeful prospector of Red Mountain, and
+the hypothetical “Dusenberry” of the stage-driver.
+
+The stranger looked cautiously round, and Aristides shrank close behind
+the friendly azalea.
+
+Satisfied that he was unobserved, the subterranean proprietor returned
+to the opening and descended, reappearing with a worn black enameled
+traveling-bag which he carried with difficulty. This he again enveloped
+in a blanket and strapped tightly on his back, and a long-handled
+shovel, brought up from the same mysterious storehouse, completed his
+outfit. As he stood for a moment leaning on the shovel, it was the
+figure of the hopeful prospector in the heart of the forest. A very
+slight effort was sufficient to replace the fallen tree in its former
+position. Raising the shovel to his shoulder, he moved away, brushing
+against the azalea bush which hid the breathless Aristides. The sound of
+his footsteps retreating through the crackling brush presently died out,
+and a drowsy Sabbath stillness succeeded.
+
+Aristides rose. There was a wonderful brightness in his gray eyes, and
+a flush on his sunburned cheek. Seizing a root of the fallen pine he
+essayed to move it. But it defied his endeavors. Aristides looked round.
+
+“There’s some trick about it, but I’ll find it yet,” said that astute
+child. Breaking off the limb of a buckeye, he extemporized a lever. The
+first attempt failed. The second succeeded, and the long roots of the
+tree again, ascended. But as it required prolonged effort to keep the
+tree up, before the impetus was lost Aristides seized the opportunity
+to jump into the opening. At the same moment the tree slowly returned to
+its former position.
+
+In the sudden change from the waning light to complete darkness,
+Aristides was for a moment confounded. Recovering himself, he drew a
+match from his capacious pocket, and striking it against the sole of his
+shoe, by the upspringing flash perceived a candle stuck in the crevices
+of the rock beside him. Lighting it, he glanced curiously around him. He
+was at the entrance of a long gallery at the further extremity of which
+he could faintly see the glimmering of the outer daylight. Following
+this gallery cautiously he presently came to an antechamber, and by the
+glimmering of the light above him at once saw that it was the same he
+had seen in his wonderful dream.
+
+The antechamber was about fourteen feet square, with walls of decomposed
+quartz, mingling with flaky mica that reflected here and there the gleam
+of Aristides’s candle with a singular brilliancy. It did not need much
+observation on his part to determine the reason of the stranger’s lonely
+labors. On a rough rocker beside him were two fragments of ore taken
+from the adjacent wall, the smallest of which the two arms of Aristides
+could barely clasp. To his dazzled eyes they seemed to be almost
+entirely of pure gold. The great strike of ’56 at Ring Tail Canon had
+brought to the wonderful vision of Smith’s Pocket no such nuggets as
+were here.
+
+Aristides turned to the wall again, which had been apparently the last
+scene of the stranger’s labors, and from which the two masses of ore
+were taken. Even to his inexperienced eye it represented a wealth almost
+incalculable. Through the loose, red soil everywhere glittering
+star points of the precious metal threw back the rays of his candle.
+Aristides turned pale and trembled.
+
+Here was the realization of his most extravagant fancy. Ever since
+his strange dream and encounter with the stranger, he had felt an
+irresistible desire to follow up his adventure, and discover the secrets
+of the second cavern. But when he had returned to Smith’s Pocket, a few
+days after, the wreck of the fallen roof had blocked up that part of
+the opening from which he had caught sight of the hidden workman below.
+During his visit he had picked up from among the rubbish the memorandum
+book which had supplied M’liss with letter paper. Still haunting the
+locality after school hours, he had noticed that regularly at sunset the
+man with the red handkerchief appeared in some mysterious way from the
+hillside below Smith’s Pocket, and went away in the direction of the
+settlement. By careful watching, Aristides had fixed the location of his
+mysterious appearance to a point a few rods below the opening of Smith’s
+Pocket. Flushed by this discovery, he had been betrayed from his
+usual discretion so far as to intimate a hinting of the suspicion that
+possessed him in the few mysterious words he had whispered to M’liss
+at school. The accident we have described above determined the complete
+discovery of the secret.
+
+Who was the stranger, and why did he keep the fact of this immense
+wealth hidden from the world? Suppose he, Aristides, were to tell?
+Wouldn’t the schoolboys look up at him with interest as the hero and
+discoverer of this wonderful cavern, and wouldn’t the stage-driver feel
+proud of his acquaintance and offer him rides for nothing?
+
+Why hadn’t Smith discovered it—who was poor and wanted money, whom
+Aristides had liked, who was the father of M’liss, for whom Aristides
+confessed a secret passion, who belonged to the settlement and helped to
+build it up—instead of the stranger? Had Smith never a suspicion that
+gold was so near him, and if so, why had he killed himself? But did
+Smith kill himself? And at this thought and its correlative fancy, again
+the cheek of Aristides blanched, and the candle shook in his nerveless
+fingers.
+
+Apart and distinct from these passing conjectures one idea remained firm
+and dominant in his mind: the man with the red handkerchief had no right
+to this treasure! The mysterious instinct which directed this judicial
+ruling of Aristides had settled this fact as indubitably as though
+proven by the weight of the strongest testimony. For an instant a wild
+thought sprang up in his heart, and he seized the nearest mass of ore
+with the half-formed intention of bearing it directly to the feet of
+M’liss as her just and due inheritance. But Aristides could not lift it,
+and the idea passed out of his mind with the frustrated action.
+
+At the further end of the gallery a few blankets were lying, and with
+some mining implements, a kettle of water, a few worn flannel shirts,
+were the only articles which this subterranean habitation possessed. In
+turning over one of the blankets Aristides picked up a woman’s comb.
+It was a tortoise-shell, and bright with some fanciful ornamentation.
+Without a moment’s hesitation Aristides pocketed it as the natural
+property of M’liss. A pocketbook containing a few old letters in the
+breast pocket of one of the blue shirts was transferred to that of
+Aristides with the same coolness and sentiment of instinctive justice.
+
+Aristides wisely reflected that these unimportant articles would excite
+no suspicion if found in his possession. A fragment of the rock, which,
+if he had taken it as he felt impelled, would have precipitated the
+discovery that Aristides had decided to put off until he had perfected a
+certain plan. The light from the opening above had gradually faded,
+and Aristides knew that night had fallen. To prevent suspicion he must
+return home. He reentered the gallery and reached the opening of the
+egress. One of the roots of the tree projected into the opening.
+
+He seized it and endeavored to lift it, but in vain. Panting with
+exertion, he again and again exerted the fullest power of his active
+sinews, but the tree remained immovable—the opening remained sealed
+as firmly as with Solomon’s signet. Raising his candle towards it,
+Aristides saw the reason of its resistance. In his hurried ingress he
+had allowed the tree to revolve sufficiently to permit one of its roots
+to project into the opening, which held it firmly down. In the shock of
+the discovery the excitement which had sustained him gave way, and with
+a hopeless cry the just Aristides fell senseless on the floor of the
+gallery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE TRIALS OF MRS. MORPHER
+
+
+“Now, where on earth can that child be?” said Mrs. Morpher, shading her
+eyes with her hand, as she stood at the door of the “Mountain Ranch,”
+ looking down the Wingdam road at sunset. “With his best things on; too.
+Goodness!—what _were_ boys made for?”
+
+Mr. Morpher, without replying to this question, apparently addressed to
+himself as an adult representative of the wayward species, appeared at
+the door, and endeavored to pour oil on the troubled waters.
+
+“Oh, _he’s_ all right, Sue! Don’t fuss about _him_,” said Mr. Morpher
+with an imbecile sense of conveying comfort in the emphasized pronoun.
+“He’s down the gulch, or in the tunnel, or over to the claim. He’ll
+turn up by bedtime. Don’t you worry about _him._ I’ll look him up in a
+minit,” and Mr. Morpher, taking his hat, sauntered down the road in the
+direction of the National Hotel.
+
+Mrs. Morpher gazed doubtfully after her liege. “Looking up” Aristides, in
+her domestic experience, implied a prolonged absence in the bar-room of
+the hotel, the tedium whereof was beguiled by seven-up or euchre. But
+she only said: “Don’t be long, James,” and sighed hopelessly as she
+turned back into the house.
+
+Once again within her own castle walls Mrs. Morpher dropped her look of
+patient suffering and glanced defiantly around for a fresh grievance.
+
+The decorous little parlor offered nothing to provoke the hostility of
+her peculiar instincts. Spotless were the white curtains; the bright
+carpet guiltless of stain or dust. The chairs were placed arithmetically
+in twos, and added up evenly on the four sides with nothing to carry
+over. Two bunches of lavender and fennel breathed an odor of sanctified
+cleanliness through the room. Five daguerreotypes on the mantelpiece
+represented the Morpher family in the progressive stages of
+petrifaction, and had the Medusa-like effect of freezing visitors into
+similar attitudes in their chairs. The walls were further enlivened
+with two colored engravings of scenes in the domestic history of George
+Washington, in which the Father of his Country seemed to look blandly
+from his own correct family circle into Morpher’s, and to breathe quite
+audibly from his gilt frame a dignified blessing.
+
+Lingering a moment in this sacred inclosure to readjust the tablecloth,
+Mrs. Morpher passed into the dining-room, where the correct Clytie
+presided at the supper-table, at which the rest of the family were
+seated. Mrs. Morpher’s quick eyes caught the spectacle of M’liss with
+her chin resting on her hands, and her elbows on the table, sardonically
+surveying the model of deportment opposite to her.
+
+“M’liss!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Where’s your elbows?”
+
+“Here’s one and there’s the other,” said M’liss quietly, indicating
+their respective localities by smartly tapping them with the palm of her
+hand.
+
+“Take them off the table, instantly, you bold, forward girl—and you,
+sir, quit that giggling and eat your supper, if you don’t want to be
+put to bed without it!” added Mrs. Morpher to Lycurgus, to whom M’liss’s
+answer had afforded boundless satisfaction. “You’re getting to be just
+as bad as her, and mercy knows you never were a seraphim!”
+
+“What’s a seraphim, mother, and what do they do?” asked Lycurgus, with
+growing interest.
+
+“They don’t ask questions when they should be eating their supper, and
+thankful for it,” interposed Clytie, authoritatively, as one to whom
+the genteel attributes and social habits of the seraphim had been a
+privileged revelation.
+
+“But, mother”—
+
+“Hush—and don’t be a heathen—run and see who is coming in,” said Mrs.
+Morpher, as the sound of footsteps was heard in the passage.
+
+The door opened and McSnagley entered.
+
+“Why, bless my soul—how do you do?” said Mrs. Morpher, with genteel
+astonishment. “Quite a stranger, I declare.”
+
+This was a polite fiction. M’liss knew the fact to be that Mrs. Morpher
+was reputed to “set the best table” in Smith’s Pocket, and McSnagley
+always called in on Sunday evenings at supper to discuss the current
+gossip, and “nag” M’liss with selected texts. The verbal McSnagley as
+usual couldn’t stop a moment—and just dropped in “in passin’.” The
+actual McSnagley deposited his hat in the corner, and placed himself, in
+the flesh, on a chair by the table.
+
+“And how’s Brother James, and the fammerly?”
+
+“They’re all well—except ‘Risty;’ he’s off again,—as if my life
+weren’t already pestered out with one child,” and Mrs. Morpher glanced
+significantly at M’liss.
+
+“Ah, well, we all of us have our trials,” said McSnagley. “I’ve been
+ailin’ again. That ager must be in my bones still. I’ve been rather
+onsettled myself to-day.”
+
+There was the appearance of truth in this statement; Mr. McSnagley’s
+voice had a hollow resonant sound, and his eyes were nervous and
+fidgety. He had an odd trick, too, of occasionally stopping in the
+middle of a sentence, and listening as though he heard some distant
+sound. These things, which Mrs. Morpher recalled afterwards, did not, in
+the undercurrent of uneasiness about Aristides which she felt the whole
+of that evening, so particularly attract her notice.
+
+“I know something,” said Lycurgus, during one of these pauses, from the
+retirement of his corner.
+
+“If you dare to—Kerg!” said M’liss.
+
+“M’liss says she knows where Risty is, but she won’t tell,” said the
+lawgiver, not heeding the warning. The words were scarcely uttered
+before M’liss’s red hand flashed in the air and descended with a
+sounding box on the traitor’s ear. Lycurgus howled, Mrs. Morpher darted
+into the corner, and M’liss was dragged defiant and struggling to the
+light.
+
+“Oh, you wicked, wicked child—why don’t you say where, if you know?”
+ said Mrs. Morpher, shaking her, as if the information were to be
+dislodged from some concealed part of her clothing.
+
+“I didn’t say I knew for sure,” at last responded M’liss. “I said I
+thought I knew.”
+
+“Well, where do you think he is?”
+
+But M’liss was firm. Even the gloomy picture of the future state devised
+by McSnagley could not alter her determination. Mrs. Morpher, who had a
+wholesome awe for this strange child, at last had recourse to entreaty.
+Finally M’liss offered a compromise.
+
+“I’ll tell the master, but I won’t tell you—partikerly him,” said
+M’liss, indicating the parson with a bodkin-like dart of her forefinger.
+
+Mrs. Morpher hesitated. Her maternal anxiety at length overcame her
+sense of dignity and discipline.
+
+“Who knows where the master is, or where he is to be found to-night?”
+ she asked hastily.
+
+“He’s over to Dr. Duchesne’s,” said Clytie eagerly; “that is,” she
+stammered, a rich color suddenly flushing from her temples to her round
+shoulders, “he’s usually there in the evenings, I mean.”
+
+“Run over, there’s a dear, and ask him to come here,” said Mrs. Morpher,
+without noticing a sudden irregularity of conduct in her firstborn. “Run
+quick!”
+
+Clytie did not wait for a second command. Without availing herself of
+the proffered company of McSnagley she hastily tied the strings of her
+school hat under her plump chin, and slipped out of the house. It was
+not far to the doctor’s office, and Clytie walked quickly, overlooking
+in her haste and preoccupation the admiring glances which several of the
+swains of Smith’s Pocket cast after her as she passed. But on arriving
+at the doctor’s door, so out of breath and excited was this usual model
+of deportment that, on finding herself in the presence of the master and
+his friend, she only stood in embarrassed silence, and made up for her
+lack of verbal expression by a succession of eloquent blushes.
+
+Let us look at her for a moment as she stands there. Her little straw
+hat, trimmed with cherry-colored ribbons, rests on the waves of her
+blonde hair. There are other gay ribbons on her light summer dress,
+clasping her round waist, girdling her wrist, and fastening her collar
+about her white throat. Her large blue eyes are very dark and moist—it
+may be with excitement or a tearful thought of the lost Aristides—or
+the tobacco smoke, with which I regret to say the room is highly
+charged. But certainly as she stands leaning against the doorway, biting
+her moist scarlet lip, and trying to pull down the broad brim of her hat
+over the surging waves of color that _will_ beat rhythmically up to her
+cheeks and temples, she is so dangerously pretty that I am glad for the
+masters sake he is the philosopher he has just described himself to his
+friend the doctor, and that he prefers to study human physiology from
+the inner surfaces.
+
+When Clytie had recovered herself sufficiently to state her message, the
+master offered to accompany her back. As Clytie took his arm with some
+slight trepidation Dr. Duchesne, who had taken sharp notes of
+these “febrile” symptoms, uttered a prolonged whistle and returned
+thoughtfully to his office.
+
+Although Clytie found the distance returning no further than the
+distance going, with the exhaustion of her first journey it was natural
+that her homeward steps should be slower, and that the master should
+regulate his pace to accommodate her. It was natural, too, that her
+voice should be quite low and indistinct, so that the master was obliged
+to bring his hat nearer the cherry-colored ribbons in the course of
+conversation. It was also natural that he should offer the sensitive
+young girl such comfort as lay in tenderly modulated tones and playful
+epithets. And if in the irregularities of the main street it was
+necessary to take Clytie’s hand or to put his arm around her waist in
+helping her up declivities, that the master saw no impropriety in the
+act was evident from the fact that he did not remove his arm when the
+difficulty was surmounted. In this way Clytie’s return occupied some
+moments more than her going, and Mrs. Morpher was waiting anxiously at
+the door when the young people arrived. As the master entered the room,
+M’liss called him to her. “Bend down your head” she said, “and I’ll
+whisper. But mind, now, I don’t say I know for truth where Risty is, I
+only reckon.”
+
+The master bent down his head. As usual in such cases, everybody else
+felt constrained to listen, and McSnagley’s curiosity was awakened
+to its fullest extent. When the master had received the required
+information, he said quietly:—
+
+“I think I’ll go myself to this place which M’liss wishes to make a
+secret of and see if the boy is there. It will save trouble to any one
+else, if she should be mistaken.”
+
+“Hadn’t you better take some one with you?” said Mrs. Morpher.
+
+“By all means. I’ll go!” said Mr. McSnagley, with feverish alacrity.
+
+The master looked inquiringly at M’liss.
+
+“He can go if he wants to, but he’d better not,” said M’liss, looking
+directly into McSnagley’s eyes.
+
+“What do you mean by that, you little savage?” said McSnagley quickly.
+
+M’liss turned scornfully away. “Go,” she said,—“go if you want to,” and
+resumed her seat in the corner.
+
+The master hesitated. But he could not withstand the appeal in the eyes
+of the mother and daughter, and after a short inward struggle he turned
+to McSnagley and bade him briefly “Come.”
+
+When they had left the house and stood in the road together, McSnagley
+stopped.
+
+“Where are you goin’?”
+
+“To Smith’s Pocket.”
+
+McSnagley still lingered. “Do you ever carry any weppings?” he at
+length asked.
+
+“Weapons? No. What do you want with weapons to go a mile on a starlit
+road to a deserted claim. Nonsense, man, what are you thinking of? We’re
+hunting a lost child, not a runaway felon. Come along,” and the master
+dragged him away.
+
+Mrs. Morpher watched them from the door until their figures were lost in
+the darkness. When she returned to the dining-room, Clytie had already
+retired to her room, and Mrs. Morpher, overruling M’liss’s desire to
+sit up until the master returned, bade her follow that correct example.
+“There’s Clytie, now, gone to bed like a young lady, and do you do like
+her,” and Mrs. Morpher, with this one drop of balm in the midst of
+her trials, trimmed the light and sat down in patience to wait
+for Aristides, and console herself with the reflection of Clytie’s
+excellence. “Poor Clytie!” mused that motherly woman; “how excited and
+worried she looks about her brother. I hope she’ll be able to get to
+sleep.”
+
+It did not occur to Mrs. Morpher that there were seasons in the life of
+young girls when younger brothers ceased to become objects of extreme
+solicitude. It did not occur to her to go upstairs and see how her wish
+was likely to be gratified. It was well in her anxiety that she did not,
+and that the crowning trial of the day’s troubles was spared her then.
+For at that moment Clytie was lying on the bed where she had flung
+herself without undressing, the heavy masses of her blond hair tumbled
+about her neck, and her hot face buried in her hands.
+
+Of what was the correct Clytie thinking?
+
+She was thinking, lying there with her burning cheeks pressed against
+the pillow, that she loved the master! She was recalling step by step
+every incident that had occurred in their lonely walk. She was repeating
+to herself his facile sentences, wringing and twisting them to extract
+one drop to assuage the strange thirst that was growing up in her soul.
+She was thinking—silly Clytie!—that he had never appeared so kind
+before, and she was thinking—sillier Clytie!—that no one had ever
+before felt as she did then.
+
+How soft and white his hands were! How sweet and gentle were the tones
+of his voice! How easily he spoke—so unlike her father, McSnagley,
+or the young men whom she met at church or on picnics! How tall and
+handsome he looked as he pressed her hand at the door! Did he press her
+hand, or was it a mistake? Yes, he must have pressed her hand, for she
+remembers now to have pressed his in return. And he put his arm around
+her waist once, and she feels it yet, and the strange perfume as he drew
+her closer to him. (Mem.—The master had been smoking. Poor Clytie!)
+
+When she had reached this point she raised herself and sat up, and began
+the process of undressing, mechanically putting each article away in the
+precise, methodical habit of her former life. But she found herself soon
+sitting again on the bed, twisting her hair, which fell over her plump
+white shoulders, idly between her fingers, and patting the carpet with
+her small white foot. She had been sitting thus some minutes when she
+heard the sound of voices without, the trampling of many feet, and a
+loud rapping at the door below. She sprang to the door and looked out
+in the passage. Something white passed by her like a flash and crouched
+down at the head of the stairs. It was M’liss.
+
+Mrs. Morpher opened the door.
+
+“Is Mr. Morpher in?” said a half dozen strange, hoarse voices.
+
+“No!”
+
+“Where is he?”
+
+“He’s at some of the saloons. Oh, tell me, has anything happened?
+Is it about Aristides? Where is he—is he safe?” said Mrs. Morpher,
+wringing her hands in agony.
+
+“He’s all right,” said one of the men, with Mr. Morpher’s old emphasis;
+“but”—
+
+“But what?”
+
+M’liss moved slowly down the staircase, and Clytie from the passage
+above held her breath.
+
+“There’s been a row down to Smith’s old Pocket—a fight—a man killed.”
+
+“Who?” shouted M’liss from the stairs.
+
+“McSnagley—shot dead.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE PEOPLE vs. JOHN DOE WATERS. Before Chief Justice LYNCH.
+
+
+The hurried statement of the messenger was corroborated in the streets
+that night. It was certain that McSnagley was killed. Smith’s Pocket,
+excited but skeptical, had seen the body, had put its fingers in the
+bullethole, and was satisfied. Smith’s Pocket, albeit hoarse with
+shouting and excitement, still discussed details with infinite relish in
+bar-rooms and saloons, and in the main street in clamorous knots that in
+front of the jail where the prisoner was confined seemed to swell into
+a mob. Smith’s Pocket, bearded, blue-shirted, and belligerent, crowding
+about this locality, from time to time uttered appeals to justice that
+swelled on the night wind, not unfrequently coupling these invocations
+with the name of that eminent jurist—Lynch.
+
+Let not the simple reader suppose that the mere taking off of a fellow
+mortal had created this uproar. The tenure of life in Smith’s Pocket was
+vain and uncertain at the best, and as such philosophically accepted,
+and the blowing out of a brief candle here and there seldom left a
+permanent shadow with the survivors. In such instances, too, the victims
+had received their quietus from the hands of brother townsmen,
+socially, as it were, in broad day, in the open streets, and under other
+mitigating circumstances. Thus, when Judge Starbottle of Virginia and
+“French Pete” exchanged shots with each other across the plaza until
+their revolvers were exhausted, and the luckless Pete received a bullet
+through the lungs, half the town witnessed it, and were struck with the
+gallant and chivalrous bearing of these gentlemen, and to this day point
+with feelings of pride and admiration to the bulletholes in the door
+of the National Hotel, as they explain how narrow was the escape of the
+women in the parlor. But here was a man murdered at night, in a lonely
+place, and by a stranger—a man unknown to the saloons of Smith’s
+Pocket—a wretch who could not plead the excitement of monte or the
+delirium of whiskey as an excuse. No wonder that Smith’s Pocket surged
+with virtuous indignation beneath the windows of his prison, and
+clamored for his blood.
+
+And as the crowd thickened and swayed to and fro, the story of his
+crime grew exaggerated by hurried and frequent repetition. Half a dozen
+speakers volunteered to give the details with an added horror to every
+sentence. How one of Morpher’s children had been missing for a week
+or more. How the schoolmaster and the parson were taking a walk that
+evening, and coming to Smith’s Pocket heard a faint voice from its
+depths which they recognized as belonging to the missing child. How they
+had succeeded in dragging him out and gathered from his infant lips the
+story of his incarceration by the murderer, Waters, and his enforced
+labors in the mine. How they were interrupted by the appearance of
+Waters, followed by a highly colored and epithet-illustrated account
+of the interview and quarrel. How Waters struck the schoolmaster, who
+returned the blow with a pick. How Waters thereupon drew a derringer and
+fired, missing the schoolmaster, but killing McSnagley behind him.
+How it was believed that Waters was one of Joaquin’s gang, that he had
+killed Smith, etc., etc. At each pause the crowd pushed and panted,
+stealthily creeping around the doors and windows of the jail like some
+strange beast of prey, until the climax was reached, and a hush
+fell, and two men were silently dispatched for a rope, and a critical
+examination was made of the limbs of a pine-tree in the vicinity.
+
+The man to whom these incidents had the most terrible significance might
+have seemed the least concerned as he sat that night but a few feet
+removed from the eager crowd without, his hands lightly clasped together
+between his knees, and the expression on his face of one whose thoughts
+were far away. A candle stuck in a tin sconce on the wall flickered as
+the night wind blew freshly through a broken pane of the window. Its
+uncertain light revealed a low room whose cloth ceiling was stained and
+ragged, and from whose boarded walls the torn paper hung in strips; a
+lumber-room partitioned from the front office, which was occupied by
+a justice of the peace. If this temporary dungeon had an appearance of
+insecurity, there was some compensation in the spectacle of an armed
+sentinel who sat upon a straw mattress in the doorway, and another who
+patrolled the narrow hall which led to the street. That the prisoner was
+not placed in one of the cells in the floor below may have been owing
+to the fact that the law recognized his detention as only temporary,
+and while providing the two guards as a preventive against the egress of
+crime within, discreetly removed all unnecessary and provoking obstacles
+to the ingress of justice from without.
+
+Since the prisoner’s arrest he had refused to answer any
+interrogatories. Since he had been placed in confinement he had not
+moved from his present attitude. The guard, finding all attempts at
+conversation fruitless, had fallen into a reverie, and regaled himself
+with pieces of straw plucked from the mattress. A mouse ran across the
+floor. The silence contrasted strangely with the hum of voices in the
+street.
+
+The candle-light, falling across the prisoner’s forehead, showed the
+features which Smith’s Pocket knew and recognized as Waters, the strange
+prospector. Had M’liss or Aristides seen him then they would have missed
+that sinister expression which was part of their fearful remembrance.
+The hard, grim outlines of his mouth were relaxed, the broad shoulders
+were bent and contracted, the quick, searching eyes were fixed on
+vacancy. The strong man—physically strong only—was breaking up. The
+fist that might have felled an ox could do nothing more than separate
+its idle fingers with childishness of power and purpose. An hour longer
+in this condition, and the gallows would have claimed a figure scarcely
+less limp and impotent than that it was destined to ultimately reject.
+
+He had been trying to collect his thoughts. Would they hang him?
+No, they must try him first, legally, and he could prove—he could
+prove—But what could he prove? For whenever he attempted to consider
+the uncertain chances of his escape, he found his thoughts straying wide
+of the question. It was of no use for him to clasp his fingers or knit
+his brows. Why did the recollection of a school-fellow, long since
+forgotten, blot out all the fierce and feverish memories of the night
+and the terrible certainty of the future? Why did the strips of paper
+hanging from the wall recall to him the pattern of a kite he had flown
+forty years ago. In a moment like this, when all his energies were
+required and all his cunning and tact would be called into service,
+could he think of nothing better than trying to match the torn paper on
+the wall, or to count the cracks in the floor? And an oath rose to his
+lips, but from very feebleness died away without expression.
+
+Why had he ever come to Smith’s Pocket? If he had not been guided by
+that hell-cat, this would not have happened. What if he were to tell
+_all_ he knew? What if he should accuse _her_? But would they be willing
+to give up the bird they had already caught? Yet he again found himself
+cursing his own treachery and cowardice, and this time an exclamation
+burst from his lips and attracted the attention of the guard.
+
+“Hello, there! easy, old fellow; thar ain’t any good in that,” said the
+sentinel, looking up. “It’s a bad fix you’re in, _sure_, but rarin’ and
+pitchin’ won’t help things. ’T ain’t no use cussin’—leastways, ’t ain’t
+that kind o’ swearing that gets a chap out o’ here”, he added, with
+a conscientious reservation. “Now, ef I was in your place, I’d kinder
+reflect on my sins, and make my peace with God Almighty, for I tell you
+the looks o’ them people outside ain’t pleasant. You’re in the hands of
+the law, and the law will protect you as far as it can,—as far as two
+men can stand agin a hundred; sabe? That’s what’s the matter; and it’s
+as well that you knowed that now as any time.”
+
+But the prisoner had relapsed into his old attitude, and was surveying
+the jailor with the same abstracted air as before. That individual
+resumed his seat on the mattress, and now lent his ear to a colloquy
+which seemed to be progressing at the foot of the stairs. Presently he
+was bailed by his brother turnkey from below.
+
+“Oh, Bill,” said fidus Achates from the passage, with the usual
+Californian prefatory ejaculation.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Here’s M’liss! Says she wants to come up. Shall I let her in?”
+
+The subject of inquiry, however, settled the question of admission
+by darting past the guard below in this moment of preoccupation, and
+bounded up the stairs like a young fawn. The guards laughed.
+
+“Now, then, my infant phenomenon,” said the one called Bill, as M’liss
+stood panting before him, “wot ’s up? and nextly, wot’s in that bottle?”
+
+M’liss whisked the bottle which she held in her hand smartly under her
+apron, and said curtly, “Where’s him that killed the parson?”
+
+“Yonder,” replied the man, indicating the abstracted figure with his
+hand. “Wot do _you_ want with him? None o’ your tricks here, now,” he
+added threateningly.
+
+“I want to see him!”
+
+“Well, look! make the most of your time, and _his_ too, for the matter
+of that; but mind, now, no nonsense, M’liss, he won’t stand it!”
+ repeated the guard with an emphasis in the caution.
+
+M’liss crossed the room, until opposite the prisoner. “Are you the chap
+that killed the parson?” she said, addressing the motionless figure.
+
+Something in the tone of her voice startled the prisoner from the
+reverie. He raised his head and glanced quickly, and with his old
+sinister expression, at the child.
+
+“What’s that to you?” he asked, with the grim lines setting about his
+mouth again, and the old harshness of his voice.
+
+“Didn’t I tell you he wouldn’t stand any of your nonsense, M’liss?” said
+the guard testily.
+
+M’liss only repeated her question.
+
+“And what if I did kill him?” said the prisoner savagely; “what’s that
+to you, you young hell-cat? Guard!—damnation!—what do you let her come
+here for? Do you hear? Guard!” he screamed, rising in a transport of
+passion, “take her away! fling her downstairs! What the h—ll is she
+doing here?”
+
+“If you was the man that killed McSnagley,” said M’liss, without heeding
+the interruption, “I’ve brought you something;” and she drew the
+bottle from under her apron and extended it to Waters, adding, “It’s
+brandy—Cognac—A1.”
+
+“Take it away, and take yourself with it,” returned Waters, without
+abating his angry accents. “Take it away! do you hear?”
+
+“Well, that’s what I call ongrateful, dog-gone my skin if it ain’t,”
+ said the guard, who had been evidently struck with M’liss’s generosity.
+“Pass the licker this way, my beauty, and I’ll keep it till he changes
+his mind. He’s naturally a little flustered just now, but he’ll come
+round after you go.”
+
+But M’liss didn’t accede to this change in the disposition of the gift,
+and was evidently taken aback by her reception and the refusal of the
+proffered comfort.
+
+“Come, hand the bottle here!” repeated the guard. “It’s agin rules to
+bring the pris’ner anything, anyway, and it’s confiscated to the
+law. It’s agin the rules, too, to ask a pris’ner any question that’ll
+criminate him, and on the whole you’d better go, M’liss,” added the
+guard, to whom the appearance of the bottle had been the means of
+provoking a spasm of discipline.
+
+But M’liss refused to make over the coveted treasure. Bill arose half
+jestingly and endeavored to get possession of the bottle. A struggle
+ensued, good-naturedly on the part of the guard, but characterized on
+the part of M’liss by that half-savage passion which any thwarted whim
+or instinct was sure to provoke in her nature. At last with a curse she
+freed herself from his grasp, and seizing the bottle by the neck aimed
+it with the full strength of her little arm fairly at his head. But he
+was quick enough to avert that important object, if not quick enough
+to save his shoulder from receiving the strength of the blow, which
+shattered the thin glass and poured the fiery contents of the bottle
+over his shirt and breast, saturating his clothes, and diffusing a sharp
+alcoholic odor through the room.
+
+A forced laugh broke from his lips, as he sank back on the mattress, not
+without an underlying sense of awe at this savage girl who stood panting
+before him, and from whom he had just escaped a blow which might have
+been fatal. “It’s a pity to waste so much good licker,” he added, with
+affected carelessness, narrowly watching each movement of the young
+pythoness, whose rage was not yet abated.
+
+“Come, M’liss,” he said at last, “we’ll say quits. You’ve lost your
+brandy, and I’ve got some of the pieces of yonder bottle sticking in my
+shoulder yet. I suppose brandy is good for bruises, though. Hand me the
+light!”
+
+M’liss reached the candle from the sconce and held it by the guard as he
+turned back the collar of his shirt to lay bare his shoulder. “So,” he
+muttered, “black and blue; no bones broken, though no fault of yours,
+eh? my young cherub, if it wasn’t. There—why, what are you looking at
+in that way, M’liss, are you crazy?—Hell’s furies, don’t hold the light
+so near! What are you doing; Hell—ho, there! Help!”
+
+Too late, for in an instant he was a sheet of living flame. When or
+how the candle had touched his garments, saturated with the inflammable
+fluid, Waters, the only inactive spectator in the room, could never
+afterward tell. He only knew that the combustion was instantaneous and
+complete, and before the cry had died from his lips, not only the guard,
+but the straw mattress on which he had been sitting, and the loose
+strips of paper hanging from the walls, and the torn cloth ceiling above
+were in flames.
+
+“Help! Help! Fire! Fire!”
+
+With a superhuman effort, M’liss dragged the prisoner past the blazing
+mattress, through the doorway into the passage, and drew the door, which
+opened outwardly, against him. The unhappy guard, still blazing like
+a funeral pyre, after wildly beating the air with his arms for a few
+seconds, dashed at the broken window, which gave way with his weight,
+and precipitated him, still flaming, into the yard below. A column of
+smoke and a licking tongue of flame leaped from the open window at the
+same moment, and the cry of fire was reechoed from a hundred voices in
+the street. But scarcely had M’liss closed the open door against Waters,
+when the guard from the doorway mounted the stairs in time to see a
+flaming figure leap from the window. The room was filled with smoke and
+fire. With an instinct of genius, M’liss, pointing to the open window,
+shouted hoarsely in his ear:—
+
+“Waters has escaped!”
+
+A cry of fury from the guard was echoed from the stairs, even now
+crowded by the excited mob, who feared the devastating element might
+still cheat them of their intended victim. In another moment the house
+was emptied, and the front street deserted, as the people rushed to the
+rear of the jail—climbing fences and stumbling over ditches in pursuit
+of the imagined runaway. M’liss seized the hat and coat of the luckless
+“Bill,” and dragging the prisoner from his place of concealment
+hurriedly equipped him, and hastened through the blinding smoke of
+the staircase boldly on the heels of the retiring crowd. Once in the
+friendly darkness of the street, it was easy to mingle with the pushing
+throng until an alley crossing at right angles enabled them to leave the
+main thoroughfare. A few moments’ rapid flight, and the outskirts of
+the town were reached, the tall pines opened their abysmal aisles to
+the fugitives, and M’liss paused with her companion. Until daybreak, at
+least, here they were safe!
+
+From the time they had quitted the burning room to that moment, Waters
+had passed into his listless, abstracted condition, so helpless and
+feeble that he retained the grasp of M’liss’s hand more through some
+instinctive prompting rather than the dictates of reason. M’liss had
+found it necessary to almost drag him from the main street and the
+hurrying crowd, which seemed to exercise a strange fascination over his
+bewildered senses. And now he sat down passively beside her, and seemed
+to submit to the guidance of her superior nature.
+
+“You’re safe enough now till daylight,” said M’liss, when she had
+recovered her breath, “but you must make the best time you can through
+these woods to-night, keeping the wind to your back, until you come to
+the Wingdam road. There! do you hear?” said M’liss, a little vexed at
+her companion’s apathy.
+
+Waters released the hand of M’liss, and commenced mechanically to button
+his coat around his chest with fumbling, purposeless fingers. He then
+passed his hand across his forehead as if to clear his confused and
+bewildered brain; all this, however, to no better result than to
+apparently root his feet to the soil and to intensify the stupefaction
+which seemed to be creeping over him.
+
+“Be quick, now! You’ve no time to lose! Keep straight on through the
+woods until you see the stars again before you, and you’re on the other
+side of the ridge. What are you waiting for?” And M’liss stamped her
+little foot impatiently.
+
+An idea which had been struggling for expression at last seemed to dawn
+in his eyes. Something like a simpering blush crept over his face as he
+fumbled in his pocket. At last, drawing forth a twenty-dollar piece,
+he bashfully offered it to M’liss. In a twinkling the extended arm was
+stricken up, and the bright coin flew high in the air, and disappeared
+in the darkness.
+
+“Keep your money! I don’t want it. Don’t do that again!” said M’liss,
+highly excited, “or I’ll—I’ll—bite you!”
+
+Her wicked little white teeth flashed ominously as she said it.
+
+“Get off while you can. Look!” she added, pointing to a column of flame
+shooting up above the straggling mass of buildings in the village, “the
+jail is burning; and if that goes, the block will go with it. Before
+morning these woods will be filled with people. Save yourself while you
+can!”
+
+Waters turned and moved away in the darkness. “Keep straight on, and
+don’t waste a moment,” urged the child, as the man seemed still disposed
+to linger. “Trot now!” and in another moment he seemed to melt into the
+forest depths.
+
+M’liss threw her apron around her head, and coiled herself up at the
+root of a tree in something of her old fashion. She had prophesied truly
+of the probable extent of the fire. The fresh wind, whirling the sparks
+over the little settlement, had already fanned the single flame into the
+broad sheet which now glowed fiercely, defining the main street along
+its entire length. The breeze which fanned her cheek bore the crash of
+falling timbers and the shouts of terrified and anxious men. There were
+no engines in Smith’s Pocket, and the contest was unequal. Nothing but a
+change of wind could save the doomed settlement.
+
+The red glow lit up the dark cheek of M’liss and kindled a savage light
+in her black eyes. Relieved by the background of the sombre woods, she
+might have been a red-handed Nemesis looking over the city of Vengeance.
+As the long tongues of flame licked the broad colonnade of the National
+Hotel, and shot a wreathing pillar of fire and smoke high into the air,
+M’liss extended her tiny fist and shook it at the burning building with
+an inspiration that at the moment seemed to transfigure her.
+
+So the night wore away until the first red bars of morning light
+gleamed beyond the hill, and seemed to emulate the dying embers of the
+devastated settlement. M’liss for the first time began to think of the
+home she had quitted the night before, and looked with some anxiety in
+the direction of “Mountain Ranch.” Its white walls and little orchard
+were untouched, and looked peacefully over the blackened and deserted
+village. M’liss rose, and, stretching her cramped limbs, walked briskly
+toward the town. She had proceeded but a short distance when she heard
+the sound of cautious and hesitating footsteps behind her, and, facing
+quickly about, encountered the figure of Waters.
+
+“Are you drunk?” said M’liss passionately, “or what do you mean by this
+nonsense?”
+
+The man approached her with a strange smile on his face, rubbing his
+hands together, and shivering as with cold. When he had reached her
+side he attempted to take her hand. M’liss shrank away from him with an
+expression of disgust.
+
+“What are you doing here again?” she demanded.
+
+“I want to go with you. It’s dark in there,” he said, motioning to the
+wood he had just quitted, “and I don’t like to be alone. You’ll let
+me be with you, won’t you? I won’t be any trouble;” and a feeble smile
+flickered on his lips.
+
+M’liss darted a quick look into his face. The grim outlines of his mouth
+were relaxed, and his lips moved again impotently. But his eyes were
+bright and open,—bright with a look that was new to M’liss—that
+imparted a strange softness and melancholy to his features,—the
+incipient gleam of insanity!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE AUTHOR TO THE READER—EXPLANATORY
+
+
+If I remember rightly, in one of the admirable tragedies of Tsien Tsiang
+at a certain culminating point of interest an innocent person is about
+to be sacrificed. The knife is raised and the victim meekly awaits the
+stroke. At this moment the author of the play appears on the stage, and,
+delivering an excellent philosophical dissertation on the merits of the
+“situation,” shows that by the purest principles of art the sacrifice is
+necessary, but at the same time offers to the audience the privilege of
+changing the denouement. Such, however, is the nice aesthetic sense of
+a Chinese auditory, and so universal the desire of bloodshed in
+the heathen breast, that invariably at each representation of this
+remarkable tragedy the cause of humanity gives way to the principles of
+art.
+
+I offer this precedent as an excuse for digressing at a moment when I
+have burned down a small settlement, dispatched a fellow being, and
+left my heroine alone in the company of an escaped convict who has just
+developed insanity as a new social quality. My object in thus digressing
+is to confer with the reader in regard to the evolution of this
+story,—a familiarity not without precedent, as I might prove from most
+of the old Greek comedies, whose _parabasis_ permits the poet to mingle
+freely with the _dramatis personae_, to address the audience and descant
+at length in regard to himself, his play, and his own merits.
+
+The fact is that, during the progress of this story, I have received
+many suggestions from intimate friends in regard to its incidents and
+construction. I have also been in the receipt of correspondence from
+distant readers, one letter of which I recall signed by an “Honest
+Miner,” who advises me to “do the right thing by M’liss,” or intimates
+somewhat obscurely that he will “bust my crust for me,” which, though
+complimentary in its abstract expression of interest, and implying a
+taste for euphonism, evinces an innate coarseness which I fear may blunt
+his perceptions of delicate shades and Greek outlines.
+
+Again, the practical nature of Californians and their familiarity
+with scenes and incidents which would be novel to other people have
+occasioned me great uneasiness. In the course of the last three chapters
+of M’liss I have received some twenty or thirty communications from
+different parts of the State corroborating incidents of my story, which
+I solemnly assure the reader is purely fictitious. Some one has lately
+sent me a copy of an interior paper containing an old obituary of
+Smith of Smith’s Pocket. Another correspondent writes to me that he
+was acquainted with the schoolmaster in the fall of ’49, and that
+they “grubbed together.” The editors of the serial in which this story
+appears assure me that they have received an advertisement from the
+landlord of the “National Hotel” contingent upon an editorial notice of
+its having been at one time the abode of M’liss; while an aunt of the
+heroine, alluding in excellent terms to the reformed character of her
+niece M’liss, clenches her sincerity by requesting the loan of twenty
+dollars to buy clothes for the desolate orphan.
+
+Under these circumstances I have hesitated to go on. What were the
+bodiless creatures of my fancy—the pale phantoms of thought, evoked
+in the solitude of my chamber, and sometimes even midst the hum of
+busy streets—have suddenly grown into flesh and blood, living people,
+protected by the laws of society, and having their legal right to
+actions for slander in any court. Worse than that, I have sometimes
+thought with terror of the new responsibility which might attach to my
+development of their characters. What if I were obliged to support
+and protect these Frankenstein monsters? What if the original of the
+principal villain of my story should feel impelled through aesthetic
+principles of art to work out in real life the supposititious denouement
+I have sketched for him?
+
+I have therefore concluded to lay aside my pen for this week,
+leaving the catastrophe impending, and await the suggestion of my
+correspondents. I do so the more cheerfully as it enables the editors
+of this weekly to publish twenty-seven more columns of Miss Braddon’s
+“Outcasts of Society” and the remainder of the “Duke’s Motto,”—two
+works which in the quiet simplicity of their home-like pictures and
+household incidents are attended with none of the difficulties which
+beset my unhappy story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CLEANING UP
+
+
+As the master, wan-eyed and unrefreshed by slumber, strayed the next
+morning among the blackened ruins of the fire, he was conscious of
+having undergone some strange revulsion of sentiment. What he remembered
+of the last evening’s events, though feverish and indistinct as a dream,
+and though, like a dream, without coherency or connected outline, had
+nevertheless seriously impressed him. How frivolous and trifling his
+past life and its pursuits looked through the lightning vista opened to
+his eyes by the flash of Waters’s pistol! “Suppose I had been killed,”
+ ruminated the master, “what then? A paragraph in the ‘Banner,’ headed
+‘Fatal Affray,’ and my name added to the already swollen list of victims
+to lawless violence and crime! Humph! A pretty scrape, truly!” And the
+master ground his teeth with vexation.
+
+Let not the reader judge him too hastily. In the best regulated mind,
+thankfulness for deliverance from danger is apt to be mingled with some
+doubts as to the necessity of the trial.
+
+In this frame of mind the last person he would have cared to meet was
+Clytie. That young woman’s evil genius, however, led her to pass the
+burnt district that morning. Perhaps she had anticipated the meeting. At
+all events, he had proceeded but a few steps before he was confronted by
+the identical round hat and cherry colored ribbons. But in his present
+humor the cheerful color somehow reminded him of the fire and of a ruddy
+stain over McSnagley’s heart, and invested the innocent Clytie with
+a figurative significance. Now Clytie’s reveries at that moment were
+pleasant, if the brightness of her eyes and the freshened color on her
+cheeks were any sign, and, as she had not seen the master since then,
+she naturally expected to take up the thread of romance where it had
+been dropped. But it required all her feminine tact to conceal her
+embarrassment at his formal greeting and constrained manner.
+
+“He is bashful,” reasoned Clytie to herself.
+
+“This girl is a tremendous fool,” growled the master inwardly.
+
+An awkward pause ensued. Finally, Clytie _loquitur_:—
+
+“M’liss has been missing since the fire!”
+
+“Missing?” echoed the master in his natural tone.
+
+Clytie bit her lip with vexation. “Yes, she’s always running away.
+She’ll be back again. But you look interested. Do you know,” she
+continued with exceeding archness, “I sometimes think, Mr. Gray, if
+M’liss were a little older”—
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, putting this and that together, you know!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“People will talk, you know,” continued Clytie, with that excessive
+fondness weak people exhibit in enveloping in mystery the commonest
+affairs of life.
+
+“People are d——d fools!” roared the master.
+
+The correct Clytie was a little shocked. Perhaps underneath it was a
+secret admiration of the transgressor. Force even of this cheap quality
+goes a good way with some natures.
+
+“That is,” continued the master, with an increase of dignity in inverse
+proportion to the lapse he had made, “people are apt to be mistaken,
+Miss Morpher, and without meaning it, to do infinite injustice to
+their fellow mortals. But I see I am detaining you. I will try and find
+Melissa. I wish you good-morning.” And Don Whiskerandos stalked solemnly
+away.
+
+Clytie turned red and white by turns, and her eyes filled with tears.
+This denouement to her dreams was utterly unexpected. While a girl of
+stronger character and active intelligence would have employed the time
+in digesting plans of future retaliation and revenge, Clytie’s dull
+brain and placid nature were utterly perplexed and shaken.
+
+“Dear me!” said Clytie to herself, as she started home, “if he don’t
+love me, why don’t he say so?”
+
+The master, or Mr. Gray, as we may now call him as he draws near the
+close of his professional career, took the old trail through the
+forest, which led to M’liss’s former hiding-place. He walked on briskly,
+revolving in his mind the feasibility of leaving Smith’s Pocket. The
+late disaster, which would affect the prosperity of the settlement for
+some time to come, offered an excuse to him to give up his situation.
+On searching his pockets he found his present capital to amount to ten
+dollars. This increased by forty dollars, due him from the trustees,
+would make fifty dollars; deduct thirty dollars for liabilities, and he
+would have twenty dollars left to begin the world anew. Youth and
+hope added an indefinite number of ciphers to the right hand of these
+figures, and in this sanguine mood our young Alnaschar walked on until
+he had reached the old pine throne in the bank of the forest. M’liss was
+not there. He sat down on the trunk of the tree, and for a few moments
+gave himself up to the associations it suggested. What would become of
+M’liss after he was gone? But he quickly dropped the subject as one too
+visionary and sentimental for his then fiercely practical consideration,
+and, to prevent the recurrence of such distracting fancies, began to
+retrace his steps toward the settlement. At the edge of the woods, at a
+point where the trail forked toward the old site of Smith’s Pocket, he
+saw M’liss coming toward him. Her ordinary pace on such occasions was
+a kind of Indian trot; to his surprise she was walking slowly, with her
+apron thrown over her head,—an indication of meditation with M’liss
+and the usual way in which she excluded the outer world in studying her
+lessons. When she was within a few feet of him he called her by name.
+She started as she recognized him. There was a shade of seriousness
+in her dark eyes, and the hand that took his was listless and totally
+unlike her old frank, energetic grasp.
+
+“You look worried, M’liss,” said Mr. Gray soothingly, as the old
+sentimental feeling crept over his heart. “What’s the matter now?”
+
+M’liss replied by seating herself on the bank beside the road, and
+pointed to a place by her side. Mr. Gray took the proffered seat. M’liss
+then, fixing her eyes on some distant part of the view, remained for
+some moments in silence. Then, without turning her head or moving her
+eyes, she asked:—
+
+“What’s that they call a girl that has money left her?”
+
+“An heiress, M’liss?”
+
+“Yes, an heiress.”
+
+“Well?” said Mr. Gray.
+
+“Well,” said M’liss, without moving her eyes, “I’m one,—I’m a heiress!”
+
+“What’s that, M’liss?” said Mr. Gray laughingly.
+
+M’liss was silent again. Suddenly turning her eyes full upon him, she
+said:—
+
+“Can you keep a secret?”
+
+“Yes,” said Mr. Gray, beginning to be impressed by the child’s manner.
+“Listen, then.”
+
+In short quick sentences, M’liss began. How Aristides had several times
+hinted of the concealed riches of Smith’s Pocket. How he had last night
+repeated the story to her of a strange discovery he had made. How she
+remembered to have heard her father often swear that there was money “in
+that hole,” if he only had means to work it. How, partly impressed by
+this statement and partly from curiosity and pity for the prisoner, she
+had visited him in confinement. An account of her interview, the origin
+of the fire, her flight with Waters. (_Questions_ by Mr. Gray: What was
+your object in assisting this man to escape? _Ans_. They were going to
+kill him. _Ques_. Hadn’t he killed McSnagley. _Ans_. Yes, but McSnagley
+ought to have been killed long ago.) How she had taken leave of him that
+morning. How he had come back again “silly.” How she had dragged him
+on toward the Wingdam road, and how he had told her that all the hidden
+wealth of Smith’s Pocket had belonged to her father. How she had found
+out, from some questions, that he had known her father. But how all his
+other answers were “silly.”
+
+“And where is he now?” asked Mr. Gray.
+
+“Gone,” said M’liss. “I left him at the edge of the wood to go back
+and get some provisions, and when I returned he was gone. If he had any
+senses left, he’s miles away by this time. When he was off I went back
+to Smith’s Pocket. I found the hidden opening and saw the gold.”
+
+Mr. Gray looked at her curiously. He had, in his more intimate knowledge
+of her character, noticed the unconcern with which she spoke of the
+circumstances of her father’s death and the total lack of any sentiment
+of filial regard. The idea that this man whom she had aided in escaping
+had ever done her injury had not apparently entered her mind, nor did
+Mr. Gray think it necessary to hint the deeper suspicion he had gathered
+from Dr. Duchesne that Waters had murdered her father. If the story
+of the concealed treasures of Smith’s Pocket were exaggerated he could
+easily satisfy himself on that point. M’liss met his suggestion to
+return to the Pocket with alacrity, and the two started away in that
+direction.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Mr. Gray returned. His heightened
+color and eager inquiry for Dr. Duchesne provoked the usual hope from
+the people that he met “that it was nothing serious.” No, nothing was
+the matter, the master answered with a slight laugh, but would they send
+the doctor to his schoolhouse when he returned? “That young chap’s worse
+than he thinks,” was one sympathizing suggestion; “this kind of life’s
+too rough for his sort.”
+
+To while away the interim, Mr. Gray stopped on his way to the
+schoolhouse at the stage office as the Wingdam stage drew up and
+disgorged its passengers. He was listlessly watching the passengers as
+they descended when a soft voice from the window addressed him, “May I
+trouble you for your arm as I get down?” Mr. Gray looked up. It was a
+singular request, as the driver was at that moment standing by the door,
+apparently for that purpose. But the request came from a handsome woman,
+and with a bow the young man stepped to the door. The lady laid her hand
+lightly on his arm, sprang from the stage with a dexterity that showed
+the service to have been merely ceremonious, thanked him with an
+elaboration of acknowledgment which seemed equally gratuitous, and
+disappeared in the office.
+
+“That’s what I call a dead set,” said the driver, drawing a long breath,
+as he turned to Mr. Gray, who stood in some embarrassment. “Do you know
+her?”
+
+“No,” said Mr. Gray laughingly, “do you?”
+
+“Nary time! But take care of yourself, young man; she’s after you,
+sure!”
+
+But Mr. Gray was continuing his walk to the schoolhouse, unmindful of
+the caution. For the momentary glimpse he had caught of this woman’s
+face, she appeared to be about thirty. Her dress, though tasteful and
+elegant, in the present condition of California society afforded no
+criterion of her social status. But the figure of Dr. Duchesne waiting
+for him at the schoolhouse door just then usurped the place of all
+others, and she dropped out of his mind.
+
+“Now then,” said the doctor, as the young man grasped his hand, “you
+want me to tell you why your eyes are bloodshot, why your cheeks burn,
+and your hand is dry and hot?”
+
+“Not exactly! Perhaps you’ll understand the symptoms better when you’ve
+heard my story. Sit down here and listen.”
+
+The doctor took the proffered seat on top of a desk, and Mr. Gray,
+after assuring himself that they were entirely alone, related the
+circumstances he had gathered from M’liss that morning.
+
+“You see, doctor, how unjust were your surmises in regard to this girl,”
+ continued Mr. Gray. “But let that pass now. At the conclusion of her
+story, I offered to go with her to this Ali Baba cave. It was no easy
+job finding the concealed entrance, but I found it at last, and ample
+corroboration of every item of this wild story. The pocket is rich with
+the most valuable ore. It has evidently been worked for some time since
+the discovery was made, but there is still a fortune in its walls, and
+several thousand dollars of ore sacked up in its galleries. Look at
+that!” continued Mr. Gray, as he drew an oblong mass of quartz and metal
+from his pocket. “Think of a secret of this kind having been intrusted
+for three weeks to a penniless orphan girl of twelve and an eccentric
+schoolboy of ten, and undivulged except when a proper occasion offered.”
+
+Dr. Duchesne smiled. “And Waters is really clear?”
+
+“Yes,” said Mr. Gray.
+
+“And M’liss assisted him to escape?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, you are an innocent one! And you see nothing in this but an act
+of thoughtless generosity? No assisting of an old accomplice to escape?”
+
+“I see nothing but truth in her statement,” returned Mr. Gray stoutly.
+“If there has been any wrong committed, I believe her to be innocent of
+its knowledge.”
+
+“Well, I’m glad at least the money goes to her and not to him. But how
+are you to establish her right to this property?”
+
+“That was my object in conferring with you. At present the claim is
+abandoned. I have taken up the ground in my own name (for her), and this
+afternoon I posted up the usual notice.”
+
+“Go on. You are not so much of a fool, after all.”
+
+“Thank you! This will hold until a better claim is established. Now, if
+Smith had discovered this lead, and was, as the lawyers say, ‘seized and
+possessed’ of it at the time of his death, M’liss, of course, as next of
+kin, inherits it.”
+
+“But how can this be proved? It is the general belief that Smith
+committed suicide through extreme poverty and destitution.”
+
+Mr. Gray drew a letter from his pocket.
+
+“You remember the memorandum I showed you, which came into my
+possession. Here it is; it is dated the day of his death.”
+
+Dr. Duchesne took it and read:—
+
+“July 17th. Five hours in drift—dipping west. Took out 20 oz.—cleaned
+up 40 oz.—Mem. Saw M. S.”
+
+“This evidently refers to actual labor in the mine at the time,” said
+Dr. Duchesne. “But is it legally sufficient to support a claim of this
+magnitude? That is the only question now. You say this paper was the
+leaf of an old memorandum, torn off and used for a letter by M’liss; do
+you know where the orignal book can be found?”
+
+“Aristides has it, or knows where it is,” answered Mr. Gray.
+
+“Find it by all means. And get legal advice before you do anything.
+Go this very evening to Judge Plunkett and state your case to him. The
+promise of a handsome contingent fee won’t hurt M’liss’s prospects any.
+Remember, our ideas of abstract justice and the letter of the law in
+this case may be entirely different. Take Judge Plunkett your proofs;
+that is,” said the Doctor, stopping and eying his friend keenly,
+“if you have no fears for M’liss if this matter should be thoroughly
+ventilated.”
+
+Mr. Gray did not falter.
+
+“I go at once,” said he gayly, “if only to prove the child’s claim to a
+good name if we fail in getting her property.”
+
+The two men left the schoolhouse together. As they reached the main
+street, the doctor paused:—
+
+“You are still determined?”
+
+“I am,” responded the young man.
+
+“Good-night, and God speed you, then,” and the doctor left him.
+
+The fire had been particularly severe on the legal fraternity in the
+settlement, and Judge Plunkett’s office, together with those of his
+learned brethren, had been consumed with the courthouse on the previous
+night. The judge’s house was on the outskirts of the village, and
+thither Mr. Gray proceeded. The judge was at home, but engaged at that
+moment. Mr. Gray would wait, and was ushered into a small room evidently
+used as a kitchen, but just then littered with law books, bundles
+of papers, and blanks that had been hastily rescued from the burning
+building. The sideboard groaned with the weight of several volumes of
+New York Reports, that seemed to impart a dusty flavor to the adjoining
+victual. Mr. Gray picked up a volume of supreme court decisions from the
+coal-scuttle, and was deep in an interesting case, when the door of the
+adjoining room opened and Judge Plunkett appeared.
+
+He was an oily man of about fifty, with spectacles. He was glad to see
+the schoolmaster. He hoped he was not suffering from the excitement
+of the previous evening. For his part, the spectacle of sober citizens
+rising in a body to vindicate the insulted majesty of the laws of
+society, and of man, had always something sublime in it. And the
+murderer had really got away after all. And it was a narrow escape the
+schoolmaster had, too, at Smith’s Pocket.
+
+Mr. Gray took advantage of the digression to state his business. He
+briefly recounted the circumstances of the discovery of the hidden
+wealth of Smith’s Pocket, and exhibited the memorandum he had shown the
+doctor. When he had concluded, Judge Plunkett looked at him over his
+spectacles, and rubbed his hands with satisfaction.
+
+“You apprehend,” said the judge eagerly, “that you will have no
+difficulty in procuring this book from which the leaf was originally
+torn?”
+
+“None,” replied Mr. Gray.
+
+“Then, sir, I should give as my professional opinion that the case was
+already won.”
+
+Mr. Gray shook the hand of the little man with great fervor, and thanked
+him for his belief. “And so this property will go entirely to M’liss?”
+ he asked again.
+
+“Well—ah—no—not exactly,” said Judge Plunkett, with some caution.
+“She will benefit by it undoubtedly—undoubtedly,” and he rubbed his
+hands again.
+
+“Why not M’liss alone? There are no other claimants!” said Mr. Gray.
+
+“I beg your pardon—you mistake,” said Judge Plunkett, with a smile.
+“You surely would not leave out the widow and mother?”
+
+“Why, M’liss is an orphan,” said Mr. Gray in utter bewilderment.
+
+“A sad mistake, sir,—a painful though natural mistake. Mr. Smith,
+though separated from his wife, was never divorced. A very affecting
+history—the old story, you know—an injured and loving woman deserted
+by her natural protector, but disdaining to avail herself of our
+legal aid. By a singular coincidence that I should have told you, I am
+anticipating you in this very case. Your services, however, I feel will
+be invaluable. Your concern for her amiable and interesting daughter
+Narcissa—ah, no, Melissa—will, of course, make you with us. You have
+never seen Mrs. Smith? A fine-looking, noble woman, sir,—though still
+disconsolate,—still thinking of the departed one. By another singular
+coincidence that I should have told you, she is here now. You shall
+see her, sir. Pray, let me introduce you;” and still rubbing his hands,
+Judge Plunkett led the way to the adjoining room.
+
+Mr. Gray followed him mechanically. A handsome woman rose from the sofa
+as they entered. It was the woman he assisted to alight from the Wingdam
+stage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE RED ROCK
+
+
+In the strong light that fell upon her face, Mr. Gray had an opportunity
+to examine her features more closely. Her eyes, which were dark and
+singularly brilliant, were half closed, either from some peculiar
+conformation of the lids, or an habitual effort to conceal expression.
+Her skin was colorless with that satin-like lustre that belongs to some
+brunettes, relieved by one or two freckles that were scarcely blemishes.
+Her face was squared a little at the lower angles, but the chin was
+round and soft, and the curves about the mouth were full and tender
+enough to destroy the impression left by contemplation of those rigid
+outlines. The effect of its general contour was that of a handsome woman
+of thirty. In detail, as the eye dwelt upon any particular feature, you
+could have added a margin of ten years either way.
+
+“Mrs. Smith—Mr. Gray,” said the lawyer briskly. “Mr. Gray is the
+gentleman who, since the decease of your husband, has taken such a
+benevolent interest in our playful Narcissa—Melissa, I should say.
+He is the preceptor of our district school, and beside his relation as
+teacher to your daughter has, I may say in our legal fashion, stood _in
+loco parentis_—in other words, has been a parent, a—a—father to her.”
+
+At the conclusion of this speech Mrs. Smith darted a quick glance at Mr.
+Gray, which was unintelligible to any but a woman. As there were none of
+her own keen-witted sex present to make an ungracious interpretation of
+it, it passed unnoticed, except the slight embarrassment and confusion
+it caused the young man from its apparent gratuity.
+
+“We have met before, I believe,” said Mrs. Smith, with her bright eyes
+half hid and her white teeth half disclosed. “I can easily imagine Mr.
+Gray’s devotion to a friend from his courtesy to a stranger. Let me
+thank you again for both my daughter and myself.”
+
+In the desperate hope of saying something natural, Mr. Gray asked if she
+had seen Melissa yet.
+
+“Oh, dear, no! Think how provoking! Judge Plunkett says it is absolutely
+impossible till some tiresome formalities are over. There are so many
+stupid forms to go through with first. But how is she? You have seen
+her, have you not? you will see her again to-night, perhaps? How I long
+to embrace her again! She was a mere baby when she left me. Tell her how
+I long to fly to her.”
+
+Her impassioned utterance and the dramatic gestures that accompanied
+these words afforded a singular contrast to the cool way with which she
+rearranged the folds of her dress when she had finished, folding her
+hands over her lap and settling herself unmistakably back again on the
+sofa. Perhaps it was this that made Mr. Gray think she had, at some
+time, been an actress. But the next moment he caught her eye again and
+felt pleased,—and again vexed with himself for being so,—and in
+this mental condition began to speak in favor of his old pupil. His
+embarrassment passed away as he warmed with his subject, dwelling at
+length on M’liss’s better qualities, and did not return until in a
+breathless pause he became aware that this woman’s bright eyes were bent
+upon him. The color rose in his cheek, and with a half-muttered apology
+for his prolixity he offered his excuses to retire.
+
+“Stay a moment, Mr. Gray,” said the lawyer. “You are going to town, and
+will not think it a trouble to see Mrs. Smith safely back to her
+hotel. You can talk these things over with our fair friend on the way.
+To-morrow, at ten, I trust to see you both again.”
+
+“Perhaps I am taxing Mr. Gray’s gallantry too much,” interposed the lady
+with a very vivid disclosure of eyes and teeth. “Mr. Gray would be
+only too happy.” After he had uttered this civility, there was a slight
+consciousness of truth about it that embarrassed him again. But Mrs.
+Smith took his proffered arm, and they bade the lawyer good-night and
+passed out in the starlit night together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four weeks have elapsed since the advent of Mrs. Smith to the
+settlement,—four weeks that might have been years in any other but a
+California mining camp, for the wonderful change that has been wrought
+in its physical aspect. Each stage has brought its load of fresh
+adventurers; another hotel, which sprang up on the site of the National,
+has its new landlord, and a new set of faces about its hospitable board,
+where the conventional bean appears daily as a modest vegetable or in
+the insincerer form of coffee. The sawmills have been hard at work for
+the last month, and huge gaps appear in the circling files of redwood
+where the fallen trees are transmuted to a new style of existence in the
+damp sappy tenements that have risen over the burnt district. The “great
+strike” at Smith’s Pocket has been heralded abroad, and above and below,
+and on either side of the crumbling tunnel that bears that name, as
+other tunnels are piercing the bowels of the mountain, shafts are being
+sunk, and claims are taken up even to the crest of Red Mountain, in the
+hope of striking the great Smith lead. Already an animated discussion
+has sprung up in the columns of the “Red Mountain Banner” in regard
+to the direction of the famous lead,—a discussion assisted by
+correspondents who have assumed all the letters of the alphabet in their
+anonymous arguments, and have formed the opposing “angle” and “dip”
+ factions of Smith’s Pocket. But whatever be the direction of the lead,
+the progress of the settlement has been steadily onward, with an impetus
+gained by the late disaster. That classical but much abused bird, the
+Phoenix, has been invoked from its ashes in several editorials in the
+“Banner,” to sit as a type of resuscitated Smith’s Pocket, while in
+the homelier phrase of an honest miner “it seemed as if the fire kem to
+kinder clean out things for a fresh start.”
+
+Meanwhile the quasi-legal administration of the estate of Smith is
+drawing near a termination that seems to credit the prophetic assertion
+of Judge Plunkett. One fact has been evolved in the process of
+examination, viz., that Smith had discovered the new lead before he was
+murdered. It was a fair hypothesis that the man who assumed the benefit
+of his discovery was the murderer, but as this did not immediately
+involve the settlement of the estate it excited little comment or
+opposition. The probable murderer had escaped. Judicial investigations
+even in the hands of the people had been attended with disastrous public
+results, and there was no desire on the part of justice to open the case
+and deal with an abstract principle when there was no opportunity of
+making an individual example. The circumstances were being speedily
+forgotten in the new excitement; even the presence of Mrs. Smith lost
+its novelty. The “Banner,” when alluding to her husband, spoke of him as
+the “late J. Smith, Esq.,” attributing the present activity of business
+as the result of his lifelong example of untiring energy, and generally
+laid the foundation of a belief, which thereafter obtained, that he
+died comfortably in the bosom of his family, surrounded by disconsolate
+friends. The history of all pioneer settlements has this legendary
+basis, and M’liss may live to see the day when her father’s connection
+with the origin of the settlement shall become apocryphal, and contested
+like that of Romulus and Remus and their wolfish wet-nurse.
+
+It is to the everlasting credit and honor of Smith’s Pocket that the
+orphan and widow meet no opposition from the speculative community, and
+that the claim’s utmost boundaries are liberally rendered. How far
+this circumstance may be owing to the rare personal attractions of the
+charming widow or to M’liss’s personal popularity, I shall not pretend
+to say. It is enough that when the brief of Judge Plunkett’s case
+is ready there are clouds of willing witnesses to substantiate and
+corroborate doubtful points to an extent that is more creditable to
+their generosity than their veracity.
+
+M’liss has seen her mother. Mr. Gray, with his knowledge of his pupil’s
+impulsiveness, has been surprised to notice that the new relationship
+seems to awaken none of those emotions in the child’s nature that he
+confidently looked for. On the occasion of their first meeting, to
+which Mr. Gray was admitted, M’liss maintained a guarded shyness totally
+different from her usual frank boldness,—a shyness that was the more
+remarkable from its contrast with the unrepressed and somewhat dramatic
+emotions of Mrs. Smith. Now, under her mother’s protection and care, he
+observes another radical change in M’liss’s appearance. She is dressed
+more tastefully and neatly—not entirely the result of a mother’s
+influence, but apparently the result of some natural instinct now
+for the first time indulged, and exhibited in a ribbon or a piece of
+jewelry, worn with a certain air of consciousness. There is a more
+strict attention to the conventionalities of life; her speech is more
+careful and guarded; her walk, literally, more womanly and graceful.
+Those things Mr. Gray naturally attributes to the influence of the new
+relation, though he cannot help recalling his meeting with M’liss in the
+woods, on the morning of the fire, and of dating many of these changes
+from thence.
+
+It is a pleasant morning, and Mr. Gray is stirring early. He has been
+busied in preparation the night previous, for this is his last day
+in Smith’s Pocket. He lingers for some time about the schoolhouse,
+gathering up those little trifles which lie about his desk, which have
+each a separate history in his experience of Smith’s Pocket, and are
+a part of the incrustations of his life. Lastly, a file of the “Red
+Mountain Banner,” is taken from the same receptacle and packed away in
+his bag. He walks to the door and turns to look back. Has he forgotten
+anything? No, nothing. But still he lingers. He wonders who will
+take his place at the desk, and for the first time in his pedagogue
+experience, perhaps, feels something of an awful responsibility as he
+thinks of his past influence over the wretched little beings who used to
+tremble at his nod, and whose future, ill or good, he may have helped
+to fashion. At last he closes the door, almost tenderly, and walks
+thoughtfully down the road. He has to pass the cabin of an Irish miner,
+whose little boy is toddling in the ditch, with a pinafore, hands,
+and face in a chronic state of untidiness. Mr. Gray seizes him with
+an hilarious impulse, and after a number of rapid journeys to Banbury
+Cross, in search of an old woman who mounted a mythical white horse, he
+kisses the cleanest place on his broad expanse of cheek, presses some
+silver into his chubby fist, tells him to be a good boy, and deposits
+him in the ditch again. Having in this youthful way atoned for certain
+sins of omission a little further back, he proceeds, with a sense of
+perfect absolution, on his way to the settlement.
+
+A few hours lie between him and his departure, to be employed in
+friendly visits to Mrs. Morpher, Dr. Duchesne, M’liss, and her mother.
+The Mountain Ranch is nearest, and thither Mr. Gray goes first. Mrs.
+Morpher, over a kneading-trough, with her bare arm whitened with flour,
+is genuinely grieved at parting with the master, and, in spite of Mr.
+Gray’s earnest remonstrances, insists upon conducting him into the chill
+parlor, leaving him there until she shall have attired herself in a
+manner becoming to “company.” “I don’t want you to go at all—no more
+I don’t,” says Mrs. Morpher, with all sincerity, as she seats herself
+finally on the shining horsehair sofa. “The children will miss you. I
+don’t believe that any one will do for Risty, Kerg, and Clytie what you
+have done. But I suppose you know best what’s best. Young men like to
+see the world, and it ain’t expected one so young as you should settle
+down yet. That’s what I was telling Clytie this morning. That was just
+the way with my John afore he was married. I suppose you’ll see M’liss
+and _her_ before you go. They say that she is going to San Francisco
+soon. Is it so?”
+
+Mr. Gray understands the personal pronoun to refer to Mrs. Smith, a
+title Mrs. Morpher has never granted M’liss’s mother, for whom she
+entertains an instinctive dislike. He answers in the affirmative,
+however, with the consciousness of uneasiness under the inquiry; and as
+the answer does not seem to please Mrs. Morpher, he is constrained to
+commend M’liss’s manifest improvement under her mother’s care.
+
+“Well” says Mrs. Morpher, with a significant sigh, “I hope it’s so; but
+bless us, where’s Clytie? You mustn’t go without saying ‘good-by’ to
+her” and Mrs. Morpher starts away in search of her daughter.
+
+The dining-room door scarcely closes before the bedroom door opens, and
+Clytie crosses the parlor softly with something in her hands. “You are
+going now?” she says hurriedly.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Will you take this?” putting a sealed package into his hand, “and keep
+it without opening it until”—
+
+“Until when, Clytie?”
+
+“Until you are married.”
+
+Mr. Gray laughs.
+
+“Promise me,” repeats Clytie.
+
+“But I may expire in the mean time, through sheer curiosity.”
+
+“Promise!” says Clytie gravely.
+
+“I promise, then.”
+
+Mr. Gray receives the package. “Good-by,” says Clytie softly.
+
+Clytie’s rosy cheek is very near Mr. Gray. There is nobody by. He is
+going away. It is the last time. He kisses her just before the door
+opens again to Mrs. Morpher.
+
+Another shake of hands all around, and Mr. Gray passes out of the
+Mountain Ranch forever.
+
+Dr. Duchesne’s office is near at hand; but for some reason, that Mr.
+Gray cannot entirely explain to himself, he prefers to go to Mrs.
+Smith’s first. The little cottage which they have taken temporarily is
+soon reached, and as the young man stands at the door he re-knots the
+bow of his cravat, and passes his fingers through his curls,—trifles
+that to Dr. Duchesne or any other critical, middle-aged person might
+look bad.
+
+M’liss and Mrs. Smith are both at home. They have been waiting for him
+so long. Was it that pretty daughter of Mrs. Morpher—the fair young
+lady with blond curls,—who caused the detention? Is not Mr. Gray a sly
+young fellow for all his seeming frankness? So he must go to-day? He
+cannot possibly wait a few days, and go with them? Thus Mrs. Smith,
+between her red lips and white teeth, and under her half-closed eyes;
+for M’liss stands quietly apart without speaking. Her reserve during the
+interview contrasts with the vivacity of her mother as though they had
+changed respective places in relationship. Mr. Gray is troubled by this,
+and as he rises to go, he takes M’liss’s hand in his.
+
+“Have you nothing to say to me before I go?” he asks.
+
+“Good-by,” answers M’liss.
+
+“Nothing more?”
+
+“That’s enough,” rejoins the child simply.
+
+Mr. Gray bites his lips. “I may never see you again, you know, Melissa,”
+ he continues.
+
+“You will see us again,” says M’liss quietly, raising her great dark
+eyes to his.
+
+The blood mounted to his cheek and crimsoned his forehead. He was
+conscious, too, that the mother’s face had taken fire at his own, as she
+walked away toward the window.
+
+“Good-by, then,” said Mr. Gray pettishly, as he stooped to kiss her.
+
+M’liss accepted the salute stoically. Mr. Gray took Mrs. Smith’s hand;
+her face had resumed its colorless, satin-like sheen.
+
+“M’liss knows the strength of your good will, and makes her calculations
+accordingly. I hope she may not be mistaken,” she said, with a languid
+tenderness of voice and eye. The young man bent over her outstretched
+hand, and withdrew as the Wingdam stage noisily rattled up before the
+National Hotel.
+
+There was but little time left to spend with Dr. Duchesne, so the
+physician walked with him to the stage office. There were a few of
+the old settlers lounging by the stage, who had discerned, just as
+the master was going away, how much they liked him. Mr. Gray had gone
+through the customary bibulous formula of leave-taking; with a hearty
+shake of the doctor’s hand, and a promise to write, he climbed to the
+box of the stage. “All aboard!” cried the driver, and with a preliminary
+bound, the stage rolled down Main Street.
+
+Mr. Gray remained buried in thought as they rolled through the town,
+each object in passing recalling some incident of his past experience.
+The stage had reached the outskirts of the settlement when he detected
+a well-known little figure running down a by-trail to intersect the road
+before the stage had passed. He called the driver’s attention to it, and
+as they drew up at the crossing Aristides’s short legs and well-known
+features were plainly discernible through the dust. He was holding in
+his hand a letter.
+
+“Well, my little man, what is it?” said the driver impatiently.
+
+“A letter for the master,” gasped the exhausted child.
+
+“Give it here!—Any answer?”
+
+“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Gray.
+
+“Look sharp, then, and get your billet duxis before you go next time.”
+
+Mr. Gray hurriedly broke the seal and read these words:
+
+  Judge Plunkett has just returned from the county seat.   Our case is
+  won. We leave here next week.    J.S.
+
+  P.S. Have you got my address in San Francisco?
+
+“Any answer?” said the driver.
+
+“None.”
+
+“Get up!”
+
+And the stage rolled away from Smith’s Pocket, leaving the just
+Aristides standing in the dust of its triumphal wheels.
+
+
+
+
+HIGH-WATER MARK
+
+
+When the tide was out on the Dedlow Marsh, its extended dreariness
+was patent. Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools, and
+tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open
+bay, were all hard facts. So were the few green tussocks, with their
+scant blades, their amphibious flavor, and unpleasant dampness. And
+if you chose to indulge your fancy,—although the flat monotony of the
+Dedlow Marsh was not inspiring,—the wavy line of scattered drift gave
+an unpleasant consciousness of the spent waters, and made the dead
+certainty of the returning tide a gloomy reflection, which no present
+sunshine could dissipate. The greener meadow-land seemed oppressed with
+this idea, and made no positive attempt at vegetation until the work of
+reclamation should be complete. In the bitter fruit of the low cranberry
+bushes one might fancy he detected a naturally sweet disposition curdled
+and soured by an injudicious course of too much regular cold water.
+
+The vocal expression of the Dedlow Marsh was also melancholy and
+depressing. The sepulchral boom of the bittern, the shriek of the
+curlew, the scream of passing brant, the wrangling of quarrelsome
+teal, the sharp querulous protest of the startled crane, and syllabled
+complaint of the “killdeer” plover were beyond the power of written
+expression. Nor was the aspect of these mournful fowls at all cheerful
+and inspiring. Certainly not the blue heron, standing midleg deep in the
+water, obviously catching cold in a reckless disregard of wet feet
+and consequences; nor the mournful curlew, the dejected plover, or
+the low-spirited snipe, who saw fit to join him in his suicidal
+contemplation; nor the impassive kingfisher—an ornithological
+Marius—reviewing the desolate expanse; nor the black raven that went to
+and fro over the face of the marsh continually, but evidently couldn’t
+make up his mind whether the waters had subsided, and felt low-spirited
+in the reflection that after all this trouble he wouldn’t be able to
+give a definite answer. On the contrary, it was evident at a glance that
+the dreary expanse of Dedlow Marsh told unpleasantly on the birds, and
+that the season of migration was looked forward to with a feeling
+of relief and satisfaction by the full grown, and of extravagant
+anticipation by the callow brood. But if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless at
+the slack of the low tide, you should have seen it when the tide was
+strong and full. When the damp air blew chilly over the cold glittering
+expanse, and came to the faces of those who looked seaward like another
+tide; when a steel-like glint marked the low hollows and the sinuous
+line of slough; when the great shell-incrusted trunks of fallen trees
+arose again, and went forth on their dreary purposeless wanderings,
+drifting hither and thither, but getting no farther toward any goal
+at the falling tide or the day’s decline than the cursed Hebrew in the
+legend; when the glossy ducks swung silently, making neither ripple nor
+furrow on the shimmering surface; when the fog came in with the tide and
+shut out the blue above, even as the green below had been obliterated;
+when boatmen, lost in that fog, paddling about in a hopeless way,
+started at what seemed the brushing of mermen’s fingers on the boat’s
+keel, or shrank from the tufts of grass spreading around like the
+floating hair of a corpse, and knew by these signs that they were lost
+upon Dedlow Marsh, and must make a night of it, and a gloomy one at
+that,—then you might know something of Dedlow Marsh at high water.
+
+Let me recall a story connected with this latter view which never failed
+to recur to my mind in my long gunning excursions upon Dedlow Marsh.
+Although the event was briefly recorded in the county paper, I had the
+story, in all its eloquent detail, from the lips of the principal actor.
+I cannot hope to catch the varying emphasis and peculiar coloring of
+feminine delineation, for my narrator was a woman; but I’ll try to give
+at least its substance.
+
+She lived midway of the great slough of Dedlow Marsh and a good-sized
+river, which debouched four miles beyond into an estuary formed by
+the Pacific Ocean, on the long sandy peninsula which constituted the
+southwestern boundary of a noble bay. The house in which she lived was
+a small frame cabin raised from the marsh a few feet by stout piles, and
+was three miles distant from the settlements upon the river. Her husband
+was a logger,—a profitable business in a county where the principal
+occupation was the manufacture of lumber.
+
+It was the season of early spring, when her husband left on the ebb of a
+high tide with a raft of logs for the usual transportation to the lower
+end of the bay. As she stood by the door of the little cabin when the
+voyagers departed, she noticed a cold look in the southeastern sky, and
+she remembered hearing her husband say to his companions that they
+must endeavor to complete their voyage before the coming of the
+southwesterly gale which he saw brewing. And that night it began to
+storm and blow harder than she had ever before experienced, and some
+great trees fell in the forest by the river, and the house rocked like
+her baby’s cradle.
+
+But however the storm might roar about the little cabin, she knew that
+one she trusted had driven bolt and bar with his own strong hand, and
+that had he feared for her he would not have left her. This, and her
+domestic duties, and the care of her little sickly baby, helped to keep
+her mind from dwelling on the weather, except, of course, to hope that
+he was safely harbored with the logs at Utopia in the dreary distance.
+But she noticed that day, when she went out to feed the chickens and
+look after the cow, that the tide was up to the little fence of their
+garden patch, and the roar of the surf on the south beach, though miles
+away, she could hear distinctly. And she began to think that she would
+like to have some one to talk with about matters, and she believed that
+if it had not been so far and so stormy, and the trail so impassable,
+she would have taken the baby and have gone over to Ryekman’s, her
+nearest neighbor. But then, you see, he might have returned in the
+storm, all wet, with no one to see to him; and it was a long exposure
+for baby, who was croupy and ailing.
+
+But that night, she never could tell why, she didn’t feel like sleeping
+or even lying down. The storm had somewhat abated, but she still “sat
+and sat,” and even tried to read. I don’t know whether it was a Bible or
+some profane magazine that this poor woman read, but most probably the
+latter, for the words all ran together and made such sad nonsense that
+she was forced at last to put the book down and turn to that dearer
+volume which lay before her in the cradle, with its white initial leaf
+as yet unsoiled, and try to look forward to its mysterious future. And,
+rocking the cradle, she thought of everything and everybody, but still
+was wide awake as ever.
+
+It was nearly twelve o’clock when she at last lay down in her clothes.
+How long she slept she could not remember, but she awoke with a dreadful
+choking in her throat, and found herself standing, trembling all over,
+in the middle of the room, with her baby clasped to her breast, and she
+was “saying something.” The baby cried and sobbed, and she walked up
+and down trying to hush it, when she heard a scratching at the door.
+She opened it fearfully, and was glad to see it was only old Pete, their
+dog, who crawled, dripping with water, into the room. She would have
+liked to look out, not in the faint hope of her husband’s coming, but to
+see how things looked; but the wind shook the door so savagely that she
+could hardly hold it. Then she sat down a little while, and then walked
+up and down a little while, and then she lay down again a little while.
+Lying close by the wall of the little cabin, she thought she heard
+once or twice something scrape slowly against the clapboards, like the
+scraping of branches. Then there was a little gurgling sound, “like the
+baby made when it was swallowing;” then something went “click-click”
+ and “cluck-cluck,” so that she sat up in bed. When she did so she was
+attracted by something else that seemed creeping from the back door
+toward the centre of the room. It wasn’t much wider than her little
+finger, but soon it swelled to the width of her hand, and began
+spreading all over the floor. It was water!
+
+She ran to the front door and threw it wide open, and saw nothing but
+water. She ran to the back door and threw it open, and saw nothing
+but water. She ran to the side window, and throwing that open, she saw
+nothing but water. Then she remembered hearing her husband once say that
+there was no danger in the tide, for that fell regularly, and people
+could calculate on it, and that he would rather live near the bay than
+the river, whose banks might overflow at any time. But was it the tide?
+So she ran again to the back door, and threw out a stick of wood. It
+drifted away towards the bay. She scooped up some of the water and put
+it eagerly to her lips. It was fresh and sweet. It was the river, and
+not the tide!
+
+It was then—oh, God be praised for his goodness! she did neither faint
+nor fall; it was then—blessed be the Saviour, for it was his merciful
+hand that touched and strengthened her in this awful moment—that fear
+dropped from her like a garment, and her trembling ceased. It was then
+and thereafter that she never lost her self-command, through all the
+trials of that gloomy night.
+
+She drew the bedstead toward the middle of the room, and placed a table
+upon it, and on that she put the cradle. The water on the floor
+was already over her ankles, and the house once or twice moved so
+perceptibly, and seemed to be racked so, that the closet doors all flew
+open. Then she heard the same rasping and thumping against the wall,
+and, looking out, saw that a large uprooted tree, which had lain near
+the road at the upper end of the pasture, had floated down to the house.
+Luckily its long roots dragged in the soil and kept it from moving as
+rapidly as the current, for had it struck the house in its full career,
+even the strong nails and bolts in the piles could not have withstood
+the shock. The hound had leaped upon its knotty surface, and crouched
+near the roots, shivering and whining. A ray of hope flashed across her
+mind. She drew a heavy blanket from the bed, and, wrapping it about
+the babe, waded in the deepening waters to the door. As the tree swung
+again, broadside on, making the little cabin creak and tremble, she
+leaped on to its trunk. By God’s mercy she succeeded in obtaining a
+footing on its slippery surface, and, twining an arm about its roots,
+she held in the other her moaning child. Then something cracked near the
+front porch, and the whole front of the house she had just quitted fell
+forward,—just as cattle fall on their knees before they lie down,—and
+at the same moment the great redwood tree swung round and drifted away
+with its living cargo into the black night.
+
+For all the excitement and danger, for all her soothing of her crying
+babe, for all the whistling of the wind, for all the uncertainty of
+her situation, she still turned to look at the deserted and water-swept
+cabin. She remembered even then, and she wondered how foolish she was to
+think of it at that time, that she wished she had put on another dress
+and the baby’s best clothes; and she kept praying that the house would
+be spared so that he, when he returned, would have something to come to,
+and it wouldn’t be quite so desolate, and—how could he ever know what
+had become of her and baby? And at the thought she grew sick and faint.
+But she had something else to do besides worrying, for whenever the
+long roots of her ark struck an obstacle the whole trunk made half a
+revolution, and twice dipped her in the black water. The hound, who kept
+distracting her by running up and down the tree and howling, at last
+fell off at one of these collisions. He swam for some time beside her,
+and she tried to get the poor beast upon the tree, but he “acted silly”
+ and wild, and at last she lost sight of him forever. Then she and her
+baby were left alone. The light which had burned for a few minutes
+in the deserted cabin was quenched suddenly. She could not then
+tell whither she was drifting. The outline of the white dunes on the
+peninsula showed dimly ahead, and she judged the tree was moving in a
+line with the river. It must be about slack water, and she had
+probably reached the eddy formed by the confluence of the tide and the
+overflowing waters of the river. Unless the tide fell soon, there was
+present danger of her drifting to its channel, and being carried out to
+sea or crushed in the floating drift. That peril averted, if she were
+carried out on the ebb toward the bay, she might hope to strike one
+of the wooded promontories of the peninsula, and rest till daylight.
+Sometimes she thought she heard voices and shouts from the river, and
+the bellowing of cattle and bleating of sheep. Then again it was only
+the ringing in her ears and throbbing of her heart. She found at about
+this time that she was so chilled and stiffened in her cramped position
+that she could scarcely move, and the baby cried so when she put it to
+her breast that she noticed the milk refused to flow; and she was so
+frightened at that that she put her head under her shawl, and for the
+first time cried bitterly.
+
+When she raised her head again the boom of the surf was behind her, and
+she knew that her ark had again swung round. She dipped up the water to
+cool her parched throat, and found that it was salt as her tears. There
+was a relief, though, for by this sign she knew that she was drifting
+with the tide. It was then the wind went down, and the great and awful
+silence oppressed her. There was scarcely a ripple against the furrowed
+sides of the great trunk on which she rested, and around her all was
+black gloom and quiet. She spoke to the baby just to hear herself speak,
+and to know that she had not lost her voice. She thought then—it was
+queer, but she could not help thinking it—how awful must have been the
+night when the great ship swung over the Asiatic peak, and the sounds of
+creation were blotted out from the world. She thought, too, of mariners
+clinging to spars, and of poor women who were lashed to rafts and beaten
+to death by the cruel sea. She tried to thank God that she was thus
+spared, and lifted her eyes from the baby who had fallen into a fretful
+sleep. Suddenly, away to the southward, a great light lifted itself
+out of the gloom, and flashed and flickered, and flickered and flashed
+again. Her heart fluttered quickly against the baby’s cold cheek. It was
+the lighthouse at the entrance of the bay. As she was yet wondering the
+tree suddenly rolled a little, dragged a little, and then seemed to lie
+quiet and still. She put out her hand and the current gurgled against
+it. The tree was aground, and, by the position of the light and the
+noise of the surf, aground upon the Dedlow Marsh.
+
+Had it not been for her baby, who was ailing and croupy, had it not been
+for the sudden drying up of that sensitive fountain, she would have
+felt safe and relieved. Perhaps it was this which tended to make all her
+impressions mournful and gloomy. As the tide rapidly fell, a great flock
+of black brant fluttered by her, screaming and crying. Then the plover
+flew up and piped mournfully as they wheeled around the trunk, and at
+last fearlessly lit upon it like a gray cloud. Then the heron flew over
+and around her, shrieking and protesting, and at last dropped its gaunt
+legs only a few yards from her. But, strangest of all, a pretty white
+bird, larger than a dove,—like a pelican, but not a pelican,—circled
+around and around her. At last it lit upon a rootlet of the tree quite
+over her shoulder. She put out her hand and stroked its beautiful white
+neck, and it never appeared to move. It stayed there so long that she
+thought she would lift up the baby to see it and try to attract her
+attention. But when she did so, the child was so chilled and cold, and
+had such a blue look under the little lashes, which it didn’t raise at
+all, that she screamed aloud, and the bird flew away, and she fainted.
+
+Well, that was the worst of it, and perhaps it was not so much, after
+all, to any but herself. For when she recovered her senses it was bright
+sunlight and dead low water. There was a confused noise of guttural
+voices about her, and an old squaw, singing an Indian “hushaby,” and
+rocking herself from side to side before a fire built on the marsh,
+before which she, the recovered wife and mother, lay weak and weary. Her
+first thought was for her baby, and she was about to speak when a young
+squaw, who must have been a mother herself, fathomed her thought and
+brought her the “mowitch,” pale but living, in such a queer little
+willow cradle, all bound up, just like the squaw’s own young one, that
+she laughed and cried together, and the young squaw and the old squaw
+showed their big white teeth and glinted their black eyes, and said,
+“Plenty get well, skeena mowitch,” “Wagee man come plenty soon,” and she
+could have kissed their brown faces in her joy. And then she found
+that they had been gathering berries on the marsh in their queer comical
+baskets, and saw the skirt of her gown fluttering on the tree from afar,
+and the old squaw couldn’t resist the temptation of procuring a new
+garment, and came down and discovered the “wagee” woman and child. And
+of course she gave the garment to the old squaw, as you may imagine,
+and when _he_ came at last and rushed up to her, looking about ten years
+older in his anxiety, she felt so faint again that they had to carry her
+to the canoe. For, you see, he knew nothing about the flood until he met
+the Indians at Utopia, and knew by the signs that the poor woman was
+his wife. And at the next high tide he towed the tree away back home,
+although it wasn’t worth the trouble, and built another house, using the
+old tree for the foundation and props, and called it after her, “Mary’s
+Ark!” But you may guess the next house was built above high-water mark.
+And that’s all.
+
+Not much, perhaps, considering the malevolent capacity of the Dedlow
+Marsh. But you must tramp over it at low water, or paddle over it at
+high tide, or get lost upon it once or twice in the fog, as I have,
+to understand properly Mary’s adventure, or to appreciate duly the
+blessings of living beyond high-water mark.
+
+
+
+
+A LONELY RIDE
+
+
+As I stepped into the Slumgullion stage I saw that it was a dark night,
+a lonely road, and that I was the only passenger. Let me assure the
+reader that I have no ulterior design in making this assertion. A
+long course of light reading has forewarned me what every experienced
+intelligence must confidently look for from such a statement. The
+story-teller who willfully tempts fate by such obvious beginnings, who
+is to the expectant reader in danger of being robbed or half-murdered,
+or frightened by an escaped lunatic, or introduced to his lady-love for
+the first time, deserves to be detected. I am relieved to say that none
+of these things occurred to me. The road from Wingdam to Slumgullion
+knew no other banditti than the regularly licensed hotel-keepers;
+lunatics had not yet reached such depth of imbecility as to ride of
+their own free will in Californian stages; and my Laura, amiable and
+long-suffering as she always is, could not, I fear, have borne up
+against these depressing circumstances long enough to have made the
+slightest impression on me.
+
+I stood with my shawl and carpetbag in hand, gazing doubtingly on the
+vehicle. Even in the darkness the red dust of Wingdam was visible on its
+roof and sides, and the red slime of Slumgullion clung tenaciously to
+its wheels. I opened the door; the stage creaked uneasily, and in the
+gloomy abyss the swaying straps beckoned me, like ghostly hands, to come
+in now, and have my sufferings out at once.
+
+I must not omit to mention the occurrence of a circumstance which struck
+me as appalling and mysterious. A lounger on the steps of the hotel,
+who I had reason to suppose was not in any way connected with the stage
+company, gravely descended, and, walking toward the conveyance, tried
+the handle of the door, opened it, expectorated in the carriage, and
+returned to the hotel with a serious demeanor. Hardly had he resumed his
+position, when another individual, equally disinterested, impassively
+walked down the steps, proceeded to the back of the stage, lifted it,
+expectorated carefully on the axle, and returned slowly and pensively to
+the hotel. A third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of
+the Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box, remained for a
+moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then
+returned to his column. There was something so weird in this baptism
+that I grew quite nervous.
+
+Perhaps I was out of spirits. A number of infinitesimal annoyances,
+winding up with the resolute persistency of the clerk at the stage
+office to enter my name misspelt on the way-bill, had not predisposed
+me to cheerfulness. The inmates of the Eureka House, from a social
+view-point, were not attractive. There was the prevailing opinion—so
+common to many honest people—that a serious style of deportment and
+conduct toward a stranger indicates high gentility and elevated station.
+Obeying this principle, all hilarity ceased on my entrance to supper,
+and general remark merged into the safer and uncompromising chronicle of
+several bad cases of diphtheria, then epidemic at Wingdam. When I left
+the dining-room, with an odd feeling that I had been supping exclusively
+on mustard and tea leaves, I stopped a moment at the parlor door. A
+piano, harmoniously related to the dinner-bell, tinkled responsive to
+a diffident and uncertain touch. On the white wall the shadow of an
+old and sharp profile was bending over several symmetrical and shadowy
+curls. “I sez to Mariar, ‘Mariar’ sez I, ‘praise to the face is open
+disgrace’” I heard no more. Dreading some susceptibility to sincere
+expression on the subject of female loveliness, I walked away, checking
+the compliment that otherwise might have risen unbidden to my lips, and
+have brought shame and sorrow to the household.
+
+It was with the memory of these experiences resting heavily upon me that
+I stood hesitatingly before the stage door. The driver, about to mount,
+was for a moment illuminated by the open door of the hotel. He had
+the wearied look which was the distinguishing expression of Wingdam.
+Satisfied that I was properly way-billed and receipted for, he took no
+further notice of me. I looked longingly at the box-seat, but he did
+not respond to the appeal. I flung my carpetbag into the chasm, dived
+recklessly after it, and—before I was fairly seated—with a great
+sigh, a creaking of unwilling springs, complaining bolts, and harshly
+expostulating axle, we moved away. Rather the hotel door slipped behind,
+the sound of the piano sank to rest, and the night and its shadows moved
+solemnly upon us.
+
+To say it was dark expressed but faintly the pitchy obscurity
+that encompassed the vehicle. The roadside trees were scarcely
+distinguishable as deeper masses of shadow; I knew them only by the
+peculiar sodden odor that from time to time sluggishly flowed in at the
+open window as we rolled by. We proceeded slowly; so leisurely that,
+leaning from the carriage, I more than once detected the fragrant sigh
+of some astonished cow, whose ruminating repose upon the highway we
+had ruthlessly disturbed. But in the darkness our progress, more the
+guidance of some mysterious instinct than any apparent volition of
+our own, gave an indefinable charm of security to our journey, that a
+moment’s hesitation or indecision on the part of the driver would have
+destroyed.
+
+I had indulged a hope that in the empty vehicle I might obtain that rest
+so often denied me in its crowded condition. It was a weak delusion.
+When I stretched out my limbs it was only to find that the ordinary
+conveniences for making several people distinctly uncomfortable were
+distributed throughout my individual frame. At last, resting my arms
+on the straps, by dint of much gymnastic effort I became sufficiently
+composed to be aware of a more refined species of torture. The springs
+of the stage, rising and falling regularly, produced a rhythmical beat,
+which began to painfully absorb my attention. Slowly this thumping
+merged into a senseless echo of the mysterious female of the hotel
+parlor, and shaped itself into this awful and benumbing
+axiom: “Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace.
+Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace.” Inequalities of the road only
+quickened its utterance or drawled it to an exasperating length.
+
+It was of no use to seriously consider the statement. It was of no
+use to except to it indignantly. It was of no use to recall the many
+instances where praise to the face had redounded to the everlasting
+honor of praiser and bepraised; of no use to dwell sentimentally
+on modest genius and courage lifted up and strengthened by open
+commendation; of no use to except to the mysterious female,—to picture
+her as rearing a thin-blooded generation on selfish and mechanically
+repeated axioms,—all this failed to counteract the monotonous
+repetition of this sentence. There was nothing to do but to give in, and
+I was about to accept it weakly, as we too often treat other illusions
+of darkness and necessity, for the time being, when I became aware of
+some other annoyance that had been forcing itself upon me for the last
+few moments. How quiet the driver was!
+
+Was there any driver? Had I any reason to suppose that he was not lying
+gagged and bound on the roadside, and the highwayman, with blackened
+face, who did the thing so quietly, driving me—whither? The thing is
+perfectly feasible. And what is this fancy now being jolted out of me?
+A story? It’s of no use to keep it back, particularly in this abysmal
+vehicle, and here it comes: I am a marquis—a French marquis; French,
+because the peerage is not so well known, and the country is better
+adapted to romantic incident—a marquis, because the democratic reader
+delights in the nobility. My name is something ligny. I am coming from
+Paris to my country-seat at St. Germain. It is a dark night, and I fall
+asleep and tell my honest coachman, Andre, not to disturb me, and dream
+of an angel. The carriage at last stops at the chateau. It is so dark
+that, when I alight, I do not recognize the face of the footman who
+holds the carriage-door. But what of that?—peste! I am heavy with
+sleep. The same obscurity also hides the old familiar indecencies of
+the statues on the terrace; but there is a door, and it opens and shuts
+behind me smartly. Then I find myself in a trap, in the presence of the
+brigand who has quietly gagged poor Andre and conducted the carriage
+thither. There is nothing for me to do, as a gallant French marquis,
+but to say, “Parbleu!” draw my rapier, and die valorously! I am found,
+a week or two after, outside a deserted cabaret near the barrier, with
+a hole through my ruffled linen, and my pockets stripped. No; on second
+thoughts, I am rescued,—rescued by the angel I have been dreaming of,
+who is the assumed daughter of the brigand, but the real daughter of an
+intimate friend.
+
+Looking from the window again, in the vain hope of distinguishing the
+driver, I found my eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness. I could
+see the distant horizon, defined by India-inky woods relieving a lighter
+sky. A few stars, widely spaced in this picture, glimmering sadly.
+I noticed again the infinite depth of patient sorrow in their serene
+faces; and I hope that the Vandal who first applied the flippant
+“twinkle” to them may not be driven melancholy mad by their reproachful
+eyes. I noticed again the mystic charm of space, that imparts a sense
+of individual solitude to each integer of the densest constellation,
+involving the smallest star with immeasurable loneliness. Something of
+this calm and solitude crept over me, and I dozed in my gloomy cavern.
+When I awoke the full moon was rising. Seen from my window, it had an
+indescribably unreal and theatrical effect. It was the full moon of
+Norma—that remarkable celestial phenomenon which rises so palpably to
+a hushed audience and a sublime andante chorus, until the Casta Diva is
+sung—the “inconstant moon” that then and thereafter remains fixed in
+the heavens as though it were a part of the solar system inaugurated
+by Joshua. Again the white-robed Druids filed past me, again I saw that
+improbable mistletoe cut from that impossible oak, and again cold chills
+ran down my back with the first strain of the recitative. The thumping
+springs essayed to beat time, and the private box-like obscurity of
+the vehicle lent a cheap enchantment to the view. But it was a vast
+improvement upon my past experience, and I hugged the fond delusion.
+
+My fears for the driver were dissipated with the rising moon. A familiar
+sound had assured me of his presence in the full possession of at least
+one of his most important functions. Frequent and full expectoration
+convinced me that his lips were as yet not sealed by the gag of
+highwaymen, and soothed my anxious ear. With this load lifted from my
+mind, and assisted by the mild presence of Diana, who left, as when
+she visited Endymion, much of her splendor outside my cavern,—I looked
+around the empty vehicle. On the forward seat lay a woman’s hairpin. I
+picked it up with an interest that, however, soon abated. There was no
+scent of the roses to cling to it still, not even of hair-oil. No
+bent or twist in its rigid angles betrayed any trait of its wearer’s
+character. I tried to think that it might have been “Mariar’s.” I tried
+to imagine that, confining the symmetrical curls of that girl, it might
+have heard the soft compliments whispered in her ears which provoked the
+wrath of the aged female. But in vain. It was reticent and unswerving in
+its upright fidelity, and at last slipped listlessly through my fingers.
+
+I had dozed repeatedly,—waked on the threshold of oblivion by
+contact with some of the angles of the coach, and feeling that I was
+unconsciously assuming, in imitation of a humble insect of my childish
+recollection, that spherical shape which could best resist those
+impressions, when I perceived that the moon, riding high in the heavens,
+had begun to separate the formless masses of the shadowy landscape.
+Trees isolated, in clumps, and assemblages, changed places before
+my window. The sharp outlines of the distant hills came back as in
+daylight, but little softened in the dry, cold, dewless air of a
+California summer night. I was wondering how late it was, and thinking
+that if the horses of the night traveled as slowly as the team before
+us, Faustus might have been spared his agonizing prayer, when a sudden
+spasm of activity attacked my driver. A succession of whip-snappings,
+like a pack of Chinese crackers, broke from the box before me. The stage
+leaped forward, and when I could pick myself from under the seat, a long
+white building had in some mysterious way rolled before my window.
+It must be Slumgullion! As I descended from the stage I addressed the
+driver:—
+
+“I thought you changed horses on the road?”
+
+“So we did. Two hours ago.”
+
+“That’s odd. I didn’t notice it.”
+
+“Must have been asleep, sir. Hope you had a pleasant nap. Bully place
+for a nice quiet snooze, empty stage, sir!”
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT
+
+
+His name was Fagg,—David Fagg. He came to California in ’52 with us,
+in the Skyscraper. I don’t think he did it in an adventurous way. He
+probably had no other place to go to. When a knot of us young fellows
+would recite what splendid opportunities we resigned to go, and how
+sorry our friends were to have us leave, and show daguerreotypes and
+locks of hair, and talk of Mary and Susan, the man of no account used to
+sit by and listen with a pained, mortified expression on his plain face,
+and say nothing. I think he had nothing to say. He had no associates,
+except when we patronized him; and, in point of fact, he was a good deal
+of sport to us. He was always seasick whenever we had a capful of wind.
+He never got his sea-legs on either. And I never shall forget how we all
+laughed when Eattler took him the piece of pork on a string, and—But
+you know that time-honored joke. And then we had such a splendid lark
+with him. Miss Fanny Twinkler couldn’t bear the sight of him, and we
+used to make Fagg think that she had taken a fancy to him, and sent him
+little delicacies and books from the cabin. You ought to have witnessed
+the rich scene that took place when he came up, stammering and very
+sick, to thank her! Didn’t she flash up grandly, and beautifully, and
+scornfully? So like “Medora,” Rattler said,—Rattler knew Byron by
+heart,—and wasn’t Old Fagg awfully cut up? But he got over it, and when
+Rattler fell sick at Valparaiso, Old Fagg used to nurse him. You see he
+was a good sort of fellow, but he lacked manliness and spirit. He had
+absolutely no idea of poetry. I’ve seen him sit stolidly by, mending his
+old clothes, when Rattler delivered that stirring apostrophe of Byron’s
+to the ocean. He asked Rattler once, quite seriously, if he thought
+Byron was ever seasick. I don’t remember Rattler’s reply, but I know we
+all laughed very much, and I have no doubt it was something good, for
+Rattler was smart.
+
+When the Skyscraper arrived at San Francisco we had a grand “feed.”
+ We agreed to meet every year and perpetuate the occasion. Of course we
+didn’t invite Fagg. Fagg was a steerage passenger, and it was necessary,
+you see, now we were ashore, to exercise a little discretion. But Old
+Fagg, as we called him,—he was only about twenty-five years old, by the
+way,—was the source of immense amusement to us that day. It appeared
+that he had conceived the idea that he could walk to Sacramento, and
+actually started off afoot. We had a good time, and shook hands with one
+another all around, and so parted. Ah, me! only eight years ago, and yet
+some of those hands, then clasped in amity, have been clenched at each
+other, or have dipped furtively in one another’s pockets. I know that
+we didn’t dine together the next year, because young Barker swore
+he wouldn’t put his feet under the same mahogany with such a very
+contemptible scoundrel as that Mixer; and Nibbles, who borrowed money
+at Valparaiso of young Stubbs, who was then a waiter in a restaurant,
+didn’t like to meet such people.
+
+When I bought a number of shares in the Coyote Tunnel at Mugginsville,
+in ’54, I thought I’d take a run up there and see it. I stopped at the
+Empire Hotel, and after dinner I got a horse and rode round the town and
+out to the claim. One of those individuals whom newspaper correspondents
+call “our intelligent informant,” and to whom in all small communities
+the right of answering questions is tacitly yielded, was quietly pointed
+out to me. Habit had enabled him to work and talk at the same time, and
+he never pretermitted either. He gave me a history of the claim, and
+added: “You see, stranger (he addressed the bank before him), gold is
+sure to come outer that theer claim (he put in a comma with his pick),
+but the old pro-pri-e-tor (he wriggled out the word and the point of his
+pick) warn’t of much account (a long stroke of the pick for a period).
+He was green, and let the boys about here jump him,”—and the rest of
+his sentence was confided to his hat, which he had removed to wipe his
+manly brow with his red bandana.
+
+I asked him who was the original proprietor.
+
+“His name war Fagg.”
+
+I went to see him. He looked a little older and plainer. He had worked
+hard, he said, and was getting on “so-so.” I took quite a liking to
+him and patronized him to some extent. Whether I did so because I was
+beginning to have a distrust for such fellows as Rattler and Mixer is
+not necessary for me to state.
+
+You remember how the Coyote Tunnel went in, and how awfully we
+shareholders were done! Well, the next thing I heard was that Rattler,
+who was one of the heaviest shareholders, was up at Mugginsville keeping
+bar for the proprietor of the Mugginsville Hotel, and that Old Fagg had
+struck it rich, and didn’t know what to do with his money. All this was
+told me by Mixer, who had been there settling up matters, and likewise
+that Fagg was sweet upon the daughter of the proprietor of the aforesaid
+hotel. And so by hearsay and letter I eventually gathered that old
+Robins, the hotel man, was trying to get up a match between Nellie
+Robins and Fagg. Nellie was a pretty, plump, and foolish little thing,
+and would do just as her father wished. I thought it would be a good
+thing for—Fagg if he should marry and settle down; that as a married
+man he might be of some account. So I ran up to Mugginsville one day to
+look after things. It did me an immense deal of good to make Rattler
+mix my drinks for me,—Rattler! the gay, brilliant, and unconquerable
+Rattler, who had tried to snub me two years ago! I talked to him
+about Old Fagg and Nellie, particularly as I thought the subject was
+distasteful. He never liked Fagg, and he was sure, he said, that Nellie
+didn’t. Did Nellie like anybody else? He turned round to the mirror
+behind the bar and brushed up his hair. I understood the conceited
+wretch. I thought l’d put Fagg on his guard, and get him to hurry up
+matters. I had a long talk with him. You could see by the way the poor
+fellow acted that he was badly stuck. He sighed, and promised to pluck
+up courage to hurry matters to a crisis. Nellie was a good girl, and I
+think had a sort of quiet respect for Old Fagg’s unobtrusiveness. But
+her fancy was already taken captive by Rattler’s superficial qualities,
+which were obvious and pleasing. I don’t think Nellie was any worse than
+you or I. We are more apt to take acquaintances at their apparent value
+than their intrinsic worth. It’s less trouble, and except when we want
+to trust them, quite as convenient. The difficulty with women is that
+their feelings are apt to get interested sooner than ours, and then, you
+know, reasoning is out of the question. This is what Old Fagg would have
+known had he been of any account. But he wasn’t. So much the worse for
+him.
+
+It was a few months afterward, and I was sitting in my office when in
+walked Old Fagg. I was surprised to see him down, but we talked over the
+current topics in that mechanical manner of people who know that they
+have something else to say, but are obliged to get at it in that formal
+way. After an interval, Fagg in his natural manner said,—
+
+“I’m going home!”
+
+“Going home?”
+
+“Yes,—that is, I think I’ll take a trip to the Atlantic States. I came
+to see you, as you know I have some little property, and I have executed
+a power of attorney for you to manage my affairs. I have some papers I’d
+like to leave with you. Will you take charge of them?”
+
+“Yes,” I said. “But what of Nellie?”
+
+His face fell. He tried to smile, and the combination resulted in one
+of the most startling and grotesque effects I ever beheld. At length he
+said,—
+
+“I shall not marry Nellie,—that is,”—he seemed to apologize internally
+for the positive form of expression,—“I think that I had better not.”
+
+“David Fagg,” I said with sudden severity, “you’re of no account!”
+
+To my astonishment, his face brightened.
+
+“Yes,” said he, “that’s it!—I’m of no account! But I always knew it.
+You see, I thought Rattler loved that girl as well as I did, and I knew
+she liked him better than she did me, and would be happier, I dare say,
+with him. But then I knew that old Robins would have preferred me to
+him, as I was better off,—and the girl would do as he said,—and,
+you see, I thought I was kinder in the way,—and so I left. But,” he
+continued, as I was about to interrupt him, “for fear the old man might
+object to Rattler, I’ve lent him enough to set him up in business for
+himself in Dogtown. A pushing, active, brilliant fellow, you know, like
+Rattler can get along, and will soon be in his old position again,—and
+you needn’t be hard on him, you know, if he doesn’t. Good-by.”
+
+I was too much disgusted with his treatment of that Rattler to be at all
+amiable, but as his business was profitable, I promised to attend to
+it, and he left. A few weeks passed. The return steamer arrived, and a
+terrible incident occupied the papers for days afterwards. People in all
+parts of the State conned eagerly the details of an awful shipwreck, and
+those who had friends aboard went away by themselves, and read the long
+list of the lost under their breath. I read of the gifted, the gallant,
+the noble, and loved ones who had perished, and among them I think I was
+the first to read the name of David Fagg. For the “man of no account”
+ had “gone home!”
+
+
+
+
+NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD
+
+
+PART I
+
+IN THE FIELD
+
+
+It was near the close of an October day that I began to be disagreeably
+conscious of the Sacramento Valley. I had been riding since sunrise, and
+my course through the depressing monotony of the long level landscape
+affected me more like a dull, dyspeptic dream than a business journey,
+performed under that sincerest of natural phenomena,—a California sky.
+The recurring stretches of brown and baked fields, the gaping fissures
+in the dusty trail, the hard outline of the distant hills, and the
+herds of slowly moving cattle, seemed like features of some glittering
+stereoscopic picture that never changed. Active exercise might have
+removed this feeling, but my horse by some subtle instinct had long
+since given up all ambitious effort, and had lapsed into a dogged trot.
+
+It was autumn, but not the season suggested to the Atlantic reader under
+that title. The sharply defined boundaries of the wet and dry seasons
+were prefigured in the clear outlines of the distant hills. In the dry
+atmosphere the decay of vegetation was too rapid for the slow hectic
+which overtakes an Eastern landscape, or else Nature was too practical
+for such thin disguises. She merely turned the Hippocratic face to the
+spectator, with the old diagnosis of death in her sharp, contracted
+features.
+
+In the contemplation of such a prospect there was little to excite any
+but a morbid fancy. There were no clouds in the flinty blue heavens, and
+the setting of the sun was accompanied with as little ostentation as was
+consistent with the dryly practical atmosphere. Darkness soon followed,
+with a rising wind, which increased as the shadows deepened on the
+plain. The fringe of alder by the watercourse began to loom up as I
+urged my horse forward. A half-hour’s active spurring brought me to
+a corral, and a little beyond a house, so low and broad, it seemed at
+first sight to be half buried in the earth.
+
+My second impression was that it had grown out of the soil like some
+monstrous vegetable, its dreary proportions were so in keeping with the
+vast prospect. There were no recesses along its roughly boarded walls
+for vagrant and unprofitable shadows to lurk in the daily sunshine. No
+projection for the wind by night to grow musical over, to wail, whistle,
+or whisper to; only a long wooden shelf containing a chilly-looking
+tin basin and a bar of soap. Its uncurtained windows were red with the
+sinking sun, as though bloodshot and inflamed from a too long unlidded
+existence. The tracks of cattle led to its front door, firmly closed
+against the rattling wind.
+
+To avoid being confounded with this familiar element, I walked to the
+rear of the house, which was connected with a smaller building by a
+slight platform. A grizzled, hard-faced old man was standing there, and
+met my salutation with a look of inquiry, and, without speaking, led
+the way to the principal room. As I entered, four young men who were
+reclining by the fire slightly altered their attitudes of perfect
+repose, but beyond that betrayed neither curiosity nor interest. A hound
+started from a dark corner with a growl, but was immediately kicked by
+the old man into obscurity and silenced again. I can’t tell why, but I
+instantly received the impression that for a long time the group by the
+fire had not uttered a word or moved a muscle. Taking a seat, I briefly
+stated my business. Was a United States surveyor. Had come on account of
+the Espiritu Santo rancho. Wanted to correct the exterior boundaries
+of township lines, so as to connect with the near exteriors of private
+grants. There had been some intervention to the old survey by a Mr.
+Tryan, who had preempted adjacent—“Settled land warrants,” interrupted
+the old man. “Ah, yes! land warrants,—and then this was Mr. Tryan?”
+
+I had spoken mechanically, for I was preoccupied in connecting other
+public lines with private surveys, as I looked in his face. It was
+certainly a hard face, and reminded me of the singular effect of
+that mining operation known as “ground sluicing;” the harder lines of
+underlying character were exposed, and what were once plastic curves and
+soft outlines were obliterated by some powerful agency.
+
+There was a dryness in his voice not unlike the prevailing atmosphere
+of the valley, as he launched into an ex parte statement of the contest,
+with a fluency which, like the wind without, showed frequent and
+unrestrained expression. He told me—what I had already learned—that
+the boundary line of the old Spanish grant was a creek, described in the
+loose phraseology of the deseno as beginning in the valda or skirt
+of the hill, its precise location long the subject of litigation.
+I listened and answered with little interest, for my mind was still
+distracted by the wind which swept violently by the house, as well as
+by his odd face, which was again reflected in the resemblance that the
+silent group by the fire bore toward him. He was still talking, and the
+wind was yet blowing, when my confused attention was aroused by a remark
+addressed to the recumbent figures.
+
+“Now, then, which on ye’ll see the stranger up the creek to Altascar’s
+to-morrow?”
+
+There was a general movement of opposition in the group, but no decided
+answer.
+
+“Kin you go, Kerg?”
+
+“Who’s to look up stock in Strarberry per-ar-ie?”
+
+This seemed to imply a negative, and the old man turned to another
+hopeful, who was pulling the fur from a mangy bearskin on which he was
+lying, with an expression as though it were somebody’s hair.
+
+“Well, Tom, wot’s to hinder you from goin’?”
+
+“Mam’s goin’ to Brown’s store at sun-up, and I s’pose I’ve got to pack
+her and the baby again.”
+
+I think the expression of scorn this unfortunate youth exhibited for
+the filial duty into which he had been evidently beguiled was one of the
+finest things I had ever seen.
+
+“Wise?”
+
+Wise deigned no verbal reply, but figuratively thrust a worn and patched
+boot into the discourse. The old man flushed quickly.
+
+“I told ye to get Brown to give you a pair the last time you war down
+the river.”
+
+“Said he wouldn’t without an order. Said it was like pulling gum-teeth
+to get the money from you even then.”
+
+There was a grim smile at this local hit at the old man’s parsimony,
+and Wise, who was clearly the privileged wit of the family, sank back in
+honorable retirement.
+
+“Well, Joe, ef your boots are new, and you aren’t pestered with wimmin
+and children, p’r’aps you’ll go,” said Tryan, with a nervous twitching,
+intended for a smile, about a mouth not remarkably mirthful.
+
+Tom lifted a pair of bushy eyebrows and said shortly,—
+
+“Got no saddle.”
+
+“Wot’s gone of your saddle?”
+
+“Kerg, there!” indicating his brother with a look such as Cain might
+have worn at the sacrifice.
+
+“You lie!” returned Kerg cheerfully.
+
+Tryan sprang to his feet, seizing the chair, flourishing it around his
+head and gazing furiously in the hard young faces which fearlessly met
+his own. But it was only for a moment; his arm soon dropped by his side,
+and a look of hopeless fatality crossed his face. He allowed me to take
+the chair from his hand, and I was trying to pacify him by the assurance
+that I required no guide, when the irrepressible Wise again lifted his
+voice—
+
+“Theer’s George comin’! Why don’t ye ask him? He’ll go and introduce you
+to Don Fernandy’s darter, too, ef you ain’t pertickler.”
+
+The laugh which followed this joke, which evidently had some domestic
+allusion (the general tendency of rural pleasantry), was followed by a
+light step on the platform, and the young man entered. Seeing a stranger
+present, he stopped and colored, made a shy salute and colored again,
+and then, drawing a box from the corner, sat down, his hands clasped
+tightly together and his very handsome bright blue eyes turned frankly
+on mine.
+
+Perhaps I was in a condition to receive the romantic impression he made
+upon me, and I took it upon myself to ask his company as guide, and he
+cheerfully assented. But some domestic duty called him presently away.
+
+The fire gleamed brightly on the hearth, and, no longer resisting the
+prevailing influence, I silently watched the spirting flame, listening
+to the wind which continually shook the tenement. Besides the one chair,
+which had acquired a new importance in my eyes, I presently discovered a
+crazy table in one corner, with an inkbottle and pen, the latter in
+that greasy state of decomposition peculiar to country taverns and
+farmhouses. A goodly array of rifles and double-barreled guns stocked
+the corner; half a dozen saddles and blankets lay near, with a mild
+flavor of the horse about them. Some deer and bear skins completed the
+inventory. As I sat there, with the silent group around me, the shadowy
+gloom within and the dominant wind without, I found it difficult to
+believe I had ever known a different existence. My profession had often
+led me to wilder scenes, but rarely among those whose unrestrained
+habits and easy unconsciousness made me feel so lonely and
+uncomfortable. I shrank closer to myself, not without grave
+doubts—which I think occur naturally to people in like situations—that
+this was the general rule of humanity, and I was a solitary and somewhat
+gratuitous exception.
+
+It was a relief when a laconic announcement of supper by a weak-eyed
+girl caused a general movement in the family. We walked across the dark
+platform, which led to another low-ceiled room. Its entire length was
+occupied by a table, at the further end of which a weak-eyed woman was
+already taking her repast as she at the same time gave nourishment to
+a weak-eyed baby. As the formalities of introduction had been dispensed
+with, and as she took no notice of me, I was enabled to slip into a seat
+without discomposing or interrupting her. Tryan extemporized a grace,
+and the attention of the family became absorbed in bacon, potatoes, and
+dried apples.
+
+The meal was a sincere one. Gentle gurglings at the upper end of the
+table often betrayed the presence of the “wellspring of pleasure.” The
+conversation generally referred to the labors of the day, and comparing
+notes as to the whereabouts of missing stock. Yet the supper was such
+a vast improvement upon the previous intellectual feast, that when a
+chance allusion of mine to the business of my visit brought out the
+elder Tryan, the interest grew quite exciting. I remember he inveighed
+bitterly against the system of ranch-holding by the “Greasers,” as he
+was pleased to term the native Californians. As the same ideas have been
+sometimes advanced under more pretentious circumstances, they may be
+worthy of record.
+
+“Look at ’em holdin’ the finest grazin’ land that ever lay outer doors?
+Whar’s the papers for it? Was it grants? Mighty fine grants,—most of
+’em made arter the ’Merrikans got possession. More fools the ’Merrikans
+for lettin’ ’em hold ’em. Wat paid for ’em? ’Merrikan blood and money.
+
+“Didn’t they oughter have suthin’ out of their native country? Wot
+for? Did they ever improve? Got a lot of yaller-skinned diggers, not so
+sensible as niggers, to look arter stock, and they a-sittin’ home and
+smokin’. With their gold and silver candlesticks, and missions, and
+crucifixens, priests and graven idols, and sich? Them sort things
+wuren’t allowed in Mizzoori.”
+
+At the mention of improvements I involuntarily lifted my eyes, and met
+the half-laughing, half-embarrassed look of George. The act did not
+escape detection, and I had at once the satisfaction of seeing that the
+rest of the family had formed an offensive alliance against us.
+
+“It was agin nater and agin God,” added Tryan. “God never intended
+gold in the rocks to be made into heathen candlesticks and crucifixens.
+That’s why he sent ’Merrikans here. Nater never intended such a climate
+for lazy lopers. She never gi’n six months’ sunshine to be slept and
+smoked away.”
+
+How long he continued, and with what further illustration, I could not
+say, for I took an early opportunity to escape to the sitting-room. I
+was soon followed by George, who called me to an open door leading to a
+smaller room, and pointed to a bed.
+
+“You’d better sleep there to-night,” he said; “you’ll be more
+comfortable, and I’ll call you early.”
+
+I thanked him, and would have asked him several questions which were
+then troubling me, but he shyly slipped to the door and vanished.
+
+A shadow seemed to fall on the room when he had gone. The “boys”
+ returned, one by one, and shuffled to their old places. A larger log was
+thrown on the fire, and the huge chimney glowed like a furnace, but it
+did not seem to melt or subdue a single line of the hard faces that
+it lit. Half an hour later, the furs which had served as chairs by
+day undertook the nightly office of mattresses, and each received its
+owner’s full-length figure. Mr. Tryan had not returned, and I missed
+George. I sat there until, wakeful and nervous, I saw the fire fall and
+shadows mount the wall. There was no sound but the rushing of the
+wind and the snoring of the sleepers. At last, feeling the place
+insupportable, I seized my hat, and, opening the door, ran out briskly
+into the night.
+
+The acceleration of my torpid pulse in the keen fight with the wind,
+whose violence was almost equal to that of a tornado, and the familiar
+faces of the bright stars above me, I felt as a blessed relief. I ran,
+not knowing whither, and when I halted, the square outline of the house
+was lost in the alder-bushes. An uninterrupted plain stretched before
+me, like a vast sea beaten flat by the force of the gale. As I kept on I
+noticed a slight elevation toward the horizon, and presently my progress
+was impeded by the ascent of an Indian mound. It struck me forcibly as
+resembling an island in the sea. Its height gave me a better view of
+the expanding plain. But even here I found no rest. The ridiculous
+interpretation Tryan had given the climate was somehow sung in my ears
+and echoed in my throbbing pulse as, guided by the stars, I sought the
+house again.
+
+But I felt fresher and more natural as I stepped upon the platform. The
+door of the lower building was open, and the old man was sitting beside
+the table, thumbing the leaves of a Bible with a look in his face as
+though he were hunting up prophecies against the “Greaser.” I turned to
+enter, but my attention was attracted by a blanketed figure lying beside
+the house on the platform. The broad chest heaving with healthy slumber,
+and the open, honest face were familiar. It was George, who had given up
+his bed to the stranger among his people. I was about to wake him, but
+he lay so peaceful and quiet, I felt awed and hushed. And I went to
+bed with a pleasant impression of his handsome face and tranquil figure
+soothing me to sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was awakened the next morning from a sense of lulled repose and
+grateful silence by the cheery voice of George, who stood beside my bed
+ostentatiously twirling a riata, as if to recall the duties of the
+day to my sleep-bewildered eyes. I looked around me. The wind had been
+magically laid, and the sun shone warmly through the windows. A dash
+of cold water, with an extra chill on, from the tin basin, helped to
+brighten me. It was still early, but the family had already breakfasted
+and dispersed, and a wagon winding far in the distance showed that the
+unfortunate Tom had already “packed” his relatives away. I felt more
+cheerful,—there are few troubles Youth cannot distance with the start
+of a good night’s rest. After a substantial breakfast, prepared by
+George, in a few moments we were mounted and dashing down the plain.
+
+We followed the line of alder that defined the creek, now dry and baked
+with summer’s heat, but which in winter, George told me, overflowed its
+banks. I still retain a vivid impression of that morning’s ride; the
+far-off mountains, like silhouettes, against the steel-blue sky; the
+crisp, dry air, and the expanding track before me, animated often by
+the well-knit figure of George Tryan, musical with jingling spurs
+and picturesque with flying riata. He rode a powerful native roan,
+wild-eyed, untiring in stride, and unbroken in nature. Alas! the curves
+of beauty were concealed by the cumbrous machillas of the Spanish
+saddle, which levels all equine distinctions. The single rein lay
+loosely on the cruel bit that can gripe and, if need be, crush the jaw
+it controls.
+
+Again the illimitable freedom of the valley rises before me as we again
+bear down into sunlit space. Can this be Chu-Chu, staid and respectable
+filly of American pedigree,—Chu-Chu, forgetful of plank-roads and
+cobble stones, wild with excitement, twinkling her small white feet
+beneath me? George laughs out of a cloud of dust, “Give her her head;
+don’t you see she likes it?” and Chu-Chu seems to like it, and, whether
+bitten by native tarantula into native barbarism or emulous of the roan,
+“blood” asserts itself, and in a moment the peaceful servitude of years
+is beaten out in the music of her clattering hoofs. The creek widens to
+a deep gully. We dive into it and up on the opposite side, carrying a
+moving cloud of impalpable powder with us. Cattle are scattered over the
+plain, grazing quietly or banded together in vast restless herds. George
+makes a wide, indefinite sweep with the riata, as if to include them all
+in his vaquero’s loop, and says, “Ours!”
+
+“About how many, George?”
+
+“Don’t know.”
+
+“How many?”
+
+“Well, p’r’aps three thousand head,” says George, reflecting. “We don’t
+know; takes five men to look ’em up and keep run.”
+
+“What are they worth?”
+
+“About thirty dollars a head.”
+
+I make a rapid calculation, and look my astonishment at the laughing
+George. Perhaps a recollection of the domestic economy of the Tryan
+household is expressed in that look, for George averts his eye and says
+apologetically,—
+
+“I’ve tried to get the old man to sell and build, but you know he says
+it ain’t no use to settle down just yet. We must keep movin’. In fact,
+he built the shanty for that purpose, lest titles should fall through,
+and we’d have to get up and move stakes farther down,” Suddenly his
+quick eye detects some unusual sight in a herd we are passing, and with
+an exclamation he puts his roan into the centre of the mass. I follow,
+or rather Chu-Chu darts after the roan, and in a few moments we are in
+the midst of apparently inextricable horns and hoofs. “Toro!” shouts
+George, with vaquero enthusiasm, and the band opens a way for the
+swinging riata. I can feel their steaming breaths, and their spume is
+cast on Chu-Chu’s quivering flank.
+
+Wild, devilish-looking beasts are they; not such shapes as Jove might
+have chosen to woo a goddess, nor such as peacefully range the downs of
+Devon, but lean and hungry Cassius-like bovines, economically got up to
+meet the exigencies of a six-months’ rainless climate, and accustomed to
+wrestle with the distracting wind and the blinding dust.
+
+“That’s not our brand,” says George; “they’re strange stock,” and he
+points to what my scientific eye recognizes as the astrological sign of
+Venus deeply seared in the brown flanks of the bull he is chasing. But
+the herd are closing round us with low mutterings, and George has again
+recourse to the authoritative “Toro,” and with swinging riata divides
+the “bossy bucklers” on either side. When we are free, and breathing
+somewhat more easily, I venture to ask George if they ever attack any
+one.
+
+“Never horsemen,—sometimes footmen. Not through rage, you know, but
+curiosity. They think a man and his horse are one, and if they meet a
+chap afoot, they run him down and trample him under hoof, in the
+pursuit of knowledge. But,” adds George, “here’s the lower bench of the
+foothills, and here’s Altascar’s corral, and that white building you see
+yonder is the casa.”
+
+A whitewashed wall inclosed a court containing another adobe building,
+baked with the solar beams of many summers. Leaving our horses in the
+charge of a few peons in the courtyard, who were basking lazily in the
+sun, we entered a low doorway, where a deep shadow and an agreeable
+coolness fell upon us, as sudden and grateful as a plunge in cool water,
+from its contrast with the external glare and heat. In the centre of a
+low-ceiled apartment sat an old man with a black silk handkerchief tied
+about his head, the few gray hairs that escaped from its folds relieving
+his gamboge-colored face. The odor of cigarritos was as incense added to
+the cathedral gloom of the building.
+
+As Senor Altascar rose with well-bred gravity to receive us, George
+advanced with such a heightened color, and such a blending of tenderness
+and respect in his manner, that I was touched to the heart by so much
+devotion in the careless youth. In fact, my eyes were still dazzled by
+the effect of the outer sunshine, and at first I did not see the white
+teeth and black eyes of Pepita, who slipped into the corridor as we
+entered.
+
+It was no pleasant matter to disclose particulars of business which
+would deprive the old senor of the greater part of that land we had
+just ridden over, and I did it with great embarrassment. But he listened
+calmly,—not a muscle of his dark face stirring,—and the smoke curling
+placidly from his lips showed his regular respiration. When I had
+finished, he offered quietly to accompany us to the line of demarcation.
+George had meanwhile disappeared, but a suspicious conversation in
+broken Spanish and English in the corridor betrayed his vicinity. When
+he returned again, a little absent-minded, the old man, by far the
+coolest and most self-possessed of the party, extinguished his black
+silk cap beneath that stiff, uncomely sombrero which all native
+Californians affect. A serapa thrown over his shoulders hinted that he
+was waiting. Horses are always ready saddled in Spanish ranchos, and in
+half an hour from the time of our arrival we were again loping in the
+staring sunlight. But not as cheerfully as before. George and myself
+were weighed down by restraint, and Altascar was gravely quiet. To break
+the silence, and by way of a consolatory essay, I hinted to him that
+there might be further intervention or appeal, but the proffered oil
+and wine were returned with a careless shrug of the shoulders and a
+sententious “Que bueno? Your courts are always just.”
+
+The Indian mound of the previous night’s discovery was a bearing
+monument of the new line, and there we halted. We were surprised to find
+the old man Tryan waiting us. For the first time during our interview
+the old Spaniard seemed moved, and the blood rose in his yellow cheek. I
+was anxious to close the scene, and pointed out the corner boundaries as
+clearly as my recollection served.
+
+“The deputies will be here to-morrow to run the lines from this initial
+point, and there will be no further trouble, I believe, gentlemen.”
+
+Senor Altascar had dismounted and was gathering a few tufts of dried
+grass in his hands. George and I exchanged glances. He presently arose
+from his stooping posture, and advancing to within a few paces of Joseph
+Tryan, said in a voice broken with passion,—
+
+“And I, Fernando Jesus Maria Altascar, put you in possession of my land
+in the fashion of my country.”
+
+He threw a sod to each of the cardinal points.
+
+“I don’t know your courts, your judges, or your corregidores. Take the
+llano!—and take this with it. May the drought seize your cattle till
+their tongues hang down as long as those of your lying lawyers! May it
+be the curse and torment of your old age, as you and yours have made it
+of mine!”
+
+We stepped between the principal actors in this scene, which only the
+passion of Altascar made tragical, but Tryan, with a humility but ill
+concealing his triumph, interrupted,—
+
+“Let him curse on. He’ll find ’em coming home to him sooner than the
+cattle he has lost through his sloth and pride. The Lord is on the side
+of the just, as well as agin all slanderers and revilers.”
+
+Altascar but half guessed the meaning of the Missourian, yet
+sufficiently to drive from his mind all but the extravagant power of his
+native invective.
+
+“Stealer of the sacrament! Open not!—open not, I say, your lying Judas
+lips to me! Ah! half-breed, with the soul of a coyote!—Car-r-r-ramba!”
+ With his passion reverberating among the consonants like distant
+thunder, he laid his hand upon the mane of his horse as though it had
+been the gray locks of his adversary, swung himself into the saddle, and
+galloped away.
+
+George turned to me.
+
+“Will you go back with us to-night?”
+
+I thought of the cheerless walls, the silent figures by the fire, and
+the roaring wind, and hesitated.
+
+“Well, then, good-by.”
+
+“Good-by, George.”
+
+Another wring of the hands, and we parted. I had not ridden far, when I
+turned and looked back. The wind had risen early that afternoon, and was
+already sweeping across the plain. A cloud of dust traveled before it,
+and a picturesque figure occasionally emerging therefrom was my last
+indistinct impression of George Tryan.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+IN THE FLOOD
+
+
+Three months after the survey of the Espiritu Santo rancho I was again
+in the valley of the Sacramento. But a general and terrible visitation
+had erased the memory of that event as completely as I supposed it had
+obliterated the boundary monuments I had planted. The great flood of
+1861–62 was at its height when, obeying some indefinite yearning, I took
+my carpetbag and embarked for the inundated valley.
+
+There was nothing to be seen from the bright cabin windows of the
+Golden City but night deepening over the water. The only sound was the
+pattering rain, and that had grown monotonous for the past two weeks,
+and did not disturb the national gravity of my countrymen as they
+silently sat around the cabin stove. Some on errands of relief to
+friends and relatives wore anxious faces, and conversed soberly on
+the one absorbing topic. Others like myself, attracted by curiosity,
+listened eagerly to newer details. But, with that human disposition to
+seize upon any circumstance that might give chance event the exaggerated
+importance of instinct, I was half conscious of something more than
+curiosity as an impelling motive.
+
+The dripping of rain, the low gurgle of water, and a leaden sky greeted
+us the next morning as we lay beside the half-submerged levee of
+Sacramento. Here, however, the novelty of boats to convey us to the
+hotels was an appeal that was irresistible. I resigned myself to a
+dripping rubber-cased mariner called Joe, and wrapping myself in a
+shining cloak of the like material, about as suggestive of warmth as
+court-plaster might have been, took my seat in the stern sheets of his
+boat. It was no slight inward struggle to part from the steamer, that to
+most of the passengers was the only visible connecting link between
+us and the dry and habitable earth, but we pulled away and entered the
+city, stemming a rapid current as we shot the levee.
+
+We glided up the long level of K Street,—once a cheerful busy
+thoroughfare, now distressing in its silent desolation. The turbid
+water, which seemed to meet the horizon edge before us, flowed at right
+angles in sluggish rivers through the streets. Nature had revenged
+herself on the local taste by disarraying the regular rectangles by
+huddling houses on street corners, where they presented abrupt gables to
+the current, or by capsizing them in compact ruin. Crafts of all kinds
+were gliding in and out of low-arched doorways. The water was over the
+top of the fences surrounding well-kept gardens, in the first stories
+of hotels and private dwellings, trailing its slime on velvet carpets as
+well as roughly boarded floors. And a silence quite as suggestive as the
+visible desolation was in the voiceless streets that no longer echoed
+to carriage-wheel or footfall. The low ripple of water, the occasional
+splash of oars, or the warning cry of boatmen were the few signs of life
+and habitation.
+
+With such scenes before my eyes and such sounds in my ears, as I lie
+lazily in the boat, is mingled the song of my gondolier, who sings to
+the music of his oars. It is not quite as romantic as his brother of
+the Lido might improvise, but my Yankee Giuseppe has the advantage of
+earnestness and energy, and gives a graphic description of the terrors
+of the past week and of noble deeds of self-sacrifice and devotion,
+occasionally pointing out a balcony from which some California Bianca
+or Laura had been snatched, half-clothed and famished. Giuseppe is
+otherwise peculiar, and refuses the proffered fare, for—am I not a
+citizen of San Francisco, which was first to respond to the suffering
+cry of Sacramento? and is not he, Giuseppe, a member of the Howard
+Society? No, Giuseppe is poor, but cannot take my money. Still, if I
+must spend it, there is the Howard Society, and the women and children
+without food and clothing at the Agricultural Hall. I thank the generous
+gondolier, and we go to the Hall,—a dismal, bleak place, ghastly with
+the memories of last year’s opulence and plenty,—and here Giuseppe’s
+fare is swelled by the stranger’s mite. But here Giuseppe tells me of
+the “Relief Boat” which leaves for the flooded district in the interior,
+and here, profiting by the lesson he has taught me, I make the resolve
+to turn my curiosity to the account of others, and am accepted of those
+who go forth to succor and help the afflicted. Giuseppe takes charge of
+my carpetbag, and does not part from me until I stand on the slippery
+deck of Relief Boat No. 3.
+
+An hour later I am in the pilot-house, looking down upon what was once
+the channel of a peaceful river. But its banks are only defined by
+tossing tufts of willow washed by the long swell that breaks over a
+vast inland sea. Stretches of tule land fertilized by its once regular
+channel, and dotted by nourishing ranchos, are now cleanly erased.
+The cultivated profile of the old landscape had faded. Dotted lines in
+symmetrical perspective mark orchards that are buried and chilled in the
+turbid flood. The roofs of a few farmhouses are visible, and here and
+there the smoke curling from chimneys of half-submerged tenements
+shows an undaunted life within. Cattle and sheep are gathered on Indian
+mounds, waiting the fate of their companions, whose carcases drift by
+us or swing in eddies with the wrecks of barns and outhouses. Wagons
+are stranded everywhere where the tide could carry them. As I wipe the
+moistened glass, I see nothing but water, pattering on the deck from the
+lowering clouds, dashing against the window, dripping from the willows,
+hissing by the wheels, everywhere washing, coiling, sapping, hurrying in
+rapids, or swelling at last into deeper and vaster lakes, awful in their
+suggestive quiet and concealment.
+
+As day fades into night the monotony of this strange prospect grows
+oppressive. I seek the engine-room, and in the company of some of the
+few half-drowned sufferers we have already picked up from temporary
+rafts, I forget the general aspect of desolation in their individual
+misery. Later we meet the San Francisco packet, and transfer a number
+of our passengers. From them we learn how inward-bound vessels report
+to having struck the well-defined channel of the Sacramento fifty
+miles beyond the bar. There is a voluntary contribution taken among the
+generous travelers for the use of our afflicted, and we part company
+with a hearty “God speed” on either side. But our signal lights are not
+far distant before a familiar sound comes back to us,—an indomitable
+Yankee cheer,—which scatters the gloom.
+
+Our course is altered, and we are steaming over the obliterated banks
+far in the interior. Once or twice black objects loom up near us,—the
+wrecks of houses floating by. There is a slight rift in the sky towards
+the north, and a few bearing stars to guide us over the waste. As we
+penetrate into shallower water, it is deemed advisable to divide our
+party into smaller boats, and diverge over the submerged prairie. I
+borrow a pea-coat of one of the crew, and in that practical disguise
+am doubtfully permitted to pass into one of the boats. We give way
+northerly. It is quite dark yet, although the rift of cloud has widened.
+
+It must have been about three o’clock, and we were lying upon our oars
+in an eddy formed by a clump of cottonwood, and the light of the steamer
+is a solitary bright star in the distance, when the silence is broken by
+the “bow oar”:—
+
+“Light ahead.”
+
+All eyes are turned in that direction. In a few seconds a twinkling
+light appears, shines steadily, and again disappears, as if by the
+shifting position of some black object apparently drifting close upon
+us.
+
+“Stern, all!—a steamer!”
+
+“Hold hard, there! Steamer be d——d!” is the reply of the coxswain.
+“It’s a house, and a big one too.”
+
+It is a big one, looming in the starlight like a huge fragment of the
+darkness. The light comes from a single candle which shines through a
+window as the great shape swings by. Some recollection is drifting back
+to me with it, as I listen with beating heart.
+
+“There’s some one in it, by heavens! Give way, boys,—lay her alongside.
+Handsomely, now! The door’s fastened; try the window; no! here’s
+another!”
+
+In another moment we are trampling in the water, which washes the floor
+to the depth of several inches. It is a large room, at the farther end
+of which an old man is sitting, wrapped in a blanket, holding a candle
+in one hand, and apparently absorbed in the book he holds with the
+other. I spring toward him with an exclamation:—
+
+“Joseph Tryan!”
+
+He does not move. We gather closer to him, and I lay my hand gently on
+his shoulder, and say,—
+
+“Look up, old man, look up! Your wife and children, where are they? The
+boys,—George! Are they here? are they safe?”
+
+He raises his head slowly, and turns his eyes to mine, and we
+involuntarily recoil before his look. It is a calm and quiet glance,
+free from fear, anger, or pain; but it somehow sends the blood curdling
+through our veins. He bowed his head over his book again, taking no
+further notice of us. The men look at me compassionately and hold their
+peace. I make one more effort:—
+
+“Joseph Tryan, don’t you know me—the surveyor who surveyed your
+ranch,—the Espiritu Santo? Look up, old man!”
+
+He shuddered and wrapped himself closer in his blanket. Presently he
+repeated to himself, “The surveyor who surveyed your ranch, Espiritu
+Santo,” over and over again, as though it were a lesson he was trying to
+fix in his memory.
+
+I was turning sadly to the boatmen, when he suddenly caught me fearfully
+by the hand, and said:—
+
+“Hush!”
+
+We were silent.
+
+“Listen!” He puts his arm around my neck, and whispers in my ear, “I’m
+_a-moving off!_”
+
+“Moving off?”
+
+“Hush! Don’t speak so loud. Moving off! Ah! wot’s that? Don’t you
+hear?—there!—listen!”
+
+We listen, and hear the water gurgle and click beneath the floor.
+
+“It’s them wot he sent I—old Altascar sent. They’ve been here all
+night. I heard ’em first in the creek, when they came to tell the old
+man to move farther off. They came nearer and nearer. They whispered
+under the door, and I saw their eyes on the step,—their cruel, hard
+eyes. Ah! why don’t they quit?”
+
+I tell the men to search the room and see if they can find any farther
+traces of the family, while Tryan resumes his old attitude. It is
+so much like the figure I remember on the breezy night, that a
+superstitious feeling is fast overcoming me. When they have returned, I
+tell them briefly what I know of him, and the old man murmurs again,—
+
+“Why don’t they quit, then? They have the stock,—all gone—gone,—gone
+for the hides and hoofs,” and he groans bitterly.
+
+“There are other boats below us. The shanty cannot have drifted far, and
+perhaps the family are safe by this time,” says the coxswain hopefully.
+
+We lift the old man up, for he is quite helpless, and carry him to
+the boat. He is still grasping the Bible in his right hand, though its
+strengthening grace is blank to his vacant eye, and he cowers in the
+stern as we pull slowly to the steamer, while a pale gleam in the sky
+shows the coming day.
+
+I was weary with excitement, and when we reached the steamer, and I had
+seen Joseph Tryan comfortably bestowed, I wrapped myself in a blanket
+near the boiler and presently fell asleep. But even then the figure of
+the old man often started before me, and a sense of uneasiness about
+George made a strong undercurrent to my drifting dreams. I was awakened
+at about eight o’clock in the morning by the engineer, who told me one
+of the old man’s sons had been picked up and was now on board.
+
+“Is it George Tryan?” I ask quickly.
+
+“Don’t know; but he’s a sweet one, whoever he is,” adds the engineer,
+with a smile at some luscious remembrance. “You’ll find him for’ard.”
+
+I hurry to the bow of the boat, and find not George, but the
+irrepressible Wise, sitting on a coil of rope, a little dirtier and
+rather more dilapidated than I can remember having seen him.
+
+He is examining, with apparent admiration, some rough, dry clothes
+that have been put out for his disposal. I cannot help thinking that
+circumstances have somewhat exalted his usual cheerfulness. He puts me
+at ease by at once addressing me:—
+
+“These are high old times, ain’t they? I say, what do you reckon’s
+become o’ them thar bound’ry moniments you stuck? Ah!”
+
+The pause which succeeds this outburst is the effect of a spasm of
+admiration at a pair of high boots, which, by great exertion, he has at
+last pulled on his feet.
+
+“So you’ve picked up the ole man in the shanty, clean crazy? He must
+have been soft to have stuck there instead o’ leavin’ with the old
+woman. Didn’t know me from Adam; took me for George!”
+
+At this affecting instance of paternal forgetfulness, Wise was
+evidently divided between amusement and chagrin. I took advantage of the
+contending emotions to ask about George.
+
+“Don’t know whar he is! If he’d tended stock instead of running about
+the prairie, packin’ off wimmin and children, he might have saved
+suthin’. He lost every hoof and hide, I’ll bet a cooky! Say, you,” to
+a passing boatman, “when are you goin’ to give us some grub? I’m hungry
+’nough to skin and eat a hoss. Reckon I’ll turn butcher when things is
+dried up, and save hides, horns, and taller.”
+
+I could not but admire this indomitable energy, which under softer
+climatic influences might have borne such goodly fruit.
+
+“Have you any idea what you’ll do, Wise?” I ask.
+
+“Thar ain’t much to do now,” says the practical young man. “I’ll have to
+lay over a spell, I reckon, till things comes straight. The land ain’t
+worth much now, and won’t be, I dessay, for some time. Wonder whar the
+ole man’ll drive stakes next.”
+
+“I meant as to your father and George, Wise.”
+
+“Oh, the ole man and I’ll go on to Miles’s, whar Tom packed the old
+woman and babies last week. George’ll turn up somewhar atween this and
+Altascar’s, ef he ain’t thar now.”
+
+I ask how the Altascars have suffered.
+
+“Well, I reckon he ain’t lost much in stock. I shouldn’t wonder if
+George helped him drive ’em up the foothills. And his casa’s built
+too high. Oh, thar ain’t any water thar, you bet. Ah!” says Wise, with
+reflective admiration, “those Greasers ain’t the darned fools people
+thinks ’em. I’ll bet thar ain’t one swamped out in all ’er Californy.”
+ But the appearance of “grub” cut this rhapsody short.
+
+“I shall keep on a little farther,” I say, “and try to find George.”
+
+Wise stared a moment at this eccentricity until a new light dawned upon
+him.
+
+“I don’t think you’ll save much. What’s the percentage,—workin’ on
+shares, eh?”
+
+I answer that I am only curious, which I feel lessens his opinion of me,
+and with a sadder feeling than his assurance of George’s safety might
+warrant, I walked away.
+
+From others whom we picked up from time to time we heard of George’s
+self-sacrificing devotion, with the praises of the many he had helped
+and rescued. But I did not feel disposed to return until I had seen
+him, and soon prepared myself to take a boat to the lower valda of the
+foothills, and visit Altascar. I soon perfected my arrangements, bade
+farewell to Wise, and took a last look at the old man, who was sitting
+by the furnace fires quite passive and composed. Then our boat-head
+swung round, pulled by sturdy and willing hands.
+
+It was again raining, and a disagreeable wind had risen. Our course lay
+nearly west, and we soon knew by the strong current that we were in the
+creek of the Espiritu Santo. From time to time the wrecks of barns
+were seen, and we passed many half-submerged willows hung with farming
+implements.
+
+We emerge at last into a broad silent sea. It is the llano de Espiritu
+Santo. As the wind whistles by me, piling the shallower fresh water into
+mimic waves, I go back, in fancy, to the long ride of October over that
+boundless plain, and recall the sharp outlines of the distant hills
+which are now lost in the lowering clouds. The men are rowing silently,
+and I find my mind, released from its tension, growing benumbed and
+depressed as then. The water, too, is getting more shallow as we leave
+the banks of the creek, and with my hand dipped listlessly over the
+thwarts, I detect the tops of chimisal, which shows the tide to have
+somewhat fallen. There is a black mound, bearing to the north of the
+line of alder, making an adverse current, which, as we sweep to the
+right to avoid it, I recognize. We pull close alongside, and I call to
+the men to stop.
+
+There was a stake driven near its summit with the initials, “L. E. S.
+I.” Tied halfway down was a curiously worked riata. It was George’s. It
+had been cut with some sharp instrument, and the loose gravelly soil of
+the mound was deeply dented with horse’s hoofs. The stake was covered
+with horsehairs. It was a record, but no clue.
+
+The wind had grown more violent, as we still fought our way forward,
+resting and rowing by turns, and oftener “poling” the shallower surface,
+but the old valda, or bench, is still distant. My recollection of the
+old survey enables me to guess the relative position of the meanderings
+of the creek, and an occasional simple professional experiment to
+determine the distance gives my crew the fullest faith in my ability.
+Night overtakes us in our impeded progress. Our condition looks more
+dangerous than it really is, but I urge the men, many of whom are still
+new in this mode of navigation, to greater exertion by assurance of
+perfect safety and speedy relief ahead. We go on in this way until about
+eight o’clock, and ground by the willows. We have a muddy walk for a few
+hundred yards before we strike a dry trail, and simultaneously the white
+walls of Altascar’s appear like a snow-bank before us. Lights are moving
+in the courtyard; but otherwise the old tomb-like repose characterizes
+the building.
+
+One of the peons recognized me as I entered the court, and Altascar met
+me on the corridor.
+
+I was too weak to do more than beg his hospitality for the men who had
+dragged wearily with me. He looked at my hand, which still unconsciously
+held the broken riata. I began, wearily, to tell him about George and
+my fears, but with a gentler courtesy than was even his wont, he gravely
+laid his hand on my shoulder.
+
+“Poco a poco, senor,—not now. You are tired, you have hunger, you have
+cold. Necessary it is you should have peace.”
+
+He took us into a small room and poured out some French cognac, which
+he gave to the men that had accompanied me. They drank, and threw
+themselves before the fire in the larger room. The repose of the
+building was intensified that night, and I even fancied that the
+footsteps on the corridor were lighter and softer. The old Spaniard’s
+habitual gravity was deeper; we might have been shut out from the world
+as well as the whistling storm, behind those ancient walls with their
+time-worn inheritor.
+
+Before I could repeat my inquiry he retired. In a few minutes two
+smoking dishes of chupa with coffee were placed before us, and my men
+ate ravenously. I drank the coffee, but my excitement and weariness kept
+down the instincts of hunger.
+
+I was sitting sadly by the fire when he reentered.
+
+“You have eat?”
+
+I said, “Yes,” to please him.
+
+“Bueno, eat when you can,—food and appetite are not always.”
+
+He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity with which most of his
+countrymen utter a proverb, as though it were an experience rather than
+a legend, and, taking the riata from the floor, held it almost tenderly
+before him.
+
+“It was made by me, senor.”
+
+“I kept it as a clue to him, Don Altascar,” I said. “If I could find
+him”—
+
+“He is here.”
+
+“Here! and”—but I could not say, “well!” I understood the gravity of
+the old man’s face, the hushed footfalls, the tomb-like repose of the
+building, in an electric flash of consciousness: I held the clue to the
+broken riata at last. Altascar took my hand, and we crossed the corridor
+to a sombre apartment. A few tall candles were burning in sconces before
+the window.
+
+In an alcove there was a deep bed with its counterpane, pillows, and
+sheets heavily edged with lace, in all that splendid luxury which the
+humblest of these strange people lavish upon this single item of their
+household. I stepped beside it and saw George lying, as I had seen him
+one before, peacefully at rest. But a greater sacrifice than that he had
+known was here, and his generous heart was stilled forever.
+
+“He was honest and brave,” said the old man, and turned away.
+
+There was another figure in the room; a heavy shawl drawn over her
+graceful outline, and her long black hair hiding the hands that
+buried her downcast face. I did not seem to notice her, and, retiring
+presently, left the loving and loved together.
+
+When we were again beside the crackling fire, in the shifting shadows
+of the great chamber, Altascar told me how he had that morning met the
+horse of George Tryan swimming on the prairie; how that, farther on, he
+found him lying, quite cold and dead, with no marks or bruises on his
+person; that he had probably become exhausted in fording the creek, and
+that he had as probably reached the mound only to die for want of that
+help he had so freely given to others; that, as a last act, he had freed
+his horse. These incidents were corroborated by many who collected
+in the great chamber that evening,—women and children,—most of them
+succored through the devoted energies of him who lay cold and lifeless
+above.
+
+He was buried in the Indian mound,—the single spot of strange perennial
+greenness, which the poor aborigines had raised above the dusty plain. A
+little slab of sandstone with the initials “G. T.” is his monument,
+and one of the bearings of the initial corner of the new survey of the
+Espiritu Santo rancho.
+
+
+
+
+WAITING FOR THE SHIP
+
+A FORT POINT IDYL
+
+
+About an hour’s ride from the Plaza there is a high bluff with the
+ocean breaking uninterruptedly along its rocky beach. There are several
+cottages on the sands, which look as if they had recently been cast up
+by a heavy sea. The cultivated patch behind each tenement is fenced in
+by bamboos, broken spars, and driftwood. With its few green cabbages and
+turnip-tops, each garden looks something like an aquarium with the water
+turned off. In fact you would not be surprised to meet a merman digging
+among the potatoes, or a mermaid milking a sea-cow hard by.
+
+Near this place formerly arose a great semaphoric telegraph, with its
+gaunt arms tossed up against the horizon. It has been replaced by an
+observatory, connected with an electric nerve to the heart of the great
+commercial city. From this point the incoming ships are signaled, and
+again checked off at the City Exchange. And while we are here, looking
+for the expected steamer, let me tell you a story.
+
+Not long ago, a simple, hard-working mechanic had amassed sufficient by
+diligent labor in the mines to send home for his wife and two children.
+He arrived in San Francisco a month before the time the ship was due,
+for he was a Western man, and had made the overland journey, and knew
+little of ships or seas or gales. He procured work in the city, but as
+the time approached he would go to the shipping office regularly every
+day. The month passed, but the ship came not; then a month and a week,
+two weeks, three weeks, two months, and then a year. The rough, patient
+face, with soft lines overlying its hard features, which had become a
+daily apparition at the shipping-agent’s, then disappeared. It turned
+up one afternoon at the observatory as the setting sun relieved the
+operator from his duties. There was something so childlike and simple
+in the few questions asked by this stranger, touching his business, that
+the operator spent some time to explain. When the mystery of signals and
+telegraphs was unfolded, the stranger had one more question to ask. “How
+long might a vessel be absent before they would give up expecting her?”
+ The operator couldn’t tell; it would depend on circumstances. Would it
+be a year? Yes, it might be a year, and vessels had been given up for
+lost after two years and had come home. The stranger put his rough hand
+on the operator’s, and thanked him for his “troubil,” and went away.
+
+Still the ship came not. Stately clippers swept into the Gate, and
+merchantmen went by with colors flying, and the welcoming gun of the
+steamer often reverberated among the hills. Then the patient face, with
+the old resigned expression, but a brighter, wistful look in the eye,
+was regularly met on the crowded decks of the steamer as she disembarked
+her living freight. He may have had a dimly defined hope that the
+missing ones might yet come this way, as only another road over that
+strange unknown expanse. But he talked with ship captains and sailors,
+and even this last hope seemed to fail. When the careworn face and
+bright eyes were presented again at the observatory, the operator,
+busily engaged, could not spare time to answer foolish interrogatories,
+so he went away. But as night fell, he was seen sitting on the rocks
+with his face turned seaward, and was seated there all that night. When
+he became hopelessly insane, for that was what the physicians said made
+his eyes so bright and wistful, he was cared for by a fellow craftsman
+who had known his troubles. He was allowed to indulge his fancy of going
+out to watch for the ship, in which she “and the children” were, at
+night, when no one else was watching. He had made up his mind that the
+ship would come in at night. This, and the idea that he would relieve
+the operator, who would be tired with watching all day, seemed to please
+him. So he went out and relieved the operator every night!
+
+For two years the ships came and went. He was there to see the
+outward-bound clipper, and greet her on her return. He was known only
+by a few who frequented the place. When he was missed at last from his
+accustomed spot, a day or two elapsed before any alarm was felt. One
+Sunday, a party of pleasure-seekers clambering over the rocks were
+attracted by the barking of a dog that had run on before them. When they
+came up they found a plainly dressed man lying there dead. There were a
+few papers in his pocket,—chiefly slips cut from different journals of
+old marine memoranda,—and his face was turned towards the distant sea.
+
+
+
+
+A NIGHT AT WINGDAM
+
+
+I had been stage-ridden and bewildered all day, and when we swept down
+with the darkness into the Arcadian hamlet of Wingdam I resolved to go
+no farther, and rolled out in a gloomy and dyspeptic state. The effects
+of a mysterious pie, and some sweetened carbonic acid known to the
+proprietor of the Half-way House as “lemming sody,” still oppressed
+me. Even the facetia of the gallant expressman, who knew everybody’s
+Christian name along the route, who rained letters, newspapers, and
+bundles from the top of the stage, whose legs frequently appeared in
+frightful proximity to the wheels, who got on and off while we were
+going at full speed, whose gallantry, energy, and superior knowledge of
+travel crushed all us other passengers to envious silence, and who just
+then was talking with several persons and manifestly doing something
+else at the same time,—even this had failed to interest me. So I stood
+gloomily, clutching my shawl and carpetbag, and watched the stage roll
+away, taking a parting look at the gallant expressman as he hung on
+the top rail with one leg, and lit his cigar from the pipe of a running
+footman. I then turned toward the Wingdam Temperance Hotel.
+
+It may have been the weather, or it may have been the pie, but I was not
+impressed favorably with the house. Perhaps it was the name extending
+the whole length of the building, with a letter under each window,
+making the people who looked out dreadfully conspicuous. Perhaps it was
+that “Temperance” always suggested to my mind rusks and weak tea. It was
+uninviting. It might have been called the “Total Abstinence” Hotel,
+from the lack of anything to intoxicate or inthrall the senses. It was
+designed with an eye to artistic dreariness. It was so much too large
+for the settlement that it appeared to be a very slight improvement
+on outdoors. It was unpleasantly new. There was the forest flavor of
+dampness about it, and a slight spicing of pine. Nature outraged,
+but not entirely subdued, sometimes broke out afresh in little round,
+sticky, resinous tears on the doors and windows. It seemed to me that
+boarding there must seem like a perpetual picnic. As I entered the door,
+a number of the regular boarders rushed out of a long room, and set
+about trying to get the taste of something out of their mouths, by
+the application of tobacco in various forms. A few immediately ranged
+themselves around the fireplace, with their legs over each other’s
+chairs, and in that position silently resigned themselves to
+indigestion. Remembering the pie, I waived the invitation of the
+landlord to supper, but suffered myself to be conducted into the
+sitting-room. “Mine host” was a magnificent-looking, heavily bearded
+specimen of the animal man. He reminded me of somebody or something
+connected with the drama. I was sitting beside the fire, mutely
+wondering what it could be, and trying to follow the particular chord
+of memory thus touched into the intricate past, when a little
+delicate-looking woman appeared at the door, and, leaning heavily
+against the casing, said in an exhausted tone, “Husband!” As the
+landlord turned toward her, that particular remembrance flashed before
+me in a single line of blank verse. It was this: “Two souls with but one
+single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”
+
+It was Ingomar and Parthenia his wife. I imagined a different denouement
+from the play. Ingomar had taken Parthenia back to the mountains, and
+kept a hotel for the benefit of the Alemanni, who resorted there in
+large numbers. Poor Parthenia was pretty well fagged out, and did all
+the work without “help.” She had two “young barbarians,” a boy and a
+girl. She was faded, but still good-looking.
+
+I sat and talked with Ingomar, who seemed perfectly at home, and told
+me several stories of the Alemanni, all bearing a strong flavor of
+the wilderness, and being perfectly in keeping with the house. How he,
+Ingomar, had killed a certain dreadful “b’ar,” whose skin was just up
+“yar,” over his bed. How he, Ingomar, had killed several “bucks,” whose
+skins had been prettily fringed and embroidered by Parthenia, and even
+now clothed him. How he, Ingomar, had killed several “Injins,” and was
+once nearly scalped himself. All this with that ingenious candor which
+is perfectly justifiable in a barbarian, but which a Greek might feel
+inclined to look upon as “blowing.” Thinking of the wearied Parthenia, I
+began to consider for the first time that perhaps she had better married
+the old Greek. Then she would at least have always looked neat. Then she
+would not have worn a woolen dress flavored with all the dinners of the
+past year. Then she would not have been obliged to wait on the table
+with her hair half down. Then the two children would not have hung about
+her skirts with dirty fingers, palpably dragging her down day by day. I
+suppose it was the pie which put such heartless and improper ideas in
+my head, and so I rose up and told Ingomar I believed I’d go to bed.
+Preceded by that redoubtable barbarian and a flaring tallow candle, I
+followed him upstairs to my room. It was the only single room he had,
+he told me; he had built it for the convenience of married parties who
+might stop here, but, that event not happening yet, he had left it half
+furnished. It had cloth on one side, and large cracks on the other. The
+wind, which always swept over Wingdam at night-time, puffed through the
+apartment from different apertures. The window was too small for the
+hole in the side of the house where it hung, and rattled noisily.
+Everything looked cheerless and dispiriting. Before Ingomar left me,
+he brought that “b’arskin,” and throwing it over the solemn bier which
+stood in one corner, told me he reckoned that would keep me warm, and
+then bade me good-night. I undressed myself, the light blowing out in
+the middle of that ceremony, crawled under the “b’arskin,” and tried to
+compose myself to sleep.
+
+But I was staringly wide awake. I heard the wind sweep down the
+mountain-side, and toss the branches of the melancholy pine, and then
+enter the house, and try all the doors along the passage. Sometimes
+strong currents of air blew my hair all over the pillow, as with strange
+whispering breaths. The green timber along the walls seemed to be
+sprouting, and sent a dampness even through the “b’arskin.” I felt like
+Robinson Crusoe in his tree, with the ladder pulled up,—or like the
+rocked baby of the nursery song. After lying awake half an hour, I
+regretted having stopped at Wingdam; at the end of the third quarter, I
+wished I had not gone to bed; and when a restless hour passed, I got up
+and dressed myself. There had been a fire down in the big room. Perhaps
+it was still burning. I opened the door and groped my way along the
+passage, vocal with the snores of the Alemanni and the whistling of the
+night wind; I partly fell downstairs, and at last entering the big room,
+saw the fire still burning. I drew a chair toward it, poked it with
+my foot, and was astonished to see, by the upspringing flash, that
+Parthenia was sitting there also, holding a faded-looking baby.
+
+I asked her why she was sitting up.
+
+“She did not go to bed on Wednesday night before the mail arrived, and
+then she awoke her husband, and there were passengers to ’tend to.”
+
+“Did she not get tired sometimes?”
+
+“A little, but Abner” (the barbarian’s Christian name) “had
+promised to get her more help next spring, if business was good.”
+
+“How many boarders had she?”
+
+“She believed about forty came to regular meals, and there was transient
+custom, which was as much as she and her husband could ’tend to. But
+_he_ did a great deal of work.”
+
+“What work?”
+
+“Oh, bringing in the wood, and looking after the traders’ things.”
+
+“How long had she been married?”
+
+“About nine years. She had lost a little girl and boy. Three children
+living. _He_ was from Illinois. She from Boston. Had an education
+(Boston Female High School,—Geometry, Algebra, a little Latin and
+Greek). Mother and father died. Came to Illinois alone, to teach school.
+Saw _him_—yes—a love match.” (“Two souls,” etc., etc.) “Married and
+emigrated to Kansas. Thence across the Plains to California. Always on
+the outskirts of civilization. _He_ liked it.
+
+“She might sometimes have wished to go home. Would like to on account
+of her children. Would like to give them an education. Had taught them
+a little herself, but couldn’t do much on account of other work. Hoped
+that the boy would be like his father, strong and hearty. Was fearful
+the girl would be more like her. Had often thought she was not fit for a
+pioneer’s wife.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Oh, she was not strong enough, and had seen some of his friends’ wives
+in Kansas who could do more work. But he never complained,—he was so
+kind.” (“Two souls,” etc.)
+
+Sitting there with her head leaning pensively on one hand, holding the
+poor, wearied, and limp-looking baby wearily on the other arm, dirty,
+drabbled, and forlorn, with the firelight playing upon her features no
+longer fresh or young, but still refined and delicate, and even in her
+grotesque slovenliness still bearing a faint reminiscence of birth and
+breeding, it was not to be wondered that I did not fall into excessive
+raptures over the barbarian’s kindness. Emboldened by my sympathy, she
+told me how she had given up, little by little, what she imagined to be
+the weakness of her early education, until she found that she acquired
+but little strength in her new experience. How, translated to a
+backwoods society, she was hated by the women, and called proud and
+“fine,” and how her dear husband lost popularity on that account with
+his fellows. How, led partly by his roving instincts, and partly from
+other circumstances, he started with her to California. An account of
+that tedious journey. How it was a dreary, dreary waste in her memory,
+only a blank plain marked by a little cairn of stones,—a child’s
+grave. How she had noticed that little Willie failed. How she had called
+Abner’s attention to it, but, man-like, he knew nothing about children,
+and pooh-poohed it, and was worried by the stock. How it happened that
+after they had passed Sweetwater she was walking beside the wagon one
+night, and looking at the western sky, and she heard a little voice say
+“Mother.” How she looked into the wagon and saw that little Willie was
+sleeping comfortably and did not wish to wake him. How that in a few
+moments more she heard the same voice saying “Mother.” How she came
+back to the wagon and leaned down over him, and felt his breath upon her
+face, and again covered him up tenderly, and once more resumed her weary
+journey beside him, praying to God for his recovery. How with her face
+turned to the sky she heard the same voice saying “Mother,” and directly
+a great bright star shot away from its brethren and expired. And how
+she knew what had happened, and ran to the wagon again only to pillow
+a little pinched and cold white face upon her weary bosom. The thin red
+hands went up to her eyes here, and for a few moments she sat still. The
+wind tore round the house and made a frantic rush at the front door, and
+from his couch of skins in the inner room Ingomar, the barbarian, snored
+peacefully.
+
+“Of course she always found a protector from insult and outrage in the
+great courage and strength of her husband?”
+
+“Oh, yes; when Ingomar was with her she feared nothing. But she was
+nervous and had been frightened once!”
+
+“How?”
+
+“They had just arrived in California. They kept house then, and had
+to sell liquor to traders. Ingomar was hospitable, and drank with
+everybody, for the sake of popularity and business, and Ingomar got to
+like liquor, and was easily affected by it. And how one night there was
+a boisterous crowd in the bar-room; she went in and tried to get him
+away, but only succeeded in awakening the coarse gallantry of the
+half-crazed revelers. And how, when she had at last got him in the room
+with her frightened children, he sank down on the bed in a stupor, which
+made her think the liquor was drugged. And how she sat beside him all
+night, and near morning heard a step in the passage, and, looking toward
+the door, saw the latch slowly moving up and down, as if somebody were
+trying it. And how she shook her husband, and tried to waken him, but
+without effect. And how at last the door yielded slowly at the top (it
+was bolted below), as if by a gradual pressure without; and how a hand
+protruded through the opening. And how as quick as lightning she nailed
+that hand to the wall with her scissors (her only weapon), but the point
+broke, and somebody got away with a fearful oath. How she never told her
+husband of it, for fear he would kill that somebody; but how on one day
+a stranger called here, and as she was handing him his coffee, she saw
+a queer triangular scar on the back of his hand.” She was still talking,
+and the wind was still blowing, and Ingomar was still snoring from his
+couch of skins, when there was a shout high up the straggling street,
+and a clattering of hoofs and rattling of wheels. The mail had arrived.
+Parthenia ran with the faded baby to awaken Ingomar, and almost
+simultaneously the gallant expressman stood again before me, addressing
+me by my Christian name, and invited me to drink out of a mysterious
+black bottle. The horses were speedily watered, and the business of the
+gallant expressman concluded, and, bidding Parthenia good by, I got
+on the stage, and immediately fell asleep, and dreamt of calling on
+Parthenia and Ingomar, and being treated with pie to an unlimited
+extent, until I woke up the next morning in Sacramento. I have some
+doubts as to whether all this was not a dyspeptic dream, but I never
+witness the drama, and hear that noble sentiment concerning “Two souls,”
+ etc., without thinking of Wingdam and poor Parthenia.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+       SPANISH AND AMERICAN LEGENDS
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF MONTE DEL DIABLO
+
+
+The cautious reader will detect a lack of authenticity in the following
+pages. I am not a cautious reader myself, yet I confess with some
+concern to the absence of much documentary evidence in support of
+the singular incident I am about to relate. Disjointed memoranda, the
+proceedings of ayuntamientos and early departmental juntas, with other
+records of a primitive and superstitious people, have been my inadequate
+authorities. It is but just to state, however, that though this
+particular story lacks corroboration, in ransacking the Spanish archives
+of Upper California I have met with many more surprising and incredible
+stories, attested and supported to a degree that would have placed this
+legend beyond a cavil or doubt. I have, also, never lost faith in the
+legend myself, and in so doing have profited much from the examples
+of divers grant-claimants, who have often jostled me in their more
+practical researches, and who have my sincere sympathy at the skepticism
+of a modern hard-headed and practical world.
+
+For many years after Father Junipero Serro first rang his bell in
+the wilderness of Upper California, the spirit which animated that
+adventurous priest did not wane. The conversion of the heathen went
+on rapidly in the establishment of missions throughout the land. So
+sedulously did the good Fathers set about their work, that around their
+isolated chapels there presently arose adobe huts, whose mud-plastered
+and savage tenants partook regularly of the provisions, and occasionally
+of the Sacrament, of their pious hosts. Nay, so great was their
+progress, that one zealous Padre is reported to have administered
+the Lord’s Supper one Sabbath morning to “over three hundred heathen
+salvages.” It was not to be wondered that the Enemy of Souls, being
+greatly incensed thereat, and alarmed at his decreasing popularity,
+should have grievously tempted and embarrassed these holy Fathers, as we
+shall presently see.
+
+Yet they were happy, peaceful days for California. The vagrant keels of
+prying Commerce had not as yet ruffled the lordly gravity of her bays.
+No torn and ragged gulch betrayed the suspicion of golden treasure.
+The wild oats drooped idly in the morning heat or wrestled with the
+afternoon breezes. Deer and antelope dotted the plain. The watercourses
+brawled in their familiar channels, nor dreamed of ever shifting their
+regular tide. The wonders of the Yosemite and Calaveras were as yet
+unrecorded. The holy Fathers noted little of the landscape beyond the
+barbaric prodigality with which the quick soil repaid the sowing. A new
+conversion, the advent of a saint’s day, or the baptism of an Indian
+baby, was at once the chronicle and marvel of their day.
+
+At this blissful epoch there lived at the Mission of San Pablo Father
+Jose Antonio Haro, a worthy brother of the Society of Jesus. He was
+of tall and cadaverous aspect. A somewhat romantic history had given a
+poetic interest to his lugubrious visage. While a youth, pursuing his
+studies at famous Salamanca, he had become enamored of the charms
+of Dona Carmen de Torrencevara, as that lady passed to her matutinal
+devotions. Untoward circumstances, hastened, perhaps, by a wealthier
+suitor, brought this amour to a disastrous issue, and Father Jose
+entered a monastery, taking upon himself the vows of celibacy. It was
+here that his natural fervor and poetic enthusiasm conceived expression
+as a missionary. A longing to convert the uncivilized heathen succeeded
+his frivolous earthly passion, and a desire to explore and develop
+unknown fastnesses continually possessed him. In his flashing eye and
+sombre exterior was detected a singular commingling of the discreet Las
+Casas and the impetuous Balboa.
+
+Fired by this pious zeal, Father Jose went forward in the van of
+Christian pioneers. On reaching Mexico he obtained authority to
+establish the Mission of San Pablo. Like the good Junipero, accompanied
+only by an acolyte and muleteer, he unsaddled his mules in a dusky
+canon, and rang his bell in the wilderness. The savages—a peaceful,
+inoffensive, and inferior race—presently flocked around him. The
+nearest military post was far away, which contributed much to the
+security of these pious pilgrims, who found their open trustfulness and
+amiability better fitted to repress hostility than the presence of an
+armed, suspicious, and brawling soldiery. So the good Father Jose said
+matins and prime, mass and vespers, in the heart of sin and heathenism,
+taking no heed to himself, but looking only to the welfare of the Holy
+Church. Conversions soon followed, and on the 7th of July, 1760, the
+first Indian baby was baptized,—an event which, as Father Jose piously
+records, “exceeds the richnesse of gold or precious jewels or the
+chancing upon the Ophir of Solomon.” I quote this incident as best
+suited to show the ingenious blending of poetry and piety which
+distinguished Father Jose’s record.
+
+The Mission of San Pablo progressed and prospered, until the pious
+founder thereof, like the infidel Alexander, might have wept that there
+were no more heathen worlds to conquer. But his ardent and enthusiastic
+spirit could not long brook an idleness that seemed begotten of sin; and
+one pleasant August morning in the year of grace 1770 Father Jose issued
+from the outer court of the mission building, equipped to explore the
+field for new missionary labors.
+
+Nothing could exceed the quiet gravity and unpretentiousness of the
+little cavalcade. First rode a stout muleteer, leading a pack-mule laden
+with the provisions of the party, together with a few cheap crucifixes
+and hawks’ bells. After him came the devout Padre Jose, bearing his
+breviary and cross, with a black serapa thrown around his shoulders;
+while on either side trotted a dusky convert, anxious to show a proper
+sense of his regeneration by acting as guide into the wilds of his
+heathen brethren. Their new condition was agreeably shown by the absence
+of the usual mud-plaster, which in their unconverted state they assumed
+to keep away vermin and cold. The morning was bright and propitious.
+Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the
+protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but
+especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed
+to cherish unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church.
+
+As they wound through the canon, charming birds disported upon boughs
+and sprays, and sober quails piped from the alders; the willowy
+watercourses gave a musical utterance, and the long grass whispered on
+the hillside. On entering the deeper defiles, above them towered dark
+green masses of pine, and occasionally the madrono shook its bright
+scarlet berries. As they toiled up many a steep ascent, Father Jose
+sometimes picked up fragments of scoria, which spake to his imagination
+of direful volcanoes and impending earthquakes. To the less scientific
+mind of the muleteer Ignacio they had even a more terrifying
+significance; and he once or twice snuffed the air suspiciously, and
+declared that it smelt of sulphur. So the first day of their journey
+wore away, and at night they encamped without having met a single
+heathen face. It was on this night that the Enemy of Souls appeared to
+Ignacio in an appalling form. He had retired to a secluded part of the
+camp and had sunk upon his knees in prayerful meditation, when he looked
+up and perceived the Arch-Fiend in the likeness of a monstrous bear. The
+Evil One was seated on his hind legs immediately before him, with his
+fore paws joined together just below his black muzzle. Wisely conceiving
+this remarkable attitude to be in mockery and derision of his devotions,
+the worthy muleteer was transported with fury. Seizing an arquebus,
+he instantly closed his eyes and fired. When he had recovered from
+the effects of the terrific discharge, the apparition had disappeared.
+Father Jose, awakened by the report, reached the spot only in time to
+chide the muleteer for wasting powder and ball in a contest with one
+whom a single ave would, have been sufficient to utterly discomfit.
+What further reliance he placed on Ignacio’s story is not known; but, in
+commemoration of a worthy Californian custom, the place was called “La
+Canada de la Tentacion del Pio Muletero,” or “The Glen of the Temptation
+of the Pious Muleteer,” a name which it retains to this day.
+
+The next morning the party, issuing from a narrow gorge, came upon a
+long valley, sear and burnt with the shadeless heat. Its lower extremity
+was lost in a fading line of low hills, which, gathering might and
+volume toward the upper end of the valley, upheaved a stupendous bulwark
+against the breezy north. The peak of this awful spur was just touched
+by a fleecy cloud that shifted to and fro like a banneret. Father Jose
+gazed at it with mingled awe and admiration. By a singular coincidence,
+the muleteer Ignacio uttered the simple ejaculation “Diablo!”
+
+As they penetrated the valley, they soon began to miss the agreeable
+life and companionable echoes of the canon they had quitted. Huge
+fissures in the parched soil seemed to gape as with thirsty mouths.
+A few squirrels darted from the earth and disappeared as mysteriously
+before the jingly mules. A gray wolf trotted leisurely along just ahead.
+But whichever way Father Jose turned, the mountain always asserted
+itself and arrested his wandering eye. Out of the dry and arid valley
+it seemed to spring into cooler and bracing life. Deep cavernous shadows
+dwelt along its base; rocky fastnesses appeared midway of its elevation;
+and on either side huge black hills diverged like massy roots from a
+central trunk. His lively fancy pictured these hills peopled with a
+majestic and intelligent race of savages; and looking into futurity,
+he already saw a monstrous cross crowning the dome-like summit. Far
+different were the sensations of the muleteer, who saw in those awful
+solitudes only fiery dragons, colossal bears, and breakneck trails.
+The converts, Concepcion and Incarnacion, trotting modestly beside the
+Padre, recognized, perhaps, some manifestation of their former weird
+mythology.
+
+At nightfall they reached the base of the mountain. Here Father Jose
+unpacked his mules, said vespers, and, formally ringing his bell, called
+upon the Gentiles within hearing to come and accept the holy faith.
+The echoes of the black frowning hills around him caught up the pious
+invitation and repeated it at intervals; but no Gentiles appeared that
+night. Nor were the devotions of the muleteer again disturbed, although
+he afterward asserted that, when the Father’s exhortation was ended,
+a mocking peal of laughter came from the mountain. Nothing daunted by
+these intimations of the near hostility of the Evil One, Father Jose
+declared his intention to ascend the mountain at early dawn, and before
+the sun rose the next morning he was leading the way.
+
+The ascent was in many places difficult and dangerous. Huge fragments
+of rock often lay across the trail, and after a few hours’ climbing
+they were forced to leave their mules in a little gully and continue the
+ascent afoot. Unaccustomed to such exertion, Father Jose often stopped
+to wipe the perspiration from his thin cheeks. As the day wore on a
+strange silence oppressed them. Except the occasional pattering of a
+squirrel, or a rustling in the chimisal bushes, there were no signs of
+life. The half-human print of a bear’s foot sometimes appeared before
+them, at which Ignacio always crossed himself piously. The eye was
+sometimes cheated by a dripping from the rocks, which on closer
+inspection proved to be a resinous oily liquid with an abominable
+sulphurous smell. When they were within a short distance of the summit,
+the discreet Ignacio, selecting a sheltered nook for the camp, slipped
+aside and busied himself in preparations for the evening, leaving
+the holy Father to continue the ascent alone. Never was there a more
+thoughtless act of prudence, never a more imprudent piece of caution.
+Without noticing the desertion, buried in pious reflection, Father Jose
+pushed mechanically on, and, reaching the summit, cast himself down and
+gazed upon the prospect.
+
+Below him lay a succession of valleys opening into each other like
+gentle lakes, until they were lost to the southward. Westerly the
+distant range hid the bosky canada which sheltered the Mission of San
+Pablo. In the farther distance the Pacific Ocean stretched away, bearing
+a cloud of fog upon its bosom, which crept through the entrance of the
+bay, and rolled thickly between him and the northeastward; the same fog
+hid the base of the mountain and the view beyond. Still from time to
+time the fleecy veil parted, and timidly disclosed charming glimpses of
+mighty rivers, mountain defiles, and rolling plains, sear with ripened
+oats and bathed in the glow of the setting sun. As father Jose gazed,
+he was penetrated with a pious longing. Already his imagination, filled
+with enthusiastic conceptions, beheld all that vast expanse gathered
+under the mild sway of the holy faith and peopled with zealous converts.
+Each little knoll in fancy became crowned with a chapel; from each dark
+canon gleamed the white walls of a mission building. Growing bolder in
+his enthusiasm and looking farther into futurity, he beheld a new Spain
+rising on these savage shores. He already saw the spires of stately
+cathedrals, the domes of palaces, vineyards, gardens, and groves.
+Convents, half hid among the hills, peeping from plantations of
+branching limes, and long processions of chanting nuns wound through
+the denies. So completely was the good Father’s conception of the
+future confounded with the past, that even in their choral strain the
+well-remembered accents of Carmen struck his ear. He was busied in these
+fanciful imaginings, when suddenly over that extended prospect the faint
+distant tolling of a bell rang sadly out and died. It was the Angelus.
+Father Jose listened with superstitious exaltation. The Mission of San
+Pablo was far away, and the sound must have been some miraculous omen.
+But never before, to his enthusiastic sense, did the sweet seriousness
+of this angelic symbol come with such strange significance. With the
+last faint peal his glowing fancy seemed to cool; the fog closed in
+below him, and the good Father remembered he had not had his supper. He
+had risen and was wrapping his serapa around him, when he perceived for
+the first time that he was not alone.
+
+Nearly opposite, and where should have been the faithless Ignacio, a
+grave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of an
+elderly hidalgo, dressed in mourning, with mustaches of iron-gray
+carefully waxed and twisted round a pair of lantern-jaws. The
+monstrous hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated
+trunk-hose, contrasted with a frame shriveled and wizened, all
+belonged to a century previous. Yet Father Jose was not astonished. His
+adventurous life and poetic imagination, continually on the look-out
+for the marvelous, gave him a certain advantage over the practical and
+material-minded. He instantly detected the diabolical quality of his
+visitant, and was prepared. With equal coolness and courtesy he met the
+cavalier’s obeisance.
+
+“I ask your pardon, Sir Priest,” said the stranger, “for disturbing
+your meditations. Pleasant they must have been, and right fanciful, I
+imagine, when occasioned by so fair a prospect.”
+
+“Worldly, perhaps, Sir Devil,—for such I take you to be,” said the holy
+Father, as the stranger bowed his black plumes to the ground; “worldly,
+perhaps; for it hath pleased Heaven to retain even in our regenerated
+state much that pertaineth to the flesh, yet still, I trust, not without
+some speculation for the welfare of the Holy Church. In dwelling upon
+yon fair expanse, mine eyes have been graciously opened with prophetic
+inspiration, and the promise of the heathen as an inheritance hath
+marvelously recurred to me. For there can be none lack such diligence
+in the true faith but may see that even the conversion of these
+pitiful salvages hath a meaning. As the blessed St. Ignatius discreetly
+observes,” continued Father Jose, clearing his throat and slightly
+elevating his voice, “‘the heathen is given to the warriors of Christ,
+even as the pearls of rare discovery which gladden the hearts of
+shipmen.’ Nay, I might say”—
+
+But here the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting
+his mustaches with well-bred patience, took advantage of an oratorical
+pause.
+
+“It grieves me, Sir Priest, to interrupt the current of your eloquence
+as discourteously as I have already broken your meditations; but the day
+already waneth to night. I have a matter of serious import to make with
+you, could I entreat your cautious consideration a few moments.”
+
+Father Jose hesitated. The temptation was great, and the prospect
+of acquiring some knowledge of the Great Enemy’s plans not the least
+trifling object. And, if the truth must be told, there was a certain
+decorum about the stranger that interested the Padre. Though well aware
+of the Protean shapes the Arch-Fiend could assume, and though free from
+the weaknesses of the flesh, Father Jose was not above the temptations
+of the spirit. Had the Devil appeared, as in the case of the pious St.
+Anthony, in the likeness of a comely damsel, the good Father, with his
+certain experience of the deceitful sex, would have whisked her away
+in the saying of a paternoster. But there was, added to the security of
+age, a grave sadness about the stranger,—a thoughtful consciousness, as
+of being at a great moral disadvantage, which at once decided him on a
+magnanimous course of conduct.
+
+The stranger then proceeded to inform him that he had been diligently
+observing the holy Father’s triumphs in the valley. That, far from
+being greatly exercised thereat, he had been only grieved to see so
+enthusiastic and chivalrous an antagonist wasting his zeal in a hopeless
+work. For, he observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil
+had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. “It wants
+but a few moments of night,” he continued, “and over this interval of
+twilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to the
+west.”
+
+As the Padre turned, the stranger took his enormous hat from his head
+and waved it three times before him. At each sweep of the prodigious
+feather the fog grew thinner, until it melted impalpably away, and the
+former landscape returned, yet warm with the glowing sun. As Father Jose
+gazed a strain of martial music arose from the valley, and issuing
+from a deep canon the good Father beheld a long cavalcade of gallant
+cavaliers, habited like his companion. As they swept down the plain,
+they were joined by like processions, that slowly defiled from every
+ravine and canon of the mysterious mountain. From time to time the peal
+of a trumpet swelled fitfully upon the breeze; the cross of Santiago
+glittered, and the royal banners of Castile and Aragon waved over the
+moving column. So they moved on solemnly toward the sea, where, in the
+distance, Father Jose saw stately caravels, bearing the same familiar
+banner, awaiting them. The good Padre gazed with conflicting emotions,
+and the serious voice of the stranger broke the silence.
+
+“Thou hast beheld, Sir Priest, the fading footprints of adventurous
+Castile. Thou hast seen the declining glory of old Spain,—declining as
+yonder brilliant sun. The sceptre she hath wrested from the heathen is
+fast dropping from her decrepit and fleshless grasp. The children she
+hath fostered shall know her no longer. The soil she hath acquired shall
+be lost to her as irrevocably as she herself hath thrust the Moor from
+her own Granada.”
+
+The stranger paused, and his voice seemed broken by emotion; at the same
+time, Father Jose, whose sympathizing heart yearned toward the departing
+banners, cried in poignant accents,—
+
+“Farewell, ye gallant cavaliers and Christian soldiers! Farewell, thou,
+Juries de Balboa! thou, Alonzo de Ojeda! and thou, most venerable Las
+Casas! farewell, and may Heaven prosper still the seed ye left behind!”
+
+Then turning to the stranger, Father Jose beheld him gravely draw his
+pocket-handkerchief from the basket-hilt of his rapier and apply it
+decorously to his eyes. “Pardon this weakness, Sir Priest,” said the
+cavalier apologetically; “but these worthy gentlemen were ancient
+friends of mine, and have done me many a delicate service,—much more,
+perchance, than these poor sables may signify,” he added, with a grim
+gesture toward the mourning suit he wore.
+
+Father Jose was too much preoccupied in reflection to notice the
+equivocal nature of this tribute, and, after a few moments’ silence,
+said, as if continuing his thought,—
+
+“But the seed they have planted shall thrive and prosper on this
+fruitful soil.”
+
+As if answering the interrogatory, the stranger turned to the opposite
+direction, and, again waving his hat, said, in the same serious tone,
+“Look to the east!”
+
+The Father turned, and, as the fog broke away before the waving plume,
+he saw that the sun was rising. Issuing with its bright beams through
+the passes of the snowy mountains beyond appeared a strange and motley
+crew. Instead of the dark and romantic visages of his last phantom
+train, the Father beheld with strange concern the blue eyes and flaxen
+hair of a Saxon race. In place of martial airs and musical utterance,
+there rose upon the ear a strange din of harsh gutturals and singular
+sibilation. Instead of the decorous tread and stately mien of the
+cavaliers of the former vision, they came pushing, bustling, panting,
+and swaggering. And as they passed, the good Father noticed that giant
+trees were prostrated as with the breath of a tornado, and the bowels
+of the earth were torn and rent as with a convulsion. And Father Jose
+looked in vain for holy cross or Christian symbol; there was but one
+that seemed an ensign, and he crossed himself with holy horror as he
+perceived it bore the effigy of a bear.
+
+“Who are these swaggering Ishmaelites?” he asked, with something of
+asperity in his tone.
+
+The stranger was gravely silent.
+
+“What do they here, with neither cross nor holy symbol?” he again
+demanded.
+
+“Have you the courage to see, Sir Priest?” responded the stranger
+quietly.
+
+Father Jose felt his crucifix, as a lonely traveler might his rapier,
+and assented.
+
+“Step under the shadow of my plume,” said the stranger.
+
+Father Jose stepped beside him and they instantly sank through the
+earth.
+
+When he opened his eyes, which had remained closed in prayerful
+meditation during his rapid descent, he found himself in a vast vault,
+bespangled overhead with luminous points like the starred firmament. It
+was also lighted by a yellow glow that seemed to proceed from a mighty
+sea or lake that occupied the centre of the chamber. Around this
+subterranean sea dusky figures flitted, bearing ladles filled with the
+yellow fluid, which they had replenished from its depths. From this lake
+diverging streams of the same mysterious flood penetrated like mighty
+rivers the cavernous distance. As they walked by the banks of this
+glittering Styx, Father Jose perceived how the liquid stream at certain
+places became solid. The ground was strewn with glittering flakes. One
+of these the Padre picked up and curiously examined. It was virgin gold.
+
+An expression of discomfiture overcast the good Father’s face at this
+discovery; but there was trace neither of malice nor satisfaction in the
+stranger’s air, which was still of serious and fateful contemplation.
+When Father Jose recovered his equanimity, he said bitterly,—
+
+“This, then, Sir Devil, is your work! This is your deceitful lure for
+the weak souls of sinful nations! So would you replace the Christian
+grace of Holy Spain!”
+
+“This is what must be,” returned the stranger gloomily. “But listen, Sir
+Priest. It lies with you to avert the issue for a time. Leave me here
+in peace. Go back to Castile, and take with you your bells, your images,
+and your missions. Continue here, and you only precipitate results.
+Stay! promise me you will do this, and you shall not lack that which
+will render your old age an ornament and a blessing;” and the stranger
+motioned significantly to the lake.
+
+It was here, the legend discreetly relates, that the Devil showed—as he
+always shows sooner or later—his cloven hoof. The worthy Padre, sorely
+perplexed by this threefold vision, and, if the truth must be told,
+a little nettled at this wresting away of the glory of holy Spanish
+discovery, had shown some hesitation. But the unlucky bribe of the Enemy
+of Souls touched his Castilian spirit. Starting hack in deep disgust,
+he brandished his crucifix in the face of the unmasked Fiend, and in a
+voice that made the dusky vault resound cried,—
+
+“Avaunt thee, Sathanas! Diaholus, I defy thee! What! wouldst thou bribe
+me,—me, a brother of the Sacred Society of the Holy Jesus, Licentiate
+of Cordova and Inquisitor of Guadalaxara? Thinkest thou to buy me with
+thy sordid treasure? Avaunt!”
+
+What might have been the issue of this rupture, and how complete might
+have been the triumph of the holy Father over the Arch-Fiend, who was
+recoiling aghast at these sacred titles and the nourishing symbol, we
+can never know, for at that moment the crucifix slipped through his
+fingers.
+
+Scarcely had it touched the ground before Devil and holy Father
+simultaneously cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they clinched,
+and the pious Jose, who was as much the superior of his antagonist in
+bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary
+to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the
+stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing
+chillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but
+in vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the lake and cavern danced
+before his eyes and vanished, and with a loud cry he sank senseless to
+the ground.
+
+When he recovered his consciousness, he was aware of a gentle swaying
+motion of his body. He opened his eyes, and saw it was high noon, and
+that he was being carried in a litter through the valley. He felt stiff,
+and looking down, perceived that his arm was tightly bandaged to his
+side.
+
+He closed his eyes, and, after a few words of thankful prayer, thought
+how miraculously he had been preserved, and made a vow of candlesticks
+to the blessed Saint Jose. He then called in a faint voice, and
+presently the penitent Ignacio stood beside him.
+
+The joy the poor fellow felt at his patron’s returning consciousness
+for some time choked his utterance. He could only ejaculate, “A miracle!
+Blessed Saint Jose, he lives!” and kiss the Padre’s bandaged hand.
+Father Jose, more intent on his last night’s experience, waited for his
+emotion to subside, and asked where he had been found.
+
+“On the mountain, your Reverence, but a few varas from where he attacked
+you.”
+
+“How?—you saw him then?” asked the Padre in unfeigned astonishment.
+
+“Saw him, your Reverence! Mother of God! I should think I did! And your
+Reverence shall see him too, if he ever comes again within range of
+Ignacio’s arquebus.”
+
+“What mean you, Ignacio?” said the Padre, sitting bolt-upright in his
+litter.
+
+“Why, the bear, your Reverence,—the bear, holy Father, who attacked
+your worshipful person while you were meditating on the top of yonder
+mountain.”
+
+“Ah!” said the holy Father, lying down again. “Chut, child! I would be
+at peace.”
+
+When he reached the mission he was tenderly cared for, and in a few
+weeks was enabled to resume those duties from which, as will be seen,
+not even the machinations of the Evil One could divert him. The news
+of his physical disaster spread over the country, and a letter to the
+Bishop of Guadalaxara contained a confidential and detailed account of
+the good Father’s spiritual temptation. But in some way the story leaked
+out; and long after Jose was gathered to his fathers, his mysterious
+encounter formed the theme of thrilling and whispered narrative. The
+mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Senor Joaquin Pedrillo
+afterward located a grant near the base of the mountain; but as Senora
+Pedrillo was known to be a termagant half-breed, the senor was not
+supposed to be over-fastidious.
+
+Such is the legend of Monte del Diablo. As I said before, it may seem
+to lack essential corroboration. The discrepancy between the Father’s
+narrative and the actual climax has given rise to some skepticism on the
+part of ingenious quibblers. All such I would simply refer to that part
+of the report of Senor Julio Serro, Sub-Prefect of San Pablo, before
+whom attest of the above was made. Touching this matter, the worthy
+Prefect observes, “That although the body of Father Jose doth show
+evidence of grievous conflict in the flesh, yet that is no proof that
+the Enemy of Souls, who could assume the figure of a decorous elderly
+caballero, could not at the same time transform himself into a bear for
+his own vile purposes.”
+
+
+
+
+THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER
+
+
+The year of grace 1797 passed away on the coast of California in a
+southwesterly gale. The little bay of San Carlos, albeit sheltered by
+the headlands of the Blessed Trinity, was rough and turbulent; its foam
+clung quivering to the seaward wall of the mission garden; the air
+was filled with flying sand and spume, and as the Senor Comandante,
+Hermenegildo Salvatierra, looked from the deep embrasured window of the
+presidio guardroom, he felt the salt breath of the distant sea buffet a
+color into his smoke-dried cheeks.
+
+The commander, I have said, was gazing thoughtfully from the window of
+the guardroom. He may have been reviewing the events of the year now
+about to pass away. But, like the garrison at the Presidio, there
+was little to review. The year, like its predecessors, had been
+uneventful,—the days had slipped by in a delicious monotony of simple
+duties, unbroken by incident or interruption. The regularly recurring
+feasts and saints’ days, the half-yearly courier from San Diego, the
+rare transport-ship and rarer foreign vessel, were the mere details of
+his patriarchal life. If there was no achievement, there was certainly
+no failure. Abundant harvests and patient industry amply supplied the
+wants of presidio and mission. Isolated from the family of nations,
+the wars which shook the world concerned them not so much as the last
+earthquake; the struggle that emancipated their sister colonies on the
+other side of the continent to them had no suggestiveness. In short, it
+was that glorious Indian summer of Californian history around which
+so much poetical haze still lingers,—that bland, indolent autumn of
+Spanish rule, so soon to be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican
+independence and the reviving spring of American conquest.
+
+The commander turned from the window and walked toward the fire that
+burned brightly on the deep oven-like hearth. A pile of copy-books, the
+work of the presidio school, lay on the table. As he turned over the
+leaves with a paternal interest, and surveyed the fair round Scripture
+text,—the first pious pothooks of the pupils of San Carlos, an audible
+commentary fell from his lips: “‘Abimelech took her from Abraham’—ah,
+little one, excellent!—‘Jacob sent to see his brother’—body of Christ!
+that upstroke of thine, Paquita, is marvelous; the governor shall see
+it!” A film of honest pride dimmed the commander’s left eye,—the right,
+alas! twenty years before had been sealed by an Indian arrow. He rubbed
+it softly with the sleeve of his leather jacket, and continued: “‘The
+Ishmaelites having arrived’”—
+
+He stopped, for there was a step in the courtyard, a foot upon the
+threshold, and a stranger entered. With the instinct of an old soldier,
+the commander, after one glance at the intruder, turned quickly toward
+the wall, where his trusty Toledo hung, or should have been hanging. But
+it was not there, and as he recalled that the last time he had seen that
+weapon it was being ridden up and down the gallery by Pepito, the infant
+son of Bautista, the tortilio-maker, he blushed, and then contented
+himself with frowning upon the intruder.
+
+But the stranger’s air, though irreverent, was decidedly peaceful. He
+was unarmed, and wore the ordinary cape of tarpaulin and sea-boots of
+a mariner. Except a villainous smell of codfish, there was little about
+him that was peculiar.
+
+His name, as he informed the commander in Spanish that was more fluent
+than elegant or precise,—his name was Peleg Scudder. He was master of
+the schooner General Court, of the port of Salem, in Massachusetts, on
+a trading voyage to the South Seas, but now driven by stress of weather
+into the bay of San Carlos. He begged permission to ride out the gale
+under the headlands of the Blessed Trinity, and no more. Water he
+did not need, having taken in a supply at Bodega. He knew the strict
+surveillance of the Spanish port regulations in regard to foreign
+vessels, and would do nothing against the severe discipline and good
+order of the settlement. There was a slight tinge of sarcasm in his tone
+as he glanced toward the desolate parade ground of the presidio and the
+open unguarded gate. The fact was that the sentry, Felipe Gomez, had
+discreetly retired to shelter at the beginning of the storm, and was
+then sound asleep in the corridor.
+
+The commander hesitated. The port regulations were severe, but he was
+accustomed to exercise individual authority, and beyond an old order
+issued ten years before, regarding the American ship Columbia, there
+was no precedent to guide him. The storm was severe, and a sentiment of
+humanity urged him to grant the stranger’s request. It is but just to
+the commander to say that his inability to enforce a refusal did not
+weigh with his decision. He would have denied with equal disregard of
+consequences that right to a seventy-four-gun ship which he now yielded
+so gracefully to this Yankee trading schooner. He stipulated only
+that there should be no communication between the ship and shore. “For
+yourself, Senor Captain,” he continued, “accept my hospitality. The
+fort is yours as long as you shall grace it with your distinguished
+presence,” and with old-fashioned courtesy he made the semblance of
+withdrawing from the guardroom.
+
+Master Peleg Scudder smiled as he thought of the half-dismantled fort,
+the two mouldy brass cannon, cast in Manila a century previous, and the
+shiftless garrison. A wild thought of accepting the commander’s offer
+literally, conceived in the reckless spirit of a man who never let
+slip an offer for trade, for a moment filled his brain, but a timely
+reflection of the commercial unimportance of the transaction checked
+him. He only took a capacious quid of tobacco, as the commander gravely
+drew a settle before the fire, and in honor of his guest untied the
+black silk handkerchief that bound his grizzled brows.
+
+What passed between Salvatierra and his guest that night it becomes me
+not, as a grave chronicler of the salient points of history, to relate.
+I have said that Master Peleg Scudder was a fluent talker, and under
+the influence of divers strong waters, furnished by his host, he became
+still more loquacious. And think of a man with a twenty years’ budget
+of gossip! The commander learned, for the first time, how Great Britain
+lost her colonies; of the French Revolution; of the great Napoleon,
+whose achievements, perhaps, Peleg colored more highly than the
+commander’s superiors would have liked. And when Peleg turned
+questioner, the commander was at his mercy. He gradually made himself
+master of the gossip of the mission and presidio, the “small beer”
+ chronicles of that pastoral age, the conversion of the heathen, the
+presidio schools, and even asked the commander how he had lost his eye.
+It is said that at this point of the conversation Master Peleg produced
+from about his person divers small trinkets, kickshaws and new-fangled
+trifles, and even forced some of them upon his host. It is further
+alleged that under the malign influence of Peleg and several glasses of
+aguardiente the commander lost somewhat of his decorum, and behaved in
+a manner unseemly for one in his position, reciting high-flown Spanish
+poetry, and even piping in a thin high voice divers madrigals and
+heathen canzonets of an amorous complexion, chiefly in regard to a
+“little one” who was his, the commander’s, “soul.” These allegations,
+perhaps unworthy the notice of a serious chronicler, should be received
+with great caution, and are introduced here as simple hearsay. That the
+commander, however, took a handkerchief and attempted to show his guest
+the mysteries of the sembi cuacua, capering in an agile but indecorous
+manner about the apartment, has been denied. Enough for the purposes
+of this narrative, that at midnight Peleg assisted his host to bed with
+many protestations of undying friendship, and then, as the gale had
+abated, took his leave of the presidio, and hurried aboard the General
+Court. When the day broke the ship was gone.
+
+I know not if Peleg kept his word with his host. It is said that the
+holy Fathers at the mission that night heard a loud chanting in the
+plaza, as of the heathens singing psalms through their noses; that for
+many days after an odor of salt codfish prevailed in the settlement;
+that a dozen hard nutmegs, which were unfit for spice or seed, were
+found in the possession of the wife of the baker, and that several
+bushels of shoe-pegs, which bore a pleasing resemblance to oats, but
+were quite inadequate to the purposes of provender, were discovered in
+the stable of the blacksmith.
+
+But when the reader reflects upon the sacredness of a Yankee trader’s
+word, the stringent discipline of the Spanish port regulations, and the
+proverbial indisposition of my countrymen to impose upon the confidence
+of a simple people, he will at once reject this part of the story.
+
+A roll of drums, ushering in the year 1798, awoke the commander. The sun
+was shining brightly, and the storm had ceased. He sat up in bed, and
+through the force of habit rubbed his left eye. As the remembrance of
+the previous night came back to him, he jumped from his couch and ran
+to the window. There was no ship in the bay. A sudden thought seemed to
+strike him, and he rubbed both of his eyes. Not content with this, he
+consulted the metallic mirror which hung beside his crucifix. There was
+no mistake; the commander had a visible second eye,—a right one,—as
+good, save for the purposes of vision, as the left.
+
+Whatever might have been the true secret of this transformation, but
+one opinion prevailed at San Carlos. It was one of those rare miracles
+vouchsafed a pious Catholic community as an evidence to the heathen,
+through the intercession of the blessed San Carlos himself. That their
+beloved commander, the temporal defender of the Faith, should be the
+recipient of this miraculous manifestation was most fit and seemly. The
+commander himself was reticent; he could not tell a falsehood,—he dared
+not tell the truth. After all, if the good folk of San Carlos believed
+that the powers of his right eye were actually restored, was it wise and
+discreet for him to undeceive them? For the first time in his life the
+commander thought of policy,—for the first time he quoted that text
+which has been the lure of so many well-meaning but easy Christians, of
+being “all things to all men.” Infeliz Hermenegildo Salvatierra!
+
+For by degrees an ominous whisper crept through the little settlement.
+The right eye of the commander, although miraculous, seemed to exercise
+a baleful effect upon the beholder. No one could look at it without
+winking. It was cold, hard, relentless, and unflinching. More than that,
+it seemed to be endowed with a dreadful prescience,—a faculty of seeing
+through and into the inarticulate thoughts of those it looked upon. The
+soldiers of the garrison obeyed the eye rather than the voice of their
+commander, and answered his glance rather than his lips in questioning.
+The servants could not evade the ever-watchful but cold attention that
+seemed to pursue them. The children of the presidio school smirched
+their copy-books under the awful supervision, and poor Paquita, the
+prize pupil, failed utterly in that marvelous up-stroke when her patron
+stood beside her. Gradually distrust, suspicion, self-accusation, and
+timidity took the place of trust, confidence, and security throughout
+San Carlos. Wherever the right eye of the commander fell, a shadow fell
+with it.
+
+Not was Salvatierra entirely free from the baleful influence of his
+miraculous acquisition. Unconscious of its effect upon others, he only
+saw in their actions evidence of certain things that the crafty Peleg
+had hinted on that eventful New Year’s eve. His most trusty retainers
+stammered, blushed, and faltered before him. Self-accusations,
+confessions of minor faults and delinquencies, or extravagant excuses
+and apologies met his mildest inquiries. The very children that he
+loved—his pet pupil, Paquita—seemed to be conscious of some hidden
+sin. The result of this constant irritation showed itself more plainly.
+For the first half-year the commander’s voice and eye were at variance.
+He was still kind, tender, and thoughtful in speech. Gradually, however,
+his voice took upon itself the hardness of his glance and its skeptical,
+impassive quality, and as the year again neared its close it was plain
+that the commander had fitted himself to the eye, and not the eye to the
+commander.
+
+It may be surmised that these changes did not escape the watchful
+solicitude of the Fathers. Indeed, the few who were first to ascribe the
+right eye of Salvatierra to miraculous origin and the special grace of
+the blessed San Carlos, now talked openly of witchcraft and the agency
+of Luzbel, the evil one. It would have fared ill with Hermenegildo
+Salvatierra had he been aught but commander or amenable to local
+authority. But the reverend Father, Friar Manuel de Cortes, had no
+power over the political executive, and all attempts at spiritual
+advice failed signally. He retired baffled and confused from his first
+interview with the commander, who seemed now to take a grim satisfaction
+in the fateful power of his glance. The holy Father contradicted
+himself, exposed the fallacies of his own arguments, and even, it is
+asserted, committed himself to several undoubted heresies. When the
+commander stood up at mass, if the officiating priest caught that
+skeptical and searching eye, the service was inevitably ruined. Even the
+power of the Holy Church seemed to be lost, and the last hold upon the
+affections of the people and the good order of the settlement departed
+from San Carlos.
+
+As the long dry summer passed, the low hills that surrounded the white
+walls of the presidio grew more and more to resemble in hue the leathern
+jacket of the commander, and Nature herself seemed to have borrowed his
+dry, hard glare. The earth was cracked and seamed with drought; a blight
+had fallen upon the orchards and vineyards, and the rain, long delayed
+and ardently prayed for, came not. The sky was as tearless as the
+right eye of the commander. Murmurs of discontent, insubordination, and
+plotting among the Indians reached his ear; he only set his teeth the
+more firmly, tightened the knot of his black silk handkerchief, and
+looked up his Toledo.
+
+The last day of the year 1798 found the commander sitting, at the hour
+of evening prayers, alone in the guardroom. He no longer attended
+the services of the Holy Church, but crept away at such times to some
+solitary spot, where he spent the interval in silent meditation. The
+firelight played upon the low beams and rafters, but left the bowed
+figure of Salvatierra in darkness. Sitting thus, he felt a small hand
+touch his arm, and, looking down, saw the figure of Paquita, his little
+Indian pupil, at his knee. “Ah! littlest of all,” said the commander,
+with something of his old tenderness, lingering over the endearing
+diminutives of his native speech,—“sweet one, what doest thou here?
+Art thou not afraid of him whom every one shuns and fears?”
+
+“No,” said the little Indian readily, “not in the dark. I hear your
+voice,—the old voice; I feel your touch,—the old touch; but I see not
+your eye, Senor Comandante. That only I fear,—and that, O senor, O my
+father,” said the child, lifting her little arms towards his,—“that I
+know is not thine own!”
+
+The commander shuddered and turned away. Then, recovering himself, he
+kissed Paquita gravely on the forehead and bade her retire. A few hours
+later, when silence had fallen upon the presidio, he sought his own
+couch and slept peacefully.
+
+At about the middle watch of the night a dusky figure crept through the
+low embrasure of the commander’s apartment. Other figures were flitting
+through the parade-ground, which the commander might have seen had he
+not slept so quietly. The intruder stepped noiselessly to the couch and
+listened to the sleeper’s deep-drawn respiration. Something glittered in
+the firelight as the savage lifted his arm; another moment and the sore
+perplexities of Hermenegildo Salvatierra would have been over, when
+suddenly the savage started and fell back in a paroxysm of terror. The
+commander slept peacefully, but his right eye, widely opened, fixed and
+unaltered, glared coldly on the would-be assassin. The man fell to the
+earth in a fit, and the noise awoke the sleeper.
+
+To rise to his feet, grasp his sword, and deal blows thick and fast
+upon the mutinous savages who now thronged the room, was the work of
+a moment. Help opportunely arrived, and the undisciplined Indians were
+speedily driven beyond the walls; but in the scuffle the commander
+received a blow upon his right eye, and, lifting his hand to that
+mysterious organ, it was gone. Never again was it found, and never
+again, for bale or bliss, did it adorn the right orbit of the commander.
+
+With it passed away the spell that had fallen upon San Carlos. The rain
+returned to invigorate the languid soil, harmony was restored between
+priest and soldier, the green grass presently waved over the sere
+hillsides, the children flocked again to the side of their martial
+preceptor, a Te Deum was sung in the mission church, and pastoral
+content once more smiled upon the gentle valleys of San Carlos. And
+far southward crept the General Court with its master. Peleg Scudder,
+trafficking in heads and peltries with the Indians, and offering glass
+eyes, wooden legs, and other Boston notions to the chiefs.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF DEVIL’S POINT
+
+
+On the northerly shore of San Francisco Bay, at a point where the Golden
+Gate broadens into the Pacific, stands a bluff promontory. It affords
+shelter from the prevailing winds to a semicircular bay on the east.
+Around this bay the hillside is bleak and barren, but there are traces
+of former habitation in a weather-beaten cabin and deserted corral. It
+is said that these were originally built by an enterprising squatter,
+who for some unaccountable reason abandoned them shortly after. The
+“jumper” who succeeded him disappeared one day quite as mysteriously.
+The third tenant, who seemed to be a man of sanguine, hopeful
+temperament, divided the property into building lots, staked off the
+hillside, and projected the map of a new metropolis. Failing, however,
+to convince the citizens of San Francisco that they had mistaken the
+site of their city, he presently fell into dissipation and despondency.
+He was frequently observed haunting the narrow strip of beach at low
+tide or perched upon the cliff at high water. In the latter position a
+sheep-tender one day found him, cold and pulseless, with a map of his
+property in his hand, and his face turned toward the distant sea.
+
+Perhaps these circumstances gave the locality its infelicitous
+reputation. Vague rumors were bruited of a supernatural influence that
+had been exercised on the tenants. Strange stories were circulated of
+the origin of the diabolical title by which the promontory was known. By
+some it was believed to be haunted by the spirit of one of Sir Francis
+Drake’s sailors, who had deserted his ship in consequence of stories
+told by the Indians of gold discoveries, but who had perished by
+starvation on the rocks. A vaquero who had once passed a night in the
+ruined cabin related how a strangely dressed and emaciated figure had
+knocked at the door at midnight and demanded food. Other story-tellers,
+of more historical accuracy, roundly asserted that Sir Francis himself
+had been little better than a pirate, and had chosen this spot to
+conceal quantities of ill-gotten booty taken from neutral bottoms,
+and had protected his hiding-place by the orthodox means of hellish
+incantation and diabolic agencies. On moonlight nights a shadowy ship
+was sometimes seen standing off and on, or when fogs encompassed sea and
+shore, the noise of oars rising and falling in their rowlocks could be
+heard muffled and indistinctly during the night. Whatever foundation
+there might have been for these stories, it was certain that a more
+weird and desolate-looking spot could not have been selected for their
+theatre. High hills, verdureless and enfiladed with dark canadas, cast
+their gaunt shadows on the tide. During a greater portion of the day
+the wind, which blew furiously and incessantly, seemed possessed with a
+spirit of fierce disquiet and unrest. Toward nightfall the sea-fog
+crept with soft step through the portals of the Golden Gate, or stole in
+noiseless marches down the hillside, tenderly soothing the wind-buffeted
+face of the cliff, until sea and sky were hid together. At such times
+the populous city beyond and the nearer settlement seemed removed to an
+infinite distance. An immeasurable loneliness settled upon the cliff.
+The creaking of a windlass, or the monotonous chant of sailors on
+some unseen, outlying ship, came faint and far, and full of mystic
+suggestion.
+
+About a year ago a well-to-do middle-aged broker of San Francisco found
+himself at nightfall the sole occupant of a plunger, encompassed in
+a dense fog, and drifting toward the Golden Gate. This unexpected
+termination of an afternoon’s sail was partly attributable to his want
+of nautical skill, and partly to the effect of his usually sanguine
+nature. Having given up the guidance of his boat to the wind and tide,
+he had trusted too implicitly for that reaction which his business
+experience assured him was certain to occur in all affairs, aquatic
+as well as terrestrial. “The tide will turn soon,” said the broker
+confidently, “or something will happen.” He had scarcely settled himself
+back again in the stern-sheets, before the bow of the plunger, obeying
+some mysterious impulse, veered slowly around and a dark object loomed
+up before him. A gentle eddy carried the boat farther in shore, until
+at last it was completely embayed under the lee of a rocky point now
+faintly discernible through the fog. He looked around him in the vain
+hope of recognizing some familiar headland. The tops of the high hills
+which rose on either side were hidden in the fog. As the boat swung
+around, he succeeded in fastening a line to the rocks, and sat down
+again with a feeling of renewed confidence and security.
+
+It was very cold. The insidious fog penetrated his tightly buttoned
+coat, and set his teeth to chattering in spite of the aid he sometimes
+drew from a pocket-flask. His clothes were wet, and the stern-sheets
+were covered with spray. The comforts of fire and shelter continually
+rose before his fancy as he gazed wistfully on the rocks. In sheer
+despair he finally drew the boat toward the most accessible part of the
+cliff and essayed to ascend. This was less difficult than it appeared,
+and in a few moments he had gained the hill above. A dark object at a
+little distance attracted his attention, and on approaching it proved
+to be a deserted cabin. The story goes on to say that, having built a
+roaring fire of stakes pulled from the adjoining corral, with the aid
+of a flask of excellent brandy, he managed to pass the early part of the
+evening with comparative comfort. There was no door in the cabin, and
+the windows were simply square openings, which freely admitted the
+searching fog. But in spite of these discomforts,—being a man of
+cheerful, sanguine temperament,—he amused himself by poking the fire
+and watching the ruddy glow which the flames threw on the fog from the
+open door. In this innocent occupation a great weariness overcame him,
+and he fell asleep.
+
+He was awakened at midnight by a loud “halloo,” which seemed to proceed
+directly from the sea. Thinking it might be the cry of some boatman lost
+in the fog, he walked to the edge of the cliff, but the thick veil that
+covered sea and land rendered all objects at the distance of a few feet
+indistinguishable. He heard, however, the regular strokes of oars rising
+and falling on the water. The halloo was repeated. He was clearing his
+throat to reply, when to his surprise an answer came apparently from the
+very cabin he had quitted. Hastily retracing his steps, he was the more
+amazed, on reaching the open door, to find a stranger warming himself by
+the fire. Stepping back far enough to conceal his own person, he took a
+good look at the intruder.
+
+He was a man of about forty, with a cadaverous face. But the oddity
+of his dress attracted the broker’s attention more than his lugubrious
+physiognomy. His legs were hid in enormously wide trousers descending
+to his knee, where they met long boots of sealskin. A pea-jacket with
+exaggerated cuffs, almost as large as the breeches, covered his chest,
+and around his waist a monstrous belt, with a buckle like a dentist’s
+sign, supported two trumpet-mouthed pistols and a curved hanger. He wore
+a long queue, which depended halfway down his back. As the firelight
+fell on his ingenuous countenance the broker observed with some concern
+that this queue was formed entirely of a kind of tobacco known as
+pigtail or twist. Its effect, the broker remarked, was much heightened
+when in a moment of thoughtful abstraction the apparition bit off a
+portion of it and rolled it as a quid into the cavernous recesses of his
+jaws.
+
+Meanwhile the nearer splash of oars indicated the approach of the unseen
+boat. The broker had barely time to conceal himself behind the cabin
+before a number of uncouth-looking figures clambered up the hill toward
+the ruined rendezvous. They were dressed like the previous comer, who,
+as they passed through the open door, exchanged greetings with each in
+antique phraseology, bestowing at the same time some familiar nickname.
+Flash-in-the-Pan, Spitter-of-Frogs, Malmsey Butt, Latheyard Will, and
+Mark-the-Pinker, were the few sobriquets the broker remembered. Whether
+these titles were given to express some peculiarity of their owner he
+could not tell, for a silence followed as they slowly ranged themselves
+upon the floor of the cabin in a semicircle around their cadaverous
+host.
+
+At length Malmsey Butt, a spherical-bodied man-of-war’s-man, with
+a rubicund nose, got on his legs somewhat unsteadily, and addressed
+himself to the company. They had met that evening, said the speaker, in
+accordance with a time-honored custom. This was simply to relieve that
+one of their number who for fifty years had kept watch and ward over
+the locality where certain treasures had been buried. At this point the
+broker pricked up his ears. “If so be, camarados and brothers all,”
+ he continued, “ye are ready to receive the report of our excellent and
+well-beloved brother, Master Slit-the-Weazand, touching his search for
+this treasure, why, marry, to ’t and begin.”
+
+A murmur of assent went around the circle as the speaker resumed his
+seat. Master Slit-the-Weazand slowly opened his lantern jaws and began.
+He had spent much of his time in determining the exact location of the
+treasure. He believed—nay, he could state positively—that its position
+was now settled. It was true he had done some trifling little business
+outside. Modesty forbade his mentioning the particulars, but he would
+simply state that of the three tenants who had occupied the cabin during
+the past ten years, none were now alive. [Applause, and cries of “Go to!
+thou wast always a tall fellow!” and the like.]
+
+Mark-the-Pinker next arose. Before proceeding to business he had a duty
+to perform in the sacred name of friendship. It ill became him to pass
+a eulogy upon the qualities of the speaker who had preceded him, for
+he had known him from “boyhood’s hour.” Side by side they had wrought
+together in the Spanish war. For a neat hand with a Toledo he challenged
+his equal, while how nobly and beautifully he had won his present title
+of Slit-the-Weazand all could testify. The speaker, with some show of
+emotion, asked to be pardoned if he dwelt too freely on passages of
+their early companionship; he then detailed, with a fine touch of
+humor, his comrade’s peculiar manner of slitting the ears and lips of a
+refractory Jew who had been captured in one of their previous voyages.
+He would not weary the patience of his hearers, but would briefly
+propose that the report of Slit-the-Weazand be accepted, and that the
+thanks of the company be tendered him.
+
+A breaker of strong spirits was then rolled into the hut, and cans
+of grog were circulated freely from hand to hand. The health of
+Slit-the-Weazand was proposed in a neat speech by Mark-the-Pinker, and
+responded to by the former gentleman in a manner that drew tears to the
+eyes of all present. To the broker, in his concealment, this momentary
+diversion from the real business of the meeting occasioned much anxiety.
+As yet nothing had been said to indicate the exact locality of the
+treasure to which they had mysteriously alluded. Fear restrained him
+from open inquiry, and curiosity kept him from making good his escape
+during the orgy which followed. But his situation was beginning to
+become critical. Flash-in-the-Pan, who seemed to have been a man of
+choleric humor, taking fire during some hotly contested argument,
+discharged both his pistols at the breast of his opponent. The balls
+passed through on each side immediately below his armpits, making a
+clean hole, through which the horrified broker could see the firelight
+behind him. The wounded man, without betraying any concern, excited
+the laughter of the company by jocosely putting his arms akimbo, and
+inserting his thumbs into the orifices of the wounds as if they had been
+armholes. This having in a measure restored good humor, the party
+joined hands and formed a circle preparatory to dancing. The dance was
+commenced by some monotonous stanzas hummed in a very high key by one
+of the party, the rest joining in the following chorus, which seemed to
+present a familiar sound to the broker’s ear:—
+
+  “Her Majesty is very sicke, Lord Essex hath the measles, Our Admiral
+  hath licked ye French—Poppe! saith ye weasel!”
+
+At the regular recurrence of the last line, the party discharged their
+loaded pistols in all directions, rendering the position of the unhappy
+broker one of extreme peril and perplexity.
+
+When the tumult had partially subsided, Flash-in-the-Pan called the
+meeting to order, and most of the revelers returned to their places,
+Malmsey Butt, however, insisting upon another chorus, and singing at the
+top of his voice:—
+
+  “I am ycleped J. Keyser—I was born at Spring, hys Garden, My father
+  toe make me ane clerke erst did essaye, But a fico for ye offis—I
+  spurn ye losels offeire; For I fain would be ane butcher by’r
+  ladykin alwaye.”
+
+Flash-in-the-Pan drew a pistol from his belt, and bidding some one gag
+Malmsey Butt with the stock of it, proceeded to read from a portentous
+roll of parchment that he held in his hand. It was a semi-legal
+document, clothed in the quaint phraseology of a bygone period. After a
+long preamble, asserting their loyalty as lieges of her most bountiful
+Majesty and Sovereign Lady the Queen, the document declared that
+they then and there took possession of the promontory, and all the
+treasure-trove therein contained, formerly buried by Her Majesty’s
+most faithful and devoted Admiral Sir Francis Drake, with the right to
+search, discover, and appropriate the same; and for the purpose thereof
+they did then and there form a guild or corporation to so discover,
+search for, and disclose said treasures, and by virtue thereof they
+solemnly subscribed their names. But at this moment the reading of the
+parchment was arrested by an exclamation from the assembly, and the
+broker was seen frantically struggling at the door in the strong arms of
+Mark-the-Pinker.
+
+“Let me go!” he cried, as he made a desperate attempt to reach the side
+of Master Flash-in-the-Pan. “Let me go! I tell you, gentlemen, that
+document is not worth the parchment it is written on. The laws of
+the State, the customs of the country, the mining ordinances, are all
+against it. Don’t, by all that’s sacred, throw away such a capital
+investment through ignorance and informality. Let me go! I assure you,
+gentlemen, professionally, that you have a big thing,—a remarkably big
+thing, and even if I ain’t in it, I’m not going to see it fall through.
+Don’t, for God’s sake, gentlemen, I implore you, put your names to such
+a ridiculous paper. There isn’t a notary”—
+
+He ceased. The figures around him, which were beginning to grow fainter
+and more indistinct as he went on, swam before his eyes, flickered,
+reappeared again, and finally went out. He rubbed his eyes and gazed
+around him. The cabin was deserted. On the hearth the red embers of
+his fire were fading away in the bright beams of the morning sun, that
+looked aslant through the open window. He ran out to the cliff. The
+sturdy sea-breeze fanned his feverish cheeks and tossed the white caps
+of waves that beat in pleasant music on the beach below. A stately
+merchantman with snowy canvas was entering the Gate. The voices of
+sailors came cheerfully from a bark at anchor below the point. The
+muskets of the sentries gleamed brightly on Alcatraz, and the rolling
+of drums swelled on the breeze. Farther on, the hills of San Francisco,
+cottage-crowned and bordered with wharves and warehouses, met his
+longing eye.
+
+Such is the legend of Devil’s Point. Any objections to its reliability
+may be met with the statement that the broker who tells the story has
+since incorporated a company under the title of “Flash-in-the-Pan Gold
+and Silver Treasure Mining Company,” and that its shares are already
+held at a stiff figure. A copy of the original document is said to be on
+record in the office of the company, and on any clear day the locality
+of the claim may be distinctly seen from the hills of San Francisco.
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF PADRE VICENTIO
+
+A LEGEND OF SAN FRANCISCO
+
+
+One pleasant New Year’s eve, about forty years ago, Padre Vicentio was
+slowly picking his way across the sand-hills from the Mission Dolores.
+As he climbed the crest of the ridge beside Mission Creek, his broad,
+shining face might have been easily mistaken for the beneficent image of
+the rising moon, so bland was its smile and so indefinite its features.
+For the Padre was a man of notable reputation and character; his
+ministration at the Mission of San Jose had been marked with cordiality
+and unction; he was adored by the simple-minded savages, and had
+succeeded in impressing his individuality so strongly upon them, that
+the very children were said to have miraculously resembled him in
+feature.
+
+As the holy man reached the loneliest portion of the road, he naturally
+put spurs to his mule as if to quicken that decorous pace which the
+obedient animal had acquired through long experience of its master’s
+habits. The locality had an unfavorable reputation. Sailors—deserters
+from whale-ships—had been seen lurking about the outskirts of the town,
+and low scrub oaks which everywhere beset the trail might have easily
+concealed some desperate runaway. Besides these material obstructions,
+the Devil, whose hostility to the Church was well known, was said to
+sometimes haunt the vicinity in the likeness of a spectral whaler, who
+had met his death in a drunken bout from a harpoon in the hands of a
+companion. The ghost of this unfortunate mariner was frequently observed
+sitting on the hill toward the dusk of evening, armed with his favorite
+weapon and a tub containing a coil of line, looking out for some belated
+traveler on whom to exercise his professional skill. It is related
+that the good Father Jose Maria of the Mission Dolores had been twice
+attacked by this phantom sportsman; that once, on returning from San
+Francisco, and panting with exertion from climbing the hill, he was
+startled by a stentorian cry of “There she blows!” quickly followed by
+a hurtling harpoon, which buried itself in the sand beside him; that on
+another occasion he narrowly escaped destruction, his serapa having
+been transfixed by the diabolical harpoon and dragged away in triumph.
+Popular opinion seems to have been divided as to the reason for the
+Devil’s particular attention to Father Jose, some asserting that the
+extreme piety of the Padre excited the Evil One’s animosity, and others
+that his adipose tendency simply rendered him, from a professional
+view-point, a profitable capture.
+
+Had Father Vicentio been inclined to scoff at this apparition as a
+heretical innovation, there was still the story of Concepcion, the
+Demon Vaquero, whose terrible riata was fully as potent as the whaler’s
+harpoon. Concepcion, when in the flesh, had been a celebrated herder of
+cattle and wild horses, and was reported to have chased the Devil in
+the shape of a fleet pinto colt all the way from San Luis Obispo to San
+Francisco, vowing not to give up the chase until he had overtaken the
+disguised Arch-Enemy. This the Devil prevented by resuming his own
+shape, but kept the unfortunate vaquero to the fulfillment of his
+rash vow; and Concepcion still scoured the coast on a phantom steed,
+beguiling the monotony of his eternal pursuit by lassoing travelers,
+dragging them at the heels of his unbroken mustang until they were
+eventually picked up, half strangled, by the roadside. The Padre
+listened attentively for the tramp of this terrible rider. But no
+footfall broke the stillness of the night; even the hoofs of his own
+mule sank noiselessly in the shifting sand. Now and then a rabbit
+bounded lightly by him, or a quail ran into the bushes. The melancholy
+call of plover from the adjoining marshes of Mission Creek came to him
+so faintly and fitfully that it seemed almost a recollection of the past
+rather than a reality of the present.
+
+To add to his discomposure, one of those heavy sea-fogs peculiar to the
+locality began to drift across the hills and presently encompassed
+him. While endeavoring to evade its cold embraces, Padre Vicentio
+incautiously drove his heavy spurs into the flanks of his mule as that
+puzzled animal was hesitating on the brink of a steep declivity. Whether
+the poor beast was indignant at this novel outrage, or had been for some
+time reflecting on the evils of being priest-ridden, has not transpired;
+enough that he suddenly threw up his heels, pitching the reverend man
+over his head, and, having accomplished this feat, coolly dropped on his
+knees and tumbled after his rider.
+
+Over and over went the Padre, closely followed by his faithless mule.
+Luckily the little hollow which received the pair was of sand, that
+yielded to the superincumbent weight, half burying them without further
+injury. For some moments the poor man lay motionless, vainly endeavoring
+to collect his scattered senses. A hand irreverently laid upon his
+collar and a rough shake assisted to recall his consciousness. As the
+Padre staggered to his feet he found himself confronted by a stranger.
+
+Seen dimly through the fog, and under circumstances that to say the
+least were not prepossessing, the new-comer had an inexpressibly
+mysterious and brigand-like aspect. A long boat-cloak concealed his
+figure, and a slouched hat hid his features, permitting only his eyes
+to glisten in the depths. With a deep groan the Padre slipped from the
+stranger’s grasp and subsided into the soft sand again.
+
+“Gad’s life!” said the stranger, pettishly, “hast no more bones in thy
+fat carcass than a jellyfish? Lend a hand, here! Yo, heave ho!” and he
+dragged the Padre into an upright position. “Now, then, who and what art
+thou?”
+
+The Padre could not help thinking that the question might have more
+properly been asked by himself; but with an odd mixture of dignity and
+trepidation he began enumerating his different titles, which were by no
+means brief, and would have been alone sufficient to strike awe in the
+bosom of an ordinary adversary. The stranger irreverently broke in upon
+his formal phrases, and assuring him that a priest was the very person
+he was looking for, coolly replaced the old man’s hat, which had tumbled
+off, and bade him accompany him at once on an errand of spiritual
+counsel to one who was even then lying in extremity. “To think,” said
+the stranger, “that I should stumble upon the very man I was seeking!
+Body of Bacchus! but this is lucky! Follow me quickly, for there is no
+time to lose.”
+
+Like most easy natures, the positive assertion of the stranger, and
+withal a certain authoritative air of command, overcame what slight
+objections the Padre might have feebly nurtured during this remarkable
+interview. The spiritual invitation was one, also, that he dared
+not refuse; not only that, but it tended somewhat to remove the
+superstitious dread with which he had begun to regard the mysterious
+stranger. But, following at a respectful distance, the Padre could not
+help observing with a thrill of horror that the stranger’s footsteps
+made no impression on the sand, and his figure seemed at times to blend
+and incorporate itself with the fog, until the holy man was obliged to
+wait for its reappearance. In one of these intervals of embarrassment
+he heard the ringing of the far-off mission bell proclaiming the hour of
+midnight. Scarcely had the last stroke died away before the announcement
+was taken up and repeated by a multitude of bells of all sizes, and
+the air was filled with the sound of striking clocks and the pealing of
+steeple chimes. The old man uttered a cry of alarm. The stranger sharply
+demanded the cause. “The bells! did you not hear them?” gasped Padre
+Vicentio. “Tush! tush!” answered the stranger, “thy fall hath set triple
+bob-majors ringing in thine ears. Come on!”
+
+The Padre was only too glad to accept the explanation conveyed in
+this discourteous answer. But he was destined for another singular
+experience. When they had reached the summit of the eminence now known
+as Russian Hill, an exclamation again burst from the Padre. The stranger
+turned to his companion with an impatient gesture, but the Padre heeded
+him not. The view that burst upon his sight was such as might well have
+engrossed the attention of a more enthusiastic temperament. The fog
+had not yet reached the hill, and the long valleys and hillsides of the
+embarcadero below were glittering with the light of a populous
+city. “Look!” said the Padre, stretching his hand over the spreading
+landscape. “Look! dost thou not see the stately squares and brilliantly
+lighted avenues of a mighty metropolis? Dost thou not see, as it were,
+another firmament below?”
+
+“Avast heaving, reverend man, and quit this folly,” said the stranger,
+dragging the bewildered Padre after him. “Behold rather the stars
+knocked out of thy hollow noddle by the fall thou hast had. Prithee, get
+over thy visions and rhapsodies, for the time is wearing apace.”
+
+The Padre humbly followed without another word. Descending the hill
+toward the north, the stranger leading the way, in a few moments the
+Padre detected the wash of waves, and presently his feet struck the
+firmer sand of the beach. Here the stranger paused, and the Padre
+perceived a boat lying in readiness hard by. As he stepped into the
+stern-sheets’, in obedience to the command of his companion, he noticed
+that the rowers seemed to partake of the misty incorporeal texture of
+his companion, a similarity that became the more distressing when he
+perceived also that their oars in pulling together made no noise. The
+stranger, assuming the helm, guided the boat on quietly, while the fog,
+settling over the face of the water and closing around them, seemed to
+interpose a muffled wall between themselves and the rude jarring of
+the outer world. As they pushed further into this penetralia, the Padre
+listened anxiously for the sound of creaking blocks and the rattling of
+cordage, but no vibration broke the veiled stillness or disturbed the
+warm breath of the fleecy fog. Only one incident occurred to break the
+monotony of their mysterious journey. A one-eyed rower, who sat in front
+of the Padre, catching the devout Father’s eye, immediately grinned
+such a ghastly smile, and winked his remaining eye with such diabolical
+intensity of meaning, that the Padre was constrained to utter a pious
+ejaculation, which had the disastrous effect of causing the marine
+Cocles to “catch a crab,” throwing his heels in the air and his head
+into the bottom of the boat. But even this accident did not disturb the
+gravity of the rest of the ghastly boat’s crew.
+
+When, as it seemed to the Padre, ten minutes had elapsed, the outline of
+a large ship loomed up directly across their bow. Before he could utter
+the cry of warning that rose to his lips, or brace himself against the
+expected shock, the boat passed gently and noiselessly through the sides
+of the vessel, and the holy man found himself standing on the berth-deck
+of what seemed to be an ancient caravel. The boat and boat’s crew had
+vanished. Only his mysterious friend, the stranger, remained. By the
+light of a swinging-lamp the Padre beheld him standing beside a
+hammock, whereon, apparently, lay the dying man to whom he had been so
+mysteriously summoned. As the Padre, in obedience to a sign from his
+companion, stepped to the side of the sufferer, he feebly opened his
+eyes and thus addressed him:—
+
+“Thou seest before thee, reverend Father, a helpless mortal, struggling
+not only with the last agonies of the flesh, but beaten down and tossed
+with sore anguish of the spirit. It matters little when or how I became
+what thou now seest me. Enough that my life has been ungodly and sinful,
+and that my only hope of absolution lies in my imparting to thee a
+secret which is of vast importance to the Holy Church, and affects
+greatly her power, wealth, and dominion on these shores. But the terms
+of this secret and the conditions of my absolution are peculiar. I
+have but five minutes to live. In that time I must receive the extreme
+unction of the Church.”
+
+“And thy secret?” said the holy Father.
+
+“Shall be told afterwards,” answered the dying man. “Come, my time is
+short. Shrive me quickly.”
+
+The Padre hesitated. “Couldst thou not tell this secret first?”
+
+“Impossible!” said the dying man, with what seemed to the Padre a
+momentary gleam of triumph. Then, as his breath grew feebler, he called
+impatiently, “Shrive me! shrive me!”
+
+“Let me know at least what this secret concerns?” suggested the Padre
+insinuatingly.
+
+“Shrive me first,” said the dying man.
+
+But the priest still hesitated, parleying with the sufferer until the
+ship’s bell struck, when, with a triumphant mocking laugh from the
+stranger, the vessel suddenly fell to pieces, amid the rushing of waters
+which at once involved the dying man, the priest, and the mysterious
+stranger.
+
+The Padre did not recover his consciousness until high noon the next
+day, when he found himself lying in a little hollow between the Mission
+Hills, and his faithful mule a few paces from him, cropping the sparse
+herbage. The Padre made the best of his way home, but wisely abstained
+from narrating the facts mentioned above until after the discovery of
+gold, when the whole of this veracious incident was related, with the
+assertion of the Padre that the secret which was thus mysteriously
+snatched from his possession was nothing more than the discovery of
+gold, years since, by the runaway sailors from the expedition of Sir
+Francis Drake.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEVIL AND THE BROKER
+
+A MEDIAEVAL LEGEND
+
+
+The church clocks in San Francisco were striking ten. The Devil, who had
+been flying over the city that evening, just then alighted on the roof
+of a church near the corner of Bush and Montgomery streets. It will be
+perceived that the popular belief that the Devil avoids holy edifices,
+and vanishes at the sound of a credo or paternoster, is long since
+exploded. Indeed, modern skepticism asserts that he is not averse to
+these orthodox discourses, which particularly bear reference to himself,
+and in a measure recognize his power and importance.
+
+I am inclined to think, however, that his choice of a resting-place was
+a good deal influenced by its contiguity to a populous thoroughfare.
+When he was comfortably seated, he began pulling out the joints of a
+small rod which he held in his hand, and which presently proved to be an
+extraordinary fishing-pole, with a telescopic adjustment that permitted
+its protraction to a marvelous extent. Affixing a line thereto, he
+selected a fly of a particular pattern from a small box which he carried
+with him, and, making a skillful cast, threw his line into the very
+centre of that living stream which ebbed and flowed through Montgomery
+Street.
+
+Either the people were very virtuous that evening, or the bait was not a
+taking one. In vain the Devil whipped the stream at an eddy in front
+of the Occidental, or trolled his line into the shadows of the
+Cosmopolitan; five minutes passed without even a nibble. “Dear me!”
+ quoth the Devil, “that’s very singular; one of my most popular flies,
+too! Why, they’d have risen by shoals in Broadway or Beacon Street
+for that. Well, here goes another.” And fitting a new fly from his
+well-filled box, he gracefully recast his line.
+
+For a few moments there was every prospect of sport. The line was
+continually bobbing and the nibbles were distinct and gratifying. Once
+or twice the bait was apparently gorged and carried off to the upper
+stories of the hotels, to be digested at leisure. At such times the
+professional manner in which the Devil played out his line would have
+thrilled the heart of Izaak Walton. But his efforts were unsuccessful;
+the bait was invariably carried off without hooking the victim, and
+the Devil finally lost his temper. “I’ve heard of these San Franciscans
+before,” he muttered. “Wait till I get hold of one, that’s all!” he
+added malevolently, as he rebaited his hook. A sharp tug and a wriggle
+followed his next trial, and finally, with considerable effort, he
+landed a portly two-hundred-pound broker upon the church roof.
+
+As the victim lay there gasping, it was evident that the Devil was in
+no hurry to remove the hook from his gills; nor did he exhibit in this
+delicate operation that courtesy of manner and graceful manipulation
+which usually distinguished him.
+
+“Come,” he said gruffly, as he grasped the broker by the waistband,
+“quit that whining and grunting. Don’t flatter yourself that you’re a
+prize, either. I was certain to have had you. It was only a question of
+time.”
+
+“It is not that, my lord, which troubles me,” whined the unfortunate
+wretch, as he painfully wriggled his head, “but that I should have been
+fooled by such a paltry bait. What will they say of me down there? To
+have let ‘bigger things’ go by, and to be taken in by this cheap trick,”
+ he added, as he groaned and glanced at the fly which the Devil was
+carefully rearranging, “is what,—pardon me, my lord,—is what gets me!”
+
+“Yes,” said the Devil philosophically, “I never caught anybody yet who
+didn’t say that; but tell me, ain’t you getting somewhat fastidious
+down there? Here is one of my most popular flies, the greenback,” he
+continued, exhibiting an emerald-looking insect, which he drew from his
+box. “This, so generally considered excellent in election season, has
+not even been nibbled at. Perhaps your sagacity, which, in spite of
+this unfortunate contretemps, no one can doubt,” added the Devil, with
+a graceful return to his usual courtesy, “may explain the reason or
+suggest a substitute.”
+
+The broker glanced at the contents of the box with a supercilious smile.
+“Too old-fashioned, my lord,—long ago played out. Yet,” he added,
+with a gleam of interest, “for a consideration I might offer
+something—ahem!—that would make a taking substitute for these trifles.
+Give me,” he continued, in a brisk, business-like way, “a slight
+percentage and a bonus down, and I’m your man.”
+
+“Name your terms,” said the Devil earnestly.
+
+“My liberty and a percentage on all you take, and the thing’s done.”
+
+The Devil caressed his tail thoughtfully for a few moments. He was
+certain of the broker anyway, and the risk was slight. “Done!” he said.
+
+“Stay a moment,” said the artful broker. “There are certain
+contingencies. Give me your fishing-rod and let me apply the bait
+myself. It requires a skillful hand, my lord: even your well-known
+experience might fail. Leave me alone for half an hour, and if you have
+reason to complain of my success I will forfeit my deposit,—I mean my
+liberty.”
+
+The Devil acceded to his request, bowed, and withdrew. Alighting
+gracefully in Montgomery Street, he dropped into Meade & Co.’s clothing
+store, where, having completely equipped himself a la mode, he sallied
+forth intent on his personal enjoyment. Determining to sink his
+professional character, he mingled with the current of human life,
+and enjoyed, with that immense capacity for excitement peculiar to his
+nature, the whirl, hustle, and feverishness of the people, as a purely
+aesthetic gratification unalloyed by the cares of business. What he did
+that evening does not belong to our story. We return to the broker, whom
+we left on the roof.
+
+When he made sure that the Devil had retired, he carefully drew from
+his pocketbook a slip of paper and affixed it on the hook. The line
+had scarcely reached the current before he felt a bite. The hook was
+swallowed. To bring up his victim rapidly, disengage him from the hook,
+and reset his line, was the work of a moment. Another bite and the same
+result. Another, and another. In a very few minutes the roof was covered
+with his panting spoil. The broker could himself distinguish that
+many of them were personal friends; nay, some of them were familiar
+frequenters of the building on which they were now miserably stranded.
+That the broker felt a certain satisfaction in being instrumental in
+thus misleading his fellow-brokers no one acquainted with human nature
+will for a moment doubt. But a stronger pull on his line caused him
+to put forth all his strength and skill. The magic pole bent like a
+coach-whip. The broker held firm, assisted by the battlements of the
+church. Again and again it was almost wrested from his hand, and again
+and again he slowly reeled in a portion of the tightening line. At last,
+with one mighty effort, he lifted to the level of the roof a struggling
+object. A howl like Pandemonium rang through the air as the broker
+successfully landed at his feet—the Devil himself!
+
+The two glared fiercely at each other. The broker, perhaps mindful
+of his former treatment, evinced no haste to remove the hook from his
+antagonist’s jaw. When it was finally accomplished, he asked quietly
+if the Devil was satisfied. That gentleman seemed absorbed in the
+contemplation of the bait which he had just taken from his mouth. “I
+am,” he said finally, “and forgive you; but what do you call this?”
+
+“Bend low,” replied the broker, as he buttoned up his coat ready to
+depart. The Devil inclined his ear. “I call it WILD CAT!”
+
+
+
+
+THE OGRESS OF SILVER LAND
+
+OR
+
+THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF PRINCE BADFELLAH AND PRINCE BULLEBOYE
+
+
+In the second year of the reign of the renowned Caliph Lo there dwelt
+in Silver Land, adjoining his territory, a certain terrible Ogress. She
+lived in the bowels of a dismal mountain, where she was in the habit of
+confining such unfortunate travelers as ventured within her domain. The
+country for miles around was sterile and barren. In some places it was
+covered with a white powder, which was called in the language of the
+country Al Ka Li, and was supposed to be the pulverized bones of those
+who had perished miserably in her service.
+
+In spite of this, every year great numbers of young men devoted
+themselves to the service of the Ogress, hoping to become her godsons,
+and to enjoy the good fortune which belonged to that privileged class.
+For these godsons had no work to perform, neither at the mountain
+nor elsewhere, but roamed about the world with credentials of their
+relationship in their pockets, which they called stokh, which was
+stamped with the stamp and sealed with the seal of the Ogress, and which
+enabled them at the end of each moon to draw large quantities of gold
+and silver from her treasury. And the wisest and most favored of those
+godsons were the Princes Badfellah and Bulleboye. They knew all the
+secrets of the Ogress, and how to wheedle and coax her. They were also
+the favorites of Soopah Intendent, who was her Lord High Chamberlain and
+Prime Minister, and who dwelt in Silver Land.
+
+One day, Soopah Intendent said to his servants, “Whan is that which
+travels the most surely, the most secretly, and the most swiftly?”
+
+And they all answered as one man, “Lightning, my lord, travels the most
+surely, the most swiftly, and the most secretly!”
+
+Then said Soopah Intendent, “Let Lightning carry this message secretly,
+swiftly, and surely to my beloved friends the Princes Badfellah and
+Bulleboye, and tell them that their godmother is dying, and bid
+them seek some other godmother or sell their stokh ere it becomes
+_badjee_,—worthless.”
+
+“Bekhesm! On our heads be it!” answered the servants; and they ran to
+Lightning with the message, who flew with it to the City by the Sea,
+and delivered it, even at that moment, into the hands of the Princes
+Badfellah and Bulleboye.
+
+Now the Prince Badfellah was a wicked young man; and when he had
+received this message he tore his beard and rent his garment and reviled
+his godmother and his friend Soopah Intendent. But presently he arose,
+and dressed himself in his finest stuffs, and went forth into the
+bazaars and among the merchants, capering and dancing as he walked, and
+crying in a loud voice, “Oh, happy day! Oh, day worthy to be marked with
+a white stone!”
+
+This he said cunningly, thinking the merchants and men of the bazaars
+would gather about him, which they presently did, and began to question
+him: “What news, Then O most worthy and serene Highness? Tell us that we
+may make merry too!”
+
+Then replied the cunning prince, “Good news, O my brothers, for I have
+heard this day that my godmother in Silver Land is well” The merchants,
+who were not aware of the substance of the real message, envied him
+greatly, and said one to another, “Surely our brother the Prince
+Badfellah is favored by Allah above all men;” and they were about to
+retire, when the prince checked them, saying, “Tarry for a moment. Here
+are my credentials or stokh. The same I will sell you for fifty thousand
+sequins, for I have to give a feast to-day, and need much gold. Who will
+give fifty thousand?” And he again fell to capering and dancing. But
+this time the merchants drew a little apart, and some of the oldest and
+wisest said, “What dirt is this which the prince would have us swallow?
+If his godmother were well, why should he sell his stokh? Bismillah! The
+olives are old and the jar is broken!” When Prince Badfellah perceived
+them whispering, his countenance fell, and his knees smote against each
+other through fear,—but, dissembling again, he said, “Well, so be it!
+Lo! I have much more than shall abide with me, for my days are many and
+my wants are few. Say forty thousand sequins for my stokh and let me
+depart, in Allah’s name. Who will give forty thousand sequins to become
+the godson of such a healthy mother?” And he again fell to capering and
+dancing, but not as gayly as before, for his heart was troubled. The
+merchants, however, only moved farther away. “Thirty thousand sequins,”
+ cried Prince Badfellah; but even as he spoke they fled before his face,
+crying, “His godmother is dead. Lo! the jackals are defiling her
+grave. Mashallah! he has no godmother.” And they sought out Panik, the
+swift-footed messenger, and bade him shout through the bazaars that the
+godmother of Prince Badfellah was dead. When he heard this, the prince
+fell upon his face, and rent his garments, and covered himself with the
+dust of the marketplace. As he was sitting thus, a porter passed him
+with jars of wine on his shoulders, and the prince begged him to give
+him a jar, for he was exceeding thirsty and faint.
+
+But the porter said, “What will my lord give me first?” And the prince,
+in very bitterness of spirit, said, “Take this,” and handed him his
+stokh, and so exchanged it for a jar of wine.
+
+Now the Prince Bulleboye was of a different disposition. When he
+received the message of Soopah Intendent he bowed his head, and said,
+“It is the will of God.” Then he rose, and without speaking a word
+entered the gates of his palace. But his wife, the peerless Maree
+Jahann, perceiving the gravity of his countenance, said, “Why is my
+lord cast down and silent? Why are those rare and priceless pearls,
+his words, shut up so tightly between those gorgeous oyster-shells, his
+lips?” But to this he made no reply. Thinking further to divert him,
+she brought her lute into the chamber and stood before him, and sang
+the song and danced the dance of Ben Kotton, which is called Ibrahim’s
+Daughter, but she could not lift the veil of sadness from his brow.
+
+When she had ceased, the Prince Bulleboye arose and said, “Allah is
+great, and what am I, his servant, but the dust of the earth! Lo! this
+day has my godmother sickened unto death, and my stokh become as a
+withered palm-leaf. Call hither my servants and camel drivers, and the
+merchants that have furnished me with stuffs, and the beggars who have
+feasted at my table, and bid them take all that is here, for it is mine
+no longer!” With these words he buried his face in his mantle and wept
+aloud.
+
+But Maree Jahann, his wife, plucked him by the sleeve. “Prithee, my
+lord,” said she, “bethink thee of the Brokah or scrivener who besought
+thee but yesterday to share thy stokh with him and gave thee his bond
+for fifty thousand sequins.” But the noble Prince Bulleboye, raising his
+head, said, “Shall I sell to him for fifty thousand sequins that which I
+know is not worth a Soo Markee? For is not all the Brokah’s wealth, even
+his wife and children, pledged on that bond? Shall I ruin him to save
+myself? Allah forbid! Bather let me eat the salt fish of honest penury
+than the kabobs of dishonorable affluence; rather let me wallow in
+the mire of virtuous oblivion than repose on the divan of luxurious
+wickedness!”
+
+When the prince had given utterance to this beautiful and edifying
+sentiment, a strain of gentle music was heard, and the rear wall of the
+apartment, which had been ingeniously constructed like a flat, opened
+and discovered the Ogress of Silver Land in the glare of blue fire,
+seated on a triumphal car attached to two ropes which were connected
+with the flies, in the very act of blessing the unconscious prince.
+When the walls closed again without attracting his attention, Prince
+Bulleboye arose, dressed himself in his coarsest and cheapest stuffs,
+and sprinkled ashes on his head, and in this guise, having embraced
+his wife, went forth into the bazaars. In this it will be perceived
+how differently the good Prince Bulleboye acted from the wicked Prince
+Badfellah, who put on his gayest garments, to simulate and deceive.
+
+Now when Prince Bulleboye entered the chief bazaar, where the merchants
+of the city were gathered in council, he stood up in his accustomed
+place, and all that were there held their breath, for the noble Prince
+Bulleboye was much respected. “Let the Brokah whose bond I hold for
+fifty thousand sequins stand forth!” said the prince. And the Brokah
+stood forth from among the merchants. Then said the prince, “Here is thy
+bond for fifty thousand sequins, for which I was to deliver unto thee
+one half of my stokh. Know, then, O my brother,—and thou, too, O Aga of
+the Brokahs,—that this my stokh which I pledged to thee is worthless.
+For my godmother, the Ogress of silver Land, is dying. Thus do I release
+thee from thy bond, and from the poverty which might overtake thee, as
+it has even me, thy brother, the Prince Bulleboye.” And with that the
+noble Prince Bulleboye tore the bond of the Brokah into pieces and
+scattered it to the four winds.
+
+Now when the Prince tore up the bond there was a great commotion, and
+some said, “Surely the Prince Bulleboye is drunken with wine;”
+ and others, “He is possessed of an evil spirit;” and his friends
+expostulated with him, saying, “What thou hast done is not the custom
+of the bazaars,—behold, it is not Biz!” But to all the prince answered
+gravely, “It is right; on my own head be it!”
+
+But the oldest and wisest of the merchants, they who had talked with
+Prince Badfellah the same morning, whispered together, and gathered
+round the Brokah whose bond the Prince Bulleboye had torn up. “Hark ye,”
+ said they, “our brother the Prince Bulleboye is cunning as a jackal.
+What bosh is this about ruining himself to save thee? Such a thing was
+never heard before in the bazaars. It is a trick, O thou mooncalf of
+a Brokah! Dost thou not see that he has heard good news from his
+godmother, the same that was even now told us by the Prince Badfellah,
+his confederate, and that he would destroy thy bond for fifty thousand
+sequins because his stokh is worth a hundred thousand! Be not deceived,
+O too credulous Brokah! for this that our brother the prince doeth is
+not in the name of Allah, but of Biz, the only god known in the bazaars
+of the city.”
+
+When the foolish Brokah heard these things he cried, “Justice, Aga of
+the Brokahs,—justice and the fulfillment of my bond! Let the prince
+deliver unto me the stokh. Here are my fifty thousand sequins.” But the
+prince said, “Have I not told thee that my godmother is dying, and that
+my stokh is valueless?” At this the Brokah only clamored the more for
+justice and the fulfillment of his bond. Then the Aga of the Brokahs
+said, “Since the bond is destroyed, behold thou hast no claim. Go thy
+ways!” But the Brokah again cried, “Justice, my lord Aga! Behold, I
+offer the prince seventy thousand sequins for his stokh!” But the prince
+said, “It is not worth one sequin!” Then the Aga said, “Bismillah! I
+cannot understand this. Whether thy godmother be dead, or dying, or
+immortal, does not seem to signify. Therefore, O prince, by the laws
+of Biz and Allah, though art released. Give the Brokah thy stokh for
+seventy thousand sequins, and bid him depart in peace. On his own head
+be it!” When the prince heard this command, he handed the stokh to the
+Brokah, who counted out to him seventy thousand sequins. But the heart
+of the virtuous prince did not rejoice, nor did the Brokah when he found
+his stokh was valueless; but the merchants lifted their hands in wonder
+at the sagacity and wisdom of the famous Prince Bulleboye. For none
+would believe that it was the law of Allah that the prince followed, and
+not the rules of Biz.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS GIFT THAT CAME TO RUPERT
+
+A STORY FOR LITTLE SOLDIERS
+
+
+It was the Christmas season in California,—a season of falling rain and
+springing grasses. There were intervals when, through driving clouds and
+flying scud, the sun visited the haggard hills with a miracle, and death
+and resurrection were as one, and out of the very throes of decay a
+joyous life struggled outward and upward. Even the storms that swept
+down the dead leaves nurtured the tender buds that took their places.
+There were no episodes of snowy silence; over the quickening fields the
+farmer’s ploughshare hard followed the furrows left by the latest rains.
+Perhaps it was for this reason that the Christmas evergreens which
+decorated the drawing-room took upon themselves a foreign aspect, and
+offered a weird contrast to the roses, seen dimly through the windows,
+as the southwest wind beat their soft faces against the panes.
+
+“Now,” said the doctor, drawing his chair closer to the fire, and
+looking mildly but firmly at the semicircle of flaxen heads around him,
+“I want it distinctly understood before I begin my story, that I am not
+to be interrupted by any ridiculous questions. At the first one I shall
+stop. At the second, I shall feel it my duty to administer a dose
+of castor-oil all round. The boy that moves his legs or arms will be
+understood to invite amputation. I have brought my instruments with me,
+and never allow pleasure to interfere with my business. Do you promise?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said six small voices simultaneously. The volley was,
+however, followed by half a dozen dropping questions.
+
+“Silence! Bob, put your feet down, and stop rattling that sword. Flora
+shall sit by my side, like a little lady, and be an example to the rest.
+Fung Tang shall stay, too, if he likes. Now, turn down the gas a little;
+there, that will do—just enough to make the fire look brighter, and to
+show off the Christmas candles. Silence, everybody! The boy who cracks
+an almond, or breathes too loud over his raisins, will be put out of the
+room.”
+
+There was a profound silence. Bob laid his sword tenderly aside and
+nursed his leg thoughtfully. Flora, after coquettishly adjusting the
+pockets of her little apron, put her arm upon the doctor’s shoulder, and
+permitted herself to be drawn beside him. Fung Tang, the little heathen
+page, who was permitted, on this rare occasion, to share the Christmas
+revels in the drawing-room, surveyed the group with a smile that was at
+once sweet and philosophical. The light ticking of a French clock on the
+mantel, supported by a young shepherdess of bronze complexion and great
+symmetry of limb, was the only sound that disturbed the Christmas-like
+peace of the apartment,—a peace which held the odors of evergreens, new
+toys, cedar boxes, glue, and varnish in a harmonious combination that
+passed all understanding.
+
+“About four years ago at this time,” began the doctor, “I attended a
+course of lectures in a certain city. One of the professors, who was a
+sociable, kindly man—though somewhat practical and hard-headed—invited
+me to his house on Christmas night. I was very glad to go, as I was
+anxious to see one of his sons, who, though only twelve years old, was
+said to be very clever. I dare not tell you how many Latin verses this
+little fellow could recite, or how many English ones he had composed. In
+the first place, you’d want me to repeat them; secondly, I’m not a judge
+of poetry—Latin or English. But there were judges who said they were
+wonderful for a boy, and everybody predicted a splendid future for him.
+Everybody but his father. He shook his head doubtingly whenever it was
+mentioned, for, as I have told you, he was a practical, matter-of-fact
+man.
+
+“There was a pleasant party at the professor’s that night. All the
+children of the neighborhood were there, and among them the professor’s
+clever son, Rupert, as they called him—a thin little chap, about as
+tall as Bobby there, and fair and delicate as Flora by my side. His
+health was feeble, his father said; he seldom ran about and played with
+other boys—preferring to stay at home and brood over his books, and
+compose what he called his verses.
+
+“Well, we had a Christmas-tree just like this, and we had been laughing
+and talking, calling the names of the children who had presents on the
+tree, and everybody was very happy and joyous, when one of the children
+suddenly uttered a cry of mingled surprise and hilarity, and said,
+‘Here’s something for Rupert—and what do you think it is?’
+
+“We all guessed. ‘A desk;’ ‘A copy of Milton;’ ‘A gold pen;’ ‘A rhyming
+dictionary.’ ‘No? what then?’
+
+“‘A drum!’
+
+“‘A what?’ asked everybody.
+
+“‘A drum! with Rupert’s name on it.’
+
+“Sure enough, there it was. A good-sized, bright, new, brass-bound drum,
+with a slip of paper on it, with the inscription, ‘For RUPERT.’
+
+“Of course we all laughed, and thought it a good joke. ‘You see you’re
+to make a noise in the world, Rupert!’ said one. ‘Here’s parchment for
+the poet,’ said another. ‘Rupert’s last work in sheepskin covers,’ said
+a third. ‘Give us a classical tune, Rupert,’ said a fourth, and so on.
+But Rupert seemed too mortified to speak; he changed color, bit his
+lips, and finally burst into a passionate fit of crying and left the
+room. Then those who had joked him felt ashamed, and everybody began to
+ask who had put the drum there. But no one knew, or, if they did, the
+unexpected sympathy awakened for the sensitive boy kept them silent.
+Even the servants were called up and questioned, but no one could give
+any idea where it came from. And what was still more singular, everybody
+declared that up to the moment it was produced, no one had seen it
+hanging on the tree. What do I think? Well, I have my own opinion. But
+no questions! Enough for you to know that Rupert did not come downstairs
+again that night, and the party soon after broke up.
+
+“I had almost forgotten those things, for the war of the Rebellion
+broke out the next spring, and I was appointed surgeon in one of the
+new regiments, and was on my way to the seat of war. But I had to pass
+through the city where the professor lived, and there I met him. My
+first question was about Rupert. The professor shook his head sadly.
+‘He’s not so well’ he said; ‘he has been declining since last Christmas,
+when you saw him. A very strange case,’ he added, giving it a long Latin
+name, ‘a very singular case. But go and see him yourself’ he urged; ‘it
+may distract his mind and do him good.’
+
+“I went accordingly to the professor’s house, and found Rupert lying
+on a sofa propped up with pillows. Around him were scattered his books,
+and, what seemed in singular contrast, that drum I told you about was
+hanging on a nail just above his head. His face was thin and wasted;
+there was a red spot on either cheek, and his eyes were very bright and
+widely opened. He was glad to see me, and when I told him where I was
+going, he asked a thousand questions about the war. I thought I had
+thoroughly diverted his mind from its sick and languid fancies, when he
+suddenly grasped my hand and drew me towards him.
+
+“‘Doctor,’ said he, in a low whisper, ‘you won’t laugh at me if I tell
+you something?’
+
+“‘No, certainly not,’ I said.
+
+“‘You remember that drum?’ he said, pointing to the glittering toy that
+hung against the wall. ‘You know, too, how it came to me. A few weeks
+after Christmas I was lying half asleep here, and the drum was hanging
+on the wall, when suddenly I heard it beaten; at first low and slowly,
+then faster and louder, until its rolling filled the house. In the
+middle of the night I heard it again. I did not dare to tell anybody
+about it, but I have heard it every night ever since.’
+
+“He paused and looked anxiously in my face. ‘Sometimes,’ he continued,
+‘it is played softly, sometimes loudly, but always quickening to a long
+roll, so loud and alarming that I have looked to see people coming into
+my room to ask what was the matter. But I think, doctor—I think,’ he
+repeated slowly, looking up with painful interest into my face, ‘that no
+one hears it but myself.’
+
+“I thought so, too, but I asked him if he had heard it at any other
+time.
+
+“‘Once or twice in the daytime,’ he replied, ‘when I have been reading
+or writing; then very loudly, as though it were angry, and tried in that
+way to attract my attention away from my books.’
+
+“I looked into his face and placed my hand upon his pulse. His eyes were
+very bright and his pulse a little flurried and quick. I then tried
+to explain to him that he was very weak, and that his senses were very
+acute, as most weak people’s are; and how that when he read, or grew
+interested and excited, or when he was tired at night, the throbbing of
+a big artery made the beating sound he heard. He listened to me with
+a sad smile of unbelief, but thanked me, and in a little while I went
+away. But as I was going downstairs I met the professor. I gave him my
+opinion of the case—well, no matter what it was.
+
+“‘He wants fresh air and exercise’ said the professor, ‘and some
+practical experience of life, sir.’ The professor was not a bad man, but
+he was a little worried and impatient, and thought—as clever people are
+apt to think—that things which he didn’t understand were either silly
+or improper.
+
+“I left the city that very day, and in the excitement of battlefields
+and hospitals I forgot all about little Rupert, nor did I hear of him
+again, until one day, meeting an old classmate in the army, who had
+known the professor, he told me that Rupert had become quite insane, and
+that in one of his paroxysms he had escaped from the house, and as he
+had never been found, it was feared that he had fallen into the river
+and was drowned. I was terribly shocked for the moment, as you may
+imagine; but, dear me, I was living just then among scenes as terrible
+and shocking, and I had little time to spare to mourn over poor Rupert.
+
+“It was not long after receiving this intelligence that we had a
+terrible battle, in which a portion of our army was slaughtered. I was
+detached from my brigade to ride over to the battlefield and assist the
+surgeons of the beaten division, who had more on their hands than they
+could attend to. When I reached the barn that served for a temporary
+hospital, I went at once to work. Ah! Bob,” said the doctor
+thoughtfully, taking the bright sword from the hands of the
+half-frightened Bob, and holding it gravely before him, “these pretty
+playthings are symbols of cruel, ugly realities.”
+
+“I turned to a tall, stout Vermonter,” he continued, very slowly,
+tracing a pattern on the rug with the point of the scabbard, “who was
+badly wounded in both thighs, but he held up his hands and begged me to
+help others first who needed it more than he. I did not at first heed
+his request, for this kind of unselfishness was very common in the
+army; but he went on, ‘For God’s sake, doctor, leave me here; there is a
+drummer boy of our regiment—a mere child—dying, if he isn’t dead now.
+Go and see him first. He lies over there. He saved more than one life.
+He was at his post in the panic of this morning, and saved the honor of
+the regiment.’ I was so much more impressed by the man’s manner than
+by the substance of his speech, which was, however, corroborated by the
+other poor fellows stretched around me, that I passed over to where
+the drummer lay, with his drum beside him. I gave one glance at his
+face—and—yes, Bob—yes, my children—it _was_ Rupert.
+
+“Well! well! it needed not the chalked cross which my brother surgeons
+had left upon the rough board whereon he lay to show how urgent was the
+relief he sought; it needed not the prophetic words of the Vermonter,
+nor the damp that mingled with the brown curls that clung to his pale
+forehead, to show how hopeless it was now. I called him by name. He
+opened his eyes—larger, I thought, in the new vision that was beginning
+to dawn upon him—and recognized me. He whispered, ‘I’m glad you are
+come, but I don’t think you can do me any good.’
+
+“I could not tell him a lie. I could not say anything. I only pressed
+his hand in mine as he went on.
+
+“‘But you will see father, and ask him to forgive me. Nobody is to blame
+but myself. It was a long time before I understood why the drum came to
+me that Christmas night, and why it kept calling to me every night, and
+what it said. I know it now. The work is done, and I am content. Tell
+father it is better as it is. I should have lived only to worry and
+perplex him, and something in me tells me this is right.’
+
+“He lay still for a moment, and then grasping my hand, said,—
+
+“‘Hark!’
+
+“I listened, but heard nothing but the suppressed moans of the wounded
+men around me. ‘The drum’ he said faintly; ‘don’t you hear it?—the drum
+is calling me.’
+
+“He reached out his arm to where it lay, as though he would embrace it.
+
+“‘Listen’—he went on—‘it’s the reveille. There are the ranks drawn
+up in review. Don’t you see the sunlight flash down the long line of
+bayonets? Their faces are shining—they present arms—there comes the
+General—but his face I cannot look at for the glory round his head. He
+sees me; he smiles, it is’—and with a name upon his lips that he had
+learned long ago, he stretched himself wearily upon the planks and lay
+quite still.
+
+“That’s all.
+
+“No questions now—never mind what became of the drum.
+
+“Who’s that sniveling?
+
+“Bless my soul! where’s my pill-box?”
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
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