diff --git "a/data/train/2784.txt" "b/data/train/2784.txt" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/data/train/2784.txt" @@ -0,0 +1,5809 @@ + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT + + +By Bret Harte + + + + +CONTENTS + + +COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT + +THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN + +A NIGHT AT "HAYS" + +JOHNSON'S "OLD WOMAN" + +THE NEW ASSISTANT AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL + +IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT + +A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON + +OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK + +THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE + + + + +COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +It may be remembered that it was the habit of that gallant "war-horse" +of the Calaveras democracy, Colonel Starbottle, at the close of a +political campaign, to return to his original profession of the +Law. Perhaps it could not be called a peaceful retirement. The same +fiery-tongued eloquence and full-breasted chivalry which had in turns +thrilled and overawed freemen at the polls were no less fervid and +embattled before a jury. Yet the Colonel was counsel for two or three +pastoral Ditch companies and certain bucolic corporations, and although +he managed to import into the simplest question of contract more or less +abuse of opposing counsel, and occasionally mingled precedents of law +with antecedents of his adversary, his legal victories were seldom +complicated by bloodshed. He was only once shot at by a free-handed +judge, and twice assaulted by an over-sensitive litigant. Nevertheless, +it was thought merely prudent, while preparing the papers in the well +known case of "The Arcadian Shepherds' Association of Tuolumne versus +the Kedron Vine and Fig Tree Growers of Calaveras," that the Colonel +should seek with a shotgun the seclusion of his partner's law office +in the sylvan outskirts of Rough and Ready for that complete rest and +serious preoccupation which Marysville could not afford. + +It was an exceptionally hot day. The painted shingles of the plain +wooden one-storied building in which the Colonel sat were warped and +blistering in the direct rays of the fierce, untempered sun. The tin +sign bearing the dazzling legend, "Starbottle and Bungstarter, Attorneys +and Counselors," glowed with an insufferable light; the two pine-trees +still left in the clearing around the house, ineffective as shade, +seemed only to have absorbed the day-long heat through every scorched +and crisp twig and fibre, to radiate it again with the pungent smell of +a slowly smouldering fire; the air was motionless yet vibrating in the +sunlight; on distant shallows the half-dried river was flashing and +intolerable. + +Seated in a wooden armchair before a table covered with books and +papers, yet with that apparently haughty attitude towards it affected +by gentlemen of abdominal fullness, Colonel Starbottle supported himself +with one hand grasping the arm of his chair and the other vigorously +plying a huge palm-leaf fan. He was perspiring freely. He had taken off +his characteristic blue frock-coat, waistcoat, cravat, and collar, and, +stripped only to his ruffled shirt and white drill trousers, presented +the appearance from the opposite side of the table of having hastily +risen to work in his nightgown. A glass with a thin sediment of sugar +and lemon-peel remaining in it stood near his elbow. Suddenly a black +shadow fell on the staring, uncarpeted hall. It was that of a stranger +who had just entered from the noiseless dust of the deserted road. The +Colonel cast a rapid glance at his sword-cane, which lay on the table. + +But the stranger, although sallow and morose-looking, was evidently +of pacific intent. He paused on the threshold in a kind of surly +embarrassment. + +"I reckon this is Colonel Starbottle," he said at last, glancing +gloomily round him, as if the interview was not entirely of his own +seeking. "Well, I've seen you often enough, though you don't know me. My +name's Jo Corbin. I guess," he added, still discontentedly, "I have to +consult you about something." + +"Corbin?" repeated the Colonel in his jauntiest manner. "Ah! Any +relation to old Maje Corbin of Nashville, sir?" + +"No," said the stranger briefly. "I'm from Shelbyville." + +"The Major," continued the Colonel, half closing his eyes as if to +follow the Major into the dreamy past, "the old Major, sir, a matter +of five or six years ago, was one of my most intimate political +friends,--in fact, sir, my most intimate friend. Take a chyar!" + +But the stranger had already taken one, and during the Colonel's +reminiscence had leaned forward, with his eyes on the ground, +discontentedly swinging his soft hat between his legs. "Did you know Tom +Frisbee, of Yolo?" he asked abruptly. + +"Er--no." + +"Nor even heard anything about Frisbee, nor what happened to him?" +continued the man, with aggrieved melancholy. + +In point of fact the Colonel did not think that he had. + +"Nor anything about his being killed over at Fresno?" said the stranger, +with a desponding implication that the interview after all was a +failure. + +"If--er--if you could--er--give me a hint or two," suggested the Colonel +blandly. + +"There wasn't much," said the stranger, "if you don't remember." He +paused, then rising, he gloomily dragged his chair slowly beside +the table, and taking up a paperweight examined it with heavy +dissatisfaction. "You see," he went on slowly, "I killed him--it was a +quo'll. He was my pardner, but I reckon he must have drove me hard. Yes, +sir," he added with aggrieved reflection, "I reckon he drove me hard." + +The Colonel smiled courteously, slightly expanding his chest under the +homicidal relation, as if, having taken it in and made it a part of +himself, he was ready, if necessary, to become personally responsible +for it. Then lifting his empty glass to the light, he looked at it with +half closed eyes, in polite imitation of his companion's examination +of the paper-weight, and set it down again. A casual spectator from +the window might have imagined that the two were engaged in an amicable +inventory of the furniture. + +"And the--er--actual circumstances?" asked the Colonel. + +"Oh, it was fair enough fight. THEY'LL tell you that. And so would HE, +I reckon--if he could. He was ugly and bedev'lin', but I didn't care to +quo'll, and give him the go-by all the time. He kept on, followed me out +of the shanty, drew, and fired twice. I"--he stopped and regarded his +hat a moment as if it was a corroborating witness--"I--I closed with +him--I had to--it was my only chance, and that ended it--and with his +own revolver. I never drew mine." + +"I see," said the Colonel, nodding, "clearly justifiable and honorable +as regards the code. And you wish me to defend you?" + +The stranger's gloomy expression of astonishment now turned to blank +hopelessness. + +"I knew you didn't understand," he said, despairingly. "Why, all THAT +was TWO YEARS AGO. It's all settled and done and gone. The jury found +for me at the inquest. It ain't THAT I want to see you about. It's +something arising out of it." + +"Ah," said the Colonel, affably, "a vendetta, perhaps. Some friend or +relation of his taken up the quarrel?" + +The stranger looked abstractedly at Starbottle. "You think a relation +might; or would feel in that sort of way?" + +"Why, blank it all, sir," said the Colonel, "nothing is more common. +Why, in '52 one of my oldest friends, Doctor Byrne, of St. Jo, the +seventh in a line from old General Byrne, of St. Louis, was killed, +sir, by Pinkey Riggs, seventh in a line from Senator Riggs, of Kentucky. +Original cause, sir, something about a d----d roasting ear, or a blank +persimmon in 1832; forty-seven men wiped out in twenty years. Fact, +sir." + +"It ain't that," said the stranger, moving hesitatingly in his chair. +"If it was anything of that sort I wouldn't mind,--it might bring +matters to a wind-up, and I shouldn't have to come here and have this +cursed talk with you." + +It was so evident that this frank and unaffected expression of some +obscure disgust with his own present position had no other implication, +that the Colonel did not except to it. Yet the man did not go on. He +stopped and seemed lost in sombre contemplation of his hat. + +The Colonel leaned back in his chair, fanned himself elegantly, wiped +his forehead with a large pongee handkerchief, and looking at his +companion, whose shadowed abstraction seemed to render him impervious to +the heat, said:-- + +"My dear Mr. Corbin, I perfectly understand you. Blank it all, sir, +the temperature in this infernal hole is quite enough to render any +confidential conversation between gentlemen upon delicate matters +utterly impossible. It's almost as near Hades, sir, as they make +it,--as I trust you and I, Mr. Corbin, will ever experience. I propose," +continued the Colonel, with airy geniality, "some light change and +refreshment. The bar-keeper of the Magnolia is--er--I may say, sir, +facile princeps in the concoction of mint juleps, and there is a back +room where I have occasionally conferred with political leaders at +election time. It is but a step, sir--in fact, on Main Street--round the +corner." + +The stranger looked up and then rose mechanically as the Colonel resumed +his coat and waistcoat, but not his collar and cravat, which lay limp +and dejected among his papers. Then, sheltering himself beneath a +large-brimmed Panama hat, and hooking his cane on his arm, he led the +way, fan in hand, into the road, tiptoeing in his tight, polished boots +through the red, impalpable dust with his usual jaunty manner, yet +not without a profane suggestion of burning ploughshares. The stranger +strode in silence by his side in the burning sun, impenetrable in his +own morose shadow. + +But the Magnolia was fragrant, like its namesake, with mint and herbal +odors, cool with sprinkled floors, and sparkling with broken ice on +its counters, like dewdrops on white, unfolded petals--and slightly +soporific with the subdued murmur of droning loungers, who were heavy +with its sweets. The gallant Colonel nodded with confidential affability +to the spotless-shirted bar-keeper, and then taking Corbin by the arm +fraternally conducted him into a small apartment in the rear of the +bar-room. It was evidently used as the office of the proprietor, and +contained a plain desk, table, and chairs. At the rear window, Nature, +not entirely evicted, looked in with a few straggling buckeyes and a +dusty myrtle, over the body of a lately-felled pine-tree, that flaunted +from an upflung branch a still green spray as if it were a drooping +banner lifted by a dead but rigid arm. From the adjoining room the +faint, monotonous click of billiard balls, languidly played, came at +intervals like the dry notes of cicale in the bushes. + +The bar-keeper brought two glasses crowned with mint and diademed with +broken ice. The Colonel took a long pull at his portion, and leaned +back in his chair with a bland gulp of satisfaction and dreamily patient +eyes. The stranger mechanically sipped the contents of his glass, and +then, without having altered his reluctant expression, drew from his +breast-pocket a number of old letters. Holding them displayed in his +fingers like a difficult hand of cards, and with something of the air of +a dispirited player, he began:-- + +"You see, about six months after this yer trouble I got this letter." He +picked out a well worn, badly written missive, and put it into Colonel +Starbottle's hands, rising at the same time and leaning over him as he +read. "You see, she that writ it says as how she hadn't heard from her +son for a long time, but owing to his having spoken once about ME, she +was emboldened to write and ask me if I knew what had gone of him." He +was pointing his finger at each line of the letter as he read it, or +rather seemed to translate it from memory with a sad familiarity. "Now," +he continued in parenthesis, "you see this kind o' got me. I knew he had +got relatives in Kentucky. I knew that all this trouble had been put in +the paper with his name and mine, but this here name of Martha Jeffcourt +at the bottom didn't seem to jibe with it. Then I remembered that he had +left a lot of letters in his trunk in the shanty, and I looked 'em over. +And I found that his name WAS Tom Jeffcourt, and that he'd been passin' +under the name of Frisbee all this time." + +"Perfectly natural and a frequent occurrence," interposed the Colonel +cheerfully. "Only last year I met an old friend whom we'll call Stidger, +of New Orleans, at the Union Club, 'Frisco. 'How are you, Stidger?' I +said; 'I haven't seen you since we used to meet--driving over the Shell +Road in '53.' 'Excuse me, sir,' said he, 'my name is not Stidger, it's +Brown.' I looked him in the eye, sir, and saw him quiver. 'Then I must +apologize to Stidger,' I said, 'for supposing him capable of changing +his name.' He came to me an hour after, all in a tremble. 'For God's +sake, Star,' he said,--always called me Star,--'don't go back on me, +but you know family affairs--another woman, beautiful creature,' etc., +etc.,--yes, sir, perfectly common, but a blank mistake. When a man once +funks his own name he'll turn tail on anything. Sorry for this man, +Friezecoat, or Turncoat, or whatever's his d----d name; but it's so." + +The suggestion did not, however, seem to raise the stranger's spirits +or alter his manner. "His name was Jeffcourt, and this here was his +mother," he went on drearily; "and you see here she says"--pointing +to the letter again--"she's been expecting money from him and it don't +come, and she's mighty hard up. And that gave me an idea. I don't know," +he went on, regarding the Colonel with gloomy doubt, "as you'll think it +was much; I don't know as you wouldn't call it a d----d fool idea, but I +got it all the same." He stopped, hesitated, and went on. "You see this +man, Frisbee or Jeffcourt, was my pardner. We were good friends up to +the killing, and then he drove me hard. I think I told you he drove me +hard,--didn't I? Well, he did. But the idea I got was this. Considerin' +I killed him after all, and so to speak disappointed them, I reckoned +I'd take upon myself the care of that family and send 'em money every +month." + +The Colonel slightly straitened his clean-shaven mouth. "A kind of +expiation or amercement by fine, known to the Mosaic, Roman, and old +English law. Gad, sir, the Jews might have made you MARRY his widow +or sister. An old custom, and I think superseded--sir, properly +superseded--by the alternative of ordeal by battle in the mediaeval +times. I don't myself fancy these pecuniary fashions of settling +wrongs,--but go on." + +"I wrote her," continued Corbin, "that her son was dead, but that he and +me had some interests together in a claim, and that I was very glad to +know where to send her what would be his share every month. I thought it +no use to tell her I killed him,--may be she might refuse to take it. I +sent her a hundred dollars every month since. Sometimes it's been pretty +hard sleddin' to do it, for I ain't rich; sometimes I've had to borrow +the money, but I reckoned that I was only paying for my share in this +here business of his bein' dead, and I did it." + +"And I understand you that this Jeffcourt really had no interest in your +claim?" + +Corbin looked at him in dull astonishment. "Not a cent, of course; I +thought I told you that. But that weren't his fault, for he never +had anything, and owed me money. In fact," he added gloomily, "it +was because I hadn't any more to give him--havin' sold my watch +for grub--that he quo'lled with me that day, and up and called me a +'sneakin' Yankee hound.' I told you he drove me hard." + +The Colonel coughed slightly and resumed his jaunty manner. "And +the--er--mother was, of course, grateful and satisfied?" + +"Well, no,--not exactly." He stopped again and took up his letters once +more, sorted and arranged them as if to play out his unfinished but +hopeless hand, and drawing out another, laid it before the Colonel. "You +see, this Mrs. Jeffcourt, after a time, reckoned she ought to have MORE +money than I sent her, and wrote saying that she had always understood +from her son (he that never wrote but once a year, remember) that this +claim of ours (that she never knew of, you know) was paying much more +than I sent her--and she wanted a return of accounts and papers, or +she'd write to some lawyer, mighty quick. Well, I reckoned that all +this was naturally in the line of my trouble, and I DID manage to scrape +together fifty dollars more for two months and sent it. But that didn't +seem to satisfy her--as you see." He dealt Colonel Starbottle another +letter from his baleful hand with an unchanged face. "When I got +that,--well, I just up and told her the whole thing. I sent her the +account of the fight from the newspapers, and told her as how her son +was the Frisbee that was my pardner, and how he never had a cent in the +world--but how I'd got that idea to help her, and was willing to carry +it out as long as I could." + +"Did you keep a copy of that letter?" asked the Colonel, straitening his +mask-like mouth. + +"No," said Corbin moodily. "What was the good? I know'd she'd got the +letter,--and she did,--for that is what she wrote back." He laid another +letter before the Colonel, who hastily read a few lines and then brought +his fat white hand violently on the desk. + +"Why, d--n it all, sir, this is BLACKMAIL! As infamous a case of +threatening and chantage as I ever heard of." + +"Well," said Corbin, dejectedly, "I don't know. You see she allows that +I murdered Frisbee to get hold of his claim, and that I'm trying to buy +her off, and that if I don't come down with twenty thousand dollars on +the nail, and notes for the rest, she'll prosecute me. Well, mebbe the +thing looks to her like that--mebbe you know I've got to shoulder that +too. Perhaps it's all in the same line." + +Colonel Starbottle for a moment regarded Corbin critically. In spite of +his chivalrous attitude towards the homicidal faculty, the Colonel +was not optimistic in regard to the baser pecuniary interests of his +fellow-man. It was quite on the cards that his companion might have +murdered his partner to get possession of the claim. It was true that +Corbin had voluntarily assumed an unrecorded and hitherto unknown +responsibility that had never been even suspected, and was virtually +self-imposed. But that might have been the usual one unerring blunder of +criminal sagacity and forethought. It was equally true that he did not +look or act like a mean murderer; but that was nothing. However, there +was no evidence of these reflections in the Colonel's face. Rather he +suddenly beamed with an excess of politeness. "Would you--er--mind, Mr. +Corbin, whilst I am going over those letters again, to--er--step across +to my office--and--er--bring me the copy of 'Wood's Digest' that lies on +my table? It will save some time." + +The stranger rose, as if the service was part of his self-imposed +trouble, and as equally hopeless with the rest, and taking his hat +departed to execute the commission. As soon as he had left the building +Colonel Starbottle opened the door and mysteriously beckoned the +bar-keeper within. + +"Do you remember anything of the killing of a man named Frisbee over in +Fresno three years ago?" + +The bar-keeper whistled meditatively. "Three years +ago--Frisbee?--Fresno?--no? Yes--but that was only one of his names. He +was Jack Walker over here. Yes--and by Jove! that feller that was here +with you killed him. Darn my skin, but I thought I recognized him." + +"Yes, yes, I know all that," said the Colonel, impatiently. "But did +Frisbee have any PROPERTY? Did he have any means of his own?" + +"Property?" echoed the bar-keeper with scornful incredulity. "Property? +Means? The only property and means he ever had was the free lunches or +drinks he took in at somebody else's expense. Why, the only chance he +ever had of earning a square meal was when that fellow that was with you +just now took him up and made him his partner. And the only way HE could +get rid of him was to kill him! And I didn't think he had it in him. +Rather a queer kind o' chap,--good deal of hayseed about him. Showed up +at the inquest so glum and orkerd that if the boys hadn't made up their +minds this yer Frisbee ORTER BEEN killed--it might have gone hard with +him." + +"Mr. Corbin," said Colonel Starbottle, with a pained but unmistakable +hauteur and a singular elevation of his shirt frill, as if it had become +of its own accord erectile, "Mr. Corbin--er--er--is the distant relative +of old Major Corbin, of Nashville--er--one of my oldest political +friends. When Mr. Corbin--er--returns, you can conduct him to me. And, +if you please, replenish the glasses." + +When the bar-keeper respectfully showed Mr. Corbin and "Wood's Digest" +into the room again, the Colonel was still beaming and apologetic. + +"A thousand thanks, sir, but except to SHOW you the law if you require +it--hardly necessary. I have--er--glanced over the woman's letters +again; it would be better, perhaps, if you had kept copies of your +own--but still these tell the whole story and YOUR OWN. The claim +is preposterous! You have simply to drop the whole thing. Stop your +remittances, stop your correspondence,--pay no heed to any further +letters and wait results. You need fear nothing further, sir; I stake my +professional reputation on it." + +The gloom of the stranger seemed only to increase as the Colonel reached +his triumphant conclusion. + +"I reckoned you'd say that," he said slowly, "but it won't do. I shall +go on paying as far as I can. It's my trouble and I'll see it through." + +"But, my dear sir, consider," gasped the Colonel. "You are in the hands +of an infamous harpy, who is using her son's blood to extract money +from you. You have already paid a dozen times more than the life of +that d----d sneak was worth; and more than that--the longer you keep on +paying you are helping to give color to their claim and estopping your +own defense. And Gad, sir, you're making a precedent for this sort of +thing! you are offering a premium to widows and orphans. A gentleman +won't be able to exchange shots with another without making himself +liable for damages. I am willing to admit that your feelings--though, in +my opinion--er--exaggerated--do you credit; but I am satisfied that they +are utterly misunderstood--sir." + +"Not by all of them," said Corbin darkly. + +"Eh?" returned the Colonel quickly. + +"There was another letter here which I didn't particularly point out +to you," said Corbin, taking up the letters again, "for I reckoned +it wasn't evidence, so to speak, being from HIS COUSIN, a girl,--and +calculated you'd read it when I was out." + +The Colonel coughed hastily. "I was in fact--er--just about to glance +over it when you came in." + +"It was written," continued Corbin, selecting a letter more bethumbed +than the others, "after the old woman had threatened me. This here young +woman allows that she is sorry that her aunt has to take money of me on +account of her cousin being killed, and she is still sorrier that she is +so bitter against me. She says she hadn't seen her cousin since he was +a boy, and used to play with her, and that she finds it hard to believe +that he should ever grow up to change his name and act so as to provoke +anybody to lift a hand against him. She says she supposed it must be +something in that dreadful California that alters people and makes +everybody so reckless. I reckon her head's level there, ain't it?" + +There was such a sudden and unexpected lightening of the man's face as +he said it, such a momentary relief to his persistent gloom, that the +Colonel, albeit inwardly dissenting from both letter and comment, smiled +condescendingly. + +"She's no slouch of a scribe neither," continued Corbin animatedly. +"Read that." + +He handed his companion the letter, pointing to a passage with his +finger. The Colonel took it with, I fear, a somewhat lowered opinion of +his client, and a new theory of the case. It was evident that this weak +submission to the aunt's conspiracy was only the result of a greater +weakness for the niece. Colonel Starbottle had a wholesome distrust of +the sex as a business or political factor. He began to look over the +letter, but was evidently slurring it with superficial politeness, when +Corbin said:-- + +"Read it out loud." + +The Colonel slightly lifted his shoulders, fortified himself with +another sip of the julep, and, leaning back, oratorically began to +read,--the stranger leaning over him and following line by line with +shining eyes. + + +"'When I say I am sorry for you, it is because I think it must be +dreadful for you to be going round with the blood of a fellow-creature +on your hands. It must be awful for you in the stillness of the night +season to hear the voice of the Lord saying, "Cain, where is thy +brother?" and you saying, "Lord, I have slayed him dead." It must be +awful for you when the pride of your wrath was surfitted, and his +dum senseless corps was before you, not to know that it is written, +"Vengeance is mine, I will repay," saith the Lord. . . . It was no use +for you to say, "I never heard that before," remembering your teacher +and parents. Yet verily I say unto you, "Though your sins be as scarlet, +they shall be washed whiter than snow," saith the Lord--Isaiah i. 18; +and "Heart hath no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal."--My hymn book, 1st +Presbyterian Church, page 79. Mr. Corbin, I pity your feelins at the +grave of my pore dear cousin, knowing he is before his Maker, and you +can't bring him back.' Umph!--er--er--very good--very good indeed," said +the Colonel, hastily refolding the letter. "Very well meaning and--er"-- + +"Go on," said Corbin over his shoulder, "you haven't read all." + +"Ah, true. I perceive I overlooked something. Um--um. 'May God forgive +you, Mr. Corbin, as I do, and make aunty think better of you, for it was +good what you tried to do for her and the fammely, and I've always said +it when she was raging round and wanting money of you. I don't believe +you meant to do it anyway, owin' to your kindness of heart to the +ophanless and the widow since you did it. Anser this letter, and +don't mind what aunty says. So no more at present from--Yours very +respectfully, SALLY DOWS. + +"'P. S.--There's been some troubel in our township, and some fitin'. May +the Lord change ther hearts and make them as a little child, for if you +are still young you may grow up different. I have writ a short prayer +for you to say every night. You can coppy it out and put it at the head +of your bed. It is this: O Lord make me sorry for having killed Sarah +Dows' cousin. Give me, O Lord, that peace that the world cannot give, +and which fadeth not away; for my yoke is heavy, and my burden is harder +than I can bear.'" + + +The Colonel's deliberate voice stopped. There was a silence in the +room, and the air seemed stifling. The click of the billiard balls came +distinctly through the partition from the other room. Then there was +another click, a stamp on the floor, and a voice crying coarsely: "Curse +it all--missed again!" + +To the stranger's astonishment, the Colonel was on his feet in an +instant, gasping with inarticulate rage. Flinging the door open, he +confronted the startled bar-keeper empurpled and stertorous. + +"Blank it all, sir, do you call this a saloon for gentlemen, or a corral +for swearing cattle? Or do you mean to say that the conversation of two +gentlemen upon delicate professional--and--er--domestic affairs--is +to be broken upon by the blank profanity of low-bred hounds over their +picayune gambling! Take them my kyard, sir," choked the Colonel, who was +always Southern and dialectic in his excited as in his softest moments, +"and tell them that Colonel Starbottle will nevah dyarken these doahs +again." + +Before the astonished bar-keeper could reply, the Colonel had dashed +back into the room, clapped his hat on his head, and seized his book, +letters, and cane. "Mr. Corbin," he said with gasping dignity, "I will +take these papahs, and consult them again in my own office--where, if +you will do me the honor, sir, to call at ten o'clock to-morrow, I +will give you my opinion." He strode out of the saloon beside the half +awe-stricken, half-amused, yet all discreetly silent loungers, followed +by his wondering but gloomy client. At the door they parted,--the +Colonel tiptoeing towards his office as if dancing with rage, the +stranger darkly plodding through the stifling dust in the opposite +direction, with what might have been a faint suggestion to his +counselor, that the paths of the homicide did not lie beside the still +cool waters. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The house of Captain Masterton Dows, at Pineville, Kentucky, was a fine +specimen of Southern classical architecture, being an exact copy of +Major Fauquier's house in Virginia, which was in turn only a slight +variation from a well-known statesman's historical villa in Alabama, +that everybody knew was designed from a famous Greek temple on the +Piraeus. Not but that it shared this resemblance with the County Court +House and the Odd Fellows' Hall, but the addition of training jessamine +and Cherokee rose to the columns of the portico, and over the colonnade +leading to its offices, showed a certain domestic distinction. And the +sky line of its incongruously high roof was pleasantly broken against +adjacent green pines, butternut, and darker cypress. + +A nearer approach showed the stuccoed gateposts--whose red brick +core was revealed through the dropping plaster--opening in a wall of +half-rough stone, half-wooden palisade, equally covered with shining +moss and parasitical vines, which hid a tangled garden left to its own +unkempt luxuriance. Yet there was a reminiscence of past formality +and even pretentiousness in a wide box-bordered terrace and one or two +stuccoed vases prematurely worn and time-stained; while several rare +exotics had, however, thriven so unwisely and well in that stimulating +soil as to lose their exclusive refinement and acquire a certain +temporary vulgarity. A few, with the not uncommon enthusiasm of aliens, +had adopted certain native peculiarities with a zeal that far exceeded +any indigenous performance. But dominant through all was the continual +suggestion of precocious fruition and premature decay that lingered like +a sad perfume in the garden, but made itself persistent if less poetical +in the house. + +Here the fluted wooden columns of the portico and colonnade seemed to +have taken upon themselves a sodden and unwholesome age unknown to stone +and mortar. Moss and creeper clung to paint that time had neither dried +nor mellowed, but left still glairy in its white consistency. There were +rusty red blotches around inflamed nail-holes in the swollen wood, as of +punctures in living flesh; along the entablature and cornices and in the +dank gutters decay had taken the form of a mild deliquescence; and the +pillars were spotted as if Nature had dropped over the too early ruin +a few unclean tears. The house itself was lifted upon a broad wooden +foundation painted to imitate marble with such hopeless mendacity that +the architect at the last moment had added a green border, and the owner +permitted a fallen board to remain off so as to allow a few privileged +fowls to openly explore the interior. When Miss Sally Dows played the +piano in the drawing-room she was at times accompanied by the uplifted +voice of the sympathetic hounds who sought its quiet retreat in +ill-health or low spirits, and from whom she was separated only by +an imperfectly carpeted floor of yawning seams. The infant progeny +of "Mammy Judy," an old nurse, made this a hiding-place from domestic +justice, where they were eventually betrayed by subterranean giggling +that had once or twice brought bashful confusion to the hearts of Miss +Sally's admirers, and mischievous security to that finished coquette +herself. + +It was a pleasant September afternoon, on possibly one of these +occasions, that Miss Sally, sitting before the piano, alternately +striking a few notes with three pink fingers and glancing at her +reflection in the polished rosewood surface of the lifted keyboard case, +was heard to utter this languid protest:-- + +"Quit that kind of talk, Chet, unless you just admire to have every word +of it repeated all over the county. Those little s of Mammy Judy's +are lying round somewhere and are mighty 'cute, and sassy, I tell you. +It's nothin' to ME, sure, but Miss Hilda mightn't like to hear of it. So +soon after your particular attention to her at last night's pawty too." + +Here a fresh-looking young fellow of six-and-twenty, leaning uneasily +over the piano from the opposite side, was heard to murmur that he +didn't care what Miss Hilda heard, nor the whole world, for the matter +of that. "But," he added, with a faint smile, "folks allow that you know +how to PLAY UP sometimes, and put on the loud pedal, when you don't want +Mammy's s to hear." + +"Indeed," said the young lady demurely. "Like this?" + +She put out a distracting little foot, clothed in the white stocking and +cool black prunella slipper then de rigueur in the State, and, pressing +it on the pedal, began to drum vigorously on the keys. In vain the +amorous Chet protested in a voice which the instrument drowned. +Perceiving which the artful young lady opened her blue eyes mildly and +said:-- + +"I reckon it IS so; it DOES kind of prevent you hearing what you don't +want to hear." + +"You know well enough what I mean," said the youth gloomily. "And that +ain't all that folks say. They allow that you're doin' a heap too much +correspondence with that Californian rough that killed Tom Jeffcourt +over there." + +"Do they?" said the young lady, with a slight curl of her pretty lip. +"Then perhaps they allow that if it wasn't for me he wouldn't be sending +a hundred dollars a month to Aunt Martha?" + +"Yes," said the fatuous youth; "but they allow he killed Tom for his +money. And they do say it's mighty queer doin's in yo' writin' religious +letters to him, and Tom your own cousin." + +"Oh, they tell those lies HERE, do they? But do they say anything about +how, when the same lies were told over in California, the lawyer they've +got over there, called Colonel Starbottle,--a Southern man too,--got up +and just wrote to Aunt Martha that she'd better quit that afore she got +prosecuted? They didn't tell you that, did they, Mister Chester Brooks?" + +But here the unfortunate Brooks, after the fashion of all jealous +lovers, deserted his allies for his fair enemy. "I don't cotton to what +THEY say, Sally, but you DO write to him, and I don't see what you've +got to write about--you and him. Jule Jeffcourt says that when you got +religion at Louisville during the revival, you felt you had a call to +write and save sinners, and you did that as your trial and probation, +but that since you backslided and are worldly again, and go to parties, +you just keep it up for foolin' and flirtin'! SHE ain't goin' to weaken +on the man that shot her brother, just because he's got a gold mine +and--a mustache!" + +"She takes his MONEY all the same," said Miss Sally. + +"SHE don't,--her mother does. SHE says if she was a man she'd have blood +for blood!" + +"My!" said Miss Sally, in affected consternation. "It's a wonder she +don't apply to you to act for her." + +"If it was MY brother he killed, I'd challenge him quick enough," said +Chet, flushing through his thin pink skin and light hair. + +"Marry her, then, and that'll make you one of the family. I reckon Miss +Hilda can bear it," rejoined the young lady pertly. + +"Look here, Miss Sally," said the young fellow with a boyish despair +that was not without a certain pathos in its implied inferiority, "I +ain't gifted like you--I ain't on yo' level no how; I can't pass yo' on +the road, and so I reckon I must take yo' dust as yo' make it. But there +is one thing, Miss Sally, I want to tell you. You know what's going on +in this country, you've heard your father say what the opinion of the +best men is, and what's likely to happen if the Yanks force that +worshiper, Lincoln, on the South. You know that we're drawing the line +closer every day, and spottin' the men that ain't sound. Take care, Miss +Sally, you ain't sellin' us cheap to some Northern Abolitionist +who'd like to set Marm Judy's little s to something worse +than eavesdropping down there, and mebbe teach 'em to kindle a fire +underneath yo' own flo'." + +He had become quite dialectic in his appeal, as if youthfully reverting +to some accent of the nursery, or as if he were exhorting her in some +recognized shibboleth of a section. Miss Sally rose and shut down the +piano. Then leaning over it on her elbows, her rounded little chin +slightly elevated with languid impertinence, and one saucy foot kicked +backwards beyond the hem of her white cotton frock, she said: "And let +me tell you, Mister Chester Brooks, that it's just such God-forsaken, +infant phenomenons as you who want to run the whole country that make +all this fuss, when you ain't no more fit to be trusted with matches +than Judy's children. What do YOU know of Mr. Jo Corbin, when you don't +even know that he's from Shelbyville, and as good a Suth'ner as you, and +if he hasn't got s it's because they don't use them in his parts? +Yo'r for all the world like one o' Mrs. Johnson's fancy bantams that +ain't quit of the shell afore they square off at their own mother. My +goodness! Sho! Sho-o-o!" And suiting the action to the word the young +lady, still indolently, even in her simulation, swirled around, caught +her skirts at the side with each hand, and lazily shaking them before +her in the accepted feminine method of frightening chickens as she +retreated backwards, dropped them suddenly in a profound curtsey and +swept out of the parlor. + +Nevertheless, as she entered the sitting-room she paused to listen, +then, going to the window, peeped through the slits of the Venetian +blind and saw her youthful admirer, more dejected in the consciousness +of his wasted efforts and useless attire, mount his showy young horse, +as aimlessly spirited as himself, and ride away. Miss Sally did not +regret this; neither had she been entirely sincere in her defense of her +mysterious correspondent. But, like many of her sex, she was trying to +keep up by the active stimulus of opposition an interest that she had +begun to think if left to itself might wane. She was conscious that +her cousin Julia, although impertinent and illogical, was right in +considering her first epistolary advances to Corbin as a youthful +convert's religious zeal. But now that her girlish enthusiasm was spent, +and the revival itself had proved as fleeting an excitement as the old +"Tournament of Love and Beauty," which it had supplanted, she preferred +to believe that she enjoyed the fascinating impropriety because it was +the actual result of her religious freedom. Perhaps she had a vague idea +that Corbin's conversion would expiate her present preference for dress +and dancing. She had certainly never flirted with him; they had never +exchanged photographs; there was not a passage in his letters that might +not have been perused by her parents,--which, I fear, was probably one +reason why she had never shown her correspondence; and beyond the fact +that this letter-writing gave her a certain importance in her own +eyes and those of her companions, it might really be stopped. She even +thought of writing at once to him that her parents objected to its +further continuance, but remembering that his usual monthly letter was +now nearly due, she concluded to wait until it came. + +It is to be feared that Miss Sally had little help in the way of family +advice, and that the moral administration of the Dows household was as +prematurely developed and as precociously exhausted as the estate and +mansion themselves. Captain Dows' marriage with Josephine Jeffcourt, +the daughter of a "poor white," had been considered a mesalliance by his +family, and his own sister, Miranda Dows, had abandoned her brother's +roof and refused to associate with the Jeffcourts, only returning to +the house and an armed neutrality at the death of Mrs. Dows a few years +later. She had taken charge of Miss Sally, sending her to school at +Nashville until she was recalled by her father two years ago. It may be +imagined that Miss Sally's correspondence with Jeffcourt's murderer had +afforded her a mixed satisfaction; it was at first asserted that Miss +Sally's forgiveness was really prompted by "Miss Mirandy," as a subtle +sarcasm upon the family. When, however, that forgiveness seemed to +become a source of revenue to the impoverished Jeffcourts, her Christian +interference had declined. + +For this reason, possibly, the young girl did not seek her aunt in +the bedroom, the dining-room, or the business-room, where Miss +Miranda frequently assisted Captain Dows in the fatuous and prejudiced +mismanagement of the house and property, nor in any of the vacant +guest-rooms, which, in their early wreck of latter-day mahogany and +rosewood, seemed to have been unoccupied for ages, but went directly to +her own room. This was in the "L," a lately added wing that had escaped +the gloomy architectural tyranny of the main building, and gave Miss +Sally light, ventilation, the freshness and spice of new pine boards and +clean paper, and a separate entrance and windows on a cool veranda all +to herself. Intended as a concession to the young lady's traveled taste, +it was really a reversion to the finer simplicity of the pioneer. + +New as the apartment appeared to be, it was old enough to contain +the brief little records of her maidenhood: the childish samplers and +pictures; the sporting epoch with its fox-heads, opossum and wild-cat +skins, riding-whip, and the goshawk in a cage, which Miss Sally believed +could be trained as a falcon; the religious interval of illustrated +texts, "Rock of Ages," cardboard crosses, and the certificate of her +membership with "The Daughters of Sion" at the head of her little bed, +down to the last decadence of frivolity shown in the be-ribboned guitar +in the corner, and the dance cards, favors, and rosettes, military +buttons, dried bouquets, and other love gages on the mantelpiece. + +The young girl opened a drawer of her table and took out a small packet +of letters tied up with a green ribbon. As she did so she heard the +sound of hoofs in the rear courtyard. This was presently followed by +a step on the veranda, and she opened the door to her father with the +letters still in her hand. There was neither the least embarrassment nor +self-consciousness in her manner. + +Captain Dows, superficially remarkable only for a certain odd +combination of high military stock and turned-over planter's collar, was +slightly exalted by a sympathetic mingling of politics and mint julep +at Pineville Court House. "I was passing by the post-office at the Cross +Roads last week, dear," he began, cheerfully, "and I thought of you, and +reckoned it was about time that my Pussy got one of her letters from her +rich Californian friend--and sure enough there was one. I clean forgot +to give it to you then, and only remembered it passing there to-day. I +didn't get to see if there was any gold-dust in it," he continued, with +great archness, and a fatherly pinch of her cheek; "though I suspect +that isn't the kind of currency he sends to you." + +"It IS from Mr. Corbin," said Miss Sally, taking it with a languid kind +of doubt; "and only now, paw, I was just thinking that I'd sort of drop +writing any more; it makes a good deal of buzzing amongst the neighbors, +and I don't see much honey nor comb in it." + +"Eh," said the Captain, apparently more astonished than delighted at +his daughter's prudence. "Well, child, suit yourself! It's mighty mean, +though, for I was just thinking of telling you that Judge Read is an +old friend of this Colonel Starbottle, who is your friend's friend and +lawyer, and he says that Colonel Starbottle is WITH US, and working +for the cause out there, and has got a list of all the So'thern men +in California that are sound and solid for the South. Read says he +shouldn't wonder if he'd make California wheel into line too." + +"I don't see what that's got to do with Mr. Corbin," said the young +girl, impatiently, flicking the still unopened letter against the packet +in her hand. + +"Well," said the Captain, with cheerful vagueness, "I thought it might +interest you,--that's all," and lounged judicially away. + +"Paw thinks," said Miss Sally, still standing in the doorway, +ostentatiously addressing her pet goshawk, but with one eye following +her retreating parent, "Paw thinks that everybody is as keen bent on +politics as he is. There's where paw slips up, Jim." + +Re-entering the room, scratching her little nose thoughtfully with the +edge of Mr. Corbin's letter, she went to the mantelpiece and picked up a +small ivory-handled dagger, the gift of Joyce Masterton, aged eighteen, +presented with certain verses addressed to a "Daughter of the South," +and cut open the envelope. The first glance was at her own name, and +then at the signature. There was no change in the formality; it was +"Dear Miss Sarah," and "Yours respectfully, Jo Corbin," as usual. She +was still secure. But her pretty brows contracted slightly as she read +as follows:-- + + +"I've always allowed I should feel easier in my mind if I could ever get +to see Mrs. Jeffcourt, and that may be she might feel easier in hers if +I stood before her, face to face. Even if she didn't forgive me at once, +it might do her good to get off what she had on her mind against me. But +as there wasn't any chance of her coming to me, and it was out of the +question my coming to her and still keeping up enough work in the mines +to send her the regular money, it couldn't be done. But at last I've got +a partner to run the machine when I'm away. I shall be at Shelbyville by +the time this reaches you, where I shall stay a day or two to give you +time to break the news to Mrs. Jeffcourt, and then come on. You will do +this for me in your Christian kindness, Miss Dows--won't you? and if +you could soften her mind so as to make it less hard for me I shall be +grateful. + +"P. S.--I forgot to say I have had HIM exhumed--you know who I mean--and +am bringing him with me in a patent metallic burial casket,--the best +that could be got in 'Frisco, and will see that he is properly buried +in your own graveyard. It seemed to me that it would be the best thing +I could do, and might work upon her feelings--as it has on mine. Don't +you? + +"J. C." + + +Miss Sally felt the tendrils of her fair hair stir with consternation. +The letter had arrived a week ago; perhaps he was in Pineville at that +very moment! She must go at once to the Jeffcourts,--it was only a mile +distant. Perhaps she might be still in time; but even then it was a +terribly short notice for such a meeting. Yet she stopped to select her +newest hat from the closet, and to tie it with the largest of bows under +her pretty chin; and then skipped from the veranda into a green lane +that ran beside the garden boundary. There, hidden by a hedge, she +dropped into a long, swinging trot, that even in her haste still kept +the languid deliberation characteristic of her people, until she had +reached the road. Two or three hounds in the garden started joyously +to follow her, but she drove them back with a portentous frown, and an +ill-aimed stone, and a suppressed voice. Yet in that backward glance she +could see that her little Eumenides--Mammy Judy's children--were peering +at her from below the wooden floor of the portico, which they were +grasping with outstretched arms and bowed shoulders, as if they were +black caryatides supporting--as indeed their race had done for many a +year--the pre-doomed and decaying mansion of their master. + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Happily Miss Sally thought more of her present mission than of the +past errors of her people. The faster she walked the more vividly she +pictured the possible complications of this meeting. She knew the dull, +mean nature of her aunt, and the utter hopelessness of all appeal to +anything but her selfish cupidity, and saw in this fatuous essay of +Corbin only an aggravation of her worst instincts. Even the dead body +of her son would not only whet her appetite for pecuniary vengeance, +but give it plausibility in the eyes of their emotional but ignorant +neighbors. She had still less to hope from Julia Jeffcourt's more honest +and human indignation but equally bigoted and prejudiced intelligence. +It is true they were only women, and she ought to have no fear of that +physical revenge which Julia had spoken of, but she reflected that Miss +Jeffcourt's unmistakable beauty, and what was believed to be a "truly +Southern spirit," had gained her many admirers who might easily take +her wrongs upon their shoulders. If her father had only given her that +letter before, she might have stopped Corbin's coming at all; she might +even have met him in time to hurry him and her cousin's provocative +remains out of the country. In the midst of these reflections she had +to pass the little hillside cemetery. It was a spot of great natural +beauty, cypress-shadowed and luxuriant. It was justly celebrated in +Pineville, and, but for its pretentious tombstones, might have been +peaceful and suggestive. Here she recognized a figure just turning from +its gate. It was Julia Jeffcourt. + +Her first instinct--that she was too late and that her cousin had come +to the cemetery to make some arrangements for the impending burial--was, +however, quickly dissipated by the young girl's manner. + +"Well, Sally Dows, YOU here! who'd have thought of seeing you to-day? +Why, Chet Brooks allowed that you danced every set last night and +didn't get home till daylight. And you--you that are going to show up +at another party to-night too! Well, I reckon I haven't got that much +ambition these times. And out with your new bonnet too." + +There was a slight curl of her handsome lip as she looked at her cousin. +She was certainly a more beautiful girl than Miss Sally; very tall, dark +and luminous of eye, with a brunette pallor of complexion, suggesting, +it was said, that remote mixture of blood which was one of the unproven +counts of Miss Miranda's indictment against her family. Miss Sally +smiled sweetly behind her big bow. "If you reckon to tie to everything +that Chet Brooks says, you'll want lots of string, and you won't be safe +then. You ought to have heard him run on about this one, and that one, +and that other one, not an hour ago in our parlor. I had to pack him +off, saying he was even making Judy's s tired." She stopped and +added with polite languor, "I suppose there's no news up at yo' house +either? Everything's going on as usual--and--you get yo' California +draft regularly?" + +A good deal of the white of Julia's beautiful eyes showed as she turned +indignantly on the speaker. "I wish, cousin Sally, you'd just let up +talking to me about that money. You know as well as I do that I allowed +to maw I wouldn't take a cent of it from the first! I might have had all +the gowns and bonnets"--with a look at Miss Sally's bows--"I wanted from +her; she even offered to take me to St. Louis for a rig-out--if I'd been +willing to take blood money. But I'd rather stick to this old sleazy +mou'nin' for Tom"--she gave a dramatic pluck at her faded black +skirt--"than flaunt round in white muslins and China silks at ten +dollars a yard, paid for by his murderer." + +"You know black's yo' color always,--taking in your height and +complexion, Jule," said Miss Sally demurely, yet not without a feminine +consciousness that it really did set off her cousin's graceful figure to +perfection. "But you can't keep up this gait always. You know some day +you might come upon this Mr. Corbin." + +"He'd better not cross my path," she said passionately. + +"I've heard girls talk like that about a man and then get just green +and yellow after him," said Miss Sally critically. "But goodness me! +speaking of meeting people reminds me I clean forgot to stop at the +stage office and see about bringing over the new overseer. Lucky I met +you, Jule! Good-by, dear. Come in to-night, and we'll all go to the +party together." And with a little nod she ran off before her +indignant cousin could frame a suitably crushing reply to her Parthian +insinuation. + +But at the stage office Miss Sally only wrote a few lines on a card, put +it in an envelope, which she addressed to Mr. Joseph Corbin, and then +seating herself with easy carelessness on a long packing-box, languidly +summoned the proprietor. + +"You're always on hand yourself at Kirby station when the kyars come in +to bring passengers to Pineville, Mr. Sledge?" + +"Yes, Miss." + +"Yo' haven't brought any strangers over lately?" + +"Well, last week Squire Farnham of Green Ridge--if he kin be called a +stranger--as used to live in the very house yo father"-- + +"Yes, I know," said Miss Sally, impatiently, "but if an ENTIRE stranger +comes to take a seat for Pineville, you ask him if that's his name," +handing the letter, "and give it to him if it is. And--Mr. Sledge--it's +nobody's business but--yours and mine." + +"I understand, Miss Sally," with a slow, paternal, tolerating wink. +"He'll get it, and nobody else, sure." + +"Thank you; I hope Mrs. Sledge is getting round again." + +"Pow'fully, Miss Sally." + +Having thus, as she hoped, stopped the arrival of the unhappy Corbin, +Miss Sally returned home to consider the best means of finally disposing +of him. She had insisted upon his stopping at Kirby and holding no +communication with the Jeffcourts until he heard from her, and had +strongly pointed out the hopeless infelicity of his plan. She dare +not tell her Aunt Miranda, knowing that she would be too happy to +precipitate an interview that would terminate disastrously to both +the Jeffcourts and Corbin. She might have to take her father into her +confidence,--a dreadful contingency. + +She was dressed for the evening party, which was provincially early; +indeed, it was scarcely past nine o'clock when she had finished her +toilet, when there came a rap at her door. It was one of Mammy Judy's +children. + +"Dey is a gemplum, Miss Sally." + +"Yes, yes," said Miss Sally, impatiently, thinking only of her escort. +"I'll be there in a minute. Run away. He can wait." + +"And he said I was to guv yo' dis yer," continued the little with +portentous gravity, presenting a card. + +Miss Sally took it with a smile. It was a plain card on which was +written with a pencil in a hand she hurriedly recognized, "Joseph +Corbin." + +Miss Sally's smile became hysterically rigid, and pushing the boy aside +with a little cry, she darted along the veranda and entered the parlor +from a side door and vestibule. To her momentary relief she saw that her +friends had not yet arrived: a single figure--a stranger's--rose as she +entered. + +Even in her consternation she had time to feel the added shock of +disappointment. She had always present in her mind an ideal picture of +this man whom she had never seen or even heard described. Joseph +Corbin had been tall, dark, with flowing hair and long mustache. He +had flashing fiery eyes which were capable of being subdued by a +single glance of gentleness--her own. He was tempestuous, quick, and +passionate, but in quarrel would be led by a smile. He was a combination +of an Italian brigand and a poker player whom she had once met on a +Mississippi steamboat. He would wear a broad-brimmed soft hat, a red +shirt, showing his massive throat and neck--and high boots! Alas! the +man before her was of medium height, with light close-cut hair, hollow +cheeks that seemed to have been lately scraped with a razor, and +light gray troubled eyes. A suit of cheap black, ill fitting, hastily +acquired, and provincial even for Pineville, painfully set off these +imperfections, to which a white cravat in a hopelessly tied bow +was superadded. A terrible idea that this combination of a country +undertaker and an ill-paid circuit preacher on probation was his best +holiday tribute to her, and not a funeral offering to Mr. Jeffcourt, +took possession of her. And when, with feminine quickness, she saw his +eyes wander over her own fine clothes and festal figure, and sink again +upon the floor in a kind of hopeless disappointment equal to her +own, she felt ready to cry. But the more terrible sound of laughter +approaching the house from the garden recalled her. Her friends were +coming. + +"For Heaven's sake," she broke out desperately, "didn't you get my note +at the station telling you not to come?" + +His face grew darker, and then took up its look of hopeless resignation, +as if this last misfortune was only an accepted part of his greater +trouble, as he sat down again, and to Miss Sally's horror, listlessly +swung his hat to and fro under his chair. + +"No," he said, gloomily, "I didn't go to no station. I walked here all +the way from Shelbyville. I thought it might seem more like the square +thing to her for me to do. I sent HIM by express ahead in the box. It's +been at the stage office all day." + +With a sickening conviction that she had been sitting on her cousin's +body while she wrote that ill-fated card, the young girl managed to gasp +out impatiently: "But you must go--yes--go now, at once! Don't talk now, +but go." + +"I didn't come here," he said, rising with a kind of slow dignity, "to +interfere with things I didn't kalkilate to see," glancing again at her +dress, as the voices came nearer, "and that I ain't in touch with,--but +to know if you think I'd better bring him--or"-- + +He did not finish the sentence, for the door had opened suddenly, and +a half-dozen laughing girls and their escorts burst into the room. +But among them, a little haughty and still irritated from her last +interview, was her cousin Julia Jeffcourt, erect and beautiful in a +sombre silk. + +"Go," repeated Miss Sally, in an agonized whisper. "You must not be +known here." + +But the attention of Julia had been arrested by her cousin's agitation, +and her eye fell on Corbin, where it was fixed with some fatal +fascination that seemed in turn to enthrall and possess him also. To +Miss Sally's infinite dismay the others fell back and allowed these two +black figures to stand out, then to move towards each other with the +same terrible magnetism. They were so near she could not repeat her +warning to him without the others hearing it. And all hope died when +Corbin, turning deliberately towards her with a grave gesture in the +direction of Julia, said quietly:-- + +"Interduce me." + +Miss Sally hesitated, and then gasped hastily, "Miss Jeffcourt." + +"Yer don't say MY name. Tell her I'm Joseph Corbin of 'Frisco, +California, who killed her brother." He stopped and turned towards her. +"I came here to try and fix things again--and I've brought HIM." + +In the wondering silence that ensued the others smiled vacantly, +breathlessly, and expectantly, until Corbin advanced and held out his +hand, when Julia Jeffcourt, drawing hers back to her bosom with the +palms outward, uttered an inarticulate cry and--and spat in his face! + +With that act she found tongue--reviling him, the house that harbored +him, the insolence that presented him, the insult that had been put upon +her! "Are you men!" she added passionately, "who stand here with the +man before you that killed my brother, and see him offer me his filthy +villainous hand--and dare not strike him down!" + +And they dared not. Violently, blindly, stupidly moved though all their +instincts, though they gathered hysterically around him, there was +something in his dull self-containment that was unassailable and awful. +For he wiped his face and breast with his handkerchief without a tremor, +and turned to them with even a suggestion of relief. + +"She's right, gentlemen," he said gravely. "She's right. It might have +been otherwise. I might have allowed that it might be otherwise,--but +she's right. I'm a Soth'n man myself, gentlemen, and I reckon to +understand what she has done. I killed the only man that had a right to +stand up for her, and she has now to stand up for herself. But if she +wants--and you see she allows she wants--to pass that on to some of you, +or all of you, I'm willing. As many as you like, and in what way +you like--I waive any chyce of weapon--I'm ready, gentlemen. I came +here--with HIM--for that purpose." + +Perhaps it may have been his fateful resignation; perhaps it may have +been his exceeding readiness,--but there was no response. He sat down +again, and again swung his hat slowly and gloomily to and fro under his +chair. + +"I've got him in a box at the stage office," he went on, apparently to +the carpet. "I had him dug up that I might bring him here, and mebbe +bury some of the trouble and difference along with his friends. It +might be," he added, with a slightly glowering upward glance, as to an +overruling, but occasionally misdirecting Providence,--"it might be +from the way things are piling up on me that some one might have rung in +another corpse instead o' HIM, but so far as I can judge, allowin' for +the space of time and nat'ral wear and tear--it's HIM!" + +He rose slowly and moved towards the door in a silence that was as much +the result of some conviction that any violent demonstration against him +would be as grotesque and monstrous as the situation, as of anything +he had said. Even the flashing indignation of Julia Jeffcourt seemed +to become suddenly as unnatural and incongruous as her brother's chief +mourner himself, and although she shrank from his passing figure she +uttered no word. Chester Brooks's youthful emotions, following the +expression of Miss Sally's face, lost themselves in a vague hysteric +smile, and the other gentlemen looked sheepish. Joseph Corbin halted at +the door. + +"Whatever," he said, turning to the company, "ye make up your mind to +do about me, I reckon ye'd better do it AFTER the funeral. I'M always +ready. But HE, what with being in a box and changing climate, had better +go FIRST." He paused, and with a suggestion of delicacy in the momentary +dropping of his eyelids, added,--"for REASONS." + +He passed out through the door, on to the portico and thence into the +garden. It was noticed at the time that the half-dozen hounds lingering +there rushed after him with their usual noisy demonstrations, but that +they as suddenly stopped, retreated violently to the security of the +basement, and there gave relief to their feelings in a succession of +prolonged howls. + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +It must not be supposed that Miss Sally did not feel some contrition +over the ineffective part she had played in this last episode. +But Joseph Corbin had committed the unpardonable sin to a woman of +destroying her own illogical ideas of him, which was worse than if he +had affronted the preconceived ideas of others, in which case she might +still defend him. Then, too, she was no longer religious, and had no +"call" to act as peacemaker. Nevertheless she resented Julia Jeffcourt's +insinuations bitterly, and the cousins quarreled--not the first time in +their intercourse--and it was reserved for the latter to break the news +of Corbin's arrival with the body to Mrs. Jeffcourt. + +How this was done and what occurred at that interview has not been +recorded. But it was known the next day that, while Mrs. Jeffcourt +accepted the body at Corbin's hands,--and it is presumed the funeral +expenses also,--he was positively forbidden to appear either at the +services at the house or at the church. There had been some wild talk +among the younger and many of the lower members of the community, +notably the "poor" non-slave-holding whites, of tarring and feathering +Joseph Corbin, and riding him on a rail out of the town on the day +of the funeral, as a propitiatory sacrifice to the manes of Thomas +Jeffcourt; but it being pointed out by the undertaker that it might +involve some uncertainty in the settlement of his bill, together with +some reasonable doubt of the thorough resignation of Corbin, whose +previous momentary aberration in that respect they were celebrating, the +project was postponed until AFTER THE FUNERAL. And here an unlooked-for +incident occurred. + +There was to be a political meeting at Kirby on that day, when certain +distinguished Southern leaders had gathered from the remoter Southern +States. At the instigation of Captain Dows it was adjourned at the hour +of the funeral to enable members to attend, and it was even rumored, +to the great delight of Pineville, that a distinguished speaker or two +might come over to "improve the occasion" with some slight allusion to +the engrossing topic of "Southern Rights." This combined appeal to +the domestic and political emotions of Pineville was irresistible. The +Second Baptist Church was crowded. After the religious service there +was a pause, and Judge Reed, stepping forward amid a breathless silence, +said that they were peculiarly honored by the unexpected presence in +their midst "of that famous son of the South, Colonel Starbottle," +who had lately returned to his native soil from his adopted home in +California. Every eye was fixed on the distinguished stranger as he +rose. + +Jaunty and gallant as ever, femininely smooth-faced, yet polished and +high as a youthful mask; pectorally expansive, and unfolding the +white petals of his waistcoat through the swollen lapels of his coat, +like a bursting magnolia bud, Colonel Starbottle began. The present +associations were, he might say, singularly hallowed to him; not only +was Pineville--a Southern centre--the recognized nursery of Southern +chivalry, Southern beauty (a stately inclination to the pew in which +Miss Sally and Julia Jeffcourt sat), Southern intelligence, and Southern +independence, but it was the home of the lamented dead who had been, +like himself and another he should refer to later, an adopted citizen of +the Golden State, a seeker of the Golden Fleece, a companion of Jason. +It was the home, fellow-citizens and friends, of the sorrowing sister of +the deceased, a young lady whom he, the speaker, had as yet known only +through the chivalrous blazon of her virtues and graces by her attendant +knights (a courteous wave towards the gallery where Joyce Masterton, +Chester Brooks, Calhoun Bungstarter, and the embattled youth generally +of Pineville became empurpled and idiotic); it was the home of the +afflicted widowed mother, also personally unknown to him, but with whom +he might say he had had--er--er--professional correspondence. But it +was not this alone that hallowed the occasion, it was a sentiment that +should speak in trumpet-like tones throughout the South in this uprising +of an united section. It was the forgetfulness of petty strife, of +family feud, of personal wrongs in the claims of party! It might not be +known that he, the speaker, was professionally cognizant of one of +these regrettable--should he say accidents?--arising from the chivalrous +challenge and equally chivalrous response of two fiery Southern spirits, +to which they primarily owe their coming here that day. And he should +take it as his duty, his solemn duty, in that sacred edifice to proclaim +to the world that in his knowledge as a professional man--as a man of +honor, as a Southerner, as a gentleman, that the--er--circumstances +which three years ago led to the early demise of our lamented friend +and brother, reflected only the highest credit equally on both of the +parties. He said this on his own responsibility--in or out of this +sacred edifice--and in or out of that sacred edifice he was personally +responsible, and prepared to give the fullest satisfaction for it. He +was also aware that it might not be known--or understood--that since +that boyish episode the survivor had taken the place of the departed +in the bereaved family and ministered to their needs with counsel +and--er--er--pecuniary aid, and had followed the body afoot across the +continent that it might rest with its kindred dust. He was aware that +an unchristian--he would say but for that sacred edifice--a DASTARDLY +attempt had been made to impugn the survivor's motives--to suggest an +unseemly discord between him and the family, but he, the speaker, would +never forget the letter breathing with Christian forgiveness and replete +with angelic simplicity sent by a member of that family to his client, +which came under his professional eye (here the professional eye for a +moment lingered on the hysteric face of Miss Sally); he did not envy the +head or heart of a man who could peruse these lines--of which the mere +recollection--er--er--choked the utterance of even a professional +man like--er--himself--without emotion. "And what, my friends and +fellow-citizens," suddenly continued the Colonel, replacing his white +handkerchief in his coat-tail, "was the reason why my client, Mr. +Joseph Corbin--whose delicacy keeps him from appearing among these +mourners--comes here to bury all differences, all animosities, all petty +passions? Because he is a son of the South; because as a son of the +South, as the representative, and a distant connection, I believe, of +my old political friend, Major Corbin, of Nashville, he wishes here +and everywhere, at this momentous crisis, to sink everything in the one +all-pervading, all-absorbing, one and indivisible UNITY of the South in +its resistance to the Northern Usurper! That, my friends, is the great, +the solemn, the Christian lesson of this most remarkable occasion in my +professional, political, and social experience." + +Whatever might have been the calmer opinion, there was no doubt that +the gallant Colonel had changed the prevailing illogical emotion of +Pineville by the substitution of another equally illogical, and Miss +Sally was not surprised when her father, touched by the Colonel's +allusion to his daughter's epistolary powers, insisted upon bringing +Joseph Corbin home with him, and offering him the hospitality of the +Dows mansion. Although the stranger seemed to yield rather from the fact +that the Dows were relations of the Jeffcourts than from any personal +preference, when he was fairly installed in one of the appropriately +gloomy guest chambers, Miss Sally set about the delayed work of +reconciliation--theoretically accepted by her father, and cynically +tolerated by her Aunt Miranda. But here a difficulty arose which she had +not foreseen. Although Corbin had evidently forgiven her defection on +that memorable evening, he had not apparently got over the revelation of +her giddy worldliness, and was resignedly apathetic and distrustful of +her endeavors. She was at first amused, and then angry. And her patience +was exhausted when she discovered that he actually seemed more anxious +to conciliate Julia Jeffcourt than her mother. + +"But she spat in your face," she said, indignantly. + +"That's so," he replied, gloomily; "but I reckoned you said something in +one of your letters about turning the other cheek when you were smitten. +Of course, as you don't believe it now," he added with his upward +glance, "I suppose THAT'S been played on me, too." + +But here Miss Sally's spirit lazily rebelled. + +"Look here, Mr. Joseph JEREMIAH Corbin," she returned with languid +impertinence, "if instead of cavortin' round on yo' knees trying to +conciliate an old woman who never had a stroke of luck till you killed +her son, and a young girl who won't be above letting on afore you think +it that your conciliatin' her means SPARKIN' her; if instead of that +foolishness you'd turn your hand to trying to conciliate the folks here +and keep 'em from going into that fool's act of breaking up these United +States; if instead of digging up second-hand corpses that's already been +put out of sight once you'd set to work to try and prevent the folks +about here from digging up their old cranks and their old whims, and +their old women fancies, you'd be doing something like a Christian and +a man! What's yo' blood-guiltiness--I'd like to know--alongside of the +blood-guiltiness of those fools who are just wild to rush into it, led +by such turkey-cocks as yo' friend Colonel Starbottle? And you've been +five years in California--a free State--and that's all yo' 've toted out +of it--a dead body! There now, don't sit there and swing yo' hat under +that chyar, but rouse out and come along with me to the pawty if you can +shake a foot, and show Miss Pinkney and the gyrls yo' fit for something +mo' than to skirmish round as a black japanned spittoon for Julia +Jeffcourt!" It is not recorded that Corbin accepted this cheerful +invitation, but for a few days afterwards he was more darkly observant +of, and respectful to, Miss Sally. Strange indeed if he had not +noticed--although always in his resigned fashion--the dull green +stagnation of the life around him, or when not accepting it as part +of his trouble he had not chafed at the arrested youth and senile +childishness of the people. Stranger still if he had not at times been +startled to hear the outgrown superstitions and follies of his youth +voiced again by grown-up men, and perhaps strangest of all if he had not +vaguely accepted it all as the hereditary curse of that barbarism under +which he himself had survived and suffered. + +The reconciliation between himself and Mrs. Jeffcourt was superficially +effected, so far as a daily visit by him to the house indicated it to +the community, but it was also known that Julia was invariably absent +on these occasions. What happened at those interviews did not transpire, +but it may be surmised that Mrs. Jeffcourt, perhaps recognizing the fact +that Corbin was really giving her all that he had to give, or possibly +having some lurking fear of Colonel Starbottle, was so far placated as +to exhibit only the average ingratitude of her species towards a regular +benefactor. She consented to the erection of a small obelisk over her +son's grave, and permitted Corbin to plant a few flowering shrubs, +which he daily visited and took care of. It is said that on one of these +pilgrimages he encountered Miss Julia, apparently on the same errand, +who haughtily retired. It was further alleged, on the authority of one +of Mammy Judy's little s, that those two black mourning figures +had been seen at nightfall sitting opposite to each other at the head +and foot of the grave, and "glowerin'" at one another "like two hants." +But when it was asserted on the same authority that their voices had +been later overheard uplifted in some vehement discussion over the grave +of the impassive dead, great curiosity was aroused. Being pressed by +the eager Miss Sally to repeat some words or any words he had heard them +say, the little witness glibly replied, "Marse Linkum" (Lincoln), and +"The Souf," and so, for the time, shipwrecked his testimony. But it was +recalled six months afterwards. It was then that a pleasant spring day +brought madness and enthusiasm to a majority of Pineville, and bated +breath and awe to a few, and it was known with the tidings that the +South had appealed to arms, that among those who had first responded to +the call was Joseph Corbin, an alleged "Union man," who had, however, +volunteered to take that place in her ranks which might HAVE BEEN FILLED +BY THE MAN HE HAD KILLED. And then people forgot all about him. + +***** + +A year passed. It was the same place; the old familiar outlines of home +and garden and landscape. But seen now, in the choking breathlessness of +haste, in the fitful changing flashes of life and motion around it, +in intervals of sharp suspense or dazed bewilderment, it seemed to be +recognized no longer. Men who had known it all their lives, hurrying to +the front in compact masses, scurrying to the rear in straggling line, +or opening their ranks to let artillery gallop by, stared at it vaguely, +and clattered or scrambled on again. The smoke of a masked battery +in the woods struggled and writhed to free itself from the clinging +treetops behind it, and sank back into a gray encompassing cloud. The +dust thrown up by a column of passing horse poured over the wall in one +long wave, and whitened the garden with its ashes. Throughout the +dim empty house one no longer heard the sound of cannon, only a dull +intermittent concussion was felt, silently bringing flakes of plaster +from the walls, or sliding fragments of glass from the shattered +windows. A shell, lifted from the ominous distance, hung uncertain in +the air and then descended swiftly through the roof; the whole house +dilated with flame for an instant, smoke rolled slowly from the windows, +and even the desolate chimneys started into a hideous mockery of life, +and then all was still again. At such awful intervals the sun shone out +brightly, touched the green of the still sleeping woods and the red and +white of a flower in the garden, and something in a gray uniform writhed +out of the dust of the road, staggered to the wall, and died. + +A mile down this road, growing more and more obscure with those rising +and falling apparitions or the shapeless and rugged heaps terrible in +their helpless inertia by hedge and fence, arose the cemetery hill. +Taken and retaken thrice that afternoon, the dead above it far +outnumbered the dead below; and when at last the tide of battle swept +around its base into the dull, reverberating woods, and it emerged from +the smoke, silenced and abandoned, only a few stragglers remained. One +of them, leaning on his musket, was still gloomily facing the woods. + +"Joseph Corbin," said a low, hurried voice. + +He started and glanced quickly at the tombs around him. Perhaps it was +because he had been thinking of the dead,--but the voice sounded like +HIS. Yet it was only the SISTER, who had glided, pale and haggard, from +the thicket. + +"They are coming through the woods," she said quickly. "Run, or you'll +be taken. Why do you linger?" + +"You know why," he said gloomily. + +"Yes, but you have done yo' duty. You have done his work. The task is +finished now, and yo' free." + +He did not reply, but remained gazing at the woods. + +"Joseph," she said more gently, laying her trembling hand on his arm, +"Joseph, fly--and--take me with you. For I was wrong, and I want you to +forgive me. I knew your heart was not in this, and I ought not to have +asked you. Joseph--listen! I never wanted to avenge myself nor HIM when +I spat on your face. I wanted to avenge myself on HER. I hated her, +because I thought she wanted to work upon you and use you for herself." + +"Your mother," he said, looking at her. + +"No," she said, with widely opened eyes, "you know who I mean--Miss +Sally." + +He looked at her wonderingly for a moment, but quickly bent his +head again in the direction of the road. "They are coming," he said, +starting. "YOU must go. This is no place for you. Stop! it's too +late; you cannot go now until they have passed. Come here--crouch down +here--over this grave--so." + +He almost forced her--kneeling down--upon the mound below the level of +the shrubs, and then ran quickly himself a few paces lower down the +hill to a more exposed position. She understood it. He wished to attract +attention to himself. He was successful--a few hurried shots followed +from the road, but struck above him. + +He clambered back quickly to where she was still crouching. + +"They were the vedettes," he said, "but they have fallen back on the +main skirmish line and will be here in force in a moment. Go--while you +can." She had not moved. He tried to raise her--her hat fell off---he +saw blood oozing from where the vedette's bullet that had missed him had +pierced her brain. + +And yet he saw in that pale dead face only the other face which he +remembered now had been turned like this towards his own. It was very +strange. And this was the end, and this was his expiation! He raised his +own face humbly, blindly, despairingly to the inscrutable sky; it looked +back upon him from above as coldly as the dead face had from below. + +Yet out of this he struck a faint idea that he voiced aloud in nearly +the same words which he had used to Colonel Starbottle only three years +ago. "It was with his own pistol too," he said, and took up his musket. + +He walked deliberately down the hill, occasionally trying the stock of +his musket in the loose earth, and at last suddenly remained motionless, +in the attitude of leaning over it. At the same moment there was a +distant shout; two thin parallel streams of blue and steel came issuing +through the woods like a river, appeared to join tumultuously in the +open before the hill, and out of the tumult a mounted officer called +upon him to surrender. + +He did not reply. + +"Come down from there, Johnny Reb, I want to speak to you," called a +young corporal. + +He did not move. + +"It's time to go home, Johnny." + +No response. + +The officer, who had been holding down his men with an unsworded but +masterful hand, raised it suddenly. A dozen shots followed. The men +leaped forward, and dashing Corbin contemptuously aside streamed up the +hill past him. + +But he had neither heard nor cared. For they found he had already +deliberately transfixed himself through the heart on his own bayonet. + + + + +THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +The mail stage had just passed Laurel Run,--so rapidly that the whirling +cloud of dust dragged with it down the steep grade from the summit hung +over the level long after the stage had vanished, and then, drifting +away, slowly sifted a red precipitate over the hot platform of the +Laurel Run post-office. + +Out of this cloud presently emerged the neat figure of the postmistress +with the mailbag which had been dexterously flung at her feet from the +top of the passing vehicle. A dozen loungers eagerly stretched out their +hands to assist her, but the warning: "It's agin the rules, boys, for +any but her to touch it," from a bystander, and a coquettish shake of +the head from the postmistress herself--much more effective than any +official interdict--withheld them. The bag was not heavy,--Laurel Run +was too recent a settlement to have attracted much correspondence,--and +the young woman, having pounced upon her prey with a certain feline +instinct, dragged it, not without difficulty, behind the partitioned +inclosure in the office, and locked the door. Her pretty face, +momentarily visible through the window, was slightly flushed with the +exertion, and the loose ends of her fair hair, wet with perspiration, +curled themselves over her forehead into tantalizing little rings. But +the window shutter was quickly closed, and this momentary but charming +vision withdrawn from the waiting public. + +"Guv'ment oughter have more sense than to make a woman pick mail-bags +outer the road," said Jo Simmons sympathetically. "'Tain't in her day's +work anyhow; Guv'mont oughter hand 'em over to her like a lady; it's +rich enough and ugly enough." + +"'Tain't Guv'ment; it's that stage company's airs and graces," +interrupted a newcomer. "They think it mighty fine to go beltin' by, +makin' everybody take their dust, just because STOPPIN' ain't in their +contract. Why, if that expressman who chucked down the bag had any +feelin's for a lady"--but he stopped here at the amused faces of his +auditors. + +"Guess you don't know much o' that expressman's feelin's, stranger," +said Simmons grimly. "Why, you oughter see him just nussin' that bag +like a baby as he comes tearin' down the grade, and then rise up and +sorter heave it to Mrs. Baker ez if it was a five-dollar bokay! His +feelin's for her! Why, he's give himself so dead away to her that we're +looking for him to forget what he's doin' next, and just come sailin' +down hisself at her feet." + +Meanwhile, on the other side of the partition, Mrs. Baker had brushed +the red dust from the padlocked bag, and removed what seemed to be a +supplementary package attached to it by a wire. Opening it she found +a handsome scent-bottle, evidently a superadded gift from the devoted +expressman. This she put aside with a slight smile and the murmured +word, "Foolishness." But when she had unlocked the bag, even its +sacred interior was also profaned by a covert parcel from the adjacent +postmaster at Burnt Ridge, containing a gold "specimen" brooch and some +circus tickets. It was laid aside with the other. This also was vanity +and--presumably--vexation of spirit. + +There were seventeen letters in all, of which five were for herself--and +yet the proportion was small that morning. Two of them were marked +"Official Business" and were promptly put by with feminine discernment; +but in another compartment than that holding the presents. Then the +shutter was opened, and the task of delivery commenced. + +It was accompanied with a social peculiarity that had in time become a +habit of Laurel Run. As the young woman delivered the letters, in turn, +to the men who were patiently drawn up in Indian file, she made that +simple act a medium of privileged but limited conversation on special or +general topics,--gay or serious as the case might be, or the temperament +of the man suggested. That it was almost always of a complimentary +character on their part may be readily imagined; but it was invariably +characterized by an element of refined restraint, and, whether from some +implied understanding or individual sense of honour, it never passed the +bounds of conventionality or a certain delicacy of respect. The +delivery was consequently more or less protracted, but when each man +had exchanged his three or four minutes' conversation with the fair +postmistress,--a conversation at times impeded by bashfulness or +timidity, on his part solely, or restricted often to vague smiling,--he +resignedly made way for the next. It was a formal levee, mitigated by +the informality of rustic tact, great good-humor, and infinite patience, +and would have been amusing had it not always been terribly in earnest +and at times touching. For it was peculiar to the place and the epoch, +and indeed implied the whole history of Mrs. Baker. + +She was the wife of John Baker, foreman of "The Last Chance," now for +a year lying dead under half a mile of crushed and beaten-in tunnel at +Burnt Ridge. There had been a sudden outcry from the depths at high +hot noontide one day, and John had rushed from his cabin--his young, +foolish, flirting wife clinging to him--to answer that despairing cry of +his imprisoned men. There was one exit that he alone knew which might be +yet held open, among falling walls and tottering timbers, long enough to +set them free. For one moment only the strong man hesitated between her +entreating arms and his brothers' despairing cry. But she rose suddenly +with a pale face, and said, "Go, John; I will wait for you here." He +went, the men were freed--but she had waited for him ever since! + +Yet in the shock of the calamity and in the after struggles of that +poverty which had come to the ruined camp, she had scarcely changed. But +the men had. Although she was to all appearances the same giddy, pretty +Betsy Baker, who had been so disturbing to the younger members, they +seemed to be no longer disturbed by her. A certain subdued awe and +respect, as if the martyred spirit of John Baker still held his arm +around her, appeared to have come upon them all. They held their breath +as this pretty woman, whose brief mourning had not seemed to affect her +cheerfulness or even playfulness of spirit, passed before them. But she +stood by her cabin and the camp--the only woman in a settlement of forty +men--during the darkest hours of their fortune. Helping them to wash and +cook, and ministering to their domestic needs, the sanctity of her cabin +was, however, always kept as inviolable as if it had been HIS tomb. No +one exactly knew why, for it was only a tacit instinct; but even one or +two who had not scrupled to pay court to Betsy Baker during John Baker's +life, shrank from even a suggestion of familiarity towards the woman who +had said that she would "wait for him there." + +When brighter days came and the settlement had increased by one or two +families, and laggard capital had been hurried up to relieve the still +beleaguered and locked-up wealth of Burnt Ridge, the needs of the +community and the claims of the widow of John Baker were so well told +in political quarters that the post-office of Laurel Run was created +expressly for her. Every man participated in the building of the pretty +yet substantial edifice--the only public building of Laurel Run--that +stood in the dust of the great highway, half a mile from the settlement. +There she was installed for certain hours of the day, for she could not +be prevailed upon to abandon John's cabin, and here, with all the added +respect due to a public functionary, she was secure in her privacy. + +But the blind devotion of Laurel Run to John Baker's relict did not stop +here. In its zeal to assure the Government authorities of the necessity +for a post-office, and to secure a permanent competency to the +postmistress, there was much embarrassing extravagance. During the first +week the sale of stamps at Laurel Run post-office was unprecedented +in the annals of the Department. Fancy prices were given for the first +issue; then they were bought wildly, recklessly, unprofitably, and +on all occasions. Complimentary congratulation at the little window +invariably ended with "and a dollar's worth of stamps, Mrs. Baker." It +was felt to be supremely delicate to buy only the highest priced stamps, +without reference to their adequacy; then mere QUANTITY was sought; then +outgoing letters were all over-paid and stamped in outrageous proportion +to their weight and even size. The imbecility of this, and its probable +effect on the reputation of Laurel Run at the General Post-office, being +pointed out by Mrs. Baker, stamps were adopted as local currency, +and even for decorative purposes on mirrors and the walls of cabins. +Everybody wrote letters, with the result, however, that those SENT were +ludicrously and suspiciously in excess of those received. To obviate +this, select parties made forced journeys to Hickory Hill, the next +post-office, with letters and circulars addressed to themselves at +Laurel Run. How long the extravagance would have continued is not +known, but it was not until it was rumored that, in consequence of +this excessive flow of business, the Department had concluded that a +postMASTER would be better fitted for the place that it abated, and a +compromise was effected with the General Office by a permanent salary to +the postmistress. + +Such was the history of Mrs. Baker, who had just finished her afternoon +levee, nodded a smiling "good-by" to her last customer, and closed her +shutter again. Then she took up her own letters, but, before reading +them, glanced, with a pretty impatience, at the two official envelopes +addressed to herself, which she had shelved. They were generally a "lot +of new rules," or notifications, or "absurd" questions which had nothing +to do with Laurel Run and only bothered her and "made her head ache," +and she had usually referred them to her admiring neighbor at Hickory +Hill for explanation, who had generally returned them to her with the +brief indorsement, "Purp stuff, don't bother," or, "Hog wash, let it +slide." She remembered now that he had not returned the last two. With +knitted brows and a slight pout she put aside her private correspondence +and tore open the first one. It referred with official curtness to an +unanswered communication of the previous week, and was "compelled to +remind her of rule 47." Again those horrid rules! She opened the other; +the frown deepened on her brow, and became fixed. + +It was a summary of certain valuable money letters that had miscarried +on the route, and of which they had given her previous information. +For a moment her cheeks blazed. How dare they; what did they mean! Her +waybills and register were always right; she knew the names of every +man, woman, and child in her district; no such names as those borne by +the missing letters had ever existed at Laurel Run; no such addresses +had ever been sent from Laurel Run post-office. It was a mean +insinuation! She would send in her resignation at once! She would get +"the boys" to write an insulting letter to Senator Slocumb,--Mrs. +Baker had the feminine idea of Government as a purely personal +institution,--and she would find out who it was that had put them up to +this prying, crawling impudence! It was probably that wall-eyed old +wife of the postmaster at Heavy Tree Crossing, who was jealous of her. +"Remind her of their previous unanswered communication," indeed! Where +was that communication, anyway? She remembered she had sent it to her +admirer at Hickory Hill. Odd that he hadn't answered it. Of course, he +knew about this meanness--could he, too, have dared to suspect her! The +thought turned her crimson again. He, Stanton Green, was an old "Laurel +Runner," a friend of John's, a little "triflin'" and "presoomin'," but +still an old loyal pioneer of the camp! "Why hadn't he spoke up?" + +There was the soft, muffled fall of a horse's hoof in the thick dust of +the highway, the jingle of dismounting spurs, and a firm tread on the +platform. No doubt one of the boys returning for a few supplemental +remarks under the feeble pretense of forgotten stamps. It had been done +before, and she had resented it as "cayotin' round;" but now she was +eager to pour out her wrongs to the first comer. She had her hand +impulsively on the door of the partition, when she stopped with a new +sense of her impaired dignity. Could she confess this to her worshipers? +But here the door opened in her very face, and a stranger entered. + +He was a man of fifty, compactly and strongly built. A squarely-cut +goatee, slightly streaked with gray, fell straight from his thin-lipped +but handsome mouth; his eyes were dark, humorous, yet searching. But the +distinctive quality that struck Mrs Baker was the blending of urban ease +with frontier frankness. He was evidently a man who had seen cities and +knew countries as well. And while he was dressed with the comfortable +simplicity of a Californian mounted traveler, her inexperienced +but feminine eye detected the keynote of his respectability in the +carefully-tied bow of his cravat. The Sierrean throat was apt to be +open, free, and unfettered. + +"Good-morning, Mrs. Baker," he said, pleasantly, with his hat already in +his hand, "I'm Harry Home, of San Francisco." As he spoke his eye +swept approvingly over the neat inclosure, the primly-tied papers, and +well-kept pigeon-holes; the pot of flowers on her desk; her china-silk +mantle, and killing little chip hat and ribbons hanging against the +wall; thence to her own pink, flushed face, bright blue eyes, tendriled +clinging hair, and then--fell upon the leathern mailbag still lying +across the table. Here it became fixed on the unfortunate wire of the +amorous expressman that yet remained hanging from the brass wards of the +lock, and he reached his hand toward it. + +But little Mrs. Baker was before him, and had seized it in her arms. She +had been too preoccupied and bewildered to resent his first intrusion +behind the partition, but this last familiarity with her sacred official +property--albeit empty--capped the climax of her wrongs. + +"How dare you touch it!" she said indignantly. "How dare you come in +here! Who are you, anyway? Go outside, at once!" + +The stranger fell back with an amused, deprecatory gesture, and a +long silent laugh. "I'm afraid you don't know me, after all!" he said +pleasantly. "I'm Harry Home, the Department Agent from the San Francisco +office. My note of advice, No. 201, with my name on the envelope, seems +to have miscarried too." + +Even in her fright and astonishment it flashed upon Mrs. Baker that she +had sent that notice, too, to Hickory Hill. But with it all the feminine +secretive instinct within her was now thoroughly aroused, and she kept +silent. + +"I ought to have explained," he went on smilingly; "but you are quite +right, Mrs. Baker," he added, nodding towards the bag. "As far as you +knew, I had no business to go near it. Glad to see you know how to +defend Uncle Sam's property so well. I was only a bit puzzled to +know" (pointing to the wire) "if that thing was on the bag when it was +delivered to you?" + +Mrs. Baker saw no reason to conceal the truth. After all, this official +was a man like the others, and it was just as well that he should +understand her power. "It's only the expressman's foolishness," she +said, with a slightly coquettish toss of her head. "He thinks it smart +to tie some nonsense on that bag with the wire when he flings it down." + +Mr. Home, with his eyes on her pretty face, seemed to think it a not +inhuman or unpardonable folly. "As long as he doesn't meddle with +the inside of the bag, I suppose you must put up with it," he said +laughingly. A dreadful recollection, that the Hickory Hill postmaster +had used the inside of the bag to convey HIS foolishness, came across +her. It would never do to confess it now. Her face must have shown +some agitation, for the official resumed with a half-paternal, +half-reassuring air: "But enough of this. Now, Mrs. Baker, to come to +my business here. Briefly, then, it doesn't concern you in the least, +except so far as it may relieve you and some others, whom the Department +knows equally well, from a certain responsibility, and, perhaps, +anxiety. We are pretty well posted down there in all that concerns +Laurel Run, and I think" (with a slight bow) "we've known all about you +and John Baker. My only business here is to take your place to-night +in receiving the 'Omnibus Way Bag,' that you know arrives here at 9.30, +doesn't it?" + +"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Baker hurriedly; "but it never has anything for +us, except"--(she caught herself up quickly, with a stammer, as +she remembered the sighing Green's occasional offerings) "except a +notification from Hickory Hill post-office. It leaves there," she went +on with an affectation of precision, "at half past eight exactly, and +it's about an hour's run--seven miles by road." + +"Exactly," said Mr. Home. "Well, I will receive the bag, open it, and +dispatch it again. You can, if you choose, take a holiday." + +"But," said Mrs. Baker, as she remembered that Laurel Run always made a +point of attending her evening levee on account of the superior leisure +it offered, "there are the people who come for letters, you know." + +"I thought you said there were no letters at that time," said Mr. Home +quickly. + +"No--but--but"--(with a slight hysterical stammer) "the boys come all +the same." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Home dryly. + +"And--O Lord!"--But here the spectacle of the possible discomfiture of +Laurel Run at meeting the bearded face of Mr. Home, instead of her own +smooth cheeks, at the window, combined with her nervous excitement, +overcame her so that, throwing her little frilled apron over her head, +she gave way to a paroxym of hysterical laughter. Mr. Home waited with +amused toleration for it to stop, and, when she had recovered, resumed. +"Now, I should like to refer an instant to my first communication to +you. Have you got it handy?" + +Mrs. Baker's face fell. "No; I sent it over to Mr. Green, of Hickory +Hill, for information." + +"What!" + +Terrified at the sudden seriousness of the man's voice, she managed to +gasp out, however, that, after her usual habit, she had not opened the +official letters, but had sent them to her more experienced colleague +for advice and information; that she never could understand them +herself,--they made her head ache, and interfered with her other +duties,--but HE understood them, and sent her word what to do. +Remembering also his usual style of indorsement, she grew red again. + +"And what did he say?" + +"Nothing; he didn't return them." + +"Naturally," said Mr. Home, with a peculiar expression. After a few +moments' silent stroking of his beard, he suddenly faced the frightened +woman. + +"You oblige me, Mrs. Baker, to speak more frankly to you than I had +intended. You have--unwittingly, I believe--given information to a man +whom the Government suspects of peculation. You have, without knowing +it, warned the postmaster at Hickory Hill that he is suspected; and, +as you might have frustrated our plans for tracing a series of +embezzlements to their proper source, you will see that you might have +also done great wrong to yourself as his only neighbor and the next +responsible person. In plain words, we have traced the disappearance of +money letters to a point when it lies between these two offices. Now, +I have not the least hesitation in telling you that we do not suspect +Laurel Run, and never have suspected it. Even the result of your +thoughtless act, although it warned him, confirms our suspicion of his +guilt. As to the warning, it has failed, or he has grown reckless, for +another letter has been missed since. To-night, however, will settle all +doubt in the matter. When I open that bag in this office to-night, and +do not find a certain decoy letter in it, which was last checked at +Heavy Tree Crossing, I shall know that it remains in Green's possession +at Hickory Hill." + +She was sitting back in her chair, white and breathless. He glanced at +her kindly, and then took up his hat. "Come, Mrs. Baker, don't let this +worry you. As I told you at first, YOU have nothing to fear. Even your +thoughtlessness and ignorance of rules have contributed to show your own +innocence. Nobody will ever be the wiser for this; we do not advertise +our affairs in the Department. Not a soul but yourself knows the real +cause of my visit here. I will leave you here alone for a while, so as +to divert any suspicion. You will come, as usual, this evening, and be +seen by your friends; I will only be here when the bag arrives, to open +it. Good-by, Mrs. Baker; it's a nasty bit of business, but it's all in +the day's work. I've seen worse, and, thank God, you're out of it." + +She heard his footsteps retreat into the outer office and die out of the +platform; the jingle of his spurs, and the hollow beat of his horse's +hoofs that seemed to find a dull echo in her own heart, and she was +alone. + +The room was very hot and very quiet; she could hear the warping +and creaking of the shingles under the relaxing of the nearly level +sunbeams. The office clock struck seven. In the breathless silence that +followed, a woodpecker took up his interrupted work on the roof, +and seemed to beat out monotonously on her ear the last words of the +stranger: Stanton Green--a thief! Stanton Green, one of the "boys" John +had helped out of the falling tunnel! Stanton Green, whose old mother in +the States still wrote letters to him at Laurel Run, in a few hours +to be a disgraced and ruined man forever! She remembered now, as a +thoughtless woman remembers, tales of his extravagance and fast living, +of which she had taken no heed, and, with a sense of shame, of presents +sent her, that she now clearly saw must have been far beyond his means. +What would the boys say? What would John have said? Ah! what would John +have DONE! + +She started suddenly to her feet, white and cold as on that day that +she had parted from John Baker before the tunnel. She put on her hat +and mantle, and going to that little iron safe that stood in the corner, +unlocked it and took out its entire contents of gold and silver. She had +reached the door when another idea seized her, and opening her desk she +collected her stamps to the last sheet, and hurriedly rolled them up +under her cape. Then with a glance at the clock, and a rapid survey +of the road from the platform, she slipped from it, and seemed to be +swallowed up in the waiting woods beyond. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Once within the friendly shadows of the long belt of pines, Mrs. Baker +kept them until she had left the limited settlement of Laurel Run far to +the right, and came upon an open of Burnt Ridge, where she knew +Jo Simmons' mustang, Blue Lightning, would be quietly feeding. She had +often ridden him before, and when she had detached the fifty-foot reata +from his head-stall, he permitted her the further recognized familiarity +of twining her fingers in his bluish mane and climbing on his back. The +tool-shed of Burnt Ridge Tunnel, where Jo's saddle and bridle always +hung, was but a canter farther on. She reached it unperceived, +and--another trick of the old days--quickly extemporized a side-saddle +from Simmons' Mexican tree, with its high cantle and horn bow, and the +aid of a blanket. Then leaping to her seat, she rapidly threw off her +mantle, tied it by its sleeves around her waist, tucked it under +one knee, and let it fall over her horse's flanks. By this time Blue +Lightning was also struck with a flash of equine recollection and +pricked up his ears. Mrs. Baker uttered a little chirping cry which he +remembered, and the next moment they were both careering over the Ridge. + +The trail that she had taken, though precipitate, difficult, and +dangerous in places, was a clear gain of two miles on the stage road. +There was less chance of her being followed or meeting any one. The +greater canyons were already in shadow; the pines on the farther ridges +were separating their masses, and showing individual silhouettes against +the sky, but the air was still warm, and the cool breath of night, as +she well knew it, had not yet begun to flow down the mountain. The lower +range of Burnt Ridge was still uneclipsed by the creeping shadow of +the mountain ahead of her. Without a watch, but with this familiar +and slowly changing dial spread out before her, she knew the time to a +minute. Heavy Tree Hill, a lesser height in the distance, was already +wiped out by that shadowy index finger--half past seven! The stage would +be at Hickory Hill just before half past eight; she ought to anticipate +it, if possible,--it would stay ten minutes to change horses,--she MUST +arrive before it left! + +There was a good two-mile level before the rise of the next range. Now, +Blue Lightning! all you know! And that was much,--for with the little +chip hat and fluttering ribbons well bent down over the bluish mane, and +the streaming gauze of her mantle almost level with the horse's back, +she swept down across the long tableland like a skimming blue-jay. A few +more bird-like dips up and down the undulations, and then came the long, +cruel ascent of the Divide. + +Acrid with perspiration, caking with dust, slithering in the slippery, +impalpable powder of the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty dream, +coughing, snorting, head-tossing; becoming suddenly dejected, with +slouching haunch and limp legs on easy s, or wildly spasmodic +and agile on sharp acclivities, Blue Lightning began to have ideas and +recollections! Ah! she was a devil for a lark--this lightly-clinging, +caressing, blarneying, cooing creature--up there! He remembered her now. +Ha! very well then. Hoop-la! And suddenly leaping out like a rabbit, +bucking, trotting hard, ambling lightly, "loping" on three legs and +recreating himself,--as only a California mustang could,--the invincible +Blue Lightning at last stood triumphantly upon the summit. The evening +star had just pricked itself through the golden mist of the horizon +line,--eight o'clock! She could do it now! But here, suddenly, her first +hesitation seized her. She knew her horse, she knew the trail, she knew +herself,--but did she know THE MAN to whom she was riding? A cold chill +crept over her, and then she shivered in a sudden blast; it was Night at +last swooping down from the now invisible Sierras, and possessing all it +touched. But it was only one long descent to Hickory Hill now, and she +swept down securely on its wings. Half-past eight! The lights of the +settlement were just ahead of her--but so, too, were the two lamps of +the waiting stage before the post-office and hotel. + +Happily the lounging crowd were gathered around the hotel, and she +slipped into the post-office from the rear, unperceived. As she stepped +behind the partition, its only occupant--a good-looking young fellow +with a reddish mustache--turned towards her with a flush of delighted +surprise. But it changed at the sight of the white, determined face +and the brilliant eyes that had never looked once towards him, but were +fixed upon a large bag, whose yawning mouth was still open and propped +up beside his desk. + +"Where is the through money letter that came in that bag?" she said +quickly. + +"What--do--you--mean?" he stammered, with a face that had suddenly grown +whiter than her own. + +"I mean that it's a DECOY, checked at Heavy Tree Crossing, and that Mr. +Home, of San Francisco, is now waiting at my office to know if you have +taken it!" + +The laugh and lie that he had at first tried to summon to mouth and lips +never reached them. For, under the spell of her rigid, truthful face, he +turned almost mechanically to his desk, and took out a package. + +"Good God! you've opened it already!" she cried, pointing to the broken +seal. + +The expression on her face, more than anything she had said, convinced +him that she knew all. He stammered under the new alarm that her +despairing tone suggested. "Yes!--I was owing some bills--the collector +was waiting here for the money, and I took something from the packet. +But I was going to make it up by next mail--I swear it." + +"How much have you taken?" + +"Only a trifle. I"-- + +"How much?" + +"A hundred dollars!" + +She dragged the money she had brought from Laurel Run from her pocket, +and counting out the sum, replaced it in the open package. He ran +quickly to get the sealing wax, but she motioned him away as she dropped +the package back into the mail-bag. "No; as long as the money is found +in the bag the package may have been broken ACCIDENTALLY. Now burst open +one or two of those other packages a little--so;" she took out a packet +of letters and bruised their official wrappings under her little foot +until the tape fastening was loosened. "Now give me something heavy." +She caught up a brass two-pound weight, and in the same feverish +but collected haste wrapped it in paper, sealed it, stamped it, and, +addressing it in a large printed hand to herself at Laurel Hill, dropped +it in the bag. Then she closed it and locked it; he would have assisted +her, but she again waved him away. "Send for the expressman, and keep +yourself out of the way for a moment," she said curtly. + +An attitude of weak admiration and foolish passion had taken the place +of his former tremulous fear. He obeyed excitedly, but without a word. +Mrs. Baker wiped her moist forehead and parched lips, and shook out +her skirt. Well might the young expressman start at the unexpected +revelation of those sparkling eyes and that demurely smiling mouth at +the little window. + +"Mrs. Baker!" + +She put her finger quickly to her lips, and threw a world of unutterable +and enigmatical meaning into her mischievous face. + +"There's a big San Francisco swell takin' my place at Laurel to-night, +Charley." + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"And it's a pity that the Omnibus Way Bag happened to get such a shaking +up and banging round already, coming here." + +"Eh?" + +"I say," continued Mrs. Baker, with great gravity and dancing eyes, +"that it would be just AWFUL if that keerful city clerk found things +kinder mixed up inside when he comes to open it. I wouldn't give him +trouble for the world, Charley." + +"No, ma'am, it ain't like you." + +"So you'll be particularly careful on MY account." + +"Mrs. Baker," said Charley, with infinite gravity, "if that bag SHOULD +TUMBLE OFF A DOZEN TIMES between this and Laurel Hill, I'll hop down and +pick it up myself." + +"Thank you! shake!" + +They shook hands gravely across the window-ledge. + +"And you ain't going down with us, Mrs. Baker?" + +"Of course not; it wouldn't do,--for I AIN'T HERE,--don't you see?" + +"Of course!" + +She handed him the bag through the door. He took it carefully, but in +spite of his great precaution fell over it twice on his way to the +road, where from certain exclamations and shouts it seemed that a like +miserable mischance attended its elevation to the boot. Then Mrs. Baker +came back into the office, and, as the wheels rolled away, threw herself +into a chair, and inconsistently gave way for the first time to an +outburst of tears. Then her hand was grasped suddenly and she found +Green on his knees before her. She started to her feet. + +"Don't move," he said, with weak hysteric passion, "but listen to me, +for God's sake! I am ruined, I know, even though you have just saved me +from detection and disgrace. I have been mad!--a fool, to do what I have +done, I know, but you do not know all--you do not know why I did it--you +cannot think of the temptation that has driven me to it. Listen, Mrs. +Baker. I have been striving to get money, honestly, dishonestly--any +way, to look well in YOUR eyes--to make myself worthy of you--to make +myself rich, and to be able to offer you a home and take you away from +Laurel Run. It was all for YOU, it was all for love of YOU, Betsy, my +darling. Listen to me!" + +In the fury, outraged sensibility, indignation, and infinite disgust +that filled her little body at that moment, she should have been large, +imperious, goddess-like, and commanding. But God is at times ironical +with suffering womanhood. She could only writhe her hand from his grasp +with childish contortions; she could only glare at him with eyes that +were prettily and piquantly brilliant; she could only slap at his +detaining hand with a plump and velvety palm, and when she found her +voice it was high falsetto. And all she could say was, "Leave me be, +looney, or I'll scream!" + +He rose, with a weak, confused laugh, half of miserable affectation and +half of real anger and shame. + +"What did you come riding over here for, then? What did you take all +this risk for? Why did you rush over here to share my disgrace--for YOU +are as much mixed up with this now as I am--if you didn't calculate to +share EVERYTHING ELSE with me? What did you come here for, then, if not +for ME?" + +"What did I come here for?" said Mrs. Baker, with every drop of red +blood gone from her cheek and trembling lip. "What--did--I--come here +for? Well!--I came here for JOHN BAKER'S sake! John Baker, who stood +between you and death at Burnt Ridge, as I stand between you and +damnation at Laurel Run, Mr. Green! Yes, John Baker, lying under half of +Burnt Ridge, but more to me this day than any living man crawling over +it--in--in"--oh, fatal climax!--"in a month o' Sundays! What did I come +here for? I came here as John Baker's livin' wife to carry on dead John +Baker's work. Yes, dirty work this time, may be, Mr. Green! but his work +and for HIM only--precious! That's what I came here for; that's what +I LIVE for; that's what I'm waiting for--to be up to HIM and his work +always! That's me--Betsy Baker!" + +She walked up and down rapidly, tying her chip hat under her chin again. +Then she stopped, and taking her chamois purse from her pocket, laid it +sharply on the desk. + +"Stanton Green, don't be a fool! Rise up out of this, and be a man +again. Take enough out o' that bag to pay what you owe Gov'ment, send +in your resignation, and keep the rest to start you in an honest life +elsewhere. But light out o' Hickory Hill afore this time to-morrow." + +She pulled her mantle from the wall and opened the door. + +"You are going?" he said bitterly. + +"Yes." Either she could not hold seriousness long in her capricious +little fancy, or, with feminine tact, she sought to make the parting +less difficult for him, for she broke into a dazzling smile. "Yes, I'm +goin' to run Blue Lightning agin Charley and that way bag back to Laurel +Run, and break the record." + +***** + +It is said that she did! Perhaps owing to the fact that the grade of the +return journey to Laurel Run was in her favor, and that she could avoid +the long, circuitous ascent to the summit taken by the stage, or that, +owing to the extraordinary difficulties in the carriage of the way +bag,--which had to be twice rescued from under the wheels of the +stage,--she entered the Laurel Run post-office as the coach leaders came +trotting up the hill. Mr. Home was already on the platform. + +"You'll have to ballast your next way bag, boss," said Charley, gravely, +as it escaped his clutches once more in the dust of the road, "or you'll +have to make a new contract with the company. We've lost ten minutes in +five miles over that bucking thing." + +Home did not reply, but quickly dragged his prize into the office, +scarcely noticing Mrs. Baker, who stood beside him pale and breathless. +As the bolt of the bag was drawn, revealing its chaotic interior, Mrs. +Baker gave a little sigh. Home glanced quickly at her, emptied the bag +upon the floor, and picked up the broken and half-filled money parcel. +Then he collected the scattered coins and counted them. "It's all right, +Mrs. Baker," he said gravely. "HE'S safe this time." + +"I'm so glad!" said little Mrs. Baker, with a hypocritical gasp. + +"So am I," returned Home, with increasing gravity, as he took the coin, +"for, from all I have gathered this afternoon, it seems he was an old +pioneer of Laurel Run, a friend of your husband's, and, I think, more +fool than knave!" He was silent for a moment, clicking the coins against +each other; then he said carelessly: "Did he get quite away, Mrs. +Baker?" + +"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," said Mrs. Baker, with +a lofty air of dignity, but a somewhat debasing color. "I don't see why +I should know anything about it, or why he should go away at all." + +"Well," said Mr. Home, laying his hand gently on the widow's shoulder, +"well, you see, it might have occurred to his friends that the COINS +WERE MARKED! That is, no doubt, the reason why he would take their good +advice and go. But, as I said before, Mrs. Baker, YOU'RE all right, +whatever happens,--the Government stands by YOU!" + + + + +A NIGHT AT "HAYS." + + +CHAPTER I. + + +It was difficult to say if Hays' farmhouse, or "Hays," as it was +familiarly called, looked any more bleak and cheerless that winter +afternoon than it usually did in the strong summer sunshine. Painted +a cold merciless white, with scant projections for shadows, a roof of +white-pine shingles, bleached lighter through sun and wind, and covered +with low, white-capped chimneys, it looked even more stark and chilly +than the drifts which had climbed its low roadside fence, and yet seemed +hopeless of gaining a foothold on the glancing walls, or slippery, +wind-swept roof. The storm, which had already heaped the hollows of +the road with snow, hurled its finely-granulated flakes against the +building, but they were whirled along the gutters and ridges, and +disappeared in smokelike puffs across the icy roof. The granite outcrop +in the hilly field beyond had long ago whitened and vanished; the dwarf +firs and larches which had at first taken uncouth shapes in the drift +blended vaguely together, and then merged into an unbroken formless +wave. But the gaunt angles and rigid outlines of the building remained +sharp and unchanged. It would seem as if the rigors of winter had only +accented their hardness, as the fierceness of summer had previously made +them intolerable. + +It was believed that some of this unyielding grimness attached to Hays +himself. Certain it is that neither hardship nor prosperity had touched +his character. Years ago his emigrant team had broken down in this wild +but wooded defile of the Sierras, and he had been forced to a winter +encampment, with only a rude log-cabin for shelter, on the very verge of +the promised land. Unable to enter it himself, he was nevertheless able +to assist the better-equipped teams that followed him with wood and +water and a coarse forage gathered from a sheltered of wild oats. +This was the beginning of a rude "supply station" which afterwards +became so profitable that when spring came and Hays' team were +sufficiently recruited to follow the flood of immigrating gold-seekers +to the placers and valleys, there seemed no occasion for it. His fortune +had been already found in the belt of arable behind the wooded +defile, and in the miraculously located coign of vantage on what was now +the great highway of travel and the only oasis and first relief of the +weary journey; the breaking down of his own team at that spot had +not only been the salvation of those who found at "Hays" the means of +prosecuting the last part of their pilgrimage, but later provided the +equipment of returning teams. + +The first two years of this experience had not been without hardship and +danger. He had been raided by Indians and besieged for three days in his +stockaded cabin; he had been invested by wintry drifts of twenty feet of +snow, cut off equally from incoming teams from the pass and the +valley below. During the second year his wife had joined him with four +children, but whether the enforced separation had dulled her conjugal +affection, or whether she was tempted by a natural feminine longing for +the land of promise beyond, she sought it one morning with a fascinating +teamster, leaving her two sons and two daughters behind her; two years +later the elder of the daughters followed the mother's example, with +such maidenly discretion, however, as to forbear compromising herself by +any previous matrimonial formality whatever. From that day Hays had no +further personal intercourse with the valley below. He put up a hotel +a mile away from the farmhouse that he might not have to dispense +hospitality to his customers, nor accept their near companionship. +Always a severe Presbyterian, and an uncompromising deacon of a +far-scattered and scanty community who occasionally held their service +in one of his barns, he grew more rigid, sectarian, and narrow day +by day. He was feared, and although neither respected nor loved, his +domination and endurance were accepted. A grim landlord, hard creditor, +close-fisted patron, and a smileless neighbor who neither gambled nor +drank, "Old Hays," as he was called, while yet scarce fifty, had few +acquaintances and fewer friends. There were those who believed that his +domestic infelicities were the result of his unsympathetic nature; it +never occurred to any one (but himself probably) that they might have +been the cause. In those Sierran altitudes, as elsewhere, the belief +in original sin--popularly known as "pure cussedness"--dominated and +overbore any consideration of passive, impelling circumstances or +temptation, unless they had been actively demonstrated with a revolver. +The passive expression of harshness, suspicion, distrust, and moroseness +was looked upon as inherent wickedness. + +The storm raged violently as Hays emerged from the last of a long range +of outbuildings and sheds, and crossed the open space between him and +the farmhouse. Before he had reached the porch, with its scant shelter, +he had floundered through a snowdrift, and faced the full fury of the +storm. But the snow seemed to have glanced from his hard angular figure +as it had from his roof-ridge, for when he entered the narrow hall-way +his pilot jacket was unmarked, except where a narrow line of powdered +flakes outlined the seams as if worn. To the right was an apartment, +half office, half sitting-room, furnished with a dark and chilly iron +safe, a sofa and chairs covered with black and coldly shining horsehair. +Here Hays not only removed his upper coat but his under one also, and +drawing a chair before the fire sat down in his shirt-sleeves. It was +his usual rustic pioneer habit, and might have been some lingering +reminiscence of certain remote ancestors to whom clothes were an +impediment. He was warming his hands and placidly ignoring his gaunt +arms in their thinly-clad "hickory" sleeves, when a young girl of +eighteen sauntered, half perfunctorily, half inquisitively into +the room. It was his only remaining daughter. Already elected by +circumstances to a dry household virginity, her somewhat large features, +sallow complexion, and tasteless, unattractive dress, did not obviously +suggest a sacrifice. Since her sister's departure she had taken sole +charge of her father's domestic affairs and the few rude servants +he employed, with a certain inherited following of his own moods and +methods. To the neighbors she was known as "Miss Hays,"--a dubious +respect that, in a community of familiar "Sallies," "Mamies," "Pussies," +was grimly prophetic. Yet she rejoiced in the Oriental appellation +of "Zuleika." To this it is needless to add that it was impossible to +conceive any one who looked more decidedly Western. + +"Ye kin put some things in my carpet bag agin the time the sled comes +round," said her father meditatively, without looking up. + +"Then you're not coming back tonight?" asked the girl curiously. "What's +goin' on at the summit, father?" + +"I am," he said grimly. "You don't reckon I kalkilate to stop thar! +I'm going on as far as Horseley's to close up that contract afore the +weather changes." + +"I kinder allowed it was funny you'd go to the hotel to-night. There's +a dance there; those two Wetherbee girls and Mamie Harris passed up the +road an hour ago on a wood-sled, nigh blown to pieces and sittin' up in +the snow like skeert white rabbits." + +Hays' brow darkened heavily. + +"Let 'em go," he said, in a hard voice that the fire did not seem to +have softened. "Let 'em go for all the good their fool-parents will ever +get outer them, or the herd of wayside cattle they've let them loose +among. + +"I reckon they haven't much to do at home, or are hard put for company, +to travel six miles in the snow to show off their prinkin' to a lot of +idle louts shiny with bear's grease and scented up with doctor's stuff," +added the girl, shrugging her shoulders, with a touch of her father's +mood and manner. + +Perhaps it struck Hays at that moment that her attitude was somewhat +monstrous and unnatural for one still young and presumably like other +girls, for, after glancing at her under his heavy brows, he said, in a +gentler tone:-- + +"Never YOU mind, Zuly. When your brother Jack comes home he'll know +what's what, and have all the proper New York ways and style. It's nigh +on three years now that he's had the best training Dr. Dawson's Academy +could give,--sayin' nothing of the pow'ful Christian example of one +of the best preachers in the States. They mayn't have worldly, ungodly +fandangoes where he is, and riotous livin', and scarlet abominations, +but I've been told that they've 'tea circles,' and 'assemblies,' and +'harmony concerts' of young folks--and dancin'--yes, fine square dancin' +under control. No, I ain't stinted him in anythin'. You kin remember +that, Zuleika, when you hear any more gossip and backbitin' about your +father's meanness. I ain't spared no money for him." + +"I reckon not," said the girl, a little sharply. "Why, there's that +draft fur two hundred and fifty dollars that kem only last week from the +Doctor's fur extras." + +"Yes," replied Hays, with a slight knitting of the brows, "the Doctor +mout hev writ more particklers, but parsons ain't allus business men. +I reckon these here extrys were to push Jack along in the term, as the +Doctor knew I wanted him back here in the spring, now that his brother +has got to be too stiff-necked and self-opinionated to do his father's +work." It seemed from this that there had been a quarrel between Hays +and his eldest son, who conducted his branch business at Sacramento, and +who had in a passion threatened to set up a rival establishment to his +father's. And it was also evident from the manner of the girl that she +was by no means a strong partisan of her father in the quarrel. + +"You'd better find out first how all the schoolin' and trainin' of +Jack's is goin' to jibe with the Ranch, and if he ain't been eddicated +out of all knowledge of station business or keer for it. New York ain't +Hays' Ranch, and these yer 'assemblies' and 'harmony' doin's and their +airs and graces may put him out of conceit with our plain ways. I reckon +ye didn't take that to mind when you've been hustlin' round payin' two +hundred and fifty dollar drafts for Jack and quo'llin' with Bijah! I +ain't sayin' nothin', father, only mebbe if Bijah had had drafts and +extrys flourished around him a little more, mebbe he'd have been more +polite and not so rough spoken. Mebbe," she continued with a little +laugh, "even I'D be a little more in the style to suit Master Jack when +he comes ef I had three hundred dollars' worth of convent schoolin' like +Mamie Harris." + +"Yes, and you'd have only made yourself fair game for ev'ry schemin', +lazy sport or counter-jumper along the road from this to Sacramento!" +responded Hays savagely. + +Zuleika laughed again constrainedly, but in a way that might have +suggested that this dreadful contingency was still one that it was +possible to contemplate without entire consternation. As she moved +slowly towards the door she stopped, with her hand on the lock, and said +tentatively: "I reckon you won't be wantin' any supper before you go? +You're almost sure to be offered suthin' up at Horseley's, while if I +have to cook you up suthin' now and still have the men's regular supper +to get at seven, it makes all the expense of an extra meal." + +Hays hesitated. He would have preferred his supper now, and had his +daughter pressed him would have accepted it. But economy, which was +one of Zuleika's inherited instincts, vaguely appearing to him to be a +virtue, interchangeable with chastity and abstemiousness, was certainly +to be encouraged in a young girl. It hardly seems possible that with an +eye single to the integrity of the larder she could ever look kindly on +the blandishments of his sex, or, indeed, be exposed to them. He said +simply: "Don't cook for me," and resumed his attitude before the fire as +the girl left the room. + +As he sat there, grim and immovable as one of the battered fire-dogs +before him, the wind in the chimney seemed to carry on a deep-throated, +dejected, and confidential conversation with him, but really had very +little to reveal. There were no haunting reminiscences of his married +life in this room, which he had always occupied in preference to the +company or sitting-room beyond. There were no familiar shadows of the +past lurking in its corners to pervade his reverie. When he did reflect, +which was seldom, there was always in his mind a vague idea of a central +injustice to which he had been subjected, that was to be avoided by +circuitous movement, to be hidden by work, but never to be surmounted. +And to-night he was going out in the storm, which he could understand +and fight, as he had often done before, and he was going to drive a +bargain with a man like himself and get the better of him if he could, +as he had done before, and another day would be gone, and that central +injustice which he could not understand would be circumvented, and he +would still be holding his own in the world. And the God of Israel +whom he believed in, and who was a hard but conscientious Providence, +something like himself, would assist him perhaps some day to the +understanding of this same vague injustice which He was, for some +strange reason, permitting. But never more unrelenting and unsparing of +others than when under conviction of Sin himself, and never more harsh +and unforgiving than when fresh from the contemplation of the Divine +Mercy, he still sat there grimly holding his hand to a warmth that never +seemed to get nearer his heart than that, when his daughter re-entered +the room with his carpet-bag. + +To rise, put on his coat and overcoat, secure a fur cap on his head by a +woolen comforter, covering his ears and twined round his throat, and to +rigidly offer a square and weather-beaten cheek to his daughter's dusty +kiss, did not, apparently, suggest any lingering or hesitation. The sled +was at the door, which, for a tumultuous moment, opened on the storm and +the white vision of a horse knee-deep in a drift, and then closed behind +him. Zuleika shot the bolt, brushed some flakes of the invading snow +from the mat, and, after frugally raking down the fire on the hearth her +father had just quitted, retired through the long passage to the kitchen +and her domestic supervision. + +It was a few hours later, supper had long past; the "hands" had one by +one returned to their quarters under the roof or in the adjacent lofts, +and Zuleika and the two maids had at last abandoned the kitchen for +their bedrooms beyond. Zuleika herself, by the light of a solitary +candle, had entered the office and had dropped meditatively into a +chair, as she slowly raked the warm ashes over the still smouldering +fire. The barking of dogs had momentarily attracted her attention, but +it had suddenly ceased. It was followed, however, by a more startling +incident,--a slight movement outside, and an attempt to raise the +window! + +She was not frightened; perhaps there was little for her to fear; it was +known that Hays kept no money in the house, the safe was only used for +securities and contracts, and there were half a dozen men within call. +It was, therefore, only her usual active, burning curiosity for novel +incident that made her run to the window and peer out; but it was with a +spontaneous cry of astonishment she turned and darted to the front door, +and opened it to the muffled figure of a young man. + +"Jack! Saints alive! Why, of all things!" she gasped, incoherently. + +He stopped her with an impatient gesture and a hand that prevented her +from closing the door again. + +"Dad ain't here?" he asked quickly. + +"No." + +"When'll he be back?" + +"Not to-night." + +"Good," he said, turning to the door again. She could see a motionless +horse and sleigh in the road, with a woman holding the reins. + +He beckoned to the woman, who drove to the door and jumped out. Tall, +handsome, and audacious, she looked at Zuleika with a quick laugh of +confidence, as at some recognized absurdity. + +"Go in there," said the young man, opening the door of the office; "I'll +come back in a minute." + +As she entered, still smiling, as if taking part in some humorous but +risky situation, he turned quickly to Zuleika and said in a low voice: +"Where can we talk?" + +The girl held out her hand and glided hurriedly through the passage +until she reached a door, which she opened. By the light of a dying fire +he could see it was her bedroom. Lighting a candle on the mantel, she +looked eagerly in his face as he threw aside his muffler and opened his +coat. It disclosed a spare, youthful figure, and a thin, weak face +that a budding mustache only seemed to make still more immature. For +an instant brother and sister gazed at each other. Astonishment on her +part, nervous impatience on his, apparently repressed any demonstration +of family affection. Yet when she was about to speak he stopped her +roughly. + +"There now; don't talk. I know what you're goin' to say--could say it +myself if I wanted to--and it's no use. Well then, here I am. You saw +HER. Well, she's MY WIFE--we've been married three months. Yes, my WIFE; +married three months ago. I'm here because I ran away from school--that +is, I HAVEN'T BEEN THERE for the last three months. I came out with +her last steamer; we went up to the Summit Hotel last night--where they +didn't know me--until we could see how the land lay, before popping down +on dad. I happened to learn that he was out to-night, and I brought +her down here to have a talk. We can go back again before he comes, you +know, unless"-- + +"But," interrupted the girl, with sudden practicality, "you say you +ain't been at Doctor Dawson's for three months! Why, only last week he +drew on dad for two hundred and fifty dollars for your extras!" + +He glanced around him and then arranged his necktie in the glass above +the mantel with a nervous laugh. + +"OH, THAT! I fixed that up, and got the money for it in New York to pay +our passage with. It's all right, you know." + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The girl stood looking at the ingenious forger with an odd, breathless +smile. It was difficult to determine, however, if gratified curiosity +were not its most dominant expression. + +"And you've got a wife--and THAT'S her?" she resumed. + +"Yes." + +"Where did you first meet her? Who is she?" + +"She's an actress--mighty popular in 'Frisco--I mean New York. Lot o' +chaps tried to get her--I cut 'em out. For all dad's trying to keep me +at Dawson's--I ain't such a fool, eh?" + +Nevertheless, as he stood there stroking his fair mustache, his +astuteness did not seem to impress his sister to enthusiastic assent. +Yet she did not relax her breathless, inquisitive smile as she went +on:-- + +"And what are you going to do about dad?" + +He turned upon her querulously. + +"Well, that's what I want to talk about." + +"You'll catch it!" she said impressively. But here her brother's +nervousness broke out into a weak, impotent fury. It was evident, too, +that in spite of its apparent spontaneous irritation its intent was +studied. Catch it! Would he? Oh, yes! Well, she'd see WHO'D catch it! +Not him. No, he'd had enough of this meanness, and wanted it ended! He +wasn't a woman to be treated like his sister,--like their mother--like +their brother, if it came to that, for he knew how he was to be brought +back to take Bijah's place in the spring; he'd heard the whole story. +No, he was going to stand up for his rights,--he was going to be treated +as the son of a man who was worth half a million ought to be treated! He +wasn't going to be skimped, while his father was wallowing in money that +he didn't know what to do with,--money that by rights ought to have +been given to their mother and their sister. Why, even the law wouldn't +permit such meanness--if he was dead. No, he'd come back with Lottie, +his wife, to show his father that there was one of the family that +couldn't be fooled and bullied, and wouldn't put up with it any longer. +There was going to be a fair division of the property, and his sister +Annie's property, and hers--Zuleika's--too, if she'd have the pluck to +speak up for herself. All this and much more he said. Yet even while +his small fury was genuine and characteristic, there was such an evident +incongruity between himself and his speech that it seemed to fit +him loosely, and in a measure flapped in his gestures like another's +garment. Zuleika, who had exhibited neither disgust nor sympathy with +his rebellion, but had rather appeared to enjoy it as a novel domestic +performance, the morality of which devolved solely upon the performer, +retained her curious smile. And then a knock at the door startled them. + +It was the stranger,--slightly apologetic and still humorous, but firm +and self-confident withal. She was sorry to interrupt their family +council, but the fire was going out where she sat, and she would like +a cup of tea or some refreshment. She did not look at Jack, but, +completely ignoring him, addressed herself to Zuleika with what seemed +to be a direct challenge; in that feminine eye-grapple there was a +quick, instinctive, and final struggle between the two women. The +stranger triumphed. Zuleika's vacant smile changed to one of submission, +and then, equally ignoring her brother in this double defeat, she +hastened to the kitchen to do the visitor's bidding. The woman closed +the door behind her, and took Zuleika's place before the fire. + +"Well?" she said, in a half-contemptuous toleration. + +"Well?" said Jack, in an equally ill-disguised discontent, but an +evident desire to placate the woman before him. "It's all right, you +know. I've had my say. It'll come right, Lottie, you'll see." + +The woman smiled again, and glanced around the bare walls of the room. + +"And I suppose," she said, drily, "when it comes right I'm to take the +place of your sister in the charge of this workhouse and succeed to the +keys of that safe in the other room?" + +"It'll come all right, I tell you; you can fix things up here any way +you'll like when we get the old man straight," said Jack, with the +iteration of feebleness. "And as to that safe, I've seen it chock full +of securities." + +"It'll hold one less to-night," she said, looking at the fire. + +"What are you talking about?" he asked, in querulous suspicion. + +She drew a paper from her pocket. + +"It's that draft of yours that you were crazy enough to sign Dawson's +name to. It was lying out there on the desk. I reckon it isn't a thing +you care to have kept as evidence, even by your father." + +She held it in the flames until it was consumed. + +"By Jove, your head is level, Lottie!" he said, with an admiration that +was not, however, without a weak reserve of suspicion. + +"No, it isn't, or I wouldn't be here," she said, curtly. Then she added, +as if dismissing the subject, "Well, what did you tell her?" + +"Oh, I said I met you in New York. You see I thought she might think it +queer if she knew I only met you in San Francisco three weeks ago. Of +course I said we were married." + +She looked at him with weary astonishment. + +"And of course, whether things go right or not, she'll find out that +I've got a husband living, that I never met you in New York, but on the +steamer, and that you've lied. I don't see the USE of it. You said +you were going to tell the whole thing squarely and say the truth, and +that's why I came to help you." + +"Yes; but don't you see, hang it all!" he stammered, in the irritation +of weak confusion, "I had to tell her SOMETHING. Father won't dare to +tell her the truth, no more than he will the neighbors. He'll hush it +up, you bet; and when we get this thing fixed you'll go and get your +divorce, you know, and we'll be married privately on the square." + +He looked so vague, so immature, yet so fatuously self-confident, that +the woman extended her hand with a laugh and tapped him on the back as +she might have patted a dog. Then she disappeared to follow Zuleika in +the kitchen. + +When the two women returned together they were evidently on the best +of terms. So much so that the man, with the easy reaction of a shallow +nature, became sanguine and exalted, even to an ostentatious exhibition +of those New York graces on which the paternal Hays had set such store. +He complacently explained the methods by which he had deceived Dr. +Dawson; how he had himself written a letter from his father commanding +him to return to take his brother's place, and how he had shown it to +the Doctor and been three months in San Francisco looking for work and +assisting Lottie at the theatre, until a conviction of the righteousness +of his cause, perhaps combined with the fact that they were also short +of money and she had no engagement, impelled him to his present heroic +step. All of which Zuleika listened to with childish interest, but +superior appreciation of his companion. The fact that this woman was an +actress, an abomination vaguely alluded to by her father as being even +more mysteriously wicked than her sister and mother, and correspondingly +exciting, as offering a possible permanent relief to the monotony of her +home life, seemed to excuse her brother's weakness. She was almost ready +to become his partisan--AFTER she had seen her father. + +They had talked largely of their plans; they had settled small details +of the future and the arrangement of the property; they had agreed that +Zuleika should be relieved of her household drudgery, and sent to +a fashionable school in San Francisco with a music teacher and a +dressmaker. They had discussed everything but the precise manner in +which the revelation should be conveyed to Hays. There was still plenty +of time for that, for he would not return until to-morrow at noon, +and it was already tacitly understood that the vehicle of transmission +should be a letter from the Summit Hotel. The possible contingency of +a sudden outburst of human passion not entirely controlled by religious +feeling was to be guarded against. + +They were sitting comfortably before the replenished fire; the wind was +still moaning in the chimney, when, suddenly, in a lull of the storm +the sound of sleigh-bells seemed to fill the room. It was followed by a +voice from without, and, with a hysterical cry, Zuleika started to her +feet. The same breathless smile with which she had greeted her brother +an hour ago was upon her lips as she gasped:-- + +"Lord, save us!--but it's dad come back!" + +I grieve to say that here the doughty redresser of domestic wrongs and +retriever of the family honor lapsed white-faced in his chair idealess +and tremulous. It was his frailer companion who rose to the occasion +and even partly dragged him with her. "Go back to the hotel," she said +quickly, "and take the sled with you,--you are not fit to face him now! +But he does not know ME, and I will stay!" To the staring Zuleika: "I am +a stranger stopped by a broken sleigh on my way to the hotel. Leave the +rest to me. Now clear out, both of you. I'll let him in." + +She looked so confident, self-contained, and superior, that the thought +of opposition never entered their minds, and as an impatient rapping +rose from the door they let her, with a half-impatient, half-laughing +gesture, drive them before her from the room. When they had disappeared +in the distance, she turned to the front door, unbolted and opened it. +Hays blundered in out of the snow with a muttered exclamation, and then, +as the light from the open office door revealed a stranger, started and +fell back. + +"Miss Hays is busy," said the woman quietly, "I am afraid, on my +account. But my sleigh broke down on the way to the hotel and I was +forced to get out here. I suppose this is Mr. Hays?" + +A strange woman--by her dress and appearance a very worldling--and even +braver in looks and apparel than many he had seen in the cities--seemed, +in spite of all his precautions, to have fallen short of the hotel +and been precipitated upon him! Yet under the influence of some odd +abstraction he was affected by it less than he could have believed. He +even achieved a rude bow as he bolted the door and ushered her into +the office. More than that, he found himself explaining to the fair +trespasser the reasons of his return to his own home. For, like a direct +man, he had a consciousness of some inconsistency in his return--or +in the circumstances that induced a change of plans which might +conscientiously require an explanation. + +"You see, ma'am, a rather singular thing happened to me after I passed +the summit. Three times I lost the track, got off it somehow, and found +myself traveling in a circle. The third time, when I struck my own +tracks again, I concluded I'd just follow them back here. I suppose +I might have got the road again by tryin' and fightin' the snow--but +ther's some things not worth the fightin'. This was a matter of +business, and, after all, ma'am, business ain't everythin', is it?" + +He was evidently in some unusual mood, the mood that with certain +reticent natures often compels them to make their brief confidences to +utter strangers rather than impart them to those intimate friends who +might remind them of their weakness. She agreed with him pleasantly, but +not so obviously as to excite suspicion. "And you preferred to let your +business go, and come back to the comfort of your own home and family." + +"The comfort of my home and family?" he repeated in a dry, deliberate +voice. "Well, I reckon I ain't been tempted much by THAT. That isn't +what I meant." But he went back to the phrase, repeating it grimly, as +if it were some mandatory text. "The comfort of my OWN HOME AND FAMILY! +Well, Satan hasn't set THAT trap for my feet yet, ma'am. No; ye saw my +daughter? well, that's all my family; ye see this room? that's all my +home. My wife ran away from me; my daughter cleared out too, my eldest +son as was with me here has quo'lled with me and reckons to set up +a rival business agin me. No," he said, still more meditatively and +deliberately; "it wasn't to come back to the comforts of my own home and +family that I faced round on Heavy Tree Hill, I reckon." + +As the woman, for certain reasons, had no desire to check this +auspicious and unlooked for confidence, she waited patiently. Hays +remained silent for an instant, warming his hands before the fire, and +then looked up interrogatively. + +"A professor of religion, ma'am, or under conviction?" + +"Not exactly," said the lady smiling. + +"Excuse me, but in spite of your fine clothes I reckoned you had a +serious look just now. A reader of Scripture, may be?" + +"I know the Bible." + +"You remember when the angel with the flamin' sword appeared unto Saul +on the road to Damascus?" + +"Yes." + +"It mout hev been suthin' in that style that stopped me," he said slowly +and tentatively. "Though nat'rally I didn't SEE anything, and only had +the queer feelin'. It might hev been THAT shied my mare off the track." + +"But Saul was up to some wickedness, wasn't he?" said the lady +smilingly, "while YOU were simply going somewhere on business?" + +"Yes," said Hays thoughtfully, "but my BUSINESS might hev seemed like +persecution. I don't mind tellin' you what it was if you'd care to +listen. But mebbe you're tired. Mebbe you want to retire. You know," he +went on with a sudden hospitable outburst, "you needn't be in any +hurry to go; we kin take care of you here to-night, and it'll cost you +nothin'. And I'll send you on with my sleigh in the mornin'. Per'aps +you'd like suthin' to eat--a cup of tea--or--I'll call Zuleika;" and he +rose with an expression of awkward courtesy. + +But the lady, albeit with a self-satisfied sparkle in her dark +eyes, here carelessly assured him that Zuleika had already given her +refreshment, and, indeed, was at that moment preparing her own room for +her. She begged he would not interrupt his interesting story. + +Hays looked relieved. + +"Well, I reckon I won't call her, for what I was goin' to say ain't +exackly the sort o' thin' for an innocent, simple sort o' thing like her +to hear--I mean," he interrupted himself hastily--"that folks of more +experience of the world like you and me don't mind speakin' of--I'm +sorter takin' it for granted that you're a married woman, ma'am." + +The lady, who had regarded him with a sudden rigidity, here relaxed her +expression and nodded. + +"Well," continued Hays, resuming his place by the fire, "you see this +yer man I was goin' to see lives about four miles beyond the summit on +a ranch that furnishes most of the hay for the stock that side of the +Divide. He's bin holdin' off his next year's contracts with me, hopin' +to make better terms from the prospects of a late spring and higher +prices. He held his head mighty high and talked big of waitin' his own +time. I happened to know he couldn't do it." + +He put his hands on his knees and stared at the fire, and then went +on:-- + +"Ye see this man had had crosses and family trials. He had a wife that +left him to jine a lot of bally dancers and painted women in the 'Frisco +playhouses when he was livin' in the southern country. You'll say that +was like MY own case,--and mebbe that was why it came to him to tell +me about it,--but the difference betwixt HIM and ME was that instead +of restin' unto the Lord and findin' Him, and pluckin' out the eye +that offended him 'cordin' to Scripter, as I did, HE followed after HER +tryin' to get her back, until, findin' that wasn't no use, he took a +big disgust and came up here to hide hisself, where there wasn't no +playhouse nor play-actors, and no wimmen but Injin squaws. He pre-empted +the land, and nat'rally, there bein' no one ez cared to live there but +himself, he had it all his own way, made it pay, and, as I was sayin' +before, held his head high for prices. Well--you ain't gettin' tired, +ma'am?" + +"No," said the lady, resting her cheek on her hand and gazing on the +fire, "it's all very interesting; and so odd that you two men, with +nearly the same experiences, should be neighbors." + +"Say buyer and seller, ma'am, not neighbors--at least Scriptoorily--nor +friends. Well,--now this is where the Speshal Providence comes in,--only +this afternoon Jim Briggs, hearin' me speak of Horseley's offishness"-- + +"WHOSE offishness?" asked the lady. + +"Horseley's offishness,--Horseley's the name of the man I'm talkin' +about. Well, hearin' that, he says: 'You hold on, Hays, and he'll +climb down. That wife of his has left the stage--got sick of it--and is +driftin' round in 'Frisco with some fellow. When Horseley gets to hear +that, you can't keep him here,--he'll settle up, sell out, and realize +on everything he's got to go after her agin,--you bet.' That's what +Briggs said. Well, that's what sent me up to Horseley's to-night--to get +there, drop the news, and then pin him down to that contract." + +"It looked like a good stroke of business and a fair one," said the lady +in an odd voice. It was so odd that Hays looked up. But she had somewhat +altered her position, and was gazing at the ceiling, and with her hand +to her face seemed to have just recovered from a slight yawn, at which +he hesitated with a new and timid sense of politeness. + +"You're gettin' tired, ma'am?" + +"Oh dear, no!" she said in the same voice, but clearing her throat with +a little cough. "And why didn't you see this Mr. Horseley after all? Oh, +I forgot!--you said you changed your mind from something you'd heard." + +He had turned his eyes to the fire again, but without noticing as he +did so that she slowly moved her face, still half hidden by her hand, +towards him and was watching him intently. + +"No," he said, slowly, "nothin' I heard, somethin' I felt. It mout hev +been that that set me off the track. It kem to me all of a sudden that +he might be sittin' thar calm and peaceful like ez I might be here, +hevin' forgot all about her and his trouble, and here was me goin' to +drop down upon him and start it all fresh agin. It looked a little like +persecution--yes, like persecution. I got rid of it, sayin' to myself +it was business. But I'd got off the road meantime, and had to find +it again, and whenever I got back to the track and was pointed for his +house, it all seemed to come back on me and set me off agin. When that +had happened three times, I turned round and started for home." + +"And do you mean to say," said the lady, with a discordant laugh, "that +you believe, because YOU didn't go there and break the news, that nobody +else will? That he won't hear of it from the first man he meets?" + +"He don't meet any one up where he lives, and only Briggs and myself +know it, and I'll see that Briggs don't tell. But it was mighty queer +this whole thing comin' upon me suddenly,--wasn't it?" + +"Very queer," replied the lady; "for"--with the same metallic +laugh--"you don't seem to be given to this kind of weakness with your +own family." + +If there was any doubt as to the sarcastic suggestion of her voice, +there certainly could be none in the wicked glitter of her eyes fixed +upon his face under her shading hand. But haply he seemed unconscious of +both, and even accepted her statement without an ulterior significance. + +"Yes," he said, communingly, to the glaring embers of the hearth, "it +must have been a special revelation." + +There was something so fatuous and one-idea'd in his attitude and +expression, so monstrously inconsistent and inadequate to what was going +on around him, and so hopelessly stupid--if a mere simulation--that the +angry suspicion that he was acting a part slowly faded from her eyes, +and a hysterical smile began to twitch her set lips. She still gazed +at him. The wind howled drearily in the chimney; all that was economic, +grim, and cheerless in the room seemed to gather as flitting shadows +around that central figure. Suddenly she arose with such a quick +rustling of her skirts that he lifted his eyes with a start; for she +was standing immediately before him, her hands behind her, her handsome, +audacious face bent smilingly forward, and her bold, brilliant eyes +within a foot of his own. + +"Now, Mr. Hays, do you want to know what this warning or special +revelation of yours REALLY meant? Well, it had nothing whatever to do +with that man on the summit. No. The whole interest, gist, and meaning +of it was simply this, that you should turn round and come straight +back here and"--she drew back and made him an exaggerated theatrical +curtsey--"have the supreme pleasure of making MY acquaintance! That was +all. And now, as you've HAD IT, in five minutes I must be off. You've +offered me already your horse and sleigh to go to the summit. I accept +it and go! Good-by!" + +He knew nothing of a woman's coquettish humor; he knew still less of +that mimic stage from which her present voice, gesture, and expression +were borrowed; he had no knowledge of the burlesque emotions which that +voice, gesture, and expression were supposed to portray, and finally and +fatally he was unable to detect the feminine hysteric jar and discord +that underlay it all. He thought it was strong, characteristic, and +real, and accepted it literally. He rose. + +"Ef you allow you can't stay, why I'll go and get the horse. I reckon he +ain't bin put up yet." + +"Do, please." + +He grimly resumed his coat and hat and disappeared through the passage +into the kitchen, whence, a moment later, Zuleika came flying. + +"Well, what has happened?" she said eagerly. + +"It's all right," said the woman quickly, "though he knows nothing yet. +But I've got things fixed generally, so that he'll be quite ready to +have it broken to him by this time to-morrow. But don't you say anything +till I've seen Jack and you hear from HIM. Remember." + +She spoke rapidly; her cheeks were quite glowing from some sudden +energy; so were Zuleika's with the excitement of curiosity. Presently +the sound of sleigh-bells again filled the room. It was Hays leading the +horse and sleigh to the door, beneath a sky now starlit and crisp +under a northeast wind. The fair stranger cast a significant glance at +Zuleika, and whispered hurriedly, "You know he must not come with me. +You must keep him here." + +She ran to the door muffled and hooded, leaped into the sleigh, and +gathered up the reins. + +"But you cannot go alone," said Hays, with awkward courtesy. "I was +kalkilatin'"-- + +"You're too tired to go out again, dad," broke in Zuleika's voice +quickly. "You ain't fit; you're all gray and krinkly now, like as when +you had one of your last spells. She'll send the sleigh back to-morrow." + +"I can find my way," said the lady briskly; "there's only one turn off, +I believe, and that"-- + +"Leads to the stage station three miles west. You needn't be afraid of +gettin' off on that, for you'll likely see the down stage crossin' your +road ez soon ez you get clear of the ranch." + +"Good-night," said the lady. An arc of white spray sprang before the +forward runner, and the sleigh vanished in the road. + +Father and daughter returned to the office. + +"You didn't get to know her, dad, did ye?" queried Zuleika. + +"No," responded Hays gravely, "except to see she wasn't no backwoods or +mountaineering sort. Now, there's the kind of woman, Zuly, as knows her +own mind and yours too; that a man like your brother Jack oughter pick +out when he marries." + +Zuleika's face beamed behind her father. "You ain't goin' to sit up any +longer, dad?" she said, as she noticed him resume his seat by the fire. +"It's gettin' late, and you look mighty tuckered out with your night's +work." + +"Do you know what she said, Zuly?" returned her father, after a pause, +which turned out to have been a long, silent laugh. + +"No." + +"She said," he repeated slowly, "that she reckoned I came back here +to-night to have the pleasure of her acquaintance!" He brought his +two hands heavily down upon his knees, rubbing them down deliberately +towards his ankles, and leaning forward with his face to the fire and a +long-sustained smile of complete though tardy appreciation. + +He was still in this attitude when Zuleika left him. The wind crooned +over him confidentially, but he still sat there, given up apparently to +some posthumous enjoyment of his visitor's departing witticism. + +It was scarcely daylight when Zuleika, while dressing, heard a quick +tapping upon her shutter. She opened it to the scared and bewildered +face of her brother. + +"What happened with her and father last night?" he said hoarsely. + +"Nothing--why?" + +"Read that. It was brought to me half an hour ago by a man in dad's +sleigh, from the stage station." + +He handed her a crumpled note with trembling fingers. She took it and +read:-- + +"The game's up and I'm out of it! Take my advice and clear out of it +too, until you can come back in better shape. Don't be such a fool as +to try and follow me. Your father isn't one, and that's where you've +slipped up." + +"He shall pay for it, whatever he's done," said her brother with an +access of wild passion. "Where is he?" + +"Why, Jack, you wouldn't dare to see him now?" + +"Wouldn't I?" He turned and ran, convulsed with passion, before the +windows towards the front of the house. Zuleika slipped out of her +bedroom and ran to her father's room. He was not there. Already she +could hear her brother hammering frantically against the locked front +door. + +The door of the office was partly open. Her father was still there. +Asleep? Yes, for he had apparently sunk forward before the cold hearth. +But the hands that he had always been trying to warm were colder than +the hearth or ashes, and he himself never again spoke nor stirred. + +***** + +It was deemed providential by the neighbors that his youngest and +favorite son, alarmed by news of his father's failing health, had +arrived from the Atlantic States just at the last moment. But it was +thought singular that after the division of the property he entirely +abandoned the Ranch, and that even pending the division his beautiful +but fastidious Eastern bride declined to visit it with her husband. + + + + +JOHNSON'S "OLD WOMAN." + + +It was growing dark, and the Sonora trail was becoming more indistinct +before me at every step. The difficulty had increased over the grassy +, where the overflow from some smaller watercourse above had worn a +number of diverging gullies so like the trail as to be undistinguishable +from it. Unable to determine which was the right one, I threw the reins +over the mule's neck and resolved to trust to that superior animal's +sagacity, of which I had heard so much. But I had not taken into account +the equally well-known weaknesses of sex and species, and Chu Chu had +already shown uncontrollable signs of wanting her own way. Without a +moment's hesitation, feeling the relaxed bridle, she lay down and rolled +over. + +In this perplexity the sound of horse's hoofs ringing out of the rocky +canyon beyond was a relief, even if momentarily embarrassing. An instant +afterwards a horse and rider appeared cantering round the hill on what +was evidently the lost trail, and pulled up as I succeeded in forcing +Chu Chu to her legs again. + +"Is that the trail from Sonora?" I asked. + +"Yes;" but with a critical glance at the mule, "I reckon you ain't going +thar tonight." + +"Why not?" + +"It's a matter of eighteen miles, and most of it a blind trail through +the woods after you take the valley." + +"Is it worse than this?" + +"What's the matter with this trail? Ye ain't expecting a racecourse or a +shell road over the foothills--are ye?" + +"No. Is there any hotel where I can stop?" + +"Nary." + +"Nor any house?" + +"No." + +"Thank you. Good-night." + +He had already passed on, when he halted again and turned in his saddle. +"Look yer. Just a spell over yon canyon ye'll find a patch o' buckeyes; +turn to the right and ye'll see a trail. That'll take ye to a shanty. +You ask if it's Johnson's." + +"Who's Johnson?" + +"I am. You ain't lookin' for Vanderbilt or God Almighty up here, are +you? Well, then, you hark to me, will you? You say to my old woman to +give you supper and a shakedown somewhar to-night. Say I sent you. So +long." + +He was gone before I could accept or decline. An extraordinary noise +proceeded from Chu Chu, not unlike a suppressed chuckle. I looked +sharply at her; she coughed affectedly, and, with her head and neck +stretched to their greatest length, appeared to contemplate her neat +little off fore shoe with admiring abstraction. But as soon as I had +mounted she set off abruptly, crossed the rocky canyon, apparently +sighted the patch of buckeyes of her own volition, and without the +slightest hesitation found the trail to the right, and in half an hour +stood before the shanty. + +It was a log cabin with an additional "lean-to" of the same material, +roofed with bark, and on the other side a larger and more ambitious +"extension" built of rough, unplaned, and unpainted redwood boards, +lightly shingled. The "lean-to" was evidently used as a kitchen, and +the central cabin as a living-room. The barking of a dog as I approached +called four children of different sizes to the open door, where already +an enterprising baby was feebly essaying to crawl over a bar of wood +laid across the threshold to restrain it. + +"Is this Johnson's house?" + +My remark was really addressed to the eldest, a boy of apparently nine +or ten, but I felt that my attention was unduly fascinated by the baby, +who at that moment had toppled over the bar, and was calmly eyeing +me upside down, while silently and heroically suffocating in its +petticoats. The boy disappeared without replying, but presently returned +with a taller girl of fourteen or fifteen. I was struck with the way +that, as she reached the door, she passed her hands rapidly over the +heads of the others as if counting them, picked up the baby, reversed +it, shook out its clothes, and returned it to the inside, without even +looking at it. The act was evidently automatic and habitual. + +I repeated my question timidly. + +Yes, it WAS Johnson's, but he had just gone to King's Mills. I replied, +hurriedly, that I knew it,--that I had met him beyond the canyon. As I +had lost my way and couldn't get to Sonora to-night, he had been good +enough to say that I might stay there until morning. My voice was +slightly raised for the benefit of Mr. Johnson's "old woman," who, I had +no doubt, was inspecting me furtively from some corner. + +The girl drew the children away, except the boy. To him she said +simply, "Show the stranger whar to stake out his mule, 'Dolphus," and +disappeared in the "extension" without another word. I followed my +little guide, who was perhaps more actively curious, but equally +unresponsive. To my various questions he simply returned a smile of +exasperating vacuity. But he never took his eager eyes from me, and I +was satisfied that not a detail of my appearance escaped him. Leading +the way behind the house to a little wood, whose only "clearing" +had been effected by decay or storm, he stood silently apart while +I picketed Chu Chu, neither offering to assist me nor opposing any +interruption to my survey of the locality. There was no trace of human +cultivation in the surroundings of the cabin; the wilderness still trod +sharply on the heels of the pioneer's fresh footprints, and even seemed +to obliterate them. For a few yards around the actual dwelling there +was an unsavory fringe of civilization in the shape of cast-off clothes, +empty bottles, and tin cans, and the adjacent thorn and elder bushes +blossomed unwholesomely with bits of torn white paper and bleaching +dish-cloths. This hideous circle never widened; Nature always appeared +to roll back the intruding debris; no bird nor beast carried it away; no +animal ever forced the uncleanly barrier; civilization remained grimly +trenched in its own exuvia. The old terrifying girdle of fire around the +hunter's camp was not more deterring to curious night prowlers than this +coarse and accidental outwork. + +When I regained the cabin I found it empty, the doors of the lean-to and +extension closed, but there was a stool set before a rude table, upon +which smoked a tin cup of coffee, a tin dish of hot saleratus biscuit, +and a plate of fried beef. There was something odd and depressing in +this silent exclusion of my presence. Had Johnson's "old woman" from +some dark post of observation taken a dislike to my appearance, or was +this churlish withdrawal a peculiarity of Sierran hospitality? Or was +Mrs. Johnson young and pretty, and hidden under the restricting ban of +Johnson's jealousy, or was she a deformed , or even a bedridden +crone? From the extension at times came a murmur of voices, but never +the accents of adult womanhood. The gathering darkness, relieved only by +a dull glow from the smouldering logs in the adobe chimney, added to my +loneliness. In the circumstances I knew I ought to have put aside the +repast and given myself up to gloomy and pessimistic reflection; but +Nature is often inconsistent, and in that keen mountain air, I grieve +to say, my physical and moral condition was not in that perfect accord +always indicated by romancers. I had an appetite and I gratified it; +dyspepsia and ethical reflections might come later. I ate the saleratus +biscuit cheerfully, and was meditatively finishing my coffee when a +gurgling sound from the rafters above attracted my attention. I looked +up; under the overhang of the bark roof three pairs of round eyes were +fixed upon me. They belonged to the children I had previously seen, +who, in the attitude of Raphael's cherubs, had evidently been deeply +interested spectators of my repast. As our eyes met an inarticulate +giggle escaped the lips of the youngest. + +I never could understand why the shy amusement of children over their +elders is not accepted as philosophically by its object as when it +proceeds from an equal. We fondly believe that when Jones or Brown +laughs at us it is from malice, ignorance, or a desire to show his +superiority, but there is always a haunting suspicion in our minds that +these little critics REALLY see something in us to laugh at. I, however, +smiled affably in return, ignoring any possible grotesqueness in my +manner of eating in private. + +"Come here, Johnny," I said blandly. + +The two elder ones, a girl and a boy, disappeared instantly, as if the +crowning joke of this remark was too much for them. From a scraping and +kicking against the log wall I judged that they had quickly dropped to +the ground outside. The younger one, the giggler, remained fascinated, +but ready to fly at a moment's warning. + +"Come here, Johnny, boy," I repeated gently. "I want you to go to your +mother, please, and tell her"-- + +But here the child, who had been working its face convulsively, suddenly +uttered a lugubrious howl and disappeared also. I ran to the front door +and looked out in time to see the tallest girl, who had received me, +walking away with it under her arm, pushing the boy ahead of her +and looking back over her shoulder, not unlike a youthful she-bear +conducting her cubs from danger. She disappeared at the end of the +extension, where there was evidently another door. + +It was very extraordinary. It was not strange that I turned back to +the cabin with a chagrin and mortification which for a moment made me +entertain the wild idea of saddling Chu Chu, and shaking the dust of +that taciturn house from my feet. But the ridiculousness of such an act, +to say nothing of its ingratitude, as quickly presented itself to me. +Johnson had offered me only food and shelter; I could have claimed no +more from the inn I had asked him to direct me to. I did not re-enter +the house, but, lighting my last cigar, began to walk gloomily up and +down the trail. With the outcoming of the stars it had grown lighter; +through a wind opening in the trees I could see the heavy bulk of the +opposite mountain, and beyond it a superior crest defined by a red line +of forest fire, which, however, cast no reflection on the surrounding +earth or sky. Faint woodland currents of air, still warm from the +afternoon sun, stirred the leaves around me with long-drawn aromatic +breaths. But these in time gave way to the steady Sierran night wind +sweeping down from the higher summits, and rocking the tops of the +tallest pines, yet leaving the tranquillity of the dark lower aisles +unshaken. It was very quiet; there was no cry nor call of beast or bird +in the darkness; the long rustle of the tree-tops sounded as faint as +the far-off wash of distant seas. Nor did the resemblance cease there; +the close-set files of the pines and cedars, stretching in illimitable +ranks to the horizon, were filled with the immeasurable loneliness of +an ocean shore. In this vast silence I began to think I understood the +taciturnity of the dwellers in the solitary cabin. + +When I returned, however, I was surprised to find the tallest girl +standing by the door. As I approached she retreated before me, and +pointing to the corner where a common cot bed had been evidently just +put up, said, "Ye can turn in thar, only ye'll have to rouse out early +when 'Dolphus does the chores," and was turning towards the extension +again, when I stopped her almost appealingly. + +"One moment, please. Can I see your mother?" + +She stopped and looked at me with a singular expression. Then she said +sharply:-- + +"You know, fust rate, she's dead." + +She was turning away again, but I think she must have seen my concern +in my face, for she hesitated. "But," I said quickly, "I certainly +understood your father, that is, Mr. Johnson," I added, interrogatively, +"to say that--that I was to speak to"--I didn't like to repeat the exact +phrase--"his WIFE." + +"I don't know what he was playin' ye for," she said shortly. "Mar has +been dead mor'n a year." + +"But," I persisted, "is there no grown-up woman here?" + +"No." + +"Then who takes care of you and the children?" + +"I do." + +"Yourself and your father--eh?" + +"Dad ain't here two days running, and then on'y to sleep." + +"And you take the entire charge of the house?" + +"Yes, and the log tallies." + +"The log tallies?" + +"Yes; keep count and measure the logs that go by the slide." + +It flashed upon me that I had passed the slide or declivity on the +hillside, where logs were slipped down into the valley, and I inferred +that Johnson's business was cutting timber for the mill. + +"But you're rather young for all this work," I suggested. + +"I'm goin' on sixteen," she said gravely. + +Indeed, for the matter of that, she might have been any age. Her face, +on which sunburn took the place of complexion, was already hard and set. +But on a nearer view I was struck with the fact that her eyes, which +were not large, were almost indistinguishable from the presence of the +most singular eyelashes I had ever seen. Intensely black, intensely +thick, and even tangled in their profusion, they bristled rather than +fringed her eyelids, obliterating everything but the shining black +pupils beneath, which were like certain lustrous hairy mountain berries. +It was this woodland suggestion that seemed to uncannily connect her +with the locality. I went on playfully:-- + +"That's not VERY old--but tell me--does your father, or DID your father, +ever speak of you as his 'old woman?'" + +She nodded. "Then you thought I was mar?" she said, smiling. + +It was such a relief to see her worn face relax its expression of +pathetic gravity--although this operation quite buried her eyes in their +black thickest hedge again--that I continued cheerfully: "It wasn't much +of a mistake, considering all you do for the house and family." + +"Then you didn't tell Billy 'to go and be dead in the ground with mar,' +as he 'lows you did?" she said half suspiciously, yet trembling on the +edge of a smile. + +No, I had not, but I admitted that my asking him to go to his mother +might have been open to this dismal construction by a sensitive infant +mind. She seemed mollified, and again turned to go. + +"Good-night, Miss--you know your father didn't tell me your real name," +I said. + +"Karline!" + +"Good-night, Miss Karline." + +I held out my hand. + +She looked at it and then at me through her intricate eyelashes. Then +she struck it aside briskly, but not unkindly, said "Quit foolin', now," +as she might have said to one of the children, and disappeared through +the inner door. Not knowing whether to be amused or indignant, I +remained silent a moment. Then I took a turn outside in the increasing +darkness, listened to the now hurrying wind over the tree-tops, +re-entered the cabin, closed the door, and went to bed. + +But not to sleep. Perhaps the responsibility towards these solitary +children, which Johnson had so lightly shaken off, devolved upon me as +I lay there, for I found myself imagining a dozen emergencies of their +unprotected state, with which the elder girl could scarcely grapple. +There was little to fear from depredatory man or beast--desperadoes of +the mountain trail never stooped to ignoble burglary, bear or panther +seldom approached a cabin--but there was the chance of sudden illness, +fire, the accidents that beset childhood, to say nothing of the +narrowing moral and mental effect of their isolation at that tender age. +It was scandalous in Johnson to leave them alone. + +In the silence I found I could hear quite distinctly the sound of their +voices in the extension, and it was evident that Caroline was putting +them to bed. Suddenly a voice was uplifted--her own! She began to sing +and the others to join her. It was the repetition of a single verse of +a well-known lugubrious melody. "All the world am sad and +dreary," wailed Caroline, in a high head-note, "everywhere I roam." "Oh, +darkieth," lisped the younger girl in response, "how my heart growth +weary, far from the old folkth at h-o-o-me." This was repeated two or +three times before the others seemed to get the full swing of it, and +then the lines rose and fell sadly and monotonously in the darkness. I +don't know why, but I at once got the impression that those motherless +little creatures were under a vague belief that their performance was +devotional, and was really filling the place of an evening hymn. A brief +and indistinct kind of recitation, followed by a dead silence, broken +only by the slow creaking of new timber, as if the house were stretching +itself to sleep too, confirmed my impression. Then all became quiet +again. + +But I was more wide awake than before. Finally I rose, dressed myself, +and dragging my stool to the fire, took a book from my knapsack, and by +the light of a guttering candle, which I discovered in a bottle in the +corner of the hearth, began to read. Presently I fell into a doze. +How long I slept I could not tell, for it seemed to me that a dreamy +consciousness of a dog barking at last forced itself upon me so strongly +that I awoke. The barking appeared to come from behind the cabin in the +direction of the clearing where I had tethered Chu Chu. I opened the +door hurriedly, ran round the cabin towards the hollow, and was almost +at once met by the bulk of the frightened Chu Chu, plunging out of the +darkness towards me, kept only in check by her reata in the hand of a +blanketed shape slowly advancing with a gun over its shoulder out of the +hollow. Before I had time to recover from my astonishment I was thrown +into greater confusion by recognizing the shape as none other than +Caroline! + +Without the least embarrassment or even self-consciousness of her +appearance, she tossed the end of the reata to me with the curtest +explanation as she passed by. Some prowling bear or catamount had +frightened the mule. I had better tether it before the cabin away from +the wind. + +"But I thought wild beasts never came so near," I said quickly. + +"Mule meat's mighty temptin'," said the girl sententiously and passed +on. I wanted to thank her; I wanted to say how sorry I was that she +had been disturbed; I wanted to compliment her on her quiet midnight +courage, and yet warn her against recklessness; I wanted to know whether +she had been accustomed to such alarms; and if the gun she carried was +really a necessity. But I could only respect her reticence, and I was +turning away when I was struck by a more inexplicable spectacle. As she +neared the end of the extension I distinctly saw the tall figure of +a man, moving with a certain diffidence and hesitation that did not, +however, suggest any intention of concealment, among the trees; the girl +apparently saw him at the same moment and slightly slackened her pace. +Not more than a dozen feet separated them. He said something that was +inaudible to my ears,--but whether from his hesitation or the distance +I could not determine. There was no such uncertainty in her reply, +however, which was given in her usual curt fashion: "All right. You can +trapse along home now and turn in." + +She turned the corner of the extension and disappeared. The tall figure +of the man wavered hesitatingly for a moment, and then vanished also. +But I was too much excited by curiosity to accept this unsatisfactory +conclusion, and, hastily picketing Chu Chu a few rods from the front +door, I ran after him, with an instinctive feeling that he had not gone +far. I was right. A few paces distant he had halted in the same dubious, +lingering way. "Hallo!" I said. + +He turned towards me in the like awkward fashion, but with neither +astonishment nor concern. + +"Come up and take a drink with me before you go," I said, "if you're not +in a hurry. I'm alone here, and since I HAVE turned out I don't see why +we mightn't have a smoke and a talk together." + +"I dursn't." + +I looked up at the six feet of strength before me and repeated +wonderingly, "Dare not?" + +"SHE wouldn't like it." He made a movement with his right shoulder +towards the extension. + +"Who?" + +"Miss Karline." + +"Nonsense!" I said. "She isn't in the cabin,--you won't see HER. Come +along." He hesitated, although from what I could discern of his bearded +face it was weakly smiling. + +"Come." + +He obeyed, following me not unlike Chu Chu, I fancied, with the same +sense of superior size and strength and a slight whitening of the eye, +as if ready to shy at any moment. At the door he "backed." Then he +entered sideways. I noticed that he cleared the doorway at the top and +the sides only by a hair's breadth. + +By the light of the fire I could see that, in spite of his full first +growth of beard, he was young,--even younger than myself,--and that he +was by no means bad-looking. As he still showed signs of retreating at +any moment, I took my flask and tobacco from my saddle-bags, handed them +to him, pointed to the stool, and sat down myself upon the bed. + +"You live near here?" + +"Yes," he said a little abstractedly, as if listening for some +interruption, "at Ten Mile Crossing." + +"Why, that's two miles away." + +"I reckon." + +"Then you don't live here--on the clearing?" + +"No. I b'long to the mill at 'Ten Mile.'" + +"You were on your way home?" + +"No," he hesitated, looking at his pipe; "I kinder meander round here at +this time, when Johnson's away, to see if everything's goin' straight." + +"I see--you're a friend of the family." + +"'Deed no!" He stopped, laughed, looked confused, and added, apparently +to his pipe, "That is, a sorter friend. Not much. SHE"--he lowered his +voice as if that potential personality filled the whole cabin--"wouldn't +like it." + +"Then at night, when Johnson's away, you do sentry duty round the +house?" + +"Yes, 'sentry dooty,' that's it,"--he seemed impressed with the +suggestion--"that's it! Sentry dooty. You've struck it, pardner." + +"And how often is Johnson away?" + +"'Bout two or three times a week on an average." + +"But Miss Caroline appears to be able to take care of herself. She has +no fear." + +"Fear! Fear wasn't hangin' round when SHE was born!" He paused. "No, +sir. Did ye ever look into them eyes?" + +I hadn't, on account of the lashes. But I didn't care to say this, and +only nodded. + +"There ain't the created thing livin' or dead, that she can't stand +straight up to and look at." + +I wondered if he had fancied she experienced any difficulty in standing +up before that innocently good-humored face, but I could not resist +saying:-- + +"Then I don't see the use of your walking four miles to look after her." + +I was sorry for it the next minute, for he seemed to have awkwardly +broken his pipe, and had to bend down for a long time afterwards to +laboriously pick up the smallest fragments of it. At last he said, +cautiously: + +"Ye noticed them bits o' flannin' round the chillern's throats?" + +I remembered that I had, but was uncertain whether it was intended as a +preventive of cold or a child's idea of decoration. I nodded. + +"That's their trouble. One night, when old Johnson had been off for +three days to Coulterville, I was prowling round here and I didn't git +to see no one, though there was a light burnin' in the shanty all night. +The next night I was here again,--the same light twinklin', but no one +about. I reckoned that was mighty queer, and I jess crep' up to the +house an' listened. I heard suthin' like a little cough oncet in a +while, and at times suthin' like a little moan. I didn't durst to sing +out for I knew SHE wouldn't like it, but whistled keerless like, to let +the chillern know I was there. But it didn't seem to take. I was jess +goin' off, when--darn my skin!--if I didn't come across the bucket of +water I'd fetched up from the spring THAT MORNIN', standin' there full, +and NEVER TAKEN IN! When I saw that I reckoned I'd jess wade in, anyhow, +and I knocked. Pooty soon the door was half opened, and I saw her eyes +blazin' at me like them coals. Then SHE 'lowed I'd better 'git up and +git,' and shet the door to! Then I 'lowed she might tell me what was +up--through the door. Then she said, through the door, as how the +chillern lay all sick with that hoss-distemper, diphthery. Then she +'lowed she'd use a doctor ef I'd fetch him. Then she 'lowed again I'd +better take the baby that hadn't ketched it yet along with me, and leave +it where it was safe. Then she passed out the baby through the door all +wrapped up in a blankit like a papoose, and you bet I made tracks with +it. I knowed thar wasn't no good going to the mill, so I let out for +White's, four miles beyond, whar there was White's old mother. I told +her how things were pointin', and she lent me a hoss, and I jess rounded +on Doctor Green at Mountain Jim's, and had him back here afore sun-up! +And then I heard she wilted,--regularly played out, you see,--for she +had it all along wuss than the lot, and never let on or whimpered!" + +"It was well you persisted in seeing her that night," I said, watching +the rapt expression of his face. He looked up quickly, became conscious +of my scrutiny, and dropped his eyes again, smiled feebly, and drawing a +circle in the ashes with the broken pipe-stem, said:-- + +"But SHE didn't like it, though." + +I suggested, a little warmly, that if she allowed her father to leave +her alone at night with delicate children, she had no right to choose +WHO should assist her in an emergency. It struck me afterwards that this +was not very complimentary to him, and I added hastily that I wondered +if she expected some young lady to be passing along the trail at +midnight! But this reminded me of Johnson's style of argument, and I +stopped. + +"Yes," he said meekly, "and ef she didn't keer enough for herself and +her brothers and sisters, she orter remember them Beazeley chillern." + +"Beazeley children?" I repeated wonderingly. + +"Yes; them two little ones, the size of Mirandy; they're Beazeley's." + +"Who is Beazeley, and what are his children doing here?" + +"Beazeley up and died at the mill, and she bedevilled her father to let +her take his two young 'uns here." + +"You don't mean to say that with her other work she's taking care of +other people's children too?" + +"Yes, and eddicatin' them." + +"Educating them?" + +"Yes; teachin' them to read and write and do sums. One of our loggers +ketched her at it when she was keepin' tally." + +We were both silent for some moments. + +"I suppose you know Johnson?" I said finally. + +"Not much." + +"But you call here at other times than when you're helping her?" + +"Never been in the house before." + +He looked slowly around him as he spoke, raising his eyes to the bare +rafters above, and drawing a few long breaths, as if he were inhaling +the aura of some unseen presence. He appeared so perfectly gratified and +contented, and I was so impressed with this humble and silent absorption +of the sacred interior, that I felt vaguely conscious that any +interruption of it was a profanation, and I sat still, gazing at the +dying fire. Presently he arose, stretched out his hand, shook mine +warmly, said, "I reckon I'll meander along," took another long breath, +this time secretly, as if conscious of my eyes, and then slouched +sideways out of the house into the darkness again, where he seemed +suddenly to attain his full height, and so looming, disappeared. I shut +the door, went to bed, and slept soundly. + +So soundly that when I awoke the sun was streaming on my bed from the +open door. On the table before me my breakfast was already laid. When I +had dressed and eaten it, struck by the silence, I went to the door and +looked out. 'Dolphus was holding Chu Chu by the reata a few paces from +the cabin. + +"Where's Caroline?" I asked. + +He pointed to the woods and said: "Over yon: keeping tally." + +"Did she leave any message?" + +"Said I was to git your mule for you." + +"Anything else?" + +"Yes; said you was to go." + +I went, but not until I had scrawled a few words of thanks on a leaf of +my notebook, which I wrapped about my last Spanish dollar, addressed it +to "Miss Johnson," and laid it upon the table. + +***** + +It was more than a year later that in the bar-room of the Mariposa Hotel +a hand was laid upon my sleeve. I looked up. It was Johnson. + +He drew from his pocket a Spanish dollar. "I reckoned," he said, +cheerfully, "I'd run again ye somewhar some time. My old woman told me +to give ye that when I did, and say that she 'didn't keep no hotel.' +But she allowed she'd keep the letter, and has spelled it out to the +chillern." + +Here was the opportunity I had longed for to touch Johnson's pride and +affection in the brave but unprotected girl. "I want to talk to you +about Miss Johnson," I said, eagerly. + +"I reckon so," he said, with an exasperating smile. "Most fellers do. +But she ain't Miss Johnson no more. She's married." + +"Not to that big chap over from Ten Mile Mills?" I said breathlessly. + +"What's the matter with HIM," said Johnson. "Ye didn't expect her to +marry a nobleman, did ye?" + +I said I didn't see why she shouldn't--and believed that she HAD. + + + + +THE NEW ASSISTANT AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +The schoolmistress of Pine Clearing was taking a last look around her +schoolroom before leaving it for the day. She might have done so with +pride, for the schoolroom was considered a marvel of architectural +elegance by the citizens, and even to the ordinary observer was a +pretty, villa-like structure, with an open cupola and overhanging roof +of diamond-shaped shingles and a deep Elizabethan porch. But it was +the monument of a fierce struggle between a newer civilization and a +barbarism of the old days, which had resulted in the clearing away of +the pines--and a few other things as incongruous to the new life and far +less innocent, though no less sincere. It had cost the community fifteen +thousand dollars, and the lives of two of its citizens. + +Happily there was no stain of this on the clean white walls, the +beautifully-written gilt texts, or the shining blackboard that had +offered no record which could not be daily wiped away. And, certainly, +the last person in the world to suggest any reminiscences of its +belligerent foundation was the person of the schoolmistress. Mature, +thin, precise,--not pretty enough to have excited Homeric feuds, nor yet +so plain as to preclude certain soothing graces,--she was the widow of +a poor Congregational minister, and had been expressly imported from +San Francisco to squarely mark the issue between the regenerate and +unregenerate life. Low-voiced, gentlewomanly, with the pallor of +ill-health perhaps unduly accented by her mourning, which was still cut +modishly enough to show off her spare but good figure, she was +supposed to represent the model of pious, scholastic refinement. The +Opposition--sullen in ditches and at the doors of saloons, or in the +fields truculent as their own cattle--nevertheless had lowered their +crests and buttoned their coats over their revolutionary red shirts when +SHE went by. + +As she was stepping from the threshold, she was suddenly confronted by +a brisk business-looking man, who was about to enter. "Just in time to +catch you, Mrs. Martin," he said hurriedly; then, quickly correcting his +manifest familiarity, he added: "I mean, I took the liberty of running +in here on my way to the stage office. That matter you spoke of is +all arranged. I talked it over with the other trustees, wrote to Sam +Barstow, and he's agreeable, and has sent somebody up, and," he rapidly +consulted his watch, "he ought to be here now; and I'm on my way to meet +him with the other trustees." + +Mrs. Martin, who at once recognized her visitor as the Chairman of +the School Board, received the abrupt information with the slight +tremulousness, faint increase of color, and hurried breathing of a +nervous woman. + +"But," she said, "it was only a SUGGESTION of mine, Mr. Sperry; I really +have no right to ask--I had no idea"-- + +"It's all right, ma'am,--never you mind. We put the case square to +Barstow. We allowed that the school was getting too large for you to +tackle,--I mean, you know, to superintend single-handed; and that these +Pike County boys they're running in on us are a little too big and +sassy for a lady like you to lasso and throw down--I mean, to sorter +control--don't you see? But, bless you, Sam Barstow saw it all in a +minit! He just jumped at it. I've got his letter here--hold on"--he +hastily produced a letter from his pocket, glanced ever it, suddenly +closed it again with embarrassed quickness, yet not so quickly but that +the woman's quicker eyes were caught, and nervously fascinated by the +expression "I'm d----d" in a large business hand--and said in awkward +haste, "No matter about reading it now--keep you too long--but he's +agreed all right, you know. Must go now--they'll be waiting. Only I +thought I'd drop in a-passin', to keep you posted;" and, taking off his +hat, he began to back from the porch. + +"Is--is--this gentleman who is to assist me--a--a mature professional +man--or a--graduate?" hesitated Mrs. Martin, with a faint smile. + +"Don't really know--I reckon Sam--Mr. Barstow--fixed that all right. +Must really go now;" and, still holding his hat in his hand as a polite +compromise for his undignified haste, he fairly ran off. + +Arrived at the stage office, he found the two other trustees awaiting +him, and the still more tardy stage-coach. One, a large, smooth-faced, +portly man, was the Presbyterian minister; the other, of thinner and +more serious aspect, was a large mill-owner. + +"I presume," said the Rev. Mr. Peaseley, slowly, "that as our good +brother Barstow, in the urgency of the occasion, has, to some +extent, anticipated OUR functions in engaging this assistant, he +is--a--a--satisfied with his capacity?" + +"Sam knows what he's about," said the mill-owner cheerfully, "and as +he's regularly buckled down to the work here, and will go his bottom +dollar on it, you can safely leave things to him." + +"He certainly has exhibited great zeal," said the reverend gentleman +patronizingly. + +"Zeal," echoed Sperry enthusiastically, "zeal? Why, he runs Pine +Clearing as he runs his bank and his express company in Sacramento, and +he's as well posted as if he were here all the time. Why, look here;" +he nudged the mill-owner secretly, and, as the minister's back was +momentarily turned, pulled out the letter he had avoided reading to Mrs. +Martin, and pointed to a paragraph. "I'll be d----d," said the writer, +"but I'll have peace and quietness at Pine Clearing, if I have to wipe +out or make over the whole Pike County gang. Draw on me for a piano if +you think Mrs. Martin can work it. But don't say anything to Peaseley +first, or he'll want it changed for a harmonium, and that lets us in +for psalm-singing till you can't rest. Mind! I don't object to Church +influence--it's a good hold!--but you must run IT with other things +equal, and not let it run YOU. I've got the schoolhouse insured for +thirty thousand dollars--special rates too." + +The mill-owner smiled. "Sam's head is level! But," he added, "he don't +say much about the new assistant he's sending." + +"Only here," he says, "I reckon the man I send will do all round; for +Pike County has its claims as well as Boston." + +"What does that mean?" asked the mill-owner. + +"I reckon he means he don't want Pine Clearing to get too high-toned +any more than he wants it too low down. He's mighty square in his +averages--is Sam." + +Here speculation was stopped by the rapid oncoming of the stage-coach +in all the impotent fury of a belated arrival. "Had to go round by +Montezuma to let off Jack Hill," curtly explained the driver, as he +swung himself from the box, and entered the hotel bar-room in company +with the new expressman, who had evidently taken Hill's place on the +box-seat. Autocratically indifferent to further inquiry, he called out +cheerfully: "Come along, boys, and hear this yer last new yarn about Sam +Barstow,--it's the biggest thing out." And in another moment the waiting +crowd, with glasses in their hands, were eagerly listening to the +repetition of the "yarn" from the new expressman, to the apparent +exclusion of other matters, mundane and practical. + +Thus debarred from information, the three trustees could only watch +the passengers as they descended, and try to identify their expected +stranger. But in vain: the bulk of the passengers they already knew, the +others were ordinary miners and laborers; there was no indication of the +new assistant among them. Pending further inquiry they were obliged +to wait the conclusion of the expressman's humorous recital. This was +evidently a performance of some artistic merit, depending upon a capital +imitation of an Irishman, a German Jew, and another voice, which was +universally recognized and applauded as being "Sam's style all over!" +But for the presence of the minister, Sperry and the mill-owner would +have joined the enthusiastic auditors, and inwardly regretted the +respectable obligations of their official position. + +When the story-teller had concluded amidst a general call for more +drinks, Sperry approached the driver. The latter recognizing him, turned +to his companion carelessly, said, "Here's one of 'em," and was going +away when Sperry stopped him. + +"We were expecting a young man." + +"Yes," said the driver, impatiently, "and there he is, I reckon." + +"We don't mean the new expressman," said the minister, smiling blandly, +"but a young man who"-- + +"THAT ain't no new expressman," returned the driver in scornful +deprecation of his interlocutor's ignorance. "He only took Hill's +place from Montezuma. He's the new kid reviver and polisher for that +University you're runnin' here. I say--you fellers oughter get him to +tell you that story of Sam Barstow and the Chinaman. It'd limber you +fellers up to hear it." + +"I fear there's some extraordinary mistake here," said Mr. Peaseley, +with a chilling Christian smile. + +"Not a bit of it. He's got a letter from Sam for one of ye. Yere, +Charley--what's your name! Com yere. Yere's all yer three bosses waiting +for ye." + +And the supposed expressman and late narrator of amusing stories came +forward and presented his credentials as the assistant teacher of Pine +Clearing. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Even the practical Mr. Sperry was taken aback. The young man before him +was squarely built, with broad shoulders, and a certain air of muscular +activity. But his face, although good-humored, was remarkable for +offering not the slightest indication of studious preoccupation or +mental training. A large mouth, light blue eyes, a square jaw, the other +features being indistinctive--were immobile as a mask--except that, +unlike a mask, they seemed to actually reflect the vacuity of the mood +within, instead of concealing it. But as he saluted the trustees they +each had the same feeling that even this expression was imported and not +instinctive. His face was clean-shaven, and his hair cut so short as to +suggest that a wig of some kind was necessary to give it characteristic +or even ordinary human semblance. His manner, self-assured yet lacking +reality, and his dress of respectable cut and material, yet worn as if +it did not belong to him, completed a picture as unlike a student or +schoolmaster as could be possibly conceived. + +Yet there was the letter in Mr. Peaseley's hands from Barstow, +introducing Mr. Charles Twing as the first assistant teacher in the Pine +Clearing Free Academy! + +The three men looked hopelessly at each other. An air of fatigued +righteousness and a desire to be spiritually at rest from other trials +pervaded Mr. Peaseley. Whether or not the young man felt the evident +objection he had raised, he assumed a careless position, with his back +and elbows against the bar; but even the attitude was clearly not his +own. + +"Are you personally known to Mr. Barstow?" asked Sperry, with a slight +business asperity. + +"Yes." + +"That is--you are quite well acquainted with him?" + +"If you'd heard me gag his style a minute ago, so that everybody here +knew who it was, you'd say so." + +Mr. Peaseley's eyes sought the ceiling, and rested on the hanging lamp, +as if nothing short of direct providential interference could meet the +occasion. Yet, as the eyes of his brother trustees were bent on him +expectantly, he nerved himself to say something. + +"I suppose, Mr.--Mr. Twing, you have properly understood the great--I +may say, very grave, intellectual, and moral responsibilities of the +work you seek to undertake--and the necessity of supporting it by +EXAMPLE, by practice, by personal influence both in the school and OUT +OF IT. Sir, I presume, sir, you feel that you are fully competent to +undertake this?" + +"I reckon HE does!" + +"WHO does?" + +"Sam Barstow, or he wouldn't have selected me. I presume" (with the +slightest possible and almost instinctive imitation of the reverend +gentleman's manner) "his head is considered level." + +Mr. Peaseley withdrew his eyes from the ceiling. "I have," he said to +his companions, with a pained smile, "an important choir meeting to +attend this afternoon. I fear I must be excused." As he moved towards +the door, the others formally following him, until out of the stranger's +hearing, he added: "I wash my hands of this. After so wanton and +unseemly an exhibition of utter incompetency, and even of understanding +of the trust imposed upon him--upon US--MY conscience forbids me to +interfere further. But the real arbiter in this matter will be--thank +Heaven!--the mistress herself. You have only to confront her at once +with this man. HER decision will be speedy and final. For even Mr. +Barstow will not dare to force so outrageous a character upon a +delicate, refined woman, in a familiar and confidential capacity." + +"That's so," said Sperry eagerly; "she'll settle it. And, of course," +added the mill-owner, "that will leave us out of any difficulty with +Sam." + +The two men returned to the hapless stranger, relieved, yet constrained +by the sacrifice to which they felt they were leading him. It would be +necessary, they said, to introduce him to his principal, Mrs. Martin, +at once. They might still find her at the schoolhouse, distant but a few +steps. They said little else, the stranger keeping up an ostentatious +whistling, and becoming more and more incongruous, they thought, as they +neared the pretty schoolhouse. Here they DID find Mrs. Martin, who had, +naturally, lingered after the interview with Sperry. + +She came forward to meet them, with the nervous shyness and slightly +fastidious hesitation that was her nature. They saw, or fancied +they saw, the same surprise and disappointment they had themselves +experienced pass over her sensitive face, as she looked at him; they +felt that their vulgar charge appeared still more outrageous by contrast +with this delicate woman and her pretty, refined surroundings; but they +saw that HE enjoyed it, and was even--if such a word could be applied to +so self-conscious a man--more at ease in her presence! + +"I reckon you and me will pull together very well, ma'am," he said +confidently. + +They looked to see her turn her back upon him; faint, or burst out +crying; but she did neither, and only gazed at him quietly. + +"It's a mighty pretty place you've got here--and I like it, and if WE +can't run it, I don't know who can. Only just let me know WHAT you want, +ma'am, and you can count on me every time." + +To their profound consternation Mrs. Martin smiled faintly. + +"It rests with YOU only, Mrs. Martin," said Sperry quickly and +significantly. "It's YOUR say, you know; you're the only one to be +considered or consulted here." + +"Only just say what you want me to do," continued Twing, apparently +ignoring the trustees; "pick out the style of job; give me a hint or +two how to work it, or what you'd think would be the proper gag to fetch +'em, and I'm there, ma'am. It may be new at first, but I'll get at the +business of it quick enough." + +Mrs. Martin smiled--this time quite perceptibly--with the least +little color in her cheeks and eyes. "Then you've had no experience in +teaching?" she said. + +"Well no." + +"You are not a graduate of any college?" + +"Not much." + +The two trustees looked at each other. Even Mr. Peaseley had not +conceived such a damning revelation. + +"Well," said Mrs. Martin slowly, "perhaps Mr. Twing had better COME +EARLY TOMORROW MORNING AND BEGIN." + +"Begin?" gasped Mr. Sperry in breathless astonishment. + +"Certainly," said Mrs. Martin in timid explanation. "If he is new to the +work the sooner the better." + +Mr. Sperry could only gaze blankly at his brother official. Had they +heard aright? Was this the recklessness of nervous excitement in a woman +of delicate health, or had the impostor cast some glamour upon her? Or +was she frightened of Sam Barstow and afraid to reject his candidate? +The last thought was an inspiration. He drew her quickly aside. "One +moment, Mrs. Martin! You said to me an hour ago that you didn't intend +to have asked Mr. Barstow to send you an assistant. I hope that, merely +because he HAS done so, you don't feel obliged to accept this man +against your better judgment?" + +"Oh no," said Mrs. Martin quietly. + +The case seemed hopeless. And Sperry had the miserable conviction that +by having insisted upon Mrs. Martin's judgment being final they had +estopped their own right to object. But how could they have foreseen her +extraordinary taste? He, however, roused himself for a last appeal. + +"Mrs. Martin," he said in a lower voice, "I ought to tell you that the +Reverend Mr. Peaseley strongly doubts the competency of that young man." + +"Didn't Mr. Barstow make a selection at your request?" asked Mrs. +Martin, with a faint little nervous cough. + +"Yes--but"-- + +"Then his competency only concerns ME--and I don't see what Mr. Peaseley +has to say about it." + +Could he believe his senses? There was a decided flush in the woman's +pale face, and the first note of independence and asperity in her voice. + +That night, in the privacy of his conjugal chamber, Mr. Sperry relieved +his mind to another of the enigmatical sex,--the stout Southwestern +partner of his joys and troubles. But the result was equally +unsatisfactory. "Well, Abner," said the lady, "I never could see, for +all your men's praises of Mrs. Martin, what that feller can see in HER +to like!" + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Mrs. Martin was early at the schoolhouse the next morning, yet not so +early but that she discovered that the new assistant had been there +before her. This was shown in some rearrangement of the school seats and +benches. They were placed so as to form a horseshoe before her desk, and +at the further extremity of this semicircle was a chair evidently for +himself. She was a little nettled at his premature action, although +admitting the utility of the change, but she was still more annoyed +at his absence at such a moment. It was nearly the school hour when +he appeared, to her surprise, marshaling a file of some of the smaller +children whom he had evidently picked up en route, and who were, to her +greater surprise, apparently on the best of terms with him. "Thought +I'd better rake 'em in, introduce myself to 'em, and get 'em to know me +before school begins. Excuse me," he went on hastily, "but I've a lot +more coming up, and I'd better make myself square with them OUTSIDE." +But Mrs. Martin had apparently developed a certain degree of stiffness +since their evening's interview. + +"It seems to me quite as important, Mr. Twing," she said drily, "that +you should first learn some of your own duties, which I came here early +to teach you." + +"Not at all," he said cheerfully. "Today I take my seat, as I've +arranged it, you see, over there with them, and watch 'em go through the +motions. One rehearsal's enough for ME. At the same time, I can chip in +if necessary." And before she could reply he was out of the schoolhouse +again, hailing the new-comers. This was done with apparently such +delight to the children and with some evidently imported expression into +his smooth mask-like face, that Mrs. Martin had to content herself with +watching him with equal curiosity. She was turning away with a sudden +sense of forgotten dignity, when a shout of joyous, childish laughter +attracted her attention to the window. The new assistant, with half a +dozen small children on his square shoulders, walking with bent back and +every simulation of advanced senility, was evidently personating, +with the assistance of astonishingly distorted features, the ogre of a +Christmas pantomime. As his eye caught hers the expression vanished, the +mask-like face returned; he set the children down, and moved away. And +when school began, although he marshaled them triumphantly to the very +door,--with what contortion of face or simulation of character she was +unable to guess,--after he had entered the schoolroom and taken his seat +every vestige of his previous facial aberration was gone, and only his +usual stolidity remained. In vain, as Mrs. Martin expected, the hundred +delighted little eyes before her dwelt at first eagerly and hopefully +upon his face, but, as she HAD NOT expected, recognizing from the +blankness of his demeanor that the previous performance was intended for +them exclusively, the same eager eyes were presently dropped again upon +their books in simple imitation, as if he were one of themselves. Mrs. +Martin breathed freely, and lessons began. + +Yet she was nervously conscious, meanwhile, of a more ill-omened +occurrence. This was the non-arrival of several of her oldest pupils, +notably, the refractory and incorrigible Pike County contingent to whom +Sperry had alluded. For the past few days they had hovered on the verge +of active insubordination, and had indulged in vague mutterings which +she had resolutely determined not to hear. It was, therefore, with some +inward trepidations, not entirely relieved by Twing's presence, that she +saw the three Mackinnons and the two Hardees slouch into the school +a full hour after the lessons had begun. They did not even excuse +themselves, but were proceeding with a surly and ostentatious defiance +to their seats, when Mrs. Martin was obliged to look up, and--as the +eldest Hardee filed before her--to demand an explanation. The culprit +addressed--a dull, heavy-looking youth of nineteen--hesitated with an +air of mingled doggedness and sheepishness, and then, without replying, +nudged his companion. It was evidently a preconcerted signal of +rebellion, for the boy nudged stopped, and, turning a more intelligent, +but equally dissatisfied, face upon the schoolmistress, began +determinedly:-- + +"Wot's our excuse for coming an hour late? Well, we ain't got none. WE +don't call it an hour late--WE don't. We call it the right time. We call +it the right time for OUR lessons, for we don't allow to come here to +sing hymns with babbies. We don't want to know 'where, oh where, are the +Hebrew children?' They ain't nothin' to us Americans. And we don't want +any more Daniels in the Lions' Den played off on us. We have enough of +'em in Sunday-school. We ain't hankerin' much for grammar and dictionary +hogwash, and we don't want no Boston parts o' speech rung in on us the +first thing in the mo'nin'. We ain't Boston--we're Pike County--WE are. +We reckon to do our sums, and our figgerin', and our sale and barter, +and our interest tables and weights and measures when the time comes, +and our geograffy when it's on, and our readin' and writin' and the +American Constitution in reg'lar hours, and then we calkilate to git +up and git afore the po'try and the Boston airs and graces come round. +That's our rights and what our fathers pay school taxes for, and we want +'em." + +He stopped, looking less towards the schoolmistress than to his +companions, for whom perhaps, after the schoolboy fashion, this attitude +was taken. Mrs. Martin sat, quite white and self-contained, with her +eyes fixed on the frayed rim of the rebel's straw hat which he still +kept on his head. Then she said quietly:-- + +"Take off your hat, sir." + +The boy did not move. + +"He can't," said a voice cheerfully. + +It was the new assistant. The whole school faced rapidly towards him. +The rebel leader and his followers, who had not noticed him before, +stared at the interrupter, who did not, however, seem to exhibit any of +the authority of office, but rather the comment and criticism of one of +themselves. "Wot you mean?" asked the boy indignantly. + +"I mean you can't take off your hat because you've got some things +stowed away in it you don't want seen," said Twing, with an immovable +face. + +"Wot things?" exclaimed the boy angrily. Then suddenly recollecting +himself, he added, "Go along! You can't fool me! Think you'll make me +take off my hat--don't you?" + +"Well," said Twing, advancing to the side of the rebel, "look here +then!" With a dexterous movement and a slight struggle from the boy, he +lifted the hat. A half-dozen apples, a bird's nest, two birds' eggs, +and a fluttering half-fledged bird fell from it. A wave of delight +and astonishment ran along the benches, a blank look of hopeless +bewilderment settled upon the boy's face, and the gravity of the +situation disappeared forever in the irrepressible burst of laughter, +in which even his brother rebels joined. The smallest child who had been +half-frightened, half-fascinated by the bold, bad, heroic attitude of +the mutineer, was quick to see the ridiculousness of that figure crowned +with cheap schoolboy plunder. The eloquent protest of his wrongs was +lost in the ludicrous appearance of the protester. Even Mrs. Martin felt +that nothing she could say at that moment could lift the rebellion into +seriousness again. But Twing was evidently not satisfied. + +"Beg Mrs. Martin's pardon, and say you were foolin' with the boys," he +said in a low voice. + +The discomfited rebel hesitated. + +"Say it, or I'll SHOW WHAT YOU'VE GOT IN YOUR POCKETS!" said Twing in a +terribly significant aside. + +The boy mumbled an apology to Mrs. Martin, scrambled in a blank, +hopeless way to his seat, and the brief rebellion ignominiously ended. +But two things struck Mrs. Martin as peculiar. She overheard the culprit +say, with bated breath and evident sincerity, to his comrades: "Hadn't +nothing in my hat, anyway!" and one of the infant class was heard to +complain, in a deeply-injured way, that the bird's nest was HIS, and had +been "stoled" from his desk. And there still remained the fact for which +Twing's undoubted fascination over the children had somewhat prepared +her--that at recess the malcontents--one and all--seemed to have +forgiven the man who had overcome them, and gathered round him with +unmistakable interest. All this, however, did not blind her to the +serious intent of the rebellion, or of Twing's unaccountable assumption +of her prerogative. While he was still romping with the children she +called him in. + +"I must remind you," she said, with a slight nervous asperity, "that +this outrageous conduct of Tom Hardee was evidently deliberated and +prepared by the others, and cannot end in this way." + +He looked at her with a face so exasperatingly expressionless that +she could have slapped it as if it had belonged to one of the older +scholars, and said,--"But it HAS ended. It's a dead frost." + +"I don't know what you mean; and I must remind you also that in this +school we neither teach nor learn slang." + +His immobile face changed for an instant to a look of such decided +admiration that she felt her color rise; but he wiped his expression +away with his hand as if it had been some artificial make-up, and said +awkwardly, but earnestly:-- + +"Excuse me--won't you? But, look here, Mrs. Martin, I found out early +this morning, when I was squaring myself with the other children, that +there was this row hangin' on--in fact, that there was a sort of idea +that Pike County wasn't having a fair show--excuse me--in the running of +the school, and that Peaseley and Barstow were a little too much on in +every scene. In fact, you see, it was just what Tom said." + +"This is insufferable," said Mrs. Martin, her eyes growing darker as +her cheeks grew red. "They shall go home to their parents, and tell them +from me"-- + +"That they're all mistaken--excuse me--but that's just what THEY'RE +GOIN' TO DO. I tell you, Mrs. Martin, their little game's busted--I beg +pardon--but it's all over. You'll have no more trouble with them." + +"And you think that just because you found Tom had something in his hat, +and exposed him?" said Mrs. Martin scornfully. + +"Tom HADN'T anything in his hat," said Twing, wiping his mouth slowly. + +"Nothing?" repeated Mrs. Martin. + +"No." + +"But I SAW you take the things out." + +"That was only a TRICK! He had nothing except what I had up my sleeve, +and forced on him. He knew it, and that frightened him, and made him +look like a fool, and so bursted up his conspiracy. There's nothin' +boys are more afraid of than ridicule, or the man or boy that make 'em +ridiculous." + +"I won't ask you if you call this FAIR to the boy, Mr. Twing?" said Mrs. +Martin hotly; "but is this your idea of discipline?" + +"I call it fair, because Tom knew it was some kind of a trick, and +wasn't deceived. I call it discipline if it made him do what was right +afterwards, and makes him afraid or unwilling to do anything to offend +me or you again. He likes me none the worse for giving him a chance of +being laughed out of a thing instead of being DRIVEN out of it. And," he +added, with awkward earnestness, "if you'll just leave all this to +ME, and only consider me here to take this sort of work which ain't +a lady's--off your hands, we'll just strike our own line between the +Peaseleys and Pike County--and run this school in spite of both." + +A little mollified, a good deal puzzled, and perhaps more influenced by +the man's manner than she had imagined, Mrs. Martin said nothing, but +let the day pass without dismissing the offenders. And on returning home +that evening she was considerably surprised to receive her landlady's +extravagant congratulations on the advent of her new assistant. "And +they do say, Mrs. Martin," continued that lady enthusiastically, "that +your just setting your foot down square on that Peaseley and that +Barstow, BOTH OF 'EM--and choosing your own assistant yourself--a plain +young fellow with no frills and fancies, but one that you could set +about making all the changes you like, was just the biggest thing you +ever did for Pine Clearing." + +"And--they--consider him quite--competent?" said Mrs. Martin, with timid +color and hesitating audacity. + +"Competent! You ask my Johnny." + +Nevertheless, Mrs. Martin was somewhat formally early at the schoolhouse +the next morning. "Perhaps," she said, with an odd mixture of dignity +and timidity, "we'd better, before school commences, go over the lessons +for the day." + +"I HAVE," he said quickly. "I told you ONE rehearsal was enough for me." + +"You mean you have looked over them?" + +"Got 'em by heart. Letter perfect. Want to hear me? Listen." + +She did. He had actually committed to memory, and without a lapse, the +entire text of rules, questions, answers, and examples of the lessons +for the day. + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Before a month had passed, Mr. Twing's success was secure and +established. So were a few of the changes he had quietly instituted. +The devotional singing and Scripture reading which had excited the +discontent of the Pike County children and their parents was not +discontinued, but half an hour before recess was given up to some +secular choruses, patriotic or topical, in which the little ones under +Twing's really wonderful practical tuition exhibited such quick and +pleasing proficiency, that a certain minstrel camp-meeting +song attained sufficient popularity to be lifted by general accord to +promotion to the devotional exercises, where it eventually ousted the +objectionable "Hebrew children" on the question of melody alone. Grammar +was still taught at Pine Clearing School in spite of the Hardees and +Mackinnons, but Twing had managed to import into the cognate exercises +of recitation a wonderful degree of enthusiasm and excellence. +Dialectical Pike County, that had refused to recognize the governing +powers of the nominative case, nevertheless came out strong in classical +elocution, and Tom Hardee, who had delivered his ungrammatical protest +on behalf of Pike County, was no less strong, if more elegant, in his +impeachment of Warren Hastings as Edmund Burke, with the equal sanction +of his parents. The trustees, Sperry and Jackson, had marveled, but +were glad enough to accept the popular verdict--only Mr. Peaseley still +retained an attitude of martyr-like forbearance and fatigued toleration +towards the new assistant and his changes. As to Mrs. Martin, she seemed +to accept the work of Mr. Twing after his own definition of it--as of a +masculine quality ill-suited to a lady's tastes and inclinations; but it +was noticeable that while she had at first repelled any criticism of him +whatever, she had lately been given to explaining his position to her +friends, and had spoken of him with somewhat labored and ostentatious +patronage. Yet when they were alone together she frankly found him very +amusing, and his presumption and vulgarity so clearly unintentional that +it no longer offended her. They were good friends without having any +confidences beyond the duties of the school; she had asked no further +explanation of the fact that he had been selected by Mr. Barstow +without reference to any special antecedent training. What his actual +antecedents were she had never cared to know, nor he apparently to +reveal; that he had been engaged in some other occupations of superior +or inferior quality would not have been remarkable in a community where +the principal lawyer had been a soldier, and the miller a doctor. The +fact that he admired her was plain enough to HER; that it pleased her, +but carried with it no ulterior thought or responsibility, might have +been equally clear to others. Perhaps it was so to HIM. + +Howbeit, this easy mutual intercourse was one day interrupted by what +seemed a trifling incident. The piano, which Mr. Barstow had promised, +duly made its appearance in the schoolhouse, to the delight of the +scholars and the gentle satisfaction of Mrs. Martin, who, in addition to +the rudimentary musical instruction of the younger girls, occasionally +played upon it herself in a prim, refined, and conscientious fashion. +To this, when she was alone after school hours, she sometimes added a +faint, colorless voice of limited range and gentlewomanly expression. It +was on one of these occasions that Twing, becoming an accidental auditor +of this chaste, sad piping, was not only permitted to remain to hear the +end of a love song of strictly guarded passion in the subjunctive +mood, but at the close was invited to try his hand--a quick, if not a +cultivated one--at the instrument. He did so. Like her, he added his +voice. Like hers, it was a love song. But there the similitude ended. + in dialect, illiterate in construction, idiotic in passion, and +presumably addressed to the "Rose of Alabama," in the very extravagance +of its childish infatuation it might have been a mockery of the +schoolmistress's song but for one tremendous fact! In unrestrained +feeling, pathetic yearning, and exquisite tenderness of expression, it +was unmistakably and appallingly personal and sincere. It was true the +lips spoken of were "lubly," the eyes alluded to were like "lightenin' +bugs," but from the voice and gestures of the singer Mrs. Martin +confusedly felt that they were intended for HERS, and even the refrain +that "she dressed so neat and looked so sweet" was glaringly allusive +to her own modish mourning. Alternately flushing and paling, with a +hysteric smile hovering round her small reserved mouth, the unfortunate +gentlewoman was fain to turn to the window to keep her countenance until +it was concluded. She did not ask him to repeat it, nor did she again +subject herself to this palpable serenade, but a few days afterwards, as +she was idly striking the keys in the interval of a music lesson, one +of her little pupils broke out, "Why, Mrs. Martin, if yo ain't a pickin' +out that pow'ful pretty tune that Mr. Twing sings!" + +Nevertheless, when Twing, a week or two later, suggested that he might +sing the same song as a solo at a certain performance to be given by the +school children in aid of a local charity, she drily intimated that it +was hardly of a character to suit the entertainment. "But," she added, +more gently, "you recite so well; why not give a recitation?" + +He looked at her with questioning and troubled eyes,--the one expression +he seemed to have lately acquired. "But that would be IN PUBLIC! +There'll be a lot of people there," he said doubtfully. + +A little amused at this first apparent sign of a want of confidence in +himself, she said, with a reassuring smile, "So much the better,--you do +it really too well to have it thrown away entirely on children." + +"Do YOU wish it?" he said suddenly. + +Somewhat confused, but more irritated by his abruptness, she replied, +"Why not?" But when the day came, and before a crowded audience, in +which there was a fair sprinkling of strangers, she regretted her rash +suggestion. For when the pupils had gone through certain calisthenic +exercises--admirably taught and arranged by him--and "spoken their +pieces," he arose, and, fixing his eyes on her, began Othello's defense +before the Duke and Council. Here, as on the previous occasion, she felt +herself personally alluded to in his account of his wooing. +Desdemona, for some occult reason, vicariously appeared for her in the +unwarrantable picture of his passion, and to this was added the absurd +consciousness which she could not put aside that the audience, following +with enthusiasm his really strong declamation, was also following his +suggestion and adopting it. Yet she was also conscious, and, as she +thought, as inconsistently, of being pleased and even proud of his +success. At the conclusion the applause was general, and a voice added +with husky admiration and familiarity:-- + +"Brayvo, Johnny Walker!" + +Twing's face became suddenly white as a Pierrot mask. There was a dead +silence, in which the voice continued, "Give us 'Sugar in the Gourd,' +Johnny." + +A few hisses, and cries of "Hush!" "Put him out!" followed. Mrs. Martin +raised her eyes quickly to where her assistant had stood bowing his +thanks a moment before. He was gone! + +More concerned than she cared to confess, vaguely fearful that she was +in some way connected with his abrupt withdrawal, and perhaps a little +remorseful that she had allowed her personal feelings to interfere with +her frank recognition of his triumph, she turned back to the schoolroom, +after the little performers and their audience had departed, in the hope +that he might return. It was getting late, the nearly level rays of the +sun were lying on the empty benches at the lower end of the room, but +the desk where she sat with its lid raised was in deep shadow. +Suddenly she heard his voice in a rear hall, but it was accompanied by +another's,--the same voice which had interrupted the applause. Before +she could either withdraw, or make herself known, the two men had +entered the room, and were passing slowly through it. She understood at +once that Twing had slipped out into a janitor's room in the rear, +where he had evidently forced an interview and explanation from his +interrupter, and now had been waiting for the audience to disperse +before emerging by the front door. They had evidently overlooked her in +the shadow. + +"But," said the stranger, as if following an aggrieved line of apology, +"if Barstow knew who you were, and what you'd done, and still thought +you good enough to rastle round here and square up them Pike County +fellers and them kids--what in thunder do you care if the others DO find +you out, as long as Barstow sticks to you?" + +"I've told you why, Dick," returned Twing gloomily. + +"Oh, the schoolma'am!" + +"Yes, she's a saint, an angel. More than that--she's a lady, Dick, +to the tip of her fingers, who knows nothing of the world outside a +parson's study. She took me on trust--without a word--when the trustees +hung back and stared. She's never asked me about myself, and now when +she knows who and what I have been--she'll loathe me!" + +"But look here, Jim," said the stranger anxiously. "I'll say it's all a +lie. I'll come here and apologize to you afore HER, and say I took you +for somebody else. I'll"-- + +"It's too late," said Twing moodily. + +"And what'll you do?" + +"Leave here." + +They had reached the door together. To Mrs. Martin's terror, as the +stranger passed out, Twing, instead of following him as she expected, +said "Good-night," and gloomily re-entered the schoolroom. Here he +paused a moment, and then throwing himself on one of the benches, +dropped his head upon a desk with his face buried in his hands--like a +very schoolboy. + +What passed through Mrs. Martin's mind I know not. For a moment she sat +erect and rigid at her desk. Then she slipped quietly down, and, softly +as one of the last shadows cast by the dying sun, glided across the +floor to where he sat. + +"Mrs. Martin," he said, starting to his feet. + +"I have heard all," she said faintly. "I couldn't help it. I was here +when you came in. But I want to tell you that I am content to know you +only as you seem to be,--as I have always found you here,--strong and +loyal to a duty laid upon you by those who had a full knowledge of all +you had been." + +"Did you? Do you know what I have been?" + +Mrs. Martin looked frightened, trembled a moment, and, recovering +herself with an effort, said gently, "I know nothing of your past." + +"Nothing?" he repeated, with a mirthless attempt at laughter, and a +quick breath. "Not that I've been a--a--mountebank, a variety actor--a +clown, you know, for the amusement of the lowest, at twenty-five cents a +ticket. That I'm 'Johnny Walker,' the song and dance man--the all-round +man--selected by Mr. Barstow to teach these boors a lesson as to what +they wanted!" + +She looked at him a moment--timidly, yet thoughtfully. "Then you are an +actor--a person who simulates what he does not feel?" + +"Yes." + +"And all the time you have been here you have been acting the +schoolmaster--playing a part--for--for Mr. Barstow?" + +"Yes." + +"Always?" + +"Yes." + +The color came softly to her face again, and her voice was very low. +"And when you sang to me that day, and when you looked at me--as +you did--an hour or two ago--while you were entertaining--you +were--only--acting?" + +Mr. Twing's answer was not known, but it must have been a full and +complete one, for it was quite dark when he left the schoolroom--NOT for +the last time--with its mistress on his arm. + + + + +IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +There was probably no earthly reason why the "Poco Mas o Menos" Club +of San Francisco should have ever existed, or why its five harmless, +indistinctive members should not have met and dined together as ordinary +individuals. Still less was there any justification for the gratuitous +opinion which obtained, that it was bold, bad, and brilliant. Looking +back upon it over a quarter of a century and half a globe, I confess I +cannot recall a single witticism, audacity, or humorous characteristic +that belonged to it. Yet there was no doubt that we were thought to be +extremely critical and satirical, and I am inclined to think we +honestly believed it. To take our seats on Wednesdays and Saturdays at +a specially reserved table at the restaurant we patronized, to be +conscious of being observed by the other guests, and of our waiter +confidentially imparting our fame to strangers behind the shaken-out +folds of a napkin, and of knowing that the faintest indication of +merriment from our table thrilled the other guests with anticipatory +smiles, was, I am firmly convinced, all that we ever did to justify our +reputations. Nor, strictly speaking, were we remarkable as individuals; +an assistant editor, a lawyer, a young army quartermaster, a bank clerk +and a mining secretary--we could not separately challenge any special +social or literary distinction. Yet I am satisfied that the very name +of our Club--a common Spanish colloquialism, literally meaning "a little +more or less," and adopted in Californian slang to express an unknown +quantity--was supposed to be replete with deep and convulsing humor. + +My impression is that our extravagant reputation, and, indeed, our +continued existence as a Club, was due solely to the proprietor of the +restaurant and two of his waiters, and that we were actually "run" +by them. When the suggestion of our meeting regularly there was first +broached to the proprietor--a German of slow but deep emotions--he +received it with a "So" of such impressive satisfaction that it might +have been the beginning of our vainglory. From that moment he became at +once our patron and our devoted slave. To linger near our table once or +twice during dinner with an air of respectful vacuity,--as of one who +knew himself too well to be guilty of the presumption of attempting +to understand our brilliancy,--to wear a certain parental pride and +unconsciousness in our fame, and yet to never go further in seeming to +comprehend it than to obligingly translate the name of the Club as "a +leedle more and nod quide so much"--was to him sufficient happiness. +That he ever experienced any business profit from the custom of the +Club, or its advertisement, may be greatly doubted; on the contrary, +that a few plain customers, nettled at our self-satisfaction, might +have resented his favoritism seemed more probable. Equally vague, +disinterested, and loyal was the attachment of the two waiters,--one +an Italian, faintly reminiscent of better days and possibly superior +extraction; the other a rough but kindly Western man, who might have +taken this menial position from temporary stress of circumstances, yet +who continued in it from sheer dominance of habit and some feebleness of +will. They both vied with each other to please us. It may have been they +considered their attendance upon a reputed intellectual company less +degrading than ministering to the purely animal and silent wants of +the average customers. It may have been that they were attracted by +our general youthfulness. Indeed, I am inclined to think that they +themselves were much more distinctive and interesting than any members +of the Club, and it is to introduce THEM that I venture to recall so +much of its history. + +A few months after our advent at the restaurant, one evening, Joe +Tallant, the mining secretary, one of our liveliest members, was +observed to be awkward and distrait during dinner, forgetting even to +offer the usual gratuity to the Italian waiter who handed him his hat, +although he stared at him with an imbecile smile. As we chanced to leave +the restaurant together, I was rallying him upon his abstraction, when +to my surprise he said gravely: "Look here, one of two things has got to +happen: either we must change our restaurant or I'm going to resign." + +"Why?" + +"Well, to make matters clear, I'm obliged to tell you something that +in our business we usually keep a secret. About three weeks ago I had +a notice to transfer twenty feet of Gold Hill to a fellow named +'Tournelli.' Well, Tournelli happened to call for it himself, and who +the devil do you suppose Tournelli was? Why our Italian waiter. I was +regularly startled, and so was he. But business is business; so I passed +him over the stock and said nothing--nor did he--neither there nor here. +Day before yesterday he had thirty feet more transferred to him, and +sold out." + +"Well?" I said impatiently. + +"Well," repeated Tallant indignantly. "Gold Hill's worth six hundred +dollars a foot. That's eighteen thousand dollars cash. And a man who's +good enough for that much money is too good to wait upon me. Fancy a man +who could pay my whole year's salary with five feet of stock slinging +hash to ME. Fancy YOU tipping him with a quarter!" + +"But if HE don't mind it--and prefers to continue a waiter--why should +YOU care? And WE'RE not supposed to know." + +"That's just it," groaned Tallant. "That's just where the sell comes in. +Think how he must chuckle over us! No, sir! There's nothing aristocratic +about me; but, by thunder, if I can't eat my dinner, and feel I am as +good as the man who waits on me, I'll resign from the Club." + +After endeavoring to point out to him the folly of such a proceeding, I +finally suggested that we should take the other members of our Club into +our confidence, and abide by their decision; to which he agreed. But, to +his chagrin, the others, far from participating in his delicacy, seemed +to enjoy Tournelli's unexpected wealth with a vicarious satisfaction +and increase of dignity as if we were personally responsible for +it. Although it had been unanimously agreed that we should make no +allusions, jocose or serious, to him, nor betray any knowledge of it +before him, I am afraid our attitude at the next dinner was singularly +artificial. A nervous expectancy when he approached us, and a certain +restraint during his presence, a disposition to check any discussion +of shares or "strikes" in mining lest he should think it personal, an +avoidance of unnecessary or trifling "orders," and a singular patience +in awaiting their execution when given; a vague hovering between +sympathetic respect and the other extreme of indifferent bluntness in +our requests, tended, I think, to make that meal far from exhilarating. +Indeed, the unusual depression affected the unfortunate cause of it, +who added to our confusion by increased solicitude of service and--as if +fearful of some fault, or having incurred our disfavor--by a deprecatory +and exaggerated humility that in our sensitive state seemed like the +keenest irony. At last, evidently interpreting our constraint before him +into a desire to be alone, he retired to the door of a distant pantry, +whence he surveyed us with dark and sorrowful Southern eyes. Tallant, +who in this general embarrassment had been imperfectly served, and had +eaten nothing, here felt his grievance reach its climax, and in a sudden +outbreak of recklessness he roared out, "Hi, waiter--you, Tournelli. He +may," he added, turning darkly to us, "buy up enough stock to control +the board and dismiss ME; but, by thunder, if it costs me my place, I'm +going to have some more chicken!" + +It was probably this sensitiveness that kept us from questioning him, +even indirectly, and perhaps led us into the wildest surmises. He was +acting secretly for a brotherhood or society of waiters; he was a silent +partner of his German employer; he was a disguised Italian stockbroker, +gaining "points" from the unguarded conversation of "operating" +customers; he was a political refugee with capital; he was a fugitive +Sicilian bandit, investing his ill-gotten gains in California; he was +a dissipated young nobleman, following some amorous intrigue across the +ocean, and acting as his own Figaro or Leporello. I think a majority of +us favored the latter hypothesis, possibly because we were young, and +his appearance gave it color. His thin black mustaches and dark eyes, +we felt, were Tuscan and aristocratic; at least, they were like the +baritone who played those parts, and HE ought to know. Yet nothing could +be more exemplary and fastidious than his conduct towards the few lady +frequenters of the "Poodle Dog" restaurant, who, I regret to say, were +not puritanically reserved or conventual in manner. + +But an unexpected circumstance presently changed and divided our +interest. It was alleged by Clay, the assistant editor, that entering +the restaurant one evening he saw the back and tails of a coat that +seemed familiar to him half-filling a doorway leading to the restaurant +kitchen. It was unmistakably the figure of one of our Club members,--the +young lawyer,--Jack Manners. But what was he doing there? While the +Editor was still gazing after him, he suddenly disappeared, as if some +one had warned him that he was observed. As he did not reappear, when +Tournelli entered from the kitchen a few moments later, the Editor +called him and asked for his fellow-member. To his surprise the Italian +answered, with every appearance of truthfulness, that he had not seen +Mr. Manners at all! The Editor was staggered; but as he chanced, some +hours later, to meet Manners, he playfully rallied him on his mysterious +conference with the Italian. Manners replied briefly that he had had no +interview whatever with Tournelli, and changed the subject quickly. The +mystery--as we persisted in believing it--was heightened when another +member deposed that he had seen "Tom," the Western waiter, coming from +Manners's office. As Manners had volunteered no information of this, we +felt that we could not without indelicacy ask him if Tom was a client, +or a messenger from Tournelli. The only result was that our Club dinner +was even more constrained than before. Not only was "Tom" now invested +with a dark importance, but it was evident that the harmony of the Club +was destroyed by these singular secret relations of two of its members +with their employes. + +It chanced that one morning, arriving from a delayed journey, I dropped +into the restaurant. It was that slack hour between the lingering +breakfast and coming luncheon when the tables are partly stripped and +unknown doors, opened for ventilation, reveal the distant kitchen, and a +mingled flavor of cold coffee-grounds and lukewarm soups hangs heavy +on the air. To this cheerlessness was added a gusty rain without, that +filmed the panes of the windows and doors, and veiled from the passer-by +the usual tempting display of snowy cloths and china. + +As I seemed to be the only customer at that hour, I selected a table by +the window for distraction. Tom had taken my order; the other waiters, +including Tournelli, were absent, with the exception of a solitary +German, who, in the interlude of perfunctory trifling with the casters, +gazed at me with that abstracted irresponsibility which one waiter +assumes towards another's customer. Even the proprietor had deserted his +desk at the counter. It seemed to be a favorable opportunity to get some +information from Tom. + +But he anticipated me. When he had dealt a certain number of dishes +around me, as if they were cards and he was telling my fortune, he +leaned over the table and said, with interrogating confidence:-- + +"I reckon you call that Mr. Manners of yours a good lawyer?" + +We were very loyal to each other in the Club, and I replied with +youthful enthusiasm that he was considered one of the most promising at +the bar. And, remembering Tournelli, I added confidently that whoever +engaged him to look after their property interests had secured a +treasure. + +"But is he good in criminal cases--before a police court, for instance?" +continued Tom. + +I believed--I don't know on what grounds--that Manners was good in +insurance and admiralty law, and that he looked upon criminal practice +as low; but I answered briskly--though a trifle startled--that as a +criminal lawyer he was perfect. + +"He could advise a man, who had a row hanging on, how to steer clear of +being up for murder--eh?" + +I trusted, with a desperate attempt at jocosity, that neither he nor +Tournelli had been doing anything to require Manners's services in that +way. + +"It would be too late, THEN," said Tom, coolly, "and ANYBODY could tell +a man what he ought to have done, or how to make the best of what he +had done; but the smart thing in a lawyer would be to give a chap points +BEFOREHAND, and sorter tell him how far he could go, and yet keep +inside the law. How he might goad a fellow to draw on him, and then plug +him--eh?" + +I looked up quickly. There was nothing in his ordinary, good-humored, +but not very strong face to suggest that he himself was the subject of +this hypothetical case. If he were speaking for Tournelli, the Italian +certainly was not to be congratulated on his ambassador's prudence; and, +above all, Manners was to be warned of the interpretation which might be +put upon his counsels, and disseminated thus publicly. As I was thinking +what to say, he moved away, but suddenly returned again. + +"What made you think Tournelli had been up to anything?" he asked +sharply. + +"Nothing," I answered; "I only thought you and he, being friends"-- + +"You mean we're both waiters in the same restaurant. Well, I don't know +him any better than I know that chap over there," pointing to the other +waiter. "He's a Greaser or an Italian, and, I reckon, goes with his +kind." + +Why had we not thought of this before? Nothing would be more natural +than that the rich and imperious Tournelli should be exclusive, and have +no confidences with his enforced associates. And it was evident that Tom +had noticed it and was jealous. + +"I suppose he's rather a swell, isn't he?" I suggested tentatively. + +A faint smile passed over Tom's face. It was partly cynical and partly +suggestive of that amused toleration of our youthful credulity which +seemed to be a part of that discomposing patronage that everybody +extended to the Club. As he said nothing, I continued encouragingly:-- + +"Because a man's a waiter, it doesn't follow that he's always been one, +or always will be." + +"No," said Tom, abstractedly; "but it's about as good as anything else +to lie low and wait on." But here two customers entered, and he +turned to them, leaving me in doubt whether to accept this as a verbal +pleasantry or an admission. Only one thing seemed plain: I had certainly +gained no information, and only added a darker mystery to his conference +with Manners, which I determined I should ask Manners to explain. + +I finished my meal in solitude. The rain was still beating drearily +against the windows with an occasional accession of impulse that seemed +like human impatience. Vague figures under dripping umbrellas, that +hid their faces as if in premeditated disguise, hurried from the main +thoroughfare. A woman in a hooded waterproof like a domino, a Mexican +in a black serape, might have been stage conspirators hastening to a +rendezvous. The cavernous chill and odor which I had before noted as +coming from some sarcophagus of larder or oven, where "funeral baked +meats" might have been kept in stock, began to oppress me. The hollow +and fictitious domesticity of this common board had never before seemed +so hopelessly displayed. And Tom, the waiter, his napkin twisted in +his hand and his face turned with a sudden dark abstraction towards the +window, appeared to be really "lying low," and waiting for something +outside his avocation. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The fact that Tom did not happen to be on duty at the next Club dinner +gave me an opportunity to repeat his mysterious remark to Manners, and +to jokingly warn that rising young lawyer against the indiscretion of +vague counsel. Manners, however, only shrugged his shoulders. "I don't +know what he meant," he said carelessly; "but since he chooses to talk +of his own affairs publicly, I don't mind saying that they are neither +very weighty nor very dangerous. It's only the old story: the usual +matrimonial infidelities that are mixed up with the Californian +emigration. He leaves the regular wife behind,--fairly or unfairly, I +can't say. She gets tired waiting, after the usual style, and elopes +with somebody else. The Western Penelope isn't built for waiting. But +she seems to have converted some of his property into cash when she +skipped from St. Louis, and that's where his chief concern comes in. +That's what he wanted to see me for; that's why he inveigled me into +that infernal pantry of his one day to show me a plan of his property, +as if that was any good." + +He paused disgustedly. We all felt, I think, that Tom was some kind of +an impostor, claiming the sympathies of the Club on false pretenses. +Nevertheless, the Quartermaster said, "Then you didn't do anything for +him--give him any advice, eh?" + +"No; for the property's as much hers as his, and he hasn't got a +divorce; and, as it's doubtful whether he didn't desert her first, he +can't get one. He was surprised," he added, with a grim smile, "when I +told him that he was obliged to support her, and was even liable for +her debts. But people who are always talking of invoking the law know +nothing about it." We were surprised too, although Manners was always +convincing us, in some cheerful but discomposing way, that we were all +daily and hourly, in our simplest acts, making ourself responsible +for all sorts of liabilities and actions, and even generally preparing +ourselves for arrest and imprisonment. The Quartermaster continued +lazily:-- + +"Then you didn't give him any points about shooting?" + +"No; he doesn't even know the man she went off with. It was eighteen +months ago, and I don't believe he'd even know her again if he met +her. But, if he isn't much of a client, we shall miss him to-night as +a waiter, for the place is getting full, and there are not enough to +serve." + +The restaurant was, indeed, unusually crowded that evening; the more so +that, the private rooms above being early occupied, some dinner parties +and exclusive couples had been obliged to content themselves with the +public dining saloon. A small table nearest us, usually left vacant to +insure a certain seclusion to the Club, was arranged, with a deprecatory +apology from the proprietor, for one of those couples, a man and +woman. The man was a well-known speculator,--cool, yet reckless and +pleasure-loving; the woman, good-looking, picturesquely attractive, +self-conscious, and self-possessed. Our propinquity was evidently +neither novel nor discomposing. As she settled her skirts in her place, +her bright, dark eyes swept our table with a frank, almost childish, +familiarity. The younger members of the Club quite unconsciously pulled +up their collars and settled their neckties; the elders as unconsciously +raised their voices slightly, and somewhat arranged their sentences. +Alas! the simplicity and unaffectedness of the Club were again invaded. + +Suddenly there was a crash, the breaking of glass, and an exclamation. +Tournelli, no doubt disorganized by the unusual hurry, on his way to our +table had dropped his tray, impartially distributed a plate of +asparagus over an adjoining table, and, flushed and nervous, yet with +an affectation of studied calmness, was pouring the sauce into the young +Quartermaster's plate, in spite of his languid protests. At any other +time we would have laughed, but there was something in the exaggerated +agitation of the Italian that checked our mirth. Why should he be so +upset by a trifling accident? He could afford to pay for the breakage; +he would laugh at dismissal. Was it the sensitiveness of a refined +nature, or--he was young and good-looking--was he disconcerted by the +fact that our handsome neighbor had witnessed his awkwardness? But she +was not laughing, and, as far as I could see, was intently regarding the +bill of fare. + +"Waiter!" called her companion, hailing Tournelli. "Here!" The Italian, +with a face now distinctly white, leaned over the table, adjusting the +glasses, but did not reply. + +"Waiter!" repeated the stranger, sharply. Tournelli's face twitched, +then became set as a mask; but he did not move. The stranger leaned +forward and pulled his apron from behind. Tournelli started with +flashing eyes, and turned swiftly round. But the Quartermaster's hand +had closed on his wrist. + +"That's my knife, Tournelli." + +The knife dropped from the Italian's fingers. + +"Better see WHAT he wants. It may not be THAT," said the young officer, +coolly but kindly. + +Tournelli turned impatiently towards the stranger. We alone had +witnessed this incident, and were watching him breathlessly. Yet what +bade fair a moment ago to be a tragedy, seemed now to halt grotesquely. +For Tournelli, throwing open his linen jacket with a melodramatic +gesture, tapped his breast, and with flashing eyes and suppressed +accents said, "Sare; you wantah me? Look--I am herre!" + +The speculator leaned back in his chair in good-humored astonishment. +The lady's black eyes, without looking at Tournelli, glanced backward +round the room, and slipped along our table, with half-defiant +unconcern; and then she uttered a short hysterical laugh. + +"Ah! ze lady--madame--ze signora--eh--she wantah me?" continued +Tournelli, leaning on the table with compressed fingers, and glaring at +her. "Perhaps SHE wantah Tournelli--eh?" + +"Well, you might bring some with the soup," blandly replied her escort, +who seemed to enjoy the Italian's excitement as a national eccentricity; +"but hurry up and set the table, will you?" + +Then followed, on the authority of the Editor, who understood Italian, a +singular scene. Secure, apparently, in his belief that his language was +generally uncomprehended, Tournelli brought a decanter, and, setting +it on the table, said, "Traitress!" in an intense whisper. This +was followed by the cruets, which he put down with the exclamation, +"Perjured fiend!" Two glasses, placed on either side of her, carried the +word "Apostate!" to her ear; and three knives and forks, rattling +more than was necessary, and laid crosswise before her plate, were +accompanied with "Tremble, wanton!" Then, as he pulled the tablecloth +straight, and ostentatiously concealed a wine-stain with a clean napkin, +scarcely whiter than his lips, he articulated under his breath: "Let +him beware! he goes not hence alive! I will slice his craven +heart--thus--and thou shalt see it." He turned quickly to a side table +and brought back a spoon. "And THIS is why I have not found you;" +another spoon, "For THIS you have disappeared;" a purely perfunctory +polishing of her fork, "For HIM, bah!" an equally unnecessary wiping +of her glass, "Blood of God!"--more wiping--"It will end! Yes"--general +wiping and a final flourish over the whole table with a napkin--"I go, +but at the door I shall await you both." + +She had not spoken yet, nor even lifted her eyes. When she did +so, however, she raised them level with his, showed all her white +teeth--they were small and cruel-looking--and said smilingly in his own +dialect:-- + +"Thief!" + +Tournelli halted, rigid. + +"You're talking his lingo, eh?" said her escort good-humoredly. + +"Yes." + +"Well--tell him to bustle around and be a little livelier with the +dinner, won't you? This is only skirmishing." + +"You hear," she continued to Tournelli in a perfectly even voice; "or +shall it be a policeman, and a charge of stealing?" + +"Stealing!" gasped Tournelli. "YOU say stealing!" + +"Yes--ten thousand dollars. You are well disguised here, my little +fellow; it is a good business--yours. Keep it while you can." + +I think he would have sprung upon her there and then, but that the +Quartermaster, who was nearest him, and had been intently watching his +face, made a scarcely perceptible movement as if ready to anticipate +him. He caught the officer's eye; caught, I think, in ours the +revelation that he had been understood, drew back with a sidelong, +sinuous movement, and disappeared in the passage to the kitchen. + +I believe we all breathed more freely, although the situation was still +full enough of impending possibilities to prevent peaceful enjoyment +of our dinner. As the Editor finished his hurried translation, it was +suggested that we ought to warn the unsuspecting escort of Tournelli's +threats. But it was pointed out that this would be betraying the woman, +and that Jo Hays (her companion) was fully able to take care of himself. +"Besides," said the Editor, aggrievedly, "you fellows only think of +YOURSELVES, and you don't understand the first principles of journalism. +Do you suppose I'm going to do anything to spoil a half-column of leaded +brevier copy--from an eye-witness, too? No; it's a square enough fight +as it stands. We must look out for the woman, and not let Tournelli get +an unfair drop on Hays. That is, if the whole thing isn't a bluff." + +But the Italian did not return. Whether he had incontinently fled, or +was nursing his wrath in the kitchen, or already fulfilling his threat +of waiting on the pavement outside the restaurant, we could not guess. +Another waiter appeared with the dinners they had ordered. A momentary +thrill of excitement passed over us at the possibility that Tournelli +had poisoned their soup; but it presently lapsed, as we saw the couple +partaking of it comfortably, and chatting with apparent unconcern. Was +the scene we had just witnessed only a piece of Southern exaggeration? +Was the woman a creature devoid of nerves or feeling of any kind; or was +she simply a consummate actress? Yet she was clearly not acting, for +in the intervals of conversation, and even while talking, her dark eyes +wandered carelessly around the room, with the easy self-confidence of +a pretty woman. We were beginning to talk of something else, when the +Editor said suddenly, in a suppressed voice: + +"Hullo! What's the matter now?" + +The woman had risen, and was hurriedly throwing her cloak over her +shoulders. But it was HER face that was now ashen and agitated, and we +could see that her hands were trembling. Her escort was assisting her, +but was evidently as astonished as ourselves. "Perhaps," he suggested +hopefully, "if you wait a minute it will pass off." + +"No, no," she gasped, still hurriedly wrestling with her cloak. "Don't +you see I'm suffocating here--I want air. You can follow!" She began +to move off, her face turned fixedly in the direction of the door. We +instinctively looked there--perhaps for Tournelli. There was no one. +Nevertheless, the Editor and Quartermaster had half-risen from their +seats. + +"Helloo!" said Manners suddenly. "There's Tom just come in. Call him!" + +Tom, evidently recalled from his brief furlough by the proprietor on +account of the press of custom, had just made his appearance from the +kitchen. + +"Tom, where's Tournelli?" asked the Lawyer hurriedly, but following the +retreating woman with his eyes. + +"Skipped, they say. Somebody insulted him," said Tom curtly. + +"You didn't see him hanging round outside, eh? Swearing vengeance?" +asked the Editor. + +"No," said Tom scornfully. + +The woman had reached the door, and darted out of it as her escort +paused a moment at the counter to throw down a coin. Yet in that moment +she had hurried before him through the passage into the street. I +turned breathlessly to the window. For an instant her face, white as a +phantom's, appeared pressed rigidly against the heavy plate-glass, her +eyes staring with a horrible fascination back into the room--I even +imagined at us. Perhaps, as it was evident that Tournelli was not with +her, she fancied he was still here; perhaps she had mistaken Tom for +him! However, her escort quickly rejoined her; their shadows passed the +window together--they were gone. + +Then a pistol-shot broke the quiet of the street. + +The Editor and Quartermaster rose and ran to the door. Manners rose +also, but lingered long enough to whisper to me, "Don't lose sight of +Tom," and followed them. But to my momentary surprise no one else +moved. I had forgotten, in the previous excitement, that in those days +a pistol-shot was not unusual enough to attract attention. A few raised +their heads at the sound of running feet on the pavement, and the +flitting of black shadows past the windows. Tom had not stirred, but, +napkin in hand, and eyes fixed on vacancy, was standing, as I had seen +him once before, in an attitude of listless expectation. + +In a few minutes Manners returned. I thought he glanced oddly at Tom, +who was still lingering in attendance, and I even fancied he talked to +us ostentatiously for his benefit. "Yes, it was a row of Tournelli's. He +was waiting at the corner; had rushed at Hays with a knife, but had been +met with a derringer-shot through his hat. The lady, who, it seems, was +only a chance steamer acquaintance of Hays', thought the attack must +have been meant for HER, as she had recognized in the Italian a man who +had stolen from her divorced husband in the States, two years ago, and +was a fugitive from justice. At least that was the explanation given by +Hays, for the woman had fainted and been driven off to her hotel by +the Quartermaster, and Tournelli had escaped. But the Editor was on his +track. You didn't notice that lady, Tom, did you?" + +Tom came out of an abstracted study, and said: "No, she had her back to +me all the time." + +Manners regarded him steadily for a moment without speaking, but in a +way that I could not help thinking was much more embarrassing to the +bystanders than to him. When we rose to leave, as he placed his usual +gratuity into Tom's hand, he said carelessly, "You might drop into my +office to-morrow if you have anything to tell ME." + +"I haven't," said Tom quietly. + +"Then I may have something to tell YOU." + +Tom nodded, and turned away to his duties. The Mining Secretary and +myself could scarcely wait to reach the street before we turned eagerly +on Manners. + +"Well?" + +"Well; the woman you saw was Tom's runaway wife, and Tournelli the man +she ran away with." + +"And Tom knew it?" + +"Can't say." + +"And you mean to say that all this while Tom never suspected HIM, and +even did not recognize HER just now?" + +Manners lifted his hat and passed his fingers through his hair +meditatively. "Ask me something easier, gentlemen." + + + + +A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON. + + +Her father's house was nearly a mile from the sea, but the breath of +it was always strong at the windows and doors in the early morning, and +when there were heavy "southwesters" blowing in the winter, the wind +brought the sharp sting of sand to her cheek, and the rain an odd taste +of salt to her lips. On this particular December afternoon, however, as +she stood in the doorway, it seemed to be singularly calm; the southwest +trades blew but faintly, and scarcely broke the crests of the long +Pacific swell that lazily rose and fell on the beach, which only +a slanting copse of scrub-oak and willow hid from the cottage. +Nevertheless, she knew this league-long strip of shining sand much +better, it is to be feared, than the scanty flower-garden, arid and +stunted by its contiguity. It had been her playground when she first +came there, a motherless girl of twelve, and she had helped her father +gather its scattered driftwood--as the fortunes of the Millers were not +above accepting these occasional offerings of their lordly neighbor. + +"I wouldn't go far to-day, Jenny," said her father, as the girl stepped +from the threshold. "I don't trust the weather at this season; and +besides you had better be looking over your wardrobe for the Christmas +Eve party at Sol. Catlin's." + +"Why, father, you don't intend to go to that man's?" said the girl, +looking up with a troubled face. + +"Lawyer Miller," as he was called by his few neighbors, looked slightly +embarrassed. "Why not?" he asked in a faintly irritated tone. + +"Why not? Why, father, you know how vulgar and conceited he is,--how +everybody here truckles to him!" + +"Very likely; he's a very superior man of his kind,--a kind they +understand here, too,--a great trapper, hunter, and pioneer." + +"But I don't believe in his trapping, hunting, and pioneering," said +the girl, petulantly. "I believe it's all as hollow and boisterous as +himself. It's no more real, or what one thinks it should be, than he +is. And he dares to patronize you--you, father, an educated man and a +gentleman!" + +"Say rather an unsuccessful lawyer who was fool enough to believe that +buying a ranch could make him a farmer," returned her father, but half +jestingly. "I only wish I was as good at my trade as he is." + +"But you never liked him,--you always used to ignore him; you've +changed, father"--She stopped suddenly, for her recollection of her +father's quiet superiority and easy independence when he first came +there was in such marked contrast to his late careless and weak +concession to the rude life around them, that she felt a pang of vague +degradation, which she feared her voice might betray. + +"Very well! Do as you like," he replied, with affected carelessness; +"only I thought, as we cannot afford to go elsewhere this Christmas, it +might be well for us to take what we could find here." + +"Take what we could find here!" It was so unlike him--he who had always +been so strong in preserving their little domestic refinements in their +rude surroundings, that their poverty had never seemed mean, nor their +seclusion ignoble. She turned away to conceal her indignant color. She +could share the household work with a squaw and Chinaman, she could +fetch wood and water. Catlin had patronizingly seen her doing it, but to +dance to his vulgar piping--never! + +She was not long in reaching the sands that now lay before her, +warm, sweet-scented from short beach grass, stretching to a dim rocky +promontory, and absolutely untrod by any foot but her own. It was this +virginity of seclusion that had been charming to her girlhood; fenced +in between the impenetrable hedge of scrub-oaks on the one side, and the +lifting green walls of breakers tipped with chevaux de frise of white +foam on the other, she had known a perfect security for her sports +and fancies that had captivated her town-bred instincts and native +fastidiousness. A few white-winged sea-birds, as proud, reserved, and +maiden-like as herself, had been her only companions. And it was now +the custodian of her secret,--a secret as innocent and childlike as her +previous youthful fancies,--but still a secret known only to herself. + +One day she had come upon the rotting ribs of a wreck on the beach. Its +distance from the tide line, its position, and its deep imbedding of +sand, showed that it was of ancient origin. An omnivorous reader of all +that pertained to the history of California, Jenny had in fancy often +sailed the seas in one of those mysterious treasure-ships that had +skirted the coast in bygone days, and she at once settled in her mind +that her discovery was none other than a castaway Philippine galleon. +Partly from her reserve, and partly from a suddenly conceived plan, +she determined to keep its existence unknown to her father, as careful +inquiry on her part had found it was equally unknown to the neighbors. +For this shy, imaginative young girl of eighteen had convinced herself +that it might still contain a part of its old treasure. She would dig +for it herself, without telling anybody. If she failed, no one would +know it; if she were successful, she would surprise her father and +perhaps retrieve their fortune by less vulgar means than their present +toil. Thanks to the secluded locality and the fact that she was known +to spend her leisure moments in wandering there, she could work without +suspicion. Secretly conveying a shovel and a few tools to the spot the +next day, she set about her prodigious task. As the upper works were +gone, and the galleon not large, in three weeks, working an hour or two +each day, she had made a deep excavation in the stern. She had found +many curious things,--the flotsam and jetsam of previous storms,--but as +yet, it is perhaps needless to say, not the treasure. + +To-day she was filled with the vague hope of making her discovery before +Christmas Day. To have been able to take her father something on that +day--if only a few old coins--the fruit of her own unsuspected labor and +intuition--not the result of vulgar barter or menial wage--would have +been complete happiness. It was perhaps a somewhat visionary expectation +for an educated girl of eighteen, but I am writing of a young +Californian girl, who had lived in the fierce glamour of +treasure-hunting, and in whose sensitive individuality some of its +subtle poison had been instilled. Howbeit, to-day she found nothing. +She was sadly hiding her pick and shovel, as was her custom, when she +discovered the fresh track of an alien foot in the sand. Robinson Crusoe +was not more astounded at the savage footprint than Jenny Miller at this +damning proof of the invasion of her sacred territory. The footprints +came from and returned to the copse of shrubs. Some one might have seen +her at work! + +But a singular change in the weather, overlooked in her excitement, here +forced itself upon her. A light film over sea and sky, lifted only by +fitful gusts of wind, seemed to have suddenly thickened until it became +an opaque vault, narrowing in circumference as the wind increased. The +promontory behind her disappeared, as if swallowed up, the distance +before her seemed to contract; the ocean at her side, the color of +dull pewter, vanished in a sheet of slanting rain, and by the time she +reached the house, half running, half carried along by the quartering +force of the wind, a full gale was blowing. + +It blew all the evening, reaching a climax and fury at past midnight +that was remembered for many years along that coast. In the midst of it +they heard the booming of cannon, and then the voices of neighbors in +the road. "There was," said the voices, "a big steamer ashore just afore +the house." They dressed quickly and ran out. + +Hugging the edge of the copse to breathe and evade the fury of the wind, +they struggled to the sands. At first, looking out to sea, the girl saw +nothing but foam. But, following the direction of a neighbor's arm, for +in that wild tumult man alone seemed speechless, she saw directly before +her, so close upon her that she could have thrown a pebble on board, the +high bows of a ship. Indeed, its very nearness gave her the feeling that +it was already saved, and its occasional heavy roll to leeward, drunken, +helpless, ludicrous, but never awful, brought a hysteric laugh to her +lips. But when a livid blue light, lit in the swinging top, showed a +number of black objects clinging to bulwarks and rigging, and the sea, +with languid, heavy cruelty, pushing rather than beating them away, one +by one, she knew that Death was there. + +The neighbors, her father with the others, had been running hopelessly +to and fro, or cowering in groups against the copse, when suddenly they +uttered a cry--their first--of joyful welcome. And with that shout, +the man she most despised and hated, Sol. Catlin, mounted on a "calico" +mustang, as outrageous and bizarre as himself, dashed among them. + +In another moment, what had been fear, bewilderment, and hesitation +was changed to courage, confidence, and action. The men pressed eagerly +around him, and as eagerly dispersed under his quick command. Galloping +at his heels was a team with the whale-boat, brought from the river, +miles away. He was here, there, and everywhere; catching the line thrown +by the rocket from the ship, marshaling the men to haul it in, answering +the hail from those on board above the tempest, pervading everything +and everybody with the fury of the storm; loud, imperious, domineering, +self-asserting, all-sufficient, and successful! And when the boat was +launched, the last mighty impulse came from his shoulder. He rode at the +helm into the first hanging wall of foam, erect and triumphant! Dazzled, +bewildered, crying and laughing, she hated him more than ever. + +The boat made three trips, bringing off, with the aid of the hawser, +all but the sailors she had seen perish before her own eyes. The +passengers,--they were few,--the captain and officers, found refuge in +her father's house, and were loud in their praises of Sol. Catlin. But +in that grateful chorus a single gloomy voice arose, the voice of a +wealthy and troubled passenger. "I will give," he said, "five thousand +dollars to the man who brings me a box of securities I left in my +stateroom." Every eye turned instinctively to Sol.; he answered only +those of Jenny's. "Say ten thousand, and if the dod-blasted hulk holds +together two hours longer I'll do it, d--n me! You hear me! My name's +Sol. Catlin, and when I say a thing, by G-d, I do it." Jenny's disgust +here reached its climax. The hero of a night of undoubted energy and +courage had blotted it out in a single moment of native vanity and +vulgar avarice. + +He was gone; not only two hours, but daylight had come and they +were eagerly seeking him, when he returned among them, dripping +and--empty-handed. He had reached the ship, he said, with another; found +the box, and trusted himself alone with it to the sea. But in the surf +he had to abandon it to save himself. It had perhaps drifted ashore, and +might be found; for himself, he abandoned his claim to the reward. Had +he looked abashed or mortified, Jenny felt that she might have relented, +but the braggart was as all-satisfied, as confident and boastful as +ever. Nevertheless, as his eye seemed to seek hers, she was constrained, +in mere politeness, to add her own to her father's condolences. "I +suppose," she hesitated, in passing him, "that this is a mere nothing +to you after all that you did last night that was really great and +unselfish." + +"Were you never disappointed, Miss?" he said, with exasperating +abruptness. + +A quick consciousness of her own thankless labor on the galleon, and +a terrible idea that he might have some suspicion of, and perhaps the +least suggestion that she might have been disappointed in him, brought a +faint color to her cheek. But she replied with dignity:-- + +"I really couldn't say. But certainly," she added, with a new-found +pertness, "you don't look it." + +"Nor do you, Miss," was his idiotic answer. + +A few hours later, alarmed at what she had heard of the inroads of the +sea, which had risen higher than ever known to the oldest settler, and +perhaps mindful of yesterday's footprints, she sought her old secluded +haunt. The wreck was still there, but the sea had reached it. The +excavation between its gaunt ribs was filled with drift and the seaweed +carried there by the surges and entrapped in its meshes. And there, too, +caught as in a net, lay the wooden box of securities Sol. Catlin had +abandoned to the sea. + +This is the story as it was told to me. The singularity of coincidences +has challenged some speculation. Jenny insisted at the time upon sharing +the full reward with Catlin, but local critics have pointed out that +from subsequent events this proved nothing. For she had married him! + + + + +OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK. + + +It was a slightly cynical, but fairly good-humored crowd that had +gathered before a warehouse on Long Wharf in San Francisco one afternoon +in the summer of '51. Although the occasion was an auction, the bidders' +chances more than usually hazardous, and the season and locality famous +for reckless speculation, there was scarcely any excitement among the +bystanders, and a lazy, half-humorous curiosity seemed to have taken the +place of any zeal for gain. + +It was an auction of unclaimed trunks and boxes--the personal luggage of +early emigrants--which had been left on storage in hulk or warehouse at +San Francisco, while the owner was seeking his fortune in the mines. The +difficulty and expense of transport, often obliging the gold-seeker +to make part of his journey on foot, restricted him to the smallest +impedimenta, and that of a kind not often found in the luggage of +ordinary civilization. As a consequence, during the emigration of +'49, he was apt on landing to avail himself of the invitation usually +displayed on some of the doors of the rude hostelries on the shore: +"Rest for the Weary and Storage for Trunks." In a majority of cases +he never returned to claim his stored property. Enforced absence, +protracted equally by good or evil fortune, accumulated the high storage +charges until they usually far exceeded the actual value of the goods; +sickness, further emigration, or death also reduced the number of +possible claimants, and that more wonderful human frailty--absolute +forgetfulness of deposited possessions--combined together to leave +the bulk of the property in the custodian's hands. Under an understood +agreement they were always sold at public auction after a given time. +Although the contents of some of the trunks were exposed, it was found +more in keeping with the public sentiment to sell the trunks LOCKED and +UNOPENED. The element of curiosity was kept up from time to time by the +incautious disclosures of the lucky or unlucky purchaser, and general +bidding thus encouraged--except when the speculator, with the true +gambling instinct, gave no indication in his face of what was drawn in +this lottery. Generally, however, some suggestion in the exterior of +the trunk, a label or initials; some conjectural knowledge of its former +owner, or the idea that he might be secretly present in the hope of +getting his property back for less than the accumulated dues, kept up +the bidding and interest. + +A modest-looking, well-worn portmanteau had been just put up at a +small opening bid, when Harry Flint joined the crowd. The young man had +arrived a week before at San Francisco friendless and penniless, and had +been forced to part with his own effects to procure necessary food +and lodging while looking for an employment. In the irony of fate that +morning the proprietors of a dry-goods store, struck with his good looks +and manners, had offered him a situation, if he could make himself +more presentable to their fair clients. Harry Flint was gazing half +abstractedly, half hopelessly, at the portmanteau without noticing the +auctioneer's persuasive challenge. In his abstraction he was not aware +that the auctioneer's assistant was also looking at him curiously, and +that possibly his dejected and half-clad appearance had excited the +attention of one of the cynical bystanders, who was exchanging a few +words with the assistant. He was, however, recalled to himself a moment +later when the portmanteau was knocked down at fifteen dollars, and +considerably startled when the assistant placed it at his feet with a +grim smile. "That's your property, Fowler, and I reckon you look as if +you wanted it back bad." + +"But--there's some mistake," stammered Flint. "I didn't bid." + +"No, but Tom Flynn did for you. You see, I spotted you from the first, +and told Flynn I reckoned you were one of those chaps who came back from +the mines dead broke. And he up and bought your things for you--like a +square man. That's Flynn's style, if he is a gambler." + +"But," persisted Flint, "this never was my property. My name isn't +Fowler, and I never left anything here." + +The assistant looked at him with a grim, half-credulous, half-scornful +smile. "Have it your own way," he said, "but I oughter tell ye, old +man, that I'm the warehouse clerk, and I remember YOU. I'm here for that +purpose. But as that thar valise is bought and paid for by somebody else +and given to you, it's nothing more to me. Take it or leave it." + +The ridiculousness of quarreling over the mere form of his good fortune +here struck Flint, and, as his abrupt benefactor had as abruptly +disappeared, he hurried off with his prize. Reaching his cheap +lodging-house, he examined its contents. As he had surmised, it +contained a full suit of clothing of the better sort, and suitable to +his urban needs. There were a few articles of jewelry, which he put +religiously aside. There were some letters, which seemed to be of a +purely business character. There were a few daguerreotypes of pretty +faces, one of which was singularly fascinating to him. But there +was another, of a young man, which startled him with its marvelous +resemblance to HIMSELF! In a flash of intelligence he understood it all +now. It was the likeness of the former owner of the trunk, for whom +the assistant had actually mistaken him! He glanced hurriedly at the +envelopes of the letters. They were addressed to Shelby Fowler, the name +by which the assistant had just called him. The mystery was plain now. +And for the present he could fairly accept his good luck, and trust to +later fortune to justify himself. + +Transformed in his new garb, he left his lodgings to present himself +once more to his possible employer. His way led past one of the large +gambling saloons. It was yet too early to find the dry-goods trader +disengaged; perhaps the consciousness of more decent, civilized garb +emboldened him to mingle more freely with strangers, and he entered the +saloon. He was scarcely abreast of one of the faro tables when a man +suddenly leaped up with an oath and discharged a revolver full in his +face. The shot missed. Before his unknown assailant could fire again +the astonished Flint had closed with him, and instinctively clutched +the weapon. A brief but violent struggle ensued. Flint felt his strength +failing him, when suddenly a look of astonishment came into the furious +eyes of his adversary, and the man's grasp mechanically relaxed. The +half-freed pistol, thrown upwards by this movement, was accidentally +discharged point blank into his temples, and he fell dead. No one in the +crowd had stirred or interfered. + +"You've done for Australian Pete this time, Mr. Fowler," said a voice +at his elbow. He turned gaspingly and recognized his strange benefactor, +Flynn. "I call you all to witness, gentlemen," continued the gambler, +turning dictatorially to the crowd, "that this man was FIRST attacked +and was UNARMED." He lifted Flint's limp and empty hands and then +pointed to the dead man, who was still grasping the weapon. "Come!" He +caught the half-paralyzed arm of Flint and dragged him into the street. + +"But," stammered the horrified Flint, as he was borne along, "what does +it all mean? What made that man attack me?" + +"I reckon it was a case of shooting on sight, Mr. Fowler; but he missed +it by not waiting to see if you were armed. It wasn't the square thing, +and you're all right with the crowd now, whatever he might have had +agin' you." + +"But," protested the unhappy Flint, "I never laid eyes on the man +before, and my name isn't Fowler." + +Flynn halted, and dragged him in a door way. "Who the devil are you?" he +asked roughly. + +Briefly, passionately, almost hysterically, Flint told him his scant +story. An odd expression came over the gambler's face. + +"Look here," he said abruptly, "I have passed my word to the crowd +yonder that you are a dead-broke miner called Fowler. I allowed that you +might have had some row with that Sydney duck, Australian Pete, in the +mines. That satisfied them. If I go back now, and say it's a lie, that +your name ain't Fowler, and you never knew who Pete was, they'll jest +pass you over to the police to deal with you, and wash their hands of it +altogether. You may prove to the police who you are, and how that d--- +clerk mistook you, but it will give you trouble. And who is there here +who knows who you really are?" + +"No one," said Flint, with sudden hopelessness. + +"And you say you're an orphan, and ain't got any relations livin' that +you're beholden to?" + +"No one." + +"Then, take my advice, and BE Fowler, and stick to it! Be Fowler until +Fowler turns up, and thanks you for it; for you've saved Fowler's life, +as Pete would never have funked and lost his grit over Fowler as he did +with you; and you've a right to his name." + +He stopped, and the same odd, superstitious look came into his dark +eyes. + +"Don't you see what all that means? Well, I'll tell you. You're in the +biggest streak of luck a man ever had. You've got the cards in your own +hand! They spell 'Fowler'! Play Fowler first, last, and all the time. +Good-night, and good luck, MR. FOWLER." + +The next morning's journal contained an account of the justifiable +killing of the notorious desperado and ex-convict, Australian Pete, by +a courageous young miner by the name of Fowler. "An act of firmness +and daring," said the "Pioneer," "which will go far to counteract the +terrorism produced by those lawless ruffians." + +In his new suit of clothes, and with this paper in his hand, Flint +sought the dry-goods proprietor--the latter was satisfied and convinced. +That morning Harry Flint began his career as salesman and as "Shelby +Fowler." + + +From that day Shelby Fowler's career was one of uninterrupted +prosperity. Within the year he became a partner. The same miraculous +fortune followed other ventures later. He was mill owner, mine owner, +bank director--a millionaire! He was popular, the reputation of his +brief achievement over the desperado kept him secure from the attack of +envy and rivalry. He never was confronted by the real Fowler. There was +no danger of exposure by others--the one custodian of his secret, Tom +Flynn, died in Nevada the year following. He had quite forgotten his +youthful past, and even the more recent lucky portmanteau; remembered +nothing, perhaps, but the pretty face of the daguerreotype that had +fascinated him. There seemed to be no reason why he should not live and +die as Shelby Fowler. + +His business a year later took him to Europe. He was entering a train +at one of the great railway stations of London, when the porter, who +had just deposited his portmanteau in a compartment, reappeared at the +window followed by a young lady in mourning. + +"Beg pardon, sir, but I handed you the wrong portmanteau. That belongs +to this young lady. This is yours." + +Flint glanced at the portmanteau on the seat before him. It certainly +was not his, although it bore the initials "S. F." He was mechanically +handing it back to the porter, when his eyes fell on the young lady's +face. For an instant he stood petrified. It was the face of the +daguerreotype. "I beg pardon," he stammered, "but are these your +initials?" She hesitated, perhaps it was the abruptness of the question, +but he saw she looked confused. + +"No. A friend's." + +She disappeared into another carriage, but from that moment Harry Flint +knew that he had no other aim in life but to follow this clue and the +beautiful girl who had dropped it. He bribed the guard at the next +station, and discovered that she was going to York. On their arrival, +he was ready on the platform to respectfully assist her. A few words +disclosed the fact that she was a fellow-countrywoman, although residing +in England, and at present on her way to join some friends at Harrogate. +Her name was West. At the mention of his, he again fancied she looked +disturbed. + +They met again and again; the informality of his introduction was +overlooked by her friends, as his assumed name was already respectably +and responsibly known beyond California. He thought no more of his +future. He was in love. He even dared to think it might be returned; but +he felt he had no right to seek that knowledge until he had told her his +real name and how he came to assume another's. He did so alone--scarcely +a month after their first meeting. To his alarm, she burst into a flood +of tears, and showed an agitation that seemed far beyond any apparent +cause. When she had partly recovered, she said, in a low, frightened +voice:-- + +"You are bearing MY BROTHER'S name. But it was a name that the unhappy +boy had so shamefully disgraced in Australia that he abandoned it, and, +as he lay upon his death-bed, the last act of his wasted life was +to write an imploring letter begging me to change mine too. For the +infamous companion of his crime who had first tempted, then betrayed +him, had possession of all his papers and letters, many of them from ME, +and was threatening to bring them to our Virginia home and expose him +to our neighbors. Maddened by desperation, the miserable boy twice +attempted the life of the scoundrel, and might have added that blood +guiltiness to his other sins had he lived. I DID change my name to my +mother's maiden one, left the country, and have lived here to escape the +revelations of that desperado, should he fulfill his threat." + +In a flash of recollection Flint remembered the startled look that had +come into his assailant's eye after they had clinched. It was the same +man who had too late realized that his antagonist was not Fowler. "Thank +God! you are forever safe from any exposure from that man," he said, +gravely, "and the name of Fowler has never been known in San Francisco +save in all respect and honor. It is for you to take back--fearlessly +and alone!" + +She did--but not alone, for she shared it with her husband. + + + + +THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE. + + +There should have been snow on the ground to make the picture seasonable +and complete, but the Western Barbarian had lived long enough in England +to know that, except in the pages of a holiday supplement, this was +rarely the accompaniment of a Christmas landscape, and he cheerfully +accepted, on the 24th of December, the background of a low, brooding +sky, on which the delicate tracery of leafless sprays and blacker +chevaux de frise of pine was faintly etched, as a consistent setting +to the turrets and peacefully stacked chimneys of Stukeley Castle. Yet, +even in this disastrous eclipse of color and distance, the harmonious +outlines of the long, gray, irregular pile seemed to him as wonderful +as ever. It still dominated the whole landscape, and, as he had often +fancied, carried this subjection even to the human beings who had +created it, lived in it, but which it seemed to have in some dull, +senile way dozed over and forgotten. He vividly recalled the previous +sunshine of an autumnal house party within its walls, where some +descendants of its old castellans, encountered in long galleries or at +the very door of their bedrooms, looked as alien to the house as the +Barbarian himself. + +For the rest it may be found described in the local guide-books, with a +view of its "South Front," "West Front," and "Great Quadrangle." It +was alleged to be based on an encampment of the Romans--that highly +apocryphal race who seemed to have spent their time in getting up +picnics on tessellated pavements, where, after hilariously emptying +their pockets of their loose coin and throwing round their dishes, they +instantly built a road to escape by, leaving no other record of their +existence. Stow and Dugdale had recorded the date when a Norman favorite +obtained the royal license to "embattle it;" it had done duty on +Christmas cards with the questionable snow already referred to laid +on thickly in crystal; it had been lovingly portrayed by a fair +countrywoman--the vivacious correspondent of the "East Machias +Sentinel"--in a combination of the most delightful feminine disregard +of facts with the highest feminine respect for titles. It was rich in a +real and spiritual estate of tapestries, paintings, armor, legends, and +ghosts. Everything the poet could wish for, and indeed some things that +decent prose might have possibly wished out of it, were there. + +Yet, from the day that it had been forcibly seized by a Parliamentary +General, until more recently, when it had passed by the no less +desperate conveyance of marriage into the hands of a Friendly Nobleman +known to the Western Barbarian, it had been supposed to suggest +something or other more remarkable than itself. "Few spectators," said +the guide-book, "even the most unimpassioned, can stand in the courtyard +and gaze upon those historic walls without feeling a thrill of awe," +etc. The Western Barbarian had stood there, gazed, and felt no thrill. +"The privileged guest," said the grave historian, "passing in review the +lineaments of the illustrious owners of Stukeley, as he slowly paces the +sombre gallery, must be conscious of emotions of no ordinary character," +etc., etc. The Barbarian had been conscious of no such emotions. And +it was for this reason, and believing he MIGHT experience them if left +there in solitude, with no distracting or extraneous humanity around +him, it had been agreed between him and the Friendly Nobleman, who had +fine Barbarian instincts, that as he--the Friendly Nobleman--and his +family were to spend their holidays abroad, the Barbarian should be +allowed, on the eve and day of Christmas, to stay at Stukeley alone. +"But," added his host, "you'll find it beastly lonely, and although I've +told the housekeeper to look after you--you'd better go over to dine at +Audley Friars, where there's a big party, and they know you, and it will +be a deuced deal more amusing. And--er--I say--you know--you're really +NOT looking out for ghosts, and that sort of thing, are you? You know +you fellows don't believe in them--over there." And the Barbarian, +assuring him that this was a part of his deficient emotions, it was +settled then and there that he should come. And that was why, on the +24th of December, the Barbarian found himself gazing hopefully on the +landscape with his portmanteau at his feet, as he drove up the avenue. + +The ravens did NOT croak ominously from the battlements as he entered. +And the housekeeper, although neither "stately" nor "tall," nor full +of reminiscences of "his late lordship, the present Earl's father," was +very sensible and practical. The Barbarian could, of course, have his +choice of rooms--but--she had thought--remembering his tastes the last +time, that the long blue room? Exactly! The long, low-arched room, +with the faded blue tapestry, looking upon the gallery--capital! He +had always liked that room. From purely negative evidence he had every +reason to believe that it was the one formidable-looking room in England +that Queen Elizabeth had not slept in. + +When the footman had laid out his clothes, and his step grew fainter +along the passage, until it was suddenly swallowed up with the +closing of a red baize door in the turret staircase, like a trap in an +oubliette, the whole building seemed to sink back into repose. Quiet it +certainly was, but not more so, he remembered, than when the chambers on +either side were filled with guests, and floating voices in the corridor +were lost in those all-absorbing walls. So far, certainly, this was no +new experience. It was past four. He waited for the shadows to gather. +Light thickened beyond his windows; gradually the outflanking wall and +part of a projecting terrace crumbled away in the darkness, as if Night +were slowly reducing the castle. The figures on the tapestry in his room +stood out faintly. The gallery, seen through his open door, barred +with black spaces between the mullioned windows, presently became +obliterated, as if invaded by a dull smoke from without. But nothing +moved, nothing glimmered. Really this might become in time very stupid. + +He was startled, however, while dressing, to see from his windows that +the great banqueting hall was illuminated, but on coming down was amused +to find his dinner served on a small table in its oaken solitude lit +by the large electric chandelier--for Stukeley Castle under its present +lord had all the modern improvements--shining on the tattered banners +and glancing mail above him. It was evidently the housekeeper's reading +of some written suggestion of her noble master. The Barbarian, in a +flash of instinct, imagined the passage:-- + +"Humor him as a harmless lunatic; the plate is quite safe." + +Declining the further offer of an illumination of the picture gallery, +grand drawing-room, ball-room, and chapel, a few hours later he found +himself wandering in the corridor with a single candle and a growing +conviction of the hopelessness of his experiment. The castle had as yet +yielded to him nothing that he had not seen before in the distraction of +company and the garishness of day. It was becoming a trifle monotonous. +Yet fine--exceedingly; and now that a change of wind had lifted the +fog, and the full moon shone on the lower half of the pictures of the +gallery, starting into the most artificial simulation of life a number +of Van legs, farthingales, and fingers that would have deceived +nobody, it seemed gracious, gentle, and innocent beyond expression. +Wandering down the gallery, conscious of being more like a ghost than +any of the painted figures, and that they might reasonably object to +him, he wished he could meet the original of one of those pictured +gallants and secretly compare his fingers with the copy. He remembered +an embroidered pair of gloves in a cabinet and a suit of armor on the +wall that, in measurement, did not seem to bear out the delicacy of the +one nor the majesty of the other. It occurred to him also to satisfy a +yearning he had once felt to try on a certain breastplate and steel cap +that hung over an oaken settle. It will be perceived that he was getting +a good deal bored. For thus caparisoned he listlessly, and, as will +be seen, imprudently, allowed himself to sink back into a very modern +chair, and give way to a dreamy cogitation. + +What possible interest could the dead have in anything that was here? +Admitting that they had any, and that it was not the LIVING, whom the +Barbarian had always found most inclined to haunt the past, would not +a ghost of any decided convictions object to such a collection as his +descendant had gathered in this gallery? Yonder idiot in silk and steel +had blunderingly and cruelly persecuted his kinsman in leather and steel +only a few panels distant. Would they care to meet here? And if their +human weaknesses had died with them, what would bring them here at all? +And if not THEM--who then? He stopped short. The door at the lower end +of the gallery had opened! Not stealthily, not noiselessly, but in an +ordinary fashion, and a number of figures, dressed in the habiliments of +a bygone age, came trooping in. They did not glide in nor float in, but +trampled in awkwardly, clumsily, and unfamiliarly, gaping about them as +they walked. At the head was apparently a steward in a kind of livery, +who stopped once or twice and seemed to be pointing out and explaining +certain objects in the room. A flash of indignant intelligence filled +the brain of the Barbarian! It seemed absurd!--impossible!--but it +was true! It was a holiday excursion party of ghosts, being shown over +Stukeley Castle by a ghostly Cicerone! And as his measured, monotonous +voice rose on the Christmas morning air, it could be heard that he was +actually showing off, not the antiquities of the Castle, but the MODERN +IMPROVEMENTS! + +"This 'ere, gossips,"--the Barbarian instantly detected the fallacy of +all the so-called mediaeval jargon he had read,--"is the Helectric +Bell, which does away with our hold, hordinary 'orn blowin', and the +hattendant waitin' in the 'all for the usual 'Without there, who waits?' +which all of us was accustomed to in mortal flesh. You hobserve this +button. I press it so, and it instantly rings a bell in the kitchen +'all, and shows in fair letters the name of this 'ere gallery--as we +will see later. Will hany good dame or gaffer press the button? Will +YOU, mistress?" said the Cicerone to a giggling, kerchief-coifed lass. + +"Oi soy, Maudlin!--look out--will yer!--It's the soime old gag as them +bloomin' knobs you ketched hold of when yer was 'ere las' Whitsuntide," +called out the mediaeval 'Arry of the party. + +"It is NOT the Galvanic-Magnetic machine in 'is lordship's library," +said the Cicerone, severely, "which is a mere toy for infants, and +hold-fashioned. And we have 'ere a much later invention. I open this +little door, I turn this 'andle--called a switch--and, has you perceive, +the gallery is hinstantly hilluminated." + +There was a hoarse cry of astonishment from the assemblage. The +Barbarian felt an awful thrill as this searching, insufferable light +of the nineteenth century streamed suddenly upon the up-turned, +vacant-eyed, and dull faces of those sightseers of the past. But there +was no responsive gleam in their eyes. + +"It be the sun," gasped an old woman in a gray cloak. + +"Toime to rouse out, Myryan, and make the foire," said the mediaeval +'Arry. The custodian smiled with superior toleration. + +"But what do 'ee want o' my old lanthorne," asked a yellow-jerkined +stable boy, pointing to an old-fashioned horned lantern, tempus Edward +III., "with this brave loight?" + +"You know," said the custodian, with condescending familiarity, "these +mortals worship what they call 'curios' and the 'antique,' and 'is +lordship gave a matter of fifty pounds for that same lanthern. That's +what the modern folk come 'ere to see--like as ye." + +"Oi've an old three-legged stool in Whitechapel oi'll let his lordship +'ave cheap--for five quid," suggested the humorist. + +"The 'prentice wight knows not that he speaks truly. For 'ere is a +braver jest than 'is. Good folks, wilt please ye to examine yon coffer?" +pointing to an oaken chest. + +"'Tis but poor stuff, marry," said Maudlin. + +"'Tis a coffer--the same being made in Wardour Street last year--'is +lordship gave one hundred pounds for it. Look at these would-be +worm-holes,--but they were made with an AUGER. Marry, WE know what +worm-holes are!" + +A ghastly grin spread over the faces of the spectral assembly as they +gathered around the chest with silent laughter. + +"Wilt walk 'ere and see the phonograph in the libry, made by Hedison, +an Hamerican, which bottles up the voice and preserves it fresh for a +hundred years? 'Tis a rare new fancy." + +"Rot," said 'Arry. Then turning to the giggling Maudlin, he whispered: +"Saw it las' toime. 'Is lordship got a piece o' moy moind that oi +reeled off into it about this 'ere swindle. Fawney that old bloke there +charging a tanner apiece to us for chaffin' a bit of a barrel." + +"Have you no last new braveries to show us of the gallants and their +mistresses, as you were wont?" said Maudlin to the Cicerone. "'Twas +a rare show last time--the modish silk gowns and farthingales in the +closets." + +"But there be no company this Christmas," said the custodian, "and 'is +lordship does not entertain, unless it be the new fool 'is lordship sent +down 'ere to-day, who has been mopin' and moonin' in the corridors, as +is ever the way of these wittol creatures when they are not heeded. He +was 'ere in a rare motley of his own choosing, with which he thinks to +raise a laugh, a moment ago. Ye see him not--not 'avin' the gift that +belongs by right to my dread office. 'Tis a weird privilege I have--and +may not be imparted to others--save"-- + +"Save what, good man steward? Prithee, speak?" said Marian earnestly. + +"'Tis ever a shillin' extra." + +There was no response. A few of the more bashful ghosts thrust their +hands in their pockets and looked awkwardly another way. The Barbarian +felt a momentary relief followed by a slight pang of mortified vanity. +He was a little afraid of them. The price was an extortion, certainly, +but surely he was worth the extra shilling! + +"He has brought but little braveries of attire into the Castle," +continued the Cicerone, "but I 'ave something 'ere which was found on +the top of his portmanteau. I wot ye know not the use of this." To the +Barbarian's intense indignation, the Cicerone produced, from under his, +his (the Barbarian's) own opera hat. "Marry, what should be this? Read +me this riddle! To it--and unyoke!" + +A dozen vacant guesses were made as the showman held it aloft. Then +with a conjuror's gesture he suddenly placed his thumbs within the rim, +released the spring and extended the hat. The assembly laughed again +silently as before. + +"'Tis a hat," said the Cicerone, with a superior air. + +"Nay," said Maudlin, "give it here." She took it curiously, examined +it, and then with a sudden coquettish movement lifted it towards her own +coifed head, as if to try it on. The Cicerone suddenly sprang forward +with a despairing gesture to prevent her. And here the Barbarian was +conscious of a more startling revelation. How and why he could not tell, +but he KNEW that the putting on of that article of his own dress would +affect the young girl as the assumption of the steel cap and corselet +had evidently affected him, and that he would instantly become as +visible to her as she and her companions had been to him. He attempted +to rise, but was too late; she had evaded the Cicerone by ducking, and, +facing in the direction of the Barbarian, clapped the hat on her head. +He saw the swift light of consciousness, of astonishment, of sudden fear +spring into her eyes! She shrieked, he started, struggled, and awoke! + +But what was this! He was alone in the moonlit gallery, certainly; the +ghastly figures in their outlandish garb were gone; he was awake and +in his senses, but, in this first flash of real consciousness, he could +have sworn that something remained! Something terror-stricken, and +retreating even then before him,--something of the world, modern,--and, +even as he gazed, vanishing through the gallery door with the material +flash and rustle of silk. + +He walked quietly to the door. It was open. Ah! No doubt he had +forgotten to shut it fast; a current of air or a sudden draught had +opened it. That noise had awakened him. More than that, remembering the +lightning flash of dream consciousness, it had been the CAUSE of his +dream. Yet, for a few moments he listened attentively. + +What might have been the dull reverberation of a closing door in the +direction of the housekeeper's room, on the lower story, was all he +heard. He smiled, for even that, natural as it might be, was less +distinct and real than his absurd vision. + +Nevertheless the next afternoon he concluded to walk over to Audley +Friars for his Christmas dinner. Its hospitable master greeted him +cordially. + +"But do you know, my dear fellow," he said, when they were alone for +a moment, "if you hadn't come by yourself I'd have sent over there for +you. The fact is that A--- wrote to us that you were down at Stukeley +alone, ghost-hunting or something of that sort, and I'm afraid it leaked +out among the young people of our party. Two of our girls--I shan't tell +you which--stole over there last night to give you a start of some kind. +They didn't see you at all, but, by Jove, it seems they got the biggest +kind of a fright THEMSELVES, for they declare that something dreadful in +armor, you know, was sitting in the gallery. Awfully good joke, wasn't +it? Of course YOU didn't see anything,--did you?" + +"No," said the Barbarian, discreetly. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other +Stories, by Bret Harte + +*** \ No newline at end of file