The lawsuits forced upon the Mechlins, to resist the fraudulent claims
trumped up by Roper and Gasbang, obliged Gabriel to delay returning to
his place at the San Francisco bank. It was very painful to leave his
mother and Mercedes still so sick and depressed, but they themselves
urged him to go, fearing that his place would be given to another, and
now, when their pecuniary circumstances were so embarrassed, he could
ill afford to lose his position. But he did, for as the bank could not
wait for him longer, they took some one else instead. He wished to spare
his family the regret of knowing this, and tried to get anything to do
to earn a living. Thus he began that agony endured by so many young men
of good families and education, trying to find employment to support
themselves decently. Gabriel found the task most difficult. He was
dignified and diffident, and could not be too pressing. He was
persevering and patient and willing to work, but he dreaded to seem
importunate, and never urged his services upon any one. But he tried
everything, every means he could think of or Lizzie suggest to him. At
times he would find some writing to do, either copying or translating
English or Spanish, but this did not give him permanent employment, and
between one job and another Lizzie's jewelry had to be sold for their
daily expenses. They gave up the nice little cottage they had had
before, and took two small rooms at the house of a widow lady who kept a
few boarders. Their living was simple, indeed; but their landlady was
kind and courteous and obliging, and her house clean and very
respectable. Thus many months went by.
George and Elvira and Caroline wrote to them, constantly telling them
how and where they were. Now they were in Germany, as Mr. Mechlin's
physician advised George to try some German baths in which he had great
faith. His faith was justified in George's case, for he began to improve
rapidly before he had been taking the baths a month, and he was
confident of regaining his health perfectly. This was cheerful news, and
Lizzie felt great reluctance in writing to George how unsuccessful
Gabriel had been, thus perhaps checking his recovery by making him again
despondent; for it was a noted fact, well recognized by the two
families, that misfortunes made them all more or less physically ill.
The winter of 1876 now set in, and Gabriel thought he must make up his
mind to find some manual labor, and by that means perhaps get permanent
occupation; but here other obstacles, no less insuperable, confronted
him. He had had no training to fit him to be a mechanic, and what could
he do? He did not know, and yet his family must be supported. He had not
been able to send to his mother any money, as his scant earnings were
inadequate to support his wife and babies. There was now another little
girl to provide for--a little darling, eight months old. Poor people are
bound to have children.
About this time he got a letter from Victoriano, telling him how his
miserable legs had failed him again, giving out in the midst of his
plowing. Everett had come to help him plow up a fifty-acre piece of land
he had intended to put in wheat, but lo! before he had plowed two acres,
his legs seemed to disappear from under him as if the very Old Nick had
unscrewed his knees and carried them off. Tano added: "And here I am, a
perfect gentleman from my knees up, but a mean chicken, a ridiculous
turkey, a kangaroo, from my knees down; and this, too, when we can so
ill afford to have me lying in a sick-bed, perfectly useless. If land
was not so valueless now, we might perhaps be able to sell some,
although the price would have to be very low, on account of the delay in
getting our patent and its being mortgaged; but as all hopes in the
Texas Pacific are dead, land sales are dead, too, and we might as well
all be dead, for as we have nothing but land to get a living from, and
that is dead, you can draw the inference. However, don't worry about us;
for the present, we are getting along very well. Several of the cattle
lost in the mountains have come and keep coming, and Everett puts our
'_venta_' brand on, and pays mamma, on Clarence's account, cash down for
them. To-day he paid mamma three hundred dollars, and he says he heard
that more cattle are on the way here."
Gabriel was very glad that his mother and sisters would have this little
pittance at least, but he was much alarmed and anxious about Victoriano,
and hastened to tell Lizzie he thought they ought to go home.
"I am truly sorry for poor Tano. Really, my sweet husband, you must let
me write to George, telling him our circumstances. He can and will help
us, and we might go back to the rancho."
"No, don't write to him about that yet. I'll try to get money enough to
take us home. If Tano is sick, I certainly should be there. If he was
trying to plow, I think I can do that, too. Yes, I ought to have stayed
at home and worked in our orchard, and we would not have suffered the
distress of mind at my repeated failures. As soon as I make money enough
to pay the board bill I owe and have enough left to pay our fare to San
Diego, we'll go home. Don't write to George to help me, I don't like
that. I can work and help myself."
"Forgive me, my darling," said Lizzie, blushing crimson; "I have already
written to George. I told him I was going to persuade you to go home. I
wrote him a month ago. I expect his answer very soon." Seeing that
Gabriel also blushed, Lizzie added: "I am sorry if I offended you."
"You have not offended me. I blushed because I, too, have been keeping a
secret from you, thinking you might not approve of it, or feel
humiliated."
"What is it, pray?"
"I have been trying to learn a trade."
"A trade! What trade, for gracious sake?"
"A very respectable one. That of a mason."
"But can you learn that? Where?"
"Anywhere. I have been taking some lessons and earning my two dollars
per day besides."
"Oh, Gabriel, why did you do that?" said Lizzie, her face suffused with
blushes.
"There! See how you blush because I want to learn an honest trade, and
yet see how your people, the Americans, deride us, the Spanish, for
being indolent, unwilling to work. For my part, I am willing to prove
that I will work at anything that is not absolutely repulsive, to earn a
living."
"But how did you come to select that trade?"
"Because to go down town I had to pass by the houses of the railroad
millionaires which have been in process of construction. There are two
Californians from Santa Barbara, whom I know, working there, and to see
them earning their two dollars per day, while I have been losing months
in search of more gentlemanly work to do, suggested to me the idea of
also earning my two dollars a day while the gentlemanly occupation is
being found. Then I thought, too, that I might learn to be an architect,
perhaps."
"That is why you have been reading those books on architecture?"
"Yes, and I think I understand a good deal about it already, but I'll
combine practice with theory. The thing now is, as Tano is sick, I must
go home."
"Yes, let us go. I don't like the idea of your being a mason. Give it
up. I think I'd rather see you plowing."
"Yes; in my own land, you mean. Don't be proud. Let me work a little
while longer at _my trade_, and we'll go home."
But Lizzie was not willing he should, though she said nothing more about
it to him. She wrote to Dona Josefa, saying that if she could spare
fifty dollars, to, please, send that sum to her to enable them to come
home.
There would be ten days, however, before she could get Dona Josefa's
reply. This was not so agreeable, but Lizzie thought she would get ready
to start as soon as the money came.
The cause of Victoriano's second severe attack of lameness, of which he
spoke in his letter, was again exposure--exposure to cold and dampness.
About the same time that Gabriel was trying to be a mason, and working
as a common day laborer at two dollars per day, Victoriano had been
pruning trees, fixing fences, repairing irrigating ditches and plowing.
He had only two men to help him, so he worked very hard, in fact,
entirely too hard for one so unused to labor. Work broke him down.
"Plowing is too hard work for poor Tano," Dona Josefa said, looking at
Victoriano working in a field near the house, while the sad tears ran
down her pale cheeks.
"Yes, mamma, it is; and I begged him not to try to plow again, but he
insisted on doing so," Mercedes replied.
"What is the matter? Did he fall down?" Dona Josefa exclaimed, alarmed,
drawing her chair close to the window.
Mercedes arose from hers, and came to look down the orchard. Yes, there
was Victoriano sitting on the ground, and Everett standing by him.
Presently Everett sat down beside him, and an Indian boy, who had also
been plowing with another team, came up, leading his horses towards the
house.
Dona Josefa thought that they wanted to put the boy at some other work,
and that Tano was resting, so she sat quietly waiting to see whether he
would walk.
Mercedes now sat by her mother, also to watch Victoriano. She said:
"Mamma, tell Tano not to try plowing, the ground is very damp. He will
have that lameness again."
"I have told him, but he says he must work now, since we are so poor,
and have only land with a title that no one believes in, and no one will
buy. So what is he to do but work? And he has been working very hard all
the fall and winter, but I fear he is getting that lameness again. He
walks lame already."
They now saw that the Indian boy had run to the house to hitch his
horses to Clarence's phaeton and drive to where Tano was sitting.
Assisted by the Indian, Everett put Victoriano in the phaeton, and
brought him to the house.
It was as his mother and sister had feared--Victoriano was again unable
to walk. With great difficulty, assisted by Everett and the servant boy,
he reached his bed.
"Don't write to George or Gabriel that I am sick. Wait until I get
better, or worse," said he.
Seeing, however, that there was no change in his condition, he wrote to
Gabriel himself, telling him of his second attack. Willingly would
Gabriel have taken his little family and started for home, but he did
not have money enough to pay their fare, and he owed for their last
month's board. So there was nothing to do but to wait and work as a day
laborer yet for a while. He knew what he earned in a whole month would
scarcely be enough to pay their board, and that to go home he must write
his mother to send him money for their fare. But his pride revolted. He
hated to do this. He could not bring his mind to it. He hesitated.
About the time that Victoriano was taken sick and Gabriel was trying to
be a mason, George and family arrived in Paris on their return from
Germany. They would only spend a week or ten days in that city, and then
sail for New York.
The day before they were to start, a card was sent to Elvira from the
office of the hotel. Elvira took it very indifferently and read the
name, but the words she read seemed to be cabalistic, for she started,
turned red and then pale.
She handed the card to George, who read aloud, "Clarence Darrell."
"Ask the gentleman to please come up," said George to the servant, and
followed him, going to meet Clarence.
The two friends met and clasped each other in a tight embrace; to shake
hands seemed to both too cold a way of greeting, when they felt so much
pain and joy that to express their sentiments, words were inadequate.
When Clarence came in, he stretched both hands to Elvira, and she, on
the impulse of the moment, threw her arms around his neck and sobbed.
Mrs. Mechlin and Caroline were also affected to tears. Clarence brought
back to them vividly the happy days at Alamar, when Mr. Mechlin and Don
Mariano lived so contentedly in each other's society.
All were so anxious to learn how Clarence came to be in Paris, and where
he had been in all these years, and Elvira showered so many questions
upon him, that George told him he must remain with them and tell them
everything.
The family of Mr. Lawrence Mechlin were also in the same hotel, on their
way to New York.
George said to Clarence: "Prepare yourself to be cross-questioned by
aunt, for she has been very anxious about you."
Clarence replied he was willing to be questioned, and began his
narrative by saying how he came to miss all the letters written to him.
He said:
"When I was delirious and at the point of death in a cabin at the mines,
all the letters that came addressed to me the doctor put in a paper bag,
and when he left he considered me still too weak to read letters that
might cause me excitement, so he took the paper bag and placed it behind
a camp looking-glass which hung over a little table beside my bed. I was
so impressed with the conviction that I might not be considered fit to
marry Miss Mercedes, that when, upon asking if any letters had come for
me, and Fred Haverly, thinking that I meant other letters besides those
handed to the doctor, answered in the negative. I did not explain that I
had not received any at all. I accepted patiently what I considered a
natural result of my father's conduct, and said nothing. I went to
Mexico, and there a fatality followed my letters again. I missed them
twice--once through the mistake of a clerk at my bankers, the second
time by a mistake of the Secretary of the Legation, who misunderstood
Hubert's request about returning the letters to him. From Mexico I went
to South America, crossed to Brazil, and went to England. From England I
went to the Mediterranean, and since then I have been on the go, like
the restless spirit that I was, believing myself a miserable outcast. It
was almost accidentally that I came to Paris. I got a letter from
Hubert, and in a postscript he said that he hoped I got my letters at
last, for he had sent them with a remittance to my bankers, requesting
that my letters should be kept until I called for them. I was far up the
Nile when I received his letter, but next morning I started for Paris
with a beating heart, I can assure you. Twenty-six letters I found, and
I am more grieved than I can express to you to think that I did not get
them before."
Clarence arose and paced the floor in great agitation, and his friends
were much moved also, for they knew he was thinking that never again, in
this world, would he see his noble friend, Don Mariano.
On the following morning the Mechlins, accompanied by Clarence left
Paris. Before leaving, Clarence telegraphed to Mercedes:
"I have just received your letters written in '73. I leave for
New York to-morrow with the Mechlins, thence for California.
---- _Clarence Darrell._"
Everett, who had been to town, religiously, to see whether there might
be a letter from Clarence, or news about him, brought Mercedes the
cablegram.
Poor Mercedes, she read the few words many times over before she could
realize that they were from Clarence. When she did so, she was seized
with a violent trembling, and then completely overcome by emotion. Ah!
yes she would see him again, but where was now her darling papa, who was
so fond of Clarence?
Mercedes sent the dispatch for Mrs. Darrell to see, and when Everett
brought it back, Carlota made a copy of it to send to Lizzie in a letter
next day. The Darrells were truly overjoyed, thrown into a perfect storm
of pleasure. The old man said not a word. He went to his lonely room,
locked the door, and there, as usual since he lived the life of a
half-divorced man, battled with his spirit. This time, however, he
allowed tears to flow as he blessed his absent boy, and thanked God that
he was coming.
"If I had a decent pair of legs to speak of," said Tano to Everett, "I
would dance for sheer joy, but having no legs, I can only use my tongue
and repeat how glad I am."
When Gabriel came home in the evening of the day in which Lizzie
received the copy of Clarence's telegram, she said to him:
"Darling, don't go to that horrid work again. Clarence is coming, and
now he and George will establish the bank."
"Yes, but in the meantime I must earn enough to pay our board; remember,
we owe one month's board already. Be patient for a few days longer." And
she was patient, but anxious. A few days more passed, and she received
Dona Josefa's letter, inclosing seventy dollars, and saying she hoped
they would come immediately, for she wanted Gabriel at home.
"Now we have money enough to pay our board bill, and as George will
surely come to our assistance, why should you go to work as a mason?
Darling, leave that work," Lizzie begged.
"Let us see; Clarence's cablegram was dated twenty days ago. They must
have arrived in New York a week ago, and if he don't delay at all, he'll
be here in two or three days," Gabriel said.
"Then why should you work like that?"
"I'll stop to-morrow, but I must give notice of a day or two, at least,
for the foreman to get somebody else in my place."
When Gabriel arrived at his place of employment near Nob Hill, he found
that his occupation that day would be different from what it had been
before, and in the afternoon he was put to work at another place in the
building. He would have to carry bricks and mortar up a ladder to quite
a high wall. He told the foreman that he would rather not do that, as he
had never done such work and was very awkward about it. The foreman said
he had no one else to spare for that job, and Gabriel at last said he
would try. He had carried many loads, and was beginning to tremble with
fatigue, when upon going up, carrying a hod full of bricks, the ladder
slipped to one side a little. In his effort to steady it, Gabriel moved
it too much, and it fell to one side, taking him to the ground. As he
fell, the bricks fell upon him. He was insensible for some time. When he
regained consciousness he was being carried to a wagon which would take
him to the city hospital. Lizzie, to whom the foreman had sent a message
notifying her of the accident, now met the wagon.
"Where are you taking my husband?" she asked the driver.
"To the city hospital, ma'am."
"But why not take him home?"
"Because he will get attendance there quickly, Madam," said the foreman,
who evidently felt he was to blame for a very painful accident.
"If that is the case, let us go to the hospital," Lizzie said, getting
into the wagon. She sat beside Gabriel, and placed his head in her lap.
Gabriel smiled, and his beautiful eyes were full of love, but he could
scarcely speak a word.
The jolting of the wagon gave him much pain, and Lizzie asked the driver
to go very slow. "He ought to be carried on a stretcher, ma'am; he is
too much hurt to go in a wagon," said the driver.
They now came to a street-crossing, and several wagons were standing
still, waiting for a line of carriages to pass first.
"Oh, why do we wait? He is suffering so much!" Lizzie exclaimed. "He is
bleeding; he might bleed to death!"
"We are waiting for them carriages to pass, ma'am. They are carrying
people to a reception on Nob Hill, ma'am," said the driver.
On the other side of the street, in a carriage which also had been
stopped that the guests for the Nob Hill festivities might pass, sat
George and Clarence, just arrived, and on their way to see Lizzie and
Gabriel. They saw that a man lay in a wagon which stood in front of
them, and noticing that a woman sat by his side holding his head in her
lap, bending over him anxiously, Clarence said to the driver that there
seemed to be some one sick in that wagon, and that it should be allowed
to pass.
"Yes, sir; but he is a hod-carrier who fell down and hurt himself. I
suppose he'll die before he gets to the hospital," said the driver,
indifferently, as if a hod-carrier more or less was of no consequence.
"The carriages must pass first, the police says."
As Lizzie raised her head to ask the driver to take some other street,
they saw her. Both uttered an exclamation of surprise, and left their
carriages immediately, walking hurriedly to the wagon where she was.
"Lizzie, my sister, why are you here?" George asked.
"Oh, George! Gabriel fell down!" she replied, sobbing, her courage
failing now that she had some dear ones to protect her. "Oh, Clarence,
see how you find my darling! We are taking him to the city hospital, but
because those carriages must pass first my darling may die
here--bleeding to death!"
"Let me go for a physician immediately," said Clarence.
"Wait," George said, "Which is the nearest from here, Lizzie, your house
or the hospital? We must take him to the nearest place."
"The hospital is nearer, sir," the driver answered.
"Then let us go the hospital," George said, getting into the wagon
beside his sister, shocked to find Gabriel in a situation which plainly
revealed a poverty he had never imagined.
"I shall go for a surgeon, there might not be one at the hospital," said
Clarence. "I shall be there when you arrive."
The wagon went so slowly that Clarence, with a doctor, overtook them
before they reached the hospital. Meantime, Gabriel had whispered to
Lizzie and George, in a few words, how he had fallen down.
On arriving at the hospital he was carried to the best room, with best
attendance, two rooms adjoining were for his nurses, one to be occupied
by Lizzie and the other by George and Clarence, for neither of them
would leave Gabriel now.
The doctor would give no opinion as to his recovery. If he had internal
injuries of a serious character, they might prove fatal, but of this it
was impossible to judge at present. About eight o'clock Gabriel seemed
to be resting a little more comfortably, and Lizzie took that
opportunity to go to see her babies. She found them already asleep. The
kind landlady had given them their supper and put them to bed. She told
Lizzie of a good nurse who could be hired to take care of the baby, and
that she would engage her to come the next morning. Lizzie thanked her,
and then returned to her husband's bedside, and there, accompanied by
George and Clarence, she passed the night.
About daylight, with great reluctance, she was prevailed upon to lie
down on a lounge at the foot of Gabriel's bed, and as the patient seemed
to be resting quietly, George and Clarence went into the next room to
partake of a light collation.
George poured a glass of wine for Clarence and another for himself, and
both drank in silence. Evidently they could not eat.
"Was it possible to imagine that Gabriel could have become so poor that
he had to be a hod-carrier?" George said at last, scarcely above a
whisper.
Clarence being as much moved, took some time to reply.
"The thing is to me so shockingly preposterous and so very heart-rending
that it does not seem possible. And to think that if I had not gone
away, I might, yes, could, have prevented so much suffering! Oh! the
fool, the idiot that I was to go," said Clarence, rising and pacing the
room in great agitation. "I will never forgive myself nor my bankers
either, and shall take my money to some other bank. They should never
have given Don Gabriel's place to anybody else, for it was at my
request, and to oblige me that they employed him, and they have had the
use of my money all this time. Oh! how I wish you could have established
a bank here with the three hundred thousand dollars I placed to Don
Mariano's credit, since he would not accept any payment for the
cattle--_my_ cattle, mind you--lost in the snow. But perhaps three
hundred thousand dollars would have been rather small capital."
"It would have been plenty to begin with, but as the understanding was
that the bank was to be in San Diego, none of us felt authorized to
change the plan. I doubt if Don Mariano would have drawn any of the
three hundred thousand dollars. You know he mortgaged his rancho rather
than take any of your money."
"His money, you ought to say, for I had already bought his cattle. I
wish he had not taken so different a view of the matter. Really, the
money was his from the moment I agreed to make the purchase. But tell
me, why is it that Mrs. Mechlin lost her homestead. It might have been
sold to help the family."
George related how Peter Roper "_jumped_" the Mechlin house in true
vandalic style, breaking open the doors with axes and dragging out the
furniture when the family were in great grief, and how this outrage as
well as others were indulgently passed over by San Diego's august
tribunal of justice. George, however, did not know all. He did not know
that Judge Lawlack upon one occasion, when he had made a decision in
favor of Peter Roper and against the Mechlins, discovering upon
reflection that he had made a gross mistake, because the authority upon
which he based his decision, obviously favored the Mechlins, had changed
his decision. He actually called the attorneys of both sides into court
and then amended his own decree and had an entirely different judgment
entered--a judgment based upon another authority, which, with his
construction of the law, favored Peter. Then again when the Mechlins
tried to file another complaint, Peter got up, and in his coarse
loquacity, vociferously exhorted his Honor to send all the plaintiffs
and their attorney to jail for _contempt of court_ in daring to renew
their complaint when his Honor had decided that they had no case; that
the _innocent purchasers_, Roper and Gasbang, were the legitimate owners
of the Mechlin place. Whereupon, his Honor Lawlack hurriedly slid off
the judicial bench, under the judicial canopy, in high tantrums, and
shuffled off the judicial platform, gruffly mumbling: "I have passed
upon that before," and slouchingly made his exit.
The plaintiffs, their attorneys and their witnesses, were left to make
the best of _such legal proceedings_! They could not even take an appeal
to the Supreme Court, for they had no record; they could make no
pleadings; Judge Lawlack had carefully and effectively done all he could
to ruin their case. Peter winked and showed his yellow teeth and purple
gums in high glee, proud to have exhibited his influence with the Court,
and, as usual, went to celebrate his triumph by getting intoxicated and
being whipped, so that he had a black eye and skinned nose for several
days.
It was obvious to George and Clarence that the position of Gabriel and
Lizzie in San Francisco must have been painful in the extreme, and yet
they did not know all. Lizzie had never told anybody all the
disagreeable, humiliating, repugnant experiences she had had to pass
through. She had tried to help her husband to find some occupation more
befitting a gentleman than that of a day laborer. But she gave up her
sad endeavors, seeing that she was only humiliating herself to no
purpose. She met at times gentlemen and kind-hearted men, who were
courteous to her, but oftener she found occasion to despise mankind for
their unnecessary rudeness and most unprovoked boorishness. More painful
yet was the evident change she noticed in the manners of her lady
acquaintances.
Years before, when she was Lizzie Mechlin, she had moved in what was
called San Francisco's _best_ society. Her family, being of the very
highest in New York, were courted and caressed in exaggerated degree on
their arrival in California. Afterwards, for the benefit of Mr.
Mechlin's health, they went to reside in San Diego. When Gabriel came to
his position in the bank, she was again warmly received by all her
society friends. But this cordiality soon vanished. Her family went back
to New York, and she and Gabriel returned from San Diego to San
Francisco to find that he had lost his place at the bank. Then he
endeavored to get something else to do. This was bad enough, but when
_she_ tried to help him, then her fashionable friends disappeared. Nay,
they avoided her as if she had been guilty of some disgraceful act. The
fact that Gabriel was a _native Spaniard_, she saw plainly, militated
against them. If he had been rich, his nationality could have been
forgiven, but no one will willingly tolerate a _poor native
Californian_. To see all this was at first painful to Lizzie, but
afterwards it began to be amusing and laughable to see people show their
mean little souls and their want of brains in their eager chase after
the rich, and their discourtesy to an old acquaintance who certainly had
done nothing to forfeit respect. About that time the fever for stock
gambling was at its height. The _Big Bonanza_ was, in the twinkling of
an eye, making and unmaking money princes, and a new set of rich people
had rushed into "San Francisco's best society." The leaders of the _ton_
then, who held title by priority of possession, not forgetting that many
of them had had to serve a rigorous novitiate of years of probation
before they had been admitted to the high circles, were disposed to be
exclusive and keep off social "_jumpers_." But the weight of gold
carried the day. Down came the jealously guarded gates; the very portals
succumbed and crumbled under that heavy pressure. Farewell,
exclusiveness! Henceforth, money shall be the sole requisite upon which
to base social claims. High culture, talents, good antecedents,
accomplishments, all were now the veriest trash. Money, and nothing but
money, became the order of the day. Many of the newly created
money-nobility lived but a day in their new, their sporadic, evanescent
glory, and then, with a tumble of the stocks, went down head-foremost,
to rise no more. But some of the luckiest survived, and are yet shining
stars. Lizzie saw all this from her humble seclusion. Occasionally, at
the houses of those few friends who had remained unchanged in her day of
adversity, she met some of the newly arrived in society as well as a few
of the fading lights, taking a secondary place. All the new and the old
lights she saw, with equal impartiality, shifting their places
continually, and she began to think that, after all, this transposing of
positions perhaps was right, being the unavoidable outcome in a new
country, where naturally the raw material is so abundant, and the chase
after social position must be a sort of "_go-as-you-please_" race among
the golden-legged.
Therefore, like the true lady that she was, Lizzie had quietly accepted
her fate, and forgiven fickle society, without a murmur of complaint or
a pang of regret. But what certainly was a perennial anguish, a
crucifixion of spirit to her, was to see in Gabriel's pale face,--in
those superb eyes of his,--all his mental suffering; then courage failed
her, and on her bended knees she would implore a merciful heaven to pity
and help her beloved, her beautiful archangel.
What Gabriel suffered in spirit probably no one will ever know, for
though he inherited the natural nobility of his father, he was not like
him communicative, ready to offer or receive sympathy. He was sensitive,
kind, courteous and unselfish, but very reticent.
But if Gabriel had never complained, the eloquence of facts had said all
that was to be said. In that hod full of bricks not only his own sad
experience was represented, but _the entire history_ of the native
Californians of _Spanish descent_ was epitomized. Yes, Gabriel carrying
his hod full of bricks up a steep ladder, was a symbolical
representation of his race. The natives, of Spanish origin, having lost
all their property, must henceforth be hod-carriers.
Unjust laws despoiled them, but what of this? Poor they are, but who is
to care, or investigate the cause of their poverty? The thriving
American says that the native Spaniards are lazy and stupid and
thriftless, and as the prosperous know it all, and are almost
infallible, the fiat has gone forth, and the Spaniards of California are
not only despoiled of all their earthly possessions, but must also be
bereft of sympathy, because the world says they do not deserve it.
George and Clarence entertained a different opinion, however, and in
suppressed, earnest tones they now reviewed the history of the Alamares,
and feelingly deplored the cruel legislation that had ruined them.
Lizzie, unable to sleep, had again taken her place by the bedside, and
sadly watched the beautiful face which seemed like that of slumbering
Apollo. Would he recover, or was it possible that her darling would die,
now when relief had come? Oh, the cruel fate that made him descend to
that humble occupation.
Lizzie shuddered to think of all the suffering he would yet have to
undergo. Oh, it was so inexpressibly sad to think that his precious life
was risked for the pitiful wages of a poor hod-carrier!