He lived alone. I do not think this peculiarity arose from any wish to
withdraw his foolishness from the rest of the camp, nor was it probable
that the combined wisdom of Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My
impression is, that he lived alone from choice,--a choice he made long
before the camp indulged in any criticism of his mental capacity. He was
much given to moody reticence, and, although to outward appearances a
strong man, was always complaining of ill-health. Indeed, one theory of
his isolation was, that it afforded him better opportunities for taking
medicine, of which he habitually consumed large quantities.
His folly first dawned upon Five Forks through the post-office windows.
He was, for a long time, the only man who wrote home by every mail; his
letters being always directed to the same person,--a woman. Now, it so
happened that the bulk of the Five Forks correspondence was usually the
other way. There were many letters received (the majority being in
the female hand), but very few answered. The men received them
indifferently, or as a matter of course. A few opened and read them on
the spot, with a barely repressed smile of self-conceit, or quite as
frequently glanced over them with undisguised impatience. Some of the
letters began with “My dear husband;” and some were never called for.
But the fact that the only regular correspondent of Five Forks never
received any reply became at last quite notorious. Consequently, when
an envelope was received, bearing the stamp of the “dead letter office,”
addressed to “The Fool,” under the more conventional title of “Cyrus
Hawkins,” there was quite a fever of excitement. I do not know how the
secret leaked out; but it was eventually known to the camp, that the
envelope contained Hawkins's own letters returned. This was the first
evidence of his weakness. Any man who repeatedly wrote to a woman who
did not reply must be a fool. I think Hawkins suspected that his folly
was known to the camp; but he took refuge in symptoms of chills and
fever, which he at once developed, and effected a diversion with three
bottles of Indian cholagogue and two boxes of pills. At all events, at
the end of a week, he resumed a pen stiffened by tonics, with all his
old epistolatory pertinacity. This time the letters had a new address.
In those days a popular belief obtained in the mines, that luck
particularly favored the foolish and unscientific. Consequently, when
Hawkins struck a “pocket” in the hillside near his solitary cabin, there
was but little surprise. “He will sink it all in the next hole” was
the prevailing belief, predicated upon the usual manner in which the
possessor of “nigger luck” disposed of his fortune. To everybody's
astonishment, Hawkins, after taking out about eight thousand dollars,
and exhausting the pocket, did not prospect for another. The camp
then waited patiently to see what he would do with his money. I think,
however, that it was with the greatest difficulty their indignation was
kept from taking the form of a personal assault when it became known
that he had purchased a draft for eight thousand dollars, in favor of
“that woman.” More than this, it was finally whispered that the draft
was returned to him as his letters had been, and that he was ashamed
to reclaim the money at the express-office. “It wouldn't be a bad
specilation to go East, get some smart gal, for a hundred dollars, to
dress herself up and represent that 'Hag,' and jest freeze onto that
eight thousand,” suggested a far-seeing financier. I may state here,
that we always alluded to Hawkins's fair unknown as the “Hag” without
having, I am confident, the least justification for that epithet.
That the “Fool” should gamble seemed eminently fit and proper. That he
should occasionally win a large stake, according to that popular theory
which I have recorded in the preceding paragraph, appeared, also, a not
improbable or inconsistent fact. That he should, however, break the faro
bank which Mr. John Hamlin had set up in Five Forks, and carry off a
sum variously estimated at from ten to twenty thousand dollars, and
not return the next day, and lose the money at the same table, really
appeared incredible. Yet such was the fact. A day or two passed without
any known investment of Mr. Hawkins's recently-acquired capital. “Ef he
allows to send it to that 'Hag,'” said one prominent citizen, “suthin'
ought to be done. It's jest ruinin' the reputation of this yer
camp,--this sloshin' around o' capital on non-residents ez don't claim
it!” “It's settin' an example o' extravagance,” said another, “ez is
little better nor a swindle. Thais mor'n five men in this camp, thet,
hearin' thet Hawkins hed sent home eight thousand dollars, must jest
rise up and send home their hard earnings too! And then to think thet
thet eight thousand was only a bluff, after all, and thet it's lyin'
there on call in Adams & Co.'s bank! Well, I say it's one o' them things
a vigilance committee oughter look into.”
When there seemed no possibility of this repetition of Hawkins's folly,
the anxiety to know what he had really done with his money became
intense. At last a self-appointed committee of four citizens dropped
artfully, but to outward appearances carelessly, upon him in his
seclusion. When some polite formalities had been exchanged, and some
easy vituperation of a backward season offered by each of the parties,
Tom Wingate approached the subject.
“Sorter dropped heavy on Jack Hamlin the other night, didn't ye? He
allows you didn't give him no show for revenge. I said you wasn't
no such d----d fool; didn't I, Dick?” continued the artful Wingate,
appealing to a confederate.
“Yes,” said Dick promptly. “You said twenty thousand dollars wasn't
goin' to be thrown around recklessly. You said Cyrus had suthin' better
to do with his capital,” super-added Dick with gratuitous mendacity. “I
disremember now what partickler investment you said he was goin' to make
with it,” he continued, appealing with easy indifference to his friend.
Of course Wingate did not reply, but looked at the “Fool,” who, with
a troubled face, was rubbing his legs softly. After a pause, he turned
deprecatingly toward his visitors.
“Ye didn't enny of ye ever hev a sort of tremblin' in your legs, a
kind o' shakiness from the knee down? Suthin',” he continued, slightly
brightening with his topic,--“suthin' that begins like chills, and
yet ain't chills? A kind o' sensation of goneness here, and a kind o'
feelin' as it you might die suddint?--when Wright's Pills don't somehow
reach the spot, and quinine don't fetch you?”
“No!” said Wingate with a curt directness, and the air of
authoritatively responding for his friends,--“no, never had. You was
speakin' of this yer investment.”
“And your bowels all the time irregular?” continued Hawkins, blushing
under Wingate's eye, and yet clinging despairingly to his theme, like a
shipwrecked mariner to his plank.
Wingate did not reply, but glanced significantly at the rest. Hawkins
evidently saw this recognition of his mental deficiency, and said
apologetically, “You was saying suthin' about my investment?”
“Yes,” said Wingate, so rapidly as to almost take Hawkins's breath
away,--“the investment you made in”--
“Rafferty's Ditch,” said the “Fool” timidly.
For a moment, the visitors could only stare blankly at each other.
“Rafferty's Ditch,” the one notorious failure of Five Forks!--Rafferty's
Ditch, the impracticable scheme of an utterly unpractical
man!--Rafferty's Ditch, a ridiculous plan for taking water that could
not be got to a place where it wasn't wanted!--Rafferty's Ditch, that
had buried the fortunes of Rafferty and twenty wretched stockholders in
its muddy depths!
“And thet's it, is it?” said Wingate, after a gloomy pause. “Thet's it!
I see it all now, boys. That's how ragged Pat Rafferty went down to San
Francisco yesterday in store-clothes, and his wife and four children
went off in a kerridge to Sacramento. Thet's why them ten workmen of
his, ez hadn't a cent to bless themselves with, was playin' billiards
last night, and eatin' isters. Thet's whar that money kum frum,--one
hundred dollars to pay for the long advertisement of the new issue of
ditch stock in the 'Times' yesterday. Thet's why them six strangers
were booked at the Magnolia hotel yesterday. Don't you see? It's thet
money--and that 'Fool'!”
The “Fool” sat silent. The visitors rose without a word.
“You never took any of them Indian Vegetable Pills?” asked Hawkins
timidly of Wingate.
“No!” roared Wingate as he opened the door.
“They tell me, that, took with the Panacea,--they was out o' the Panacea
when I went to the drug-store last week,--they say, that, took with the
Panacea, they always effect a certin cure.” But by this time, Wingate
and his disgusted friends had retreated, slamming the door on the “Fool”
and his ailments.
Nevertheless, in six months the whole affair was forgotten: the money
had been spent; the “Ditch” had been purchased by a company of Boston
capitalists, fired by the glowing description of an Eastern tourist, who
had spent one drunken night at Five Forks; and I think even the mental
condition of Hawkins might have remained undisturbed by criticism, but
for a singular incident.
It was during an exciting political campaign, when party-feeling ran
high, that the irascible Capt. McFadden of Sacramento visited Five
Forks. During a heated discussion in the Prairie Rose Saloon, words
passed between the captain and the Hon. Calhoun Bungstarter, ending in
a challenge. The captain bore the infelicitous reputation of being
a notorious duellist and a dead-shot. The captain was unpopular. The
captain was believed to have been sent by the opposition for a deadly
purpose; and the captain was, moreover, a stranger. I am sorry to say
that with Five Forks this latter condition did not carry the quality
of sanctity or reverence that usually obtains among other nomads. There
was, consequently, some little hesitation when the captain turned upon
the crowd, and asked for some one to act as his friend. To everybody's
astonishment, and to the indignation of many, the “Fool” stepped
forward, and offered himself in that capacity. I do not know
whether Capt. McFadden would have chosen him voluntarily; but he was
constrained, in the absence of a better man, to accept his services.
The duel never took place. The preliminaries were all arranged, the
spot indicated; the men were present with their seconds; there was
no interruption from without; there was no explanation or apology
passed--but the duel did not take place. It may be readily imagined
that these facts, which were all known to Five Forks, threw the whole
community into a fever of curiosity. The principals, the surgeon, and
one second left town the next day. Only the “Fool” remained. HE resisted
all questioning, declaring himself held in honor not to divulge: in
short, conducted himself with consistent but exasperating folly. It was
not until six months had passed, that Col. Starbottle, the second of
Calhoun Bungstarter, in a moment of weakness, superinduced by the social
glass, condescended to explain. I should not do justice to the parties,
if I did not give that explanation in the colonel's own words. I may
remark, in passing, that the characteristic dignity of Col. Starbottle
always became intensified by stimulants, and that, by the same process,
all sense of humor was utterly eliminated.
“With the understanding that I am addressing myself confidentially to
men of honor,” said the colonel, elevating his chest above the bar-room
counter of the Prairie Rose Saloon, “I trust that it will not be
necessary for me to protect myself from levity, as I was forced to do in
Sacramento on the only other occasion when I entered into an explanation
of this delicate affair by--er--er--calling the individual to a personal
account--er. I do not believe,” added the colonel, slightly waving
his glass of liquor in the air with a graceful gesture of courteous
deprecation, “knowing what I do of the present company, that such a
course of action is required here. Certainly not, sir, in the home of
Mr. Hawkins--er--the gentleman who represented Mr. Bungstarter, whose
conduct, ged, sir, is worthy of praise, blank me!”
Apparently satisfied with the gravity and respectful attention of his
listeners, Col. Starbottle smiled relentingly and sweetly, closed his
eyes half-dreamily, as if to recall his wandering thoughts, and began,--
“As the spot selected was nearest the tenement of Mr. Hawkins, it was
agreed that the parties should meet there. They did so promptly at
half-past six. The morning being chilly, Mr. Hawkins extended the
hospitalities of his house with a bottle of Bourbon whiskey, of which
all partook but myself. The reason for that exception is, I believe,
well known. It is my invariable custom to take brandy--a wineglassful
in a cup of strong coffee--immediately on rising. It stimulates the
functions, sir, without producing any blank derangement of the nerves.”
The barkeeper, to whom, as an expert, the colonel had graciously
imparted this information, nodded approvingly; and the colonel, amid a
breathless silence, went on.
“We were about twenty minutes in reaching the spot. The ground was
measured, the weapons were loaded, when Mr. Bungstarter confided to me
the information that he was unwell, and in great pain. On consultation
with Mr. Hawkins, it appeared that his principal, in a distant part of
the field, was also suffering, and in great pain. The symptoms were
such as a medical man would pronounce 'choleraic.' I say WOULD
have pronounced; for, on examination, the surgeon was also found to
be--er--in pain, and, I regret to say, expressing himself in language
unbecoming the occasion. His impression was, that some powerful drug
had been administered. On referring the question to Mr. Hawkins, he
remembered that the bottle of whiskey partaken by them contained a
medicine which he had been in the habit of taking, but which, having
failed to act upon him, he had concluded to be generally ineffective,
and had forgotten. His perfect willingness to hold himself personally
responsible to each of the parties, his genuine concern at the
disastrous effect of the mistake, mingled with his own alarm at the
state of his system, which--er--failed to--er--respond to the peculiar
qualities of the medicine, was most becoming to him as a man of honor
and a gentleman. After an hour's delay, both principals being completely
exhausted, and abandoned by the surgeon, who was unreasonably alarmed
at his own condition, Mr. Hawkins and I agreed to remove our men to
Markleville. There, after a further consultation with Mr. Hawkins, an
amicable adjustment of all difficulties, honorable to both parties,
and governed by profound secrecy, was arranged. I believe,” added the
colonel, looking around, and setting down his glass, “no gentleman has
yet expressed himself other than satisfied with the result.”
Perhaps it was the colonel's manner; but, whatever was the opinion of
Five Forks regarding the intellectual display of Mr. Hawkins in this
affair, there was very little outspoken criticism at the moment. In a
few weeks the whole thing was forgotten, except as part of the necessary
record of Hawkins's blunders, which was already a pretty full one.
Again, some later follies conspired to obliterate the past, until, a
year later, a valuable lead was discovered in the “Blazing Star” tunnel,
in the hill where he lived; and a large sum was offered him for a
portion of his land on the hilltop. Accustomed as Five Forks had become
to the exhibition of his folly, it was with astonishment that they
learned that he resolutely and decidedly refused the offer. The reason
that he gave was still more astounding,--he was about to build.
To build a house upon property available for mining-purposes was
preposterous; to build at all, with a roof already covering him, was
an act of extravagance; to build a house of the style he proposed was
simply madness.
Yet here were facts. The plans were made, and the lumber for the new
building was already on the ground, while the shaft of the “Blazing
Star” was being sunk below. The site was, in reality, a very picturesque
one, the building itself of a style and quality hitherto unknown in
Five Forks. The citizens, at first sceptical, during their moments of
recreation and idleness gathered doubtingly about the locality. Day by
day, in that climate of rapid growths, the building, pleasantly known
in the slang of Five Forks as the “Idiot Asylum,” rose beside the green
oaks and clustering firs of Hawkins Hill, as if it were part of the
natural phenomena. At last it was completed. Then Mr. Hawkins proceeded
to furnish it with an expensiveness and extravagance of outlay quite in
keeping with his former idiocy. Carpets, sofas, mirrors, and finally a
piano,--the only one known in the county, and brought at great expense
from Sacramento,--kept curiosity at a fever-heat. More than that, there
were articles and ornaments which a few married experts declared only
fit for women. When the furnishing of the house was complete,--it had
occupied two months of the speculative and curious attention of the
camp,--Mr. Hawkins locked the front-door, put the key in his pocket, and
quietly retired to his more humble roof, lower on the hillside.
I have not deemed it necessary to indicate to the intelligent reader all
of the theories which obtained in Five Forks during the erection of the
building. Some of them may be readily imagined. That the “Hag” had, by
artful coyness and systematic reticence, at last completely subjugated
the “Fool,” and that the new house was intended for the nuptial bower of
the (predestined) unhappy pair, was, of course, the prevailing opinion.
But when, after a reasonable time had elapsed, and the house still
remained untenanted, the more exasperating conviction forced itself upon
the general mind, that the “Fool” had been for the third time imposed
upon; when two months had elapsed, and there seemed no prospect of
a mistress for the new house,--I think public indignation became so
strong, that, had the “Hag” arrived, the marriage would have been
publicly prevented. But no one appeared that seemed to answer to this
idea of an available tenant; and all inquiry of Mr. Hawkins as to his
intention in building a house, and not renting it, or occupying it,
failed to elicit any further information. The reasons that he gave were
felt to be vague, evasive, and unsatisfactory. He was in no hurry to
move, he said. When he WAS ready, it surely was not strange that he
should like to have his house all ready to receive him. He was often
seen upon the veranda, of a summer evening, smoking a cigar. It is
reported that one night the house was observed to be brilliantly lighted
from garret to basement; that a neighbor, observing this, crept toward
the open parlor-window, and, looking in, espied the “Fool” accurately
dressed in evening costume, lounging upon a sofa in the drawing-room,
with the easy air of socially entertaining a large party.
Notwithstanding this, the house was unmistakably vacant that evening,
save for the presence of the owner, as the witness afterward testified.
When this story was first related, a few practical men suggested the
theory that Mr. Hawkins was simply drilling himself in the elaborate
duties of hospitality against a probable event in his history. A few
ventured the belief that the house was haunted. The imaginative editor
of the Five Forks “Record” evolved from the depths of his professional
consciousness a story that Hawkins's sweetheart had died, and that
he regularly entertained her spirit in this beautifully furnished
mausoleum. The occasional spectacle of Hawkins's tall figure pacing the
veranda on moonlight nights lent some credence to this theory, until an
unlooked-for incident diverted all speculation into another channel.
It was about this time that a certain wild, rude valley, in the
neighborhood of Five Forks, had become famous as a picturesque resort.
Travellers had visited it, and declared that there were more cubic yards
of rough stone cliff, and a waterfall of greater height, than any they
had visited. Correspondents had written it up with extravagant rhetoric
and inordinate poetical quotation. Men and women who had never enjoyed a
sunset, a tree, or a flower, who had never appreciated the graciousness
or meaning of the yellow sunlight that flecked their homely doorways,
or the tenderness of a midsummer's night, to whose moonlight they bared
their shirt-sleeves or their tulle dresses, came from thousands of miles
away to calculate the height of this rock, to observe the depth of this
chasm, to remark upon the enormous size of this unsightly tree, and to
believe with ineffable self-complacency that they really admired
Nature. And so it came to pass, that, in accordance with the tastes or
weaknesses of the individual, the more prominent and salient points of
the valley were christened; and there was a “Lace Handkerchief Fall,”
and the “Tears of Sympathy Cataract,” and one distinguished orator's
“Peak,” and several “Mounts” of various noted people, living or dead,
and an “Exclamation-Point,” and a “Valley of Silent Adoration.” And, in
course of time, empty soda-water bottles were found at the base of the
cataract, and greasy newspapers, and fragments of ham-sandwiches, lay
at the dusty roots of giant trees. With this, there were frequent
irruptions of closely-shaven and tightly-cravated men, and delicate,
flower-faced women, in the one long street of Five Forks, and a
scampering of mules, and an occasional procession of dusty brown-linen
cavalry.
A year after “Hawkins's Idiot Asylum” was completed, one day there
drifted into the valley a riotous cavalcade of “school-marms,”
teachers of the San Francisco public schools, out for a holiday. Not
severely-spectacled Minervas, and chastely armed and mailed Pallases,
but, I fear, for the security of Five Forks, very human, charming, and
mischievous young women. At least, so the men thought, working in the
ditches, and tunnelling on the hillside; and when, in the interests
of science, and the mental advancement of juvenile posterity, it was
finally settled that they should stay in Five Forks two or three
days for the sake of visiting the various mines, and particularly the
“Blazing Star” tunnel, there was some flutter of masculine anxiety.
There was a considerable inquiry for “store-clothes,” a hopeless
overhauling of old and disused raiment, and a general demand fox “boiled
shirts” and the barber.
Meanwhile, with that supreme audacity and impudent hardihood of the sex
when gregarious, the school-marms rode through the town, admiring openly
the handsome faces and manly figures that looked up from the ditches,
or rose behind the cars of ore at the mouths of tunnels. Indeed, it is
alleged that Jenny Forester, backed and supported by seven other equally
shameless young women, had openly and publicly waved her handkerchief to
the florid Hercules of Five Forks, one Tom Flynn, formerly of Virginia,
leaving that good-natured but not over-bright giant pulling his blonde
mustaches in bashful amazement.
It was a pleasant June afternoon that Miss Milly Arnot, principal of the
primary department of one of the public schools of San Francisco, having
evaded her companions, resolved to put into operation a plan which had
lately sprung up in her courageous and mischief-loving fancy. With that
wonderful and mysterious instinct of her sex, from whom no secrets of
the affections are hid, and to whom all hearts are laid open, she had
heard the story of Hawkins's folly, and the existence of the “Idiot
Asylum.” Alone, on Hawkins Hill, she had determined to penetrate its
seclusion. Skirting the underbrush at the foot of the hill, she managed
to keep the heaviest timber between herself and the “Blazing Star”
tunnel at its base, as well as the cabin of Hawkins, half-way up the
ascent, until, by a circuitous route, at last she reached, unobserved,
the summit. Before her rose, silent, darkened, and motionless, the
object of her search. Here her courage failed her, with all the
characteristic inconsequence of her sex. A sudden fear of all the
dangers she had safely passed--bears, tarantulas, drunken men, and
lizards--came upon her. For a moment, as she afterward expressed it,
“she thought she should die.” With this belief, probably, she gathered
three large stones, which she could hardly lift, for the purpose of
throwing a great distance; put two hair-pins in her mouth; and carefully
re-adjusted with both hands two stray braids of her lovely blue-black
mane, which had fallen in gathering the stones. Then she felt in the
pockets of her linen duster for her card-case, handkerchief, pocketbook,
and smelling-bottle, and, finding them intact, suddenly assumed an
air of easy, ladylike unconcern, went up the steps of the veranda,
and demurely pulled the front doorbell, which she knew would not be
answered. After a decent pause, she walked around the encompassing
veranda, examining the closed shutters of the French windows until she
found one that yielded to her touch. Here she paused again to adjust her
coquettish hat by the mirror-like surface of the long sash-window, that
reflected the full length of her pretty figure. And then she opened the
window, and entered the room.
Although long closed, the house had a smell of newness and of fresh
paint, that was quite unlike the mouldiness of the conventional
haunted house. The bright carpets, the cheerful walls, the glistening
oil-cloths, were quite inconsistent with the idea of a ghost. With
childish curiosity, she began to explore the silent house, at first
timidly,--opening the doors with a violent push, and then stepping
back from the threshold to make good a possible retreat,--and then more
boldly, as she became convinced of her security and absolute loneliness.
In one of the chambers--the largest--there were fresh flowers in a vase,
evidently gathered that morning; and, what seemed still more remarkable,
the pitchers and ewers were freshly filled with water. This obliged Miss
Milly to notice another singular fact, namely, that the house was free
from dust, the one most obtrusive and penetrating visitor of Five Forks.
The floors and carpets had been recently swept, the chairs and furniture
carefully wiped and dusted. If the house WAS haunted, it was possessed
by a spirit who had none of the usual indifference to decay and mould.
And yet the beds had evidently never been slept in, the very springs
of the chair in which she sat creaked stiffly at the novelty; the
closet-doors opened with the reluctance of fresh paint and varnish; and
in spite of the warmth, cleanliness, and cheerfulness of furniture and
decoration, there was none of the ease of tenancy and occupation. As
Miss Milly afterward confessed, she longed to “tumble things around;”
and, when she reached the parlor or drawing-room again, she could hardly
resist the desire. Particularly was she tempted by a closed piano, that
stood mutely against the wall. She thought she would open it just to see
who was the maker. That done, it would be no harm to try its tone. She
did so, with one little foot on the soft pedal. But Miss Milly was
too good a player, and too enthusiastic a musician, to stop at
half-measures. She tried it again, this time so sincerely, that the
whole house seemed to spring into voice. Then she stopped and listened.
There was no response: the empty rooms seemed to have relapsed into
their old stillness. She stepped out on the veranda. A woodpecker
recommenced his tapping on an adjacent tree: the rattle of a cart in the
rocky gulch below the hill came faintly up. No one was to be seen far or
near. Miss Milly, re-assured, returned. She again ran her fingers over
the keys, stopped, caught at a melody running in her mind, half played
it, and then threw away all caution. Before five minutes had elapsed,
she had entirely forgotten herself, and with her linen duster thrown
aside, her straw hat flung on the piano, her white hands bared, and a
black loop of her braided hair hanging upon her shoulder, was fairly
embarked upon a flowing sea of musical recollection.
She had played, perhaps, half an hour, when having just finished an
elaborate symphony, and resting her hands on the keys, she heard very
distinctly and unmistakably the sound of applause from without. In an
instant the fires of shame and indignation leaped into her cheeks; and
she rose from the instrument, and ran to the window, only in time to
catch sight of a dozen figures in blue and red flannel shirts vanishing
hurriedly through the trees below.
Miss Milly's mind was instantly made up. I think I have already
intimated, that, under the stimulus of excitement, she was not wanting
in courage; and as she quietly resumed her gloves, hat, and duster, she
was not, perhaps, exactly the young person that it would be entirely
safe for the timid, embarrassed, or inexperienced of my sex to meet
alone. She shut down the piano; and having carefully reclosed all
the windows and doors, and restored the house to its former desolate
condition, she stepped from the veranda, and proceeded directly to the
cabin of the unintellectual Hawkins, that reared its adobe chimney above
the umbrage a quarter of a mile below.
The door opened instantly to her impulsive knock, and the “Fool of
Five Forks” stood before her. Miss Milly had never before seen the man
designated by this infelicitous title; and as he stepped backward,
in half courtesy and half astonishment, she was, for the moment,
disconcerted. He was tall, finely formed, and dark-bearded. Above cheeks
a little hollowed by care and ill-health shone a pair of hazel eyes,
very large, very gentle, but inexpressibly sad and mournful. This was
certainly not the kind of man Miss Milly had expected to see; yet, after
her first embarrassment had passed, the very circumstance, oddly enough,
added to her indignation, and stung her wounded pride still more deeply.
Nevertheless, the arch hypocrite instantly changed her tactics with the
swift intuition of her sex.
“I have come,” she said with a dazzling smile, infinitely more dangerous
than her former dignified severity,--“I have come to ask your pardon for
a great liberty I have just taken. I believe the new house above us on
the hill is yours. I was so much pleased with its exterior, that I left
my friends for a moment below here,” she continued artfully, with a
slight wave of the hand, as if indicating a band of fearless Amazons
without, and waiting to avenge any possible insult offered to one of
their number, “and ventured to enter it. Finding it unoccupied, as I had
been told, I am afraid I had the audacity to sit down and amuse myself
for a few moments at the piano, while waiting for my friends.”
Hawkins raised his beautiful eyes to hers. He saw a very pretty girl,
with frank gray eyes glistening with excitement, with two red, slightly
freckled cheeks glowing a little under his eyes, with a short scarlet
upper-lip turned back, like a rose-leaf, over a little line of white
teeth, as she breathed somewhat hurriedly in her nervous excitement. He
saw all this calmly, quietly, and, save for the natural uneasiness of a
shy, reticent man, I fear without a quickening of his pulse.
“I knowed it,” he said simply. “I heerd ye as I kem up.”
Miss Milly was furious at his grammar, his dialect, his coolness, and,
still more, at the suspicion that he was an active member of her in
visible elaque.
“Ah!” she said, still smiling. “Then I think I heard YOU”--
“I reckon not,” he interrupted gravely. “I didn't stay long. I found
the boys hanging round the house, and I allowed at first I'd go in and
kinder warn you; but they promised to keep still: and you looked so
comfortable, and wrapped up in your music, that I hadn't the heart to
disturb you, and kem away. I hope,” he added earnestly, “they didn't
let on ez they heerd you. They ain't a bad lot,--them Blazin' Star
boys--though they're a little hard at times. But they'd no more hurt
ye then they would a--a--a cat!” continued Mr. Hawkins, blushing with a
faint apprehension of the inelegance of his simile.
“No, no!” said Miss Milly, feeling suddenly very angry with herself,
the “Fool,” and the entire male population of Five Forks. “No! I have
behaved foolishly, I suppose--and, if they HAD, it would have served me
right. But I only wanted to apologize to you. You'll find every thing as
you left it. Good-day!”
She turned to go. Mr. Hawkins began to feel embarrassed. “I'd have asked
ye to sit down,” he said finally, “if it hed been a place fit for a
lady. I oughter done so, enny way. I don't know what kept me from it.
But I ain't well, miss. Times I get a sort o' dumb ager,--it's the
ditches, I think, miss,--and I don't seem to hev my wits about me.”
Instantly Miss Arnot was all sympathy: her quick woman's heart was
touched.
“Can I--can any thing be done?” she asked more timidly than she had
before spoken.
“No--not onless ye remember suthin' about these pills.” He exhibited a
box containing about half a dozen. “I forget the direction--I don't
seem to remember much, any way, these times. They're 'Jones's Vegetable
Compound.' If ye've ever took 'em, ye'll remember whether the reg'lar
dose is eight. They ain't but six here. But perhaps ye never tuk any,”
he added deprecatingly.
“No,” said Miss Milly curtly. She had usually a keen sense of the
ludicrous; but somehow Mr. Hawkins's eccentricity only pained her.
“Will you let me see you to the foot of the hill?” he said again, after
another embarrassing pause.
Miss Arnot felt instantly that such an act would condone her trespass in
the eyes of the world. She might meet some of her invisible admirers,
or even her companions; and, with all her erratic impulses, she was,
nevertheless, a woman, and did not entirely despise the verdict of
conventionality. She smiled sweetly, and assented; and in another moment
the two were lost in the shadows of the wood.
Like many other apparently trivial acts in an uneventful life, it was
decisive. As she expected, she met two or three of her late applauders,
whom, she fancied, looked sheepish and embarrassed; she met, also, her
companions looking for her in some alarm, who really appeared astonished
at her escort, and, she fancied, a trifle envious of her evident
success. I fear that Miss Arnot, in response to their anxious inquiries,
did not state entirely the truth, but, without actual assertion, led
them to believe that she had, at a very early stage of the proceeding,
completely subjugated this weak-minded giant, and had brought him
triumphantly to her feet. From telling this story two or three times,
she got finally to believing that she had some foundation for it, then
to a vague sort of desire that it would eventually prove to be true, and
then to an equally vague yearning to hasten that consummation. That
it would redound to any satisfaction of the “Fool” she did not stop
to doubt. That it would cure him of his folly she was quite confident.
Indeed, there are very few of us, men or women, who do not believe that
even a hopeless love for ourselves is more conducive to the salvation of
the lover than a requited affection for another.
The criticism of Five Forks was, as the reader may imagine, swift and
conclusive. When it was found out that Miss Arnot was not the “Hag”
masquerading as a young and pretty girl, to the ultimate deception of
Five Forks in general, and the “Fool” in particular, it was at once
decided that nothing but the speedy union of the “Fool” and the “pretty
school-marm” was consistent with ordinary common sense. The singular
good-fortune of Hawkins was quite in accordance with the theory of his
luck as propounded by the camp. That, after the “Hag” failed to make
her appearance, he should “strike a lead” in his own house, without the
trouble of “prospectin',” seemed to these casuists as a wonderful but
inevitable law. To add to these fateful probabilities, Miss Arnot fell,
and sprained her ankle, in the ascent of Mount Lincoln, and was confined
for some weeks to the hotel after her companions had departed. During
this period, Hawkins was civilly but grotesquely attentive. When, after
a reasonable time had elapsed, there still appeared to be no immediate
prospect of the occupancy of the new house, public opinion experienced a
singular change in regard to its theories of Mr. Hawkins's conduct. The
“Hag” was looked upon as a saint-like and long-suffering martyr to the
weaknesses and inconsistency of the “Fool.” That, after erecting this
new house at her request, he had suddenly “gone back” on her; that his
celibacy was the result of a long habit of weak proposal and subsequent
shameless rejection; and that he was now trying his hand on the helpless
schoolmarm, was perfectly plain to Five Forks. That he should be
frustrated in his attempts at any cost was equally plain. Miss Milly
suddenly found herself invested with a rude chivalry that would have
been amusing, had it not been at times embarrassing; that would have
been impertinent, but for the almost superstitious respect with which
it was proffered. Every day somebody from Five Forks rode out to inquire
the health of the fair patient. “Hez Hawkins bin over yer to-day?”
queried Tom Flynn, with artful ease and indifference, as he leaned over
Miss Milly's easy-chair on the veranda. Miss Milly, with a faint pink
flush on her cheek, was constrained to answer, “No.” “Well, he sorter
sprained his foot agin a rock yesterday,” continued Flynn with shameless
untruthfulness. “You mus'n't think any thing o' that, Miss Arnot. He'll
be over yer to-morrer; and meantime he told me to hand this yer bookay
with his re-gards, and this yer specimen.” And Mr. Flynn laid down the
flowers he had picked en route against such an emergency, and presented
respectfully a piece of quartz and gold, which he had taken that morning
from his own sluice-box. “You mus'n't mind Hawkins's ways, Miss Milly,”
said another sympathizing miner. “There ain't a better man in camp than
that theer Cy Hawkins--but he don't understand the ways o' the world
with wimen. He hasn't mixed as much with society as the rest of us,” he
added, with an elaborate Chesterfieldian ease of manner; “but he means
well.” Meanwhile a few other sympathetic tunnelmen were impressing upon
Mr. Hawkins the necessity of the greatest attention to the invalid. “It
won't do, Hawkins,” they explained, “to let that there gal go back to
San Francisco and say, that, when she was sick and alone, the only man
in Five Forks under whose roof she had rested, and at whose table she
had sat” (this was considered a natural but pardonable exaggeration of
rhetoric) “ever threw off on her; and it sha'n't be done. It ain't the
square thing to Five Forks.” And then the “Fool” would rush away to the
valley, and be received by Miss Milly with a certain reserve of manner
that finally disappeared in a flush of color, some increased vivacity,
and a pardonable coquetry. And so the days passed. Miss Milly grew
better in health, and more troubled in mind; and Mr. Hawkins became more
and more embarrassed; and Five Forks smiled, and rubbed its hands,
and waited for the approaching denoument. And then it came--but not,
perhaps, in the manner that Five Forks had imagined.
It was a lovely afternoon in July that a party of Eastern tourists rode
into Five Forks. They had just “done” the Valley of Big Things; and,
there being one or two Eastern capitalists among the party, it
was deemed advisable that a proper knowledge of the practical
mining-resources of California should be added to their experience
of the merely picturesque in Nature. Thus far every thing had been
satisfactory; the amount of water which passed over the Fall was large,
owing to a backward season; some snow still remained in the canyons near
the highest peaks; they had ridden round one of the biggest trees, and
through the prostrate trunk of another. To say that they were delighted
is to express feebly the enthusiasm of these ladies and gentlemen, drunk
with the champagny hospitality of their entertainers, the utter novelty
of scene, and the dry, exhilarating air of the valley. One or two had
already expressed themselves ready to live and die there; another had
written a glowing account to the Eastern press, depreciating all other
scenery in Europe and America; and, under these circumstances, it was
reasonably expected that Five Forks would do its duty, and equally
impress the stranger after its own fashion.
Letters to this effect were sent from San Francisco by prominent
capitalists there; and, under the able superintendence of one of their
agents, the visitors were taken in hand, shown “what was to be seen,”
carefully restrained from observing what ought not to be visible, and so
kept in a blissful and enthusiastic condition. And so the graveyard of
Five Forks, in which but two of the occupants had died natural deaths;
the dreary, ragged cabins on the hillsides, with their sad-eyed,
cynical, broken-spirited occupants, toiling on day by day for a
miserable pittance, and a fare that a self-respecting Eastern mechanic
would have scornfully rejected,--were not a part of the Eastern
visitors' recollection. But the hoisting works and machinery of the
“Blazing Star Tunnel Company” was,--the Blazing Star Tunnel Company,
whose “gentlemanly superintendent” had received private information
from San Francisco to do the “proper thing” for the party. Wherefore the
valuable heaps of ore in the company's works were shown; the oblong bars
of gold, ready for shipment, were playfully offered to the ladies who
could lift and carry them away unaided; and even the tunnel itself,
gloomy, fateful, and peculiar, was shown as part of the experience; and,
in the noble language of one correspondent, “The wealth of Five Forks,
and the peculiar inducements that it offered to Eastern capitalists,”
were established beyond a doubt. And then occurred a little incident,
which, as an unbiassed spectator, I am free to say offered no
inducements to anybody whatever, but which, for its bearing upon the
central figure of this veracious chronicle, I cannot pass over.
It had become apparent to one or two more practical and sober-minded in
the party, that certain portions of the “Blazing Star” tunnel (owing,
perhaps, to the exigencies of a flattering annual dividend) were
economically and imperfectly “shored” and supported, and were,
consequently, unsafe, insecure, and to be avoided. Nevertheless, at a
time when champagne corks were popping in dark corners, and enthusiastic
voices and happy laughter rang through the half-lighted levels and
galleries, there came a sudden and mysterious silence. A few lights
dashed swiftly by in the direction of a distant part of the gallery,
and then there was a sudden sharp issuing of orders, and a dull, ominous
rumble. Some of the visitors turned pale: one woman fainted.
Something had happened. What? “Nothing” (the speaker is fluent, but
uneasy)--“one of the gentlemen, in trying to dislodge a 'specimen'
from the wall, had knocked away a support. There had been a 'cave'--the
gentleman was caught, and buried below his shoulders. It was all right,
they'd get him out in a moment--only it required great care to keep from
extending the 'cave.' Didn't know his name. It was that little man, the
husband of that lively lady with the black eyes. Eh! Hullo, there! Stop
her! For God's sake! Not that way! She'll fall from that shaft. She'll
be killed!”
But the lively lady was already gone. With staring black eyes,
imploringly trying to pierce the gloom, with hands and feet that sought
to batter and break down the thick darkness, with incoherent cries and
supplications following the moving of ignis fatuus lights ahead, she
ran, and ran swiftly!--ran over treacherous foundations, ran by
yawning gulfs, ran past branching galleries and arches, ran wildly, ran
despairingly, ran blindly, and at last ran into the arms of the “Fool of
Five Forks.”
In an instant she caught at his hand. “Oh, save him!” she cried. “You
belong here; you know this dreadful place: bring me to him. Tell me
where to go, and what to do, I implore you! Quick, he is dying! Come!”
He raised his eyes to hers, and then, with a sudden cry, dropped the
rope and crowbar he was carrying, and reeled against the wall.
“Annie!” he gasped slowly. “Is it you?”
She caught at both his hands, brought her face to his with staring eyes,
murmured, “Good God, Cyrus!” and sank upon her knees before him.
He tried to disengage the hand that she wrung with passionate entreaty.
“No, no! Cyrus, you will forgive me--you will forget the past! God has
sent you here to-day. You will come with me. You will--you must--save
him!”
“Save who?” cried Cyrus hoarsely.
“My husband!”
The blow was so direct, so strong and overwhelming, that, even through
her own stronger and more selfish absorption, she saw it in the face of
the man, and pitied him.
“I thought--you--knew--it,” she faltered.
He did not speak, but looked at her with fixed, dumb eyes. And then
the sound of distant voices and hurrying feet started her again into
passionate life. She once more caught his hand.
“O Cyrus, hear me! If you have loved me through all these years, you
will not fail me now. You must save him! You can! You are brave and
strong--you always were, Cyrus. You will save him, Cyrus, for my sake,
for the sake of your love for me! You will--I know it. God bless you!”
She rose as if to follow him, but, at a gesture of command, she stood
still. He picked up the rope and crowbar slowly, and in a dazed, blinded
way, that, in her agony of impatience and alarm, seemed protracted
to cruel infinity. Then he turned, and, raising her hand to his lips,
kissed it slowly, looked at her again, and the next moment was gone.
He did not return; for at the end of the next half-hour, when they laid
before her the half-conscious, breathing body of her husband, safe and
unharmed, but for exhaustion and some slight bruises, she learned that
the worst fears of the workmen had been realized. In releasing him, a
second cave had taken place. They had barely time to snatch away the
helpless body of her husband, before the strong frame of his rescuer,
Cyrus Hawkins, was struck and smitten down in his place.
For two hours he lay there, crushed and broken-limbed, with a heavy beam
lying across his breast, in sight of all, conscious and patient. For two
hours they had labored around him, wildly, despairingly, hopefully, with
the wills of gods and the strength of giants; and at the end of that
time they came to an upright timber, which rested its base upon the
beam. There was a cry for axes, and one was already swinging in the air,
when the dying man called to them feebly,--
“Don't cut that upright!”
“Why?”
“It will bring down the whole gallery with it.”
“How?”
“It's one of the foundations of my house.”
The axe fell from the workman's hand, and with a blanched face he turned
to his fellows. It was too true. They were in the uppermost gallery; and
the “cave” had taken place directly below the new house. After a pause,
the “Fool” spoke again more feebly.
“The lady--quick!”
They brought her,--a wretched, fainting creature, with pallid face and
streaming eyes,--and fell back as she bent her face above him.
“It was built for you, Annie darling,” he said in a hurried whisper,
“and has been waiting up there for you and me all these long days. It's
deeded to you, Annie; and you must--live there--with HIM! He will not
mind that I shall be always near you; for it stands above--my grave.”
And he was right. In a few minutes later, when he had passed away, they
did not move him, but sat by his body all night with a torch at his feet
and head. And the next day they walled up the gallery as a vault; but
they put no mark or any sign thereon, trusting, rather, to the monument,
that, bright and cheerful, rose above him in the sunlight of the hill.
And those who heard the story said, “This is not an evidence of death
and gloom and sorrow, as are other monuments, but is a sign of life and
light and hope, wherefore shall all know that he who lies under it is
what men call--'a fool'.”