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* * * * *
THE IDLER MAGAZINE.
AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY.
MAY 1893
* * * * *
CONTENTS
THE IDLER.
AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS.
BY BRETT HART.
THE MODERN BABYLON.
BY CYNICUS.
MY FIRST BOOKS.
"UNDERTONES" AND "IDYLLS AND LEGENDS OF
INVERBURN."
BALDER'S BALL.
BY P. VON SCHOeNTHAN.
LIONS IN THEIR DENS.
V.--THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN CASTLE.
BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.
THE FEAR OF IT.
BY ROBERT BARR.
MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NILIHILIST.
BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.
MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NILIHILIST.
BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.
PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET.
BY SCOTT RANKIN.
MY SERVANT JOHN.
BY ARCHIBALD FORBES.
THE IDLER'S CLUB.
THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "THE SIMPLE QUESTION I'VE GOT TO ASK YE IS _this_--DID
YOU SIGNAL TO ANYBODY FROM THE COACH WHEN WE PASSED GALLOPER'S?"]
* * * * *
THE IDLER.
_AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS._
BY BRET HARTE.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. S. BOYD.
I.
We all held our breath as the coach rushed through the semi-darkness of
Galloper's Ridge. The vehicle itself was only a huge lumbering shadow;
its side-lights were carefully extinguished, and Yuba Bill had just
politely removed from the lips of an outside passenger even the cigar
with which he had been ostentatiously exhibiting his coolness. For it
had been rumoured that the Ramon Martinez gang of "road agents" were
"laying" for us on the second grade, and would time the passage of our
lights across Galloper's in order to intercept us in the "brush" beyond.
If we could cross the ridge without being seen, and so get through the
brush before they reached it, we were safe. If they followed, it would
only be a stern chase with the odds in our favour.
The huge vehicle swayed from side to side, rolled, dipped, and plunged,
but Bill kept the track, as if, in the whispered words of the
Expressman, he could "feel and smell" the road he could no longer see.
We knew that at times we hung perilously over the edge of slopes that
eventually dropped a thousand feet sheer to the tops of the sugar-pines
below, but we knew that Bill knew it also. The half visible heads of the
horses, drawn wedge-wise together by the tightened reins, appeared to
cleave the darkness like a ploughshare, held between his rigid hands.
Even the hoof-beats of the six horses had fallen into a vague,
monotonous, distant roll. Then the ridge was crossed, and we plunged
into the still blacker obscurity of the brush. Rather we no longer
seemed to move--it was only the phantom night that rushed by us. The
horses might have been submerged in some swift Lethean stream; nothing
but the top of the coach and the rigid bulk of Yuba Bill arose above
them. Yet even in that awful moment our speed was unslackened; it was as
if Bill cared no longer to _guide_ but only to drive, or as if the
direction of his huge machine was determined by other hands than his. An
incautious whisperer hazarded the paralysing suggestion of our "meeting
another team." To our great astonishment Bill overheard it; to our
greater astonishment he replied. "It 'ud be only a neck and neck race
which would get to h--ll first," he said quietly. But we were
relieved--for he had _spoken!_ Almost simultaneously the wider turnpike
began to glimmer faintly as a visible track before us; the wayside trees
fell out of line, opened up and dropped off one after another; we were
on the broader tableland, out of danger, and apparently unperceived and
unpursued.
[Illustration: "STRUCK A MATCH AND HELD IT FOR HER."]
Nevertheless in the conversation that broke out again with the
relighting of the lamps and the comments, congratulations and
reminiscences that were freely exchanged, Yuba Bill preserved a
dissatisfied and even resentful silence. The most generous praise of his
skill and courage awoke no response. "I reckon the old man waz just
spilin' for a fight, and is feelin' disappointed," said a passenger. But
those who knew that Bill had the true fighter's scorn for any purely
purposeless conflict were more or less concerned and watchful of him. He
would drive steadily for four or five minutes with thoughtfully knitted
brows, but eyes still keenly observant under his slouched hat, and then,
relaxing his strained attitude, would give way to a movement of
impatience. "You aint uneasy about anything, Bill, are you?" asked the
Expressman confidentially. Bill lifted his eyes with a slightly
contemptuous surprise. "Not about anything ter _come_. It's what _hez_
happened that I don't exackly sabe. I don't see no signs of Ramon's gang
ever havin' been out at all, and ef they were out I don't see why they
didn't go for us."
"The simple fact is that our _ruse_ was successful," said an outside
passenger. "They waited to see our lights on the ridge, and, not seeing
them, missed us until we had passed. That's my opinion."
"You aint puttin' any price on that opinion, air ye?" enquired Bill,
politely.
"No."
"'Cos thar's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've
seen worse things in it."
"Come off! Bill," retorted the passenger, slightly nettled by the
tittering of his companions. "Then what did you put out the lights for?"
"Well," returned Bill, grimly, "it mout have been because I didn't keer
to hev you chaps blazin' away at the first bush you _thought_ you saw
move in your skeer, and bringin' down their fire on us."
The explanation, though unsatisfactory, was by no means an improbable
one, and we thought it better to accept it with a laugh. Bill, however,
resumed his abstracted manner.
"Who got in at the Summit?" he at last asked abruptly of the Expressman.
"Derrick and Simpson of Cold Spring, and one of the 'Excelsior' boys,"
responded the Expressman.
"And that Pike County girl from Dow's Flat, with her bundles. Don't
forget her," added the outside passenger, ironically.
"Does anybody here know her?" continued Bill, ignoring the irony.
"You'd better ask Judge Thompson; he was mighty attentive to her;
gettin' her a seat by the off window, and lookin' after her bundles and
things."
"Gettin' her a seat by the _window_?" repeated Bill.
"Yes, she wanted to see everything, and wasn't afraid of the shooting."
"Yes," broke in a third passenger, "and he was so d----d civil that when
she dropped her ring in the straw, he struck a match agin all your
rules, you know, and held it for her to find it. And it was just as we
were crossin' through the brush, too. I saw the hull thing through the
window, for I was hanging over the wheels with my gun ready for action.
And it wasn't no fault of Judge Thompson's if his d----d foolishness
hadn't shown us up, and got us a shot from the gang."
Bill gave a short grunt--but drove steadily on without further comment
or even turning his eyes to the speaker.
We were now not more than a mile from the station at the cross roads
where we were to change horses. The lights already glimmered in the
distance, and there was a faint suggestion of the coming dawn on the
summits of the ridge to the West. We had plunged into a belt of timber,
when suddenly a horseman emerged at a sharp canter from a trail that
seemed to be parallel with our own. We were all slightly startled; Yuba
Bill alone preserving his moody calm.
"Hullo!" he said.
The stranger wheeled to our side as Bill slackened his speed. He seemed
to be a "packer" or freight muleteer.
"Ye didn't get 'held up' on the Divide?" continued Bill, cheerfully.
"No," returned the packer, with a laugh; "_I_ don't carry treasure. But
I see you're all right, too. I saw you crossin' over Galloper's."
"_Saw_ us?" said Bill, sharply. "We had our lights out."
"Yes, but there was suthin' white--a handkerchief or woman's veil, I
reckon--hangin' from the window. It was only a movin' spot agin the
hillside, but ez I was lookin' out for ye I knew it was you by that.
Good night!"
He cantered away. We tried to look at each other's faces, and at Bill's
expression in the darkness, but he neither spoke nor stirred until he
threw down the reins when we stopped before the station. The passengers
quickly descended from the roof; the Expressman was about to follow, but
Bill plucked his sleeve.
"I'm goin' to take a look over this yer stage and these yer passengers
with ye, afore we start."
"Why, what's up?"
"Well," said Bill, slowly disengaging himself from one of his enormous
gloves, "when we waltzed down into the brush up there I saw a man, ez
plain ez I see you, rise up from it. I thought our time had come and the
band was goin' to play, when he sorter drew back, made a sign, and we
just scooted past him."
"Well?"
"Well," said Bill, "it means that this yer coach was _passed through
free_ to-night."
"You don't object to _that_--surely? I think we were deucedly lucky."
Bill slowly drew off his other glove. "I've been riskin' my everlastin'
life on this d----d line three times a week," he said with mock
humility, "and I'm allus thankful for small mercies. _But_," he added
grimly, "when it comes down to being passed free by some pal of a hoss
thief and thet called a speshal Providence, _I aint in it_! No, sir, I
aint in it!"
II.
It was with mixed emotions that the passengers heard that a delay of
fifteen minutes to tighten certain screw-bolts had been ordered by the
autocratic Bill. Some were anxious to get their breakfast at Sugar Pine,
but others were not averse to linger for the daylight that promised
greater safety on the road. The Expressman, knowing the real cause of
Bill's delay, was nevertheless at a loss to understand the object of it.
The passengers were all well known; any idea of complicity with the road
agents was wild and impossible, and, even if there was a confederate of
the gang among them, he would have been more likely to precipitate a
robbery than to check it. Again, the discovery of such a confederate--to
whom they clearly owed their safety--and his arrest would have been
quite against the Californian sense of justice, if not actually illegal.
It seemed evident that Bill's Quixotic sense of honour was leading him
astray.
[Illustration: "'THERE WAS SUTHIN' WHITE HANGIN' FROM THE WINDOW.'"]
The station consisted of a stable, a waggon shed, and a building
containing three rooms. The first was fitted up with "bunks" or sleeping
berths for the _employes_, the second was the kitchen, and the third and
larger apartment was dining-room or sitting-room, and was used as
general waiting-room for the passengers. It was not a refreshment
station, and there was no "bar." But a mysterious command from the
omnipotent Bill produced a demi-john of whiskey, with which he
hospitably treated the company. The seductive influence of the liquor
loosened the tongue of the gallant Judge Thompson. He admitted to having
struck a match to enable the fair Pike Countian to find her ring, which,
however, proved to have fallen in her lap. She was "a fine, healthy
young woman--a type of the Far West, sir; in fact, quite a prairie
blossom! yet simple and guileless as a child." She was on her way to
Marysville, he believed, "although she expected to meet friends--a
friend--in fact, later on." It was her first visit to a large town--in
fact, any civilised centre--since she crossed the plains three years
ago. Her girlish curiosity was quite touching, and her innocence
irresistible. In fact, in a country whose tendency was to produce
"frivolity and forwardness in young girls, he found her a most
interesting young person." She was even then out in the stable-yard
watching the horses being harnessed, "preferring to indulge a pardonable
healthy young curiosity than to listen to the empty compliments of the
younger passengers."
[Illustration: "SHE WAS WATCHING THE REPLACING OF LUGGAGE IN THE BOOT."]
The figure which Bill saw thus engaged, without being otherwise
distinguished, certainly seemed to justify the Judge's opinion. She
appeared to be a well-matured country girl, whose frank grey eyes and
large laughing mouth expressed a wholesome and abiding gratification in
her life and surroundings. She was watching the replacing of luggage in
the boot. A little feminine start, as one of her own parcels was thrown
somewhat roughly on the roof, gave Bill his opportunity. "Now there," he
growled to the helper, "ye aint carting stone! Look out, will yer! Some
of your things, miss?" he added, with gruff courtesy, turning to her.
"These yer trunks, for instance?"
She smiled a pleasant assent, and Bill, pushing aside the helper,
seized a large square trunk in his arms. But from excess of zeal, or
some other mischance, his foot slipped, and he came down heavily,
striking the corner of the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges
and fastenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the accident
discovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, lace-edged feminine
apparel of an apparently superior quality. The young lady uttered
another cry and came quickly forward, but Bill was profuse in his
apologies, himself girded the broken box with a strap, and declared his
intention of having the company "make it good" to her with a new one.
Then he casually accompanied her to the door of the waiting-room,
entered, made a place for her before the fire by simply lifting the
nearest and most youthful passenger by the coat-collar from the stool
that he was occupying, and, having installed the lady in it, displaced
another man who was standing before the chimney, and, drawing himself up
to his full six feet of height in front of her, glanced down upon his
fair passenger as he took his waybill from his pocket.
"Your name is down here as Miss Mullins?" he said.
She looked up, became suddenly aware that she and her questioner were
the centre of interest to the whole circle of passengers, and, with a
slight rise of colour, returned "Yes."
"Well, Miss Mullins, I've got a question or two to ask ye. I ask it
straight out afore this crowd. It's in my rights to take ye aside and
ask it--but that aint my style; I'm no detective. I needn't ask it at
all, but act as ef I knowed the answer, or I might leave it to be asked
by others. Ye needn't answer it ef ye don't like; ye've got a friend
over ther--Judge Thompson--who is a friend to ye, right or wrong, jest
as any other man here is--as though ye'd packed your own jury. Well, the
simple question I've got to ask ye is _this_--Did you signal to anybody
from the coach when we passed Galloper's an hour ago?"
We all thought that Bill's courage and audacity had reached its climax
here. To openly and publicly accuse a "lady" before a group of
chivalrous Californians, and that lady possessing the further
attractions of youth, good looks and innocence, was little short of
desperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the fair
stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the very
boldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise. Judge Thompson,
with a bland propitiatory smile, began: "Really, Bill, I must protest on
behalf of this young lady--" when the fair accused, raising her eyes to
her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slight
but convincing hesitation of conscientious truthfulness:
"_I did._"
"Ahem!" interposed the Judge, hastily, "er--that is--er--you allowed
your handkerchief to flutter from the window. I noticed it myself,
casually--one might say even playfully--but without any particular
significance."
The girl, regarding her apologist with a singular mingling of pride and
impatience, returned briefly:
"I signalled."
"Who did you signal to?" asked Bill, gravely.
"The young gentleman I'm going to marry."
A start, followed by a slight titter from the younger passengers, was
instantly suppressed by a savage glance from Bill.
"What did you signal to him for?" he continued.
"To tell him I was here, and that it was all right," returned the young
girl, with a steadily rising pride and colour.
"Wot was all right?" demanded Bill.
"That I wasn't followed, and that he could meet me on the road beyond
Cass's Ridge Station." She hesitated a moment, and then, with a still
greater pride, in which a youthful defiance was still mingled, said:
"I've run away from home to marry him. And I mean to! No one can stop
me. Dad didn't like him just because he was poor, and dad's got money.
Dad wanted me to marry a man I hate, and got a lot of dresses and things
to bribe me."
"And you're taking them in your trunk to the other feller?" said Bill,
grimly.
"Yes, he's poor," returned the girl, defiantly.
"Then your father's name is Mullins?" asked Bill.
"It's not Mullins. I--I--took that name," she hesitated, with her first
exhibition of self-consciousness.
"Wot _is_ his name?"
"Eli Hemmings."
A smile of relief and significance went round the circle. The fame of
Eli or "Skinner" Hemmings, as a notorious miser and usurer, had passed
even beyond Galloper's Ridge.
"The step that you're taking, Miss Mullins, I need not tell you, is one
of great gravity," said Judge Thompson, with a certain paternal
seriousness of manner, in which, however, we were glad to detect a
glaring affectation, "and I trust that you and your affianced have fully
weighed it. Far be it from me to interfere with or question the natural
affections of two young people, but may I ask you what you know of
the--er--young gentleman for whom you are sacrificing so much, and,
perhaps, imperilling your whole future? For instance, have you known him
long?"
The slightly troubled air of trying to understand--not unlike the vague
wonderment of childhood--with which Miss Mullins had received the
beginning of this exordium, changed to a relieved smile of comprehension
as she said quickly, "Oh, yes, nearly a whole year."
"And," said the Judge, smiling, "has he a vocation--is he in business?"
"Oh, yes," she returned, "he's a collector."
"A collector?"
"Yes; he collects bills, you know, money," she went on, with childish
eagerness, "not for himself--_he_ never has any money, poor Charley--but
for his firm. It's dreadful hard work, too, keeps him out for days and
nights, over bad roads and baddest weather. Sometimes, when he's stole
over to the ranch just to see me, he's been so bad he could scarcely
keep his seat in the saddle, much less stand. And he's got to take
mighty big risks, too. Times the folks are cross with him and won't pay;
once they shot him in the arm, and he came to me, and I helped do it up
for him. But he don't mind. He's real brave, jest as brave as he's
good." There was such a wholesome ring of truth in this pretty praise
that we were touched in sympathy with the speaker.
"What firm does he collect for?" asked the Judge, gently.
"I don't know exactly--he won't tell me--but I think it's a Spanish
firm. You see"--she took us all into her confidence with a sweeping
smile of innocent yet half-mischievous artfulness--"I only know because
I peeped over a letter he once got from his firm, telling him he must
hustle up and be ready for the road the next day--but I think the name
was Martinez--yes, Ramon Martinez."
In the dead silence that ensued--a silence so profound that we could
hear the horses in the distant stable-yard rattling their harness--one
of the younger "Excelsior" boys burst into a hysteric laugh, but the
fierce eye of Yuba Bill was down upon him, and seemed to instantly
stiffen him into a silent, grinning mask. The young girl, however, took
no note of it; following out, with lover-like diffusiveness, the
reminiscences thus awakened, she went on:
[Illustration: "AND--THEN CAME THE RAIN!"]
"Yes, it's mighty hard work, but he says it's all for me, and as soon as
we're married he'll quit it. He might have quit it before, but he won't
take no money of me, nor what I told him I could get out of dad! That
aint his style. He's mighty proud--if he is poor--is Charley. Why thar's
all ma's money which she left me in the Savin's Bank that I wanted to
draw out--for I had the right--and give it to him, but he wouldn't hear
of it! Why, he wouldn't take one of the things I've got with me, if he
knew it. And so he goes on ridin' and ridin', here and there and
everywhere, and gettin' more and more played out and sad, and thin and
pale as a spirit, and always so uneasy about his business, and startin'
up at times when we're meetin' out in the South Woods or in the far
clearin', and sayin': 'I must be goin' now, Polly,' and yet always
tryin' to be chiffle and chipper afore me. Why he must have rid miles
and miles to have watched for me thar in the brush at the foot of
Galloper's to-night, jest to see if all was safe, and Lordy! I'd have
given him the signal and showed a light if I'd died for it the next
minit. There! That's what I know of Charley--that's what I'm running
away from home for--that's what I'm running to him for, and I
don't care who knows it! And I only wish I'd done it afore--and I
would--if--if--if--he'd only _asked me!_ There now!" She stopped,
panted, and choked. Then one of the sudden transitions of youthful
emotion overtook the eager, laughing face; it clouded up with the swift
change of childhood, a lightning quiver of expression broke over
it--and--then came the rain!
I think this simple act completed our utter demoralisation! We smiled
feebly at each other with that assumption of masculine superiority which
is miserably conscious of its own helplessness at such moments. We
looked out of the window, blew our noses, said: "Eh--what?" and "I say,"
vaguely to each other, and were greatly relieved and yet apparently
astonished when Yuba Bill, who had turned his back upon the fair
speaker, and was kicking the logs in the fireplace, suddenly swept down
upon us and bundled us all into the road, leaving Miss Mullins alone.
Then he walked aside with Judge Thompson for a few moments; returned to
us, autocratically demanded of the party a complete reticence towards
Miss Mullins on the subject matter under discussion, re-entered the
station, re-appeared with the young lady, suppressed a faint idiotic
cheer which broke from us at the spectacle of her innocent face once
more cleared and rosy, climbed the box, and in another moment we were
under way.
"Then she don't know what her lover is yet?" asked the Expressman,
eagerly.
"No."
"Are _you_ certain it's one of the gang?"
"Can't say _for sure_. It mout be a young chap from Yolo who bucked agin
the tiger [1] at Sacramento, got regularly cleaned out and busted, and
joined the gang for a flier. They say thar was a new hand in that job
over at Keeley's--and a mighty game one, too--and ez there was some
buckshot onloaded that trip, he might hev got his share, and that would
tally with what the girl said about his arm. See! Ef that's the man,
I've heered he was the son of some big preacher in the States, and a
college sharp to boot, who ran wild in 'Frisco, and played himself for
all he was worth. They're the wust kind to kick when they once get a
foot over the traces. For stiddy, comf'ble kempany," added Bill
reflectively, "give _me_ the son of a man that was _hanged!_"
"But what are you going to do about this?"
"That depends upon the feller who comes to meet her."
"But you aint going to try to take him? That would be playing it pretty
low down on them both."
"Keep your hair on, Jimmy! The Judge and me are only going to rastle
with the sperrit of that gay young galoot, when he drops down for his
girl--and exhort him pow'ful! Ef he allows he's convicted of sin and
will find the Lord, we'll marry him and the gal offhand at the next
station, and the Judge will officiate himself for nothin'. We're goin'
to have this yer elopement done on the square--and our waybill
clean--you bet!"
"But you don't suppose he'll trust himself in your hands?"
"Polly will signal to him that it's all square."
"Ah!" said the Expressman. Nevertheless in those few moments the men
seemed to have exchanged dispositions. The Expressman looked doubtfully,
critically, and even cynically before him. Bill's face had relaxed, and
something like a bland smile beamed across it, as he drove confidently
and unhesitatingly forward.
Day, meantime, although full blown and radiant on the mountain summits
around us, was yet nebulous and uncertain in the valleys into which we
were plunging. Lights still glimmered in the cabins and few ranch
buildings which began to indicate the thicker settlements. And the
shadows were heaviest in a little copse, where a note from Judge
Thompson in the coach was handed up to Yuba Bill, who at once slowly
began to draw up his horses. The coach stopped finally near the junction
of a small cross road. At the same moment Miss Mullins slipped down from
the vehicle, and, with a parting wave of her hand to the Judge who had
assisted her from the steps, tripped down the cross road, and
disappeared in its semi-obscurity. To our surprise the stage waited,
Bill holding the reins listlessly in his hands. Five minutes passed--an
eternity of expectation, and--as there was that in Yuba Bill's face
which forbade idle questioning--an aching void of silence also! This was
at last broken by a strange voice from the road:
"Go on--we'll follow."
[Illustration: "A PARTING WAVE OF HER HAND."]
The coach started forward. Presently we heard the sound of other wheels
behind us. We all craned our necks backward to get a view of the
unknown, but by the growing light we could only see that we were
followed at a distance by a buggy with two figures in it. Evidently
Polly Mullins and her lover! We hoped that they would pass us. But the
vehicle, although drawn by a fast horse, preserved its distance always,
and it was plain that its driver had no desire to satisfy our curiosity.
The Expressman had recourse to Bill.
"Is it the man you thought of?" he asked, eagerly.
"I reckon," said Bill, briefly.
"But," continued the Expressman, returning to his former scepticism,
"what's to keep them both from levanting together now?"
Bill jerked his hand towards the boot with a grim smile.
"Their baggage."
"Oh!" said the Expressman.
"Yes," continued Bill. "We'll hang on to that gal's little frills and
fixin's until this yer job's settled, and the ceremony's over, jest as
ef we waz her own father. And, what's more, young man," he added,
suddenly turning to the Expressman, "_you'll_ express them trunks of
hers _through to Sacramento_ with your kempany's labels, and hand her
the receipts and cheques for them, so she _can get 'em there_. That'll
keep _him_ outer temptation and the reach o' the gang, until they get
away among white men and civilisation again. When your hoary-headed ole
grandfather--or, to speak plainer, that partikler old whiskey-soaker
known as Yuba Bill, wot sits on this box," he continued, with a
diabolical wink at the Expressman--"waltzes in to pervide for a young
couple jest startin' in life, thar's nothin' mean about his style, you
bet. He fills the bill every time! Speshul Providences take a back seat
when he's around."
When the station hotel and straggling settlement of Sugar Pine, now
distinct and clear in the growing light, at last rose within rifleshot
on the plateau, the buggy suddenly darted swiftly by us--so swiftly that
the faces of the two occupants were barely distinguishable as they
passed--and, keeping the lead by a dozen lengths, reached the door of
the hotel. The young girl and her companion leaped down and vanished
within as we drew up. They had evidently determined to elude our
curiosity, and were successful.
But the material appetites of the passengers, sharpened by the keen
mountain air, were more potent than their curiosity, and, as the
breakfast-bell rang out at the moment the stage stopped, a majority of
them rushed into the dining-room and scrambled for places without giving
much heed to the vanished couple or to the Judge and Yuba Bill, who had
disappeared also. The through coach to Marysville and Sacramento was
likewise waiting, for Sugar Pine was the limit of Bill's ministration,
and the coach which we had just left went no further. In the course of
twenty minutes, however, there was a slight and somewhat ceremonious
bustling in the hall and on the verandah, and Yuba Bill and the Judge
re-appeared. The latter was leading, with some elaboration of manner and
detail, the shapely figure of Miss Mullins, and Yuba Bill was
accompanying her companion to the buggy. We all rushed to the windows to
get a good view of the mysterious stranger and probable ex-brigand whose
life was now linked with our fair fellow-passenger. I am afraid,
however, that we all participated in a certain impression of
disappointment and doubt. Handsome and even cultivated-looking, he
assuredly was--young and vigorous in appearance. But there was a certain
half-shamed, half-defiant suggestion in his expression, yet coupled with
a watchful lurking uneasiness which was not pleasant and hardly becoming
in a bridegroom--and the possessor of such a bride. But the frank,
joyous, innocent face of Polly Mullins, resplendent with a simple, happy
confidence, melted our hearts again, and condoned the fellow's
shortcomings. We waved our hands; I think we would have given three
rousing cheers as they drove away if the omnipotent eye of Yuba Bill had
not been upon us. It was well, for the next moment we were summoned to
the presence of that soft-hearted autocrat.
We found him alone with the Judge in a private sitting-room, standing
before a table on which there was a decanter and glasses. As we filed
expectantly into the room and the door closed behind us, he cast a
glance of hesitating tolerance over the group.
"Gentlemen," he said slowly, "you was all present at the beginnin' of a
little game this mornin', and the Judge thar thinks that you oughter be
let in at the finish. _I_ don't see that it's any of _your_ d----d
business--so to speak--but ez the Judge here allows you're all in the
secret, I've called you in to take a partin' drink to the health of Mr.
and Mrs. Charley Byng--ez is now comf'ably off on their bridal tower.
What _you_ know or what _you_ suspects of the young galoot that's
married the gal aint worth shucks to anybody, and I wouldn't give it to
a yaller pup to play with, but the Judge thinks you ought all to promise
right here that you'll keep it dark. That's his opinion. Ez far as my
opinion goes, gen'lmen," continued Bill, with greater blandness and
apparent cordiality, "I wanter simply remark, in a keerless, offhand
gin'ral way, that ef I ketch any God-forsaken, lop-eared, chuckle-headed
blatherin' idjet airin' _his_ opinion----"
"One moment, Bill," interposed Judge Thompson with a grave smile--"let
me explain. You understand, gentlemen," he said, turning to us, "the
singular, and I may say affecting, situation which our good-hearted
friend here has done so much to bring to what we hope will be a happy
termination. I want to give here, as my professional opinion, that there
is nothing in his request which, in your capacity as good citizens and
law-abiding men, you may not grant. I want to tell you, also, that you
are condoning no offence against the statutes; that there is not a
particle of legal evidence before us of the criminal antecedents of Mr.
Charles Byng, except that which has been told you by the innocent lips
of his betrothed, which the law of the land has now sealed for ever in
the mouth of his wife, and that our own actual experience of his acts
have been in the main exculpatory of any previous irregularity--if not
incompatible with it. Briefly, no judge would charge, no jury convict,
on such evidence. When I add that the young girl is of legal age, that
there is no evidence of any previous undue influence, but rather of the
reverse, on the part of the bridegroom, and that I was content, as a
magistrate, to perform the ceremony, I think you will be satisfied to
give your promise, for the sake of the bride, and drink a happy life to
them both."
[Illustration: THE JUDGE AND MISS MULLINS.]
I need not say that we did this cheerfully, and even extorted from Bill
a grunt of satisfaction. The majority of the company, however, who were
going with the through coach to Sacramento, then took their leave, and,
as we accompanied them to the verandah, we could see that Miss Polly
Mullins's trunks were already transferred to the other vehicle under the
protecting seals and labels of the all-potent Express Company. Then the
whip cracked, the coach rolled away, and the last traces of the
adventurous young couple disappeared in the hanging red dust of its
wheels.
But Yuba Bill's grim satisfaction at the happy issue of the episode
seemed to suffer no abatement. He even exceeded his usual deliberately
regulated potations, and, standing comfortably with his back to the
centre of the now deserted bar-room, was more than usually loquacious
with the Expressman. "You see," he said, in bland reminiscence, "when
your old Uncle Bill takes hold of a job like this, he puts it straight
through without changin' hosses. Yet thar was a moment, young feller,
when I thought I was stompt! It was when we'd made up our mind to make
that chap tell the gal fust all what he was! Ef she'd rared or kicked in
the traces, or hung back only ez much ez that, we'd hev given him jest
five minits' law to get up and get and leave her, and we'd hev toted
that gal and her fixin's back to her dad again! But she jest gave a
little scream and start, and then went off inter hysterics, right on his
buzzum, laughing and cryin' and sayin' that nothin' should part 'em.
Gosh! if I didn't think _he_ woz more cut up than she about it--a minit
it looked as ef _he_ didn't allow to marry her arter all, but that
passed, and they was married hard and fast--you bet! I reckon he's had
enough of stayin' out o' nights to last him, and ef the valley
settlements hevn't got hold of a very shining member, at least the
foothills hev got shut of one more of the Ramon Martinez gang."
"What's that about the Ramon Martinez gang?" said a quiet potential
voice.
Bill turned quickly. It was the voice of the Divisional Superintendent
of the Express Company--a man of eccentric determination of character,
and one of the few whom the autocratic Bill recognised as an equal--who
had just entered the bar-room. His dusty pongee cloak and soft hat
indicated that he had that morning arrived on a round of inspection.
"Don't care if I do, Bill," he continued, in response to Bill's
invitatory gesture, walking to the bar. "It's a little raw out on the
road. Well, what were you saying about Ramon Martinez gang? You haven't
come across one of 'em, have you?"
"No," said Bill, with a slight blinking of his eye, as he ostentatiously
lifted his glass to the light.
"And you _won't_," added the Superintendent, leisurely sipping his
liquor. "For the fact is, the gang is about played out. Not from want of
a job now and then, but from the difficulty of disposing of the results
of their work. Since the new instructions to the agents to identify and
trace all dust and bullion offered to them went into force, you see,
they can't get rid of their swag. All the gang are spotted at the
offices, and it costs too much for them to pay a fence or a middleman of
any standing. Why, all that flaky river gold they took from the
Excelsior Company can be identified as easy as if it was stamped with
the company's mark. They can't melt it down themselves; they can't get
others to do it for them; they can't ship it to the Mint or Assay
Offices in Marysville and 'Frisco, for they won't take it without our
certificate and seals, and _we_ don't take any undeclared freight
_within_ the lines that we've drawn around their beat, except from
people and agents known. Why, _you_ know that well enough, Jim," he
said, suddenly appealing to the Expressman, "don't you?"
Possibly the suddenness of the appeal caused the Expressman to swallow
his liquor the wrong way, for he was overtaken with a fit of coughing,
and stammered hastily as he laid down his glass, "Yes--of
course--certainly."
"No, sir," resumed the Superintendent cheerfully, "they're pretty well
played out. And the best proof of it is that they've lately been robbing
ordinary passengers' trunks. There was a freight waggon 'held up' near
Dow's Flat the other day, and a lot of baggage gone through. I had to go
down there to look into it. Darned if they hadn't lifted a lot o'
woman's wedding things from that rich couple who got married the other
day out at Marysville. Looks as if they were playing it rather low down,
don't it? Coming down to hard pan and the bed rock--eh?"
The Expressman's face was turned anxiously towards Bill, who, after a
hurried gulp of his remaining liquor, still stood staring at the window.
Then he slowly drew on one of his large gloves. "Ye didn't," he said,
with a slow, drawling, but perfectly distinct, articulation, "happen to
know old 'Skinner' Hemmings when you were over there?"
"Yes."
"And his daughter?"
"He hasn't got any."
"A sort o' mild, innocent, guileless child of nature?" persisted Bill,
with a yellow face, a deadly calm and Satanic deliberation.
"No. I tell you he _hasn't_ any daughter. Old man Hemmings is a
confirmed old bachelor. He's too mean to support more than one."
"And you didn't happen to know any o' that gang, did ye?" continued
Bill, with infinite protraction.
"Yes. Knew 'em all. There was French Pete, Cherokee Bob, Kanaka Joe,
One-eyed Stillson, Softy Brown, Spanish Jack, and two or three
Greasers."
"And ye didn't know a man by the name of Charley Byng?"
[Illustration: "'YE DIDN'T KNOW A MAN BY THE NAME OF CHARLEY BYNG?'"]
"No," returned the Superintendent, with a slight suggestion of weariness
and a distraught glance towards the door.
"A dark, stylish chap, with shifty black eyes and a curled up
merstache?" continued Bill, with dry, colourless persistence.
"No. Look here, Bill, I'm in a little bit of a hurry--but I suppose you
must have your little joke before we part. Now, what _is_ your little
game?"
"Wot you mean?" demanded Bill, with sudden brusqueness.
"Mean? Well, old man, you know as well as I do. You're giving me the
very description of Ramon Martinez himself, ha! ha! No--Bill! you didn't
play me this time. You're mighty spry and clever, but you didn't catch
on just then."
He nodded and moved away with a light laugh. Bill turned a stony face to
the Expressman. Suddenly a gleam of mirth came into his gloomy eyes. He
bent over the young man, and said in a hoarse, chuckling whisper:
"But I got even after all!"
"How?"
"He's tied up to that lying little she-devil, hard and fast!"
[Illustration: IDLERS]
THE MODERN BABYLON.
BY CYNICUS.
[Illustration: THE MODERN PHAETON]
The day is done for honest thriving
Through Speculation's reckless driving.
[Illustration: THE SCAPEGOAT]
[Illustration: LAW & JUSTICE]
Your distance Madam, for you see
You dare not, unless I agree
[Illustration: SAMSON AGONISTES]
[Illustration: MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN.]
MY FIRST BOOKS.
"UNDERTONES" AND "IDYLS AND LEGENDS OF INVERBURN."
BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE HUTCHINSON.
(PHOTOGRAPHS BY MESSRS. FRADELLE AND YOUNG.)
My first serious effort in Literature was what I may call a
double-barrelled one; in other words, I was seriously engaged upon Two
Books at the same time, and it was by the merest accident that they did
not appear simultaneously. As it was, only a few months divided one from
the other, and they are always, in my own mind, inseparable, or Siamese,
twins. The book of poems called _Undertones_ was the one; the book of
poems called _Idyls and Legends of Inverburn_ was the other. They were
published nearly thirty years ago, when I was still a boy, and as they
happened to bring me into connection, more or less intimately, with some
of the leading spirits of the age, a few notes concerning them may be of
interest.
[Illustration: MR. BUCHANAN'S HOUSE.]
A word, first, as to my literary beginnings. I can scarcely remember the
time when the idea of winning fame as an author had not occurred to me,
and so I determined very early to adopt the literary profession, a
determination which I unfortunately carried out, to my own life-long
discomfort, and the annoyance of a large portion of the reading public.
When a boy in Glasgow, I made the acquaintance of David Gray, who was
fired with a similar ambition to fly incontinently to London--
The terrible City whose neglect is Death,
Whose smile is Fame!
and to take it by storm. It seemed so easy! "Westminster Abbey," wrote
my friend to a correspondent; "if I live, I shall be buried there--so
help me God!" "I mean, after Tennyson's death," I myself wrote to Philip
Hamerton, "to be Poet-laureate!" From these samples of our callow
speech, the modesty of our ambition may be inferred. Well, it all
happened just as we planned, only otherwise! Through some blunder of
arrangement we two started for London on the same day, but from
different railway stations, and, until some weeks afterwards, one knew
nothing of the other's exodus. I arrived at King's Cross Railway Station
with the conventional half-crown in my pocket; literally and absolutely,
half-a-crown; I wandered about the Great City till I was weary, fell in
with a Thief and Good Samaritan who sheltered me, starved and struggled
with abundant happiness, and finally found myself located at 66,
Stamford Street, Waterloo Bridge, in a top room, for which I paid, when
I had the money, seven shillings a week. Here I lived royally, with Duke
Humphrey, for many a day; and hither, one sad morning, I brought my poor
friend Gray, whom I had discovered languishing somewhere in the Borough,
and who was already death-struck through "sleeping out" one night in
Hyde Park.[2] "Westminster Abbey--if I live, I shall be buried there!"
Poor country singing-bird, the great Dismal Cage of the Dead was not for
_him_, thank God! He lies under the open Heaven, close to the little
river which he immortalised in song. After a brief sojourn in the "dear
old ghastly bankrupt garret at No. 66," he fluttered home to die.
To that old garret, in these days, came living men of letters who were
of large and important interest to us poor cheepers from the North:
Richard Monckton Milnes, Laurence Oliphant, Sydney Dobell, among others,
who took a kindly interest in my dying comrade. But afterwards, when I
was left to fight the battle alone, the place was solitary. Ever
reserved and independent, not to say "dour" and opinionated, I made no
friends, and cared for none. I had found a little work on the newspapers
and magazines, just enough to keep body and soul alive, and while
occupied with this I was busy on the literary Twins to which I referred
at the opening of this paper. What did my isolation matter, when I had
all the gods of Greece for company, to say nothing of the fays and
trolls of Scottish Fairyland? Pallas and Aphrodite haunted that old
garret; out on Waterloo Bridge, night after night, I saw Selene and all
her nymphs; and when my heart sank low, the Fairies of Scotland sang me
lullabies! It was a happy time. Sometimes, for a fortnight together, I
never had a dinner--save, perhaps, on Sunday, when a good-natured Hebe
would bring me covertly a slice from the landlord's joint. My favourite
place of refreshment was the Caledonian Coffee House in Covent Garden.
Here, for a few coppers, I could feast on coffee and muffins--muffins
saturated with butter, and worthy of the gods! Then, issuing forth,
full-fed, glowing, oleaginous, I would light my pipe, and wander out
into the lighted streets.
[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE HALL.]
Criticisms for the _Athenaeum_, then edited by Hepworth Dixon, brought me
ten-and-sixpence a column. I used to go to the old office in Wellington
Street and have my contributions measured off on the current number
with a foot-rule, by good old John Francis, the publisher. I wrote,
too, for the _Literary Gazette_, where the pay was less
princely--seven-and-sixpence a column, I think, but with all extracts
deducted! The _Gazette_ was then edited by John Morley, who came to the
office daily with a big dog. "I well remember the time when you, a boy,
came to me, a boy, in Catherine Street," wrote honest John to me years
afterwards. But the neighbourhood of Covent Garden had greater wonders!
Two or three times a week, walking, black bag in hand, from Charing
Cross Station to the office of _All the Year Round_ in Wellington
Street, came the good, the only Dickens! From that good Genie the poor
straggler from Fairyland got solid help and sympathy. Few can realise
now what Dickens was then to London. His humour filled its literature
like broad sunlight; the Gospel of Plum-pudding warmed every poor devil
in Bohemia.
At this time, I was (save the mark!) terribly in earnest, with a dogged
determination to bow down to no graven literary Idol, but to judge men
of all ranks on their personal merits. I never had much reverence for
Gods of any sort; if the Superior Persons could not win me by love, I
remained heretical. So it was a long time before I came close to any
living souls, and all that time I was working away at my poems. Then, a
little later, I used to go o' Sundays to the open house of Westland
Marston, which was then a great haunt of literary Bohemians. Here I
first met Dinah Muloch, the author of _John Halifax_, who took a great
fancy to me, used to carry me off to her little nest on Hampstead Heath,
and lend me all her books. At Hampstead, too, I foregathered with Sydney
Dobell, a strangely beautiful soul, with (what seemed to me then) very
effeminate manners. Dobell's mouth was ever full of very pretty
Latinity, for the most part Virgilian. He was fond of quoting, as an
example of perfect expression, sound conveying absolute sense of the
thing described, the doggrel lines--
"Down the stairs the young missises ran
To have a look at Miss Kate's young man!"
The sibilants in the first line, he thought, admirably suggested the
idea of the young ladies slipping along the banisters and peeping into
the hall!
But I had other friends, more helpful to me in preparing my first
twin-offering to the Muses: the faces under the gas, the painted women
on the Bridge (how many a night have I walked up and down by their
sides, and talked to them for hours together), the actors in the
theatres, the ragged groups at the stage doors, London to me, then, was
still Fairyland! Even in the Haymarket, with its babbles of Nymph and
Satyr, there was wonderful life from midnight to dawn--deep sympathy
with which told me that I was a born Pagan, and could never be really
comfortable in any modern Temple of the Proprieties. On other points
connected with that old life on the borders of Bohemia, I need not
touch; it has all been so well done already by Murger, in the _Vie de
Boheme_, and it will not bear translation into contemporary English.
There were cakes and ale, pipes and beer, and ginger was hot in the
mouth too! _Et ego fui in Bohemia_! There were inky fellows and bouncing
girls, _then_; _now_ there are only fine ladies, and respectable,
God-fearing men of letters.
[Illustration: THE DINING ROOM.]
It was while the Twins were fashioning, that I went down in summer time
to live at Chertsey on the Thames, chiefly in order to be near to one I
had long admired, Thomas Love Peacock, the friend of Shelley and the
author of _Headling Hall_--"Greekey Peekey," as they called him, on
account of his prodigious knowledge of things and books Hellenic. I soon
grew to love the dear old man, and sat at his feet, like an obedient
pupil, in his green old-fashioned garden at Lower Halliford. To him I
first read some of my _Undertones_, getting many a rap over the knuckles
for my sacrilegious tampering with Divine Myths. What mercy could _I_
expect from one who had never forgiven "Johnny" Keats for his frightful
perversion of the sacred mystery of Endymion and Selene? and who was
horrified at the base "modernism" of Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound?" But
to think of it! He had known Shelley, and all the rest of the demigods,
and his speech was golden with memories of them all! Dear old Pagan,
wonderful in his death as in his life. When, shortly before he died, his
house caught fire, and the mild curate of the parish begged him to
withdraw from the library of books he loved so well, he flatly refused
to listen, and cried roundly, in a line of vehement blank verse, "By the
immortal gods, I will not stir!" [3]