CHAPTER I

THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP AND OTHER TALES

With Condensed Novels, Spanish And American Legends, And Earlier Papers

From The Writings Of Bret Harte

By Bret Harte

_With an Introduction by the Author_

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

In 1882, it was felt to be desirable that Mr. Harte’s scattered work

should be brought together in convenient form, and the result was

a compact edition of five volumes. After that date, as before, he

continued to produce poems, tales, sketches, and romances in steady

succession, and in 1897 his publishers undertook a uniform and orderly

presentation of the results of more than thirty years of his literary

activity. The fourteen volumes that embodied those results were enriched

by Introductions and a Glossary prepared by Mr. Harte himself.

The present Riverside Edition is based on the collection made in 1897,

but is enlarged by the inclusion of later work.

Boston, 4 Park Street, Autumn, 1902.

CONTENTS

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP AND OTHER SKETCHES. The Luck Of Roaring Camp.

The Outcasts Of Poker Flat. Miggles Tennessee’s Partner. The Idyl Of Red

Gulch Brown Of Calaveras

CONDENSED NOVELS. Muck-A-Muck: A Modern Indian Novel. Selina Sedilia.

The Ninety-Nine Guardsmen. Miss Mix. Mr. Midshipman Breezy: A Naval

Officer. Guy Heavystone; Or, “Entire:” A Muscular Novel John Jenkins; Or,

The Smoker Reformed Fantine. After The French Of Victor Hugo “La Femme”.

After The French Of M. Michelet The Dweller Of The Threshold N. N.:

Being A Novel In The French Paragraphic Style No Title. Handsome Is As

Handsome Does. Lothaw; Or, The Adventures Of A Young Gentleman In Search

Of A Religion. The Haunted Man: A Christmas Story. Terence Denville.

Mary McGillup. The Hoodlum Band; Or, The Boy Chief. The Infant

Politician, And The Pirate Prodigy.

EARLIER SKETCHES. M’liss: An Idyl Of Red Mountain. Chapter I Smith’s

Pocket. Chapter II Which Contains A Dream Of The Just Aristides.

Chapter III Under The Greenwood Tree. Chapter IV Which Has A Good

Moral Tendency. Chapter V “Open Sesame”. Chapter VI The Trials Of Mrs.

Morpher. Chapter VII The People vs John Doe Waters. Chapter VIII The

Author To The Reader—Explanatory. Chapter IX Cleaning Up. Chapter X The

Red Rock High-Water Mark. A Lonely Ride. The Man Of No Account. Notes

By Flood And Field. Waiting For The Ship: A Fort Point Idyl. A Night At

Wingdam.

SPANISH AND AMERICAN LEGENDS. The Legend Of Monte Del Diablo. The Right

Eye Of The Commander. The Legend Of Devil’s Point. The Adventure Of

Padre Vicentio: A Legend Of San Francisco. The Devil And The Broker: A

Mediaeval Legend. The Ogress Of Silver Land; Or, The Diverting History Of

Prince Badfellah And Prince Bulleboye. The Christmas Gift That Came To

Rupert: A Story For Little Soldiers.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The opportunity here offered [Footnote: By the appearance in England

several years ago of an edition of the author’s writings as then

collected.] to give some account of the genesis of these Californian

sketches, and the conditions under which they were conceived, is

peculiarly tempting to an author who has been obliged to retain a decent

professional reticence under a cloud of ingenious surmise, theory, and

misinterpretation. He very gladly seizes this opportunity to establish

the chronology of the sketches, and incidentally to show that what are

considered the “happy accidents” of literature are very apt to be the

results of quite logical and often prosaic processes.

The author’s _first_ volume was published in 1865 in a thin book of

verse, containing, besides the titular poem, “The Lost Galleon,” various

patriotic contributions to the lyrics of the Civil War, then raging,

and certain better known humorous pieces, which have been hitherto

interspersed with his later poems in separate volumes, but are now

restored to their former companionship. This was followed in 1867 by

“The Condensed Novels,” originally contributed to the “San Francisco

Californian,” a journal then edited by the author, and a number of local

sketches entitled “Bohemian Papers,” making a single not very plethoric

volume, the author’s first book of prose. But he deems it worthy of

consideration that during this period, i.e. from 1862 to 1866,

he produced “The Society upon the Stanislaus” and “The Story of

M’liss,”—the first a dialectical poem, the second a Californian

romance,—his first efforts toward indicating a peculiarly

characteristic Western American literature. He would like to offer these

facts as evidence of his very early, half-boyish but very enthusiastic

belief in such a possibility,—a belief which never deserted him, and

which, a few years later, from the better-known pages of “The Overland

Monthly,” he was able to demonstrate to a larger and more cosmopolitan

audience in the story of “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and the poem of the

“Heathen Chinee.” But it was one of the anomalies of the very condition

of life that he worked amidst, and endeavored to portray, that these

first efforts were rewarded by very little success; and, as he will

presently show, even “The Luck of Roaring Camp” depended for its

recognition in California upon its success elsewhere. Hence the critical

reader will observe that the bulk of these earlier efforts, as shown in

the first two volumes, were marked by very little flavor of the soil,

but were addressed to an audience half foreign in their sympathies, and

still imbued with Eastern or New England habits and literary traditions.

“Home” was still potent with these voluntary exiles in their moments

of relaxation. Eastern magazines and current Eastern literature

formed their literary recreation, and the sale of the better class of

periodicals was singularly great. Nor was the taste confined to American

literature. The illustrated and satirical English journals were as

frequently seen in California as in Massachusetts; and the author

records that he has experienced more difficulty in procuring a copy of

“Punch” in an English provincial town than was his fortune at “Red Dog”

or “One-Horse Gulch.” An audience thus liberally equipped and familiar

with the best modern writers was naturally critical and exacting, and

no one appreciates more than he does the salutary effects of this severe

discipline upon his earlier efforts.

When the first number of “The Overland Monthly” appeared, the author,

then its editor, called the publisher’s attention to the lack of any

distinctive Californian romance in its pages, and averred that, should

no other contribution come in, he himself would supply the omission

in the next number. No other contribution was offered, and the author,

having the plot and general idea already in his mind, in a few days sent

the manuscript of “The Luck of Roaring Camp” to the printer. He had

not yet received the proof-sheets when he was suddenly summoned to the

office of the publisher, whom he found standing the picture of dismay

and anxiety with the proof before him. The indignation and stupefaction

of the author can be well understood when he was told that the printer,

instead of returning the proofs to him, submitted them to the publisher,

with the emphatic declaration that the matter thereof was so indecent,

irreligious, and improper that his proof-reader—a young lady—had

with difficulty been induced to continue its perusal, and that he, as a

friend of the publisher and a well-wisher of the magazine, was impelled

to present to him personally this shameless evidence of the manner

in which the editor was imperilling the future of that enterprise. It

should be premised that the critic was a man of character and standing,

the head of a large printing establishment, a church member, and, the

author thinks, a deacon. In which circumstances the publisher frankly

admitted to the author that, while he could not agree with all of the

printer’s criticisms, he thought the story open to grave objection, and

its publication of doubtful expediency.

Believing only that he was the victim of some extraordinary

typographical blunder, the author at once sat down and read the proof.

In its new dress, with the metamorphosis of type,—that metamorphosis

which every writer so well knows changes his relations to it and makes

it no longer seem a part of himself,—he was able to read it with

something of the freshness of an untold tale. As he read on he found

himself affected, even as he had been affected in the conception and

writing of it—a feeling so incompatible with the charges against

it, that he could only lay it down and declare emphatically, albeit

hopelessly, that he could really see nothing objectionable in it. Other

opinions were sought and given. To the author’s surprise, he found

himself in the minority. Finally, the story was submitted to three

gentlemen of culture and experience, friends of publisher and

author,—who were unable, however, to come to any clear decision.

It was, however, suggested to the author that, assuming the natural

hypothesis that his editorial reasoning might be warped by his literary

predilections in a consideration of one of his own productions, a

personal sacrifice would at this juncture be in the last degree heroic.

This last suggestion had the effect of ending all further discussion,

for he at once informed the publisher that the question of the propriety

of the story was no longer at issue: the only question was of his

capacity to exercise the proper editorial judgment; and that unless he

was permitted to test that capacity by the publication of the story, and

abide squarely by the result, he must resign his editorial position. The

publisher, possibly struck with the author’s confidence, possibly from

kindliness of disposition to a younger man, yielded, and “The Luck of

Roaring Camp” was published in the current number of the magazine for

which it was written, as it was written, without emendation, omission,

alteration, or apology. A not inconsiderable part of the grotesqueness

of the situation was the feeling, which the author retained throughout

the whole affair, of the perfect sincerity, good faith, and seriousness

of his friend’s—the printer’s—objection, and for many days

thereafter he was haunted by a consideration of the sufferings of this

conscientious man, obliged to assist materially in disseminating the

dangerous and subversive doctrines contained in this baleful fiction.

What solemn protests must have been laid with the ink on the rollers and

impressed upon those wicked sheets! what pious warnings must have been

secretly folded and stitched in that number of “The Overland Monthly”!

Across the chasm of years and distance the author stretches forth

the hand of sympathy and forgiveness, not forgetting the gentle

proof-reader, that chaste and unknown nymph, whose mantling cheeks and

downcast eyes gave the first indications of warning.

But the troubles of the “Luck” were far from ended. It had secured an

entrance into the world, but, like its own hero, it was born with an

evil reputation, and to a community that had yet to learn to love it.

The secular press, with one or two exceptions, received it coolly,

and referred to its “singularity;” the religious press frantically

excommunicated it, and anathematized it as the offspring of evil; the

high promise of “The Overland Monthly” was said to have been ruined by

its birth; Christians were cautioned against pollution by its contact;

practical business men were gravely urged to condemn and frown upon

this picture of Californian society that was not conducive to Eastern

immigration; its hapless author was held up to obloquy as a man who had

abused a sacred trust. If its life and reputation had depended on its

reception in California, this edition and explanation would alike have

been needless. But, fortunately, the young “Overland Monthly” had in

its first number secured a hearing and position throughout the American

Union, and the author waited the larger verdict. The publisher, albeit

his worst fears were confirmed, was not a man to weakly regret a

position he had once taken, and waited also. The return mail from

the East brought a letter addressed to the “Editor of the ‘Overland

Monthly,’” enclosing a letter from Fields, Osgood & Co., the publishers

of “The Atlantic Monthly,” addressed to the—to them—unknown “Author of

‘The Luck of Roaring Camp.’” This the author opened, and found to be a

request, upon the most flattering terms, for a story for the “Atlantic”

similar to the “Luck.” The same mail brought newspapers and reviews

welcoming the little foundling of Californian literature with an

enthusiasm that half frightened its author; but with the placing of that

letter in the hands of the publisher, who chanced to be standing by his

side, and who during those dark days had, without the author’s faith,

sustained the author’s position, he felt that his compensation was full

and complete.

Thus encouraged, “The Luck of Roaring Camp” was followed by “The

Outcasts of Poker Flat,” “Miggles,” “Tennessee’s Partner,” and those

various other characters who had impressed the author when, a mere

truant schoolboy, he had lived among them. It is hardly necessary to say

to any observer of human nature that at this time he was advised by

kind and well-meaning friends to content himself with the success of

the “Luck,” and not tempt criticism again; or that from that moment

ever after he was in receipt of that equally sincere contemporaneous

criticism which assured him gravely that each successive story was

a falling off from the last. Howbeit, by reinvigorated confidence in

himself and some conscientious industry, he managed to get together in a

year six or eight of these sketches, which, in a volume called “The

Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches,” gave him that encouragement

in America and England that has since seemed to justify him in swelling

these records of a picturesque passing civilization into the compass of

the present edition.

A few words regarding the peculiar conditions of life and society that

are here rudely sketched, and often but barely outlined. The author is

aware that, partly from a habit of thought and expression, partly from

the exigencies of brevity in his narratives, and partly from the habit

of addressing an audience familiar with the local scenery, he often

assumes, as premises already granted by the reader, the existence of

a peculiar and romantic state of civilization, the like of which few

English readers are inclined to accept without corroborative facts and

figures. These he could only give by referring to the ephemeral records

of Californian journals of that date, and the testimony of far-scattered

witnesses, survivors of the exodus of 1849. He must beg the reader to

bear in mind that this emigration was either across a continent almost

unexplored, or by the way of a long and dangerous voyage around Cape

Horn, and that the promised land itself presented the singular spectacle

of a patriarchal Latin race who had been left to themselves, forgotten

by the world, for nearly three hundred years. The faith, courage, vigor,

youth, and capacity for adventure necessary to this emigration produced

a body of men as strongly distinctive as the companions of Jason. Unlike

most pioneers, the majority were men of profession and education; all

were young, and all had staked their future in the enterprise. Critics

who have taken large and exhaustive views of mankind and society from

club windows in Pall Mall or the Fifth Avenue can only accept for

granted the turbulent chivalry that thronged the streets of San

Francisco in the gala days of her youth, and must read the blazon of

their deeds like the doubtful quarterings of the shield of Amadis de

Gaul. The author has been frequently asked if such and such incidents

were real,—if he had ever met such and such characters. To this he must

return the one answer, that in only a single instance was he conscious

of drawing purely from his imagination and fancy for a character and a

logical succession of incidents drawn therefrom. A few weeks after

his story was published, he received a letter, authentically signed,

_correcting some of the minor details of his facts_ (!), and enclosing

as corroborative evidence a slip from an old newspaper, wherein the main

incident of his supposed fanciful creation was recorded with a largeness

of statement that far transcended his powers of imagination.

He has been repeatedly cautioned, kindly and unkindly, intelligently

and unintelligently, against his alleged tendency to confuse recognized

standards of morality by extenuating lives of recklessness, and often

criminality, with a single solitary virtue. He might easily show that

he has never written a sermon, that he has never moralized or commented

upon the actions of his heroes, that he has never voiced a creed or

obtrusively demonstrated an ethical opinion. He might easily allege

that this merciful effect of his art arose from the reader’s weak human

sympathies, and hold himself irresponsible. But he would be conscious of

a more miserable weakness in thus divorcing himself from his fellow-men

who in the domain of art must ever walk hand in hand with him. So he

prefers to say that, of all the various forms in which Cant presents

itself to suffering humanity, he knows of none so outrageous, so

illogical, so undemonstrable, so marvelously absurd, as the Cant of

“Too Much Mercy.” When it shall be proven to him that communities are

degraded and brought to guilt and crime, suffering or destitution,

from a predominance of this quality; when he shall see pardoned

ticket-of-leave men elbowing men of austere lives out of situation and

position, and the repentant Magdalen supplanting the blameless virgin in

society,—then he will lay aside his pen and extend his hand to the

new Draconian discipline in fiction. But until then he will, without

claiming to be a religious man or a moralist, but simply as an artist,

reverently and humbly conform to the rules laid down by a Great Poet

who created the parable of the “Prodigal Son” and the “Good Samaritan,”

whose works have lasted eighteen hundred years, and will remain when the

present writer and his generation are forgotten. And he is conscious of

uttering no original doctrine in this, but of only voicing the beliefs

of a few of his literary brethren happily living, and one gloriously

dead, who never made proclamation of this “from the housetops.”

* * * * *

THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, AND

OTHER STORIES AND SKETCHES

* * * * *

THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP

There was commotion in Roaring Camp. It could not have been a fight,

for in 1850 that was not novel enough to have called together the entire

settlement. The ditches and claims were not only deserted, but “Tuttle’s

grocery” had contributed its gamblers, who, it will be remembered,

calmly continued their game the day that French Pete and Kanaka Joe shot

each other to death over the bar in the front room. The whole camp

was collected before a rude cabin on the outer edge of the clearing.

Conversation was carried on in a low tone, but the name of a woman

was frequently repeated. It was a name familiar enough in the

camp,—“Cherokee Sal.”

Perhaps the less said of her the better. She was a coarse and, it is to

be feared, a very sinful woman. But at that time she was the only woman

in Roaring Camp, and was just then lying in sore extremity, when she

most needed the ministration of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned, and

irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyrdom hard enough to bear

even when veiled by sympathizing womanhood, but now terrible in her

loneliness. The primal curse had come to her in that original isolation

which must have made the punishment of the first transgression so

dreadful. It was, perhaps, part of the expiation of her sin that, at a

moment when she most lacked her sex’s intuitive tenderness and care, she

met only the half-contemptuous faces of her masculine associates. Yet

a few of the spectators were, I think, touched by her sufferings. Sandy

Tipton thought it was “rough on Sal,” and, in the contemplation of her

condition, for a moment rose superior to the fact that he had an ace and

two bowers in his sleeve.

It will be seen also that the situation was novel. Deaths were by no

means uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was a new thing. People had

been dismissed the camp effectively, finally, and with no possibility of

return; but this was the first time that anybody had been introduced _ab

initio_. Hence the excitement.

“You go in there, Stumpy,” said a prominent citizen known as “Kentuck,”

addressing one of the loungers. “Go in there, and see what you kin do.

You’ve had experience in them things.”

Perhaps there was a fitness in the selection. Stumpy, in other climes,

had been the putative head of two families; in fact, it was owing to

some legal informality in these proceedings that Roaring Camp—a city of

refuge—was indebted to his company. The crowd approved the choice, and

Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. The door closed on the

extempore surgeon and midwife, and Roaring Camp sat down outside, smoked

its pipe, and awaited the issue.

The assemblage numbered about a hundred men. One or two of these

were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were

reckless. Physically they exhibited no indication of their past lives

and character. The greatest scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion

of blonde hair; Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy air and

intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet; the coolest and most courageous

man was scarcely over five feet in height, with a soft voice and an

embarrassed, timid manner. The term “roughs” applied to them was a

distinction rather than a definition. Perhaps in the minor details of

fingers, toes, ears, etc., the camp may have been deficient, but

these slight omissions did not detract from their aggregate force. The

strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand; the best shot had

but one eye.

Such was the physical aspect of the men that were dispersed around

the cabin. The camp lay in a triangular valley between two hills and a

river. The only outlet was a steep trail over the summit of a hill that

faced the cabin, now illuminated by the rising moon. The suffering woman

might have seen it from the rude bunk whereon she lay,—seen it winding

like a silver thread until it was lost in the stars above.

A fire of withered pine boughs added sociability to the gathering. By

degrees the natural levity of Roaring Camp returned. Bets were freely

offered and taken regarding the result. Three to five that “Sal would

get through with it;” even that the child would survive; side bets as

to the sex and complexion of the coming stranger. In the midst of an

excited discussion an exclamation came from those nearest the door, and

the camp stopped to listen. Above the swaying and moaning of the pines,

the swift rush of the river, and the crackling of the fire rose a sharp,

querulous cry,—a cry unlike anything heard before in the camp. The

pines stopped moaning, the river ceased to rush, and the fire to

crackle. It seemed as if Nature had stopped to listen too.

The camp rose to its feet as one man! It was proposed to explode a

barrel of gunpowder; but in consideration of the situation of the

mother, better counsels prevailed, and only a few revolvers were

discharged; for whether owing to the rude surgery of the camp, or some

other reason, Cherokee Sal was sinking fast. Within an hour she had

climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so

passed out of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame, forever. I do not think

that the announcement disturbed them much, except in speculation as

to the fate of the child. “Can he live now?” was asked of Stumpy. The

answer was doubtful. The only other being of Cherokee Sal’s sex

and maternal condition in the settlement was an ass. There was some

conjecture as to fitness, but the experiment was tried. It was less

problematical than the ancient treatment of Romulus and Remus, and

apparently as successful.

When these details were completed, which exhausted another hour, the

door was opened, and the anxious crowd of men, who had already formed

themselves into a queue, entered in single file. Beside the low bunk or

shelf, on which the figure of the mother was starkly outlined below

the blankets, stood a pine table. On this a candle-box was placed,

and within it, swathed in staring red flannel, lay the last arrival at

Roaring Camp. Beside the candle-box was placed a hat. Its use was

soon indicated. “Gentlemen,” said Stumpy, with a singular mixture of

authority and _ex officio_ complacency,—“gentlemen will please pass in

at the front door, round the table, and out at the back door. Them as

wishes to contribute anything toward the orphan will find a hat handy.”

The first man entered with his hat on; he uncovered, however, as he

looked about him, and so unconsciously set an example to the next. In

such communities good and bad actions are catching. As the procession

filed in comments were audible,—criticisms addressed perhaps rather

to Stumpy in the character of showman: “Is that him?” “Mighty

small specimen;” “Hasn’t more’n got the color;” “Ain’t bigger nor a

derringer.” The contributions were as characteristic: A silver tobacco

box; a doubloon; a navy revolver, silver mounted; a gold specimen; a

very beautifully embroidered lady’s handkerchief (from Oakhurst the

gambler); a diamond breastpin; a diamond ring (suggested by the pin,

with the remark from the giver that he “saw that pin and went two

diamonds better”); a slung-shot; a Bible (contributor not detected); a

golden spur; a silver teaspoon (the initials, I regret to say, were not

the giver’s); a pair of surgeon’s shears; a lancet; a Bank of England

note for £5; and about $200 in loose gold and silver coin. During these

proceedings Stumpy maintained a silence as impassive as the dead on his

left, a gravity as inscrutable as that of the newly born on his

right. Only one incident occurred to break the monotony of the curious

procession. As Kentuck bent over the candle-box half curiously, the

child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at his groping finger,

and held it fast for a moment. Kentuck looked foolish and embarrassed.

Something like a blush tried to assert itself in his weather-beaten

cheek. “The d—d little cuss!” he said, as he extricated his finger,

with perhaps more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed

capable of showing. He held that finger a little apart from its fellows

as he went out, and examined it curiously. The examination provoked the

same original remark in regard to the child. In fact, he seemed to

enjoy repeating it. “He rastled with my finger,” he remarked to Tipton,

holding up the member, “the d—d little cuss!”

It was four o’clock before the camp sought repose. A light burnt in the

cabin where the watchers sat, for Stumpy did not go to bed that night.

Nor did Kentuck. He drank quite freely, and related with great gusto his

experience, invariably ending with his characteristic condemnation of

the newcomer. It seemed to relieve him of any unjust implication of

sentiment, and Kentuck had the weaknesses of the nobler sex. When

everybody else had gone to bed, he walked down to the river and

whistled reflectingly. Then he walked up the gulch past the cabin,

still whistling with demonstrative unconcern. At a large redwood-tree he

paused and retraced his steps, and again passed the cabin. Halfway down

to the river’s bank he again paused, and then returned and knocked at

the door. It was opened by Stumpy. “How goes it?” said Kentuck, looking

past Stumpy toward the candle-box. “All serene!” replied Stumpy.

“Anything up?” “Nothing.” There was a pause—an embarrassing one—Stumpy

still holding the door. Then Kentuck had recourse to his finger, which

he held up to Stumpy. “Rastled with it,—the d—d little cuss,” he said,

and retired.

The next day Cherokee Sal had such rude sepulture as Roaring Camp

afforded. After her body had been committed to the hillside, there was

a formal meeting of the camp to discuss what should be done with her

infant. A resolution to adopt it was unanimous and enthusiastic. But an

animated discussion in regard to the manner and feasibility of providing

for its wants at once sprang up. It was remarkable that the argument

partook of none of those fierce personalities with which discussions

were usually conducted at Roaring Camp. Tipton proposed that they should

send the child to Red Dog,—a distance of forty miles,—where female

attention could be procured. But the unlucky suggestion met with fierce

and unanimous opposition. It was evident that no plan which entailed

parting from their new acquisition would for a moment be entertained.

“Besides,” said Tom Ryder, “them fellows at Red Dog would swap it, and

ring in somebody else on us.” A disbelief in the honesty of other camps

prevailed at Roaring Camp, as in other places.

The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection.

It was argued that no decent woman could be prevailed to accept Roaring

Camp as her home, and the speaker urged that “they didn’t want any more

of the other kind.” This unkind allusion to the defunct mother, harsh as

it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety,—the first symptom of the

camp’s regeneration. Stumpy advanced nothing. Perhaps he felt a certain

delicacy in interfering with the selection of a possible successor in

office. But when questioned, he averred stoutly that he and “Jinny”—the

mammal before alluded to—could manage to rear the child. There was

something original, independent, and heroic about the plan that pleased

the camp. Stumpy was retained. Certain articles were sent for to

Sacramento. “Mind,” said the treasurer, as he pressed a bag of gold-dust

into the expressman’s hand, “the best that can be got,—lace, you know,

and filigree-work and frills,—d—n the cost!” Strange to say, the

child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of the mountain camp was

compensation for material deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her

broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foothills,—that

air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal cordial at once bracing

and exhilarating,—he may have found food and nourishment, or a subtle

chemistry that transmuted ass’s milk to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy

inclined to the belief that it was the latter and good nursing. “Me and

that ass,” he would say, “has been father and mother to him! Don’t you,”

he would add, apostrophizing the helpless bundle before him, “never go

back on us.”

By the time he was a month old the necessity of giving him a name became

apparent. He had generally been known as “The Kid,” “Stumpy’s Boy,”

“The Coyote” (an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by Kentuck’s

endearing diminutive of “The d—d little cuss.” But these were felt to

be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another

influence. Gamblers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and

Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought “the luck” to

Roaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been successful.

“Luck” was the name agreed upon, with the prefix of Tommy for greater

convenience. No allusion was made to the mother, and the father was

unknown. “It’s better,” said the philosophical Oakhurst, “to take a

fresh deal all round. Call him Luck, and start him fair.” A day was

accordingly set apart for the christening. What was meant by this

ceremony the reader may imagine who has already gathered some idea of

the reckless irreverence of Roaring Camp. The master of ceremonies

was one “Boston,” a noted wag, and the occasion seemed to promise the

greatest facetiousness. This ingenious satirist had spent two days

in preparing a burlesque of the Church service, with pointed local

allusions. The choir was properly trained, and Sandy Tipton was to stand

godfather. But after the procession had marched to the grove with music

and banners, and the child had been deposited before a mock altar,

Stumpy stepped before the expectant crowd. “It ain’t my style to spoil

fun, boys,” said the little man, stoutly eying the faces around him,

“but it strikes me that this thing ain’t exactly on the squar. It’s

playing it pretty low down on this yer baby to ring in fun on him that

he ain’t goin’ to understand. And ef there’s goin’ to be any godfathers

round, I’d like to see who’s got any better rights than me.” A silence

followed Stumpy’s speech. To the credit of all humorists be it said that

the first man to acknowledge its justice was the satirist thus stopped

of his fun. “But,” said Stumpy, quickly following up his advantage,

“we’re here for a christening, and we’ll have it. I proclaim you Thomas

Luck, according to the laws of the United States and the State of

California, so help me God.” It was the first time that the name of the

Deity had been otherwise uttered than profanely in the camp. The form

of christening was perhaps even more ludicrous than the satirist had

conceived; but strangely enough, nobody saw it and nobody laughed.

“Tommy” was christened as seriously as he would have been under a

Christian roof, and cried and was comforted in as orthodox fashion.

And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp. Almost

imperceptibly a change came over the settlement. The cabin assigned to

“Tommy Luck”—or “The Luck,” as he was more frequently called—first

showed signs of improvement. It was kept scrupulously clean and

whitewashed. Then it was boarded, clothed, and papered. The rosewood,

cradle, packed eighty miles by mule, had, in Stumpy’s way of putting it,

“sorter killed the rest of the furniture.” So the rehabilitation of the

cabin became a necessity. The men who were in the habit of lounging

in at Stumpy’s to see “how ‘The Luck’ got on” seemed to appreciate

the change, and in self-defense the rival establishment of “Tuttle’s

grocery” bestirred itself and imported a carpet and mirrors. The

reflections of the latter on the appearance of Roaring Camp tended to

produce stricter habits of personal cleanliness. Again Stumpy imposed a

kind of quarantine upon those who aspired to the honor and privilege of

holding The Luck. It was a cruel mortification to Kentuck—who, in the

carelessness of a large nature and the habits of frontier life, had

begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle, which, like a snake’s,

only sloughed off through decay—to be debarred this privilege from

certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the subtle influence of

innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly every afternoon in a

clean shirt and face still shining from his ablutions. Nor were moral

and social sanitary laws neglected. “Tommy,” who was supposed to spend

his whole existence in a persistent attempt to repose, must not be

disturbed by noise. The shouting and yelling, which had gained the camp

its infelicitous title, were not permitted within hearing distance of

Stumpy’s. The men conversed in whispers or smoked with Indian gravity.

Profanity was tacitly given up in these sacred precincts, and throughout

the camp a popular form of expletive, known as “D—n the luck!” and

“Curse the luck!” was abandoned, as having a new personal bearing.

Vocal music was not interdicted, being supposed to have a soothing,

tranquilizing quality; and one song, sung by “Man-o’-War Jack,” an

English sailor from her Majesty’s Australian colonies, was quite popular

as a lullaby. It was a lugubrious recital of the exploits of “the

Arethusa, Seventy-four,” in a muffled minor, ending with a prolonged

dying fall at the burden of each verse, “On b-oo-o-ard of the Arethusa.”

It was a fine sight to see Jack holding The Luck, rocking from side

to side as if with the motion of a ship, and crooning forth this naval

ditty. Either through the peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his

song,—it contained ninety stanzas, and was continued with conscientious

deliberation to the bitter end,—the lullaby generally had the desired

effect. At such times the men would lie at full length under the trees

in the soft summer twilight, smoking their pipes and drinking in

the melodious utterances. An indistinct idea that this was pastoral

happiness pervaded the camp. “This ’ere kind o’ think,” said the Cockney

Simmons, meditatively reclining on his elbow, “is ’evingly.” It reminded

him of Greenwich.

On the long summer days The Luck was usually carried to the gulch from

whence the golden store of Roaring Camp was taken. There, on a blanket

spread over pine boughs, he would lie while the men were working in the

ditches below. Latterly there was a rude attempt to decorate this bower

with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs, and generally some one would

bring him a cluster of wild honeysuckles, azaleas, or the painted

blossoms of Las Mariposas. The men had suddenly awakened to the fact

that there were beauty and significance in these trifles, which they

had so long trodden carelessly beneath their feet. A flake of glittering

mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a bright pebble from the bed of

the creek, became beautiful to eyes thus cleared and strengthened,

and were invariably put aside for The Luck. It was wonderful how many

treasures the woods and hillsides yielded that “would do for Tommy.”

Surrounded by playthings such as never child out of fairyland had

before, it is to be hoped that Tommy was content. He appeared to be

serenely happy, albeit there was an infantine gravity about him, a

contemplative light in his round gray eyes, that sometimes worried

Stumpy. He was always tractable and quiet, and it is recorded that once,

having crept beyond his “corral,”—a hedge of tessellated pine boughs,

which surrounded his bed,—he dropped over the bank on his head in

the soft earth, and remained with his mottled legs in the air in that

position for at least five minutes with unflinching gravity. He was

extricated without a murmur. I hesitate to record the many other

instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfortunately, upon the

statements of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a tinge

of superstition. “I crep’ up the bank just now,” said Kentuck one day,

in a breathless state of excitement, “and dern my skin if he wasn’t

a-talking to a jaybird as was a-sittin’ on his lap. There they was, just

as free and sociable as anything you please, a-jawin’ at each other just

like two cherrybums.” Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine boughs or

lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above him, to him the

birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed. Nature was

his nurse and playfellow. For him she would let slip between the leaves

golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within his grasp; she would

send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay and resinous

gum; to him the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the

bumblebees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumberous accompaniment.

Such was the golden summer of Roaring Camp. They were “flush times,” and

the luck was with them. The claims had yielded enormously. The camp

was jealous of its privileges and looked suspiciously on strangers. No

encouragement was given to immigration, and, to make their seclusion

more perfect, the land on either side of the mountain wall that

surrounded the camp they duly preempted. This, and a reputation for

singular proficiency with the revolver, kept the reserve of Roaring

Camp inviolate. The expressman—their only connecting link with the

surrounding world—sometimes told wonderful stories of the camp. He

would say, “They’ve a street up there in ‘Roaring’ that would lay over

any street in Red Dog. They’ve got vines and flowers round their houses,

and they wash themselves twice a day. But they’re mighty rough on

strangers, and they worship an Ingin baby.”

With the prosperity of the camp came a desire for further improvement.

It was proposed to build a hotel in the following spring, and to invite

one or two decent families to reside there for the sake of The Luck, who

might perhaps profit by female companionship. The sacrifice that this

concession to the sex cost these men, who were fiercely skeptical in

regard to its general virtue and usefulness, can only be accounted for

by their affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But the resolve

could not be carried into effect for three months, and the minority

meekly yielded in the hope that something might turn up to prevent it.

And it did.

The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foothills. The snow

lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river,

and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a

tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant

trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had

been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned. “Water put

the gold into them gulches,” said Stumpy. “It’s been here once and will

be here again!” And that night the North Fork suddenly leaped over its

banks and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring Camp.

In the confusion of rushing water, crashing trees, and crackling timber,

and the darkness which seemed to flow with the water and blot out the

fair valley, but little could be done to collect the scattered camp.

When the morning broke, the cabin of Stumpy, nearest the river-bank, was

gone. Higher up the gulch they found the body of its unlucky owner; but

the pride, the hope, the joy, The Luck, of Roaring Camp had disappeared.

They were returning with sad hearts when a shout from the bank recalled

them.

It was a relief-boat from down the river. They had picked up, they

said, a man and an infant, nearly exhausted, about two miles below. Did

anybody know them, and did they belong here?

It needed but a glance to show them Kentuck lying there, cruelly crushed

and bruised, but still holding The Luck of Roaring Camp in his arms. As

they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they saw that the child was

cold and pulseless. “He is dead,” said one. Kentuck opened his eyes.

“Dead?” he repeated feebly. “Yes, my man, and you are dying too.” A

smile lit the eyes of the expiring Kentuck. “Dying!” he repeated; “he’s

a-taking me with him. Tell the boys I’ve got The Luck with me now;” and

the strong man, clinging to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to

cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever

to the unknown sea.

THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT

As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker

Flat on the morning of the 23d of November, 1850, he was conscious of a

change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or

three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and

exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air,

which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.

Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these

indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was

another question. “I reckon they’re after somebody,” he reflected;

“likely it’s me.” He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which

he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat

boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.

In point of fact, Poker Flat was “after somebody.” It had lately

suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and

a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction,

quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked

it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper

persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then

hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in

the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I regret to

say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however,

to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in

such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to

sit in judgment.

Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this

category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible

example and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets of

the sums he had won from them. “It’s agin justice,” said Jim Wheeler,

“to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp—an entire stranger—carry

away our money.” But a crude sentiment of equity residing in the

breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst

overruled this narrower local prejudice.

Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the

less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was

too much of a gambler not to accept fate. With him life was at best an

uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the

dealer.

A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to

the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to

be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed

escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman

familiarly known as “The Duchess;” another who had won the title of

“Mother Shipton;” and “Uncle Billy,” a suspected, sluice-robber

and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the

spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only when the gulch

which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader

spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return at

the peril of their lives.

As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a

few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother

Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The

philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother

Shipton’s desire to cut somebody’s heart out, to the repeated statements

of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths

that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode forward. With the

easy good humor characteristic of his class, he insisted upon exchanging

his own riding-horse, “Five-Spot,” for the sorry mule which the Duchess

rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer sympathy.

The young woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble,

faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of “Five-Spot” with

malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the whole party in one sweeping

anathema.

The road to Sandy Bar—a camp that, not having as yet experienced the

regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer some

invitation to the emigrants—lay over a steep mountain range. It was

distant a day’s severe travel. In that advanced season the party soon

passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foothills into

the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was narrow and

difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon the

ground, declared her intention of going no farther, and the party

halted.

The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre,

surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped

gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked the valley.

It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp, had camping been

advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half the journey to Sandy

Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped or provisioned

for delay. This fact he pointed out to his companions curtly, with a

philosophic commentary on the folly of “throwing up their hand before

the game was played out.” But they were furnished with liquor, which in

this emergency stood them in place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience.

In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long before they were more or

less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose

state into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton

snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a rock,

calmly surveying them.

Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which

required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his own

language, he “couldn’t afford it.” As he gazed at his recumbent fellow

exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah trade, his habits of life,

his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him. He bestirred

himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands and face, and

other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits, and for a

moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his weaker and

more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not

help feeling the want of that excitement which, singularly enough, was

most conducive to that calm equanimity for which he was notorious. He

looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above the

circling pines around him, at the sky ominously clouded, at the valley

below, already deepening into shadow; and, doing so, suddenly he heard

his own name called.

A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the

newcomer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as “The

Innocent,” of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over

a “little game,” and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire

fortune—amounting to some forty dollars—of that guileless youth. After

the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator behind

the door and thus addressed him: “Tommy, you’re a good little man, but

you can’t gamble worth a cent. Don’t try it over again.” He then handed

him his money hack, pushed him gently from the room, and so made a

devoted slave of Tom Simson.

There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic greeting

of Mr. Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat to seek

his fortune. “Alone?” No, not exactly alone; in fact (a giggle), he had

run away with Piney Woods. Didn’t Mr. Oakhurst remember Piney? She that

used to wait on the table at the Temperance House? They had been engaged

a long time, but old Jake Woods had objected, and so they had run away,

and were going to Poker Flat to be married, and here they were. And they

were tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a place to camp, and

company. All this the Innocent delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout,

comely damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind the pine-tree, where she

had been blushing unseen, and rode to the side of her lover.

Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less with

propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not fortunate.

He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to kick Uncle

Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough

to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst’s kick a superior power that would not

bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying

further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there was no

provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, the Innocent met

this objection by assuring the party that he was provided with an extra

mule loaded with provisions, and by the discovery of a rude attempt at a

log house near the trail. “Piney can stay with Mrs. Oakhurst,” said the

Innocent, pointing to the Duchess, “and I can shift for myself.”

Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst’s admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from

bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire

up the canon until he could recover his gravity. There he confided the

joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of

his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned to the party, he

found them seated by a fire—for the air had grown strangely chill

and the sky overcast—in apparently amicable conversation. Piney was

actually talking in an impulsive girlish fashion to the Duchess, who

was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown for many

days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently with equal effect,

to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into

amiability. “Is this yer a d—d picnic?” said Uncle Billy, with inward

scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the

tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the

alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular

nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist

into his mouth.

As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked the

tops of the pine-trees and moaned through their long and gloomy aisles.

The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine boughs, was set apart

for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly exchanged a

kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard above the

swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother Shipton were

probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity,

and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was replenished, the

men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes were asleep.

Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed and

cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing

strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood to leave

it,—snow!

He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers,

for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had been

lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain, and a curse

to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been tethered—they

were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly disappearing in

the snow.

The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with

his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered

peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the virgin

Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended

by celestial guardians; and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his blanket over his

shoulders, stroked his mustaches and waited for the dawn. It came slowly

in a whirling mist of snowflakes that dazzled and confused the eye. What

could be seen of the landscape appeared magically changed. He looked

over the valley, and summed up the present and future in two words,

“Snowed in!”

A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the party,

had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious fingers of

Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence they might

last ten days longer. “That is,” said Mr. Oakhurst _sotto voce_ to the

Innocent, “if you’re willing to board us. If you ain’t—and perhaps

you’d better not—you can wait till Uncle Billy gets back with

provisions.” For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could not bring

himself to disclose Uncle Billy’s rascality, and so offered the

hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally

stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother

Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate’s defection.

“They’ll find out the truth about us _all_ when they find out anything,”

he added significantly, “and there’s no good frightening them now.”

Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr.

Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion.

“We’ll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow’ll melt, and we’ll

all go back together.” The cheerful gayety of the young man and Mr.

Oakhurst’s calm infected the others. The Innocent, with the aid of pine

boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless cabin, and the Duchess

directed Piney in the rearrangement of the interior with a taste and

tact that opened the blue eyes of that provincial maiden to their

fullest extent. “I reckon now you’re used to fine things at Poker Flat,”

said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharply to conceal something that

reddened her cheeks through their professional tint, and Mother Shipton

requested Piney not to “chatter.” But when Mr. Oakhurst returned from a

weary search for the trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter

echoed from the rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and his thoughts first

naturally reverted to the whiskey, which he had prudently cached. “And

yet it don’t somehow sound like whiskey,” said the gambler. It was not

until he caught sight of the blazing fire through the still blinding

storm, and the group around it, that he settled to the conviction that

it was “square fun.”

Whether Mr. Oakhurst had cached his cards with the whiskey as something

debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say. It was certain

that, in Mother Shipton’s words, he “didn’t say ‘cards’ once” during

that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an accordion, produced

somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his pack. Notwithstanding

some difficulties attending the manipulation of this instrument, Piney

Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys, to

an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the

crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting

hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness and

vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanter’s swing

to its chorus, rather than any devotional quality, caused it speedily to

infect the others, who at last joined in the refrain:—

“I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord, And I’m bound to die

in His army.”

The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable

group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in token

of the vow.

At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the

stars glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose

professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible

amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson somehow managed

to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused himself

to the Innocent by saying that he had “often been a week without sleep.”

“Doing what?” asked Tom. “Poker!” replied Oakhurst sententiously. “When

a man gets a streak of luck,—nigger-luck,—he don’t get tired. The luck

gives in first. Luck,” continued the gambler reflectively, “is a mighty

queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it’s bound to

change. And it’s finding out when it’s going to change that makes you.

We’ve had a streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat,—you come

along, and slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your cards

right along you’re all right. For,” added the gambler, with cheerful

irrelevance—

“‘I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord, And I’m bound to die

in His army.’”

The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained

valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of

provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that

mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry

landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it

revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut,—a hopeless,

uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which

the castaways still clung. Through the marvelously clear air the smoke

of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles away. Mother Shipton

saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness hurled in that

direction a final malediction. It was her last vituperative attempt, and

perhaps for that reason was invested with a certain degree of sublimity.

It did her good, she privately informed the Duchess. “Just you go out

there and cuss, and see.” She then set herself to the task of amusing

“the child,” as she and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Piney

was no chicken, but it was a soothing and original theory of the pair

thus to account for the fact that she didn’t swear and wasn’t improper.

When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the

accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the

flickering campfire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching

void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by

Piney,—story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions

caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have failed

too, but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced upon a

stray copy of Mr. Pope’s ingenious translation of the Iliad. He now

proposed to narrate the principal incidents of that poem—having

thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words—in the

current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that night the

Homeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily Greek

wrestled in the winds, and the great pines in the canon seemed to bow

to the wrath of the son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet

satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the fate of

“Ash-heels,” as the Innocent persisted in denominating the “swift-footed

Achilles.”

So, with small food and much of Homer and the accordion, a week passed

over the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again

from leaden skies the snowflakes were sifted over the land. Day by day

closer around them drew the snowy circle, until at last they looked from

their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white, that towered twenty

feet above their heads. It became more and more difficult to replenish

their fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now half hidden in

the drifts. And yet no one complained. The lovers turned from the dreary

prospect and looked into each other’s eyes, and were happy. Mr. Oakhurst

settled himself coolly to the losing game before him. The Duchess,

more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother

Shipton—once the strongest of the party—seemed to sicken and fade. At

midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to her side. “I’m going,”

she said, in a voice of querulous weakness, “but don’t say anything

about it. Don’t waken the kids. Take the bundle from under my head, and

open it.” Mr. Oakhurst did so. It contained Mother Shipton’s rations for

the last week, untouched. “Give ’em to the child,” she said, pointing to

the sleeping Piney. “You’ve starved yourself,” said the gambler. “That’s

what they call it,” said the woman querulously, as she lay down again,

and, turning her face to the wall, passed quietly away.

The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was

forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to the

snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a pair of

snow-shoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-saddle.

“There’s one chance in a hundred to save her yet,” he said, pointing to

Piney; “but it’s there,” he added, pointing toward Poker Flat. “If you

can reach there in two days she’s safe.”

“And you?” asked Tom Simson. “I’ll stay here,” was the curt reply.

The lovers parted with a long embrace.

“You are not going, too?” said the Duchess, as she saw Mr. Oakhurst

apparently waiting to accompany him. “As far as the canon,” he

replied. He turned suddenly and kissed the Duchess, leaving her

pallid face aflame, and her trembling limbs rigid with amazement.

Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and the

whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some one

had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days longer.

The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney.

The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each other’s

faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke, but Piney, accepting the

position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around the

Duchess’s waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of the day. That

night the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the

protecting vines, invaded the very hut.

Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which

gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept

closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: “Piney, can you

pray?” “No, dear,” said Piney simply. The Duchess, without knowing

exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney’s shoulder,

spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the

head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they fell asleep.

The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of snow,

shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white winged birds, and

settled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted clouds

looked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain, all trace

of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifully

flung from above.

They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices

and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers

brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told from

the equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had sinned. Even

the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them

still locked in each other’s arms.

But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees, they

found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It bore

the following, written in pencil in a firm hand:—

BENEATH THIS TREE LIES THE BODY OF JOHN OAKHURST, WHO STRUCK A

STREAK OF BAD LUCK ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER 1850. AND HANDED IN HIS

CHECKS ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.

And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in his

heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at

once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.

MIGGLES

We were eight including the driver. We had not spoken during the passage

of the last six miles, since the jolting of the heavy vehicle over the

roughening road had spoiled the Judge’s last poetical quotation. The

tall man beside the Judge was asleep, his arm passed through the swaying

strap and his head resting upon it,—altogether a limp, helpless looking

object, as if he had hanged himself and been cut down too late. The

French lady on the back seat was asleep too, yet in a half-conscious

propriety of attitude, shown even in the disposition of the handkerchief

which she held to her forehead and which partially veiled her face. The

lady from Virginia City, traveling with her husband, had long since

lost all individuality in a wild confusion of ribbons, veils, furs, and

shawls. There was no sound but the rattling of wheels and the dash of

rain upon the roof. Suddenly the stage stopped and we became dimly aware

of voices. The driver was evidently in the midst of an exciting colloquy

with some one in the road,—a colloquy of which such fragments as

“bridge gone,” “twenty feet of water,” “can’t pass,” were occasionally

distinguishable above the storm. Then came a lull, and a mysterious

voice from the road shouted the parting adjuration—

“Try Miggles’s.”

We caught a glimpse of our leaders as the vehicle slowly turned, of a

horseman vanishing through the rain, and we were evidently on our way to

Miggles’s.

Who and where was Miggles? The Judge, our authority, did not remember

the name, and he knew the country thoroughly. The Washoe traveler

thought Miggles must keep a hotel. We only knew that we were stopped by

high water in front and rear, and that Miggles was our rock of refuge.

A ten minutes’ splashing through a tangled byroad, scarcely wide enough

for the stage, and we drew up before a barred and boarded gate in a

wide stone wall or fence about eight feet high. Evidently Miggles’s, and

evidently Miggles did not keep a hotel.

The driver got down and tried the gate. It was securely locked.

“Miggles! O Miggles!”

No answer.

“Migg-ells! You Miggles!” continued the driver, with rising wrath.

“Migglesy!” joined in the expressman persuasively. “O Miggy! Mig!”

But no reply came from the apparently insensate Miggles. The Judge,

who had finally got the window down, put his head out and propounded

a series of questions, which if answered categorically would have

undoubtedly elucidated the whole mystery, but which the driver evaded

by replying that “if we didn’t want to sit in the coach all night we had

better rise up and sing out for Miggles.”

So we rose up and called on Miggles in chorus, then separately. And when

we had finished, a Hibernian fellow passenger from the roof called for

“Maygells!” whereat we all laughed. While we were laughing the driver

cried, “Shoo!”

We listened. To our infinite amazement the chorus of “Miggles” was

repeated from the other side of the wall, even to the final and

supplemental “Maygells.”

“Extraordinary echo!” said the Judge.

“Extraordinary d—d skunk!” roared the driver contemptuously. “Come out

of that, Miggles, and show yourself! Be a man, Miggles! Don’t hide in

the dark; I wouldn’t if I were you, Miggles,” continued Yuba Bill, now

dancing about in an excess of fury.

“Miggles!” continued the voice, “O Miggles!”

“My good man! Mr. Myghail!” said the Judge, softening the asperities of

the name as much as possible. “Consider the inhospitality of refusing

shelter from the inclemency of the weather to helpless females. Really,

my dear sir”—But a succession of “Miggles,” ending in a burst of

laughter, drowned his voice.

Yuba Bill hesitated no longer. Taking a heavy stone from the road, he

battered down the gate, and with the expressman entered the inclosure.

We followed. Nobody was to be seen. In the gathering darkness all that

we could distinguish was that we were in a garden—from the rose bushes

that scattered over us a minute spray from their dripping leaves—and

before a long, rambling wooden building.

“Do you know this Miggles?” asked the Judge of Yuba Bill.

“No, nor don’t want to,” said Bill shortly, who felt the Pioneer Stage

Company insulted in his person by the contumacious Miggles.

“But, my dear sir,” expostulated the Judge, as he thought of the barred

gate.

“Lookee here,” said Yuba Bill, with fine irony, “hadn’t you better go

back and sit in the coach till yer introduced? I’m going in,” and he

pushed open the door of the building.

A long room, lighted only by the embers of a fire that was dying on the

large hearth at its farther extremity; the walls curiously papered, and

the flickering firelight bringing out its grotesque pattern; someone

sitting in a large armchair by the fireplace. All this we saw as we

crowded together into the room after the driver and expressman. “Hello!

be you Miggles?” said Yuba Bill to the solitary occupant.

The figure neither spoke nor stirred. Yuba Bill walked wrathfully toward

it and turned the eye of his coach-lantern upon its face. It was a man’s

face, prematurely old and wrinkled, with very large eyes, in which

there was that expression of perfectly gratuitous solemnity which I had

sometimes seen in an owl’s. The large eyes wandered from Bill’s face

to the lantern, and finally fixed their gaze on that luminous object

without further recognition.

Bill restrained himself with an effort.

“Miggles! be you deaf? You ain’t dumb anyhow, you know,” and Yuba Bill

shook the insensate figure by the shoulder.

To our great dismay, as Bill removed his hand, the venerable

stranger apparently collapsed, sinking into half his size and an

indistinguishable heap of clothing.

“Well, dern my skin,” said Bill, looking appealingly at us, and

hopelessly retiring from the contest.

The Judge now stepped forward, and we lifted the mysterious invertebrate

back into his original position. Bill was dismissed with the lantern to

reconnoitre outside, for it was evident that, from the helplessness of

this solitary man, there must be attendants near at hand, and we all

drew around the fire. The Judge, who had regained his authority, and had

never lost his conversational amiability,—standing before us with his

back to the hearth,—charged us, as an imaginary jury, as follows:—

“It is evident that either our distinguished friend here has reached

that condition described by Shakespeare as ‘the sere and yellow leaf,’

or has suffered some premature abatement of his mental and physical

faculties. Whether he is really the Miggles”—

Here he was interrupted by “Miggles! O Miggles! Migglesy! Mig!” and, in

fact, the whole chorus of Miggles in very much the same key as it had

once before been delivered unto us.

We gazed at each other for a moment in some alarm. The Judge, in

particular, vacated his position quickly, as the voice seemed to come

directly over his shoulder. The cause, however, was soon discovered in

a large magpie who was perched upon a shelf over the fireplace, and

who immediately relapsed into a sepulchral silence, which contrasted

singularly with his previous volubility. It was, undoubtedly, his voice

which we had heard in the road, and our friend in the chair was not

responsible for the discourtesy. Yuba Bill, who reentered the room after

an unsuccessful search, was both to accept the explanation, and still

eyed the helpless sitter with suspicion. He had found a shed in which

he had put up his horses, but he came back dripping and skeptical. “Thar

ain’t nobody but him within ten mile of the shanty, and that ar d—d old

skeesicks knows it.”

But the faith of the majority proved to be securely based. Bill had

scarcely ceased growling before we heard a quick step upon the porch,

the trailing of a wet skirt, the door was flung open, and with a flash

of white teeth, a sparkle of dark eyes, and an utter absence of ceremony

or diffidence, a young woman entered, shut the door, and, panting,

leaned back against it.

“Oh, if you please, I’m Miggles!”

And this was Miggles! this bright-eyed, full-throated young woman, whose

wet gown of coarse blue stuff could not hide the beauty of the feminine

curves to which it clung; from the chestnut crown of whose head, topped

by a man’s oil-skin sou’wester, to the little feet and ankles, hidden

somewhere in the recesses of her boy’s brogans, all was grace,—this was

Miggles, laughing at us, too, in the most airy, frank, off-hand manner

imaginable.

“You see, boys,” said she, quite out of breath, and holding one little

hand against her side, quite unheeding the speechless discomfiture of

our party or the complete demoralization of Yuba Bill, whose

features had relaxed into an expression of gratuitous and imbecile

cheerfulness,—“you see, boys, I was mor’n two miles away when you

passed down the road. I thought you might pull up here, and so I ran

the whole way, knowing nobody was home but Jim,—and—and—I’m out of

breath—and—that lets me out.” And here Miggles caught her dripping

oilskin hat from her head, with a mischievous swirl that scattered a

shower of raindrops over us; attempted to put back her hair; dropped two

hairpins in the attempt; laughed, and sat down beside Yuba Bill, with

her hands crossed lightly on her lap.

The Judge recovered himself first and essayed an extravagant compliment.

“I’ll trouble you for that ha’rpin,” said Miggles gravely. Half a dozen

hands were eagerly stretched forward; the missing hairpin was restored

to its fair owner; and Miggles, crossing the room, looked keenly in

the face of the invalid. The solemn eyes looked back at hers with an

expression we had never seen before. Life and intelligence seemed to

struggle back into the rugged face. Miggles laughed again,—it was a

singularly eloquent laugh,—and turned her black eyes and white teeth

once more towards us.

“This afflicted person is”—hesitated the Judge.

“Jim!” said Miggles.

“Your father?”

“No!”

“Brother?”

“No?”

“Husband?”

Miggles darted a quick, half-defiant glance at the two lady passengers,

who I had noticed did not participate in the general masculine

admiration of Miggles, and said gravely, “No; it’s Jim!” There was

an awkward pause. The lady passengers moved closer to each other;

the Washoe husband looked abstractedly at the fire, and the tall man

apparently turned his eyes inward for self-support at this emergency.

But Miggles’s laugh, which was very infectious, broke the silence.

“Come,” she said briskly, “you must be hungry. Who’ll bear a hand to

help me get tea?”

She had no lack of volunteers. In a few moments Yuba Bill was engaged

like Caliban in bearing logs for this Miranda; the expressman was

grinding coffee on the veranda; to myself the arduous duty of slicing

bacon was assigned; and the Judge lent each man his good-humored

and voluble counsel. And when Miggles, assisted by the Judge and

our Hibernian “deck-passenger,” set the table with all the available

crockery, we had become quite joyous, in spite of the rain that beat

against the windows, the wind that whirled down the chimney, the two

ladies who whispered together in the corner, or the magpie, who uttered

a satirical and croaking commentary on their conversation from his perch

above. In the now bright, blazing fire we could see that the walls were

papered with illustrated journals, arranged with feminine taste

and discrimination. The furniture was extemporized and adapted from

candle-boxes and packing-cases, and covered with gay calico or the

skin of some animal. The armchair of the helpless Jim was an ingenious

variation of a flour-barrel. There was neatness, and even a taste for

the picturesque, to be seen in the few details of the long, low room.

The meal was a culinary success. But more, it was a social

triumph,—chiefly, I think, owing to the rare tact of Miggles in

guiding the conversation, asking all the questions herself, yet bearing

throughout a frankness that rejected the idea of any concealment on

her own part, so that we talked of ourselves, of our prospects, of the

journey, of the weather, of each other,—of everything but our host

and hostess. It must be confessed that Miggles’s conversation was never

elegant, rarely grammatical, and that at times she employed expletives

the use of which had generally been yielded to our sex. But they were

delivered with such a lighting up of teeth and eyes, and were usually

followed by a laugh—a laugh peculiar to Miggles—so frank and honest

that it seemed to clear the moral atmosphere.

Once during the meal we heard a noise like the rubbing of a heavy body

against the outer walls of the house. This was shortly followed by a

scratching and sniffling at the door. “That’s Joaquin,” said Miggles, in

reply to our questioning glances; “would you like to see him?” Before

we could answer she had opened the door, and disclosed a half-grown

grizzly, who instantly raised himself on his haunches, with his fore

paws hanging down in the popular attitude of mendicancy, and looked

admiringly at Miggles, with a very singular resemblance in his manner to

Yuba Bill. “That’s my watch-dog,” said Miggles, in explanation. “Oh,

he don’t bite,” she added, as the two lady passengers fluttered into

a corner. “Does he, old Toppy?” (the latter remark being addressed

directly to the sagacious Joaquin). “I tell you what, boys,” continued

Miggles, after she had fed and closed the door on Ursa Minor, “you

were in big luck that Joaquin wasn’t hanging round when you dropped in

to-night.”

“Where was he?” asked the Judge.

“With me,” said Miggles. “Lord love you! he trots round with me nights

like as if he was a man.”

We were silent for a few moments, and listened to the wind. Perhaps

we all had the same picture before us,—of Miggles walking through the

rainy woods with her savage guardian at her side. The Judge, I remember,

said something about Una and her lion; but Miggles received it, as she

did other compliments, with quiet gravity. Whether she was altogether

unconscious of the admiration she excited,—she could hardly have been

oblivious of Yuba Bill’s adoration,—I know not; but her very frankness

suggested a perfect sexual equality that was cruelly humiliating to the

younger members of our party.

The incident of the bear did not add anything in Miggles’s favor to the

opinions of those of her own sex who were present. In fact, the repast

over, a chillness radiated from the two lady passengers that no pine

boughs brought in by Yuba Bill and cast as a sacrifice upon the hearth

could wholly overcome. Miggles felt it; and suddenly declaring that it

was time to “turn in,” offered to show the ladies to their bed in an

adjoining room. “You, boys, will have to camp out here by the fire as

well as you can,” she added, “for thar ain’t but the one room.”

Our sex—by which, my dear sir, I allude of course to the stronger

portion of humanity—has been generally relieved from the imputation of

curiosity or a fondness for gossip. Yet I am constrained to say,

that hardly had the door closed on Miggles than we crowded together,

whispering, snickering, smiling, and exchanging suspicions, surmises,

and a thousand speculations in regard to our pretty hostess and her

singular companion. I fear that we even hustled that imbecile paralytic,

who sat like a voiceless Memnon in our midst, gazing with the serene

indifference of the Past in his passionless eyes upon our wordy

counsels. In the midst of an exciting discussion the door opened again

and Miggles reentered.

But not, apparently, the same Miggles who a few hours before had flashed

upon us. Her eyes were downcast, and as she hesitated for a moment on

the threshold, with a blanket on her arm, she seemed to have left behind

her the frank fearlessness which had charmed us a moment before. Coming

into the room, she drew a low stool beside the paralytic’s chair, sat

down, drew the blanket over her shoulders, and saying, “If it’s all the

same to you, boys, as we’re rather crowded, I’ll stop here to-night,”

took the invalid’s withered hand in her own, and turned her eyes upon

the dying fire. An instinctive feeling that this was only premonitory

to more confidential relations, and perhaps some shame at our previous

curiosity, kept us silent. The rain still beat upon the roof, wandering

gusts of wind stirred the embers into momentary brightness, until, in a

lull of the elements, Miggles suddenly lifted up her head, and, throwing

her hair over her shoulder, turned her face upon the group and asked,—

“Is there any of you that knows me?”

There was no reply.

“Think again! I lived at Marysville in ’53. Everybody knew me there, and

everybody had the right to know me. I kept the Polka Saloon until I came

to live with Jim. That’s six years ago. Perhaps I’ve changed some.”

The absence of recognition may have disconcerted her. She turned her

head to the fire again, and it was some seconds before she again spoke,

and then more rapidly—

“Well, you see I thought some of you must have known me. There’s no

great harm done anyway. What I was going to say was this: Jim here”—she

took his hand in both of hers as she spoke—“used to know me, if you

didn’t, and spent a heap of money upon me. I reckon he spent all he had.

And one day—it’s six years ago this winter—Jim came into my back room,

sat down on my sofy, like as you see him in that chair, and never moved

again without help. He was struck all of a heap, and never seemed to

know what ailed him. The doctors came and said as how it was caused all

along of his way of life,—for Jim was mighty free and wild-like,—and

that he would never get better, and couldn’t last long anyway. They

advised me to send him to Frisco to the hospital, for he was no good to

any one and would be a baby all his life. Perhaps it was something in

Jim’s eye, perhaps it was that I never had a baby, but I said ‘No.’

I was rich then, for I was popular with everybody,—gentlemen like

yourself, sir, came to see me,—and I sold out my business and bought

this yer place, because it was sort of out of the way of travel, you

see, and I brought my baby here.”

With a woman’s intuitive tact and poetry, she had, as she spoke, slowly

shifted her position so as to bring the mute figure of the ruined man

between her and her audience, hiding in the shadow behind it, as if

she offered it as a tacit apology for her actions. Silent and

expressionless, it yet spoke for her; helpless, crushed, and smitten

with the Divine thunderbolt, it still stretched an invisible arm around

her.

Hidden in the darkness, but still holding his hand, she went on:—

“It was a long time before I could get the hang of things about yer, for

I was used to company and excitement. I couldn’t get any woman to help

me, and a man I dursn’t trust; but what with the Indians hereabout,

who’d do odd jobs for me, and having everything sent from the North

Fork, Jim and I managed to worry through. The Doctor would run up from

Sacramento once in a while. He’d ask to see ‘Miggles’s baby’ as

he called Jim, and when he’d go away, he’d say, ‘Miggles, you’re a

trump,—God bless you,’ and it didn’t seem so lonely after that. But

the last time he was here he said, as he opened the door to go, ‘Do you

know, Miggles, your baby will grow up to be a man yet and an honor to

his mother; but not here, Miggles, not here!’ And I thought he went away

sad,—and—and”—and here Miggles’s voice and head were somehow both

lost completely in the shadow.

“The folks about here are very kind,” said Miggles, after a pause,

coming a little into the light again. “The men from the Fork used to

hang around here, until they found they wasn’t wanted, and the women are

kind, and don’t call. I was pretty lonely until I picked up Joaquin in

the woods yonder one day, when he wasn’t so high, and taught him to beg

for his dinner; and then thar’s Polly—that’s the magpie—she knows no

end of tricks, and makes it quite sociable of evenings with her talk,

and so I don’t feel like as I was the only living being about the ranch.

And Jim here,” said Miggles, with her old laugh again, and coming out

quite into the firelight,—“Jim—Why, boys, you would admire to see how

much he knows for a man like him. Sometimes I bring him flowers, and he

looks at ’em just as natural as if he knew ’em; and times, when we’re

sitting alone, I read him those things on the wall. Why, Lord!” said

Miggles, with her frank laugh, “I’ve read him that whole side of the

house this winter. There never was such a man for reading as Jim.”

“Why,” asked the Judge, “do you not marry this man to whom you have

devoted your youthful life?”

“Well, you see,” said Miggles, “it would be playing it rather low down

on Jim to take advantage of his being so helpless. And then, too, if we

were man and wife, now, we’d both know that I was _bound_ to do what I

do now of my own accord.”

“But you are young yet and attractive”—

“It’s getting late,” said Miggles gravely, “and you’d better all turn

in. Good-night, boys;” and throwing the blanket over her head, Miggles

laid herself down beside Jim’s chair, her head pillowed on the low stool

that held his feet, and spoke no more. The fire slowly faded from the

hearth; we each sought our blankets in silence; and presently there was

no sound in the long room but the pattering of the rain upon the roof

and the heavy breathing of the sleepers.

It was nearly morning when I awoke from a troubled dream. The storm had

passed, the stars were shining, and through the shutterless window the

full moon, lifting itself over the solemn pines without, looked into

the room. It touched the lonely figure in the chair with an infinite

compassion, and seemed to baptize with a shining flood the lowly head of

the woman whose hair, as in the sweet old story, bathed the feet of him

she loved. It even lent a kindly poetry to the rugged outline of Yuba

Bill, half reclining on his elbow between them and his passengers, with

savagely patient eyes keeping watch and ward. And then I fell asleep

and only woke at broad day, with Yuba Bill standing over me, and “All

aboard” ringing in my ears.

Coffee was waiting for us on the table, but Miggles was gone. We

wandered about the house and lingered long after the horses were

harnessed, but she did not return. It was evident that she wished to

avoid a formal leave-taking, and had so left us to depart as we had

come. After we had helped the ladies into the coach, we returned to

the house and solemnly shook hands with the paralytic Jim, as solemnly

setting him back into position after each handshake. Then we looked for

the last time around the long low room, at the stool where Miggles had

sat, and slowly took our seats in the waiting coach. The whip cracked,

and we were off!

But as we reached the highroad, Bill’s dexterous hand laid the six

horses back on their haunches, and the stage stopped with a jerk. For

there, on a little eminence beside the road, stood Miggles, her hair

flying, her eyes sparkling, her white handkerchief waving, and her white

teeth flashing a last “good-by.” We waved our hats in return. And then

Yuba Bill, as if fearful of further fascination, madly lashed his horses

forward, and we sank back in our seats.

We exchanged not a word until we reached the North Fork and the stage

drew up at the Independence House. Then, the Judge leading, we walked

into the bar-room and took our places gravely at the bar.

“Are your glasses charged, gentlemen?” said the Judge, solemnly taking

off his white hat.

They were.

“Well, then, here’s to _Miggles_—GOD BLESS HER!”

Perhaps He had. Who knows?

TENNESSEE’S PARTNER

I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it

certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in

1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these appellatives were

derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of “Dungaree

Jack;” or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in “Saleratus Bill,”

so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread;

or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in “The Iron Pirate,” a mild,

inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate

mispronunciation of the term “iron pyrites.” Perhaps this may have been

the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that

it was because a man’s real name in that day rested solely upon his own

unsupported statement. “Call yourself Clifford, do you?” said Boston,

addressing a timid newcomer with infinite scorn; “hell is full of such

Cliffords!” He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name happened

to be really Clifford, as “Jaybird Charley,”—an unhallowed inspiration

of the moment that clung to him ever after.

But to return to Tennessee’s Partner, whom we never knew by any other

than this relative title. That he had ever existed as a separate and

distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he

left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure a wife. He

never got any farther than Stockton. At that place he was attracted by

a young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his

meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile

not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over

his upturned, serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He

followed her, and emerged a few moments later, covered with more toast

and victory. That day week they were married by a justice of the peace,

and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more might be

made of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at Sandy

Bar,—in the gulches and bar-rooms,—where all sentiment was modified by

a strong sense of humor.

Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps for the reason

that Tennessee, then living with his partner, one day took occasion to

say something to the bride on his own account, at which, it is said,

she smiled not unkindly and chastely retreated,—this time as far

as Marysville, where Tennessee followed her, and where they went to

housekeeping without the aid of a justice of the peace. Tennessee’s

Partner took the loss of his wife simply and seriously, as was his

fashion. But to everybody’s surprise, when Tennessee one day returned

from Marysville, without his partner’s wife,—she having smiled and

retreated with somebody else,—Tennessee’s Partner was the first man to

shake his hand and greet him with affection. The boys who had gathered

in the canon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their

indignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look

in Tennessee’s Partner’s eye that indicated a lack of humorous

appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady application to

practical detail which was unpleasant in a difficulty.

Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar.

He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these

suspicions Tennessee’s Partner was equally compromised; his continued

intimacy with Tennessee after the affair above quoted could only be

accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last

Tennessee’s guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his

way to Red Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled

the time with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but illogically

concluded the interview in the following words: “And now, young man,

I’ll trouble you for your knife, your pistols, and your money. You see

your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog, and your money’s a

temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your address was

San Francisco. I shall endeavor to call.” It may be stated here that

Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business preoccupation

could wholly subdue.

This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar made common cause

against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very much the same

fashion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around him,

he made a desperate dash through the Bar, emptying his revolver at the

crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Canon; but at its

farther extremity he was stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The

men looked at each other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both

self-possessed and independent, and both types of a civilization that

in the seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but in the

nineteenth simply “reckless.”

“What have you got there?—I call,” said Tennessee quietly.

“Two bowers and an ace,” said the stranger as quietly, showing two

revolvers and a bowie-knife.

“That takes me,” returned Tennessee; and, with this gambler’s epigram,

he threw away his useless pistol and rode back with his captor.

It was a warm night. The cool breeze which usually sprang up with the

going down of the sun behind the chaparral-crested mountain was that

evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little canon was stifling with

heated resinous odors, and the decaying driftwood on the Bar sent forth

faint sickening exhalations. The feverishness of day and its fierce

passions still filled the camp. Lights moved restlessly along the bank

of the river, striking no answering reflection from its tawny current.

Against the blackness of the pines the windows of the old loft above the

express-office stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless

panes the loungers below could see the forms of those who were even then

deciding the fate of Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the dark

firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and passionless, crowned with remoter

passionless stars.

The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent with a

judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in

their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and indictment. The

law of Sandy Bar was implacable, but not vengeful. The excitement and

personal feeling of the chase were over; with Tennessee safe in their

hands, they were ready to listen patiently to any defense, which they

were already satisfied was insufficient. There being no doubt in their

own minds, they were willing to give the prisoner the benefit of any

that might exist. Secure in the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged on

general principles, they indulged him with more latitude of defense

than his reckless hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more

anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise unconcerned, evidently took

a grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. “I don’t take any

hand in this yer game,” had been his invariable but good-humored reply

to all questions. The Judge—who was also his captor—for a moment

vaguely regretted that he had not shot him “on sight” that morning,

but presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial

mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said

that Tennessee’s Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was

admitted at once without question. Perhaps the younger members of the

jury, to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed

him as a relief.

For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout, with

a square face, sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose

duck “jumper” and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his

aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even

ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpetbag he

was carrying, it became obvious, from partially developed legends and

inscriptions, that the material with which his trousers had been patched

had been originally intended for a less ambitious covering. Yet he

advanced with great gravity, and after shaking the hand of each person

in the room with labored cordiality, he wiped his serious perplexed face

on a red bandana handkerchief, a shade lighter than his complexion, laid

his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and thus addressed

the Judge:—

“I was passin’ by,” he began, by way of apology, “and I thought I’d

just step in and see how things was gittin’ on with Tennessee thar,—my

pardner. It’s a hot night. I disremember any sich weather before on the

Bar.”

He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological

recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and for

some moments mopped his face diligently.

“Have you anything to say on behalf of the prisoner?” said the Judge

finally.

“Thet’s it,” said Tennessee’s Partner, in a tone of relief. “I come yar

as Tennessee’s pardner,—knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet

and dry, in luck and out o’ luck. His ways ain’t aller my ways, but thar

ain’t any p’ints in that young man, thar ain’t any liveliness as

he’s been up to, as I don’t know. And you sez to me, sez

you,—confidential-like, and between man and man,—sez you, ‘Do you know

anything in his behalf?’ and I sez to you, sez I,—confidential-like, as

between man and man,—‘What should a man know of his pardner?’”

“Is this all you have to say?” asked the Judge impatiently, feeling,

perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize

the court.

“Thet’s so,” continued Tennessee’s Partner. “It ain’t for me to say

anything agin’ him. And now, what’s the case? Here’s Tennessee wants

money, wants it bad, and doesn’t like to ask it of his old pardner.

Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches

that stranger; and you lays for _him_, and you fetches _him_; and the

honors is easy. And I put it to you, bein’ a fa’r-minded man, and to

you, gentlemen all, as fa’r-minded men, ef this isn’t so.”

“Prisoner,” said the Judge, interrupting, “have you any questions to ask

this man?”

“No! no!” continued Tennessee’s Partner hastily. “I play this yer hand

alone. To come down to the bed-rock, it’s just this: Tennessee, thar,

has played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a stranger, and on

this yer camp. And now, what’s the fair thing? Some would say more, some

would say less. Here’s seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a

watch,—it’s about all my pile,—and call it square!” And before a

hand could be raised to prevent him, he had emptied the contents of the

carpetbag upon the table.

For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or two men sprang to their

feet, several hands groped for hidden weapons, and a suggestion to

“throw him from the window” was only overridden by a gesture from the

Judge. Tennessee laughed. And apparently oblivious of the excitement,

Tennessee’s Partner improved the opportunity to mop his face again

with his handkerchief. When order was restored, and the man was made

to understand, by the use of forcible figures and rhetoric, that

Tennessee’s offense could not be condoned by money, his face took a more

serious and sanguinary hue, and those who were nearest to him noticed

that his rough hand trembled slightly on the table. He hesitated a

moment as he slowly returned the gold to the carpetbag, as if he had

not yet entirely caught the elevated sense of justice which swayed the

tribunal, and was perplexed with the belief that he had not offered

enough. Then he turned to the Judge, and saying, “This yer is a lone

hand, played alone, and without my pardner,” he bowed to the jury and

was about to withdraw, when the Judge called him back:—

“If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you had better say it now.”

For the first time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and his strange

advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and saying,

“Euchred, old man!” held out his hand. Tennessee’s Partner took it in

his own, and saying, “I just dropped in as I was passin’ to see how

things was gettin’ on,” let the hand passively fall, and adding that

“it was a warm night,” again mopped his face with his handkerchief, and

without another word withdrew.

The two men never again met each other alive. For the unparalleled

insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch—who, whether bigoted, weak,

or narrow, was at least incorruptible—firmly fixed in the mind of that

mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee’s fate; and

at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the

top of Marley’s Hill.

How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused to say anything, how

perfect were the arrangements of the committee, were all duly reported,

with the addition of a warning moral and example to all future

evil-doers, in the “Red Dog Clarion,” by its editor, who was present,

and to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the

beauty of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and

sky, the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal

and promise of Nature, and above all, the infinite serenity that

thrilled through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the

social lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a

life, with its possibilities and responsibilities, had passed out of the

misshapen thing that dangled between earth and sky, the birds sang, the

flowers bloomed, the sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the

“Red Dog Clarion” was right.

Tennessee’s Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous

tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn to the

singular appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at the side of

the road. As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable

“Jenny” and the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessee’s Partner,

used by him in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces distant the

owner of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye-tree, wiping the

perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, he said he

had come for the body of the “diseased,” “if it was all the same to the

committee.” He didn’t wish to “hurry anything;” he could “wait.” He

was not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with the

“diseased,” he would take him. “Ef thar is any present,” he added, in

his simple, serious way, “as would care to jine in the fun’l, they

kin come.” Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already

intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar,—perhaps it was from something

even better than that, but two thirds of the loungers accepted the

invitation at once.

It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the hands of

his partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that

it contained a rough oblong box,—apparently made from a section of

sluicing,—and half filled with bark and the tassels of pine. The

cart was further decorated with slips of willow and made fragrant with

buckeye-blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box, Tennessee’s

Partner drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the

narrow seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged the little

donkey forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace

which was habitual with Jenny even under less solemn circumstances. The

men—half curiously, half jestingly, but all good-humoredly—strolled

along beside the cart, some in advance, some a little in the rear of the

homely catafalque. But whether from the narrowing of the road or some

present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell to the

rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the external show

of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the outset played a

funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, desisted from

a lack of sympathy and appreciation,—not having, perhaps, your true

humorist’s capacity to be content with the enjoyment of his own fun.

The way led through Grizzly Canon, by this time clothed in funereal

drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in

the red soil, stood in Indian file along the track, trailing an uncouth

benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare,

surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the

ferns by the roadside as the cortege went by. Squirrels hastened to gain

a secure outlook from higher boughs; and the blue-jays, spreading their

wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts of

Sandy Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessee’s Partner.

Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a

cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines,

the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the

California miner, were all here with the dreariness of decay superadded.

A few paces from the cabin there was a rough inclosure, which, in the

brief days of Tennessee’s Partner’s matrimonial felicity, had been used

as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we approached it, we

were surprised to find that what we had taken for a recent attempt at

cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave.

The cart was halted before the inclosure, and rejecting the offers of

assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed

throughout, Tennessee’s Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back, and

deposited it unaided within the shallow grave. He then nailed down the

board which served as a lid, and mounting the little mound of earth

beside it, took off his hat and slowly mopped his face with his

handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech, and they

disposed themselves variously on stumps and boulders, and sat expectant.

“When a man,” began Tennessee’s Partner slowly, “has been running free

all day, what’s the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home. And

if he ain’t in a condition to go home, what can his best friend do?

Why, bring him home. And here’s Tennessee has been running free, and we

brings him home from his wandering.” He paused and picked up a fragment

of quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: “It ain’t

the first time that I’ve packed him on my back, as you see’d me now.

It ain’t the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he

couldn’t help himself; it ain’t the first time that I and Jinny have

waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him home,

when he couldn’t speak and didn’t know me. And now that it’s the last

time, why”—he paused and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeve—“you

see it’s sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen” he added

abruptly, picking up his long-handled shovel, “the fun’l’s over; and my

thanks, and Tennessee’s thanks, to you for your trouble.”

Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave,

turning his back upon the crowd, that after a few moments’ hesitation

gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy

Bar from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessee’s

Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his

knees, and his face buried in his red bandana handkerchief. But it was

argued by others that you couldn’t tell his face from his handkerchief

at that distance, and this point remained undecided.

In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day,

Tennessee’s Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had

cleared him of any complicity in Tennessee’s guilt, and left only a

suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on

him, and proffering various uncouth but well-meant kindnesses. But from

that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline;

and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were

beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessee’s grave, he took

to his bed.

One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the storm and

trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and rush of

the swollen river were heard below, Tennessee’s Partner lifted his head

from the pillow, saying, “It is time to go for Tennessee; I must put

Jinny in the cart;” and would have risen from his bed but for the

restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still pursued his singular

fancy: “There, now, steady, Jinny,—steady, old girl. How dark it is!

Look out for the ruts,—and look out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes,

you know, when he’s blind drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep

on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. Thar! I told you

so!—thar he is,—coming this way, too,—all by himself, sober, and his

face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!”

And so they met.

THE IDYL OF BED GULCH

Sandy was very drunk. He was lying under an azalea-bush, in pretty much

the same attitude in which he had fallen some hours before. How long

he had been lying there he could not tell, and didn’t care; how long

he should lie there was a matter equally indefinite and unconsidered.

A tranquil philosophy, born of his physical condition, suffused and

saturated his moral being.

The spectacle of a drunken man, and of this drunken man in particular,

was not, I grieve to say, of sufficient novelty in Red Gulch to

attract attention. Earlier in the day some local satirist had erected a

temporary tombstone at Sandy’s head, bearing the inscription, “Effects

of McCorkle’s whiskey—kills at forty rods,” with a hand pointing to

McCorkle’s saloon. But this, I imagine, was, like most local satire,

personal; and was a reflection upon the unfairness of the process

rather than a commentary upon the impropriety of the result. With this

facetious exception, Sandy had been undisturbed. A wandering mule,

released from his pack, had cropped the scant herbage beside him, and

sniffed curiously at the prostrate man; a vagabond dog, with that deep

sympathy which the species have for drunken men, had licked his dusty

boots and curled himself up at his feet, and lay there, blinking one eye

in the sunlight, with a simulation of dissipation that was ingenious and

dog-like in its implied flattery of the unconscious man beside him.

Meanwhile the shadows of the pine-trees had slowly swung around until

they crossed the road, and their trunks barred the open meadow with

gigantic parallels of black and yellow. Little puffs of red dust, lifted

by the plunging hoofs of passing teams, dispersed in a grimy shower upon

the recumbent man. The sun sank lower and lower, and still Sandy stirred

not. And then the repose of this philosopher was disturbed, as other

philosophers have been, by the intrusion of an unphilosophical sex.

“Miss Mary,” as she was known to the little flock that she had just

dismissed from the log schoolhouse beyond the pines, was taking her

afternoon walk. Observing an unusually fine cluster of blossoms on the

azalea-bush opposite, she crossed the road to pluck it, picking her

way through the red dust, not without certain fierce little shivers of

disgust and some feline circumlocution. And then she came suddenly upon

Sandy!

Of course she uttered the little staccato cry of her sex. But when she

had paid that tribute to her physical weakness she became overbold

and halted for a moment,—at least six feet from this prostrate

monster,—with her white skirts gathered in her hand, ready for flight.

But neither sound nor motion came from the bush. With one little foot

she then overturned the satirical headboard, and muttered “Beasts!”—an

epithet which probably, at that moment, conveniently classified in

her mind the entire male population of Red Gulch. For Miss Mary,

being possessed of certain rigid notions of her own, had not, perhaps,

properly appreciated the demonstrative gallantry for which the

Californian has been so justly celebrated by his brother Californians,

and had, as a newcomer, perhaps fairly earned the reputation of being

“stuck up.”

As she stood there she noticed, also, that the slant sunbeams were

heating Sandy’s head to what she judged to be an unhealthy temperature,

and that his hat was lying uselessly at his side. To pick it up and to

place it over his face was a work requiring some courage, particularly

as his eyes were open. Yet she did it and made good her retreat. But

she was somewhat concerned, on looking back, to see that the hat was

removed, and that Sandy was sitting up and saying something.

The truth was, that in the calm depths of Sandy’s mind he was satisfied

that the rays of the sun were beneficial and healthful; that from

childhood he had objected to lying down in a hat; that no people but

condemned fools, past redemption, ever wore hats; and that his right

to dispense, with them when he pleased was inalienable. This was

the statement of his inner consciousness. Unfortunately, its outward

expression was vague, being limited to a repetition of the following

formula: “Su’shine all ri’! Wasser maar, eh? Wass up, su’shine?”

Miss Mary stopped, and, taking fresh courage from her vantage of

distance, asked him if there was anything that he wanted.

“Wass up? Wasser maar?” continued Sandy, in a very high key.

“Get up, you horrid man!” said Miss Mary, now thoroughly incensed; “get

up and go home.”

Sandy staggered to his feet. He was six feet high, and Miss Mary

trembled. He started forward a few paces and then stopped.

“Wass I go home for?” he suddenly asked, with great gravity.

“Go and take a bath,” replied Miss Mary, eying his grimy person with

great disfavor.

To her infinite dismay, Sandy suddenly pulled off his coat and vest,

threw them on the ground, kicked off his boots, and, plunging wildly

forward, darted headlong over the hill in the direction of the river.

“Goodness heavens! the man will be drowned!” said Miss Mary; and then,

with feminine inconsistency, she ran back to the schoolhouse and locked

herself in. That night, while seated at supper with her hostess, the

blacksmith’s wife, it came to Miss Mary to ask, demurely, if her husband

ever got drunk. “Abner,” responded Mrs. Stidger reflectively,—“let’s

see! Abner hasn’t been tight since last ’lection.” Miss Mary would have

liked to ask if he preferred lying in the sun on these occasions, and

if a cold bath would have hurt him; but this would have involved an

explanation, which she did not then care to give. So she contented

herself with opening her gray eyes widely at the red-cheeked Mrs.

Stidger,—a fine specimen of Southwestern efflorescence,—and then

dismissed the subject altogether. The next day she wrote to her dearest

friend in Boston: “I think I find the intoxicated portion of this

community the least objectionable, I refer, my dear, to the men, of

course. I do not know anything that could make the women tolerable.”

In less than a week Miss Mary had forgotten this episode, except that

her afternoon walks took thereafter, almost unconsciously, another

direction. She noticed, however, that every morning a fresh cluster of

azalea blossoms appeared among the flowers on her desk. This was not

strange, as her little flock were aware of her fondness for flowers, and

invariably kept her desk bright with anemones, syringas, and lupines;

but, on questioning them, they one and all professed ignorance of the

azaleas. A few days later, Master Johnny Stidger, whose desk was nearest

to the window, was suddenly taken with spasms of apparently gratuitous

laughter, that threatened the discipline of the school. All that Miss

Mary could get from him was, that some one had been “looking in the

winder.” Irate and indignant, she sallied from her hive to do battle

with the intruder. As she turned the corner of the schoolhouse she came

plump upon the quondam drunkard, now perfectly sober, and inexpressibly

sheepish and guilty-looking.

These facts Miss Mary was not slow to take a feminine advantage of, in

her present humor. But it was somewhat confusing to observe, also,

that the beast, despite some faint signs of past dissipation, was

amiable-looking,—in fact, a kind of blond Samson, whose corn-colored

silken beard apparently had never yet known the touch of barber’s razor

or Delilah’s shears. So that the cutting speech which quivered on

her ready tongue died upon her lips, and she contented herself with

receiving his stammering apology with supercilious eyelids and the

gathered skirts of uncontamination. When she reentered the schoolroom,

her eyes fell upon the azaleas with a new sense of revelation; and

then she laughed, and the little people all laughed, and they were all

unconsciously very happy.

It was a hot day, and not long after this, that two short-legged boys

came to grief on the threshold of the school with a pail of water,

which they had laboriously brought from the spring, and that Miss Mary

compassionately seized the pail and started for the spring herself. At

the foot of the hill a shadow crossed her path, and a blue-shirted arm

dexterously but gently relieved her of her burden. Miss Mary was both

embarrassed and angry. “If you carried more of that for yourself,” she

said spitefully to the blue arm, without deigning to raise her lashes

to its owner, “you’d do better.” In the submissive silence that followed

she regretted the speech, and thanked him so sweetly at the door that

he stumbled. Which caused the children to laugh again,—a laugh in which

Miss Mary joined, until the color came faintly into her pale cheek.

The next day a barrel was mysteriously placed beside the door, and as

mysteriously filled with fresh spring-water every morning.

Nor was this superior young person without other quiet attentions.

“Profane Bill,” driver of the Slumgullion Stage, widely known in the

newspapers for his “gallantry” in invariably offering the box-seat to

the fair sex, had excepted Miss Mary from this attention, on the ground

that he had a habit of “cussin’ on up grades,” and gave her half the

coach to herself. Jack Hamlin, a gambler, having once silently ridden

with her in the same coach, afterward threw a decanter at the head of

a confederate for mentioning her name in a bar-room. The over-dressed

mother of a pupil whose paternity was doubtful had often lingered near

this astute Vestal’s temple, never daring to enter its sacred precincts,

but content to worship the priestess from afar.

With such unconscious intervals the monotonous procession of blue skies,

glittering sunshine, brief twilights, and starlit nights passed over Red

Gulch. Miss Mary grew fond of walking in the sedate and proper woods.

Perhaps she believed, with Mrs. Stidger, that the balsamic odors of

the firs “did her chest good,” for certainly her slight cough was less

frequent and her step was firmer; perhaps she had learned the unending

lesson which the patient pines are never weary of repeating to heedful

or listless ears. And so one day she planned a picnic on Buckeye Hill,

and took the children with her. Away from the dusty road, the straggling

shanties, the yellow ditches, the clamor of restless engines, the cheap

finery of shop-windows, the deeper glitter of paint and colored glass,

and the thin veneering which barbarism takes upon itself in such

localities, what infinite relief was theirs! The last heap of ragged

rock and clay passed, the last unsightly chasm crossed,—how the waiting

woods opened their long files to receive them! How the children—perhaps

because they had not yet grown quite away from the breast of the

bounteous Mother—threw themselves face downward on her brown bosom with

uncouth caresses, filling the air with their laughter; and how Miss Mary

herself—felinely fastidious and intrenched as she was in the purity of

spotless skirts, collar, and cuffs—forgot all, and ran like a crested

quail at the head of her brood, until, romping, laughing, and panting,

with a loosened braid of brown hair, a hat hanging by a knotted ribbon

from her throat, she came suddenly and violently, in the heart of the

forest, upon the luckless Sandy!

The explanations, apologies, and not overwise conversation that ensued

need not be indicated here. It would seem, however, that Miss Mary had

already established some acquaintance with this ex-drunkard. Enough that

he was soon accepted as one of the party; that the children, with that

quick intelligence which Providence gives the helpless, recognized a

friend, and played with his blond beard and long silken mustache, and

took other liberties,—as the helpless are apt to do. And when he had

built a fire against a tree, and had shown them other mysteries of

woodcraft, their admiration knew no bounds. At the close of two such

foolish, idle, happy hours he found himself lying at the feet of the

schoolmistress, gazing dreamily in her face as she sat upon the sloping

hillside weaving wreaths of laurel and syringa, in very much the same

attitude as he had lain when first they met. Nor was the similitude

greatly forced. The weakness of an easy, sensuous nature, that had found

a dreamy exaltation in liquor, it is to be feared was now finding an

equal intoxication in love.

I think that Sandy was dimly conscious of this himself. I know that he

longed to be doing something,—slaying a grizzly, scalping a savage,

or sacrificing himself in some way for the sake of this sallow-faced,

gray-eyed schoolmistress. As I should like to present him in an heroic

attitude, I stay my hand with great difficulty at this moment, being

only withheld from introducing such an episode by a strong conviction

that it does not usually occur at such times. And I trust that my

fairest reader, who remembers that, in a real crisis, it is always some

uninteresting stranger or unromantic policeman, and not Adolphus, who

rescues, will forgive the omission.

So they sat there undisturbed,—the woodpeckers chattering overhead and

the voices of the children coming pleasantly from the hollow below.

What they said matters little. What they thought—which might have been

interesting—did not transpire. The woodpeckers only learned how Miss

Mary was an orphan; how she left her uncle’s house to come to California

for the sake of health and independence; how Sandy was an orphan too;

how he came to California for excitement; how he had lived a wild

life, and how he was trying to reform; and other details, which, from a

woodpecker’s view-point, undoubtedly must have seemed stupid and a waste

of time. But even in such trifles was the afternoon spent; and when

the children were again gathered, and Sandy, with a delicacy which

the schoolmistress well understood, took leave of them quietly at the

outskirts of the settlement, it had seemed the shortest day of her weary

life.

As the long, dry summer withered to its roots, the school term of Red

Gulch—to use a local euphuism—“dried up” also. In another day Miss

Mary would be free, and for a season, at least, Red Gulch would know her

no more. She was seated alone in the schoolhouse, her cheek resting on

her hand, her eyes half closed in one of those daydreams in which Miss

Mary, I fear, to the danger of school discipline, was lately in the

habit of indulging. Her lap was full of mosses, ferns, and other

woodland memories. She was so preoccupied with these and her own

thoughts that a gentle tapping at the door passed unheard, or translated

itself into the remembrance of far-off woodpeckers. When at last it

asserted itself more distinctly, she started up with a flushed cheek and

opened the door. On the threshold stood a woman, the self-assertion

and audacity of whose dress were in singular contrast to her timid,

irresolute bearing. Miss Mary recognized at a glance the dubious mother

of her anonymous pupil. Perhaps she was disappointed, perhaps she

was only fastidious; but as she coldly invited her to enter, she half

unconsciously settled her white cuffs and collar, and gathered closer

her own chaste skirts. It was, perhaps, for this reason that the

embarrassed stranger, after a moment’s hesitation, left her gorgeous

parasol open and sticking in the dust beside the door, and then sat down

at the farther end of a long bench. Her voice was husky as she began,—

“I heerd tell that you were goin’ down to the Bay to-morrow, and I

couldn’t let you go until I came to thank you for your kindness to my

Tommy.” Tommy, Miss Mary said, was a good boy, and deserved more than

the poor attention she could give him.

“Thank you, miss; thank ye!” cried the stranger, brightening even

through the color which Red Gulch knew facetiously as her “war paint,”

and striving, in her embarrassment, to drag the long bench nearer the

schoolmistress. “I thank you, miss, for that; and if I am his mother,

there ain’t a sweeter, dearer, better boy lives than him. And if I ain’t

much as says it, thar ain’t a sweeter, dearer, angeler teacher lives

than he’s got.”

Miss Mary, sitting primly behind her desk, with a ruler over her

shoulder, opened her gray eyes widely at this, but said nothing.

“It ain’t for you to be complimented by the like of me, I know,” she

went on hurriedly. “It ain’t for me to be comin’ here, in broad day, to

do it, either; but I come to ask a favor,—not for me, miss,—not for

me, but for the darling boy.”

Encouraged by a look in the young schoolmistress’s eye, and putting her

lilac-gloved hands together, the fingers downward, between her knees,

she went on, in a low voice:—

“You see, miss, there’s no one the boy has any claim on but me, and I

ain’t the proper person to bring him up. I thought some, last year, of

sending him away to Frisco to school, but when they talked of bringing

a schoolma’am here, I waited till I saw you, and then I knew it was all

right, and I could keep my boy a little longer. And, oh! miss, he loves

you so much; and if you could hear him talk about you in his pretty way,

and if he could ask you what I ask you now, you couldn’t refuse him.

“It is natural,” she went on rapidly, in a voice that trembled strangely

between pride and humility,—“it’s natural that he should take to you,

miss, for his father, when I first knew him, was a gentleman,—and the

boy must forget me, sooner or later,—and so I ain’t a-goin’ to cry

about that. For I come to ask you to take my Tommy,—God bless him for

the bestest, sweetest boy that lives,—to—to—take him with you.”

She had risen and caught the young girl’s hand in her own, and had

fallen on her knees beside her.

“I’ve money plenty, and it’s all yours and his. Put him in some good

school, where you can go and see him, and help him to—to—to forget his

mother. Do with him what you like. The worst you can do will be kindness

to what he will learn with me. Only take him out of this wicked life,

this cruel place, this home of shame and sorrow. You will! I know you

will,—won’t you? You will,—you must not, you cannot say no! You will

make him as pure, as gentle as yourself; and when he has grown-up, you

will tell him his father’s name,—the name that hasn’t passed my lips

for years,—the name of Alexander Morton, whom they call here Sandy!

Miss Mary!—do not take your hand away! Miss Mary, speak to me! You will

take my boy? Do not put your face from me. I know it ought not to look

on such as me. Miss Mary!—my God, be merciful!—she is leaving me!”

Miss Mary had risen, and, in the gathering twilight, had felt her way to

the open window. She stood there, leaning against the casement, her

eyes fixed on the last rosy tints that were fading from the western sky.

There was still some of its light on her pure young forehead, on her

white collar, on her clasped white hands, but all fading slowly away.

The suppliant had dragged herself, still on her knees, beside her.

“I know it takes time to consider. I will wait here all night; but I

cannot go until you speak. Do not deny me now. You will!—I see it in

your sweet face,—such a face as I have seen in my dreams. I see it in

your eyes, Miss Mary!—you will take my boy!”

The last red beam crept higher, suffused Miss Mary’s eyes with something

of its glory, flickered, and faded, and went out. The sun had set on Red

Gulch. In the twilight and silence Miss Mary’s voice sounded pleasantly.

“I will take the boy. Send him to me to-night.”

The happy mother raised the hem of Miss Mary’s skirts to her lips. She

would have buried her hot face in its virgin folds, but she dared not.

She rose to her feet.

“Does—this man—know of your intention?” asked Miss Mary suddenly.

“No, nor cares. He has never even seen the child to know it.”

“Go to him at once—to-night—now! Tell him what you have done. Tell him

I have taken his child, and tell him—he must never see—see—the child

again. Wherever it may be, he must not come; wherever I may take it, he

must not follow! There, go now, please,—I’m weary, and—have much yet

to do!”

They walked together to the door. On the threshold the woman turned.

“Good-night!”

She would have fallen at Miss Mary’s feet. But at the same moment the

young girl reached out her arms, caught the sinful woman to her own pure

breast for one brief moment, and then closed and locked the door.

It was with a sudden sense of great responsibility that Profane Bill

took the reins of the Slumgullion stage the next morning, for the

schoolmistress was one of his passengers. As he entered the highroad, in

obedience to a pleasant voice from the “inside,” he suddenly reined up

his horses and respectfully waited, as Tommy hopped out at the command

of Miss Mary.

“Not that bush, Tommy,—the next.”

Tommy whipped out his new pocket-knife, and cutting a branch from a tall

azalea-bush, returned with it to Miss Mary. “All right now?”

“All right!”

And the stage-door closed on the Idyl of Red Gulch.

BROWN OF CALAVERAS

A subdued tone of conversation, and the absence of cigar-smoke and

boot-heels at the windows of the Wingdam stagecoach, made it evident

that one of the inside passengers was a woman. A disposition on the part

of loungers at the stations to congregate before the window, and some

concern in regard to the appearance of coats, hats, and collars, further

indicated that she was lovely. All of which Mr. Jack Hamlin, on the

box-seat, noted with the smile of cynical philosophy. Not that he

depreciated the sex, but that he recognized therein a deceitful element,

the pursuit of which sometimes drew mankind away from the equally

uncertain blandishments of poker,—of which it may be remarked that Mr.

Hamlin was a professional exponent.

So that, when he placed his narrow boot on the wheel and leaped down,

he did not even glance at the window from which a green veil was

fluttering, but lounged up and down with that listless and grave

indifference of his class, which was, perhaps, the next thing to

good-breeding. With his closely buttoned figure and self-contained air

he was a marked contrast to the other passengers, with their feverish

restlessness and boisterous emotion; and even Bill Masters, a graduate

of Harvard, with his slovenly dress, his over-flowing vitality, his

intense appreciation of lawlessness and barbarism, and his mouth filled

with crackers and cheese, I fear cut but an unromantic figure beside

this lonely calculator of chances, with his pale Greek face and Homeric

gravity.

The driver called “All aboard!” and Mr. Hamlin returned to the coach.

His foot was upon the wheel, and his face raised to the level of the

open window, when, at the same moment, what appeared to him to be the

finest eyes in the world suddenly met his. He quietly dropped down

again, addressed a few words to one of the inside passengers, effected

an exchange of seats, and as quietly took his place inside. Mr. Hamlin

never allowed his philosophy to interfere with decisive and prompt

action.

I fear that this irruption of Jack cast some restraint upon the other

passengers, particularly those who were making themselves most agreeable

to the lady. One of them leaned forward, and apparently conveyed to

her information regarding Mr. Hamlin’s profession in a single epithet.

Whether Mr. Hamlin heard it, or whether he recognized in the informant

a distinguished jurist, from whom, but a few evenings before, he had won

several thousand dollars, I cannot say. His colorless face betrayed no

sign; his black eyes, quietly observant, glanced indifferently past the

legal gentleman, and rested on the much more pleasing features of

his neighbor. An Indian stoicism—said to be an inheritance from his

maternal ancestor—stood him in good service, until the rolling wheels

rattled upon the river gravel at Scott’s Ferry, and the stage drew up at

the International Hotel for dinner. The legal gentleman and a member of

Congress leaped out, and stood ready to assist the descending goddess,

while Colonel Starbottle of Siskiyou took charge of her parasol and

shawl. In this multiplicity of attention there was a momentary confusion

and delay. Jack Hamlin quietly opened the _opposite_ door of the coach,

took the lady’s hand, with that decision and positiveness which a

hesitating and undecided sex know how to admire, and in an instant had

dexterously and gracefully swung her to the ground and again lifted her

to the platform. An audible chuckle on the box, I fear, came from that

other cynic, Yuba Bill, the driver. “Look keerfully arter that baggage,

Kernel,” said the expressman, with affected concern, as he looked after

Colonel Starbottle, gloomily bringing up the rear of the triumphant

procession to the waiting-room.

Mr. Hamlin did not stay for dinner. His horse was already saddled and

awaiting him. He dashed over the ford, up the gravelly hill, and out

into the dusty perspective of the Wingdam road, like one leaving an

unpleasant fancy behind him. The inmates of dusty cabins by the roadside

shaded their eyes with their hands and looked after him, recognizing the

man by his horse, and speculating what “was up with Comanche Jack.” Yet

much of this interest centred in the horse, in a community where the

time made by “French Pete’s” mare, in his run from the Sheriff of

Calaveras, eclipsed all concern in the ultimate fate of that worthy.

The sweating flanks of his gray at length recalled him to himself.

He checked his speed, and turning into a byroad, sometimes used as a

cut-off, trotted leisurely along, the reins hanging listlessly from

his fingers. As he rode on, the character of the landscape changed and

became more pastoral. Openings in groves of pine and sycamore disclosed

some rude attempts at cultivation,—a flowering vine trailed over the

porch of one cabin, and a woman rocked her cradled babe under the roses

of another. A little farther on, Mr. Hamlin came upon some bare-legged

children wading in the willowy creek, and so wrought upon them with a

badinage peculiar to himself, that they were emboldened to climb up

his horse’s legs and over his saddle, until he was fain to develop an

exaggerated ferocity of demeanor, and to escape, leaving behind some

kisses and coin. And then, advancing deeper into the woods, where all

signs of habitation failed, he began to sing, uplifting a tenor so

singularly sweet, and shaded by a pathos so subdued and tender, that I

wot the robins and linnets stopped to listen. Mr. Hamlin’s voice was

not cultivated; the subject of his song was some sentimental lunacy,

borrowed from the negro minstrels; but there thrilled through all some

occult quality of tone and expression that was unspeakably touching.

Indeed, it was a wonderful sight to see this sentimental blackleg, with

a pack of cards in his pocket and a revolver at his back, sending his

voice before him through the dim woods with a plaint about his

“Nelly’s grave,” in a way that overflowed the eyes of the listener. A

sparrow-hawk, fresh from his sixth victim, possibly recognizing in Mr.

Hamlin a kindred spirit, stared at him in surprise, and was fain to

confess the superiority of man. With a superior predatory capacity _he_

couldn’t sing.

But Mr. Hamlin presently found himself again on the highroad and at his

former pace. Ditches and banks of gravel, denuded hillsides, stumps,

and decayed trunks of trees, took the place of woodland and ravine, and

indicated his approach to civilization. Then a church-steeple came in

sight, and he knew that he had reached home. In a few moments he was

clattering down the single narrow street that lost itself in a chaotic

ruin of races, ditches, and tailings at the foot of the hill, and

dismounted before the gilded windows of the Magnolia saloon. Passing

through the long bar-room, he pushed open a green-baize door, entered a

dark passage, opened another door with a passkey, and found himself in

a dimly lighted room, whose furniture, though elegant and costly for the

locality, showed signs of abuse. The inlaid centre-table was overlaid

with stained disks that were not contemplated in the original design,

the embroidered armchairs were discolored, and the green velvet lounge,

on which Mr. Hamlin threw himself, was soiled at the foot with the red

soil of Wingdam.

Mr. Hamlin did not sing in his cage. He lay still, looking at a highly

colored painting above him, representing a young creature of opulent

charms. It occurred to him then, for the first time, that he had never

seen exactly that kind of a woman, and that, if he should, he would

not, probably, fall in love with her. Perhaps he was thinking of another

style of beauty. But just then some one knocked at the door. Without

rising, he pulled a cord that apparently shot back a bolt, for the door

swung open, and a man entered.

The new-comer was broad-shouldered and robust,—a vigor not borne out in

the face, which, though handsome, was singularly weak and disfigured by

dissipation. He appeared to be, also, under the influence of liquor, for

he started on seeing Mr. Hamlin, and said, “I thought Kate was here;”

stammered, and seemed confused and embarrassed.

Mr. Hamlin smiled the smile which he had before worn on the Wingdam

coach, and sat up, quite refreshed and ready for business.

“You didn’t come up on the stage,” continued the newcomer, “did you?”

“No,” replied Hamlin; “I left it at Scott’s Ferry. It isn’t due for half

an hour yet. But how’s luck, Brown?”

“D—d bad,” said Brown, his face suddenly assuming an expression of weak

despair. “I’m cleaned out again, Jack,” he continued, in a whining tone,

that formed a pitiable contrast to his bulky figure; “can’t you help me

with a hundred till to-morrow’s clean-up? You see I’ve got to send money

home to the old woman, and—you’ve won twenty times that amount from

me.”

The conclusion was, perhaps, not entirely logical, but Jack overlooked

it, and handed the sum to his visitor. “The old-woman business is about

played out, Brown,” he added, by way of commentary; “why don’t you say

you want to buck ag’in’ faro? You know you ain’t married!”

“Fact, sir,” said Brown, with a sudden gravity, as if the mere contact

of the gold with the palm of the hand had imparted some dignity to his

frame. “I’ve got a wife—a d—d good one, too, if I do say it—in the

States. It’s three years since I’ve seen her, and a year since I’ve writ

to her. When things is about straight, and we get down to the lead, I’m

going to send for her.”

“And Kate?” queried Mr. Hamlin, with his previous smile.

Mr. Brown of Calaveras essayed an archness of glance to cover his

confusion, which his weak face and whiskey-muddled intellect but poorly

carried out, and said,—

“D—n it, Jack, a man must have a little liberty, you know. But

come, what do you say to a little game? Give us a show to double this

hundred.”

Jack Hamlin looked curiously at his fatuous friend. Perhaps he knew that

the man was predestined to lose the money, and preferred that it should

flow back into his own coffers rather than any other. He nodded his

head, and drew his chair toward the table. At the same moment there came

a rap upon the door.

“It’s Kate,” said Mr. Brown.

Mr. Hamlin shot back the bolt and the door opened. But, for the first

time in his life, he staggered to his feet utterly unnerved and abashed,

and for the first time in his life the hot blood crimsoned his colorless

cheeks to his forehead. For before him stood the lady he had lifted

from the Wingdam coach, whom Brown, dropping his cards with a hysterical

laugh, greeted as,—

“My old woman, by thunder!”

They say that Mrs. Brown burst into tears and reproaches of her husband.

I saw her in 1857 at Marysville, and disbelieve the story. And the

“Wingdam Chronicle” of the next week, under the head of “Touching

Reunion,” said: “One of those beautiful and touching incidents, peculiar

to California life, occurred last week in our city. The wife of one of

Wingdam’s eminent pioneers, tired of the effete civilization of the East

and its inhospitable climate, resolved to join her noble husband

upon these golden shores. Without informing him of her intention,

she undertook the long journey, and arrived last week. The joy of the

husband may be easier imagined than described. The meeting is said

to have been indescribably affecting. We trust her example may be

followed.”

* * * * *

Whether owing to Mrs. Brown’s influence, or to some more successful

speculations, Mr. Brown’s financial fortune from that day steadily

improved. He bought out his partners in the “Nip and Tuck” lead, with

money which was said to have been won at poker a week or two after his

wife’s arrival, but which rumor, adopting Mrs. Brown’s theory that Brown

had forsworn the gaming-table, declared to have been furnished by Mr.

Jack Hamlin. He built and furnished the Wingdam House, which pretty Mrs.

Brown’s great popularity kept overflowing with guests. He was elected

to the Assembly, and gave largess to churches. A street in Wingdam was

named in his honor.

Yet it was noted that in proportion as he waxed wealthy and fortunate,

he grew pale, thin, and anxious. As his wife’s popularity increased,

he became fretful and impatient. The most uxorious of husbands, he

was absurdly jealous. If he did not interfere with his wife’s social

liberty, it was because it was maliciously whispered that his first and

only attempt was met by an outburst from Mrs. Brown that terrified him

into silence. Much of this kind of gossip came from those of her own sex

whom she had supplanted in the chivalrous attentions of Wingdam, which,

like most popular chivalry, was devoted to an admiration of power,

whether of masculine force or feminine beauty. It should be remembered,

too, in her extenuation, that, since her arrival, she had been the

unconscious priestess of a mythological worship, perhaps not more

ennobling to her womanhood than that which distinguished an older Greek

democracy. I think that Brown was dimly conscious of this. But his only

confidant was Jack Hamlin, whose infelix reputation naturally precluded

any open intimacy with the family, and whose visits were infrequent.

It was midsummer and a moonlit night, and Mrs. Brown, very rosy,

large-eyed, and pretty, sat upon the piazza, enjoying the fresh incense

of the mountain breeze, and, it is to be feared, another incense

which was not so fresh nor quite as innocent. Beside her sat Colonel

Starbottle and Judge Boompointer, and a later addition to her court in

the shape of a foreign tourist. She was in good spirits.

“What do you see down the road?” inquired the gallant Colonel, who had

been conscious, for the last few minutes, that Mrs. Brown’s attention

was diverted.

“Dust,” said Mrs. Brown, with a sigh. “Only Sister Anne’s ‘flock of

sheep.’”

The Colonel, whose literary recollections did not extend farther back

than last week’s paper, took a more practical view. “It ain’t sheep,” he

continued; “it’s a horseman. Judge, ain’t that Jack Hamlin’s gray?”

But the Judge didn’t know; and, as Mrs. Brown suggested the air was

growing too cold for further investigations, they retired to the parlor.

Mr. Brown was in the stable, where he generally retired after dinner.

Perhaps it was to show his contempt for his wife’s companions; perhaps,

like other weak natures, he found pleasure in the exercise of absolute

power over inferior animals. He had a certain gratification in the

training of a chestnut mare, whom he could beat or caress as pleased

him, which he couldn’t do with Mrs. Brown. It was here that he

recognized a certain gray horse which had just come in, and, looking

a little farther on, found his rider. Brown’s greeting was cordial

and hearty; Mr. Hamlin’s somewhat restrained. But, at Brown’s urgent

request, he followed him up the back stairs to a narrow corridor, and

thence to a small room looking out upon the stable-yard. It was plainly

furnished with a bed, a table, a few chairs, and a rack for guns and

whips.

“This yer’s my home, Jack,” said Brown with a sigh, as he threw himself

upon the bed and motioned his companion to a chair. “Her room’s t’ other

end of the hall. It’s more’n six months since we’ve lived together, or

met, except at meals. It’s mighty rough papers on the head of the house,

ain’t it?” he said with a forced laugh. “But I’m glad to see you,

Jack, d—d glad,” and he reached from the bed, and again shook the

unresponsive hand of Jack Hamlin.

“I brought ye up here, for I didn’t want to talk in the stable; though,

for the matter of that, it’s all round town. Don’t strike a light. We

can talk here in the moonshine. Put up your feet on that winder and sit

here beside me. Thar’s whiskey in that jug.”

Mr. Hamlin did not avail himself of the information. Brown of Calaveras

turned his face to the wall, and continued,—

“If I didn’t love the woman, Jack, I wouldn’t mind. But it’s loving her,

and seeing her day arter day goin’ on at this rate, and no one to put

down the brake; that’s what gits me! But I’m glad to see ye, Jack, d—d

glad.”

In the darkness he groped about until he had found and wrung his

companion’s hand again. He would have detained it, but Jack slipped it

into the buttoned breast of his coat, and asked listlessly, “How long

has this been going on?”

“Ever since she came here; ever since the day she walked into the

Magnolia. I was a fool then; Jack, I’m a fool now; but I didn’t know how

much I loved her till then. And she hasn’t been the same woman since.

“But that ain’t all, Jack; and it’s what I wanted to see you about, and

I’m glad you’ve come. It ain’t that she doesn’t love me any more; it

ain’t that she fools with every chap that comes along; for perhaps I

staked her love and lost it, as I did everything else at the Magnolia;

and perhaps foolin’ is nateral to some women, and thar ain’t no great

harm done, ’cept to the fools. But, Jack, I think,—I think she loves

somebody else. Don’t move, Jack! don’t move; if your pistol hurts ye,

take it off.

“It’s been more’n six months now that she’s seemed unhappy and lonesome,

and kinder nervous and scared-like. And sometimes I’ve ketched her

lookin’ at me sort of timid and pitying. And she writes to somebody. And

for the last week she’s been gathering her own things,—trinkets, and

furbelows, and jew’lry,—and, Jack, I think she’s goin’ off. I could

stand all but that. To have her steal away like a thief!” He put his

face downward to the pillow, and for a few moments there was no sound

but the ticking of a clock on the mantel. Mr. Hamlin lit a cigar, and

moved to the open window. The moon no longer shone into the room, and

the bed and its occupant were in shadow. “What shall I do, Jack?” said

the voice from the darkness.

The answer came promptly and clearly from the window-side, “Spot the

man, and kill him on sight.”

“But, Jack”—

“He’s took the risk!”

“But will that bring her back?”

Jack did not reply, but moved from the window towards the door.

“Don’t go yet, Jack; light the candle and sit by the table. It’s a

comfort to see ye, if nothin’ else.”

Jack hesitated and then complied. He drew a pack of cards from his

pocket and shuffled them, glancing at the bed. But Brown’s face was

turned to the wall. When Mr. Hamlin had shuffled the cards, he cut them,

and dealt one card on the opposite side of the table towards the bed,

and another on his side of the table for himself. The first was a deuce;

his own card a king. He then shuffled and cut again. This time “dummy”

had a queen and himself a four-spot. Jack brightened up for the third

deal. It brought his adversary a deuce and himself a king again. “Two

out of three,” said Jack audibly.

“What’s that, Jack?” said Brown.

“Nothing.”

Then Jack tried his hand with dice; but he always threw sixes and his

imaginary opponent aces. The force of habit is sometimes confusing.

Meanwhile some magnetic influence in Mr. Hamlin’s presence, or the

anodyne of liquor, or both, brought surcease of sorrow, and Brown slept.

Mr. Hamlin moved his chair to the window and looked out on the town

of Wingdam, now sleeping peacefully, its harsh outlines softened and

subdued, its glaring colors mellowed and sobered in the moonlight that

flowed over all. In the hush he could hear the gurgling of water in the

ditches and the sighing of the pines beyond the hill. Then he looked

up at the firmament, and as he did so a star shot across the twinkling

field. Presently another, and then another. The phenomenon suggested to

Mr. Hamlin a fresh augury. If in another fifteen minutes another star

should fall—He sat there, watch in hand, for twice that time, but the

phenomenon was not repeated.

The clock struck two, and Brown still slept. Mr. Hamlin approached the

table and took from his pocket a letter, which he read by the flickering

candlelight. It contained only a single line, written in pencil, in a

woman’s hand,—

“Be at the corral with the buggy at three.”

The sleeper moved uneasily and then awoke. “Are you there, Jack?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t go yet. I dreamed just now, Jack,—dreamed of old times. I

thought that Sue and me was being married agin, and that the parson,

Jack, was—who do you think?—you!”

The gambler laughed, and seated himself on the bed, the paper still in

his hand.

“It’s a good sign, ain’t it?” queried Brown.

“I reckon! Say, old man, hadn’t you better get up?”

The “old man,” thus affectionately appealed to, rose, with the

assistance of Hamlin’s outstretched hand.

“Smoke?”

Brown mechanically took the proffered cigar.

“Light?”

Jack had twisted the letter into a spiral, lit it, and held it for his

companion. He continued to hold it until it was consumed, and dropped

the fragment—a fiery star—from the open window. He watched it as it

fell, and then returned to his friend.

“Old man,” he said, placing his hands upon Brown’s shoulders, “in ten

minutes I’ll be on the road, and gone like that spark. We won’t see each

other agin; but, before I go, take a fool’s advice: sell out all you’ve

got, take your wife with you, and quit the country. It ain’t no place

for you nor her. Tell her she must go; make her go if she won’t. Don’t

whine because you can’t be a saint and she ain’t an angel. Be a man, and

treat her like a woman. Don’t be a d-d fool. Good-by.”

He tore himself from Brown’s grasp and leaped down the stairs like a

deer. At the stable-door he collared the half-sleeping hostler, and

backed him against the wall. “Saddle my horse in two minutes, or

I’ll”—The ellipsis was frightfully suggestive.

“The missis said you was to have the buggy,” stammered the man.

“D—n the buggy!” The horse was saddled as fast as the nervous hands of

the astounded hostler could manipulate buckle and strap.

“Is anything up, Mr. Hamlin?” said the man, who, like all his class,

admired the elan of his fiery patron, and was really concerned in his

welfare.

“Stand aside!”

The man fell back. With an oath, a bound, and clatter, Jack was into the

road. In another moment, to the man’s half-awakened eyes, he was but a

moving cloud of dust in the distance, towards which a star just loosed

from its brethren was trailing a stream of fire.

But early that morning the dwellers by the Wingdam turnpike, miles

aways, heard a voice, pure as a sky-lark’s, singing afield. They who

were asleep turned over on their rude couches to dream of youth, and

love, and olden days. Hard-faced men and anxious gold-seekers, already

at work, ceased their labors and leaned upon their picks to listen to a

romantic vagabond ambling away against the rosy sunrise.

* * * * *

CONDENSED NOVELS

* * * * *

MUCK-A-MUCK

A MODERN INDIAN NOVEL

AFTER COOPER

CHAPTER I

It was toward the close of a bright October day. The last rays of the

setting sun were reflected from one of those sylvan lakes peculiar to

the Sierras of California. On the right the curling smoke of an Indian

village rose between the columns of the lofty pines, while to the left

the log cottage of Judge Tompkins, embowered in buckeyes, completed the

enchanting picture.

Although the exterior of the cottage was humble and unpretentious,

and in keeping with the wildness of the landscape, its interior gave

evidence of the cultivation and refinement of its inmates. An aquarium,

containing goldfishes, stood on a marble centre-table at one end of the

apartment, while a magnificent grand piano occupied the other. The floor

was covered with a yielding tapestry carpet, and the walls were adorned

with paintings from the pencils of Van Dyke, Rubens, Tintoretto, Michael

Angelo, and the productions of the more modern Turner, Kensett, Church,

and Bierstadt. Although Judge Tompkins had chosen the frontiers of

civilization as his home, it was impossible for him to entirely forego

the habits and tastes of his former life. He was seated in a luxurious

armchair, writing at a mahogany escritoire, while his daughter, a lovely

young girl of seventeen summers, plied her crotchet-needle on an ottoman

beside him. A bright fire of pine logs flickered and flamed on the ample

hearth.

Genevra Octavia Tompkins was Judge Tompkins’s only child. Her mother had

long since died on the Plains. Reared in affluence, no pains had been

spared with the daughter’s education. She was a graduate of one of the

principal seminaries, and spoke French with a perfect Benicia accent.

Peerlessly beautiful, she was dressed in a white moire antique robe

trimmed with tulle. That simple rosebud, with which most heroines

exclusively decorate their hair, was all she wore in her raven locks.

The Judge was the first to break the silence.

“Genevra, the logs which compose yonder fire seem to have been

incautiously chosen. The sibilation produced by the sap, which exudes

copiously therefrom, is not conducive to composition.”

“True, father, but I thought it would be preferable to the constant

crepitation which is apt to attend the combustion of more seasoned

ligneous fragments.”

The Judge looked admiringly at the intellectual features of the graceful

girl, and half forgot the slight annoyances of the green wood in the

musical accents of his daughter. He was smoothing her hair tenderly,

when the shadow of a tall figure, which suddenly darkened the doorway,

caused him to look up.

CHAPTER II

It needed but a glance at the new-comer to detect at once the form and

features of the haughty aborigine,—the untaught and untrammeled son

of the forest. Over one shoulder a blanket, negligently but gracefully

thrown, disclosed a bare and powerful breast, decorated with a quantity

of three-cent postage-stamps which he had despoiled from an Overland

Mail stage a few weeks previous. A cast-off beaver of Judge Tompkins’s,

adorned by a simple feather, covered his erect head, from beneath which

his straight locks descended. His right hand hung lightly by his side,

while his left was engaged in holding on a pair of pantaloons, which the

lawless grace and freedom of his lower limbs evidently could not brook.

“Why,” said the Indian, in a low sweet tone,—“why does the Pale Face

still follow the track of the Red Man? Why does he pursue him, even as

O-kee chow, the wild cat, chases Ka-ka, the skunk? Why are the feet

of Sorrel-top, the white chief, among the acorns of Muck-a-Muck, the

mountain forest? Why,” he repeated, quietly but firmly abstracting a

silver spoon from the table,—“why do you seek to drive him from the

wigwams of his fathers? His brothers are already gone to the happy

hunting-grounds. Will the Pale Face seek him there?” And, averting his

face from the Judge, he hastily slipped a silver cake-basket beneath his

blanket, to conceal his emotion.

“Muck-a-Muck has spoken,” said Genevra softly. “Let him now listen. Are

the acorns of the mountain sweeter than the esculent and nutritious bean

of the Pale Face miner? Does my brother prize the edible qualities of

the snail above that of the crisp and oleaginous bacon? Delicious are

the grasshoppers that sport on the hillside,—are they better than the

dried apples of the Pale Faces? Pleasant is the gurgle of the torrent,

Kish-Kish, but is it better than the cluck-cluck of old Bourbon from the

old stone bottle?”

“Ugh!” said the Indian,—“ugh! good. The White Rabbit is wise. Her words

fall as the snow on Tootoonolo, and the rocky heart of Muck-a-Muck is

hidden. What says my brother the Gray Gopher of Dutch Flat?”

“She has spoken, Muck-a-Muck,” said the Judge, gazing fondly on his

daughter. “It is well. Our treaty is concluded. No, thank you,—you need

_not_ dance the Dance of Snow-shoes, or the Moccasin Dance, the Dance

of Green Corn, or the Treaty Dance. I would be alone. A strange sadness

overpowers me.”

“I go,” said the Indian. “Tell your great chief in Washington, the

Sachem Andy, that the Red Man is retiring before the footsteps of the

adventurous pioneer. Inform him, if you please, that westward the star

of empire takes its way, that the chiefs of the Pi-Ute nation are for

Reconstruction to a man, and that Klamath will poll a heavy Republican

vote in the fall.”

And folding his blanket more tightly around him, Muck-a-Muck withdrew.

CHAPTER III

Genevra Tompkins stood at the door of the log-cabin, looking after the

retreating Overland Mail stage which conveyed her father to Virginia

City. “He may never return again,” sighed the young girl, as she glanced

at the frightfully rolling vehicle and wildly careering horses,—“at

least, with unbroken bones. Should he meet with an accident! I mind

me now a fearful legend, familiar to my childhood. Can it be that the

drivers on this line are privately instructed to dispatch all passengers

maimed by accident, to prevent tedious litigation? No, no. But why this

weight upon my heart?”

She seated herself at the piano and lightly passed her hand over the

keys. Then, in a clear mezzo-soprano voice, she sang the first verse of

one of the most popular Irish ballads:—

“O _Arrah ma dheelish_, the distant _dudheen_

Lies soft in the moonlight, _ma bouchal vourneen_:

The springing _gossoons_ on the heather are still,

And the _caubeens_ and _colleens_ are heard on the hill.”

But as the ravishing notes of her sweet voice died upon the air, her

hands sank listlessly to her side. Music could not chase away the

mysterious shadow from her heart. Again she rose. Putting on a white

crape bonnet, and carefully drawing a pair of lemon-colored gloves over

her taper fingers, she seized her parasol and plunged into the depths of

the pine forest.

CHAPTER IV

Genevra had not proceeded many miles before a weariness seized upon

her fragile limbs, and she would fain seat herself upon the trunk of a

prostrate pine, which she previously dusted with her handkerchief.

The sun was just sinking below the horizon, and the scene was one of

gorgeous and sylvan beauty. “How beautiful is nature!” murmured the

innocent girl, as, reclining gracefully against the root of the tree,

she gathered up her skirts and tied a handkerchief around her throat.

But a low growl interrupted her meditation. Starting to her feet, her

eyes met a sight which froze her blood with terror.

The only outlet to the forest was the narrow path, barely wide enough

for a single person, hemmed in by trees and rocks, which she had just

traversed. Down this path, in Indian file, came a monstrous grizzly,

closely followed by a California lion, a wild cat, and a buffalo, the

rear being brought up by a wild Spanish bull. The mouths of the three

first animals were distended with frightful significance, the horns of

the last were lowered as ominously. As Genevra was preparing to faint,

she heard a low voice behind her.

“Eternally dog-gone my skin ef this ain’t the puttiest chance yet!” At

the same moment, a long, shining barrel dropped lightly from behind her,

and rested over her shoulder.

Genevra shuddered.

“Dern ye—don’t move!”

Genevra became motionless.

The crack of a rifle rang through the woods. Three frightful yells were

heard, and two sullen roars. Five animals bounded into the air and five

lifeless bodies lay upon the plain. The well-aimed bullet had done its

work. Entering the open throat of the grizzly it had traversed his body

only to enter the throat of the California lion, and in like manner the

catamount, until it passed through into the respective foreheads of

the bull and the buffalo, and finally fell flattened from the rocky

hillside.

Genevra turned quickly. “My preserver!” she shrieked, and fell into the

arms of Natty Bumpo, the celebrated Pike Ranger of Donner Lake.

CHAPTER V

The moon rose cheerfully above Donner Lake. On its placid bosom a

dug-out canoe glided rapidly, containing Natty Bumpo and Genevra

Tompkins.

Both were silent. The same thought possessed each, and perhaps there was

sweet companionship even in the unbroken quiet. Genevra bit the handle

of her parasol, and blushed. Natty Bumpo took a fresh chew of tobacco.

At length Genevra said, as if in half-spoken reverie:—

“The soft shining of the moon and the peaceful ripple of the waves seem

to say to us various things of an instructive and moral tendency.”

“You may bet yer pile on that, miss,” said her companion gravely. “It’s

all the preachin’ and psalm-singin’ I’ve heern since I was a boy.”

“Noble being!” said Miss Tompkins to herself, glancing at the stately

Pike as he bent over his paddle to conceal his emotion. “Reared in this

wild seclusion, yet he has become penetrated with visible consciousness

of a Great First Cause.” Then, collecting herself, she said aloud:

“Methinks ’t were pleasant to glide ever thus down the stream of life,

hand in hand with the one being whom the soul claims as its affinity.

But what am I saying?”—and the delicate-minded girl hid her face in her

hands.

A long silence ensued, which was at length broken by her companion.

“Ef you mean you’re on the marry,” he said thoughtfully, “I ain’t in no

wise partikler.”

“My husband!” faltered the blushing girl; and she fell into his arms.

In ten minutes more the loving couple had landed at Judge Tompkins’s.

CHAPTER VI

A year has passed away. Natty Bumpo was returning from Gold Hill, where

he had been to purchase provisions. On his way to Donner Lake, rumors of

an Indian uprising met his ears. “Dern their pesky skins, ef they dare

to touch my Jenny,” he muttered between his clenched teeth.

It was dark when he reached the borders of the lake. Around a glittering

fire he dimly discerned dusky figures dancing. They were in war paint.

Conspicuous among them was the renowned Muck-a-Muck. But why did the

fingers of Natty Bumpo tighten convulsively around his rifle?

The chief held in his hand long tufts of raven hair. The heart of the

pioneer sickened as he recognized the clustering curls of Genevra. In

a moment his rifle was at his shoulder, and with a sharp “ping”

Muck-a-Muck leaped into the air a corpse. To knock out the brains of

the remaining savages, tear the tresses from the stiffening hand of

Muck-a-Muck, and dash rapidly forward to the cottage of Judge Tompkins,

was the work of a moment.

He burst open the door. Why did he stand transfixed with open mouth

and distended eyeballs? Was the sight too horrible to be borne? On the

contrary, before him, in her peerless beauty, stood Genevra Tompkins,

leaning on her father’s arm.

“Ye’r not scalped, then!” gasped her lover.

“No. I have no hesitation in saying that I am not; but why this

abruptness?” responded Genevra.

Bumpo could not speak, but frantically produced the silken tresses.

Genevra turned her face aside.

“Why, that’s her waterfall!” said the Judge.

Bumpo sank fainting to the floor.

The famous Pike chieftain never recovered from the deceit, and refused

to marry Genevra, who died, twenty years afterwards, of a broken heart.

Judge Tompkins lost his fortune in Wild Cat. The stage passes twice

a week the deserted cottage at Donner Lake. Thus was the death of

Muck-a-Muck avenged.

SELINA SEDILIA

BY MISS M. E. B-DD-N AND MRS. H-N-Y W-D.

CHAPTER I

The sun was setting over Sloperton Grange, and reddened the window of

the lonely chamber in the western tower, supposed to be haunted by Sir

Edward Sedilia, the founder of the Grange. In the dreamy distance arose

the gilded mausoleum of Lady Felicia Sedilia, who haunted that portion

of Sedilia Manor known as “Stiff-uns Acre.” A little to the left of the

Grange might have been seen a mouldering ruin, known as “Guy’s Keep,”

haunted by the spirit of Sir Guy Sedilia, who was found, one morning,

crushed by one of the fallen battlements. Yet, as the setting sun gilded

these objects, a beautiful and almost holy calm seemed diffused about

the Grange.

The Lady Selina sat by an oriel window overlooking the park. The sun

sank gently in the bosom of the German Ocean, and yet the lady did not

lift her beautiful head from the finely curved arm and diminutive hand

which supported it. When darkness finally shrouded the landscape she

started, for the sound of horse-hoofs clattered over the stones of the

avenue. She had scarcely risen, before an aristocratic young man fell on

his knees before her.

“My Selina!”

“Edgardo! You here?”

“Yes, dearest.”

“And—you—you—have—seen nothing?” said the lady in an agitated voice

and nervous manner, turning her face aside to conceal her emotion.

“Nothing—that is, nothing of any account,” said Edgardo. “I passed the

ghost of your aunt in the park, noticed the spectre of your uncle in the

ruined keep, and observed the familiar features of the spirit of your

great-grandfather at his usual post. But nothing beyond these trifles,

my Selina. Nothing more, love, absolutely nothing.”

The young man turned his dark, liquid orbs fondly upon the ingenuous

face of his betrothed.

“My own Edgardo!—and you still love me? You still would marry me in

spite of this dark mystery which surrounds me? In spite of the fatal

history of my race? In spite of the ominous predictions of my aged

nurse?”

“I would, Selina;” and the young man passed his arm around her yielding

waist. The two lovers gazed at each other’s faces in unspeakable bliss.

Suddenly Selina started.

“Leave me, Edgardo! leave me! A mysterious something—a fatal

misgiving—a dark ambiguity—an equivocal mistrust oppresses me. I would

be alone!”

The young man arose, and cast a loving glance on the lady. “Then we will

be married on the seventeenth.”

“The seventeenth,” repeated Selina, with a mysterious shudder.

They embraced and parted. As the clatter of hoofs in the courtyard died

away, the Lady Selina sank into the chair she had just quitted.

“The seventeenth,” she repeated slowly, with the same fateful shudder.

“Ah!—what if he should know that I have another husband living? Dare

I reveal to him that I have two legitimate and three natural children?

Dare I repeat to him the history of my youth? Dare I confess that at

the age of seven I poisoned my sister, by putting verdigris in her

cream-tarts,—that I threw my cousin from a swing at the age of twelve?

That the lady’s maid who incurred the displeasure of my girlhood now

lies at the bottom of the horse-pond? No! no! he is too pure,—too

good,—too innocent,—to hear such improper conversation!” and her whole

body writhed as she rocked to and fro in a paroxysm of grief.

But she was soon calm. Rising to her feet, she opened a secret panel in

the wall, and revealed a slow-match ready for lighting.

“This match,” said the Lady Selina, “is connected with a mine beneath

the western tower, where my three children are confined; another

branch of it lies under the parish church, where the record of my first

marriage is kept. I have only to light this match and the whole of

my past life is swept away!” She approached the match with a lighted

candle.

But a hand was laid upon her arm, and with a shriek the Lady Selina fell

on her knees before the spectre of Sir Guy.

CHAPTER II

“Forbear, Selina,” said the phantom in a hollow voice.

“Why should I forbear?” responded Selina haughtily, as she recovered her

courage. “You know the secret of our race?”

“I do. Understand me,—I do not object to the eccentricities of your

youth. I know the fearful destiny which, pursuing you, led you to poison

your sister and drown your lady’s maid. I know the awful doom which

I have brought upon this house. But if you make away with these

children”—

“Well,” said the Lady Selina hastily.

“They will haunt you!”

“Well, I fear them not,” said Selina, drawing her superb figure to its

full height.

“Yes, but, my dear child, what place are they to haunt? The ruin is

sacred to your uncle’s spirit. Your aunt monopolizes the park, and, I

must be allowed to state, not unfrequently trespasses upon the grounds

of others. The horse-pond is frequented by the spirit of your maid, and

your murdered sister walks these corridors. To be plain, there is no

room at Sloperton Grange for another ghost. I cannot have them in my

room,—for you know I don’t like children. Think of this, rash girl, and

forbear! Would you, Selina,” said the phantom mournfully,—“would you

force your great-grandfather’s spirit to take lodgings elsewhere?”

Lady Selina’s hand trembled; the lighted candle fell from her nerveless

fingers.

“No,” she cried passionately; “never!” and fell fainting to the floor.

CHAPTER III

Edgardo galloped rapidly towards Sloperton. When the outline of the

Grange had faded away in the darkness, he reined his magnificent steed

beside the ruins of Guy’s Keep.

“It wants but a few minutes of the hour,” he said, consulting his watch

by the light of the moon. “He dare not break his word. He will come.” He

paused, and peered anxiously into the darkness. “But come what may, she

is mine,” he continued, as his thoughts reverted fondly to the fair lady

he had quitted. “Yet if she knew all. If she knew that I am a disgraced

and ruined man,—a felon and an outcast. If she knew that at the age of

fourteen I murdered my Latin tutor and forged my uncle’s will. If she

knew that I had three wives already, and that the fourth victim of

misplaced confidence and my unfortunate peculiarity is expected to be at

Sloperton by to-night’s train with her baby. But no; she must not know

it. Constance must not arrive; Burke the Slogger must attend to that.

“Ha! here he is! Well?”

These words were addressed to a ruffian in a slouched hat, who suddenly

appeared from Guy’s Keep.

“I he’s here, measter,” said the villain, with a disgracefully low

accent and complete disregard of grammatical rules.

“It is well. Listen: I’m in possession of facts that will send you to

the gallows. I know of the murder of Bill Smithers, the robbery of the

tollgate-keeper, and the making away of the youngest daughter of Sir

Reginald de Walton. A word from me, and the officers of justice are on

your track.”

Burke the Slogger trembled.

“Hark ye! serve my purpose, and I may yet save you. The 5.30 train from

Clapham will be due at Sloperton at 9.25. _It must not arrive!_”

The villain’s eyes sparkled as he nodded at Edgardo.

“Enough,—you understand; leave me!”

CHAPTER IV

About half a mile from Sloperton Station the South Clapham and Medway

line crossed a bridge over Sloperton-on-Trent. As the shades of evening

were closing, a man in a slouched hat might have been seen, carrying a

saw and axe under his arm, hanging about the bridge. From time to time

he disappeared in the shadow of its abutments, but the sound of a

saw and axe still betrayed his vicinity. At exactly nine o’clock he

reappeared, and crossing to the Sloperton side, rested his shoulder

against the abutment and gave a shove. The bridge swayed a moment, and

then fell with a splash into the water, leaving a space of one hundred

feet between the two banks. This done, Burke the Slogger,—for it was

he,—with a fiendish chuckle seated himself on the divided railway track

and awaited the coming of the train.

A shriek from the woods announced its approach. For an instant Burke the

Slogger saw the glaring of a red lamp. The ground trembled. The train

was going with fearful rapidity. Another second and it had reached the

bank. Burke the Slogger uttered a fiendish laugh. But the next moment

the train leaped across the chasm, striking the rails exactly even, and

dashing out the life of Burke the Slogger, sped away to Sloperton.

The first object that greeted Edgardo, as he rode up to the station on

the arrival of the train, was the body of Burke the Slogger hanging on

the cowcatcher; the second was the face of his deserted wife looking

from the window of a second-class carriage.

CHAPTER V

A nameless terror seemed to have taken possession of Clarissa, Lady

Selina’s maid, as she rushed into the presence of her mistress.

“Oh, my lady, such news!”

“Explain yourself,” said her mistress, rising.

“An accident has happened on the railway, and a man has been killed.”

“What—not Edgardo!” almost screamed Selina.

“No, Burke the Slogger, your ladyship!”

“My first husband!” said Lady Selina, sinking on her knees. “Just

Heaven, I thank thee!”

CHAPTER VI

The morning of the seventeenth dawned brightly over Sloperton. “A fine

day for the wedding,” said the sexton to Swipes, the butler of Sloperton

Grange. The aged retainer shook his head sadly. “Alas! there’s no

trusting in signs!” he continued. “Seventy-five years ago, on a day like

this, my young mistress”—but he was cut short by the appearance of a

stranger.

“I would see Sir Edgardo,” said the new-comer impatiently.

The bridegroom, who, with the rest of the wedding-train, was about

stepping into the carriage to proceed to the parish church, drew the

stranger aside.

“I’s done!” said the stranger, in a hoarse whisper.

“Ah! and you buried her?”

“With the others!”

“Enough. No more at present. Meet me after the ceremony, and you shall

have your reward.”

The stranger shuffled away, and Edgardo returned to his bride. “A

trifling matter of business I had forgotten, my dear Selina; let us

proceed.” And the young man pressed the timid hand of his blushing

bride as he handed her into the carriage. The cavalcade rode out of

the courtyard. At the same moment, the deep bell on Guy’s Keep tolled

ominously.

CHAPTER VII

Scarcely had the wedding-train left the Grange, than Alice Sedilia,

youngest daughter of Lady Selina, made her escape from the western

tower, owing to a lack of watchfulness on the part of Clarissa. The

innocent child, freed from restraint, rambled through the lonely

corridors, and finally, opening a door, found herself in her mother’s

boudoir. For some time she amused herself by examining the various

ornaments and elegant trifles with which it was filled. Then, in

pursuance of a childish freak, she dressed herself in her mother’s laces

and ribbons. In this occupation she chanced to touch a peg which proved

to be a spring that opened a secret panel in the wall. Alice uttered a

cry of delight as she noticed what, to her childish fancy, appeared to

be the slow-match of a firework. Taking a lucifer match in her hand she

approached the fuse. She hesitated a moment. What would her mother and

her nurse say?

Suddenly the ringing of the chimes of Sloperton parish church met her

ear. Alice knew that the sound signified that the marriage-party had

entered the church, and that she was secure from interruption. With a

childish smile upon her lips, Alice Sedilia touched off the slow-match.

CHAPTER VIII

At exactly two o’clock on the seventeenth, Rupert Sedilia, who had

just returned from India, was thoughtfully descending the hill toward

Sloperton manor. “If I can prove that my aunt, Lady Selina, was married

before my father died, I can establish my claim to Sloperton Grange,”

he uttered, half aloud. He paused, for a sudden trembling of the earth

beneath his feet, and a terrific explosion, as of a park of artillery,

arrested his progress. At the same moment he beheld a dense cloud of

smoke envelop the churchyard of Sloperton, and the western tower of the

Grange seemed to be lifted bodily from its foundation. The air seemed

filled with falling fragments, and two dark objects struck the earth

close at his feet. Rupert picked them up. One seemed to be a heavy

volume bound in brass. A cry burst from, his lips.

“The Parish Records.” He opened the volume hastily. It contained the

marriage of Lady Selina to “Burke the Slogger.”

The second object proved to be a piece of parchment. He tore it open

with trembling fingers. It was the missing will of Sir James Sedilia!

CHAPTER IX

When the bells again rang on the new parish church of Sloperton it

was for the marriage of Sir Rupert Sedilia and his cousin, the only

remaining members of the family.

Five more ghosts were added to the supernatural population of Sloperton

Grange. Perhaps this was the reason why Sir Rupert sold the property

shortly afterward, and that for many years a dark shadow seemed to hang

over the ruins of Sloperton Grange.

THE NINETY-NINE GUARDSMEN

BY AL-X-D-R D-M-S

CHAPTER I

SHOWING THE QUALITY OF THE CUSTOMERS OF THE INNKEEPER OF PROVINS

Twenty years after, the gigantic innkeeper of Provins stood looking at a

cloud of dust on the highway.

This cloud of dust betokened the approach of a traveler. Travelers had

been rare that season on the highway between Paris and Provins.

The heart of the innkeeper rejoiced. Turning to Dame Perigord, his wife,

he said, stroking his white apron,—

“St. Denis! make haste and spread the cloth. Add a bottle of Charlevoix

to the table. This traveler, who rides so fast, by his pace must be a

monseigneur.”

Truly the traveler, clad in the uniform of a musketeer, as he drew up

to the door of the hostelry, did not seem to have spared his horse.

Throwing his reins to the landlord, he leaped lightly to the ground.

He was a young man of four and twenty, and spoke with a slight Gascon

accent.

“I am hungry, morbleu! I wish to dine!”

The gigantic innkeeper bowed and led the way to a neat apartment, where

a table stood covered with tempting viands. The musketeer at once set to

work. Fowls, fish, and pates disappeared before him. Perigord sighed as

he witnessed the devastations. Only once the stranger paused.

“Wine!” Perigord brought wine. The stranger drank a dozen bottles.

Finally he rose to depart. Turning to the expectant landlord, he said,—

“Charge it.”

“To whom, your highness?” said Perigord anxiously.

“To his Eminence!”

“Mazarin?” ejaculated the innkeeper.

“The same. Bring me my horse,” and the musketeer, remounting his

favorite animal, rode away.

The innkeeper slowly turned back into the inn. Scarcely had he reached

the courtyard before the clatter of hoofs again called him to the

doorway. A young musketeer of a light and graceful figure rode up.

“Parbleu, my dear Perigord, I am famishing. What have you got for

dinner?”

“Venison, capons, larks, and pigeons, your excellency,” replied the

obsequious landlord, bowing to the ground.

“Enough!” The young musketeer dismounted, and entered the inn. Seating

himself at the table replenished by the careful Perigord, he speedily

swept it as clean as the first comer.

“Some wine, my brave Perigord,” said the graceful young musketeer, as

soon as he could find utterance.

Perigord brought three dozen of Charlevoix. The young man emptied them

almost at a draught.

“By-by, Perigord,” he said lightly, waving his hand, as, preceding the

astonished landlord, he slowly withdrew.

“But, your highness,—the bill,” said the astounded Perigord.

“Ah, the bill. Charge it!”

“To whom?”

“The Queen!”

“What, Madame?”

“The same. Adieu, my good Perigord.” And the graceful stranger rode

away. An interval of quiet succeeded, in which the innkeeper gazed

woefully at his wife. Suddenly he was startled by a clatter of hoofs,

and an aristocratic figure stood in the doorway.

“Ah,” said the courtier good-naturedly. “What, do my eyes deceive

me? No, it is the festive and luxurious Perigord. Perigord, listen. I

famish. I languish. I would dine.”

The innkeeper again covered the table with viands. Again it was swept

clean as the fields of Egypt before the miraculous swarm of locusts. The

stranger looked up.

“Bring me another fowl, my Perigord.”

“Impossible, your excellency; the larder is stripped clean.”

“Another flitch of bacon, then.”

“Impossible, your highness; there is no more.”

“Well, then, wine!”

The landlord brought one hundred and forty-four bottles. The courtier

drank them all.

“One may drink if one cannot eat,” said the aristocratic stranger

good-humoredly.

The innkeeper shuddered.

The guest rose to depart. The innkeeper came slowly forward with his

bill, to which he had covertly added the losses which he had suffered

from the previous strangers.

“Ah, the bill. Charge it.”

“Charge it! to whom?”

“To the King,” said the guest.

“What! his Majesty?”

“Certainly. Farewell, Perigord.”

The innkeeper groaned. Then he went out and took down his sign. Then

remarked to his wife,—

“I am a plain man, and don’t understand politics. It seems, however,

that the country is in a troubled state. Between his Eminence the

Cardinal, his Majesty the King, and her Majesty the Queen, I am a ruined

man.”

“Stay,” said Dame Perigord, “I have an idea.”

“And that is”—

“Become yourself a musketeer.”

CHAPTER II

THE COMBAT

On leaving Provins the first musketeer proceeded to Nangis, where he was

reinforced by thirty-three followers. The second musketeer, arriving at

Nangis at the same moment, placed himself at the head of thirty-three

more. The third guest of the landlord of Provins arrived at Nangis in

time to assemble together thirty-three other musketeers.

The first stranger led the troops of his Eminence.

The second led the troops of the Queen.

The third led the troops of the King.

The fight commenced. It raged terribly for seven hours. The first

musketeer killed thirty of the Queen’s troops. The second musketeer

killed thirty of the King’s troops. The third musketeer killed thirty of

his Eminence’s troops.

By this time it will be perceived the number of musketeers had been

narrowed down to four on each side.

Naturally the three principal warriors approached each other.

They simultaneously uttered a cry.

“Aramis!”

“Athos!”

“D’Artagnan!”

They fell into each other’s arms.

“And it seems that we are fighting against each other, my children,”

said the Count de la Fere mournfully.

“How singular!” exclaimed Aramis and D’Artagnan.

“Let us stop this fratricidal warfare,” said Athos.

“We will!” they exclaimed together.

“But how to disband our followers?” queried D’Artagnan.

Aramis winked. They understood each other. “Let us cut ’em down!”

They cut ’em down. Aramis killed three. D’Artagnan three. Athos three.

The friends again embraced. “How like old times!” said Aramis. “How

touching!” exclaimed the serious and philosophic Count de la Fere.

The galloping of hoofs caused them to withdraw from each other’s

embraces. A gigantic figure rapidly approached.

“The innkeeper of Provins!” they cried, drawing their swords.

“Perigord! down with him!” shouted D’Artagnan.

“Stay,” said Athos.

The gigantic figure was beside them. He uttered a cry.

“Athos, Aramis, D’Artagnan!”

“Porthos!” exclaimed the astonished trio.

“The same.” They all fell in each other’s arms.

The Count de la Fere slowly raised his hands to heaven. “Bless you!

Bless us, my children! However different our opinion may be in regard to

politics, we have but one opinion in regard to our own merits. Where can

you find a better man than Aramis?”

“Than Porthos?” said Aramis.

“Than D’Artagnan?” said Porthos.

“Than Athos?” said D’Artagnan.

CHAPTER III

SHOWING HOW THE KING OF FRANCE WENT UP A LADDER

The King descended into the garden. Proceeding cautiously along the

terraced walk, he came to the wall immediately below the windows of

Madame. To the left were two windows, concealed by vines. They opened

into the apartments of La Valliere.

The King sighed.

“It is about nineteen feet to that window,” said the King. “If I had a

ladder about nineteen feet long, it would reach to that window. This is

logic.”

Suddenly the King stumbled over something. “St. Denis!” he exclaimed,

looking down. It was a ladder, just nineteen feet long.

The King placed it against the wall. In so doing, he fixed the lower end

upon the abdomen of a man who lay concealed by the wall. The man did

not utter a cry or wince. The King suspected nothing. He ascended the

ladder.

The ladder was too short. Louis the Grand was not a tall man. He was

still two feet below the window.

“Dear me!” said the King.

Suddenly the ladder was lifted two feet from below. This enabled the

King to leap in the window. At the farther end of the apartment stood

a young girl, with red hair and a lame leg. She was trembling with

emotion.

“Louise!”

“The King!”

“Ah, my God, mademoiselle.”

“Ah, my God, sire.”

But a low knock at the door interrupted the lovers. The King uttered

a cry of rage; Louise one of despair. The door opened and D’Artagnan

entered.

“Good-evening, sire,” said the musketeer.

The King touched a bell. Porthos appeared in the doorway.

“Good-evening, sire.”

“Arrest M. D’Artagnan.”

Porthos looked at D’Artagnan, and did not move.

The King almost turned purple with rage. He again touched the bell.

Athos entered. “Count, arrest Porthos and D’Artagnan.”

The Count de la Fere glanced at Porthos and D’Artagnan, and smiled

sweetly.

“Sacre! Where is Aramis?” said the King violently.

“Here, sire,” and Aramis entered.

“Arrest Athos, Porthos, and D’Artagnan.”

Aramis bowed and folded his arms.

“Arrest yourself!”

Aramis did not move.

The King shuddered and turned pale. “Am I not King of France?”

“Assuredly, sire, but we are also, severally, Porthos, Aramis,

D’Artagnan, and Athos.”

“Ah!” said the King.

“Yes, sire.”

“What does this mean?”

“It means, your Majesty,” said Aramis, stepping forward, “that your

conduct as a married man is highly improper. I am an abbe, and I object

to these improprieties. My friends here, D’Artagnan, Athos, and Porthos,

pure-minded young men, are also terribly shocked. Observe, sire, how

they blush!”

Athos, Porthos, and D’Artagnan blushed.

“Ah,” said the King thoughtfully. “You teach me a lesson. You are

devoted and noble young gentlemen, but your only weakness is your

excessive modesty. From this moment I make you all marshals and dukes,

with the exception of Aramis.”

“And me, sire?” said Aramis.

“You shall be an archbishop!”

The four friends looked up and then rushed into each other’s arms. The

King embraced Louise de la Valliere, by way of keeping them company. A

pause ensued. At last Athos spoke,—

“Swear, my children, that, next to yourselves, you will respect—the

King of France; and remember that ‘Forty years after’ we will meet

again.”

MISS MIX

BY CH-L-TTE BR-NTE

CHAPTER I

My earliest impressions are of a huge, misshapen rock, against which the

hoarse waves beat unceasingly. On this rock three pelicans are standing

in a defiant attitude. A dark sky lowers in the background, while

two sea-gulls and a gigantic cormorant eye with extreme disfavor the

floating corpse of a drowned woman in the foreground. A few bracelets,

coral necklaces, and other articles of jewelry, scattered around

loosely, complete this remarkable picture.

It is one which, in some vague, unconscious way, symbolizes, to my

fancy, the character of a man. I have never been able to explain exactly

why. I think I must have seen the picture in some illustrated volume

when a baby, or my mother may have dreamed it before I was born.

As a child I was not handsome. When I consulted the triangular bit of

looking-glass which I always carried with me, it showed a pale, sandy,

and freckled face, shaded by locks like the color of seaweed when the

sun strikes it in deep water. My eyes were said to be indistinctive;

they were a faint, ashen gray; but above them rose—my only beauty—a

high, massive, domelike forehead, with polished temples, like door-knobs

of the purest porcelain.

Our family was a family of governesses. My mother had been one, and

my sisters had the same occupation. Consequently, when, at the age of

thirteen, my eldest sister handed me the advertisement of Mr.

Rawjester, clipped from that day’s “Times,” I accepted it as my destiny.

Nevertheless, a mysterious presentiment of an indefinite future haunted

me in my dreams that night, as I lay upon my little snow-white bed. The

next morning, with two band-boxes tied up in silk handkerchiefs, and a

hair trunk, I turned my back upon Minerva Cottage forever.

CHAPTER II

Blunderbore Hall, the seat of James Rawjester, Esq., was encompassed by

dark pines and funereal hemlocks on all sides. The wind sang weirdly in

the turrets and moaned through the long-drawn avenues of the park. As

I approached the house I saw several mysterious figures flit before

the windows, and a yell of demoniac laughter answered my summons at the

bell. While I strove to repress my gloomy forebodings, the housekeeper,

a timid, scared-looking old woman, showed me into the library.

I entered, overcome with conflicting emotions. I was dressed in a narrow

gown of dark serge, trimmed with black bugles. A thick green shawl was

pinned across my breast. My hands were encased with black half-mittens

worked with steel beads; on my feet were large pattens, originally the

property of my deceased grandmother. I carried a blue cotton umbrella.

As I passed before a mirror I could not help glancing at it, nor could I

disguise from myself the fact that I was not handsome.

Drawing a chair into a recess, I sat down with folded hands, calmly

awaiting the arrival of my master. Once or twice a fearful yell rang

through the house, or the rattling of chains, and curses uttered in a

deep, manly voice, broke upon the oppressive stillness. I began to feel

my soul rising with the emergency of the moment. “You look alarmed,

miss. You don’t hear anything, my dear, do you?” asked the housekeeper

nervously.

“Nothing whatever,” I remarked calmly, as a terrific scream, followed

by the dragging of chairs and tables in the room above, drowned for a

moment my reply. “It is the silence, on the contrary, which has made me

foolishly nervous.”

The housekeeper looked at me approvingly, and instantly made some tea

for me.

I drank seven cups; as I was beginning the eighth, I heard a crash, and

the next moment a man leaped into the room through the broken window.

CHAPTER III

The crash startled me from my self-control. The housekeeper bent toward

me and whispered,—

“Don’t be excited. It’s Mr. Rawjester,—he prefers to come in sometimes

in this way. It’s his playfulness, ha! ha! ha!”

“I perceive,” I said calmly. “It’s the unfettered impulse of a lofty

soul breaking the tyrannizing bonds of custom.” And I turned toward him.

He had never once looked at me. He stood with his back to the fire,

which set off the herculean breadth of his shoulders. His face was dark

and expressive; his under jaw squarely formed, and remarkably heavy. I

was struck with his remarkable likeness to a gorilla.

As he absently tied the poker into hard knots with his nervous fingers,

I watched him with some interest. Suddenly he turned toward me:—

“Do you think I’m handsome, young woman?”

“Not classically beautiful,” I returned calmly; “but you have, if I

may so express myself, an abstract manliness,—a sincere and wholesome

barbarity which, involving as it does the naturalness”—But I stopped,

for he yawned at that moment,—an action which singularly developed

the immense breadth of his lower jaw,—and I saw he had forgotten me.

Presently he turned to the housekeeper,—

“Leave us.”

The old woman withdrew with a curtsey.

Mr. Rawjester deliberately turned his back upon me and remained silent

for twenty minutes. I drew my shawl the more closely around my shoulders

and closed my eyes.

“You are the governess?” at length he said.

“I am, sir.”

“A creature who teaches geography, arithmetic, and the use of the

globes—ha!—a wretched remnant of femininity,—a skimp pattern of

girlhood with a premature flavor of tea-leaves and morality. Ugh!”

I bowed my head silently.

“Listen to me, girl!” he said sternly; “this child you have come

to teach—my ward—is not legitimate. She is the offspring of my

mistress,—a common harlot. Ah! Miss Mix, what do you think of me now?”

“I admire,” I replied calmly, “your sincerity. A mawkish regard for

delicacy might have kept this disclosure to yourself. I only recognize

in your frankness that perfect community of thought and sentiment which

should exist between original natures.” I looked up; he had already

forgotten my presence, and was engaged in pulling off his boots and

coat. This done, he sank down in an armchair before the fire, and ran

the poker wearily through his hair. I could not help pitying him.

The wind howled dismally without, and the rain beat furiously against

the windows. I crept toward him and seated myself on a low stool beside

his chair.

Presently he turned, without seeing me, and placed his foot absently in

my lap. I affected not to notice it. But he started and looked down.

“You here yet—Carrothead? Ah, I forgot. Do you speak French?”

“Oui, Monsieur.”

“Taisez-vous!” he said sharply, with singular purity of accent. I

complied. The wind moaned fearfully in the chimney, and the light burned

dimly. I shuddered in spite of myself. “Ah, you tremble, girl!”

“It is a fearful night.”

“Fearful! Call you this fearful? Ha! ha! ha! Look! you wretched little

atom, look!” and he dashed forward, and, leaping out of the window,

stood like a statue in the pelting storm, with folded arms. He did not

stay long, but in a few minutes returned by way of the hall chimney. I

saw from the way that he wiped his feet on my dress that he had again

forgotten my presence.

“You are a governess. What can you teach?” he asked, suddenly and

fiercely thrusting his face in mine.

“Manners!” I replied calmly.

“Ha! teach _me!_”

“You mistake yourself,” I said, adjusting my mittens. “Your manners

require not the artificial restraint of society. You are radically

polite; this impetuosity and ferociousness is simply the sincerity which

is the basis of a proper deportment. Your instincts are moral; your

better nature, I see, is religious. As St. Paul justly remarks—see

chap. 6, 8, 9, and 10”—

He seized a heavy candlestick, and threw it at me. I dodged it

submissively but firmly.

“Excuse me,” he remarked, as his under jaw slowly relaxed. “Excuse me,

Miss Mix—but I can’t stand St. Paul! Enough—you are engaged.”

CHAPTER IV

I followed the housekeeper as she led the way timidly to my room. As we

passed into a dark hall in the wing, I noticed that it was closed by

an iron gate with a grating. Three of the doors on the corridor were

likewise grated. A strange noise, as of shuffling feet and the howling

of infuriated animals, rang through the hall. Bidding the housekeeper

good-night, and taking the candle, I entered my bedchamber.

I took off my dress, and putting on a yellow flannel nightgown, which

I could not help feeling did not agree with my complexion, I composed

myself to rest by reading Blair’s “Rhetoric” and Paley’s “Moral

Philosophy.” I had just put out the light, when I heard voices in the

corridor. I listened attentively. I recognized Mr. Rawjester’s stern

tones.

“Have you fed No. One?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” said a gruff voice, apparently belonging to a domestic.

“How’s No. Two?”

“She’s a little off her feed, just now, but will pick up in a day or

two.”

“And No. Three?”

“Perfectly furious, sir. Her tantrums are ungovernable.”

“Hush!”

The voices died away, and I sank into a fitful slumber.

I dreamed that I was wandering through a tropical forest. Suddenly I saw

the figure of a gorilla approaching me. As it neared me, I recognized

the features of Mr. Rawjester. He held his hand to his side as if in

pain. I saw that he had been wounded. He recognized me and called me by

name, but at the same moment the vision changed to an Ashantee

village, where, around the fire, a group of negroes were dancing and

participating in some wild Obi festival. I awoke with the strain still

ringing in my ears.

“Hokee-pokee wokee fum!”

Good Heavens! could I be dreaming? I heard the voice distinctly on the

floor below, and smelt something burning. I arose, with an indistinct

presentiment of evil, and hastily putting some cotton in my ears and

tying a towel about my head, I wrapped myself in a shawl and rushed

downstairs. The door of Mr. Rawjester’s room was open. I entered.

Mr. Rawjester lay apparently in a deep slumber, from which even the

clouds of smoke that came from the burning curtains of his bed could

not rouse him. Around the room a large and powerful negress, scantily

attired, with her head adorned with feathers, was dancing wildly,

accompanying herself with bone castanets. It looked like some terrible

fetich.

I did not lose my calmness. After firmly emptying the pitcher, basin,

and slop-jar on the burning bed, I proceeded cautiously to the garden,

and returning with the garden engine, I directed a small stream at Mr.

Rawjester.

At my entrance the gigantic negress fled. Mr. Rawjester yawned and woke.

I explained to him, as he rose dripping from the bed, the reason of my

presence. He did not seem to be excited, alarmed, or discomposed. He

gazed at me curiously.

“So you risked your life to save mine, eh? you canary-colored teacher of

infants.”

I blushed modestly, and drew my shawl tightly over my yellow flannel

nightgown.

“You love me, Mary Jane,—don’t deny it! This trembling shows it!”

He drew me closely toward him, and said, with his deep voice tenderly

modulated,—“How’s her pooty tootens,—did she get her ’ittle tootens

wet,—b’ess her?”

I understood his allusion to my feet. I glanced down and saw that in

my hurry I had put on a pair of his old india-rubbers. My feet were not

small or pretty, and the addition did not add to their beauty.

“Let me go, sir,” I remarked quietly. “This is entirely improper; it

sets a bad example for your child.” And I firmly but gently extricated

myself from his grasp. I approached the door. He seemed for a moment

buried in deep thought.

“You say this was a negress?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Humph, Number One, I suppose.”

“Who is Number One, sir?”

“My _first_,” he remarked, with a significant and sarcastic smile. Then,

relapsing into his old manner, he threw his boots at my head, and bade

me begone. I withdrew calmly.

CHAPTER V

My pupil was a bright little girl, who spoke French with a perfect

accent. Her mother had been a “French ballet-dancer, which probably

accounted for it. Although she was only six years old, it was easy to

perceive that she had been several times in love. She once said to me,—

“Miss Mix, did you ever have the grande passion? Did you ever feel a

fluttering here?” and she placed her hand upon her small chest, and

sighed quaintly; “a kind of distaste for bonbons and caramels, when the

world seemed as tasteless and hollow as a broken cordial drop?”

“Then you have felt it, Nina?” I said quietly.

“Oh, dear, yes. There was Buttons,—that was our page, you know,—I

loved him dearly, but papa sent him away. Then there was Dick, the

groom; but he laughed at me, and I suffered misery!” and she struck a

tragic French attitude. “There is to be company here to-morrow,”

she added, rattling on with childish naivete, “and papa’s

sweetheart—Blanche Marabout—is to be here. You know they say she is to

be my mamma.”

What thrill was this shot through me? But I rose calmly, and

administering a slight correction to the child, left the apartment.

Blunderbore House, for the next week, was the scene of gayety and

merriment. That portion of the mansion closed with a grating was walled

up, and the midnight shrieks no longer troubled me.

But I felt more keenly the degradation of my situation. I was obliged

to help Lady Blanche at her toilet and help her to look beautiful. For

what? To captivate him? Oh—no, no,—but why this sudden thrill and

faintness? Did he really love her? I had seen him pinch and swear at

her. But I reflected that he had thrown a candlestick at my head, and my

foolish heart was reassured.

It was a night of festivity, when a sudden message obliged Mr. Rawjester

to leave his guests for a few hours. “Make yourselves merry, idiots,”

he added, under his breath, as he passed me. The door closed and he was

gone.

A half-hour passed. In the midst of the dancing a shriek was heard, and

out of the swaying crowd of fainting women and excited men a wild figure

strode into the room. One glance showed it to be a highwayman, heavily

armed, holding a pistol in each hand.

“Let no one pass out of this room!” he said, in a voice of thunder. “The

house is surrounded and you cannot escape. The first one who crosses

yonder threshold will be shot like a dog. Gentlemen, I’ll trouble you to

approach in single file, and hand me your purses and watches.”

Finding resistance useless, the order was ungraciously obeyed.

“Now, ladies, please to pass up your jewelry and trinkets.”

This order was still more ungraciously complied with. As Blanche handed

to the bandit captain her bracelet, she endeavored to conceal a diamond

necklace, the gift of Mr. Rawjester, in her bosom. But, with a demoniac

grin, the powerful brute tore it from its concealment, and administering

a hearty box on the ear of the young girl, flung her aside.

It was now my turn. With a beating heart I made my way to the robber

chieftain, and sank at his feet. “Oh, sir, I am nothing but a poor

governess, pray let me go.”

“Oho! A governess? Give me your last month’s wages, then. Give me what

you have stolen from your master!” and he laughed fiendishly.

I gazed at him quietly, and said, in a low voice: “I have stolen nothing

from you, Mr. Rawjester!”

“Ah, discovered! Hush! listen, girl!” he hissed, in a fierce whisper;

“utter a syllable to frustrate my plans, and you die; aid me, and”—But

he was gone.

In a few moments the party, with the exception of myself, were gagged

and locked in the cellar. The next moment torches were applied to the

rich hangings, and the house was in flames. I felt a strong hand seize

me, and bear me out in the open air and place me up on the hillside,

where I could overlook the burning mansion. It was Mr. Rawjester.

“Burn!” he said, as he shook his fist at the flames. Then sinking on his

knees before me, he said hurriedly,—

“Mary Jane, I love you; the obstacles to our union are or will be soon

removed. In yonder mansion were confined my three crazy wives. One of

them, as you know, attempted to kill me! Ha! this is vengeance! But will

you be mine?”

I fell, without a word, upon his neck.

MR. MIDSHIPMAN BREEZY

A NAVAL OFFICER

BY CAPTAIN M-RRY-T, R. N.

CHAPTER I

My father was a north-country surgeon. He had retired, a widower, from

her Majesty’s navy many years before, and had a small practice in his

native village. When I was seven years old he employed me to carry

medicines to his patients. Being of a lively disposition, I sometimes

amused myself, during my daily rounds, by mixing the contents of the

different phials. Although I had no reason to doubt that the general

result of this practice was beneficial, yet, as the death of a

consumptive curate followed the addition of a strong mercurial lotion to

his expectorant, my father concluded to withdraw me from the profession

and send me to school.

Grubbins, the schoolmaster, was a tyrant, and it was not long before my

impetuous and self-willed nature rebelled against his authority. I

soon began to form plans of revenge. In this I was assisted by Tom

Snaffle,—a schoolfellow. One day Tom suggested,—

“Suppose we blow him up. I’ve got two pounds of powder!”

“No, that’s too noisy,” I replied.

Tom was silent for a minute, and again spoke:—

“You remember how you flattened out the curate, Pills? Couldn’t you give

Grubbins something—something to make him leathery sick—eh?” A flash

of inspiration crossed my mind. I went to the shop of the village

apothecary. He knew me; I had often purchased vitriol, which I poured

into Grubbins’s inkstand to corrode his pens and burn up his coat-tail,

on which he was in the habit of wiping them. I boldly asked for an ounce

of chloroform. The young apothecary winked and handed me the bottle.

It was Grubbins’s custom to throw his handkerchief over his head,

recline in his chair, and take a short nap during recess. Watching my

opportunity, as he dozed, I managed to slip his handkerchief from his

face and substitute my own, moistened with chloroform. In a few minutes

he was insensible. Tom and I then quickly shaved his head, beard, and

eyebrows, blackened his face with a mixture of vitriol and burnt cork,

and fled. There was a row and scandal the next day. My father always

excused me by asserting that Grubbins had got drunk,—but somehow found

it convenient to procure me an appointment in her Majesty’s navy at an

early day.

CHAPTER II

An official letter, with the Admiralty seal, informed me that I was

expected to join H. M. ship Belcher, Captain Boltrope, at Portsmouth,

without delay. In a few days I presented myself to a tall, stern-visaged

man, who was slowly pacing the leeward side of the quarter-deck. As I

touched my hat he eyed me sternly:—

“So ho! Another young suckling. The service is going to the devil.

Nothing but babes in the cockpit and grannies in the board. Boatswain’s

mate, pass the word for Mr. Cheek!”

Mr. Cheek, the steward, appeared and touched his hat.

“Introduce Mr. Breezy to the young gentlemen. Stop! Where’s Mr.

Swizzle?”

“At the masthead, sir.”

“Where’s Mr. Lankey?”

“At the masthead, sir.”

“Mr. Briggs?”

“Masthead, too, sir.”

“And the rest of the young gentlemen?” roared the enraged officer.

“All masthead, sir.”

“Ah!” said Captain Boltrope, as he smiled grimly, “under the

circumstances, Mr. Breezy, you had better go to the masthead too.”

CHAPTER III

At the masthead I made the acquaintance of two youngsters of about my

own age, one of whom informed me that he had been there three hundred

and thirty-two days out of the year.

“In rough weather, when the old cock is out of sorts, you know, we never

come down,” added a young gentleman of nine years, with a dirk nearly

as long as himself, who had been introduced to me as Mr. Briggs. “By the

way, Pills,” he continued, “how did you come to omit giving the captain

a naval salute?”

“Why, I touched my hat,” I said innocently.

“Yes, but that isn’t enough, you know. That will do very well at

other times. He expects the naval salute when you first come on

board—greeny!”

I began to feel alarmed, and begged him to explain.

“Why, you see, after touching your hat, you should have touched him

lightly with your forefinger in his waistcoat, so, and asked, ‘How’s his

nibs?’—you see?”

“How’s his nibs?” I repeated.

“Exactly. He would have drawn back a little, and then you should

have repeated the salute, remarking, ‘How’s his royal nibs?’ asking

cautiously after his wife and family, and requesting to be introduced to

the gunner’s daughter.”

“The gunner’s daughter?”

“The same; you know she takes care of us young gentlemen; now don’t

forget, Pillsy!”

When we were called down to the deck I thought it a good chance to

profit by this instruction. I approached Captain Boltrope and repeated

the salute without conscientiously omitting a single detail. He remained

for a moment livid and speechless. At length he gasped out,—

“Boatswain’s mate!”

“If you please, sir,” I asked tremulously, “I should like to be

introduced to the gunner’s daughter!”

“Oh, very good, sir!” screamed Captain Boltrope, rubbing his hands and

absolutely capering about the deck with rage. “Oh, d—n you! Of course

you shall! Oh, ho! the gunner’s daughter! Oh, h—ll! this is too much!

Boatswain’s mate!” Before I well knew where I was, I was seized, borne

to an eight-pounder, tied upon it, and flogged!

CHAPTER IV

As we sat together in the cockpit, picking the weevils out of our

biscuit, Briggs consoled me for my late mishap, adding that the “naval

salute,” as a custom, seemed just then to be honored more in the

_breach_ than the observance. I joined in the hilarity occasioned by the

witticism, and in a few moments we were all friends. Presently Swizzle

turned to me:—

“We have just been planning how to confiscate a keg of claret, which

Nips, the purser, keeps under his bunk. The old nipcheese lies there

drunk half the day, and there’s no getting at it.”

“Let’s get beneath the stateroom and bore through the deck, and so tap

it,” said Lankey.

The proposition was received with a shout of applause. A long half-inch

auger and bit was procured from Chips, the carpenter’s mate, and

Swizzle, after a careful examination of the timbers beneath the

wardroom, commenced operations. The auger at last disappeared, when

suddenly there was a slight disturbance on the deck above. Swizzle

withdrew the auger hurriedly; from its point a few bright red drops

trickled.

“Huzza! send her up again!” cried Lankey.

The auger was again applied. This time a shriek was heard from the

purser’s cabin. Instantly the light was doused, and the party retreated

hurriedly to the cockpit. A sound of snoring was heard as the sentry

stuck his head into the door. “All right, sir,” he replied in answer to

the voice of the officer of the deck.

The next morning we heard that Nips was in the surgeon’s hands, with a

bad wound in the fleshy part of his leg, and that the auger had _not_

struck claret.

CHAPTER V

“Now, Pills, you’ll have a chance to smell powder,” said Briggs as he

entered the cockpit and buckled around his waist an enormous cutlass.

“We have just sighted a French ship.”

We went on deck. Captain Boltrope grinned as we touched our hats. He

hated the purser. “Come, young gentlemen, if you’re boring for French

claret, yonder’s a good quality. Mind your con, sir,” he added, turning

to the quartermaster, who was grinning.

The ship was already cleared for action. The men, in their eagerness,

had started the coffee from the tubs and filled them with shot.

Presently the Frenchman yawed, and a shot from a long thirty-two came

skipping over the water. It killed the quartermaster and took off both

of Lankey’s legs. “Tell the purser our account is squared,” said the

dying boy, with a feeble smile.

The fight raged fiercely for two hours. I remember killing the French

admiral, as we boarded, but on looking around for Briggs, after the

smoke had cleared away, I was intensely amused at witnessing the

following novel sight:

Briggs had pinned the French captain against the mast with his cutlass,

and was now engaged, with all the hilarity of youth, in pulling the

Captain’s coat-tails between his legs, in imitation of a dancing-jack.

As the Frenchman lifted his legs and arms, at each jerk of Briggs’s, I

could not help participating in the general mirth.

“You young devil, what are you doing?” said a stifled voice behind me.

I looked up and beheld Captain Boltrope, endeavoring to calm his stern

features, but the twitching around his mouth betrayed his intense

enjoyment of the scene. “Go to the masthead—up with you, sir!” he

repeated sternly to Briggs.

“Very good, sir,” said the boy, coolly preparing to mount the shrouds.

“Good-by, Johnny Crapaud. Humph!” he added, in a tone intended for my

ear, “a pretty way to treat a hero. The service is going to the devil!”

I thought so too.

CHAPTER VI

We were ordered to the West Indies. Although Captain Boltrope’s manner

toward me was still severe, and even harsh, I understood that my name

had been favorably mentioned in the dispatches.

Reader, were you ever at Jamaica? If so, you remember the negresses, the

oranges, Port Royal Tom—the yellow fever. After being two weeks at

the station, I was taken sick of the fever. In a month I was delirious.

During my paroxysms, I had a wild distempered dream of a stern face

bending anxiously over my pillow, a rough hand smoothing my hair, and a

kind voice saying:—

“B’ess his ’ittle heart! Did he have the naughty fever?” This face

seemed again changed to the well-known stern features of Captain

Boltrope.

When I was convalescent, a packet edged in black was put in my hand. It

contained the news of my father’s death, and a sealed letter which he

had requested to be given to me on his decease. I opened it tremblingly.

It read thus:—

MY DEAR BOY,—I regret to inform you that in all probability you are not

my son. Your mother, I am grieved to say, was a highly improper person.

Who your father may be, I really cannot say, but perhaps the Honorable

Henry Boltrope, Captain R. N., may be able to inform you. Circumstances

over which I have no control have deferred this important disclosure.

YOUR STRICKEN PARENT.

And so Captain Boltrope was my father. Heavens! Was it a dream?

I recalled his stern manner, his observant eye, his ill-concealed

uneasiness when in my presence. I longed to embrace him. Staggering

to my feet, I rushed in my scanty apparel to the deck, where Captain

Boltrope was just then engaged in receiving the Governor’s wife and

daughter. The ladies shrieked; the youngest, a beautiful girl, blushed

deeply. Heeding them not, I sank at his feet, and, embracing them,

cried,—

“My father!”

“Chuck him overboard!” roared Captain Boltrope.

“Stay,” pleaded the soft voice of Clara Maitland, the Governor’s

daughter.

“Shave his head! he’s a wretched lunatic!” continued Captain Boltrope,

while his voice trembled with excitement.

“No, let me nurse and take care of him,” said the lovely girl, blushing

as she spoke. “Mamma, can’t we take him home?”

The daughter’s pleading was not without effect. In the meantime I

had fainted. When I recovered my senses I found myself in Governor

Maitland’s mansion.

CHAPTER VII

The reader will guess what followed. I fell deeply in love with Clara

Maitland, to whom I confided the secret of my birth. The generous girl

asserted that she had detected the superiority of my manner at once. We

plighted our troth, and resolved to wait upon events.

Briggs called to see me a few days afterward. He said that the purser

had insulted the whole cockpit, and all the midshipmen had called him

out. But he added thoughtfully: “I don’t see how we can arrange the

duel. You see there are six of us to fight him.”

“Very easily,” I replied. “Let your fellows all stand in a row, and take

his fire; that, you see, gives him six chances to one, and he must be a

bad shot if he can’t hit one of you; while, on the other hand, you see,

he gets a volley from you six, and one of you’ll be certain to fetch

him.”

“Exactly;” and away Briggs went, but soon returned to say that the

purser had declined,—“like a d—d coward,” he added.

But the news of the sudden and serious illness of Captain Boltrope put

off the duel. I hastened to his bedside, but too late,—an hour previous

he had given up the ghost.

I resolved to return to England. I made known the secret of my birth,

and exhibited my adopted father’s letter to Lady Maitland, who at once

suggested my marriage with her daughter, before I returned to claim the

property. We were married, and took our departure next day.

I made no delay in posting at once, in company with my wife and my

friend Briggs, to my native village. Judge of my horror and surprise

when my late adopted father came out of his shop to welcome me.

“Then you are not dead!” I gasped.

“No, my dear boy.”

“And this letter?”

My father—as I must still call him—glanced on the paper, and

pronounced it a forgery. Briggs roared with laughter. I turned to him

and demanded an explanation.

“Why, don’t you see, Greeny, it’s all a joke,—a midshipman’s joke!”

“But”—I asked.

“Don’t be a fool. You’ve got a good wife,—be satisfied.”

I turned to Clara, and was satisfied. Although Mrs. Maitland never

forgave me, the jolly old Governor laughed heartily over the joke, and

so well used his influence that I soon became, dear reader, Admiral

Breezy, K. C. B.

GUY HEAVYSTONE; OR, “ENTIRE”

A MUSCULAR NOVEL

BY THE AUTHOR OF “SWORD AND GUN”

CHAPTER I

“NEREI REPANDIROSTRUM INCURVICERVICUM PECUS.”

A Dingy, swashy, splashy afternoon in October; a school-yard filled with

a mob of riotous boys. A lot of us standing outside.

Suddenly came a dull, crashing sound from the schoolroom. At the ominous

interruption I shuddered involuntarily, and called to Smithsye,—

“What’s up, Smithums?”

“Guy’s cleaning out the fourth form,” he replied.

At the same moment George de Coverly passed me, holding his nose, from

whence the bright Norman blood streamed redly. To him the plebeian

Smithsye laughingly,—

“Cully! how’s his nibs?”

I pushed the door of the schoolroom open. There are some spectacles

which a man never forgets. The burning of Troy probably seemed a

large-sized conflagration to the pious Aeneas, and made an impression on

him which he carried away with the feeble Anchises.

In the centre of the room, lightly brandishing the piston-rod of a

steam-engine, stood Guy Heavystone alone. I say alone, for the pile of

small boys on the floor in the corner could hardly be called company.

I will try and sketch him for the reader. Guy Heavystone was then only

fifteen. His broad, deep chest, his sinewy and quivering flank, his

straight pastern, showed him to be a thoroughbred. Perhaps he was a

trifle heavy in the fetlock, but he held his head haughtily erect. His

eyes were glittering but pitiless. There was a sternness about the lower

part of his face,—the old Heavystone look,—a sternness heightened,

perhaps, by the snaffle-bit which, in one of his strange freaks, he wore

in his mouth to curb his occasional ferocity. His dress was well adapted

to his square-set and herculean frame. A striped knit undershirt,

close-fitting striped tights, and a few spangles set off his figure; a

neat Glengarry cap adorned his head. On it was displayed the Heavystone

crest, a cock _regardant_ on a dunghill _or_, and the motto, “Devil a

better!”

I thought of Horatius on the bridge, of Hector before the walls. I

always make it a point to think of something classical at such times.

He saw me, and his sternness partly relaxed. Something like a smile

struggled through his grim lineaments. It was like looking on the

Jungfrau after having seen Mont Blanc,—a trifle, only a trifle less

sublime and awful. Resting his hand lightly on the shoulder of the

headmaster, who shuddered and collapsed under his touch, he strode

toward me.

His walk was peculiar. You could not call it a stride. It was like the

“crest-tossing Bellerophon,”—a kind of prancing gait. Guy Heavystone

pranced toward me.

CHAPTER II

“Lord Lovel he stood at the garden gate,

A-combing his milk-white steed.”

It was the winter of 186– when I next met Guy Heavystone. He had left

the university and had entered the 79th “Heavies.” “I have exchanged the

gown for the sword, you see,” he said, grasping my hand, and fracturing

the bones of my little finger, as he shook it.

I gazed at him with unmixed admiration. He was squarer, sterner, and in

every way smarter and more remarkable than ever. I began to feel toward

this man as Phalaster felt towards Phyrgino, as somebody must have felt

toward Archididasculus, as Boswell felt toward Johnson.

“Come into my den,” he said; and lifting me gently by the seat of my

pantaloons he carried me upstairs and deposited me, before I could

apologize, on the sofa. I looked around the room. It was a bachelor’s

apartment, characteristically furnished in the taste of the proprietor.

A few claymores and battleaxes were ranged against the wall, and a

culverin, captured by Sir Ralph Heavystone, occupied the corner,

the other end of the room being taken up by a light battery. Foils,

boxing-gloves, saddles, and fishing-poles lay around carelessly. A

small pile of billets-doux lay upon a silver salver. The man was not an

anchorite, nor yet a Sir Galahad.

I never could tell what Guy thought of women. “Poor little beasts,”

he would often say when the conversation turned on any of his fresh

conquests. Then, passing his hand over his marble brow, the old look of

stern fixedness of purpose and unflinching severity would straighten the

lines of his mouth, and he would mutter, half to himself, “S’death!”

“Come with me to Heavystone Grange. The Exmoor hounds throw off

to-morrow. I’ll give you a mount,” he said, as he amused himself by

rolling up a silver candlestick between his fingers. “You shall have

Cleopatra. But stay,” he added thoughtfully; “now I remember, I ordered

Cleopatra to be shot this morning.”

“And why?” I queried.

“She threw her rider yesterday and fell on him”—

“And killed him?”

“No. That’s the reason why I have ordered her to be shot. I keep no

animals that are not dangerous—I should add—_deadly!_” He hissed the

last sentence between his teeth, and a gloomy frown descended over his

calm brow.

I affected to turn over the tradesmen’s bills that lay on the table,

for, like all of the Heavystone race, Guy seldom paid cash, and said,—

“You remind me of the time when Leonidas”—

“Oh, bother Leonidas and your classical allusions. Come!”

We descended to dinner.

CHAPTER III

“He carries weight, he rides a race,

’Tis for a thousand pound.”

“There is Flora Billingsgate, the greatest coquette and hardest rider

in the country,” said my companion, Ralph Mortmain, as we stood upon

Dingleby Common before the meet.

I looked up and beheld Guy Heavystone bending haughtily over the saddle,

as he addressed a beautiful brunette. She was indeed a splendidly

groomed and high-spirited woman. We were near enough to overhear the

following conversation, which any high-toned reader will recognize as

the common and natural expression of the higher classes.

“When Diana takes the field the chase is not wholly confined to objects

ferae nature,” said Guy, darting a significant glance at his companion.

Flora did not shrink either from the glance or the meaning implied in

the sarcasm.

“If I were looking for an Endymion, now,”—she said archly, as she

playfully cantered over a few hounds and leaped a five-barred gate.

Guy whispered a few words, inaudible to the rest of the party, and

curveting slightly, cleverly cleared two of the huntsmen in a flying

leap, galloped up the front steps of the mansion, and, dashing at full

speed through the hall, leaped through the drawing-room window and

rejoined me, languidly, on the lawn.

“Be careful of Flora Billingsgate,” he said to me, in low stern tones,

while his pitiless eye shot a baleful fire. “Gardez-vous!”

“Gnothi seauton,” I replied calmly, not wishing to appear to be behind

him in perception or verbal felicity.

Guy started off in high spirits. He was well carried. He and the first

whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence, while the

hounds were rolling over their fox a hundred yards farther in the open.

But an unexpected circumstance occurred. Coming back, his chestnut mare

refused a ten-foot wall. She reared and fell backward. Again he led her

up to it lightly; again she refused, falling heavily from the coping.

Guy started to his feet. The old pitiless fire shone in his eyes; the

old stern look settled around his mouth. Seizing the mare by the tail

and mane he threw her over the wall. She landed twenty feet on the other

side, erect and trembling. Lightly leaping the same obstacle himself, he

remounted her. She did not refuse the wall the next time.

CHAPTER IV

“He holds him by his glittering eye.”

Guy was in the north of Ireland, cock-shooting. So Ralph Mortmain told

me, and also that the match between Mary Brandagee and Guy had been

broken off by Flora Billingsgate. “I don’t like those Billingsgates,”

said Ralph, “they’re a bad stock. Her father, Smithfield de

Billingsgate, had an unpleasant way of turning up the knave from the

bottom of the pack. But nous varrons; let us go and see Guy.”

The next morning we started for Fin-ma-Coul’s Crossing. When I reached

the shooting-box, where Guy was entertaining a select company of

friends, Flora Billingsgate greeted me with a saucy smile. Guy was even

squarer and sterner than ever. His gusts of passion were more frequent,

and it was with difficulty that he could keep an able-bodied servant in

his family. His present retainers were more or less maimed from exposure

to the fury of their master. There was a strange cynicism, a cutting

sarcasm in his address, piercing through his polished manner. I thought

of Timon, etc., etc.

One evening, we were sitting over our Chambertin, after a hard day’s

work, and Guy was listlessly turning over some letters, when suddenly he

uttered a cry. Did you ever hear the trumpeting of a wounded elephant?

It was like that.

I looked at him with consternation. He was glancing at a letter which he

held at arm’s length, and snorting, as it were, at it as he gazed. The

lower part of his face was stern, but not as rigid as usual. He was

slowly grinding between his teeth the fragments of the glass he had just

been drinking from.

Suddenly he seized one of his servants, and forcing the wretch upon his

knees, exclaimed, with the roar of a tiger,—

“Dog! why was this kept from me?”

“Why, please sir, Miss Flora said as how it was a reconciliation from

Miss Brandagee, and it was to be kept from you where you would not be

likely to see it,—and—and”—

“Speak, dog! and you”—

“I put it among your bills, sir!”

With a groan, like distant thunder, Guy fell swooning to the floor.

He soon recovered, for the next moment a servant came rushing into the

room with the information that a number of the ingenuous peasantry of

the neighborhood were about to indulge that evening in the national

pastime of burning a farmhouse and shooting a landlord. Guy smiled

a fearful smile, without, however, altering his stern and pitiless

expression.

“Let them come,” he said calmly; “I feel like entertaining company.”

We barricaded the doors and windows, and then chose our arms from the

armory. Guy’s choice was a singular one: it was a landing-net with a

long handle, and a sharp cavalry sabre.

We were not destined to remain long in ignorance of its use. A howl was

heard from without, and a party of fifty or sixty armed men precipitated

themselves against the door.

Suddenly the window opened. With the rapidity of lightning, Guy

Heavystone cast the net over the head of the ringleader, ejaculated

“Habet!” and with a backstroke of his cavalry sabre severed the member

from its trunk, and drawing the net back again, cast the gory head upon

the floor, saying quietly,—

“One.”

Again the net was cast, the steel flashed, the net was withdrawn, and an

ominous “Two!” accompanied the head as it rolled on the floor.

“Do you remember what Pliny says of the gladiator?” said Guy, calmly

wiping his sabre. “How graphic is that passage commencing ‘Inter nos,’

etc.” The sport continued until the heads of twenty desperadoes had

been gathered in. The rest seemed inclined to disperse. Guy incautiously

showed himself at the door; a ringing shot was heard, and he staggered

back, pierced through the heart. Grasping the doorpost in the last

unconscious throes of his mighty frame, the whole side of the house

yielded to that earthquake tremor, and we had barely time to escape

before the whole building fell in ruins. I thought of Samson, the giant

judge, etc., etc.; but all was over.

Guy Heavystone had died as he had lived,—_hard._

JOHN JENKINS

OR

THE SMOKER REFORMED

BY T. S. A-TH-R

CHAPTER I

“One cigar a day!” said Judge Boompointer.

“One cigar a day!” repeated John Jenkins, as with trepidation he dropped

his half-consumed cigar under his work-bench.

“One cigar a day is three cents a day,” remarked Judge Boompointer

gravely; “and do you know, sir, what one cigar a day, or three cents a

day, amounts to in the course of four years?”

John Jenkins, in his boyhood, had attended the village school, and

possessed considerable arithmetical ability. Taking up a shingle which

lay upon his work-bench, and producing a piece of chalk, with a feeling

of conscious pride he made an exhaustive calculation.

“Exactly forty-three dollars and eighty cents,” he replied, wiping the

perspiration from his heated brow, while his face flushed with honest

enthusiasm.

“Well, sir, if you saved three cents a day, instead of wasting it, you

would now be the possessor of a new suit of clothes, an illustrated

Family Bible, a pew in the church, a complete set of Patent Office

Reports, a hymnbook, and a paid subscription to ‘Arthur’s Home

Magazine,’ which could be purchased for exactly forty-three dollars and

eighty cents; and,” added the Judge, with increasing sternness, “if you

calculate leap-year, which you seem to have strangely omitted, you have

three cents more, sir—_three cents more!_ What would that buy you,

sir?”

“A cigar,” suggested John Jenkins; but, coloring again deeply, he hid

his face.

“No, sir,” said the Judge, with a sweet smile of benevolence stealing

over his stern features; “properly invested, it would buy you that which

passeth all price. Dropped into the missionary-box, who can tell what

heathen, now idly and joyously wantoning in nakedness and sin, might be

brought to a sense of his miserable condition, and made, through that

three cents, to feel the torments of the wicked?”

With these words the Judge retired, leaving John Jenkins buried in

profound thought. “Three cents a day,” he muttered. “In forty years I

might be worth four hundred and thirty-eight dollars and ten cents,—and

then I might marry Mary. Ah, Mary!” The young carpenter sighed, and

drawing a twenty-five cent daguerreotype from his vest-pocket, gazed

long and fervidly upon the features of a young girl in book muslin and

a coral necklace. Then, with a resolute expression, he carefully locked

the door of his work-shop, and departed.

Alas! his good resolutions were too late. We trifle with the tide of

fortune, which too often nips us in the bud and casts the dark shadow

of misfortune over the bright lexicon of youth! That night the

half-consumed fragment of John Jenkins’s cigar set fire to his work-shop

and burned it up, together with all his tools and materials. There was

no insurance.

CHAPTER II

THE DOWNWARD PATH

“Then you still persist in marrying John Jenkins?” queried Judge

Boompointer, as he playfully, with paternal familiarity, lifted the

golden curls of the village belle, Mary Jones.

“I do,” replied the fair young girl, in a low voice that resembled rock

candy in its saccharine firmness,—“I do. He has promised to reform.

Since he lost all his property by fire”—

“The result of his pernicious habit, though he illogically persists in

charging it to me,” interrupted the Judge.

“Since then,” continued the young girl, “he has endeavored to break

himself of the habit. He tells me that he has substituted the stalks

of the Indian rattan, the outer part of a leguminous plant called the

smoking-bean, and the fragmentary and unconsumed remainder of cigars,

which occur at rare and uncertain intervals along the road, which, as he

informs me, though deficient in quality and strength, are comparatively

inexpensive.” And blushing at her own eloquence, the young girl hid her

curls on the Judge’s arm.

“Poor thing!” muttered Judge Boompointer. “Dare I tell her all? Yet I

must.”

“I shall cling to him,” continued the young girl, rising with her theme,

“as the young vine clings to some hoary ruin. Nay, nay, chide me not,

Judge Boompointer. I will marry John Jenkins!”

The Judge was evidently affected. Seating himself at the table, he wrote

a few lines hurriedly upon a piece of paper, which he folded and placed

in the fingers of the destined bride of John Jenkins.

“Mary Jones,” said the Judge, with impressive earnestness, “take

this trifle as a wedding gift from one who respects your fidelity and

truthfulness. At the altar let it be a reminder of me.” And covering his

face hastily with a handkerchief, the stern and iron-willed man left the

room. As the door closed, Mary unfolded the paper. It was an order on

the corner grocery for three yards of flannel, a paper of needles, four

pounds of soap, one pound of starch, and two boxes of matches!

“Noble and thoughtful man!” was all Mary Jones could exclaim, as she hid

her face in her hands and burst into a flood of tears.

The bells of Cloverdale are ringing merrily. It is a wedding. “How

beautiful they look!” is the exclamation that passes from lip to lip,

as Mary Jones, leaning timidly on the arm of John Jenkins, enters the

church. But the bride is agitated, and the bridegroom betrays a feverish

nervousness. As they stand in the vestibule, John Jenkins fumbles

earnestly in his vest-pocket. Can it be the ring he is anxious about?

No. He draws a small brown substance from his pocket, and biting off a

piece, hastily replaces the fragment and gazes furtively around. Surely

no one saw him? Alas! the eyes of two of that wedding party saw the

fatal act. Judge Boompointer shook his head sternly. Mary Jones sighed

and breathed a silent prayer. Her husband chewed!

CHAPTER III AND LAST

“What! more bread?” said John Jenkins gruffly. “You’re always asking

for money for bread. D—nation! Do you want to ruin me by your

extravagance?” and as he uttered these words he drew from his pocket a

bottle of whiskey, a pipe, and a paper of tobacco. Emptying the first

at a draught, he threw the empty bottle at the head of his eldest boy,

a youth of twelve summers. The missile struck the child full in the

temple, and stretched him a lifeless corpse. Mrs. Jenkins, whom the

reader will hardly recognize as the once gay and beautiful Mary Jones,

raised the dead body of her son in her arms, and carefully placing

the unfortunate youth beside the pump in the back yard, returned with

saddened step to the house. At another time, and in brighter days, she

might have wept at the occurrence. She was past tears now.

“Father, your conduct is reprehensible!” said little Harrison Jenkins,

the youngest boy. “Where do you expect to go when you die?”

“Ah!” said John Jenkins fiercely; “this comes of giving children a

liberal education; this is the result of Sabbath-schools. Down, viper!”

A tumbler thrown from the same parental fist laid out the youthful

Harrison cold. The four other children had, in the mean time, gathered

around the table with anxious expectancy. With a chuckle, the now

changed and brutal John Jenkins produced four pipes, and filling them

with tobacco, handed one to each of his offspring and bade them smoke.

“It’s better than bread!” laughed the wretch hoarsely.

Mary Jenkins, though of a patient nature, felt it her duty now to speak.

“I have borne much, John Jenkins,” she said. “But I prefer that the

children should not smoke. It is an unclean habit, and soils their

clothes. I ask this as a special favor!”

John Jenkins hesitated,—the pangs of remorse began to seize him.

“Promise me this, John!” urged Mary upon her knees.

“I promise!” reluctantly answered John.

“And you will put the money in a savings-bank?”

“I will,” repeated her husband; “and I’ll give up smoking, too.”

“’Tis well, John Jenkins!” said Judge Boompointer, appearing suddenly

from behind the door, where he had been concealed during this interview.

“Nobly said! my man. Cheer up! I will see that the children are decently

buried.” The husband and wife fell into each other’s arms. And Judge

Boompointer, gazing upon the affecting spectacle, burst into tears.

From that day John Jenkins was an altered man.

FANTINE

AFTER THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO

PROLOGUE

As long as there shall exist three paradoxes, a moral Frenchman, a

religious atheist, and a believing skeptic; so long, in fact, as

booksellers shall wait—say twenty-live years—for a new gospel;

so long as paper shall remain cheap and ink three sous a bottle, I

have no hesitation in saying that such books as these are not

utterly profitless. VICTOR HUGO.

To be good is to be queer. What is a good man? Bishop Myriel.

My friend, you will possibly object to this. You will say you know what

a good man is. Perhaps you will say your clergyman is a good man,

for instance. Bah! you are mistaken; you are an Englishman, and an

Englishman is a beast.

Englishmen think they are moral when they are only serious. These

Englishmen also wear ill-shaped hats, and dress horribly!

Bah! they are canaille.

Still, Bishop Myriel was a good man,—quite as good as you. Better than

you, in fact.

One day M. Myriel was in Paris. This angel used to walk about the

streets like any other man. He was not proud, though fine-looking. Well,

three gamins de Paris called him bad names. Says one,—

“Ah, mon Dieu! there goes a priest; look out for your eggs and

chickens!” What did this good man do? He called to them kindly.

“My children,” said he, “this is clearly not your fault. I recognize

in this insult and irreverence only the fault of your immediate

progenitors. Let us pray for your immediate progenitors.”

They knelt down and prayed for their immediate progenitors.

The effect was touching.

The Bishop looked calmly around.

“On reflection,” said he gravely, “I was mistaken; this is clearly the

fault of Society. Let us pray for Society.”

They knelt down and prayed for Society.

The effect was sublimer yet. What do you think of that? You, I mean.

Everybody remembers the story of the Bishop and Mother Nez Retrousse.

Old Mother Nez Retrousse sold asparagus. She was poor; there’s a great

deal of meaning in that word, my friend. Some people say “poor but

honest.” I say, Bah!

Bishop Myriel bought six bunches of asparagus. This good man had one

charming failing: he was fond of asparagus. He gave her a franc, and

received three sous change.

The sous were bad,—counterfeit. What did this good Bishop do? He said:

“I should not have taken change from a poor woman.”

Then afterwards, to his housekeeper: “Never take change from a poor

woman.”

Then he added to himself: “For the sous will probably be bad.”

II

When a man commits a crime, Society claps him in prison. A prison is one

of the worst hotels imaginable.

The people there are low and vulgar. The butter is bad, the coffee is

green. Ah, it is horrible!

In prison, as in a bad hotel, a man soon loses, not only his morals, but

what is much worse to a Frenchman, his sense of refinement and delicacy.

Jean Valjean came from prison with confused notions of Society. He

forgot the modern peculiarities of hospitality. So he walked off with

the Bishop’s candlesticks.

Let us consider. Candlesticks were stolen; that was evident. Society put

Jean Valjean in prison; that was evident, too. In prison, Society took

away his refinement; that is evident, likewise.

Who is Society?

You and I are Society.

My friend, you and I stole those candlesticks!

III

The Bishop thought so, too. He meditated profoundly for six days. On the

morning of the seventh he went to the Prefecture of Police.

He said: “Monsieur, have me arrested. I have stolen candlesticks.”

The official was governed by the law of Society, and refused.

What did this Bishop do?

He had a charming ball and chain made, affixed to his leg, and wore it

the rest of his life. This is a fact!

IV

Love is a mystery.

A little friend of mine down in the country, at Auvergne, said to me one

day: “Victor, Love is the world,—it contains everything.”

She was only sixteen, this sharp-witted little girl, and a beautiful

blonde. She thought everything of me.

Fantine was one of those women who do wrong in the most virtuous and

touching manner. This is a peculiarity of French grisettes.

You are an Englishman, and you don’t understand. Learn, my friend,

learn. Come to Paris and improve your morals.

Fantine was the soul of modesty. She always wore high-neck dresses.

High-neck dresses are a sign of modesty.

Fantine loved Tholmoyes. Why? My God! What are you to do? It was the

fault of her parents, and she hadn’t any. How shall you teach her? You

must teach the parent if you wish to educate the child. How would you

become virtuous?

Teach your grandmother!

V

When Tholmoyes ran away from Fantine,—which was done in a charming,

gentlemanly manner,—Fantine became convinced that a rigid sense of

propriety might look upon her conduct as immoral. She was a creature of

sensitiveness,—and her eyes were opened.

She was virtuous still, and resolved to break off the liaison at once.

So she put up her wardrobe and baby in a bundle, child as she was, she

loved them both,—then left Paris.

VI

Fantine’s native place had changed.

M. Madeline—an angel, and inventor of jet-work—had been teaching the

villagers how to make spurious jet.

This is a progressive age. Those Americans—children of the West,—they

make nutmegs out of wood.

I, myself, have seen hams made of pine, in the wigwams of those children

of the forest.

But civilization has acquired deception too. Society is made up of

deception. Even the best French society.

Still there was one sincere episode.

Eh?

The French Revolution!

VII

M. Madeline was, if anything, better than Myriel.

M. Myriel was a saint. M. Madeline a good man.

M. Myriel was dead. M. Madeline was living.

That made all the difference.

M. Madeline made virtue profitable. I have seen it written,—

“Be virtuous and you will be happy.”

Where did I see this written? In the modern Bible? No. In the Koran? No.

In Rousseau? No. Diderot? No. Where then?

In a copy-book.

VIII

M. Madeline was M. le Maire.

This is how it came about.

For a long time he refused the honor. One day an old woman, standing on

the steps, said,—

“Bah, a good mayor is a good thing.

“You are a good thing.

“Be a good mayor.”

This woman was a rhetorician. She understood inductive ratiocination.

IX

When this good M. Madeline, who, the reader will perceive, must have

been a former convict, and a very bad man, gave himself up to justice

as the real Jean Valjean, about this same time, Fantine was turned away

from the manufactory, and met with a number of losses from Society.

Society attacked her, and this is what she lost:—

First her lover.

Then her child.

Then her place.

Then her hair.

Then her teeth.

Then her liberty.

Then her life.

What do you think of Society after that? I tell you the present social

system is a humbug.

X

This is necessarily the end of Fantine.

There are other things that will be stated in other volumes to follow.

Don’t be alarmed; there are plenty of miserable people left.

Au revoir—my friend.

“LA FEMME”

AFTER THE FRENCH OF M. MICHELET

I

WOMEN AS AN INSTITUTION

“If it were not for women, few of us would at present be in existence.”

This is the remark of a cautious and discreet writer. He was also

sagacious and intelligent.

Woman! Look upon her and admire her. Gaze upon her and love her. If

she wishes to embrace you, permit her. Remember she is weak and you are

strong.

But don’t treat her unkindly. Don’t make love to another woman before

her face, even if she be your wife. Don’t do it. Always be polite, even

should she fancy somebody better than you.

If your mother, my dear Amadis, had not fancied your father better than

somebody, you might have been that somebody’s son. Consider this. Always

be a philosopher, even about women.

Few men understand women. Frenchmen, perhaps, better than any one else.

I am a Frenchman.

II

THE INFANT

She is a child—a little thing—an infant.

She has a mother and father. Let us suppose, for example, they are

married. Let us be moral if we cannot be happy and free—they are

married—perhaps—they love one another—who knows?

But she knows nothing of this; she is an infant—a small thing—a

trifle!

She is not lovely at first. It is cruel, perhaps, but she is red, and

positively ugly. She feels this keenly, and cries. She weeps. Ah,

my God, how she weeps! Her cries and lamentations now are really

distressing.

Tears stream from her in floods. She feels deeply and copiously, like M.

Alphonse de Lamartine in his “Confessions.”

If you are her mother, Madame, you will fancy worms; you will examine

her linen for pins, and what not. Ah, hypocrite! you, even _you_,

misunderstand her.

Yet she has charming natural impulses. See how she tosses her dimpled

arms. She looks longingly at her mother. She has a language of her own.

She says, “goo, goo,” and “ga, ga.” She demands something—this infant!

She is faint, poor thing. She famishes. She wishes to be restored.

Restore her, Mother! _It is the first duty of a mother to restore her

child!_

III

THE DOLL

She is hardly able to walk; she already totters under the weight of a

doll.

It is a charming and elegant affair. It has pink cheeks and purple-black

hair. She prefers brunettes, for she has already, with the quick

knowledge of a French infant, perceived she is a blonde, and that her

doll cannot rival her. Mon Dieu, how touching! Happy child! She spends

hours in preparing its toilet. She begins to show her taste in the

exquisite details of its dress. She loves it madly, devotedly. She will

prefer it to bonbons. She already anticipates the wealth of love she

will hereafter pour out on her lover, her mother, her father, and

finally, perhaps, her husband.

This is the time the anxious parent will guide these first outpourings.

She will read her extracts from Michelet’s “L’Amour,” Rousseau’s

“Heloise,” and the “Revue des deux Mondes.”

IV

THE MUD PIE

She was in tears to-day.

She had stolen away from her bonne and was with some rustic infants.

They had noses in the air, and large, coarse hands and feet.

They had seated themselves around a pool in the road, and were

fashioning fantastic shapes in the clayey soil with their hands. Her

throat swelled and her eyes sparkled with delight as, for the first

time, her soft palms touched the plastic mud. She made a graceful and

lovely pie. She stuffed it with stones for almonds and plums. She forgot

everything. It was being baked in the solar rays, when madame came and

took her away.

She weeps. It is night, and she is weeping still.

V

THE FIRST LOVE

She no longer doubts her beauty. She is loved.

She saw him secretly. He is vivacious and sprightly. He is famous. He

has already had an affair with Finfin, the fille de chambre, and poor

Finfin is desolate. He is noble. She knows he is the son of Madame la

Baronne Couturiere. She adores him.

She affects not to notice him. Poor little thing! Hippolyte is

distracted—annihilated—inconsolable and charming.

She admires his boots, his cravat, his little gloves—his exquisite

pantaloons—his coat, and cane.

She offers to run away with him. He is transported, but magnanimous. He

is wearied, perhaps. She sees him the next day offering flowers to the

daughter of Madame la Comtesse Blanchisseuse.

She is again in tears.

She reads “Paul et Virginie.” She is secretly transported. When she

reads how the exemplary young woman laid down her life rather than

appear en deshabille to her lover, she weeps again. Tasteful and

virtuous Bernardin de Saint-Pierre!—the daughters of France admire you!

All this time her doll is headless in the cabinet. The mud pie is broken

on the road.

VI

THE WIFE

She is tired of loving, and she marries.

Her mother thinks it, on the whole, the best thing. As the day

approaches, she is found frequently in tears. Her mother will not permit

the affianced one to see her, and he makes several attempts to commit

suicide.

But something happens. Perhaps it is winter, and the water is cold.

Perhaps there are not enough people present to witness his heroism.

In this way her future husband is spared to her. The ways of Providence

are indeed mysterious. At this time her mother will talk with her. She

will offer philosophy. She will tell her she was married herself.

But what is this new and ravishing light that breaks upon her? The

toilet and wedding clothes! She is in a new sphere.

She makes out her list in her own charming writing. Here it is. Let

every mother heed it. [Footnote: The delicate reader will appreciate the

omission of certain articles for which English synonyms are forbidden.]

* * * * *

She is married. On the day after, she meets her old lover, Hippolyte. He

is again transported.

VII

HER OLD AGE

A Frenchwoman never grows old.

THE DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD

BY SIR ED-D L-TT-N B-LW-R

BOOK I

THE PROMPTINGS OF THE IDEAL

It was noon. Sir Edward had stepped from his brougham, and was

proceeding on foot down the Strand. He was dressed with his usual

faultless taste, but in alighting from his vehicle his foot had slipped,

and a small round disk of conglomerated soil, which instantly appeared

on his high arched instep, marred the harmonious glitter of his boots.

Sir Edward was fastidious. Casting his eyes around, at a little distance

he perceived the stand of a youthful bootblack. Thither he sauntered,

and carelessly placing his foot on the low stool, he waited the

application of the polisher’s art. “’Tis true,” said Sir Edward to

himself, yet half aloud, “the contact of the Foul and the Disgusting

mars the general effect of the Shiny and the Beautiful—and, yet, why am

I here? I repeat it, calmly and deliberately—why am I here? Ha! Boy!”

The Boy looked up—his dark Italian eyes glanced intelligently at the

Philosopher, and as with one hand he tossed back his glossy curls from

his marble brow, and with the other he spread the equally glossy Day &

Martin over the Baronet’s boot, he answered in deep, rich tones: “The

Ideal is subjective to the Real. The exercise of apperception gives a

distinctiveness to idiocracy, which is, however, subject to the limits

of ME. You are an admirer of the Beautiful, sir. You wish your boots

blacked. The Beautiful is attainable by means of the Coin.”

“Ah,” said Sir Edward thoughtfully, gazing upon the almost supernal

beauty of the Child before him; “you speak well. You have read Kant.”

The Boy blushed deeply. He drew a copy of Kant from his blouse, but

in his confusion several other volumes dropped from his bosom on the

ground. The Baronet picked them up.

“Ah!” said the Philosopher, “what’s this? Cicero’s ‘De Sonertute,’—at

your age, too! Martial’s ‘Epigrams,’ Caesar’s ‘Commentaries.’ What! a

classical scholar?”

“E pluribus Unum. Nux vomica. Nil desperandum. Nihil fit!” said the Boy

enthusiastically. The Philosopher gazed at the Child. A strange presence

seemed to transfuse and possess him. Over the brow of the Boy glittered

the pale nimbus of the Student.

“Ah, and Schiller’s ‘Robbers,’ too?” queried the Philosopher.

“Das ist ausgespielt,” said the Boy modestly.

“Then you have read my translation of Schiller’s ‘Ballads’?” continued

the Baronet, with some show of interest.

“I have, and infinitely prefer them to the original,” said the Boy, with

intellectual warmth. “You have shown how in Actual life we strive for a

Goal we cannot reach; how in the Ideal the Goal is attainable, and there

effort is victory. You have given us the Antithesis which is a key to

the Remainder, and constantly balances before us the conditions of the

Actual and the privileges of the Ideal.”

“My very words,” said the Baronet; “wonderful, wonderful!” and he gazed

fondly at the Italian boy, who again resumed his menial employment.

Alas! the wings of the Ideal were folded. The Student had been absorbed

in the Boy.

But Sir Edward’s boots were blacked, and he turned to depart. Placing

his hand upon the clustering tendrils that surrounded the classic nob of

the infant Italian, he said softly, like a strain of distant music,—

“Boy, you have done well. Love the Good. Protect the Innocent. Provide

for the Indigent. Respect the Philosopher.... Stay! Can you tell me what

_is_ The True, The Beautiful, The Innocent, The Virtuous?”

“They are things that commence with a capital letter,” said the Boy

promptly.

“Enough! Respect everything that commences with a capital letter!

Respect ME!” and dropping a halfpenny in the hand of the boy, he

departed.

The Boy gazed fixedly at the coin. A frightful and instantaneous change

overspread his features. His noble brow was corrugated with baser lines

of calculation. His black eye, serpent-like, glittered with suppressed

passion. Dropping upon his hands and feet, he crawled to the curbstone,

and hissed after the retreating form of the Baronet the single word—

“Bilk!”

BOOK II

IN THE WORLD

“Eleven years ago,” said Sir Edward to himself, as his brougham slowly

rolled him toward the Committee Room, “just eleven years ago my natural

son disappeared mysteriously. I have no doubt in the world but that

this little bootblack is he. His mother died in Italy. He resembles his

mother very much. Perhaps I ought to provide for him. Shall I disclose

myself? No! no! Better he should taste the sweets of Labor. Penury

ennobles the mind and kindles the Love of the Beautiful. I will act to

him, not like a Father, not like a Guardian, not like a Friend—but like

a Philosopher!” With these words, Sir Edward entered the Committee Room.

His Secretary approached him. “Sir Edward, there are fears of a division

in the House, and the Prime Minister has sent for you.”

“I will be there,” said Sir Edward, as he placed his hand on his chest

and uttered a hollow cough!

No one who heard the Baronet that night, in his sarcastic and withering

speech on the Drainage and Sewerage Bill, would have recognized the

Lover of the Ideal and the Philosopher of the Beautiful. No one who

listened to his eloquence would have dreamed of the Spartan resolution

this iron man had taken in regard to the Lost Boy—his own beloved

Lionel. None!

“A fine speech from Sir Edward to-night,” said Lord Billingsgate, as,

arm and arm with the Premier, he entered his carriage.

“Yes! but how dreadfully he coughs!”

“Exactly. Dr. Bolus says his lungs are entirely gone; he breathes

entirely by an effort of will, and altogether independent of pulmonary

assistance.”

“How strange!” And the carriage rolled away.

BOOK III

THE DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD

“Adon Ai, appear! appear!”

And as the Seer spoke, the awful Presence glided out of Nothingness, and

sat, sphinx-like, at the feet of the Alchemist.

“I am come!” said the Thing.

“You should say, ‘I have come,’—it’s better grammar,” said the

Boy-Neophyte, thoughtfully accenting the substituted expression.

“Hush, rash Boy,” said the Seer sternly. “Would you oppose your feeble

knowledge to the infinite intelligence of the Unmistakable? A word, and

you are lost forever.”

The Boy breathed a silent prayer, and handing a sealed package to the

Seer, begged him to hand it to his father in case of his premature

decease.

“You have sent for me,” hissed the Presence. “Behold me,

Apokatharticon,—the Unpronounceable. In me all things exist that are

not already coexistent. I am the Unattainable, the Intangible, the

Cause, and the Effect. In me observe the Brahma of Mr. Emerson; not only

Brahma himself, but also the sacred musical composition rehearsed by the

faithful Hindoo. I am the real Gyges. None others are genuine.”

And the veiled Son of the Starbeam laid himself loosely about the room,

and permeated Space generally.

“Unfathomable Mystery,” said the Rosicrucian in a low, sweet voice.

“Brave Child with the Vitreous Optic! Thou who pervadest all things

and rubbest against us without abrasion of the cuticle. I command thee,

speak!”

And the misty, intangible, indefinite Presence spoke.

BOOK IV

MYSELF

After the events related in the last chapter, the reader will perceive

that nothing was easier than to reconcile Sir Edward to his son Lionel,

nor to resuscitate the beautiful Italian girl, who, it appears, was not

dead, and to cause Sir Edward to marry his first and boyish love, whom

he had deserted. They were married in St. George’s, Hanover Square. As

the bridal party stood before the altar, Sir Edward, with a sweet, sad

smile, said in quite his old manner,—

“The Sublime and Beautiful are the Real; the only Ideal is the

Ridiculous and Homely. Let us always remember this. Let us through life

endeavor to personify the virtues, and always begin ’em with a capital

letter. Let us, whenever we can find an opportunity, deliver our

sentiments in the form of roundhand copies. Respect the Aged. Eschew

Vulgarity. Admire Ourselves. Regard the Novelist.”

N N.

BEING A NOVEL IN THE FRENCH PARAGRAPHIC STYLE

—Mademoiselle, I swear to you that I love you.

—You who read these pages. You who turn your burning eyes upon these

words—words that I trace—ah, heaven! the thought maddens me.

—I will be calm. I will imitate the reserve of the festive Englishman,

who wears a spotted handkerchief which he calls a Belchio, who eats

biftek, and caresses a bulldog. I will subdue myself like him.

—Ha! Poto-beer! All right—Goddam!

—Or, I will conduct myself as the free-born American—the gay Brother

Jonathan. I will whittle me a stick. I will whistle to myself “Yankee

Doodle,” and forget my passion in excessive expectoration.

—Ho! ho!—wake snakes and walk chalks.

The world is divided into two great divisions,—Paris and the provinces.

There is but one Paris. There are several provinces, among which may be

numbered England, America, Russia, and Italy.

N N. was a Parisian.

But N N. did not live in Paris. Drop a Parisian in the provinces, and

you drop a part of Paris with him. Drop him in Senegambia, and in three

days he will give you an omelette soufflee, or a pate de foie gras,

served by the neatest of Senegambian filles, whom he will call

mademoiselle. In three weeks he will give you an opera.

N N. was not dropped in Senegambia, but in San Francisco,—quite as

awkward.

They find gold in San Francisco, but they don’t understand gilding.

N N. existed three years in this place. He became bald on the top of his

head, as all Parisians do. Look down from your box at the Opera Comique,

mademoiselle, and count the bald crowns of the fast young men in the

pit. Ah—you tremble! They show where the arrows of love have struck and

glanced off.

N N. was almost near-sighted, as all Parisians finally become. This is a

gallant provision of nature to spare them the mortification of observing

that their lady friends grow old. After a certain age every woman is

handsome to a Parisian.

One day, N N. was walking down Washington Street. Suddenly he stopped.

He was standing before the door of a mantua-maker. Beside the counter,

at the farther extremity of the shop, stood a young and elegantly formed

woman. Her face was turned from N N. He entered. With a plausible excuse

and seeming indifference, he gracefully opened conversation with the

mantua-maker as only a Parisian can. But he had to deal with a Parisian.

His attempts to view the features of the fair stranger by the counter

were deftly combated by the shopwoman. He was obliged to retire.

N N. went home and lost his appetite. He was haunted by the elegant

basque and graceful shoulders of the fair unknown, during the whole

night.

The next day he sauntered by the mantua-maker. Ah! Heavens! A thrill ran

through his frame, and his fingers tingled with a delicious electricity.

The fair inconnue was there! He raised his hat gracefully. He was not

certain, but he thought that a slight motion of her faultless bonnet

betrayed recognition. He would have wildly darted into the shop, but

just then the figure of the mantua-maker appeared in the doorway.

—Did monsieur wish anything?

—Misfortune! Desperation. N N. purchased a bottle of Prussic acid, a

sack of charcoal, and a quire of pink note-paper, and returned home. He

wrote a letter of farewell to the closely fitting basque, and opened the

bottle of Prussic acid.

Some one knocked at his door. It was a Chinaman, with his weekly linen.

These Chinese are docile, but not intelligent. They are ingenious, but

not creative. They are cunning in expedients, but deficient in tact. In

love they are simply barbarous. They purchase their wives openly,

and not constructively by attorney. By offering small sums for their

sweethearts, they degrade the value of the sex.

Nevertheless, N N. felt he was saved. He explained all to the faithful

Mongolian, and exhibited the letter he had written. He implored him to

deliver it.

The Mongolian assented. The race are not cleanly or sweet-savored, but

N N. fell upon his neck. He embraced him with one hand, and closed

his nostrils with the other. Through him, he felt he clasped the

close-fitting basque.

The next day was one of agony and suspense. Evening came, but no mercy.

N N. lit the charcoal. But, to compose his nerves, he closed his door

and first walked mildly up and down Montgomery Street. When he returned,

he found the faithful Mongolian on the steps.

—All lity!

These Chinese are not accurate in their pronunciation. They avoid the

_r_, like the English nobleman.

N N. gasped for breath. He leaned heavily against the Chinaman.

—Then you have seen her, Ching Long?

—Yes. All lity. She cum. Top side of house.

The docile barbarian pointed up the stairs, and chuckled.

—She here—impossible! Ah, Heaven! do I dream?

—Yes. All lity,—top side of house. Good-by, John.

This is the familiar parting epithet of the Mongolian. It is equivalent

to our au revoir.

N N. gazed with a stupefied air on the departing servant.

He placed his hand on his throbbing heart. She here,—alone beneath this

roof? Oh, heavens,—what happiness!

But how? Torn from her home. Ruthlessly dragged, perhaps, from her

evening devotions, by the hands of a relentless barbarian. Could she

forgive him?

He dashed frantically up the stairs. He opened the door.

She was standing beside his couch with averted face.

A strange giddiness overtook him. He sank upon his knees at the

threshold.

—Pardon, pardon. My angel, can you forgive me?

A terrible nausea now seemed added to the fearful giddiness. His

utterance grew thick and sluggish.

—Speak, speak, enchantress. Forgiveness is all I ask. My Love, my Life!

She did not answer. He staggered to his feet. As he rose, his eyes fell

on the pan of burning charcoal. A terrible suspicion flashed across his

mind. This giddiness—this nausea. The ignorance of the barbarian. This

silence. Oh, merciful heavens! she was dying!

He crawled toward her. He touched her. She fell forward with a lifeless

sound upon the floor. He uttered a piercing shriek, and threw himself

beside her.

* * * * *

A file of gendarmes, accompanied by the Chef Burke, found him the next

morning lying lifeless upon the floor. They laughed brutally—these

cruel minions of the law—and disengaged his arm from the waist of the

wooden dummy which they had come to reclaim, from the mantua-maker.

Emptying a few bucketfuls of water over his form, they finally succeeded

in robbing him, not only of his mistress, but of that Death he had

coveted without her.

Ah! we live in a strange world, messieurs.

NO TITLE

BY W-LK-E C-LL-NS

PROLOGUE

The following advertisement appeared in the “Times” of the 17th of June,

1845:—

WANTED.—A few young men for a light, genteel employment. Address J. W.,

P. O.

In the same paper, of same date, in another column:—

TO LET.—That commodious and elegant family mansion, No. 27 Limehouse

Road, Pultneyville, will be rented low to a respectable tenant if

applied for immediately, the family being about to remove to the

Continent.

Under the local intelligence, in another column:—

MISSING.—An unknown elderly gentleman a week ago left his lodgings in

the Kent Road, since which nothing has been heard of him. He left no

trace of his identity except a portmanteau containing a couple of shirts

marked “209, Ward.”

To find the connection between the mysterious disappearance of the

elderly gentleman and the anonymous communication, the relevancy of both

these incidents to the letting of a commodious family mansion, and the

dead secret involved in the three occurrences, is the task of the writer

of this history.

A slim young man with spectacles, a large hat, drab gaiters, and a

notebook, sat late that night with a copy of the “Times” before him, and

a pencil which he rattled nervously between his teeth in the coffee-room

of the Blue Dragon.

CHAPTER I

MARY JONES’S NARRATIVE

I am upper housemaid to the family that live at No. 27 Limehouse Road,

Pultneyville. I have been requested by Mr. Wilkey Collings, which I

takes the liberty of here stating is a gentleman born and bred, and

has some consideration for the feelings of servants, and is not above

rewarding them for their trouble, which is more than you can say for

some who ask questions and gets short answers enough, gracious knows, to

tell what I know about them. I have been requested to tell my story in

my own langwidge, though, being no schollard, mind cannot conceive. I

think my master is a brute. Do not know that he has ever attempted to

poison my missus,—which is too good for him, and how she ever came to

marry him, heart only can tell,—but believe him to be capable of any

such hatrosity. Have heard him swear dreadful because of not having his

shaving-water at nine o’clock precisely. Do not know whether he ever

forged a will or tried to get my missus’s property, although, not

having confidence in the man, should not be surprised if he had done

so. Believe that there was always something mysterious in his conduct.

Remember distinctly how the family left home to go abroad. Was putting

up my back hair, last Saturday morning, when I heard a ring. Says cook,

“That’s missus’s bell, and mind you hurry or the master ’ill know why.”

Says I, “Humbly thanking you, mem, but taking advice of them as is

competent to give it, I’ll take my time.” Found missus dressing herself

and master growling as usual. Says missus, quite cairn and easy-like,

“Mary, we begin to pack to-day.” “What for, mem?” says I, taken aback.

“What’s that hussy asking?” says master from the bedclothes quite

savage-like. “For the Continent—Italy,” says missus. “Can you go,

Mary?” Her voice was quite gentle and saintlike, but I knew the struggle

it cost, and says I, “With you, mem, to India’s torrid clime, if

required, but with African Gorillas,” says I, looking toward the bed,

“never.” “Leave the room,” says master, starting up and catching of

his bootjack. “Why, Charles!” says missus, “how you talk!” affecting

surprise. “Do go, Mary,” says she, slipping a half-crown into my hand. I

left the room, scorning to take notice of the odious wretch’s conduct.

Cannot say whether my master and missus were ever legally married.

What with the dreadful state of morals nowadays and them stories in the

circulating libraries, innocent girls don’t know into what society

they might be obliged to take situations. Never saw missus’s marriage

certificate, though I have quite accidental-like looked in her desk when

open, and would have seen it. Do not know of any lovers missus might

have had. Believe she had a liking for John Thomas, footman, for she was

always spiteful-like—poor lady—when we were together—though there was

nothing between us, as cook well knows, and dare not deny, and missus

needn’t have been jealous. Have never seen arsenic or Prussian acid in

any of the private drawers—but have seen paregoric and camphor. One

of my master’s friends was a Count Moscow, a Russian papist—which I

detested.

CHAPTER II

THE SLIM YOUNG MAN’S STORY

I am by profession a reporter, and writer for the press. I live at

Pultneyville. I have always had a passion for the marvelous, and have

been distinguished for my facility in tracing out mysteries, and solving

enigmatical occurrences. On the night of the 17th June, 1845, I left my

office and walked homeward. The night was bright and starlight. I was

revolving in my mind the words of a singular item I had just read in the

“Times.” I had reached the darkest portion of the road, and found

myself mechanically repeating: “An elderly gentleman a week ago left his

lodgings on the Kent Road,” when suddenly I heard a step behind me.

I turned quickly, with an expression of horror in my face, and by the

light of the newly risen moon beheld an elderly gentleman, with green

cotton umbrella, approaching me. His hair, which was snow white, was

parted over a broad, open forehead. The expression of his face, which

was slightly flushed, was that of amiability verging almost upon

imbecility. There was a strange, inquiring look about the widely opened

mild blue eye,—a look that might have been intensified to insanity or

modified to idiocy. As he passed me, he paused and partly turned his

face, with a gesture of inquiry. I see him still, his white locks

blowing in the evening breeze, his hat a little on the back of his head,

and his figure painted in relief against the dark blue sky.

Suddenly he turned his mild eye full upon me. A weak smile played about

his thin lips. In a voice which had something of the tremulousness

of age and the self-satisfied chuckle of imbecility in it, he asked,

pointing to the rising moon, “Why?—Hush!”

He had dodged behind me, and appeared to be looking anxiously down the

road. I could feel his aged frame shaking with terror as he laid his

thin hands upon my shoulders and faced me in the direction of the

supposed danger.

“Hush! did you not hear them coming?”

I listened; there was no sound but the soughing of the roadside trees in

the evening wind. I endeavored to reassure him, with such success that

in a few moments the old weak smile appeared on his benevolent face.

“Why?”—But the look of interrogation was succeeded by a hopeless

blankness.

“Why?” I repeated with assuring accents.

“Why,” he said, a gleam of intelligence flickering over his face, “is

yonder moon, as she sails in the blue empyrean, casting a flood of light

o’er hill and dale, like—Why,” he repeated, with a feeble smile,

“is yonder moon, as she sails in the blue empyrean”—He

hesitated,—stammered,—and gazed at me hopelessly, with the tears

dripping from his moist and widely opened eyes.

I took his hand kindly in my own. “Casting a shadow o’er hill and dale,”

I repeated quietly, leading him up to the subject, “like—Come, now.”

“Ah!” he said, pressing my hand tremulously, “you know it?”

“I do. Why is it like—the—eh—the commodious mansion on the Limehouse

Road?”

A blank stare only followed. He shook his head sadly.

“Like the young men wanted for a light, genteel employment?”

He wagged his feeble old head cunningly.

“Or, Mr. Ward,” I said, with bold confidence, “like the mysterious

disappearance from the Kent Road?” The moment was full of suspense. He

did not seem to hear me. Suddenly he turned.

“Ha!”

I darted forward. But he had vanished in the darkness.

CHAPTER III

NO. 27 LIMEHOUSE ROAD

It was a hot midsummer evening. Limehouse Road was deserted save by

dust and a few rattling butchers’ carts, and the bell of the muffin and

crumpet man. A commodious mansion, which stood on the right of the road

as you enter Pultneyville, surrounded by stately poplars and a high

fence surmounted by a cheval de frise of broken glass, looked to

the passing and footsore pedestrian like the genius of seclusion and

solitude. A bill announcing in the usual terms that the house was to let

hung from the bell at the servants’ entrance.

As the shades of evening closed, and the long shadows of the poplars

stretched across the road, a man carrying a small kettle stopped and

gazed, first at the bill and then at the house. When he had reached the

corner of the fence, he again stopped and looked cautiously up and

down the road. Apparently satisfied with the result of his scrutiny, he

deliberately sat himself down in the dark shadow of the fence, and

at once busied himself in some employment, so well concealed as to be

invisible to the gaze of passers-by. At the end of an hour he retired

cautiously.

But not altogether unseen. A slim young man, with spectacles and

notebook, stepped from behind a tree as the retreating figure of the

intruder was lost in the twilight, and transferred from the fence to his

notebook the freshly stenciled inscription, “S—T—1860—X.”

CHAPTER IV

COUNT MOSCOW’S NARRATIVE

I am a foreigner. Observe! To be a foreigner in England is to be

mysterious, suspicious, intriguing. M. Collins has requested the

history of my complicity with certain occurrences. It is nothing, bah!

absolutely nothing. I write with ease and fluency. Why should I not

write? Tra-la-la! I am what you English call corpulent. Ha, ha! I am a

pupil of Macchiavelli. I find it much better to disbelieve everything,

and to approach my subject and wishes circuitously than in a direct

manner. You have observed that playful animal, the cat. Call it, and it

does not come to you directly, but rubs itself against all the furniture

in the room, and reaches you finally—and scratches. Ah, ha, scratches!

I am of the feline species. People call me a villain—bah!

I know the family living No. 27 Limehouse Road. I respect the

gentleman,—a fine, burly specimen of your Englishman,—and madame,

charming, ravishing, delightful. When it became known to me that they

designed to let their delightful residence, and visit foreign shores,

I at once called upon them. I kissed the hand of madame. I embraced the

great Englishman. Madame blushed slightly. The great Englishman shook my

hand like a mastiff.

I began in that dexterous, insinuating manner of which I am truly proud.

I thought madame was ill. Ah, no. A change, then, was all that was

required. I sat down at the piano and sang. In a few minutes madame

retired. I was alone with my friend.

Seizing his hand, I began with every demonstration of courteous

sympathy. I do not repeat my words, for my intention was conveyed more

in accent, emphasis, and manner, than speech. I hinted to him that he

had another wife living. I suggested that this was balanced—ha!—by his

wife’s lover. That, possibly, he wished to fly; hence the letting of his

delightful mansion. That he regularly and systematically beat his wife

in the English manner, and that she repeatedly deceived him. I talked

of hope, of consolation, of remedy. I carelessly produced a bottle of

strychnine and a small vial of stramonium from my pocket, and enlarged

on the efficiency of drugs. His face, which had gradually become

convulsed, suddenly became fixed with a frightful expression. He started

to his feet, and roared, “You d—d Frenchman!”

I instantly changed my tactics, and endeavored to embrace him. He kicked

me twice, violently. I begged permission to kiss madame’s hand. He

replied by throwing me downstairs.

I am in bed with my head bound up, and beefsteaks upon my eyes, but

still confident and buoyant. I have not lost faith in Macchiavelli.

Tra-la-la! as they sing in the opera. I kiss everybody’s hands.

CHAPTER V

DR. DIGGS’S STATEMENT

My name is David Diggs. I am a surgeon, living at No. 9 Tottenham Court.

On the 15th of June, 1854, I was called to see an elderly gentleman

lodging on the Kent Road. Found him highly excited, with strong febrile

symptoms, pulse 120, increasing. Repeated incoherently what I judged to

be the popular form of a conundrum. On closer examination found acute

hydrocephalus, and both lobes of the brain rapidly filling with water.

In consultation with an eminent phrenologist, it was further discovered

that all the organs were more or less obliterated, except that of

Comparison. Hence the patient was enabled to only distinguish the most

common points of resemblance between objects, without drawing upon other

faculties, such as Ideality or Language, for assistance. Later in

the day found him sinking,—being evidently unable to carry the most

ordinary conundrum to a successful issue. Exhibited Tinct. Val., Ext.

Opii, and Camphor, and prescribed quiet and emollients. On the 17th the

patient was missing.

CHAPTER LAST

STATEMENT OF THE PUBLISHER

On the 18th of June, Mr. Wilkie Collins left a roll of manuscript with

us for publication, without title or direction, since which time he

has not been heard from. In spite of the care of the proof-readers, and

valuable literary assistance, it is feared that the continuity of the

story has been destroyed by some accidental misplacing of chapters

during its progress. How and what chapters are so misplaced, the

publisher leaves to an indulgent public to discover.

HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES

BY CH-S R-DE

CHAPTER I

The Dodds were dead. For twenty years they had slept under the green

graves of Kittery churchyard. The townfolk still spoke of them kindly.

The keeper of the alehouse, where David had smoked his pipe, regretted

him regularly, and Mistress Kitty, Mrs. Dodd’s maid, whose trim figure

always looked well in her mistress’s gowns, was inconsolable. The

Hardins were in America. Raby was aristocratically gouty; Mrs. Raby,

religious. Briefly, then, we have disposed of—

1. Mr. and Mrs. Dodd (dead).

2. Mr. and Mrs. Hardin (translated).

3. Raby, baron et femme. (Yet I don’t know about the former; he came of

a long-lived family, and the gout is an uncertain-disease.)

We have active at the present writing (place aux dames)—

1. Lady Caroline Coventry, niece of Sir Frederick.

2. Faraday Huxley Little, son of Henry and Graco Little deceased.

_Sequitur_ to the above, A HERO AND HEROINE.