Little returned to London. Passing through London one day he met a
dog-fancier.
“Buy a nice poodle, sir?”
Something in the animal attracted his attention.
“Fido!” he gasped.
The dog yelped.
Little bought him. On taking off his collar a piece of paper rustled to
the floor. He knew the handwriting and kissed it. It ran:—
To THE HONORABLE AUGUSTUS RABY—I cannot marry you. If I marry any one
[sly puss] it will be the man who has twice saved my life, Professor
Little. CAROLINE COVENTRY.
And she did.
LOTHAW
OR
THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION
BY MR. BENJAMINS
CHAPTER I
“I remember him a little boy,” said the Duchess. “His mother was a dear
friend of mine; you know she was one of my bridesmaids.”
“And you have never seen him since, mamma?” asked the oldest married
daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother.
“Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached myself,
but it is so difficult to see boys.”
This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning-room of
Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat involved in the
sacred privacy of a circle of her married daughters. One dexterously
applied golden knitting-needles to the fabrication of a purse of floss
silk of the rarest texture, which none who knew the almost fabulous
wealth of the Duke would believe was ever destined to hold in its silken
meshes a less sum than 1,000,000 pounds; another adorned a slipper
exclusively with seed pearls; a third emblazoned a page with rare
pigments and the finest quality of gold leaf. Beautiful forms leaned
over frames glowing with embroidery, and beautiful frames leaned over
forms inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Others, more remote, occasionally
burst into melody as they tried the passages of a new and exclusive air
given to them in MS. by some titled and devoted friend, for the private
use of the aristocracy alone, and absolutely prohibited for publication.
The Duchess, herself the superlative of beauty, wealth, and position,
was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms. Those who talked
about such matters said that their progeny were exactly like their
parents,—a peculiarity of the aristocratic and wealthy. They all looked
like brothers and sisters, except their parents, who, such was their
purity of blood, the perfection of their manners, and the opulence of
their condition, might have been taken for their own children’s elder
son and daughter. The daughters, with one exception, were all married to
the highest nobles in the land. That exception was the Lady Coriander,
who, there being no vacancy above a marquis and a rental of 1,000,000
pounds, waited. Gathered around the refined and sacred circle of their
breakfast-table, with their glittering coronets, which, in filial
respect to their father’s Tory instincts and their mother’s Ritualistic
tastes, they always wore on their regal brows, the effect was dazzling
as it was refined. It was this peculiarity and their strong family
resemblance which led their brother-in-law, the good-humored St.
Addlegourd, to say that, “’Pon my soul, you know, the whole precious mob
looked like a ghastly pack of court cards, you know.” St. Addlegourd was
a radical. Having a rent-roll of 15,000,000 pounds, and belonging to one
of the oldest families in Britain, he could afford to be.
“Mamma, I’ve just dropped a pearl,” said the Lady Coriander, bending
over the Persian hearth-rug.
“From your lips, sweet friend?” said Lothaw, who came of age and entered
the room at the same moment.
“No, from my work. It was a very valuable pearl, mamma; papa gave Isaacs
Sons 50,000 pounds for the two.”
“Ah, indeed,” said the Duchess, languidly rising; “let us go to
luncheon.”
“But, your Grace,” interposed Lothaw, who was still quite young, and
had dropped on all fours on the carpet in search of the missing gem,
“consider the value”—
“Dear friend,” interposed the Duchess with infinite tact, gently lifting
him by the tails of his dress coat, “I am waiting for your arm.”
CHAPTER II
Lothaw was immensely rich. The possessor of seventeen castles, fifteen
villas, nine shooting-boxes, and seven town houses, he had other estates
of which he had not even heard.
Everybody at Plusham played croquet, and none badly. Next to their
purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this
accomplishment. Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after seriously
damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to “tight
croquet” the Lady Aniseed’s ball, he limped away to join the Duchess.
“I’m going to the hennery,” she said.
“Let me go with you; I dearly love fowls—broiled,” he added
thoughtfully.
“The Duke gave Lady Montairy some large Cochins the other day,”
continued the Duchess, changing the subject with delicate tact.
“Lady Montairy
Quite contrairy,
How do your Cochins grow?”
sang Lothaw gayly.
The Duchess looked shocked. After a prolonged silence Lothaw abruptly
and gravely said:—
“If you please, ma’am, when I come into my property I should like to
build some improved dwellings for the poor, and marry Lady Coriander.”
“You amaze me, dear friend; and yet both your aspirations are noble and
eminently proper,” said the Duchess.
“Coriander is but a child,—and yet,” she added, looking graciously upon
her companion, “for the matter of that, so are you.”
CHAPTER III
Mr. Putney Giles’s was Lothaw’s first grand dinner-party. Yet, by
carefully watching the others, he managed to acquit himself creditably,
and avoided drinking out of the finger-bowl by first secretly testing
its contents with a spoon. The conversation was peculiar and singularly
interesting.
“Then you think that monogamy is simply a question of the thermometer?”
said Mrs. Putney Giles to her companion.
“I certainly think that polygamy should be limited by isothermal lines,”
replied Lothaw.
“I should say it was a matter of latitude,” observed a loud, talkative
man opposite. He was an Oxford professor with a taste for satire,
and had made himself very obnoxious to the company, during dinner,
by speaking disparagingly of a former well-known chancellor of the
exchequer,—a great statesman and brilliant novelist,—whom he feared
and hated.
Suddenly there was a sensation in the room; among the females it
absolutely amounted to a nervous thrill. His Eminence, the Cardinal, was
announced. He entered with great suavity of manner, and after shaking
hands with everybody, asking after their relatives, and chucking the
more delicate females under the chin with a high-bred grace peculiar to
his profession, he sat down, saying, “And how do we all find ourselves
this evening, my dears?” in several different languages, which he spoke
fluently.
Lothaw’s heart was touched. His deeply religious convictions were
impressed. He instantly went up to this gifted being, confessed, and
received absolution. “To-morrow,” he said to himself, “I will partake
of the communion, and endow the Church with my vast estates. For the
present I’ll let the improved cottages go.”
CHAPTER IV
As Lothaw turned to leave the Cardinal, he was struck by a beautiful
face. It was that of a matron, slim but shapely as an Ionic column. Her
face was Grecian, with Corinthian temples; Hellenic eyes that looked
from jutting eyebrows, like dormer-windows in an Attic forehead,
completed her perfect Athenian outline. She wore a black frock-coat
tightly buttoned over her bloomer trousers, and a standing collar.
“Your lordship is struck by that face?” said a social parasite.
“I am; who is she?”
“Her name is Mary Ann. She is married to an American, and has lately
invented a new religion.”
“Ah!” said Lothaw eagerly, with difficulty restraining himself from
rushing toward her.
“Yes; shall I introduce you?”
Lothaw thought of Lady Coriander’s High Church proclivities, of the
Cardinal, and hesitated: “No, I thank you, not now.”
CHAPTER V
Lothaw was maturing. He had attended two womens’ rights conventions,
three Fenian meetings, had dined at White’s, and had danced _vis-a-vis_
to a prince of the blood, and eaten off gold plates at Crecy House.
His stables were near Oxford, and occupied more ground than the
University. He was driving over there one day, when he perceived
some rustics and menials endeavoring to stop a pair of runaway horses
attached to a carriage in which a lady and gentleman were seated. Calmly
awaiting the termination of the accident, with high-bred courtesy Lothaw
forbore to interfere until the carriage was overturned, the occupants
thrown out, and the runaways secured by the servants, when he advanced
and offered the lady the exclusive use of his Oxford stables.
Turning upon him a face whose perfect Hellenic details he remembered,
she slowly dragged a gentleman from under the wheels into the light,
and presented him with ladylike dignity as her husband, Major-General
Camperdown, an American.
“Ah,” said Lothaw carelessly, “I believe I have some land there. If
I mistake not, my agent, Mr. Putney Giles, lately purchased the State
of—Illinois—I think you call it.”
“Exactly. As a former resident of the city of Chicago, let me introduce
myself as your tenant.”
Lothaw bowed graciously to the gentleman, who, except that he
seemed better dressed than most Englishmen, showed no other signs of
inferiority and plebeian extraction.
“We have met before,” said Lothaw to the lady as she leaned on his arm,
while they visited his stables, the University, and other places of
interest in Oxford, “Pray tell me, what is this new religion of yours?”
“It is Woman Suffrage, Free Love, Mutual Affinity, and Communism.
Embrace it and me.”
Lothaw did not know exactly what to do. She, however, soothed and
sustained his agitated frame, and sealed with an embrace his speechless
form. The General approached and coughed slightly with gentlemanly tact.
“My husband will be too happy to talk with you further on this subject,”
she said with quiet dignity, as she regained the General’s side. “Come
with us to Oneida. Brook Farm is a thing of the past.”
CHAPTER VI
As Lothaw drove toward his country-seat, The Mural Inclosure, he
observed a crowd, apparently of the working-class, gathered around a
singular-looking man in the picturesque garb of an Ethiopian serenader.
“What does he say?” inquired Lothaw of his driver.
The man touched his hat respectfully, and said, “My Mary Ann.”
“‘My Mary Ann!’” Lothaw’s heart beat rapidly. Who was this mysterious
foreigner? He had heard from Lady Coriander of a certain Popish plot;
but could he connect Mr. Camperdown with it?
The spectacle of two hundred men at arms, who advanced to meet him at
the gates of The Mural Inclosure, drove all else from the still youthful
and impressible mind of Lothaw. Immediately behind them, on the steps of
the baronial halls, were ranged his retainers, led by the chief cook and
bottle-washer and head crumb-remover. On either side were two companies
of laundry-maids, preceded by the chief crimper and flutter, supporting a
long Ancestral Line, on which depended the family linen, and under which
the youthful lord of the manor passed into the halls of his fathers.
Twenty-four scullions carried the massive gold and silver plate of the
family on their shoulders, and deposited it at the feet of their master.
The spoons were then solemnly counted by the steward, and the perfect
ceremony ended.
Lothaw sighed. He sought out the gorgeously gilded “Taj,” or sacred
mausoleum erected to his grandfather in the second-story front room, and
wept over the man he did not know.
He wandered alone in his magnificent park, and then, throwing himself
on a grassy bank, pondered on the Great First Cause and the necessity
of religion. “I will send Mary Ann a handsome present,” said Lothaw
thoughtfully.
CHAPTER VII
“Each of these pearls, my lord, is worth fifty thousand guineas,” said
Mr. Amethyst, the fashionable jeweler, as he lightly lifted a large
shovelful from a convenient bin behind his counter.
“Indeed,” said Lothaw carelessly, “I should prefer to see some expensive
ones.”
“Some number sixes, I suppose,” said Mr. Amethyst, taking a couple from
the apex of a small pyramid that lay piled on the shelf. “These are
about the size of the Duchess of Billingsgate’s, but they are in finer
condition. The fact is, her Grace permits her two children, the Marquis
of Smithfield and the Duke of St. Giles,—two sweet pretty boys, my
lord,—to use them as marbles in their games. Pearls require some
attention, and I go down there regularly twice a week to clean them.
Perhaps your lordship would like some ropes of pearls?”
“About half a cable’s length,” said Lothaw shortly, “and send them to my
lodgings.”
Mr. Amethyst became thoughtful. “I am afraid I have not the exact
number—that is—excuse me one moment. I will run over to the Tower and
borrow a few from the crown jewels.” And before Lothaw could prevent
him, he seized his hat and left Lothaw alone.
His position certainly was embarrassing. He could not move without
stepping on costly gems which had rolled from the counter; the rarest
diamonds lay scattered on the shelves; untold fortunes in priceless
emeralds lay within his grasp. Although such was the aristocratic purity
of his blood and the strength of his religious convictions that he
probably would not have pocketed a single diamond, still he could not
help thinking that he might be accused of taking some. “You can search
me, if you like,” he said when Mr. Amethyst returned; “but I assure you,
upon the honor of a gentleman, that I have taken nothing.”
“Enough, my lord,” said Mr. Amethyst, with a low bow; “we never search
the aristocracy.”
CHAPTER VIII
As Lothaw left Mr. Amethyst’s, he ran against General Camperdown. “How
is Mary Ann?” he asked hurriedly.
“I regret to state that she is dying,” said the General, with a grave
voice, as he removed his cigar from his lips, and lifted his hat to
Lothaw.
“Dying!” said Lothaw incredulously.
“Alas, too true!” replied the General. “The engagements of a long
lecturing season, exposure in traveling by railway during the winter,
and the imperfect nourishment afforded by the refreshments along the
road, have told on her delicate frame. But she wants to see you before
she dies. Here is the key of my lodging. I will finish my cigar out
here.”
Lothaw hardly recognized those wasted Hellenic outlines as he entered
the dimly lighted room of the dying woman. She was already a classic
ruin,—as wrecked and yet as perfect as the Parthenon. He grasped her
hand silently.
“Open-air speaking twice a week, and Saleratus bread in the rural
districts, have brought me to this,” she said feebly; “but it is well.
The cause progresses. The tyrant man succumbs.”
Lothaw could only press her hand.
“Promise me one thing. Don’t—whatever you do—become a Catholic.”
“Why?”
“The Church does not recognize divorce. And now embrace me. I would
prefer at this supreme moment to introduce myself to the next world
through the medium of the best society in this. Good-by. When I am dead,
be good enough to inform my husband of the fact.”
CHAPTER IX
Lothaw spent the next six months on an Aryan island, in an Aryan
climate, and with an Aryan race.
“This is an Aryan landscape,” said his host, “and that is a Mary Ann
statue.” It was, in fact, a full-length figure in marble of Mrs. General
Camperdown.
“If you please, I should like to become a Pagan,” said Lothaw, one day,
after listening to an impassioned discourse on Greek art from the lips
of his host.
But that night, on consulting a well-known spiritual medium, Lothaw
received a message from the late Mrs. General Camperdown, advising him
to return to England. Two days later he presented himself at Plusham.
“The young ladies are in the garden,” said the Duchess. “Don’t you want
to go and pick a rose?” she added with a gracious smile, and the nearest
approach to a wink that was consistent with her patrician bearing and
aquiline nose.
Lothaw went and presently returned with the blushing Coriander upon his
arm.
“Bless you, my children,” said the Duchess. Then turning to Lothaw, she
said: “You have simply fulfilled and accepted your inevitable destiny.
It was morally impossible for you to marry out of this family. For the
present, the Church of England is safe.”
THE HAUNTED MAN
BY CH—R—S D—CK—N—S.
A CHRISTMAS STORY
PART I
THE FIRST PHANTOM
Don’t tell me that it wasn’t a knocker. I had seen it often enough, and
I ought to know. So ought the three-o’clock beer, in dirty high-lows,
swinging himself over the railing, or executing a demoniacal jig upon
the doorstep; so ought the butcher, although butchers as a general thing
are scornful of such trifles; so ought the postman, to whom knockers of
the most extravagant description were merely human weaknesses, that were
to be pitied and used. And so ought for the matter of that, etc., etc.,
etc.
But then it was _such_ a knocker. A wild, extravagant, and utterly
incomprehensible knocker. A knocker so mysterious and suspicious that
policeman X 37, first coming upon it, felt inclined to take it instantly
in custody, but compromised with his professional instincts by sharply
and sternly noting it with an eye that admitted of no nonsense, but
confidently expected to detect its secret yet. An ugly knocker; a
knocker with a hard human face, that was a type of the harder human
face within. A human face that held between its teeth a brazen rod. So
hereafter, in the mysterious future should be held, etc., etc.
But if the knocker had a fierce human aspect in the glare of day,
you should have seen it at night, when it peered out of the gathering
shadows and suggested an ambushed figure; when the light of the street
lamps fell upon it, and wrought a play of sinister expression in its
hard outlines; when it seemed to wink meaningly at a shrouded figure
who, as the night fell darkly, crept up the steps and passed into the
mysterious house; when the swinging door disclosed a black passage
into which the figure seemed to lose itself and become a part of the
mysterious gloom; when the night grew boisterous and the fierce wind
made furious charges at the knocker, as if to wrench it off and carry it
away in triumph. Such a night as this.
It was a wild and pitiless wind. A wind that had commenced life as a
gentle country zephyr, but, wandering through manufacturing towns, had
become demoralized, and, reaching the city, had plunged into extravagant
dissipation and wild excesses. A roistering wind that indulged in
Bacchanalian shouts on the street corners, that knocked off the hats
from the heads of helpless passengers, and then fulfilled its duties by
speeding away, like all young prodigals,—to sea.
He sat alone in a gloomy library listening to the wind that roared in
the chimney. Around him novels and storybooks were strewn thickly; in
his lap he held one with its pages freshly cut, and turned the leaves
wearily until his eyes rested upon a portrait in its frontispiece. And
as the wind howled the more fiercely, and the darkness without fell
blacker, a strange and fateful likeness to that portrait appeared above
his chair and leaned upon his shoulder. The Haunted Man gazed at the
portrait and sighed. The figure gazed at the portrait and sighed too.
“Here again?” said the Haunted Man.
“Here again,” it repeated in a low voice.
“Another novel?”
“Another novel.”
“The old story?”
“The old story.”
“I see a child,” said the Haunted Man, gazing from the pages of the
book into the fire,—“a most unnatural child, a model infant. It is
prematurely old and philosophic. It dies in poverty to slow music. It
dies surrounded by luxury to slow music. It dies with an accompaniment
of golden water and rattling carts to slow music. Previous to its
decease it makes a will; it repeats the Lord’s Prayer, it kisses the
‘boofer lady.’ That child”—
“Is mine,” said the phantom.
“I see a good woman, undersized. I see several charming women, but they
are all undersized. They are more or less imbecile and idiotic, but
always fascinating and undersized. They wear coquettish caps and aprons.
I observe that feminine virtue is invariably below the medium height,
and that it is always simple and infantine. These women”—
“Are mine.”
“I see a haughty, proud, and wicked lady. She is tall and queenly.
I remark that all proud and wicked women are tall and queenly. That
woman”—
“Is mine,” said the phantom, wringing his hands.
“I see several things continually impending. I observe that whenever an
accident, a murder, or death is about to happen, there is something in
the furniture, in the locality, in the atmosphere, that foreshadows
and suggests it years in advance. I cannot say that in real life I have
noticed it,—the perception of this surprising fact belongs”—
“To me!” said the phantom. The Haunted Man continued, in a despairing
tone,—
“I see the influence of this in the magazines and daily papers; I see
weak imitators rise up and enfeeble the world with senseless formula.
I am getting tired of it. It won’t do, Charles! it won’t do!” and the
Haunted Man buried his head in his hands and groaned. The figure looked
down upon him sternly; the portrait in the frontispiece frowned as he
gazed.
“Wretched man,” said the phantom, “and how have these things affected
you?”
“Once I laughed and cried, but then I was younger. Now, I would forget
them if I could.”
“Have then your wish. And take this with you, man whom I renounce. From
this day henceforth you shall live with those whom I displace. Without
forgetting me, ’twill be your lot to walk through life as if we had not
met. But first you shall survey these scenes that henceforth must be
yours. At one to-night, prepare to meet the phantom I have raised.
Farewell!”
The sound of its voice seemed to fade away with the dying wind, and the
Haunted Man was alone. But the firelight flickered gayly, and the light
danced on the walls, making grotesque figures of the furniture.
“Ha, ha!” said the Haunted Man, rubbing his hands gleefully; “now for a
whiskey punch and a cigar.”
PART II
THE SECOND PHANTOM
One! The stroke of the far-off bell had hardly died before the front
door closed with a reverberating clang. Steps were heard along the
passage; the library door swung open of itself, and the Knocker—yes,
the Knocker—slowly strode into the room. The Haunted Man rubbed his
eyes,—no! there could be no mistake about it,—it was the Knocker’s
face, mounted on a misty, almost imperceptible body. The brazen rod was
transferred from its mouth to its right hand, where it was held like a
ghostly truncheon.
“It’s a cold evening,” said the Haunted Man.
“It is,” said the Goblin, in a hard, metallic voice.
“It must be pretty cold out there,” said the Haunted Man, with vague
politeness. “Do you ever—will you—take some hot water and brandy?”
“No,” said the Goblin.
“Perhaps you’d like it cold, by way of change?” continued the Haunted
Man, correcting himself, as he remembered the peculiar temperature with
which the Goblin was probably familiar.
“Time flies,” said the Goblin coldly. “We have no leisure for idle talk.
Come!” He moved his ghostly truncheon toward the window, and laid his
hand upon the other’s arm. At his touch the body of the Haunted Man
seemed to become as thin and incorporeal as that of the Goblin himself,
and together they glided out of the window into the black and blowy
night.
In the rapidity of their flight the senses of the Haunted Man seemed to
leave him. At length they stopped suddenly.
“What do you see?” asked the Goblin.
“I see a battlemented mediaeval castle. Gallant men in mail ride over
the drawbridge, and kiss their gauntleted fingers to fair ladies, who
wave their lily hands in return. I see fight and fray and tournament.
I hear roaring heralds bawling the charms of delicate women, and
shamelessly proclaiming their lovers. Stay. I see a Jewess about to leap
from a battlement. I see knightly deeds, violence, rapine, and a good
deal of blood. I’ve seen pretty much the same at Astley’s.”
“Look again.”
“I see purple moors, glens, masculine women, bare-legged men, priggish
book-worms, more violence, physical excellence, and blood. Always
blood,—and the superiority of physical attainments.”
“And how do you feel now?” said the Goblin.
The Haunted Man shrugged his shoulders. “None the better for being
carried back and asked to sympathize with a barbarous age.”
The Goblin smiled and clutched his arm; they again sped rapidly away
through the black night, and again halted.
“What do you see?” said the Goblin.
“I see a barrack-room, with a mess-table, and a group of intoxicated
Celtic officers telling funny stories, and giving challenges to duel. I
see a young Irish gentleman capable of performing prodigies of valor.
I learn incidentally that the acme of all heroism is the cornetcy of a
dragoon regiment. I hear a good deal of French! No, thank you,” said the
Haunted Man hurriedly, as he stayed the waving hand of the Goblin; “I
would rather _not_ go to the Peninsula, and don’t care to have a private
interview with Napoleon.”
Again the Goblin flew away with the unfortunate man, and from a strange
roaring below them he judged they were above the ocean. A ship hove in
sight, and the Goblin stayed its flight. “Look,” he said, squeezing his
companion’s arm.
The Haunted Man yawned. “Don’t you think, Charles, you’re rather running
this thing into the ground? Of course it’s very moral and instructive,
and all that. But ain’t there a little too much pantomime about it? Come
now!”
“Look!” repeated the Goblin, pinching his arm malevolently. The Haunted
Man groaned.
“Oh, of course, I see her Majesty’s ship Arethusa. Of course I am
familiar with her stern First Lieutenant, her eccentric Captain, her one
fascinating and several mischievous midshipmen. Of course I know it’s
a splendid thing to see all this, and not to be seasick. Oh, there, the
young gentlemen are going to play a trick on the purser. For God’s sake,
let us go,” and the unhappy man absolutely dragged the Goblin away with
him.
When they next halted, it was at the edge of a broad and boundless
prairie, in the middle of an oak opening.
“I see,” said the Haunted Man, without waiting for his cue, but
mechanically, and as if he were repeating a lesson which the Goblin had
taught him,—“I see the Noble Savage. He is very fine to look at! But I
observe, under his war-paint, feathers, and picturesque blanket, dirt,
disease, and an unsymmetrical contour. I observe beneath his inflated
rhetoric deceit and hypocrisy; beneath his physical hardihood cruelty,
malice, and revenge. The Noble Savage is a humbug. I remarked the same
to Mr. Catlin.”
“Come,” said the phantom.
The Haunted Man sighed, and took out his watch. “Couldn’t we do the rest
of this another time?”
“My hour is almost spent, irreverent being, but there is yet a chance
for your reformation. Come!”
Again they sped through the night, and again halted. The sound of
delicious but melancholy music fell upon their ears.
“I see,” said the Haunted Man, with something of interest in his
manner,—“I see an old moss-covered manse beside a sluggish, flowing
river. I see weird shapes: witches, Puritans, clergymen, little
children, judges, mesmerized maidens, moving to the sound of melody that
thrills me with its sweetness and purity. But, although carried
along its calm and evenly flowing current, the shapes are strange and
frightful: an eating lichen gnaws at the heart of each. Not only the
clergymen, but witch, maiden, judge, and Puritan, all wear Scarlet
Letters of some kind burned upon their hearts. I am fascinated and
thrilled, but I feel a morbid sensitiveness creeping over me. I—I beg
your pardon.” The Goblin was yawning frightfully. “Well, perhaps we had
better go.” “One more, and the last,” said the Goblin.
They were moving home. Streaks of red were beginning to appear in the
eastern sky. Along the banks of the blackly flowing river by moorland
and stagnant fens, by low houses, clustering close to the water’s edge,
like strange mollusks crawled upon the beach to dry; by misty black
barges, the more misty and indistinct seen through its mysterious veil,
the river fog was slowly rising. So rolled away and rose from the heart
of the Haunted Man, etc., etc.
They stopped before a quaint mansion of red brick. The Goblin waved his
hand without speaking.
“I see,” said the Haunted Man, “a gay drawing-room. I see my old friends
of the club, of the college, of society, even as they lived and moved. I
see the gallant and unselfish men whom I have loved, and the snobs
whom I have hated. I see strangely mingling with them, and now and then
blending with their forms, our old friends Dick Steele, Addison, and
Congreve. I observe, though, that these gentlemen have a habit of
getting too much in the way. The royal standard of Queen Anne, not in
itself a beautiful ornament, is rather too prominent in the picture. The
long galleries of black oak, the formal furniture, the old portraits,
are picturesque, but depressing. The house is damp. I enjoy myself
better here on the lawn, where they are getting up a Vanity Fair. See,
the bell rings, the curtain is rising, the puppets are brought out for a
new play. Let me see.”
The Haunted Man was pressing forward in his eagerness, but the hand of
the Goblin stayed him, and pointing to his feet he saw, between him and
the rising curtain, a new made grave. And bending above the grave in
passionate grief, the Haunted Man beheld the phantom of the previous
night. The Haunted Man started, and—woke. The bright sunshine streamed
into the room. The air was sparkling with frost. He ran joyously to the
window and opened it. A small boy saluted him with “Merry Christmas.”
The Haunted Man instantly gave him a Bank of England note. “How much
like Tiny Tim, Tom, and Bobby that boy looked,—bless my soul, what a
genius this Dickens has!”
A knock at the door, and Boots entered.
“Consider your salary doubled instantly. Have you read ‘David
Copperfield’?”
“Yezzur.”
“Your salary is quadrupled. What do you think of the ‘Old Curiosity
Shop’?”
The man instantly burst into a torrent of tears, and then into a roar of
laughter.
“Enough! Here are five thousand pounds. Open a porter-house, and call it
‘Our Mutual Friend.’ Huzza! I feel so happy!” And the Haunted Man danced
about the room.
And so, bathed in the light of that blessed sun, and yet glowing with
the warmth of a good action, the Haunted Man, haunted no longer, save
by those shapes which make the dreams of children beautiful, reseated
himself in his chair, and finished “Our Mutual Friend.”
TERENCE DENVILLE
BY CH-L-S L-V-R
CHAPTER I
MY HOME
The little village of Pilwiddle is one of the smallest and obscurest
hamlets on the western coast of Ireland. On a lofty crag, overlooking
the hoarse Atlantic, stands “Denville’s Shot Tower,” a corruption by the
peasantry of “D’Enville’s Chateau,” so called from my great-grandfather,
Phelim St. Remy d’Enville, who assumed the name and title of a French
heiress with whom he ran away. To this fact my familiar knowledge and
excellent pronunciation of the French language may be attributed, as
well as many of the events which covered my after life.
The Denvilles were always passionately fond of field sports. At the
age of four, I was already the boldest rider and the best shot in
the country. When only eight, I won the St. Remy Cup at the Pilwiddle
races,—riding my favorite blood-mare Hellfire. As I approached the
stand amidst the plaudits of the assembled multitude, and cries of,
“Thrue for ye, Mashter Terence,” and “oh, but it’s a Dinville!” there
was a slight stir among the gentry, who surrounded the Lord Lieutenant
and other titled personages whom the race had attracted thither. “How
young he is,—a mere child, and yet how noble-looking,” said a sweet low
voice, which thrilled my soul.
I looked up and met the full liquid orbs of the Hon. Blanche Fitzroy
Sackville, youngest daughter of the Lord Lieutenant. She blushed deeply.
I turned pale and almost fainted. But the cold, sneering tones of a
masculine voice sent the blood back again into my youthful cheek.
“Very likely the ragged scion of one of these banditti Irish gentry,
who has taken naturally to ‘the road.’ He should be at school—though
I warrant me his knowledge of Terence will not extend beyond his own
name,” said Lord Henry Somerset, aid-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant.
A moment and I was perfectly calm, though cold as ice. Dismounting, and
stepping to the side of the speaker, I said in a low firm voice:—
“Had your lordship read Terence more carefully, you would have
learned that banditti are sometimes proficient in other arts beside
horsemanship,” and I touched his holster significantly with my hand. I
had not read Terence myself, but with the skillful audacity of my race I
calculated that a vague allusion, coupled with a threat, would embarrass
him. It did.
“Ah—what mean you?” he said, white with rage.
“Enough, we are observed,” I replied; “Father Tom will wait on you this
evening; and to-morrow morning, my lord, in the glen below Pilwiddle, we
will meet again.”
“Father Tom—glen!” ejaculated the Englishman, with genuine surprise.
“What? do priests carry challenges and act as seconds in your infernal
country?”
“Yes,” I answered scornfully; “why should they not? Their services are
more often necessary than those of a surgeon,” I added significantly,
turning away.
The party slowly rode off, with the exception of the Hon. Blanche
Sackville, who lingered for a moment behind. In an instant I was at her
side. Bending her blushing face over the neck of her white filly, she
said hurriedly:—
“Words have passed between Lord Somerset and yourself. You are about to
fight. Don’t deny it—but hear me. You will meet him—I know your skill
of weapons. He will be at your mercy. I entreat you to spare his life!”
I hesitated. “Never!” I cried passionately; “he has insulted a
Denville!”
“Terence,” she whispered, “Terence—_for my sake?_”
The blood rushed to my cheeks, and her eyes sought the ground in bashful
confusion.
“You love him then?” I cried bitterly.
“No, no,” she said agitatedly,—“no, you do me wrong. I—I—cannot
explain myself. My father!—the Lady Dowager Sackville—the estate
of Sackville—the borough—my uncle, Fitzroy Somerset. Ah! what am I
saying? Forgive me. Oh, Terence,” she said, as her beautiful head sank
on my shoulder, “you know not what I suffer!”
I seized her hand and covered it with passionate kisses.
But the high-bred English girl, recovering something of her former
hauteur, said hastily, “Leave me, leave me, but promise!”
“I promise,” I replied enthusiastically; “I _will_ spare his life!”
“Thanks, Terence,—thanks!” and disengaging her hand from my lips she
rode rapidly away.
The next morning, the Hon. Captain Henry Somerset and myself exchanged
nineteen shots in the glen, and at each fire I shot away a button from
his uniform. As my last bullet shot off the last button from his sleeve,
I remarked quietly, “You seem now, my lord, to be almost as ragged as
the gentry you sneered at,” and rode haughtily away.
CHAPTER II
THE FIGHTING FIFTY-SIXTH
When I was nineteen years old my father sold the Chateau d’ Enville, and
purchased my commission in the “Fifty-sixth” with the proceeds. “I
say, Denville,” said young McSpadden, a boy-faced ensign, who had just
joined, “you’ll represent the estate in the Army, if you won’t in the
House.” Poor fellow, he paid for his meaningless joke with his life, for
I shot him through the heart the next morning. “You’re a good fellow,
Denville,” said the poor boy faintly, as I knelt beside him; “good-by!”
For the first time since my grandfather’s death I wept. I could not
help thinking that I would have been a better man if Blanche—But why
proceed? Was she not now in Florence—the belle of the English embassy?
But Napoleon had returned from Elba. Europe was in a blaze of
excitement. The Allies were preparing to resist the Man of Destiny.
We were ordered from Gibraltar home, and were soon again en route for
Brussels. I did not regret that I was to be placed in active service. I
was ambitious, and longed for an opportunity to distinguish myself. My
garrison life in Gibraltar had been monotonous and dull. I had killed
five men in duel, and had an affair with the colonel of my regiment, who
handsomely apologized before the matter assumed a serious aspect. I
had been twice in love. Yet these were but boyish freaks and follies. I
wished to be a man.
The time soon came,—the morning of Waterloo. But why describe that
momentous battle, on which the fate of the entire world was hanging?
Twice were the Fifty-sixth surrounded by French cuirassiers, and twice
did we mow them down by our fire. I had seven horses shot under me, and
was mounting the eighth, when an orderly rode up hastily, touched his
cap, and, handing me a dispatch, galloped rapidly away.
I opened it hurriedly and read:—
“LET PICTON ADVANCE IMMEDIATELY ON THE RIGHT.”
I saw it all at a glance. I had been mistaken for a general officer.
But what was to be done? Picton’s division was two miles away, only
accessible through a heavy cross-fire of artillery and musketry. But my
mind was made up.
In an instant I was engaged with an entire squadron of cavalry, who
endeavored to surround me. Cutting my way through them, I advanced
boldly upon a battery and sabred the gunners before they could
bring their pieces to bear. Looking around, I saw that I had in fact
penetrated the French centre. Before I was well aware of the locality, I
was hailed by a sharp voice in French,—
“Come here, sir!”
I obeyed, and advanced to the side of a little man in a cocked hat.
“Has Grouchy come?”
“Not yet, sire,” I replied,—for it was the Emperor.
“Ha!” he said suddenly, bending his piercing eyes on my uniform; “a
prisoner?”
“No, sire,” I said proudly.
“A spy?”
I placed my hand upon my sword, but a gesture from the Emperor bade me
forbear.
“You are a brave man,” he said.
I took my snuff-box from my pocket, and, taking a pinch, replied by
handing it, with a bow, to the Emperor.
His quick eye caught the cipher on the lid.
“What! a D’Enville? Ha! this accounts for the purity of your accent. Any
relation to Roderick d’Enville?”
“My father, sire.”
“He was my schoolfellow at the Ecole Polytechnique. Embrace me!” And
the Emperor fell upon my neck in the presence of his entire staff. Then,
recovering himself, he gently placed in my hand his own magnificent
snuff-box, in exchange for mine, and hanging upon my breast the cross
of the Legion of Honor which he took from his own, he bade one of his
marshals conduct me back to my regiment.
I was so intoxicated with the honor of which I had been the recipient,
that on reaching our lines I uttered a shout of joy and put spurs to my
horse. The intelligent animal seemed to sympathize with my feelings, and
fairly flew over the ground. On a rising eminence a few yards before me
stood a gray-haired officer, surrounded by his staff. I don’t know what
possessed me, but putting spurs to my horse, I rode at him boldly, and
with one bound cleared him, horse and all. A shout of indignation arose
from the assembled staff. I wheeled suddenly, with the intention of
apologizing, but my mare misunderstood me, and, again dashing forward,
once more vaulted over the head of the officer, this time unfortunately
uncovering him by a vicious kick of her hoof. “Seize him!” roared the
entire army. I was seized. As the soldiers led me away, I asked the name
of the gray-haired officer. “That—why, that’s the DUKE OF WELLINGTON!”
I fainted.
* * * * *
For six months I had brain fever. During my illness ten grapeshot were
extracted from my body which I had unconsciously received during the
battle. When I opened my eyes I met the sweet glance of a Sister of
Charity.
“Blanche!” I stammered feebly.
“The same,” she replied.
“You here?”
“Yes, dear; but hush! It’s a long story. You see, dear Terence, your
grandfather married my great-aunt’s sister, and your father again
married my grandmother’s niece, who, dying without a will, was,
according to the French law”—
“But I do not comprehend,” I said.
“Of course not,” said Blanche, with her old sweet smile; “you’ve had
brain fever; so go to sleep.”
I understood, however, that Blanche loved me; and I am now, dear reader,
Sir Terence Sackville, K. C. B., and Lady Blanche is Lady Sackville.
MARY McGILLUP
A SOUTHERN NOVEL
AFTER BELLE BOYD
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. A. S-LA
INTRODUCTION
“Will you write me up?”
The scene was near Temple Bar. The speaker was the famous rebel Mary
McGillup,—a young girl of fragile frame, and long, lustrous black hair.
I must confess that the question was a peculiar one, and, under the
circumstances, somewhat puzzling. It was true I had been kindly treated
by the Northerners, and, though prejudiced against them, was to some
extent under obligations to them. It was true that I knew little or
nothing of American politics, history, or geography. But when did
an English writer ever weigh such trifles? Turning to the speaker, I
inquired with some caution the amount of pecuniary compensation offered
for the work.
“Sir!” she said, drawing her fragile form to its full height, “you
insult me,—you insult the South.”
“But look ye here, d’ye see—the tin—the blunt—the ready—the stiff,
you know. Don’t ye see, we can’t do without that, you know!”
“It shall be contingent on the success of the story,” she answered
haughtily. “In the mean time take this precious gem.” And drawing a
diamond ring from her finger, she placed it with a roll of MSS. in my
hands, and vanished.
Although unable to procure more than 1 pound 2s. 6d. from an intelligent
pawnbroker to whom I stated the circumstances and with whom I pledged
the ring, my sympathies with the cause of a downtrodden and chivalrous
people were at once enlisted. I could not help wondering that in rich
England, the home of the oppressed and the free, a young and lovely
woman like the fair author of those pages should be obliged to thus pawn
her jewels—her marriage gift—for the means to procure her bread! With
the exception of the English aristocracy,—who much resemble them,—I
do not know of a class of people that I so much admire as the Southern
planters. May I become better acquainted with both!
Since writing the above, the news of Mr. Lincoln’s assassination has
reached me. It is enough for me to say that I am dissatisfied with the
result. I do not attempt to excuse the assassin. Yet there will be men
who will charge this act upon the chivalrous South. This leads me to
repeat a remark once before made by me in this connection, which has
become justly celebrated. It is this:—
“It is usual, in cases of murder, to look for the criminal among those
who expect to be benefited by the crime. In the death of Lincoln, his
immediate successor in office alone receives the benefit of his dying.”
If her Majesty Queen Victoria were assassinated, which Heaven forbid,
the one most benefited by her decease would, of course, be his Royal
Highness the Prince of Wales, her immediate successor. It would be
unnecessary to state that suspicion would at once point to the real
culprit, which would of course be his Royal Highness. This is logic.
But I have done. After having thus stated my opinion in favor of
the South, I would merely remark that there is One who judgeth all
things,—who weigheth the cause between brother and brother,—and
awardeth the perfect retribution; and whose ultimate decision I, as a
British subject, have only anticipated.
G. A. S.
CHAPTER I
Every reader of Belle Boyd’s narrative will remember an allusion to a
“lovely, fragile-looking girl of nineteen,” who rivaled Belle Boyd in
devotion to the Southern cause, and who, like her, earned the enviable
distinction of being a “rebel spy.”
I am that “fragile” young creature. Although on friendly terms with
the late Miss Boyd, now Mrs. Hardinge, candor compels me to state that
nothing but our common politics prevents me from exposing the ungenerous
spirit she has displayed in this allusion. To be dismissed in a single
paragraph after years of—But I anticipate. To put up with this feeble
and forced acknowledgment of services rendered would be a confession of
a craven spirit, which, thank God, though “fragile” and only “nineteen,”
I do not possess. I may not have the “blood of a Howard” in my veins, as
some people, whom I shall not disgrace myself by naming, claim to have,
but I have yet to learn that the race of McGillup ever yet brooked
slight or insult. I shall not say that attention in certain quarters
seems to have turned _some people’s_ heads; nor that it would have been
more delicate if certain folks had kept quiet on the subject of their
courtship, and the rejection of certain offers, when it is known that
their forward conduct was all that procured them a husband! Thank
Heaven, the South has some daughters who are above such base
considerations! While nothing shall tempt me to reveal the promises to
share equally the fame of certain enterprises, which were made by one
who shall now be nameless, I have deemed it only just to myself to put
my own adventures upon record. If they are not equal to those of another
individual, it is because, though “fragile,” my education has taught me
to have some consideration for the truth. I am done.
CHAPTER II
I was born in Missouri. My dislike for the Northern scum was inherent.
This was shown, at an early age, in the extreme distaste I exhibited for
Webster’s spelling-book,—the work of a well-known Eastern Abolitionist.
I cannot be too grateful for the consideration shown by my chivalrous
father,—a gentleman of the old school,—who resisted to the last an
attempt to introduce Mitchell’s Astronomy and Geography into the public
school of our district. When I state that this same Mitchell became
afterward a hireling helot in the Yankee Army, every intelligent reader
will appreciate the prophetic discrimination of this true son of the
South.
I was eight years old when I struck the first blow for Southern freedom
against the Northern Tyrant. It is hardly necessary to state that
in this instance the oppressor was a pale, overworked New England
“schoolmarm.” The principle for which I was contending, I felt, however,
to be the same. Resenting an affront put upon me, I one day heaved a
rock [Footnote: NOTE, BY G. A. S.—In the Southwest, any stone
larger than a pea is termed “a rock.”] at the head of the Vandal
schoolmistress. I was seized and overpowered. My pen falters as I reach
the climax. English readers will not give credit to this sickening
story,—the civilized world will avert its head,—but I, Mary McGillup,
was publicly SPANKED!
CHAPTER III
But the chaotic vortex of civil war approached, and fell destruction,
often procrastinated, brooded in storm. [Footnote: I make no pretension
to fine writing, but perhaps Mrs. Hardinge can lay over that. Oh, of
course! M. McG.] As the English people may like to know what was really
the origin of the Rebellion, I have no hesitation in giving them the
true and only cause. Slavery had nothing to do with it, although the
violation of the Declaration of Independence, in the disregard by
the North of the Fugitive Slave Law, [Footnote: The Declaration of
Independence grants to each subject “the pursuit of life, liberty, and
happiness.” A fugitive slave may be said to personify “life, liberty,
and happiness.” Hence his pursuit is really legal. This is logic.
G.A.S.] might have provoked a less fiery people than the Southrons. At
the inception of the struggle a large amount of Southern indebtedness
was held by the people of the North. To force payment from the
generous but insolvent debtor—to obtain liquidation from the Southern
planter—was really the soulless and mercenary object of the craven
Northerners. Let the common people of England look to this. Let the
improvident literary hack, the starved impecunious Grub Street debtor,
the newspaper frequenter of sponging-houses, remember this in their
criticisms of the vile and slavish Yankee.
CHAPTER IV
The roasting of an Abolitionist, by a greatly infuriated community, was
my first taste of the horrors of civil war. Heavens! Why will the North
persist in this fratricidal warfare? The expulsion of several Union
refugees, which soon followed, now fairly plunged my beloved State into
the seething vortex.
I was sitting at the piano one afternoon, singing that stirring refrain,
so justly celebrated, but which a craven spirit, unworthy of England,
has excluded from some of her principal restaurants, and was dwelling
with some enthusiasm on the following line:—
“Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!”
when a fragment of that scum, clothed in that detestable blue uniform
which is the symbol of oppression, entered the apartment.
“I have the honor of addressing the celebrated rebel spy, Miss
McGillup?” said the Vandal officer.
In a moment I was perfectly calm. With the exception of slightly
expectorating twice in the face of the minion, I did not betray my
agitation. Haughtily, yet firmly, I replied,—
“I am.”
“You looked as if you might be,” the brute replied, as he turned on his
heel to leave the apartment.
In an instant I threw myself before him. “You shall not leave here
thus,” I shrieked, grappling him with an energy which no one, seeing
my frail figure, would have believed. “I know the reputation of your
hireling crew. I read your dreadful purpose in your eye. Tell me not
that your designs are not sinister. You came here to insult me,—to kiss
me, perhaps. You shan’t,—you naughty man. Go away!”
The blush of conscious degradation rose to the cheek of the Lincoln
hireling as he turned his face away from mine.
In an instant I drew my pistol from my belt, which, in anticipation of
some such outrage, I always carried, and shot him.
CHAPTER V
“Thy forte was less to act than speak, Maryland! Thy politics were
changed each week, Maryland! With Northern Vandals thou wast meek,
With sympathizers thou wouldst shriek, I know thee—oh, ’twas like
thy cheek! Maryland! my Maryland!”
After committing the act described in the preceding chapter, which every
English reader will pardon, I went upstairs, put on a clean pair of
stockings, and, placing a rose in my lustrous black hair, proceeded at
once to the camp of Generals Price and Mosby to put them in possession
of information which would lead to the destruction of a portion of
the Federal Army. During a great part of my flight I was exposed to a
running fire from the Federal pickets of such coarse expressions as,
“Go it, Sally Reb,” “Dust it, my Confederate Beauty,” but I succeeded in
reaching the glorious Southern camp uninjured.
In a week afterwards I was arrested, by a lettre de cachet of Mr.
Stanton, and placed in the Bastile. British readers of my story will
express surprise at these terms, but I assure them that not only these
articles but tumbrils, guillotines, and conciergeries were in active
use among the Federals. If substantiation be required, I refer to the
Charleston “Mercury,” the only reliable organ, next to the New York
“Daily News,” published in the country. At the Bastile I made
the acquaintance of the accomplished and elegant author of “Guy
Livingstone,” [Footnote: The recent conduct of Mr. Livingstone renders
him unworthy of my notice. His disgusting praise of Belle Boyd, and
complete ignoring of my claims, show the artfulness of some females and
puppyism of some men. M. McG.] to whom I presented a curiously carved
thigh-bone of a Union officer, and from whom I received the following
beautiful acknowledgment:—
DEMOISELLE:—Should I ever win hame to my ain countrie, I make mine avow
to enshrine in my reliquaire this elegant bijouterie and offering of La
belle Rebelle. Nay, methinks this fraction of man’s anatomy were some
compensation for the rib lost by the “grand old gardener,” Adam.
CHAPTER VI
Released at last from durance vile, and placed on board of an Erie
canal-boat, on my way to Canada, I for a moment breathed the sweets of
liberty. Perhaps the interval gave me opportunity to indulge in certain
reveries which I had hitherto sternly dismissed. Henry Breckinridge
Folair, a consistent Copperhead, captain of the canal-boat, again and
again pressed that suit I had so often rejected.
It was a lovely moonlight night. We sat on the deck of the gliding
craft. The moonbeam and the lash of the driver fell softly on the
flanks of the off horse, and only the surging of the tow-rope broke the
silence. Folair’s arm clasped my waist. I suffered it to remain. Placing
in my lap a small but not ungrateful roll of checkerberry lozenges, he
took the occasion to repeat softly in my ear the words of a motto he had
just unwrapped—with its graceful covering of the tissue paper—from a
sugar almond. The heart of the wicked little rebel, Mary McGillup, was
won!
The story of Mary McGillup is done. I might have added the journal of
my husband, Henry Breckinridge Folair, but as it refers chiefly to
his freights and a schedule of his passengers, I have been obliged,
reluctantly, to suppress it.
It is due to my friends to say that I have been requested not to
write this book. Expressions have reached my ears, the reverse of
complimentary. I have been told that its publication will probably
insure my banishment for life. Be it so. If the cause for which I
labored have been subserved, I am content.
THE HOODLUM BAND
OR
THE BOY CHIEF, THE INFANT POLITICIAN, AND THE PIRATE PRODIGY
CHAPTER I
It was a quiet New England village. Nowhere in the valley of the
Connecticut the autumn sun shone upon a more peaceful, pastoral,
manufacturing community. The wooden nutmegs were slowly ripening on the
trees, and the white-pine hams for Western consumption were gradually
rounding into form under the deft manipulation of the hardy American
artisan. The honest Connecticut farmer was quietly gathering from
his threshing-floor the shoe-pegs, which, when intermixed with a fair
proportion of oats, offered a pleasing substitute for fodder to the
effete civilizations of Europe. An almost Sabbath-like stillness
prevailed. Doemville was only seven miles from Hartford, and the
surrounding landscape smiled with the conviction of being fully insured.
Few would have thought that this peaceful village was the home of the
three young heroes whose exploits would hereafter—But we anticipate.
Doemville Academy was the principal seat of learning in the county.
Under the grave and gentle administration of the venerable Doctor
Context, it had attained just popularity. Yet the increasing infirmities
of age obliged the doctor to relinquish much of his trust to his
assistants, who, it is needless to say, abused his confidence. Before
long their brutal tyranny and deep-laid malevolence became apparent.
Boys were absolutely forced to study their lessons. The sickening fact
will hardly be believed, but during school-hours they were obliged to
remain in their seats with the appearance, at least, of discipline. It
is stated by good authority that the rolling of croquet-balls across the
floor during recitation was objected to, under the fiendish excuse
of its interfering with their studies. The breaking of windows by
baseballs, and the beating of small scholars with bats, was declared
against. At last, bloated and arrogant with success, the under-teachers
threw aside all disguise, and revealed themselves in their true colors.
A cigar was actually taken out of a day-scholar’s mouth during prayers!
A flask of whiskey was dragged from another’s desk, and then thrown out
of the window. And finally, Profanity, Hazing, Theft, and Lying were
almost discouraged.
Could the youth of America, conscious of their power, and a literature
of their own, tamely submit to this tyranny? Never! We repeat it firmly.
Never! We repeat it to parents and guardians. Never! But the fiendish
tutors, chuckling in their glee, little knew what was passing through
the cold, haughty intellect of Charles Francis Adams Golightly, aged
ten; what curled the lip of Benjamin Franklin Jenkins, aged seven; or
what shone in the bold, blue eyes of Bromley Chitterlings, aged six and
a half, as they sat in the corner of the playground at recess. Their
only other companion and confidant was the negro porter and janitor of
the school, known as “Pirate Jim.”
Fitly, indeed, was he named, as the secrets of his early wild
career—confessed freely to his noble young friends—plainly showed.
A slaver at the age of seventeen, the ringleader of a mutiny on the
African coast at the age of twenty, a privateersman during the last
war with England, the commander of a fire-ship and its sole survivor at
twenty-five, with a wild, intermediate career of unmixed piracy, until
the Rebellion called him to civil service again as a blockade runner,
and peace and a desire for rural repose led him to seek the janitorship
of the Doemville Academy, where no questions were asked and references
not exchanged—he was, indeed, a fit mentor for our daring youth.
Although a man whose days had exceeded the usual space allotted to
humanity, the various episodes of his career footing his age up to
nearly one hundred and fifty-nine years, he scarcely looked it, and was
still hale and vigorous.
“Yes,” continued Pirate Jim critically; “I don’t think he was any bigger
nor you, Master Chitterlings, if as big, when he stood on the fork’stle
of my ship and shot the captain o’ that East Injyman dead. We used to
call him little Weevils, he was so young-like. But, bless your hearts,
boys! he wa’n’t anything to Little Sammy Barlow, ez once crep’ up inter
the captain’s stateroom on a Rooshin frigate, stabbed him to the heart
with a jack-knife, then put on the captain’s uniform and his cocked hat,
took command of the ship, and fout her hisself.”
“Wasn’t the captain’s clothes big for him?” asked B. Franklin Jenkins
anxiously.
The janitor eyed young Jenkins with pained dignity.
“Didn’t I say the Rooshin captain was a small, a very small, man?
Rooshins is small, likewise Greeks.”
A noble enthusiasm beamed in the faces of the youthful heroes.
“Was Barlow as large as me?” asked C. F. Adams Golightly, lifting his
curls from his Jove-like brow.
“Yes; but, then, he hed hed, so to speak, experiences. It was allowed
that he had pizened his schoolmaster afore he went to sea. But it’s dry
talking, boys.”
Golightly drew a flask from his jacket and handed it to the janitor.
It was his father’s best brandy. The heart of the honest old seaman was
touched.
“Bless ye, my own pirate boy!” he said in a voice suffocating with
emotion.
“I’ve got some tobacco,” said the youthful Jenkins, “but it’s fine cut;
I use only that now.”
“I kin buy some plug at the corner grocery,” said Pirate Jim, “only I
left my portmoney at home.”
“Take this watch,” said young Golightly; “’tis my father’s. Since he
became a tyrant and usurper, and forced me to join a corsair’s band,
I’ve begun by dividing the property.”
“This is idle trifling,” said young Chitterlings wildly. “Every moment
is precious. Is this an hour to give to wine and wassail? Ha, we want
action—action! We must strike the blow for freedom to-night—ay, this
very night. The scow is already anchored in the mill-dam, freighted with
provisions for a three months’ voyage. I have a black flag in my pocket.
Why, then, this cowardly delay?”
The two elder youths turned with a slight feeling of awe and shame to
gaze on the glowing cheeks and high, haughty crest of their youngest
comrade—the bright, the beautiful Bromley Chitterlings. Alas! that very
moment of forgetfulness and mutual admiration was fraught with danger. A
thin, dyspeptic, half-starved tutor approached.
“It is time to resume your studies, young gentlemen,” he said, with
fiendish politeness.
They were his last words on earth.
“Down, Tyrant!” screamed Chitterlings.
“Sic him—I mean, sic semper tyrannis!” said the classical Golightly.
A heavy blow on the head from a baseball bat, and the rapid projection
of a baseball against his empty stomach, brought the tutor a limp and
lifeless mass to the ground. Golightly shuddered. Let not my young
readers blame him too rashly. It was his first homicide. “Search his
pockets,” said the practical Jenkins.
They did so, and found nothing hut a Harvard Triennial Catalogue.
“Let us fly,” said Jenkins.
“Forward to the boats!” cried the enthusiastic Chitterlings.
But C. F. Adams Golightly stood gazing thoughtfully at the prostrate
tutor.
“This,” he said calmly, “is the result of a too free government and the
common-school system. What the country needs is reform. I cannot go with
you, boys.”
“Traitor!” screamed the others.
C. F. A. Golightly smiled sadly.
“You know me not. I shall not become a pirate—but a Congressman!”
Jenkins and Chitterlings turned pale.
“I have already organized two caucuses in a baseball club, and bribed
the delegates of another. Nay, turn not away. Let us be friends,
pursuing through various ways one common end. Farewell!” They shook
hands.
“But where is Pirate Jim?” asked Jenkins.
“He left us but for a moment to raise money on the watch to purchase
armament for the scow. Farewell!”
And so the gallant, youthful spirits parted, bright with the sunrise of
hope.
That night a conflagration raged in Doemville. The Doemville Academy,
mysteriously fired, first fell a victim to the devouring element. The
candy-shop and cigar-store, both holding heavy liabilities against the
academy, quickly followed. By the lurid gleams of the flames, a long,
low, sloop-rigged scow, with every mast gone except one, slowly worked
her way out of the mill-dam towards the Sound. The next day three
boys were missing—C. F. Adams Golightly, B. F. Jenkins, and Bromley
Chitterlings. Had they perished in the flames? Who shall say? Enough
that never more under these names did they again appear in the homes of
their ancestors.
Happy, indeed, would it have been for Doemville had the mystery ended
here. But a darker interest and scandal rested upon the peaceful
village. During that awful night the boarding-school of Madame
Brimborion was visited stealthily, and two of the fairest heiresses of
Connecticut—daughters of the president of a savings bank and insurance
director—were the next morning found to have eloped. With them
also disappeared the entire contents of the savings bank, and on the
following day the Flamingo Fire Insurance Company failed.
CHAPTER II
Let my young readers now sail with me to warmer and more hospitable
climes. Off the coast of Patagonia a long, low, black schooner proudly
rides the seas, that break softly upon the vine-clad shores of that
luxuriant land. Who is this that, wrapped in Persian rugs, and dressed
in the most expensive manner, calmly reclines on the quarter-deck of the
schooner, toying lightly ever and anon with the luscious fruits of
the vicinity, held in baskets of solid gold by Nubian slaves? or at
intervals, with daring grace, guides an ebony velocipede over the
polished black walnut decks, and in and out the intricacies of the
rigging? Who is it? well may be asked. What name is it that blanches
with terror the cheeks of the Patagonian navy? Who but the Pirate
Prodigy—the relentless Boy Scourer of Patagonian seas? Voyagers slowly
drifting by the Silurian beach, coasters along the Devonian shore, still
shudder at the name of Bromley Chitterlings—the Boy Avenger, late of
Hartford, Connecticut.
It has been often asked by the idly curious, Why Avenger, and of what?
Let us not seek to disclose the awful secret hidden under that youthful
jacket. Enough that there may have been that of bitterness in his past
life that they “Whose soul would sicken o’er the heaving wave,” or
“whose soul would heave above the sickening wave,” did not understand.
Only one knew him, perhaps too well—a queen of the Amazons taken
prisoner off Terra del Fuego a week previous. She loved the Boy Avenger.
But in vain; his youthful heart seemed obdurate.
“Hear me,” at last he said, when she had for the seventh time wildly
proffered her hand and her kingdom in marriage, “and know once and
forever why I must decline your flattering proposal. I love another.”
With a wild, despairing cry she leaped into the sea, but was instantly
rescued by the Pirate Prodigy. Yet, even in that supreme moment, such
was his coolness, that on his way to the surface he captured a mermaid,
and placing her in charge of his steward, with directions to give her
a stateroom, with hot and cold water, calmly resumed his place by the
Amazon’s side. When the cabin door closed on his faithful servant,
bringing champagne and ices to the interesting stranger, Chitterlings
resumed his narrative with a choking voice—
“When I first fled from the roof of a tyrannical parent I loved the
beautiful and accomplished Eliza J. Sniffen. Her father was president of
the Workingmen’s Savings Bank, and it was perfectly understood that in
the course of time the entire deposits would be his. But, like a vain
fool, I wished to anticipate the future, and in a wild moment persuaded
Miss Sniffen to elope with me; and with the entire cash assets of the
bank, we fled together.” He paused, overcome with emotion. “But fate
decreed it otherwise. In my feverish haste, I had forgotten to place
among the stores of my pirate craft that peculiar kind of chocolate
caramel to which Eliza Jane was most partial. We were obliged to put
into New Rochelle on the second day out, to enable Miss Sniffen to
procure that delicacy at the nearest confectioner’s, and match some
zephyr worsteds at the first fancy shop. Fatal mistake. She went—she
never returned!” In a moment he resumed, in a choking voice, “After
a week’s weary waiting, I was obliged to put to sea again, bearing a
broken heart and the broken bank of her father. I have never seen her
since.”
“And you still love her?” asked the Amazon queen excitedly.
“Ay, forever!”
“Noble youth. Here, take the reward of thy fidelity; for know, Bromley
Chitterlings, that I am Eliza Jane. Wearied with waiting, I embarked on
a Peruvian guano ship—it’s a long story, dear.”
“And altogether too thin,” said the Boy Avenger, fiercely releasing
himself from her encircling arms. “Eliza Jane’s age, a year ago, was
only thirteen, and you are forty, if a day.”
“True,” she returned sadly, “but I have suffered much, and time passes
rapidly, and I’ve grown. You would scarcely believe that this is my own
hair.”
“I know not,” he replied, in gloomy abstraction.
“Forgive my deceit,” she returned. “If you are affianced to another, let
me at least be—a mother to you.”
The Pirate Prodigy started, and tears came to his eyes. The scene was
affecting in the extreme. Several of the oldest seamen—men who had
gone through scenes of suffering with tearless eyes and unblanched
cheeks—now retired to the spirit room to conceal their emotion. A few
went into caucus in the forecastle, and returned with the request that
the Amazonian queen should hereafter be known as the “Queen of the
Pirates’ Isle.”
“Mother!” gasped the Pirate Prodigy.
“My son!” screamed the Amazonian queen.
They embraced. At the same moment a loud flop was heard on the
quarter-deck. It was the forgotten mermaid, who, emerging from her
stateroom, and ascending the companion-way at that moment, had fainted
at the spectacle. The Pirate Prodigy rushed to her side with a bottle of
smelling-salts.
She recovered slowly. “Permit me,” she said, rising with dignity, “to
leave the ship. I am unaccustomed, to such conduct.”
“Hear me—she is my mother!”
“She certainly is old enough to be,” replied the mermaid. “And to
speak of that being her own hair!” she said, as she rearranged with
characteristic grace, a comb, and a small hand-mirror, her own luxuriant
tresses.
“If I couldn’t afford any other clothes, I might wear a switch, too!”
hissed the Amazonian queen. “I suppose you don’t dye it on account of
the salt water? But perhaps you prefer green, dear?”
“A little salt water might improve your own complexion, love.”
“Fishwoman!” screamed the Amazonian queen.
“Bloomerite!” shrieked the mermaid.
In another instant they had seized each other.
“Mutiny! Overboard with them!” cried the Pirate Prodigy, rising to the
occasion, and casting aside all human affection in the peril of the
moment.
A plank was brought and the two women placed upon it.
“After you, dear,” said the mermaid significantly to the Amazonian
queen; “you’re the oldest.”
“Thank you!” said the Amazonian queen, stepping back. “Fish is always
served first.”
Stung by the insult, with a wild scream of rage the mermaid grappled her
in her arms and leaped into the sea.
As the waters closed over them forever, the Pirate Prodigy sprung to his
feet. “Up with the black flag, and bear away for New London,” he shouted
in trumpet-like tones.
“Ha! ha! Once more the Rover is free!”
Indeed it was too true. In that fatal moment he had again loosed himself
from the trammels of human feeling and was once more the Boy Avenger.
CHAPTER III
Again I must ask my young readers to mount my hippogriff and hie with
me to the almost inaccessible heights of the Rocky Mountains. There, for
years, a band of wild and untamable savages, known as the Pigeon Feet,
had resisted the blankets and Bibles of civilization. For years the
trails leading to their camp were marked by the bones of teamsters and
broken wagons, and the trees were decked with the dying scalp-locks of
women and children. The boldest of military leaders hesitated to attack
them in their fortresses, and prudently left the scalping-knives,
rifles, powder, and shot provided by a paternal government for their
welfare lying on the ground a few miles from their encampment, with
the request that they were not to be used until the military had safely
retired. Hitherto, save an occasional incursion into the territory of
the Knock-knees, a rival tribe, they had limited their depredations to
the vicinity.
But lately a baleful change had come over them. Acting under some evil
influence, they now pushed their warfare into the white settlements,
carrying fire and destruction with them. Again and again had the
Government offered them a free pass to Washington and the privilege of
being photographed, but under the same evil guidance they refused. There
was a singular mystery in their mode of aggression. Schoolhouses were
always burned, the schoolmasters taken into captivity, and never again
heard from. A palace car on the Union Pacific Railway, containing an
excursion party of teachers en route to San Francisco, was surrounded,
its inmates captured, and—their vacancies in the school catalogue
never again filled. Even a hoard of educational examiners, proceeding
to Cheyenne, were taken prisoners, and obliged to answer questions they
themselves had proposed, amidst horrible tortures. By degrees these
atrocities were traced to the malign influence of a new chief of
the tribe. As yet little was known of him but through his baleful
appellations, “Young Man who Goes for His Teacher,” and “He Lifts
the Hair of the School-Marm.” He was said to be small and exceedingly
youthful in appearance. Indeed, his earlier appellative, “He Wipes His
Nose on His Sleeve,” was said to have been given to him to indicate his
still boy-like habits.
It was night in the encampment and among the lodges of the Pigeon Toes.
Dusky maidens flitted in and out among the campfires like brown moths,
cooking the toothsome buffalo-hump, frying the fragrant bear’s-meat, and
stewing the esculent bean for the braves. For a few favored ones sput
grasshoppers were reserved as a rare delicacy, although the proud
Spartan soul of their chief scorned all such luxuries.
He was seated alone in his wigwam, attended only by the gentle
Mushymush, fairest of the Pigeon Feet maidens. Nowhere were the
characteristics of her great tribe more plainly shown than in the little
feet that lapped over each other in walking. A single glance at the
chief was sufficient to show the truth of the wild rumors respecting
his youth. He was scarcely twelve, of proud and lofty bearing, and clad
completely in wrappings of various-colored scalloped cloths, which
gave him the appearance of a somewhat extra-sized penwiper. An enormous
eagle’s feather, torn from the wing of a bald eagle who once attempted
to carry him away, completed his attire. It was also the memento of
one of his most superhuman feats of courage. He would undoubtedly have
scalped the eagle but that nature had anticipated him.
“Why is the Great Chief sad?” said Mushymush softly. “Does his soul
still yearn for the blood of the palefaced teachers? Did not the
scalping of two professors of geology in the Yale exploring party
satisfy his warrior’s heart yesterday? Has he forgotten that Gardener
and King are still to follow? Shall his own Mushymush bring him a
botanist to-morrow? Speak, for the silence of my brother lies on my
heart like the snow on the mountain, and checks the flow of my speech.”
Still the proud Boy Chief sat silent. Suddenly he said, “Hiss!” and rose
to his feet. Taking a long rifle from the ground he adjusted its sight.
Exactly seven miles away on the slope of the mountain the figure of a
man was seen walking. The Boy Chief raised the rifle to his unerring eye
and fired. The man fell.
A scout was dispatched to scalp and search the body. He presently
returned.
“Who was the paleface?” eagerly asked the chief.
“A life insurance agent.”
A dark scowl settled on the face of the chief.
“I thought it was a book peddler.”
“Why is my brother’s heart sore against the book peddler?” asked
Mushymush.
“Because,” said the Boy Chief fiercely, “I am again without my regular
dime novel—and I thought he might have one in his pack. Hear me,
Mushymush. The United States mails no longer bring me my ‘Young America’
or my ‘Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly.’ I find it impossible, even with
my fastest scouts, to keep up with the rear of General Howard, and
replenish my literature from the sutler’s wagon. Without a dime novel or
a ‘Young America,’ how am I to keep up this Injin business?”
Mushymush remained in meditation a single moment. Then she looked up
proudly.
“My brother has spoken. It is well. He shall have his dime novel. He
shall know the kind of hairpin his sister Mushymush is.”
And she arose and gamboled lightly as the fawn out of his presence.
In two hours she returned. In one hand she held three small flaxen
scalps, in the other “The Boy Marauder,” complete in one volume, price
ten cents.
“Three palefaced children,” she gasped, “were reading it in the tail-end
of an emigrant wagon. I crept up to them softly. Their parents are still
unaware of the accident,” and she sank helpless at his feet.
“Noble girl!” said the Boy Chief, gazing proudly on her prostrate form;
“and these are the people that a military despotism expects to subdue!”
CHAPTER IV
But the capture of several wagon-loads of commissary whiskey, and
the destruction of two tons of stationery intended for the general
commanding, which interfered with his regular correspondence with the
War Department, at last awakened the United States military authorities
to active exertion. A quantity of troops were massed before the Pigeon
Feet encampment, and an attack was hourly imminent.
“Shine your boots, sir?”
It was the voice of a youth in humble attire, standing before the flap
of the commanding general’s tent.
The general raised his head from his correspondence.
“Ah,” he said, looking down on the humble boy, “I see; I shall write
that the appliances of civilization move steadily forward with the
army. Yes,” he added, “you may shine my military boots. You understand,
however, that to get your pay you must first”—
“Make a requisition on the commissary-general, have it certified to by
the quartermaster, countersigned by the post-adjutant, and submitted by
you to the War Department”—
“And charged as stationery” added the general gently. “You are, I see,
an intelligent and thoughtful boy. I trust you neither use whiskey,
tobacco, nor are ever profane?”
“I promised my sainted mother”—
“Enough! Go on with your blacking; I have to lead the attack on the
Pigeon Feet at eight precisely. It is now half past seven” said the
general, consulting a large kitchen clock that stood in the corner of
his tent.
The little bootblack looked up—the general was absorbed in his
correspondence. The bootblack drew a tin putty-blower from his pocket,
took unerring aim, and nailed in a single shot the minute hand to the
dial. Going on with his blacking, yet stopping ever and anon to glance
over the general’s plan of campaign, spread on the table before him, he
was at last interrupted by the entrance of an officer.
“Everything is ready for the attack, general. It is now eight o’clock”
“Impossible! It is only half past seven.”
“But my watch, and the watches of the staff”—
“Are regulated by my kitchen clock, that has been in my family for
years. Enough! it is only half past seven.”
The officer retired; the bootblack had finished one boot. Another
officer appeared.
“Instead of attacking the enemy, general, we are attacked ourselves. Our
pickets are already driven in.”
“Military pickets should not differ from other pickets” said the
bootblack modestly. “To stand firmly they should be well driven in.”
“Ha! there is something in that,” said the general thoughtfully. “But
who are you, who speak thus?”
Rising to his full height, the bootblack threw off his outer rags, and
revealed the figure of the Boy Chief of the Pigeon Feet.
“Treason!” shrieked the general. “Order an advance along the whole
line.”
But in vain. The next moment he fell beneath the tomahawk of the Boy
Chief, and within the next quarter of an hour the United States army was
dispersed. Thus ended the battle of Bootblack Creek.
CHAPTER V
And yet the Boy Chief was not entirely happy. Indeed, at times he
seriously thought of accepting the invitation extended by the Great
Chief at Washington immediately after the massacre of his soldiers, and
once more revisiting the haunts of civilization, His soul sickened
in feverish inactivity; schoolmasters palled on his taste; he had
introduced baseball, blind hooky, marbles, and peg-top among his Indian
subjects, but only with indifferent success. The squaws persisted in
boring holes through the china alleys and wearing them as necklaces; his
warriors stuck pipes in their baseball bats, and made war-clubs of them.
He could not but feel, too, that the gentle Mushymush, although devoted
to her paleface brother, was deficient in culinary education. Her
mince-pies were abominable; her jam far inferior to that made by his
Aunt Sally of Doemville. Only an unexpected incident kept him equally
from the extreme of listless sybaritic indulgence or of morbid cynicism.
Indeed, at the age of twelve, he already had become disgusted with
existence.
He had returned to his wigwam after an exhausting buffalo hunt, in which
he had slain two hundred and seventy-five buffaloes with his own hand,
not counting the individual buffalo on which he had leaped, so as to
join the herd, and which he afterward led into the camp a captive and a
present to the lovely Mushymush. He had scalped two express riders, and
a correspondent of the “New York Herald;” had despoiled the Overland
Mail stage of a quantity of vouchers which enabled him to draw double
rations from the Government, and was reclining on a bearskin, smoking
and thinking of the vanity of human endeavor, when a scout entered,
saying that a paleface youth had demanded access to his person.
“Is he a commissioner? If so, say that the red man is rapidly passing
to the happy hunting-grounds of his fathers, and now desires only
peace, blankets, and ammunition; obtain the latter, and then scalp the
commissioner.”
“But it is only a youth who asks an interview.”
“Does he look like an insurance agent? If so, say that I have already
policies in three Hartford companies. Meanwhile prepare the stake, and
see that the squaws are ready with their implements of torture.”
The youth was admitted; he was evidently only half the age of the Boy
Chief. As he entered the wigwam, and stood revealed to his host, they
both started. In another moment they were locked in each other’s arms.
“Jenky, old boy!”
“Bromley, old fel!”
B. F. Jenkins, for such was the name of the Boy Chief, was the first to
recover his calmness. Turning to his warriors he said proudly,—
“Let my children retire while I speak to the agent of our Great Father
in Washington. Hereafter no latch-keys will be provided for the wigwams
of the warriors. The practice of late hours must be discouraged.”
“How!” said the warriors, and instantly retired.
“Whisper!” said Jenkins, drawing his friend aside. “I am known here only
as the Boy Chief of the Pigeon Toes.”
“And I,” said Bromley Chitterlings proudly, “am known everywhere as the
Pirate Prodigy—the Boy Avenger of the Patagonian coast.”
“But how came you here?”
“Listen! My pirate brig, the Lively Mermaid, now lies at Meiggs’s wharf
in San Francisco, disguised as a Mendocino lumber vessel. My pirate crew
accompanied me here in a palace car from San Francisco.”
“It must have been expensive,” said the prudent Jenkins. “It was,
but they defrayed it by a collection from the other passengers, you
understand. The papers will be full of it to-morrow. Do you take in the
‘New York Sun’?”
“No; I dislike their Indian policy. But why are you here?”
“Hear me, Jenk! ’T is a long and a sad story. The lovely Eliza J.
Sniffen, who fled with me from Doemville, was seized by her parents and
torn from my arms at New Rochelle. Reduced to poverty by the breaking of
the savings bank of which he was president—a failure to which I
largely contributed, and the profits of which I enjoyed—I have
since ascertained that Eliza Jane Sniffen was forced to become a
schoolmistress, departed to take charge of a seminary in Colorado, and
since then has never been heard from.”
Why did the Boy Chief turn pale, and clutch at the tent-pole for
support? Why, indeed?
“Eliza Jane Sniffen,” gasped Jenkins,—“aged fourteen, red-haired, with
a slight tendency to strabismus?”
“The same.”
“Heaven help me! She died by my mandate!”
“Traitor!” shrieked Chitterlings, rushing at Jenkins with a drawn
poniard.
But a figure interposed. The slight girlish form of Mushymush with
outstretched hands stood between the exasperated Pirate Prodigy and the
Boy Chief.
“Forbear,” she said sternly to Chitterlings; “you know not what you do.”
The two youths paused.
“Hear me,” she said rapidly. “When captured in a confectioner’s shop at
New Rochelle, E. J. Sniffen was taken back to poverty. She resolved
to become a schoolmistress. Hearing of an opening in the West, she
proceeded to Colorado to take exclusive charge of the pensionnat of
Mdme. Choflie, late of Paris. On the way thither she was captured by the
emissaries of the Boy Chief”—
“In consummation of a fatal vow I made, never to spare educational
instructors,” interrupted Jenkins.
“But in her captivity,” continued Mushymush, “she managed to stain her
face with poke-berry juice, and mingling with the Indian maidens was
enabled to pass for one of the tribe. Once undetected, she boldly
ingratiated herself with the Boy Chief,—how honestly and devotedly he
best can tell,—for I, Mushymush, the little sister of the Boy Chief, am
Eliza Jane Sniffen.”
The Pirate Prodigy clasped her in his arms. The Boy Chief, raising his
hand, ejaculated,—
“Bless you, my children!”
“There is but one thing wanting to complete this reunion,” said
Chitterlings, after a pause, but the hurried entrance of a scout stopped
his utterance.
“A commissioner from the Great Father in Washington.”
“Scalp him!” shrieked the Boy Chief; “this is no time for diplomatic
trifling.”
“We have; but he still insists upon seeing you, and has sent in his
card.”
The Boy Chief took it, and read aloud, in agonized accents,—
“Charles Francis Adams Golightly, late page in United States Senate, and
acting commissioner of United States.”
In another moment, Golightly, pale, bleeding, and, as it were,
prematurely bald, but still cold and intellectual, entered the wigwam.
They fell upon his neck and begged his forgiveness.
“Don’t mention it,” he said quietly; “these things must and will happen
under our present system of government. My story is brief. Obtaining
political influence through caucuses, I became at last page in the
Senate. Through the exertions of political friends, I was appointed
clerk to the commissioner whose functions I now represent. Knowing
through political spies in your own camp who you were, I acted upon the
physical fears of the commissioner, who was an ex-clergyman, and easily
induced him to deputize me to consult with you. In doing so, I have lost
my scalp, but as the hirsute signs of juvenility have worked against my
political progress, I do not regret it. As a partially bald young man I
shall have more power. The terms that I have to offer are simply this:
you can do everything you want, go anywhere you choose, if you will only
leave this place. I have a hundred-thousand-dollar draft on the United
States Treasury in my pocket at your immediate disposal.”
“But what’s to become of me?” asked Chitterlings.
“Your case has already been under advisement. The Secretary of State,
who is an intelligent man, has determined to recognize you as _de
jure_ and _de facto_ the only loyal representative of the Patagonian
Government. You may safely proceed to Washington as its envoy
extraordinary. I dine with the secretary next week.”
“And yourself, old fellow?”
“I only wish that twenty years from now you will recognize by your
influence and votes the rights of C. F. A. Golightly to the presidency.”
And here ends our story. Trusting that my dear young friends may take
whatever example or moral their respective parents and guardians may
deem fittest from these pages, I hope in future years to portray further
the career of those three young heroes I have already introduced in the
springtime of life to their charitable consideration.
* * * * *
EARLIER SKETCHES
* * * * *
M’LISS
AN IDYL OF RED MOUNTAIN
[Pagenote: There are two forms of this tale. The earlier one is that
printed originally in _The Golden Era_ and afterward and until this
time included in Mr. Harte’s collected writings. It is comprised in four
chapters and occupies about thirty pages. When the present edition was
under consideration, Mr. Harte called his publishers’ attention to the
fact that the editor of the same paper proposed to him some time later
to continue it as a serial. In order to do this, he found himself
obliged to make some changes in the earlier incidents. Accordingly he
republished the story in its first form, but with some interpolations
and alterations, and then proceeded with other chapters, making ten
in all, “concluding it,” he says, “rather abruptly when I found it was
inartistically prolonged.” This was in 1863. But even thus the story was
not to be let alone. Ten years later, in 1873, another writer took the
tale up at the end of the tenth chapter, added fifty more, and issued
the whole in _The Golden Era_. When the continuation had been running
some time, Mr. Harte discovered the fraud, and inserted a card in the
same paper, advising the public that he had nothing whatever to do with
this further amplification of his story. Afterward, when the whole was
published in book form, he instituted legal proceedings and suppressed
the sale.
The present form is Mr. Harte’s revision and extension of his first, and
is reprinted from _The Golden Era_ with his consent. EDITOR.]
CHAPTER I
SMITH’S POCKET
Just where the Sierra Nevada begins to subside in gentle undulations,
and the rivers grow less rapid and yellow, on the side of a great red
mountain stands Smith’s Pocket. Seen from the red road at sunset, in the
red light and the red dust, its white houses look like the outcroppings
of quartz on the mountain side. The red stage, topped with red-shirted
passengers, is lost to view half a dozen times in the tortuous descent,
turning up unexpectedly in out-of-the-way places, and vanishing
altogether within a hundred yards of the town. It is probably owing to
this sudden twist in the road that the advent of a stranger at Smith’s
Pocket is usually attended with a peculiar circumstance. Dismounting
from the vehicle at the stage office the too-confident traveler is apt
to walk straight out of town under the impression that it lies in quite
another direction. It is related that one of the tunnel men, two miles
from town, met one of these self-reliant passengers with a carpetbag,
umbrella, “Harper’s Magazine,” and other evidences of “civilization and
refinement,” plodding along over the road he had just ridden, vainly
endeavoring to find the settlement of Smith’s Pocket.
Had he been an observant traveler he might have found some compensation
for his disappointment in the weird aspect of that vicinity. There
were huge fissures on the hillside, and displacements of the red soil,
resembling more the chaos of some primary elementary upheaval than the
work of man; while, halfway down, a long flume straddled its narrow body
and disproportionate legs over the chasm, like an enormous fossil of
some forgotten antediluvian. At every step smaller ditches crossed the
road, hiding in their shallow depths unlovely streams that crept away to
a clandestine union with the great yellow torrent below. Here and there
the ruins of some cabin, with the chimney alone left intact and the
hearthstone open to the skies, gave such a flat contradiction to the
poetic delusion of Lares and Penates that the heart of the traveler must
have collapsed as he gazed, and even the bar-room of the National Hotel
have afterward seemed festive, and invested with preternatural comfort
and domesticity.
The settlement of Smith’s Pocket owed its origin to the finding of a
“pocket” on its site by a veritable Smith. Five thousand dollars were
taken out of it in one half-hour by Smith. Three thousand dollars were
expended by Smith and others in erecting a flume and in tunneling. And
then Smith’s Pocket was found to be only a pocket, and subject like
other pockets to depletion. Although Smith pierced the bowels of the
great red mountain, that five thousand dollars was the first and the
last return of his labor. The mountain grew reticent of its golden
secrets, and the flume steadily ebbed away the remainder of Smith’s
fortune. Then Smith went into quartz mining. Then into quartz milling.
Then into hydraulics and ditching, and then by easy degrees into saloon
keeping. Presently it was whispered that Smith was drinking a good deal;
then it was known that Smith was an habitual drunkard; and then people
began to think, as they are apt to, that he had never been anything
else. But the settlement of Smith’s Pocket, like that of most
discoveries, was happily not dependent on the fortune of its pioneer,
and other parties projected tunnels and found pockets. So Smith’s Pocket
became a settlement with its two fancy stores, its two hotels, its one
express office, and its two first families. Occasionally its one long
straggling street was overawed by the assumption of the latest San
Francisco fashions, imported per express, exclusively to the first
families; making outraged nature, in the ragged outline of her furrowed
surface, look still more homely, and putting personal insult on that
greater portion of the population to whom the Sabbath, with a change of
linen, brought merely the necessity of cleanliness without the luxury of
adornment. Then there was a Methodist church, and hard by a monte bank,
and a little beyond, on the mountain side, a graveyard; and then a
little schoolhouse.
“The master,” as he was known to his little flock, sat alone one night
in the schoolhouse, with some open copybooks before him, carefully
making those bold and full characters which are supposed to combine the
extremes of chirographical and moral excellence, and had got as far as
“Riches are deceitful,” and was elaborating the noun with an insincerity
of flourish that was quite in the spirit of his text, when he heard a
gentle tapping. The woodpeckers had been busy about the roof, during
the day, and the noise did not disturb his work. But the opening of the
door, and the tapping continuing from the inside, caused him to look
up. He was slightly startled by the figure of a young girl, dirty,
and shabbily clad. Still her great black eyes, her coarse uncombed
lusterless black hair falling over her sunburned face, her red arms
and feet streaked with the red soil, were all familiar to him. It was
Melissa Smith—Smith’s motherless child.
“What can she want here?” thought the master. Everybody knew “M’liss,”
as she was called, throughout the length and height of Red Mountain.
Everybody knew her as an incorrigible girl. Her fierce, ungovernable
disposition, her mad freaks and lawless character, were in their way as
proverbial as the story of her father’s weakness, and as philosophically
accepted by the townsfolk. She wrangled with and fought the schoolboys
with keener invective and quite as powerful arm. She followed the trails
with woodman’s craft, and the master had met her before, miles away,
shoeless, stockingless, and bareheaded on the mountain road. The miners’
camps along the stream supplied her with subsistence during these
voluntary pilgrimages, in freely offered alms. Not but that a larger
protection had been previously extended to M’liss. The Rev. Joshua
McSnagley, “stated” preacher, had placed her in the hotel as servant, by
way of preliminary refinement, and had introduced her to his scholars
at Sunday-school. But she threw plates occasionally at the landlord, and
quickly retorted to the cheap witticisms of the guests, and created
in the Sabbath-school a sensation that was so inimical to the orthodox
dullness and placidity of that institution, that, with a decent
regard for the starched frocks and unblemished morals of the two
pink-and-white-faced children of the first families, the reverend
gentleman had her ignominiously expelled. Such were the antecedents and
such the character of M’liss, as she stood before the master. It was
shown in the ragged dress, the unkempt hair and bleeding feet, and asked
his pity. It flashed from her black fearless eyes, and commanded his
respect.
“I come here to-night,” she said rapidly and boldly, keeping her hard
glance on his, “because I knew you was alone. I wouldn’t come here when
them gals was here. I hate ’em and they hates me. That’s why. You keep
school,—don’t you? I want to be teached!”
If to the shabbiness of her apparel and uncomeliness of her tangled hair
and dirty face she had added the humility of tears the master would have
extended to her the usual moiety of pity, and nothing more. But with the
natural though illogical instincts of his species, her boldness
awakened in him something of that respect which all original natures pay
unconsciously to one another in any grade. And he gazed at her the more
fixedly as she went on still rapidly, her hand on the door-latch and her
eyes on his.
“My name is M’liss—M’liss Smith! You can bet your life on that. My
father’s Old Smith—Old Bummer Smith—that’s what’s the matter with him.
M’liss Smith—and I’m comin’ to school!”
“Well?” said the master.
Accustomed to be thwarted and opposed, often wantonly and cruelly, for
no other purpose than to excite the violent impulses of her nature, the
master’s phlegm evidently took her by surprise. She stopped. She began
to twist a lock of her hair between her fingers; and the rigid line
of upper lip, drawn over the wicked little teeth, relaxed and quivered
slightly. Then her eyes dropped, and something like a blush struggled up
to her cheek, and tried to assert itself through the splashes of redder
soil and the sunburn of years. Suddenly she threw herself forward,
calling on God to strike her dead, and fell quite weak and helpless,
with her face on the master’s desk, crying and sobbing as if her heart
would break.
The master lifted her gently, and waited for the paroxysm to pass. When,
with face still averted, she was repeating between her sobs the mea
culpa of childish penitence—that “she’d be good, she didn’t mean to,”
etc., it came to him to ask her why she had left Sabbath-school.
Why had she left Sabbath-school? Why? Oh, yes. What did he (McSnagley)
want to tell her she was wicked for? What did he tell her that God hated
her for? If God hated her, what did she want to go to Sabbath school
for? _She_ didn’t want to be beholden to anybody who hated her.
Had she told McSnagley this?
Yes, she had.
The master laughed. It was a hearty laugh, and echoed so oddly in the
little schoolhouse, and seemed so inconsistent and discordant with the
sighing of the pines without, that he shortly corrected himself with
a sigh. The sigh was quite as sincere in its way, however, and after a
moment of serious silence he asked about her father.
Her father. What father? Whose father? What had he ever done for her?
Why did the girls hate her? Come, now! What made the folks say, “Old
Bummer Smith’s M’liss” when she passed? Yes; oh, yes. She wished he was
dead—she was dead—everybody was dead; and her sobs broke forth anew.