Produced by Donald Lainson
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS
By Bret Harte
CONTENTS
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS
HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR
THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS
THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR
MR. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL
THE ROMANCE OR MADRONO HOLLOW
THE POET OF SIERRA FLAT
THE CHRISTMAS GIFT THAT CAME TO RUPERT
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS.
PART I--WEST.
The sun was rising in the foot-hills. But for an hour the black mass
of Sierra eastward of Angel's had been outlined with fire, and the
conventional morning had come two hours before with the down coach from
Placerville. The dry, cold, dewless California night still lingered
in the long canyons and folded skirts of Table Mountain. Even on the
mountain road the air was still sharp, and that urgent necessity for
something to keep out the chill, which sent the barkeeper sleepily among
his bottles and wineglasses at the station, obtained all along the road.
Perhaps it might be said that the first stir of life was in the
bar-rooms. A few birds twittered in the sycamores at the roadside, but
long before that glasses had clicked and bottles gurgled in the saloon
of the Mansion House. This was still lit by a dissipated-looking
hanging-lamp, which was evidently the worse for having been up all
night, and bore a singular resemblance to a faded reveller of Angel's,
who even then sputtered and flickered in HIS socket in an arm-chair
below it,--a resemblance so plain that when the first level sunbeam
pierced the window-pane, the barkeeper, moved by a sentiment of
consistency and compassion, put them both out together.
Then the sun came up haughtily. When it had passed the eastern ridge it
began, after its habit, to lord it over Angel's, sending the thermometer
up twenty degrees in as many minutes, driving the mules to the sparse
shade of corrals and fences, making the red dust incandescent, and
renewing its old imperious aggression on the spiked bosses of the convex
shield of pines that defended Table Mountain. Thither by nine o'clock
all coolness had retreated, and the “outsides” of the up stage plunged
their hot faces in its aromatic shadows as in water.
It was the custom of the driver of the Wingdam coach to whip up his
horses and enter Angel's at that remarkable pace which the woodcuts in
the hotel bar-room represented to credulous humanity as the usual rate
of speed of that conveyance. At such times the habitual expression of
disdainful reticence and lazy official severity which he wore on the box
became intensified as the loungers gathered about the vehicle, and only
the boldest ventured to address him. It was the Hon. Judge Beeswinger,
Member of Assembly, who to-day presumed, perhaps rashly, on the strength
of his official position.
“Any political news from below, Bill?” he asked, as the latter slowly
descended from his lofty perch, without, however, any perceptible coming
down of mien or manner.
“Not much,” said Bill, with deliberate gravity. “The President o' the
United States hezn't bin hisself sens you refoosed that seat in the
Cabinet. The ginral feelin' in perlitical circles is one o' regret.”
Irony, even of this outrageous quality, was too common in Angel's to
excite either a smile or a frown. Bill slowly entered the bar-room
during a dry, dead silence, in which only a faint spirit of emulation
survived.
“Ye didn't bring up that agint o' Rothschild's this trip?” asked the
barkeeper, slowly, by way of vague contribution to the prevailing tone
of conversation.
“No,” responded Bill, with thoughtful exactitude. “He said he couldn't
look inter that claim o' Johnson's without first consultin' the Bank o'
England.”
The Mr. Johnson here alluded to being present as the faded reveller
the barkeeper had lately put out, and as the alleged claim notoriously
possessed no attractions whatever to capitalists, expectation naturally
looked to him for some response to this evident challenge. He did so
by simply stating that he would “take sugar” in his, and by walking
unsteadily toward the bar, as if accepting a festive invitation. To the
credit of Bill be it recorded that he did not attempt to correct the
mistake, but gravely touched glasses with him, and after saying “Here's
another nail in your coffin,”--a cheerful sentiment, to which “And the
hair all off your head,” was playfully added by the others,--he threw
off his liquor with a single dexterous movement of head and elbow, and
stood refreshed.
“Hello, old major!” said Bill, suddenly setting down his glass. “Are YOU
there?”
It was a boy, who, becoming bashfully conscious that this epithet was
addressed to him, retreated sideways to the doorway, where he stood
beating his hat against the door-post with an assumption of indifference
that his downcast but mirthful dark eyes and reddening cheek scarcely
bore out. Perhaps it was owing to his size, perhaps it was to a certain
cherubic outline of face and figure, perhaps to a peculiar trustfulness
of expression, that he did not look half his age, which was really
fourteen.
Everybody in Angel's knew the boy. Either under the venerable title
bestowed by Bill, or as “Tom Islington,” after his adopted father, his
was a familiar presence in the settlement, and the theme of much local
criticism and comment. His waywardness, indolence, and unaccountable
amiability--a quality at once suspicious and gratuitous in a pioneer
community like Angel's--had often been the subject of fierce discussion.
A large and reputable majority believed him destined for the gallows; a
minority not quite so reputable enjoyed his presence without troubling
themselves much about his future; to one or two the evil predictions of
the majority possessed neither novelty nor terror.
“Anything for me, Bill?” asked the boy, half mechanically, with the air
of repeating some jocular formulary perfectly understood by Bill.
“Anythin' for you!” echoed Bill, with an overacted severity equally well
understood by Tommy,--“anythin' for you? No! And it's my opinion there
won't be anythin' for you ez long ez you hang around bar-rooms and spend
your valooable time with loafers and bummers. Git!”
The reproof was accompanied by a suitable exaggeration of gesture
(Bill had seized a decanter) before which the boy retreated still
good-humoredly. Bill followed him to the door. “Dern my skin, if he
hezn't gone off with that bummer Johnson,” he added, as he looked down
the road.
“What's he expectin', Bill?” asked the barkeeper.
“A letter from his aunt. Reckon he'll hev to take it out in expectin'.
Likely they're glad to get shut o' him.”
“He's leadin' a shiftless, idle life here,” interposed the Member of
Assembly.
“Well,” said Bill, who never allowed any one but himself to abuse
his protege, “seein' he ain't expectin' no offis from the hands of
an enlightened constitooency, it IS rayther a shiftless life.” After
delivering this Parthian arrow with a gratuitous twanging of the bow to
indicate its offensive personality, Bill winked at the barkeeper, slowly
resumed a pair of immense, bulgy buckskin gloves, which gave his fingers
the appearance of being painfully sore and bandaged, strode to the door
without looking at anybody, called out, “All aboard,” with a perfunctory
air of supreme indifference whether the invitation was heeded, remounted
his box, and drove stolidly away.
Perhaps it was well that he did so, for the conversation at once assumed
a disrespectful attitude toward Tom and his relatives. It was more than
intimated that Tom's alleged aunt was none other than Tom's real mother,
while it was also asserted that Tom's alleged uncle did not himself
participate in this intimate relationship to the boy to an extent which
the fastidious taste of Angel's deemed moral and necessary. Popular
opinion also believed that Islington, the adopted father, who received
a certain stipend ostensibly for the boy's support, retained it as
a reward for his reticence regarding these facts. “He ain't ruinin'
hisself by wastin' it on Tom,” said the barkeeper, who possibly
possessed positive knowledge of much of Islington's disbursements. But
at this point exhausted nature languished among some of the debaters,
and he turned from the frivolity of conversation to his severer
professional duties.
It was also well that Bill's momentary attitude of didactic propriety
was not further excited by the subsequent conduct of his protege. For
by this time Tom, half supporting the unstable Johnson, who developed
a tendency to occasionally dash across the glaring road, but checked
himself mid way each time, reached the corral which adjoined the Mansion
House. At its farther extremity was a pump and horse-trough. Here,
without a word being spoken, but evidently in obedience to some habitual
custom, Tom led his companion. With the boy's assistance, Johnson
removed his coat and neckcloth, turned back the collar of his shirt, and
gravely placed his head beneath the pump-spout. With equal gravity and
deliberation, Tom took his place at the handle. For a few moments
only the splashing of water and regular strokes of the pump broke the
solemnly ludicrous silence. Then there was a pause in which Johnson put
his hands to his dripping head, felt of it critically as if it belonged
to somebody else, and raised his eyes to his companion. “That ought
to fetch IT,” said Tom, in answer to the look. “Ef it don't,” replied
Johnson, doggedly, with an air of relieving himself of all further
responsibility in the matter, “it's got to, thet's all!”
If “it” referred to some change in the physiognomy of Johnson, “it” had
probably been “fetched” by the process just indicated. The head that
went under the pump was large, and clothed with bushy, uncertain-colored
hair; the face was flushed, puffy, and expressionless, the eyes injected
and full. The head that came out from under the pump was of smaller size
and different shape, the hair straight, dark, and sleek, the face
pale and hollow-cheeked, the eyes bright and restless. In the haggard,
nervous ascetic that rose from the horse-trough there was very little
trace of the Bacchus that had bowed there a moment before. Familiar
as Tom must have been with the spectacle, he could not help looking
inquiringly at the trough, as if expecting to see some traces of the
previous Johnson in its shallow depths.
A narrow strip of willow, alder, and buckeye--a mere dusty, ravelled
fringe of the green mantle that swept the high shoulders of Table
Mountain--lapped the edge of the corral. The silent pair were quick to
avail themselves of even its scant shelter from the overpowering sun.
They had not proceeded far, before Johnson, who was walking quite
rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself up, and turned to his
companion with an interrogative “Eh?”
“I didn't speak,” said Tommy, quietly.
“Who said you spoke?” said Johnson, with a quick look of cunning. “In
course you didn't speak, and I didn't speak, neither. Nobody spoke. Wot
makes you think you spoke?” he continued, peering curiously into Tommy's
eyes.
The smile which habitually shone there quickly vanished as the boy
stepped quietly to his companion's side, and took his arm without a
word.
“In course you didn't speak, Tommy,” said Johnson, deprecatingly. “You
ain't a boy to go for to play an ole soaker like me. That's wot I like
you for. Thet's wot I seed in you from the first. I sez, 'Thet 'ere boy
ain't goin' to play you, Johnson! You can go your whole pile on him,
when you can't trust even a bar-keep.' Thet's wot I said. Eh?”
This time Tommy prudently took no notice of the interrogation, and
Johnson went on: “Ef I was to ask you another question, you wouldn't go
to play me neither,--would you, Tommy?”
“No,” said the boy.
“Ef I was to ask you,” continued Johnson, without heeding the reply, but
with a growing anxiety of eye and a nervous twitching of his lips,--“ef
I was to ask you, fur instance, ef that was a jackass rabbit thet jest
passed,--eh?--you'd say it was or was not, ez the case may be. You
wouldn't play the ole man on thet?”
“No,” said Tommy, quietly, “it WAS a jackass rabbit.”
“Ef I was to ask you,” continued Johnson, “ef it wore, say, fur
instance, a green hat with yaller ribbons, you wouldn't play me, and say
it did, onless,”--he added, with intensified cunning,--“onless it DID?”
“No,” said Tommy, “of course I wouldn't; but then, you see, IT DID.”
“It did?”
“It did!” repeated Tommy, stoutly; “a green hat with yellow
ribbons--and--and--a red rosette.”
“I didn't get to see the ros-ette,” said Johnson, with slow and
conscientious deliberation, yet with an evident sense of relief; “but
that ain't sayin' it warn't there, you know. Eh?”
Tommy glanced quietly at his companion. There were great beads of
perspiration on his ashen-gray forehead and on the ends of his lank
hair; the hand which twitched spasmodically in his was cold and clammy,
the other, which was free, had a vague, purposeless, jerky activity, as
if attached to some deranged mechanism. Without any apparent concern in
these phenomena, Tommy halted, and, seating himself on a log, motioned
his companion to a place beside him. Johnson obeyed without a word.
Slight as was the act, perhaps no other incident of their singular
companionship indicated as completely the dominance of this careless,
half-effeminate, but self-possessed boy over this doggedly self-willed,
abnormally excited man.
“It ain't the square thing,” said Johnson, after a pause, with a laugh
that was neither mirthful nor musical, and frightened away a lizard that
had been regarding the pair with breathless suspense,--“it ain't the
square thing for jackass rabbits to wear hats, Tommy,--is it, eh?”
“Well,” said Tommy, with unmoved composure, “sometimes they do and
sometimes they don't. Animals are mighty queer.” And here Tommy went
off in an animated, but, I regret to say, utterly untruthful and
untrustworthy account of the habits of California fauna, until he was
interrupted by Johnson.
“And snakes, eh, Tommy?” said the man, with an abstracted air, gazing
intently on the ground before him.
“And snakes,” said Tommy; “but they don't bite, at least not that kind
you see. There!--don't move, Uncle Ben, don't move; they're gone now.
And it's about time you took your dose.”
Johnson had hurriedly risen as if to leap upon the log, but Tommy had
as quickly caught his arm with one hand while he drew a bottle from his
pocket with the other. Johnson paused, and eyed the bottle. “Ef you say
so, my boy,” he faltered, as his fingers closed nervously around it; “say
'when,' then.” He raised the bottle to his lips and took a long draught,
the boy regarding him critically. “When,” said Tommy, suddenly. Johnson
started, flushed, and returned the bottle quickly. But the color that
had risen to his cheek stayed there, his eye grew less restless, and
as they moved away again, the hand that rested on Tommy's shoulder was
steadier.
Their way lay along the flank of Table Mountain,--a wandering trail
through a tangled solitude that might have seemed virgin and unbroken
but for a few oyster-cans, yeast-powder tins, and empty bottles that had
been apparently stranded by the “first low wash” of pioneer waves.
On the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a few tufts of gray hair
caught from a passing grizzly, but in strange juxtaposition at its foot
lay an empty bottle of incomparable bitters,--the chef-d'oeuvre of a
hygienic civilization, and blazoned with the arms of an all-healing
republic. The head of a rattlesnake peered from a case that had
contained tobacco, which was still brightly placarded with the
high-colored effigy of a popular danseuse. And a little beyond this the
soil was broken and fissured, there was a confused mass of roughly hewn
timber, a straggling line of sluicing, a heap of gravel and dirt, a rude
cabin, and the claim of Johnson.
Except for the rudest purposes of shelter from rain and cold, the cabin
possessed but little advantage over the simple savagery of surrounding
nature. It had all the practical directness of the habitation of some
animal, without its comfort or picturesque quality; the very birds that
haunted it for food must have felt their own superiority as architects.
It was inconceivably dirty, even with its scant capacity for accretion;
it was singularly stale, even in its newness and freshness of material.
Unspeakably dreary as it was in shadow, the sunlight visited it in
a blind, aching, purposeless way, as if despairing of mellowing its
outlines or of even tanning it into color.
The claim worked by Johnson in his intervals of sobriety was represented
by half a dozen rude openings in the mountain-side, with the heaped-up
debris of rock and gravel before the mouth of each. They gave very
little evidence of engineering skill or constructive purpose, or indeed
showed anything but the vague, successively abandoned essays of their
projector. To-day they served another purpose, for as the sun had heated
the little cabin almost to the point of combustion, curling up the long
dry shingles, and starting aromatic tears from the green pine beams,
Tommy led Johnson into one of the larger openings, and with a sense of
satisfaction threw himself panting upon its rocky floor. Here and there
the grateful dampness was condensed in quiet pools of water, or in
a monotonous and soothing drip from the rocks above. Without lay the
staring sunlight,--colorless, clarified, intense.
For a few moments they lay resting on their elbows in blissful
contemplation of the heat they had escaped. “Wot do you say,” said
Johnson, slowly, without looking at his companion, but abstractly
addressing himself to the landscape beyond,--“wot do you say to two
straight games fur one thousand dollars?”
“Make it five thousand,” replied Tommy, reflectively, also to the
landscape, “and I'm in.”
“Wot do I owe you now?” said Johnson, after a lengthened silence.
“One hundred and seventy-five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars,”
replied Tommy, with business-like gravity.
“Well,” said Johnson, after a deliberation commensurate with the
magnitude of the transaction, “ef you win, call it a hundred and eighty
thousand, round. War's the keerds?”
They were in an old tin box in a crevice of a rock above his head. They
were greasy and worn with service. Johnson dealt, albeit his right hand
was still uncertain,--hovering, after dropping the cards, aimlessly
about Tommy, and being only recalled by a strong nervous effort. Yet,
notwithstanding this incapacity for even honest manipulation, Mr.
Johnson covertly turned a knave from the bottom of the pack with such
shameless inefficiency and gratuitous unskilfulness, that even Tommy was
obliged to cough and look elsewhere to hide his embarrassment. Possibly
for this reason the young gentleman was himself constrained, by way of
correction, to add a valuable card to his own hand, over and above the
number he legitimately held.
Nevertheless, the game was unexciting, and dragged listlessly. Johnson
won. He recorded the fact and the amount with a stub of pencil and
shaking fingers in wandering hieroglyphics all over a pocket diary.
Then there was a long pause, when Johnson slowly drew something from his
pocket, and held it up before his companion. It was apparently a dull
red stone.
“Ef,” said Johnson, slowly, with his old look of simple cunning,--“ef
you happened to pick up sich a rock ez that, Tommy, what might you say
it was?”
“Don't know,” said Tommy.
“Mightn't you say,” continued Johnson, cautiously, “that it was gold, or
silver?”
“Neither,” said Tommy, promptly.
“Mightn't you say it was quicksilver? Mightn't you say that ef thar was
a friend o' yourn ez knew war to go and turn out ten ton of it a day,
and every ton worth two thousand dollars, that he had a soft thing, a
very soft thing,--allowin', Tommy, that you used sich language, which
you don't?”
“But,” said the boy, coming to the point with great directness, “DO you
know where to get it? have you struck it, Uncle Ben?”
Johnson looked carefully around. “I hev, Tommy. Listen. I know whar
thar's cartloads of it. But thar's only one other specimen--the mate to
this yer--thet's above ground, and thet's in 'Frisco. Thar's an agint
comin' up in a day or two to look into it. I sent for him. Eh?”
His bright, restless eyes were concentrated on Tommy's face now, but the
boy showed neither surprise nor interest. Least of all did he betray
any recollection of Bill's ironical and gratuitous corroboration of this
part of the story.
“Nobody knows it,” continued Johnson, in a nervous whisper,--“nobody
knows it but you and the agint in 'Frisco. The boys workin' round yar
passes by and sees the old man grubbin' away, and no signs o' color, not
even rotten quartz; the boys loafin' round the Mansion House sees the
old man lyin' round free in bar-rooms, and they laughs and sez, 'Played
out,' and spects nothin'. Maybe ye think they spects suthin now, eh?”
queried Johnson, suddenly, with a sharp look of suspicion.
Tommy looked up, shook his head, threw a stone at a passing rabbit, but
did not reply.
“When I fust set eyes on you, Tommy,” continued Johnson, apparently
reassured, “the fust day you kem and pumped for me, an entire stranger,
and hevin no call to do it, I sez, 'Johnson, Johnson,' sez I,' yer's a
boy you kin trust. Yer's a boy that won't play you; yer's a chap that's
white and square,'--white and square, Tommy: them's the very words I
used.”
He paused for a moment, and then went on in a confidential whisper,
“'You want capital, Johnson,' sez I, 'to develop your resources, and
you want a pardner. Capital you can send for, but your pardner,
Johnson,--your pardner is right yer. And his name, it is Tommy
Islington.' Them's the very words I used.”
He stopped and chafed his clammy hands upon his knees. “It's six months
ago sens I made you my pardner. Thar ain't a lick I've struck sens
then, Tommy, thar ain't a han'ful o' yearth I've washed, thar ain't
a shovelful o' rock I've turned over, but I tho't o' you. 'Share, and
share alike,' sez I. When I wrote to my agint, I wrote ekal for my
pardner, Tommy Islington, he hevin no call to know ef the same was man
or boy.”
He had moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps have laid his hand
caressingly upon him, but even in his manifest affection there was
a singular element of awed restraint and even fear,--a suggestion of
something withheld even his fullest confidences, a hopeless perception
of some vague barrier that never could be surmounted. He may have been
at times dimly conscious that, in the eyes which Tommy raised to his,
there was thorough intellectual appreciation, critical good-humor, even
feminine softness, but nothing more. His nervousness somewhat heightened
by his embarrassment, he went on with an attempt at calmness which his
twitching white lips and unsteady fingers made pathetically grotesque.
“Thar's a bill o' sale in my bunk, made out accordin' to law, of an ekal
ondivided half of the claim, and the consideration is two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars,--gambling debts,--gambling debts from me to you,
Tommy,--you understand?”--nothing could exceed the intense cunning of
his eye at this moment,--“and then thar's a will.”
“A will?” said Tommy, in amused surprise.
Johnson looked frightened.
“Eh?” he said, hurriedly, “wot will? Who said anythin' 'bout a will,
Tommy?”
“Nobody,” replied Tommy, with unblushing calm.
Johnson passed his hand over his cold forehead, wrung the damp ends of
his hair with his fingers, and went on: “Times when I'm took bad ez I
was to-day, the boys about yer sez--you sez, maybe, Tommy--it's whiskey.
It ain't, Tommy. It's pizen,--quicksilver pizen. That's what's the
matter with me. I'm salviated! Salviated with merkery.
“I've heerd o' it before,” continued Johnson, appealing to the boy, “and
ez a boy o' permiskus reading, I reckon you hev too. Them men as works
in cinnabar sooner or later gets salviated. It's bound to fetch 'em some
time. Salviated by merkery.”
“What are you goin' to do for it?” asked Tommy.
“When the agint comes up, and I begins to realize on this yer mine,”
said Johnson, contemplatively, “I goes to New York. I sez to the
barkeep' o' the hotel, 'Show me the biggest doctor here.' He shows me.
I sez to him, 'Salviated by merkery,--a year's standin',--how much?' He
sez, 'Five thousand dollars, and take two o' these pills at bedtime, and
an ekil number o' powders at meals, and come back in a week.' And I goes
back in a week, cured, and signs a certifikit to that effect.”
Encouraged by a look of interest in Tommy's eye, he went on.
“So I gets cured. I goes to the barkeep', and I sez, 'Show me the
biggest, fashionblest house thet's for sale yer.' And he sez, 'The
biggest, nat'rally b'longs to John Jacob Astor.' And I sez, 'Show him,'
and he shows him. And I sez, 'Wot might you ask for this yer house?' And
he looks at me scornful, and sez, 'Go 'way, old man; you must be sick.'
And I fetches him one over the left eye, and he apologizes, and I gives
him his own price for the house. I stocks that house with mohogany
furniture and pervisions, and thar we lives, you and me, Tommy, you and
me!”
The sun no longer shone upon the hillside. The shadows of the pines were
beginning to creep over Johnson's claim, and the air within the cavern
was growing chill. In the gathering darkness his eyes shone brightly
as he went on: “Then thar comes a day when we gives a big spread. We
invites govners, members o' Congress, gentlemen o' fashion, and the
like. And among 'em I invites a Man as holds his head very high, a Man I
once knew; but he doesn't know I knows him, and he doesn't remember me.
And he comes and he sits opposite me, and I watches him. And he's very
airy, this Man, and very chipper, and he wipes his mouth with a white
hankercher, and he smiles, and he ketches my eye. And he sez, 'A glass
o' wine with you, Mr. Johnson'; and he fills his glass and I fills mine,
and we rises. And I heaves that wine, glass and all, right into his
damned grinnin' face. And he jumps for me,--for he is very game, this
Man, very game,--but some on 'em grabs him, and he sez, 'Who be you?'
And I sez, 'Skaggs! damn you, Skaggs! Look at me! Gimme back my wife and
child, gimme back the money you stole, gimme back the good name you
took away, gimme back the health you ruined, gimme back the last twelve
years! Give 'em to me, damn you, quick, before I cuts your heart out!'
And naterally, Tommy, he can't do it. And so I cuts his heart out, my
boy; I cuts his heart out.”
The purely animal fury of his eye suddenly changed again to cunning.
“You think they hangs me for it, Tommy, but they don't. Not much, Tommy.
I goes to the biggest lawyer there, and I says to him, 'Salviated by
merkery,--you hear me,--salviated by merkery.' And he winks at me,
and he goes to the judge, and he sez, 'This yer unfortnet man isn't
responsible,--he's been salviated by merkery.' And he brings witnesses;
you comes, Tommy, and you sez ez how you've seen me took bad afore; and
the doctor, he comes, and he sez as how he's seen me frightful; and the
jury, without leavin' their seats, brings in a verdict o' justifiable
insanity,--salviated by merkery.”
In the excitement of his climax he had risen to his feet, but would have
fallen had not Tommy caught him and led him into the open air. In
this sharper light there was an odd change visible in his yellow-white
face,--a change which caused Tommy to hurriedly support him, half
leading, half dragging him toward the little cabin. When they had
reached it, Tommy placed him on a rude “bunk,” or shelf, and stood for
a moment in anxious contemplation of the tremor-stricken man before him.
Then he said rapidly: “Listen, Uncle Ben. I'm goin' to town--to town,
you understand--for the doctor. You're not to get up or move on any
account until I return. Do you hear?” Johnson nodded violently. “I'll be
back in two hours.” In another moment he was gone.
For an hour Johnson kept his word. Then he suddenly sat up, and began
to gaze fixedly at a corner of the cabin. From gazing at it he began to
smile, from smiling at it he began to talk, from talking at it he began
to scream, from screaming he passed to cursing and sobbing wildly. Then
he lay quiet again.
He was so still that to merely human eyes he might have seemed asleep
or dead. But a squirrel, that, emboldened by the stillness, had entered
from the roof, stopped short upon a beam above the bunk, for he saw that
the man's foot was slowly and cautiously moving toward the floor, and
that the man's eyes were as intent and watchful as his own. Presently,
still without a sound, both feet were upon the floor. And then the bunk
creaked, and the squirrel whisked into the eaves of the roof. When he
peered forth again, everything was quiet, and the man was gone.
An hour later two muleteers on the Placerville Road passed a man with
dishevelled hair, glaring, bloodshot eyes, and clothes torn with bramble
and stained with the red dust of the mountain. They pursued him, when
he turned fiercely on the foremost, wrested a pistol from his grasp, and
broke away. Later still, when the sun had dropped behind Payne's Ridge,
the underbrush on Deadwood Slope crackled with a stealthy but continuous
tread. It must have been an animal whose dimly outlined bulk, in the
gathering darkness, showed here and there in vague but incessant
motion; it could be nothing but an animal whose utterance was at once
so incoherent, monotonous, and unremitting. Yet, when the sound came
nearer, and the chaparral was parted, it seemed to be a man, and that
man Johnson.
Above the baying of phantasmal hounds that pressed him hard and drove
him on, with never rest or mercy; above the lashing of a spectral whip
that curled about his limbs, sang in his ears, and continually stung him
forward; above the outcries of the unclean shapes that thronged about
him,--he could still distinguish one real sound,--the rush and sweep of
hurrying waters. The Stanislaus River! A thousand feet below him drove
its yellowing current. Through all the vacillations of his unseated mind
he had clung to one idea,--to reach the river, to lave in it, to swim it
if need be, but to put it forever between him and the harrying shapes,
to drown forever in its turbid depths the thronging spectres, to wash
away in its yellow flood all stains and color of the past. And now he
was leaping from boulder to boulder, from blackened stump to stump,
from gnarled bush to bush, caught for a moment and withheld by clinging
vines, or plunging downward into dusty hollows, until, rolling,
dropping, sliding, and stumbling, he reached the river-bank, whereon
he fell, rose, staggered forward, and fell again with outstretched arms
upon a rock that breasted the swift current. And there he lay as dead.
A few stars came out hesitatingly above Deadwood Slope. A cold wind that
had sprung up with the going down of the sun fanned them into momentary
brightness, swept the heated flanks of the mountain, and ruffled the
river. Where the fallen man lay there was a sharp curve in the stream,
so that in the gathering shadows the rushing water seemed to leap out of
the darkness and to vanish again. Decayed drift-wood, trunks of trees,
fragments of broken sluicing,--the wash and waste of many a mile,--swept
into sight a moment, and were gone. All of decay, wreck, and foulness
gathered in the long circuit of mining-camp and settlement, all the
dregs and refuse of a crude and wanton civilization, reappeared for an
instant, and then were hurried away in the darkness and lost. No wonder
that as the wind ruffled the yellow waters the waves seemed to lift
their unclean hands toward the rock whereon the fallen man lay, as if
eager to snatch him from it, too, and hurry him toward the sea.
It was very still. In the clear air a horn blown a mile away was heard
distinctly. The jingling of a spur and a laugh on the highway over
Payne's Ridge sounded clearly across the river. The rattling of harness
and hoofs foretold for many minutes the approach of the Wingdam coach,
that at last, with flashing lights, passed within a few feet of the
rock. Then for an hour all again was quiet. Presently the moon, round
and full, lifted herself above the serried ridge and looked down upon
the river. At first the bared peak of Deadwood Hill gleamed white and
skull-like. Then the shadows of Payne's Ridge cast on the slope slowly
sank away, leaving the unshapely stumps, the dusty fissures, and
clinging outcrop of Deadwood Slope to stand out in black and silver.
Still stealing softly downward, the moonlight touched the bank and the
rock, and then glittered brightly on the river. The rock was bare and
the man was gone, but the river still hurried swiftly to the sea.
“Is there anything for me?” asked Tommy Islington, as, a week after,
the stage drew up at the Mansion House, and Bill slowly entered the
bar-room. Bill did not reply, but, turning to a stranger who had entered
with him, indicated with a jerk of his finger the boy. The stranger
turned with an air half of business, half of curiosity, and looked
critically at Tommy. “Is there anything for me?” repeated Tommy, a
little confused at the silence and scrutiny. Bill walked deliberately
to the bar, and, placing his back against it, faced Tommy with a look of
demure enjoyment.
“Ef,” he remarked slowly,--“ef a hundred thousand dollars down and half
a million in perspektive is ennything, Major, THERE IS!”
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS.
PART II--EAST.
It was characteristic of Angel's that the disappearance of Johnson, and
the fact that he had left his entire property to Tommy, thrilled the
community but slightly in comparison with the astounding discovery that
he had anything to leave. The finding of a cinnabar lode at Angel's
absorbed all collateral facts or subsequent details. Prospectors from
adjoining camps thronged the settlement; the hillside for a mile on
either side of Johnson's claim was staked out and pre-empted; trade
received a sudden stimulus; and, in the excited rhetoric of the “Weekly
Record,” “a new era had broken upon Angel's.” “On Thursday last,” added
that paper, “over five hundred dollars was taken in over the bar of the
Mansion House.”
Of the fate of Johnson there was little doubt. He had been last seen
lying on a boulder on the river-bank by outside passengers of the
Wingdam night coach, and when Finn of Robinson's Ferry admitted to have
fired three shots from a revolver at a dark object struggling in the
water near the ferry, which he “suspicioned” to be a bear, the question
seemed to be settled. Whatever might have been the fallibility of
his judgment, of the accuracy of his aim there could be no doubt. The
general belief that Johnson, after possessing himself of the muleteer's
pistol, could have run amuck, gave a certain retributive justice to this
story, which rendered it acceptable to the camp.
It was also characteristic of Angel's that no feeling of envy or
opposition to the good fortune of Tommy Islington prevailed there. That
he was thoroughly cognizant, from the first, of Johnson's discovery,
that his attentions to him were interested, calculating, and speculative
was, however, the general belief of the majority,--a belief that,
singularly enough, awakened the first feelings of genuine respect for
Tommy ever shown by the camp. “He ain't no fool; Yuba Bill seed thet
from the first,” said the barkeeper. It was Yuba Bill who applied for
the guardianship of Tommy after his accession to Johnson's claim, and on
whose bonds the richest men of Calaveras were represented. It was
Yuba Bill, also, when Tommy was sent East to finish his education,
accompanied him to San Francisco, and, before parting with his charge on
the steamer's deck, drew him aside, and said, “Ef at enny time you want
enny money, Tommy, over and 'bove your 'lowance, you kin write; but ef
you'll take my advice,” he added, with a sudden huskiness mitigating
the severity of his voice, “you'll forget every derned ole spavined,
string-halted bummer as you ever met or knew at Angel's,--ev'ry one,
Tommy,--ev'ry one! And so--boy--take care of yourself--and--and God
bless ye, and pertikerly d--n me for a first-class A 1 fool.” It was
Yuba Bill, also, after this speech, glared savagely around, walked down
the crowded gang-plank with a rigid and aggressive shoulder, picked a
quarrel with his cabman, and, after bundling that functionary into his
own vehicle, took the reins himself, and drove furiously to his hotel.
“It cost me,” said Bill, recounting the occurrence somewhat later at
Angel's,--“it cost me a matter o' twenty dollars afore the jedge the
next mornin'; but you kin bet high thet I taught them 'Frisco chaps
suthin new about drivin'. I didn't make it lively in Montgomery Street
for about ten minutes,--O no!”
And so by degrees the two original locaters of the great Cinnabar lode
faded from the memory of Angel's, and Calaveras knew them no more. In
five years their very names had been forgotten; in seven the name of the
town was changed; in ten the town itself was transported bodily to the
hillside, and the chimney of the Union Smelting Works by night flickered
like a corpse-light over the site of Johnson's cabin, and by day
poisoned the pure spices of the pines. Even the Mansion House was
dismantled, and the Wingdam stage deserted the highway for a shorter cut
by Quicksilver City. Only the bared crest of Deadwood Hill, as of
old, sharply cut the clear blue sky, and at its base, as of old, the
Stanislaus River, unwearied and unresting, babbled, whispered, and
hurried away to the sea.
A midsummer's day was breaking lazily on the Atlantic. There was not
wind enough to move the vapors in the foggy offing, but where the vague
distance heaved against a violet sky there were dull red streaks that,
growing brighter, presently painted out the stars. Soon the brown rocks
of Greyport appeared faintly suffused, and then the whole ashen line of
dead coast was kindled, and the lighthouse beacons went out one by one.
And then a hundred sail, before invisible, started out of the vapory
horizon, and pressed toward the shore. It was morning, indeed, and some
of the best society in Greyport, having been up all night, were thinking
it was time to go to bed.
For as the sky flashed brighter it fired the clustering red roofs of
a picturesque house by the sands that had all that night, from open
lattice and illuminated balcony, given light and music to the shore.
It glittered on the broad crystal spaces of a great conservatory that
looked upon an exquisite lawn, where all night long the blended odors
of sea and shore had swooned under the summer moon. But it wrought
confusion among the colored lamps on the long veranda, and startled
a group of ladies and gentlemen who had stepped from the drawing-room
window to gaze upon it. It was so searching and sincere in its way,
that, as the carriage of the fairest Miss Gillyflower rolled away, that
peerless young woman, catching sight of her face in the oval mirror,
instantly pulled down the blinds, and, nestling the whitest shoulders in
Greyport against the crimson cushions, went to sleep.
“How haggard everybody is! Rose, dear, you look almost intellectual,”
said Blanche Masterman.
“I hope not,” said Rose, simply. “Sunrises are very trying. Look how
that pink regularly puts out Mrs. Brown-Robinson, hair and all!”
“The angels,” said the Count de Nugat, with a polite gesture toward
the sky, “must have find these celestial combinations very bad for the
toilette.”
“They're safe in white,--except when they sit for their pictures in
Venice,” said Blanche. “How fresh Mr. Islington looks! It's really
uncomplimentary to us.”
“I suppose the sun recognizes in me no rival,” said the young man,
demurely. “But,” he added, “I have lived much in the open air, and
require very little sleep.”
“How delightful!” said Mrs. Brown-Robinson, in a low, enthusiastic
voice and a manner that held the glowing sentiment of sixteen and the
practical experiences of thirty-two in dangerous combination;--“how
perfectly delightful! What sunrises you must have seen, and in such
wild, romantic places! How I envy you! My nephew was a classmate of
yours, and has often repeated to me those charming stories you tell of
your adventures. Won't you tell some now? Do! How you must tire of us
and this artificial life here, so frightfully artificial, you know” (in
a confidential whisper); “and then to think of the days when you roamed
the great West with the Indians, and the bisons, and the grizzly bears!
Of course, you have seen grizzly bears and bisons?”
“Of course he has, dear,” said Blanche, a little pettishly, throwing
a cloak over her shoulders, and seizing her chaperon by the arm; “his
earliest infancy was soothed by bisons, and he proudly points to the
grizzly bear as the playmate of his youth. Come with me, and I'll tell
you all about it. How good it is of you,” she added, sotto voce, to
Islington, as he stood by the carriage,--“how perfectly good it is of
you to be like those animals you tell us of, and not know your full
power. Think, with your experiences and our credulity, what stories you
MIGHT tell! And you are going to walk? Good night, then.” A slim, gloved
hand was frankly extended from the window, and the next moment the
carriage rolled away.
“Isn't Islington throwing away a chance there?” said Captain Merwin, on
the veranda.
“Perhaps he couldn't stand my lovely aunt's superadded presence. But
then, he's the guest of Blanche's father, and I dare say they see enough
of each other as it is.”
“But isn't it a rather dangerous situation?”
“For him, perhaps; although he's awfully old, and very queer. For
her, with an experience that takes in all the available men in both
hemispheres, ending with Nugat over there, I should say a man more or
less wouldn't affect her much, anyway. Of course,” he laughed, “these
are the accents of bitterness. But that was last year.”
Perhaps Islington did not overhear the speaker; perhaps, if he did, the
criticism was not new. He turned carelessly away, and sauntered out
on the road to the sea. Thence he strolled along the sands toward the
cliffs, where, meeting an impediment in the shape of a garden wall, he
leaped it with a certain agile, boyish ease and experience, and struck
across an open lawn toward the rocks again. The best society of Greyport
were not early risers, and the spectacle of a trespasser in an evening
dress excited only the criticism of grooms hanging about the stables, or
cleanly housemaids on the broad verandas that in Greyport architecture
dutifully gave upon the sea. Only once, as he entered the boundaries of
Cliffwood Lodge, the famous seat of Renwyck Masterman, was he aware of
suspicious scrutiny; but a slouching figure that vanished quickly in the
lodge offered no opposition to his progress. Avoiding the pathway to
the lodge, Islington kept along the rocks until, reaching a little
promontory and rustic pavilion, he sat down and gazed upon the sea.
And presently an infinite peace stole upon him. Except where the waves
lapped lazily the crags below, the vast expanse beyond seemed unbroken
by ripple, heaving only in broad ponderable sheets, and rhythmically, as
if still in sleep. The air was filled with a luminous haze that caught
and held the direct sunbeams. In the deep calm that lay upon the sea, it
seemed to Islington that all the tenderness of culture, magic of wealth,
and spell of refinement that for years had wrought upon that favored
shore had extended its gracious influence even here. What a pampered and
caressed old ocean it was; cajoled, flattered, and feted where it lay!
An odd recollection of the turbid Stanislaus hurrying by the ascetic
pines, of the grim outlines of Deadwood Hill, swam before his eyes,
and made the yellow green of the velvet lawn and graceful foliage seem
almost tropical by contrast. And, looking up, a few yards distant he
beheld a tall slip of a girl gazing upon the sea,--Blanche Masterman.
She had plucked somewhere a large fan-shaped leaf, which she held
parasol-wise, shading the blond masses of her hair, and hiding her gray
eyes. She had changed her festal dress, with its amplitude of flounce
and train, for a closely fitting half-antique habit whose scant outlines
would have been trying to limbs less shapely, but which prettily
accented the graceful curves and sweeping lines of this Greyport
goddess. As Islington rose, she came toward him with a frankly
outstretched hand and unconstrained manner. Had she observed him first?
I don't know.
They sat down together on a rustic seat, Miss Blanche facing the sea,
and shading her eyes with the leaf.
“I don't really know how long I have been sitting here,” said Islington,
“or whether I have not been actually asleep and dreaming. It seemed too
lovely a morning to go to bed. But you?”
From behind the leaf, it appeared that Miss Blanche, on retiring, had
been pursued by a hideous winged bug which defied the efforts of herself
and maid to dislodge. Odin, the Spitz dog, had insisted upon scratching
at the door. And it made her eyes red to sleep in the morning. And she
had an early call to make. And the sea looked lovely.
“I'm glad to find you here, whatever be the cause,” said Islington, with
his old directness. “To-day, as you know, is my last day in Greyport,
and it is much pleasanter to say good by under this blue sky than even
beneath your father's wonderful frescos yonder. I want to remember you,
too, as part of this pleasant prospect which belongs to us all, rather
than recall you in anybody's particular setting.”
“I know,” said Blanche, with equal directness, “that houses are one of
the defects of our civilization; but I don't think I ever heard the idea
as elegantly expressed before. Where do you go?”
“I don't know yet. I have several plans. I may go to South America and
become president of one of the republics,--I am not particular which. I
am rich, but in that part of America which lies outside of Greyport it
is necessary for every man to have some work. My friends think I
should have some great aim in life, with a capital A. But I was born a
vagabond, and a vagabond I shall probably die.”
“I don't know anybody in South America,” said Blanche, languidly. “There
were two girls here last season, but they didn't wear stays in the
house, and their white frocks never were properly done up. If you go to
South America, you must write to me.”
“I will. Can you tell me the name of this flower which I found in your
greenhouse. It looks much like a California blossom.”
“Perhaps it is. Father bought it of a half-crazy old man who came here
one day. Do you know him?”
Islington laughed. “I am afraid not. But let me present this in a less
business-like fashion.”
“Thank you. Remind me to give you one in return before you go,--or will
you choose yourself?”
They had both risen as by a common instinct.
“Good by.”
The cool flower-like hand lay in his for an instant.
“Will you oblige me by putting aside that leaf a moment before I go?”
“But my eyes are red, and I look like a perfect fright.”
Yet, after a long pause, the leaf fluttered down, and a pair of very
beautiful but withal very clear and critical eyes met his. Islington was
constrained to look away. When he turned again, she was gone.
“Mister Hislington,--sir!”
It was Chalker, the English groom, out of breath with running.
“Seein' you alone, sir,--beg your pardon, sir,--but there's a person--”
“A person! what the devil do you mean? Speak English--no, damn it, I
mean don't,” said Islington, snappishly.
“I sed a person, sir. Beg pardon--no offence--but not a gent, sir. In
the lib'ry.”
A little amused even through the utter dissatisfaction with himself
and vague loneliness that had suddenly come upon him, Islington, as he
walked toward the lodge, asked, “Why isn't he a gent?
“No gent--beggin' your pardin, sir--'ud guy a man in sarvis, sir. Takes
me 'ands so, sir, as I sits in the rumble at the gate, and puts 'em
downd so, sir, and sez, 'Put 'em in your pocket, young man,--or is it
a road agint you expects to see, that you 'olds hup your 'ands, hand
crosses 'em like to that,' sez he. ''Old 'ard,' sez he, 'on the short
curves, or you'll bust your precious crust,' sez he. And hasks for you,
sir. This way, sir.”
They entered the lodge. Islington hurried down the long Gothic hall, and
opened the library door.