come over the settlement, he had to pause for a moment to recall where
he stood. The Sandy Bar of his recollection lay below him, nearer the
river; the buildings around him were of later date and newer fashion.
As he strode toward the river, he noticed here a schoolhouse and there a
church. A little farther on, “The Sunny South” came in view, transformed
into a restaurant, its gilding faded and its paint rubbed off. He now
knew where he was; and, running briskly down a declivity, crossed a
ditch, and stood upon the lower boundary of the Amity Claim.
The gray mist was rising slowly from the river, clinging to the
tree-tops and drifting up the mountain-side, until it was caught among
those rocky altars, and held a sacrifice to the ascending sun. At his
feet the earth, cruelly gashed and scarred by his forgotten engines,
had, since the old days, put on a show of greenness here and there, and
now smiled forgivingly up at him, as if things were not so bad after
all. A few birds were bathing in the ditch with a pleasant suggestion of
its being a new and special provision of nature, and a hare ran into an
inverted sluice-box, as he approached, as if it were put there for that
purpose.
He had not yet dared to look in a certain direction. But the sun was now
high enough to paint the little eminence on which the cabin stood. In
spite of his self-control, his heart beat faster as he raised his eyes
toward it. Its window and door were closed, no smoke came from its adobe
chimney, but it was else unchanged. When within a few yards of it, he
picked up a broken shovel, and, shouldering it with a smile, strode
toward the door and knocked. There was no sound from within. The smile
died upon his lips as he nervously pushed the door open.
A figure started up angrily and came toward him,--a figure whose
bloodshot eyes suddenly fixed into a vacant stare, whose arms were
at first outstretched and then thrown up in warning gesticulation,--a
figure that suddenly gasped, choked, and then fell forward in a fit.
But before he touched the ground, York had him out into the open air and
sunshine. In the struggle, both fell and rolled over on the ground. But
the next moment York was sitting up, holding the convulsed frame of his
former partner on his knee, and wiping the foam from his inarticulate
lips. Gradually the tremor became less frequent, and then ceased; and
the strong man lay unconscious in his arms.
For some moments York held him quietly thus, looking in his face. Afar,
the stroke of a wood-man's axe--a mere phantom of sound--was all
that broke the stillness. High up the mountain, a wheeling hawk hung
breathlessly above them. And then came voices, and two men joined them.
“A fight?” No, a fit; and would they help him bring the sick man to the
hotel?
And there, for a week, the stricken partner lay, unconscious of aught
but the visions wrought by disease and fear. On the eighth day, at
sunrise, he rallied, and, opening his eyes, looked upon York, and
pressed his hand; then he spoke:--
“And it's you. I thought it was only whiskey.”
York replied by taking both of his hands, boyishly working them backward
and forward, as his elbow rested on the bed, with a pleasant smile.
“And you've been abroad. How did you like Paris?”
“So, so. How did YOU like Sacramento?”
“Bully.”
And that was all they could think to say. Presently Scott opened his
eyes again.
“I'm mighty weak.”
“You'll get better soon.”
“Not much.”
A long silence followed, in which they could hear the sounds of
wood-chopping, and that Sandy Bar was already astir for the coming
day. Then Scott slowly and with difficulty turned his face to York, and
said,--
“I might hev killed you once.”
“I wish you had.”
They pressed each other's hands again, but Scott's grasp was evidently
failing. He seemed to summon his energies for a special effort.
“Old man!”
“Old chap.”
“Closer!”
York bent his head toward the slowly fading face.
“Do ye mind that morning?”
“Yes.”
A gleam of fun slid into the corner of Scott's blue eye, as he
whispered,--
“Old man, thar WAS too much saleratus in that bread.”
It is said that these were his last words. For when the sun, which had
so often gone down upon the idle wrath of these foolish men, looked
again upon them reunited, it saw the hand of Scott fall cold and
irresponsive from the yearning clasp of his former partner, and it knew
that the feud of Sandy Bar was at an end.
MR THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL
We all knew that Mr. Thompson was looking for his son, and a pretty bad
one at that. That he was coming to California for this sole object was
no secret to his fellow-passengers; and the physical peculiarities, as
well as the moral weaknesses, of the missing prodigal were made equally
plain to us through the frank volubility of the parent. “You was
speaking of a young man which was hung at Red Dog for sluice-robbing,”
said Mr. Thompson to a steerage passenger, one day; “be you aware of
the color of his eyes?” “Black,” responded the passenger. “Ah,” said
Mr. Thompson, referring to some mental memoranda, “Char-les's eyes was
blue.” He then walked away. Perhaps it was from this unsympathetic mode
of inquiry, perhaps it was from that Western predilection to take a
humorous view of any principle or sentiment persistently brought before
them, that Mr. Thompson's quest was the subject of some satire among the
passengers. A gratuitous advertisement of the missing Charles, addressed
to “Jailers and Guardians,” circulated privately among them; everybody
remembered to have met Charles under distressing circumstances. Yet
it is but due to my countrymen to state that when it was known that
Thompson had embarked some wealth in this visionary project, but little
of this satire found its way to his ears, and nothing was uttered in
his hearing that might bring a pang to a father's heart, or imperil
a possible pecuniary advantage of the satirist. Indeed, Mr. Bracy
Tibbets's jocular proposition to form a joint-stock company to
“prospect” for the missing youth received at one time quite serious
entertainment.
Perhaps to superficial criticism Mr. Thompson's nature was not
picturesque nor lovable. His history, as imparted at dinner, one day, by
himself, was practical even in its singularity. After a hard and wilful
youth and maturity,--in which he had buried a broken-spirited wife, and
driven his son to sea,--he suddenly experienced religion. “I got it in
New Orleans in '59,” said Mr. Thompson, with the general suggestion
of referring to an epidemic. “Enter ye the narrer gate. Parse me the
beans.” Perhaps this practical quality upheld him in his apparently
hopeless search. He had no clew to the whereabouts of his runaway son;
indeed, scarcely a proof of his present existence. From his indifferent
recollection of the boy of twelve, he now expected to identify the man
of twenty-five.
It would seem that he was successful. How he succeeded was one of the
few things he did not tell. There are, I believe, two versions of the
story. One, that Mr. Thompson, visiting a hospital, discovered his son
by reason of a peculiar hymn, chanted by the sufferer, in a delirious
dream of his boyhood. This version, giving as it did wide range to the
finer feelings of the heart, was quite popular; and as told by the Rev.
Mr. Gushington, on his return from his California tour, never failed to
satisfy an audience. The other was less simple, and, as I shall adopt it
here, deserves more elaboration.
It was after Mr. Thompson had given up searching for his son among the
living, and had taken to the examination of cemeteries, and a careful
inspection of the “cold hic jacets of the dead.” At this time he was a
frequent visitor of “Lone Mountain,”--a dreary hill-top, bleak enough in
its original isolation, and bleaker for the white-faced marbles by which
San Francisco anchored her departed citizens, and kept them down in
a shifting sand that refused to cover them, and against a fierce and
persistent wind that strove to blow them utterly away. Against this wind
the old man opposed a will quite as persistent,--a grizzled, hard face,
and a tall, crape-bound hat drawn tightly over his eyes,--and so spent
days in reading the mortuary inscriptions audibly to himself. The
frequency of Scriptural quotation pleased him, and he was fond of
corroborating them by a pocket Bible. “That's from Psalms,” he said,
one day, to an adjacent grave-digger. The man made no reply. Not at all
rebuffed, Mr. Thompson at once slid down into the open grave, with a
more practical inquiry, “Did you ever, in your profession, come across
Char-les Thompson?” “Thompson be d----d!” said the grave-digger,
with great directness. “Which, if he hadn't religion, I think he is,”
responded the old man, as he clambered out of the grave.
It was, perhaps, on this occasion that Mr. Thompson stayed later than
usual. As he turned his face toward the city, lights were beginning
to twinkle ahead, and a fierce wind, made visible by fog, drove him
forward, or, lying in wait, charged him angrily from the corners of
deserted suburban streets. It was on one of these corners that something
else, quite as indistinct and malevolent, leaped upon him with an oath,
a presented pistol, and a demand for money. But it was met by a will of
iron and a grip of steel. The assailant and assailed rolled together on
the ground. But the next moment the old man was erect; one hand grasping
the captured pistol, the other clutching at arm's length the throat of a
figure, surly, youthful, and savage.
“Young man,” said Mr. Thompson, setting his thin lips together, “what
might be your name?”
“Thompson!”
The old man's hand slid from the throat to the arm of his prisoner,
without relaxing its firmness.
“Char-les Thompson, come with me,” he said, presently, and marched his
captive to the hotel. What took place there has not transpired, but it
was known the next morning that Mr. Thompson had found his son.
It is proper to add to the above improbable story, that there was
nothing in the young man's appearance or manners to justify it. Grave,
reticent, and handsome, devoted to his newly found parent, he assumed
the emoluments and responsibilities of his new condition with a certain
serious ease that more nearly approached that which San Francisco
society lacked, and--rejected. Some chose to despise this quality as a
tendency to “psalm-singing”; others saw in it the inherited qualities
of the parent, and were ready to prophesy for the son the same hard
old age. But all agreed that it was not inconsistent with the habits of
money-getting, for which father and son were respected.
And yet, the old man did not seem to be happy. Perhaps it was that
the consummation of his wishes left him without a practical mission;
perhaps--and it is the more probable--he had little love for the son he
had regained. The obedience he exacted was freely given, the reform he
had set his heart upon was complete; and yet, somehow, it did not
seem to please him. In reclaiming his son, he had fulfilled all the
requirements that his religious duty required of him, and yet the act
seemed to lack sanctification. In this perplexity, he read again the
parable of the Prodigal Son,--which he had long ago adopted for
his guidance,--and found that he had omitted the final feast
of reconciliation. This seemed to offer the proper quality of
ceremoniousness in the sacrament between himself and his son; and so, a
year after the appearance of Charles, he set about giving him a party.
“Invite everybody, Char-les,” he said, dryly; “everybody who knows that
I brought you out of the wine-husks of iniquity, and the company of
harlots; and bid them eat, drink, and be merry.”
Perhaps the old man had another reason, not yet clearly analyzed. The
fine house he had built on the sand-hills sometimes seemed lonely and
bare. He often found himself trying to reconstruct, from the grave
features of Charles, the little boy whom he but dimly remembered in the
past, and of whom lately he had been thinking a great deal. He believed
this to be a sign of impending old age and childishness; but coming, one
day, in his formal drawing-room, upon a child of one of the servants,
who had strayed therein, he would have taken him in his arms, but the
child fled from before his grizzled face. So that it seemed eminently
proper to invite a number of people to his house, and, from the array
of San Francisco maidenhood, to select a daughter-in-law. And then there
would be a child--a boy, whom he could “rare up” from the beginning,
and--love--as he did not love Charles.
We were all at the party. The Smiths, Joneses, Browns, and Robinsons
also came, in that fine flow of animal spirits, unchecked by any respect
for the entertainer, which most of us are apt to find so fascinating.
The proceedings would have been somewhat riotous, but for the social
position of the actors. In fact, Mr. Bracy Tibbets, having naturally a
fine appreciation of a humorous situation, but further impelled by the
bright eyes of the Jones girls, conducted himself so remarkably as to
attract the serious regard of Mr. Charles Thompson, who approached him,
saying quietly: “You look ill, Mr. Tibbets; let me conduct you to your
carriage. Resist, you hound, and I'll throw you through that window.
This way, please; the room is close and distressing.” It is hardly
necessary to say that but a part of this speech was audible to the
company, and that the rest was not divulged by Mr. Tibbets, who
afterward regretted the sudden illness which kept him from witnessing a
certain amusing incident, which the fastest Miss Jones characterized as
the “richest part of the blow-out,” and which I hasten to record.
It was at supper. It was evident that Mr. Thompson had overlooked
much lawlessness in the conduct of the younger people, in his abstract
contemplation of some impending event. When the cloth was removed, he
rose to his feet, and grimly tapped upon the table. A titter, that broke
out among the Jones girls, became epidemic on one side of the board.
Charles Thompson, from the foot of the table, looked up in tender
perplexity. “He's going to sing a Doxology,” “He's going to pray,”
“Silence for a speech,” ran round the room.
“It's one year to-day, Christian brothers and sisters,” said Mr.
Thompson, with grim deliberation,--“one year to-day since my son
came home from eating of wine-husks and spending of his substance on
harlots.” (The tittering suddenly ceased.) “Look at him now. Char-les
Thompson, stand up.” (Charles Thompson stood up.) “One year ago
to-day,--and look at him now.”
He was certainly a handsome prodigal, standing there in his cheerful
evening-dress,--a repentant prodigal, with sad, obedient eyes turned
upon the harsh and unsympathetic glance of his father. The youngest
Miss Smith, from the pure depths of her foolish little heart, moved
unconsciously toward him.
“It's fifteen years ago since he left my house,” said Mr. Thompson,
“a rovier and a prodigal. I was myself a man of sin, O Christian
friends,--a man of wrath and bitterness” (“Amen,” from the eldest Miss
Smith),--“but praise be God, I've fled the wrath to come. It's five
years ago since I got the peace that passeth understanding. Have you got
it, friends?” (A general sub-chorus of “No, no,” from the girls,
and, “Pass the word for it,” from Midshipman Coxe, of the U. S. sloop
Wethersfield.) “Knock, and it shall be opened to you.
“And when I found the error of my ways, and the preciousness of grace,”
continued Mr. Thompson, “I came to give it to my son. By sea and land I
sought him far, and fainted not. I did not wait for him to come to me,
which the same I might have done, and justified myself by the Book of
books, but I sought him out among his husks, and--” (the rest of the
sentence was lost in the rustling withdrawal of the ladies). “Works,
Christian friends, is my motto. By their works shall ye know them, and
there is mine.”
The particular and accepted work to which Mr. Thompson was alluding had
turned quite pale, and was looking fixedly toward an open door leading
to the veranda, lately filled by gaping servants, and now the scene of
some vague tumult. As the noise continued, a man, shabbily dressed, and
evidently in liquor, broke through the opposing guardians, and staggered
into the room. The transition from the fog and darkness without to the
glare and heat within evidently dazzled and stupefied him. He removed
his battered hat, and passed it once or twice before his eyes, as he
steadied himself, but unsuccessfully, by the back of a chair. Suddenly,
his wandering glance fell upon the pale face of Charles Thompson; and
with a gleam of childlike recognition, and a weak, falsetto laugh, he
darted forward, caught at the table, upset the glasses, and literally
fell upon the prodigal's breast.
“Sha'ly! yo' d----d ol' scoun'rel, hoo rar ye!”
“Hush--sit down!--hush!” said Charles Thompson, hurriedly endeavoring to
extricate himself from the embrace of his unexpected guest.
“Look at 'm!” continued the stranger, unheeding the admonition, but
suddenly holding the unfortunate Charles at arm's length, in loving and
undisguised admiration of his festive appearance. “Look at 'm! Ain't he
nasty? Sha'ls, I'm prow of yer!”
“Leave the house!” said Mr. Thompson, rising, with a dangerous look in
his cold, gray eye. “Char-les, how dare you?”
“Simmer down, ole man! Sha'ls, who's th' ol' bloat? Eh?”
“Hush, man; here, take this!” With nervous hands, Charles Thompson
filled a glass with liquor. “Drink it and go--until to-morrow--any time,
but--leave us!--go now!” But even then, ere the miserable wretch could
drink, the old man, pale with passion, was upon him. Half carrying him
in his powerful arms, half dragging him through the circling crowd of
frightened guests, he had reached the door, swung open by the waiting
servants, when Charles Thompson started from a seeming stupor, crying,--
“Stop!”
The old man stopped. Through the open door the fog and wind drove
chilly. “What does this mean?” he asked, turning a baleful face on
Charles.
“Nothing--but stop--for God's sake. Wait till to-morrow, but not
to-night. Do not--I implore you--do this thing.”
There was something in the tone of the young man's voice, something,
perhaps, in the contact of the struggling wretch he held in his powerful
arms; but a dim, indefinite fear took possession of the old man's heart.
“Who,” he whispered, hoarsely, “is this man?”
Charles did not answer.
“Stand back, there, all of you,” thundered Mr. Thompson, to the crowding
guests around him. “Char-les--come here! I command you--I--I--I--beg
you--tell me WHO is this man?”
Only two persons heard the answer that came faintly from the lips of
Charles Thompson,--
“YOUR SON.”
When day broke over the bleak sand-hills, the guests had departed from
Mr. Thompson's banquet-halls. The lights still burned dimly and coldly
in the deserted rooms,--deserted by all but three figures, that huddled
together in the chill drawing-room, as if for warmth. One lay in drunken
slumber on a couch; at his feet sat he who had been known as Charles
Thompson; and beside them, haggard and shrunken to half his size, bowed
the figure of Mr. Thompson, his gray eye fixed, his elbows upon his
knees, and his hands clasped over his ears, as if to shut out the sad,
entreating voice that seemed to fill the room.
“God knows I did not set about to wilfully deceive. The name I gave that
night was the first that came into my thought,--the name of one whom
I thought dead,--the dissolute companion of my shame. And when you
questioned further, I used the knowledge that I gained from him to touch
your heart to set me free; only, I swear, for that! But when you told
me who you were, and I first saw the opening of another life before
me--then--then--O, sir, if I was hungry, homeless, and reckless, when
I would have robbed you of your gold, I was heart-sick, helpless, and
desperate, when I would have robbed you of your love!”
The old man stirred not. From his luxurious couch the newly found
prodigal snored peacefully.
“I had no father I could claim. I never knew a home but this. I was
tempted. I have been happy,--very happy.”
He rose and stood before the old man. “Do not fear that I shall come
between your son and his inheritance. To-day I leave this place, never
to return. The world is large, sir, and, thanks to your kindness, I now
see the way by which an honest livelihood is gained. Good by. You will
not take my hand? Well, well. Good by.”
He turned to go. But when he had reached the door he suddenly came back,
and, raising with both hands the grizzled head, he kissed it once and
twice.
“Char-les.”
There was no reply.
“Char-les!”
The old man rose with a frightened air, and tottered feebly to the door.
It was open. There came to him the awakened tumult of a great city, in
which the prodigal's footsteps were lost forever.
THE ROMANCE OF MADRONO HOLLOW.
The latch on the garden gate of the Folinsbee Ranch clicked twice.
The gate itself was so much in shadow that lovely night, that “old man
Folinsbee,” sitting on his porch, could distinguish nothing but a tall
white hat and beside it a few fluttering ribbons, under the pines that
marked the entrance. Whether because of this fact, or that he considered
a sufficient time had elapsed since the clicking of the latch for more
positive disclosure, I do not know; but after a few moments' hesitation
he quietly laid aside his pipe and walked slowly down the winding path
toward the gate. At the Ceanothus hedge he stopped and listened.
There was not much to hear. The hat was saying to the ribbons that it
was a fine night, and remarking generally upon the clear outline of the
Sierras against the blue-black sky. The ribbons, it so appeared, had
admired this all the way home, and asked the hat if it had ever seen
anything half so lovely as the moonlight on the summit. The hat never
had; it recalled some lovely nights in the South in Alabama (“in the
South in Ahlabahm” was the way the old man heard it), but then there
were other things that made this night seem so pleasant. The ribbons
could not possibly conceive what the hat could be thinking about. At
this point there was a pause, of which Mr. Folinsbee availed himself to
walk very grimly and craunchingly down the gravel-walk toward the
gate. Then the hat was lifted, and disappeared in the shadow, and Mr.
Folinsbee confronted only the half-foolish, half-mischievous, but wholly
pretty face of his daughter.
It was afterward known to Madrono Hollow that sharp words passed between
“Miss Jo” and the old man, and that the latter coupled the names of one
Culpepper Starbottle and his uncle, Colonel Starbottle, with certain
uncomplimentary epithets, and that Miss Jo retaliated sharply. “Her
father's blood before her father's face boiled up and proved her truly
of his race,” quoted the blacksmith, who leaned toward the noble verse
of Byron. “She saw the old man's bluff and raised him,” was the directer
comment of the college-bred Masters.
Meanwhile the subject of these animadversions proceeded slowly along
the road to a point where the Folinsbee mansion came in view,--a long,
narrow, white building, unpretentious, yet superior to its neighbors,
and bearing some evidences of taste and refinement in the vines that
clambered over its porch, in its French windows, and the white muslin
curtains that kept out the fierce California sun by day, and were now
touched with silver in the gracious moonlight. Culpepper leaned against
the low fence, and gazed long and earnestly at the building. Then the
moonlight vanished ghostlike from one of the windows, a material glow
took its place, and a girlish figure, holding a candle, drew the white
curtains together. To Culpepper it was a vestal virgin standing before
a hallowed shrine; to the prosaic observer I fear it was only a
fair-haired young woman, whose wicked black eyes still shone with
unfilial warmth. Howbeit, when the figure had disappeared he stepped
out briskly into the moonlight of the high-road. Here he took off his
distinguishing hat to wipe his forehead, and the moon shone full upon
his face.