Reckless Fancies.-- The "Cursed Church Interests."-- Bland's
"little Bird" becomes a busy Bird.-- Merges into a great
Raven of the Night.-- Gathers together Valuables.-- And
while a folded Handkerchief lies across the Clergyman's
Face, steals away into the Storm and the Night.-- Gone!--
"Are ye all dead in there?"-- Drifting together.-- "Don't
give the Gal that Ticket!"-- A great-hearted Man.-- The
Rev. Bland officiates at a Wedding.-- Competence and
Contentment.
A few weeks later, one November evening, the first snow-storm of the
year came hurrying and skurrying down upon the city. The streets seemed
filled with that thrilling, electric life which comes with the first
snow-flakes, and as they tapped their ghostly knuckles against the panes
of Lilly Mercer's boudoir, the weird _staccato_ passed into her restless
spirit and filled her mind with wild, reckless fancies. The storm had
beaten up against the cottage but a little time until it brought Bland
with it.
He came to tell his Lilly, he said, that the cursed church interests
would compel him to go to the West, to be absent for several weeks. In
mentioning the fact he sat down by the fireplace and gave her some money
for use while he was away, and also counted over quite an amount which
he had provided for his travelling expenses.
He also told her that he should leave the next evening, and would,
after a little time, of course, return for the night, as he could never
go on so long a journey without spending the parting hours with his
little bird, as he had come to call her.
His little bird had sat remarkably passive during all this, but now
fluttered about him with cooings and regrets innumerable, and seemed to
still be in a flutter of excitement when he had gone; for, after walking
up and down the rooms for a time, she flung some wrappings about her,
and quickly glided out among the pelting flakes that hid her among the
hurrying thousands upon the streets and within the shops, until she as
rapidly returned.
Within the warm nest again, there was a note to be written, and several
feathery but valuable trifles to be got together. In fact, Bland's
little bird was a busy bird, until when, at a late hour, he came back to
its unusually tender ways and wooings, and was soon slumbering beside
it.
Then the little bird became a great raven of the night, and stole
quietly about the apartments, gathering together, quite like any other
raven, everything that pleased its fancy, including even the money that
was to have been used in the "cursed church interests," and the gold
watch that ticked away at its sleeping owner's head, but not loud enough
to awaken him, for he slept with a peculiar heaviness, and, strangely
enough, with a folded handkerchief across his face. But the raven of the
cottage, in a quiet way that ravens have, never ceased gathering what
pleased it, until the early hours of morning, when, kissing its beak to
the bed and the sleeper, and flinging upon the bed a little note which
read:
_A double exposé if you like._
LILLY "MERCER."--
took itself and its gathered treasures out into the storm and the night.
The storm was gone when the chloroformed man awoke, and the bright sun
pushed through the shutters upon his feverish face. Slowly and with
great effort he groped his way back to consciousness, and with a thrill
of fear reached out his hand for his little bird, and to reassure
himself that what was flooding furiously into his mind was untrue, and
was but some horrible nightmare that her dear touch would drive away.
But the place where she had lain was as cold and empty as her own
heartless heart; and as he faintly called, "Lilly! oh, Lilly!" the very
realistic voice of Mother Blake was heard in the hall, and her very
realistic fists banging away against the door.
"Say, Bland, are ye all dead in there? Lord! it's broad noon!"
All dead? No; but far better so, as the Rev. Mr. Bland with a mighty
effort sprang from the bed and saw the gas-light struggling with the
sunlight, the dead ashes in the fireplace, and himself in the great
mirror, a dishonored, despoiled, deserted roué, drugged, robbed and
defied by the simple maiden from the log farm-house by the pleasant
river.
The same evening two persons on wonderfully different missions drifted
into the depot and transfer-house at Detroit, and mingled with the great
throng that the east and the west continually throw together at this
point. One was a handsome, apparently self-possessed young lady, who
attended to her baggage personally, and moved about among the crowds
with apparent unconcern; though, closely watched, her face would have
shown anxiety and restlessness. The other was a gaunt, though solidly
built young fellow, whose clothes, although of good material, had the
appearance of having been thrown at him and caught with considerable
uncertainty upon his bony angles. He wandered about in a dejected way,
looking hither and thither as if forever searching for some one whose
discovery had become improbable, but who should not escape if an honest
search by an honest, simple fellow as he seemed to be, could avail
anything. By one of those unexplainable coincidences, or fatuities, as
some are pleased to term them, these two persons--the one desirous of
avoiding a crowd, and the other anxious to ascertain whom every throng
contained--approached the ticket-office from different directions at the
same moment.
He at the gent's window heard her at the ladies' window say to the
agent, "Yes, to Buffalo, if you please;" and he jumped as though he had
been lifted by an explosion. He peered through the window and saw her
face at the other window, and without waiting to step around to her,
yelled to the agent like a madman: "Say, you, mister!--don't give the
gal that ticket. It's a mistake. She's going 'tother way;" and shoving
his gaunt head and shoulders into the window and wildly gesticulating to
the young lady, as the agent in a scared way saw the muscular intruder
hovering over his tickets and money-box, he continued excitedly:
"Say, Lil, old gal! Lil Nettleton!--Dick--Dick Hosford, ye know! Ain't I
tellin' the truth? ain't it all a mistake, and ain't you goin' the other
way--with _me_, ye know--yes, 'long with Dick?"
[Illustration: _"Say, you?--mister?--don't give the gal that ticket!
It's all a mistake!"--_]
Lilly Nettleton, for it was no other, nodded to the agent--who returned
the money--and quickly stepped around to help Dick disengage himself
from the window, and then quickly drew him away from the crowd which the
little episode had collected, sat down beside him, and, heartily
laughing at his ludicrous appearance, said, "Why, Dick, where under
heaven did _you_ come from?"
"Lil, gal," said poor Dick, wiping the tears of joy out of his eyes, "I
come all the way from Californy fur ye, found ye gone and the old folks
all bust and banged up about it. Fur six weary weeks I've been huntin',
huntin' ye up and down, here and yon, and was goin' back to Terre Haute,
sell the d----d farm I bought fur ye, and skip back to the Slope to kill
Injuns, or somethin', to drown my sorrow, fur I told the old folks I'd
bring ye back, or never set foot in them diggin's agin'!"
Lilly looked at the great-hearted man beside her in a strange,
calculating kind of a way, never touched by his tenderness and simple
sacrifice, but moving very closely to him in a winsome way that quite
overcame him.
"And I come to marry ye, Lil," persisted Dick, anxiously.
"To marry me, Dick?"
"Yes, and bought ye a purty farm at Terre Haute."
"A farm, Dick?"
"Yes, Lil, a farm, with as snug a little house as ye ever sot eyes on."
"But where did you get so much money? You never wrote anything about
it."
"No, I wanted to kinder surprise ye; but I got it honest--got it honest;
with these two hands, Lil, that'll work for ye all yer life like a
nigger, if ye'll only come 'long with me and never go gallavantin' any
more."
"And won't you ask me any questions or allow them--at home, Dick--to ask
any, and take me just as I am?"
"Just as ye are; fur better, or fur wus, Lil."
"And marry me here, now, before we go home?"
"Marry ye, Lil? I'd marry ye if I'd a found ye in a----; I won't give it
a name, Lil. I didn't to them, and I won't to you."
She gave him her hand as firmly and frankly as though she had been a
pure woman, and said, "I'm yours, Dick. We'll be married here,
to-morrow."
She took charge of all the arrangements; called a cab which took them to
the Michigan Exchange; sent Dick off to his room with orders to secure a
license the first thing in the morning; wrote two notes to a certain
person, one addressed to Mother Blake, and the other to _his_
post-office box, ordering them posted that night; and went to her room
to sleep the sleep of the just, which, contrary to general belief, also
often comes to the unjust.
Early in the morning, Dick came with the license and suggested securing
the services of a preacher; but Lilly said that she had arranged that
matter already, and had got a clergyman who, she was sure, would not
disappoint them; and promptly at two o'clock in the afternoon
courteously admitted the Rev. Mr. Bland, whom she had given the choice
of officiating or an exposure, and who performed the ceremony in a pale,
trembling way as the wicked old light gleamed in her great, gray eyes,
and the swift shuttles of color played over her curled lip.
That night found the newly-wedded couple whirling back to Kalamazoo,
where they arrived the next morning and were driven out to the
farm-house, where they were joyfully welcomed, and where Dick Hosford in
his blunt way announced that he had "found Lil workin' away like a good
girl, had married her and took a little bridal 'tower,' and had come
back to have no d----d questions asked."
So in a few days the young couple bade the Nettletons good-by and were
soon after installed in the pleasant farm-house near Terre Haute, where
the years passed on happily enough and brought them competence and
contentment and three children, who for a long time never knew the
meaning of the strange light in the eyes, or the swift colors on the
lips, of the mother who cared for them with an apparent full measure of
kindness and affection.