But there was no bitterness in his mirth.
V
"Never pray for rain on a rising barometer."
--_Naval Regulations._
"Married men always make the worst husbands."
--_The Critic on the Hearth._
"Although, contrary to his custom, he had a lady on his knee, he
instructed the young prince in his royal duties."
--ANATOLE FRANCE.
Lyn Dyer lived with Uncle Dan in a little crowded house. Across the
way stood a big lonesome house; there Edith Harkey lived with Daddy
Pete.
Pete Harkey was a gentle, quiet and rather melancholy old man; Dan
Fenderson was a fat, jolly and noisy youth of fifty. In relating other
circumstances within the knowledge of the Border it would have been in
no degree improper to have put the emphasis on the names of those
two gentlemen. But this is "another story"; it is fitting that the
youngsters take precedence; Lyn Dyer and Uncle Dan, Edith and her
father.
Lyn Dyer--Carolyn, Lyn--had known no mother but Aunt Peg. The crowding
of the little house was well performed by Lyn's three young cousins,
Danjunior, Tomtom and Peggy. The big house had been lonesome for ten
years now. Edith's sisters and her one brother were all her seniors,
all married, and all living within eye flight; two at Hillsboro, a
scant twenty-five miles beyond the river--but the big house was not
less lonesome for that.
The little crowded house and the big lonesome house were half way
between Garfield post office and Derry. Both homes were in Sierra
County, but they were barely across the boundary; the county line made
the southern limit of each farm. This was no chance but a choosing,
and that a pointed one; having to do with that other story of those
two old men.
In Dona Ana County taxes were high and life was cheap. Since the
Civil War, Dona Ana had been bedeviled by the rule of professional
politicians. Sierra--aside from Lake Valley and Hillsboro--had very
little ruling and needed less; commonly enough there was only one
ticket for county officers, and that was picked by a volunteer
committee from both parties. Sierra was an American county, and took
pride that she had kept free from feuds and had no bandits within her
borders. Not that Mexicans were such evildoers. But where there was
an overwhelming Mexican vote there was a large purchasable vote;
which meant that purchasers took office. Unjust administration
followed--oppression, lawsuits and lawlessness, revenge, bloodshed,
feuds, anarchy. Result: More expense, more taxes, more bribing, more
bribers, more oppression to recoup the cost of officeholding. _Caveat
pre-emptor_--let the homesteader beware!
That unhappy time is now past and done with.
"Lyn! Lyn! Edith! Do come here and see what Adam Forbes has brought
in," grumbled Uncle Dan. "Another cowboy, and you just got rid of Tom
Bourbonia. It does beat all!"
Mr. Fenderson, uttering the above complaint, stood on his porch in the
light from his open door and struck hands with two men there; after
which he slapped them violently on the back.
"Come in!" cried Lyn from the doorway. Her eyes were shining. She
dropped a curtsy. "'Come in, come in--ye shall fare most kind!'"
"Don't you believe Uncle Dan," said Edith. "We tried every way to make
Tommy stay over--didn't we, Lyn?"
The story is not able to give an exact record of the next minutes. Of
the five young people--for Mr. Hobby Lull was there, as prophesied--of
the five young people, five were talking at once; and Uncle Dan, above
them all, boomed directions to Danjunior as to the horses of his
visitors.
"Daniel! Stop that noise!" said Aunt Peg severely. "You boys come on
in the house. Mr. Charlie, I'm glad to see you."
"Now, here!" protested Forbes. "Isn't anybody going to be glad to see
me?"
"But, Adam, we can see you any time," explained Edith. "While Mr.
See--"
"Her eyes went twinkle, twinkle, but her nose went 'Sniff! Sniff!'"
said Adam dolefully. "Excuse me if I seem to interrupt."
"But Mr. See--"
"Charlie," said See.
"But Charlie makes himself a stranger. We haven't seen you for six
months, Mr. See."
"Charlie," said Mr. See again. "Six months and eight days."
Mr. Hobby Lull sighed dreamily. "Dear me! It doesn't seem over two
weeks!"
A mesquite fire crackled in the friendly room. The night air bore no
chill; it was the meaning of that fire to be cheerful; the wide old
fireplace was the heart of the house. Adam Forbes spread his fingers
to the blaze and sighed luxuriously.
"Charlie, when you build your house you want a fireplace like this in
every room. Hob, who's going to sell Charlie a farm?"
"What's the matter with yours?"
Adam appeared a little disconcerted at this suggestion. "That idea
hadn't struck me, exactly," he confessed. "But it may come to that
yet. Lots of things may happen. I might find my placer gold, say.
Didn't know I was fixing to find a gold mine, did you? Well, I am.
I wanted Charlie to go snooks with me, but he hasn't got time. Me,
I've been projectin' and pirootin' over the pinnacles after that gold
for a year now, and I've just about got it tracked to its lair.
To-morrow--"
"Oh, gold!" said Lyn disdainfully, and wrinkled her nose.
"_Ain't I told you a hundred times--
Baby!
Ain't I told you a hundred times,
There ain't no money in the placer mines?
Baby!_"
"Lyn! Wherever do you pick up such deplorable songs?" said Aunt Peg,
highly scandalized. "But she's right, Adam. The best gold is like that
in the old fable--buried under your apple trees. You dig there
faithfully and you will need no placer mines."
White Edith turned to Charlie See.
"If you really intend to buy a farm here you ought to be getting about
it. You might wait too long, Mr. See."
"Charlie. Exactly what do you mean by that remark, my fair-haired
child?"
"Here! This has gone far enough!" declared Hob. "We men have got to
stand together--or else pull stakes and go where the women cease from
troubling and the weary are at rest. Don't you let her threats get you
rattled, Charlie See. We'll protect you."
"Silly! I meant, of course, that the Mexicans are not selling their
lands cheaply now, as they used to do."
"Not so you could notice it," said Uncle Dan. "Those that wanted to
sell, they've sold and gone, just about all of them. What few are left
are the solid ones. Not half-bad neighbors either. Pretty good sort.
They're apt to stick."
"Not long," said Hobby rather sadly. "They'll go, and we'll go too,
most of us. The big dam will be built, some time or other; we'll be
offered some real money. We'll grab it and drift. Strangers will take
comfort where we've grubbed out stumps. We are the scene shifters. The
play will take place later. 'Sall right; I hope the actors get a hand.
But I hate to think of strangers living--well, in this old house. Say,
we've had some happy times here."
"Won't you please hush?" said Adam. "Why so doleful? There's more
happy times in stock. This bunch don't have to move away. Why, when I
get my gold mine in action we can all live happy ever after.
To-morrow--"
"Hobby is right," said Aunt Peg. "Pick your words as you please,
bad luck or improvidence on the one side, thrift or greed on the
other--yes, and as many more words of praise or blame as you care
for; and the fact remains that the people who care for other things
more than they do for money are slowly crowded out by the people who
care more for money than for anything else."
"Uncle Dan, is that why you grasping Scotchmen have crowded out the
Irish round these parts?" inquired Charlie. "McClintock, MacCleod,
Simpson, Forbes, Campbell, Monroe, Fenderson, Stewart, Buchanan--why,
say, there's a raft of you here; and across the river it is worse."
"You touch there on a very singular thing, Mr. Charlie. Not that we
crowded out the Irish. There were only a few families, and most of
them are here yet. They happened to come first, and named the
settlements--that's all. But for the Scotch--you find more good
Scots' names to the hundred, once you strike the hills, than you will
find to the thousand on the plain country. Love of the hills is in the
blood of them; they followed the Rocky Mountains down from Canada."
"But, Uncle Dan," said Hobby, "how did so many of them happen to be in
Canada?"
"Scotland was a poor country and a cold country, England was rich and
warm, Canada was cold and hard. The English had no call to Canada, the
Hudson Bay Company captained their outflung posts with Scotchmen; the
easier that the Hanoverian kings, as a matter of policy, harried the
Jacobite clans by fair means and foul. You were speaking of across
the river. That is another curious matter. The California Company,
now--ruling a dozen dukedoms--California lends the name of it and
supplied the money; but the heads that first dreamed it were four long
Scottish heads. And their brand is the John Cross. Any stranger cowman
would read that brand as J Half Circle Cross. But we call it John
Cross. And why, sirs?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Hobby. "It was always the John Cross and
it never entered my head to ask why."
"Look you there, now!" Uncle Dan held out an open palm and traced on
it with a stubby and triumphant finger. "Their fathers had served John
Company, the Hudson Bay Company! And there you are linked back with
two hundred years! 'John Company has a long arm,' they said; 'John
Company lost a good man there!' How the name began is beyond my sure
knowing; but it is in my mind that it goes back farther still, to the
East India Company, to Clive and to Madras. Lyn, you are the bookman,
I'll get you to look it up some of these--Lyn! Lyn! Charlie See! The
young devils! Now wouldn't that jar you?"
"A fool and his honey are soon started," observed Adam.
"We're out here, Uncle Dan; all nice and comfy. There's a moon. And
itty-bitsy stars," answered a soothing voice--Charlie See's--from the
porch. "Oodles of stars. How I wonder what they are. G'wan, Uncle
Dan--tell us about the East India Company now."
Hobby Lull rose tragically and bestowed a withering glance upon Uncle
Dan. "You old fat fallacy with an undistributed middle--see what
you've done now! You and your John Company! Go to bed! Forbes, you
brought this man See. You go home!"
"Overlook it this one time," urged Forbes. "Don't send us away--the
girls are going to sing. Forgive us all both, and I'll get rid of See
to-morrow."
"Be sure you do, then. Lyn! Come here to me."
"Don't shoot, colonel, I'll come down," said Lyn.
Her small face was downcast and demure. Charlie See came tiptoe after
her and sidled furtively to the fire.
"Sing, then," commanded Hobby. He brought the guitars and gave one to
each girl.
The coals glowed on the hearth; side by side, the fair head and the
brown bent at the task of tuning. That laughing circle was scattered
long ago and it was written that never again should all those friendly
faces gather by any hearthfire--never again. It has happened so many,
many times; even to you and to me, so many, many times! But we learn
nothing; we are still bitter, and hard, and unkind--with kindness so
cheap and so priceless--as if there was no such thing as loss or
change or death.
And because of some hours of your own, it is hoped you will not smile
at the songs of that lost happy hour. They were old-fashioned songs;
indeed, it is feared they might almost be called Victorian. Their
bourgeois simplicity carried no suggestive double meaning.
"When other lips and other hearts"--that was what they sang, brown Lyn
and white Edith. Kirkconnel Lea they sang, and Jeanie Morrison, and
Rosamond:
_Rose o' the world, what man would wed
When he might dream of your face instead?_
Folly? Perhaps. Perhaps, too, in a world where we can but love and
where we must lose, it may be no unwisdom if only love and loss seem
worth the singing.
The swift hour passed. The last song, even as the first, was poignant
with the happy sadness of youth:
_When my heart is sad and troubled,
Then my quivering lips shall say,_
"_Oh! by and by you will forget me,
By and by when far away!_"
Good-bys were said at last; Forbes and See put foot to stirrup and
rode jingling into the white moonlight; the others stood silent on the
porch and watched them go. A hundred yards down the road, Adam Forbes
drew rein. A guitar throbbed low behind them.
"Hark," he said.
Edith Harkey stood in the shaft of golden light from the doorway; she
bore herself like the Winged Victory; her voice thrilled across the
quiet of the moonlit night:
"_Never the nightingale,
Oh, my dear!
Never again the lark
Thou wilt hear;
Though dusk and the morning still_
"_Tap at thy window-sill,
Though ever love call and call
Thou wilt not hear at all,
My dear, my dear!_"
The sad notes melted into the sweet pagan heartbreak of the enchanted
night. They turned to go.
"A fine girl," said Adam Forbes. "The only girl! To-morrow--"
He fell silent; again in his heart that parting cadence knelled with
keen and intolerable sorrow. The roots of his hair prickled, ants
crawled on his spine. So tingles the pulsing blood, perhaps, when a
man is fey, when the kisses of his mouth are numbered.
Edith went home to the big lonely house, but Lyn Dyer and Hobby Lull
lingered by the low fire. Mr. Lull assumed a dignified pose before the
fireplace, feet well apart and his hands clasped behind his back. He
regarded Miss Dyer with a twinkling eye.
"Have you anything to say to the court before sentence is pronounced?"
he inquired with lofty judicial calm.
Miss Dyer avoided his glance. She stood drooping before him; she
looked to one side at the floor; she looked to the other side at the
floor. The toe of her little shoe poked and twisted at a knot in the
floor.
"Extenuating circumstances?" she suggested hopefully.
"Name them to the court."
"The--the moon, I guess." The inquisitive shoe traced crosses and
circles upon the knot in the flooring. "And Charlie See," she added
desperately. "Charlie has such eloquent eyes, Hobby--don't you think?"
She raised her little curly head for a tentative peep at the court;
her own eyes were shining with mischief. The court unclasped its
hands.
"I ought to shake you," declared Hobby. But he did not shake her at
all.
"You're the only young man in Garfield who wears his face
clean-shaven," remarked Lyn reflectively, a little later. "Charlie
would look much better without a mustache, I think."
He pushed her away and tipped up her chin with a gentle hand so that
he could look into her eyes. "Little brown lady with curly eyes and
laughing hair--are you quite fair to Charlie See?"
"No," said Lyn contritely, "I'm not. I suppose we ought to tell him."
"We ought to tell everybody. So far as I am concerned, I would enjoy
being a sandwich man placarded in big letters: 'Property of Miss Lyn
Dyer.'"
"Why, Hobbiest--I thought it was rather nice that we had such a great
big secret all our own. But you're right--I see that now. I should
have met him at the door, I suppose, and said, 'You are merely wasting
your time, Mr. See. I will never desert my Wilkins!' Only that might
have been a little awkward, in a way, because, you see, 'Nobody asked
you to,' he said--or might have said."
"He never told you, then?"
"Not a word."
"But you knew?"
"Yes," said Lyn. "I knew." She twisted a button on his coat and spoke
with a little wistful catch in her voice. "I do like him, Hobby--I
can't help it. Only so much." She indicated how much on the nail of a
small finger. "Just a little teeny bit. But that little bit is--"
"Strictly plutonic?"
"Yes," she said in a small meek voice. "How did you know? He makes me
like him, Hobbiest. It--it scares me sometimes."
"Pretty cool, I'll say, for a girl that has only been engaged a week,
if you should happen to ask me."
"Oh, but that's not the same thing--not the same thing at all! You
couldn't keep me from liking you, not if you tried ever so hard. That
is all settled. But Charlie makes me like him. You see, he is such a
real people; I feel like the Griffin did about the Minor Canyon: 'He
was brave and good and honest, and I think I should have relished
him.'"
Hobby held her at arm's length and regarded her quizzically. "So
young, and yet so tender?"
"'So young, my lord, and true.'"
"Well," said Hobby resignedly, "I suppose we'll have to quarrel, of
course. They all do. But I don't know how to go about it. What do I
say next?"
"I might as well tell you the worst, angelest pieface. You ought
to know what a shocking horrid little creature your brown girl
really is. You won't ever tell--honest-to-goodness,
cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die?"
"Never."
"Say it, then."
"Honest-to-goodness, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die."
She buried her face on his breast. "I dreamed about him last night,
Hobby. Wasn't that queer? I hadn't thought of him before for
months--weeks, anyhow."
"A week, maybe?" suggested Hobby.
"Oh, more than that! Two weeks, at the very least. I--I hate to tell
you," she whispered. "I--I dreamed I liked him almost as much as I do
you!"
"Why, you brazen little bigamist!"
"Yes, I am--I mean, ain't I?" she assented complacently, for his arms
belied his words. "But that's not the worst, Hobbiest--that's not
nearly the dreadfulest. When I woke up I--I wrote some--some verses
about my dream. Are you awfully angry? We'll burn them together after
you read them."
"Woman, produce those verses! I will take charge of them as 'Exhibit
A.'"
"And then you'll beat me, please?"
"Oh, no," said Hobby magnanimously. "That's nothing! Pish, tush! Why,
Linoleum, I feel that way about lots of girls. Molly Sullivan, now--"
"Hobby!"
"I always like to dream of Molly. One of the best companions to take
along in a dream--"
"Only-est! Please don't!"
"Well, then," said Hobby, "I won't--on one condition. It is to be
distinctly understood under no circumstances are you ever to call me
Charlie. I won't stand for it. Dig up your accursed doggerel!"
This is what Hobby Lull read aloud, with exaggerated fervor, while Lyn
huddled by the dying fire and hid her burning face in her hands:
_Last night I kissed you as you slept,
For all night long I dreamed of you;
Lower and low the hearth fire crept,
The embers glowed and dimmed; we two
Heard the wind rave at bolt and door
With all the world shut out and fast,
Doubted, hoped, questioned, feared no more,
And all we sought was ours at last._
_I do not love you, dear. I never loved you,
Grudged what I gave, a wayward tenderness;
Yet in my dream I wooed you with white arms
And lingering soft caress.
Now for all years to come I must remember,
When fires burn dim and low,
This false dear dream of mine, that stolen hour--
Your face of long ago._
_I shall awaken in some midnight lonely,
I shall remember you as one apart,
How for one hour of dream I loved you only
And held you in my heart.
And you, through all the years since first you met me
Still let my memory gleam;
Oh, my old lover! Do not quite forget me!
I loved you--in my dream!_
Hobby cleared his throat impressively, tapped his table with the
paper, and assumed measured judicial accents.
"This incriminating document proves--hah--hum--"
"To the satisfaction of the court," prompted Lyn in a muffled voice.
"To the satisfaction of the court--I thank you! To the very great
satisfaction of the court, this document, together with the barefaced
manner in which you have brought this evidence to the cognizance of
this court--it proves, little Lady Lyn, that you are compact all of
loyalty and clean honor--and the sentence of this court is,
Imprisonment for life!"
He held out his arms, and the culprit crept gladly to prison.