had flung over the earth a pall, through which the silvery moon cast
shimmering beams aslant the quivering aspens of the forest, and the
snoring of the birds told him that nature slept, he left his house
and walked briskly off to the highway.
[Illustration]
About that time a lawyer was riding along the road on horseback, with
a wallet containing a share of an estate worth $600, which he had
secured for an old woman.
’Rasmus saw the traveler, saw the horse, saw the wallet.
The traveler saw no one. He was blind--drunk.
’Rasmus cut a stout bludgeon.
The traveler ambled on.
’Rasmus clasped the bludgeon.
The traveler continued to amble.
’Rasmus stole up beside him....
The traveler lay in the ditch.
’Rasmus jumped on the horse, the wallet in his hand, and galloped
home, stabling the beautiful animal in his cabin to avoid being
suspected of the murder.
Placing his shoe in front of the one window of the cabin, that none
might see him, he counted the money, and found it amounted to just
$600, which, together with the $3000, formed the sum required by
the sheriff. This made him so happy that he picked up a banjo and
played Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung” through once or twice, accompanying
himself on his throat in a rich tenor. He then turned out the gas and
retired, to sleep as only a good, unselfish soul can.
III
It is 11:45 A. M. The squire and his family, who have heard nothing
from ’Rasmus, are on the veranda, anxiously awaiting the arrival of
the sheriff.
11:50 A. M.! Is ’Rasmus dead? Has the sheriff relented?
11:55. Good lack! The sheriff is seen galloping toward the house, and
yet there is no sign of ’Rasmus.
That individual, who is nothing if not dramatic, is sitting behind
the house on horseback, awaiting the stroke of twelve.
The door of the ormolu cuckoo-clock in the kitchen opens, the cuckoo
advances. At her first note the sheriff jumps from his horse; at the
second he walks sternly upon the veranda; at the third he asks for
the money; at the fourth and fifth they tell him that ’Rasmus has
disappeared; at the sixth, seventh, and eighth he handcuffs them all
together; at the ninth, tenth, and eleventh he jumps on his horse
and rides off, dragging them behind him; and at the twelfth ’Rasmus
trots leisurely out from behind the house, and, opening a carpet-bag,
counts out $3600 in silver!
The astonished sheriff puts the money into his pocket, gives Squire
Lamar a receipt in full for it, unlocks the handcuffs, and the family
resume their wonted places on the veranda.
But all was not yet done. ’Rasmus still had his bludgeon with him,
and a few deft strokes on the sheriff’s head were all-sufficient.
’Rasmus then took back the money and gave it to Squire Lamar. Then he
told them all to remain perfectly still, and whistling three times,
an amateur photographer made his appearance, adjusted his apparatus,
and took their pictures.
Sarony could have wished for no better subjects. On the broad veranda
lay the old lady prone on the floor, reading the “Tallahassee Inland
Mariner”; at her side sat her daughter, Turk-fashion, shelling a
pea; while the son and heir reclined near by, reading an account by
a Prussian officer of the third battle of Bull Run. The father,
weighted down with dollars, snored in the background.
And beaming on them all with the consciousness of having done his
best and done it well, old ’Rasmus stood, singing ventriloquially, so
as not to injure the picture, this negro plantation song:
De ribber Jordan I can see,
Toujour jamais, toujour jamais;
Mein liebe frau, ach, she lofes me,
Fair Jeannie het awa!
Then I wen’ daown the caows to milk,
Toujour jamais, toujour jamais;
Me lika banan’ as softa as silk,
Helas, cordon, by gar!
XXVII
’MIDST ARMED FOES
BY THE AUTHOR OF “DUNN TO DEATH; OR, THE WEATHER PROPHET’S FATE,”
“SARAH THE SALES-WOM-LADY; OR, FROM COUNTER TO COUNTESS,” ETC.
Raoul Chevreuilly stood within a rude hut in the dark recesses of
the forest of Fontainebleau. By his side stood his lady-love, the
beautiful Perichole Perihelion. Without, the night was black and the
wind roared as it is wont to do in stories of this type.
“Dost fear aught, my precious?” asked Raoul, gazing at the French
face of the lovely Parisian.
“Why should I fear when I am protected by my Raoul--how do you
pronounce Raoul, anyway?” replied she.
“I long ago gave up trying. But, Perichole, while I would not have
you fear, yet it is no light task that I have undertaken--your
defense against as fierce a pack of roistering thieves as ever beset
the forest and who now surround this hut. Let but the wind die down
so that they may be heard, and they will hurl execrations at me and
beat down the door. Réné Charpentier seeks my life because I have
promised to be yours, or rather because you have promised to be mine.
But he shall kill me only at the expense of my life. Yea, though he
had twice a hundred myrmidons at his back and beck.”
For answer the entrancing girl took a mother-of-pearl jews’ harp off
the wall and played “Mlle. Rosie O’Grady,” “There’ll be a chaud temps
in the vieux ville ce soir,” and other simple French ditties.
[Illustration]
Instead of admiring her pluck, Raoul was moved to fury, and he cried
in French,--this whole business is supposed to be in French, except
the descriptions,--“Is it impossible to move you to a realization
of my bravery? Know, then, that, save for ourselves, there is not a
human being within three miles of this hut. I had thought that you
would be moved to added love by such an exhibition of bravery on my
part as your defense against a hundred bravos; but, _viol di gamba!_
you have no imagination.”
“And Réné Charpentier?”
“There is no such fellow. He is but a pigment--I mean figment of my
brain.”
Flinging a pair of arms around his French neck, the adorable
Perichole kissed Raoul again and once more. Then she said, “My adored
one, that you were brave I suspected--are you not the hero of a
French novel? But I never knew that you were such a lovely liar.
Raoul, my own forevermore!”
And her beautiful face beamed with a love-light whose wick had been
newly trimmed.
XXVIII
AT THE SIGN OF THE CYGNET
A COSMOPOLITAN ROMANCE
I
It was late spring in New England. Buttercups bespangled the grass
and nodded and smiled at the apple-blossoms in the trees. And the
apple-blossoms nodded in return, and in a few days fluttered down to
the buttercups.
On the front stoop of an old baronial castle in the south of France
stood Armand Maria Sylvestre de Faience Pomade Pommedeterre. He had
been standing there all the morning, he knew not why. True, he looked
well, but he would have looked as well anywhere else, and he might
have been doing something. Still, there is time. It is but the first
chapter.
[Illustration]
Godiva Churchill Churchill, of Churchill Wolde, Biddecumb on
Baddecumb, the only daughter of her widowed mother and widowered
father, cantered slowly down the roadway that led to Churchill Hall,
the home of the Churchills for seven centuries. Her right cheek was
overflushed, and ever and anon she bit her chin. England could boast
of no prettier girl than Godiva, nor did England boast of it as much
as Godiva did.
II
It is summer in New England. The as yet colorless spears of goldenrod
give warning that the year is speeding speedily. The buttercups fled
long ago with the apple-blossoms, and from the verdant limbs of the
apple-trees hang bullet-like apples.
Armand Maria Sylvestre de Faience Pomade Pommedeterre is still in
the south of France. My French map is mislaid, and I cannot spell
the name of the place he is at, but it is on bottles, I think. He
has left the front stoop, and passes his time gazing at the goldfish
in the fountain and waiting to be drawn into the plot of my story.
Patient man!
Godiva Churchill Churchill, of Churchill Wolde, Biddecumb on
Baddecumb, is still in the saddle, filled with vague longings.
III
Purple asters fringe the highways of New England, and rosy apples
depend from the boughs in countless orchards. (I think that scenery
is my strong point.)
Armand Maria Sylvestre de Faience Pomade Pommedeterre is chafing at
my delay, but continues to reside in the south of France from sheer
inertia.
Godiva Churchill Churchill, of Churchill Wolde, Biddecumb on
Baddecumb, has worn out the left fore foot of her horse by her
incessant cantering upon the graveled paths of Churchill Hall. She is
beginning to feel resentment at me for the enforced monotony of her
existence, but heavens! how can I help it? I’m trying my level best
to evolve a plot.
IV
The flowers that gladdened the meads and highways and shady lanes of
New England are gone. Winter’s robes of office are thrown carelessly
over the landscape, and apples in innumerable barrels stand in the
cellars, waiting for better prices.
The reason why I have so faithfully described New England scenery is
because that’s the only kind of scenery I know anything about.
I am ashamed to confess it, but this is the last chapter, and blamed
if I can think of any good reason for the departure of Armand Maria
Sylvestre de Faience Pomade Pommedeterre from the south of France. He
can’t speak a word of English, and if you’re thinking of Godiva, she
can’t speak a syllable of French.
Poor Godiva Churchill Churchill, of Churchill Wolde, Biddecumb on
Baddecumb! She is quite lame from her long-continued exercise in
the saddle, but still canters aimlessly about. She has become the
laughing-stock of all the tenants of Churchill Wolde, and it’s all my
fault.
If she saw Armand she’d fall in love with him, but I can’t think of a
way to bring about their meeting. That’s what it is to lack invention.
Just imagine me trying to write a novel!
Anyhow, I’ve got a good title for the story.
THE END
XXIX
A SCOTCH SKETCH
The shadows lengthened on old Ben Nevis. Surely none of my readers
imagines that Ben Nevis is the hero of my simple Scotch sketch. If
so, he is awa off. Ben Nevis is a mountain, and I have flung it in as
a suitable background for the following conversation:
“Mither, mither, ye’ll mek nae doot o’ haein’ roast beef fer supper,”
said Hillocks Kilspindie, as he sat on the old bench in front of
their cottage door.
With a troubled look, his mother, old Margaret Kilspindie, replied:
“Man, Hillocks, div ye no see me buyin’ the haggis?”
“Yes, mither; but I’m sair sick o’ haggis. Syne Scotch literatoor kem
in it’s hard put we are to live at all. I say may the plague take
Maclaren and Barrie and Crockett. Before they began to write”--and
in his excitement Hillocks was using as good English as any other
Scotchman in real life--“roast beef and wheat bread and chops and
tomato-sauce and other Christian dishes were good enough for us all.
Then came the influx of Americans who wanted to see the scenes made
immortal by the ‘Bonnie Brier Bush’ (I wish Ian might have scratched
his writing-hand upon it) and the ‘Window in Thrums’ (which I wish
some one had broken before Barrie saw it), and now it is haggis in
the morning, and haggis at noon, and haggis at night, and Scotch
dialect that tears my tongue to pieces all the time.”
“Hech, my bairnie; but thae are wrang words, an’ fu’ o’ unchristian
bitterness.”
“Oh, mother! drop your ‘hechs’ and your ‘fu’s.’ There are no
Americans about this evening. It’s hard enough to talk the abominable
gibberish when we have to, without keeping it up all the time.
But, tell me, mother, couldn’t you smuggle in a little roast beef
to-night, and let me eat in the cellar?” And a pleading look came
into the young man’s eyes that was hard to resist.
“My bairn--I mean my boy, I’d like to, but I dare not. Maclaren’s
inspectors are due here any minute, and I could ill afford to pay the
heavy fine that would be levied if we were found with as English a
thing as roast beef in the house. No, lad, we maun stick to parritch
and haggis--I mean we must stick to oatmeal and haggis.”
Just then the sentry that was stationed at the outskirts of the
village to warn the villagers of the approach of Americans gave the
laugh of warning: “H-O! H-O! H-O!” And, with a bitter look on his
face, and a shake of his fist in the direction of Loch Lomond, Ben
Nevis, Ben Bolt, and various other bits of Scotch scenery that were
scattered about, Hillocks Kilspindie said to his mother: “Weel, as
surees deith a’ c’u’dna help it; tae be sittin’ on peens for mair
than twa oors, tryin’ tae get a grup o’ a man’s heads. (I learned
that this morning, mother. Isn’t it a looloo?)”
“(Indeed it is, my son. Look out! The Americans are almost within
ear-shot.) Noo we’ve tae begin an’ keep it up till they gang awa, for
there mauna be a cheep aboot the hoose, for Annie’s sake! Here they
are.”
[Illustration]
“Mither! Mither! if ye lo’e me bring me mair haggis.”
CHORUS OF AMERICANS. Oh, how adorably Scotch!
“Losh keep us a’, but the childie’ll eat his mither oot o’ hoose an’
hame wi’ his haggis. Ye’ll find some o’ it i’ the cupboard.”
AMERICAN (_politely to_ HILLOCKS). Have some haggis on me.
HILLOCKS (_with a canny Scotch leer_). Thanks; but I prefer a plate.
UNRELATED STORIES--RELATED
[Illustration]
XXX
EPHRATA SYMONDS’S DOUBLE LIFE
I
Ephrata Symonds was a knave. Of that there was no doubt. It stuck out
all over him. His face was a chart of wickedness, and it was his open
boast that he had never done any good in his life, and, please the
devil, he never intended doing any. He had married early in life (in
a fit of absent-mindedness), but he had long since forsaken his wife
and children.
“Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do”; but, to speak
in a paradox, Satan never gave him any employment, for he was ever
busy--at evil. It was when he was just turned fifty that he was
elected a member of the Evil-doers’ Club. He soon became popular,
and upon the incarceration of the president of the club, the trusted
cashier of the Tyninth National Bank, Symonds was unanimously elected
president in his place.
[Illustration]
That he was the right man for the position he immediately proved by
presenting the club with a fine new club-house, which he assured
them was not his to give, or he would not have presented it. In the
first six months of his presidency he eloped with two married women
at once, and so managed the trip that neither suspected that she was
not quite alone in his company. He deserted them both in the West,
and returned to pose before his fellow club-members. He diverted
to his use the little property of a friendless woman, and in many
characteristic ways showed himself to be thoroughly bad.
It was at this period of his life that his death came, and his last
words were: “I am thankful that no man is the better for my having
lived.”
His fellow Evil-doers mourned his departure with sincerity. They felt
that in losing such a thoroughly bad man they had suffered a loss
which it would be impossible to repair. As the secretary feelingly
put it, “Hell is the worse for having him.” “Yes,” said another;
“he was admirably bad. And it is the more to his credit that he was
bad in spite of adverse influences. His parents were pious people,
and Ephrata had every temptation to lead a life of virtue; but in
the face of all the obstacles that his father put in the way of his
becoming vicious, he persevered, and yesterday I had the honor of
telling his old mother that her son was undoubtedly the most wicked
man in New York. It made quite an impression on her. We shall ne’er
see his like again.”
The parlors of the Evil-doers’ Club were draped in black, and mock
resolutions of sympathy were sent to his deserted wife.
II
Great was the chagrin of the members of the club when it began to
be bruited among them that Symonds had been leading a double life;
that his wickedness was but a cloak to hide his goodness. The rumors
were at first pooh-poohed, but when it was remembered that every
third week he had always absented himself from town, the story that
he was really a good man began to wear an air of truth. Detectives
were set to work, and the damning proofs of his deceitful goodness
multiplied rapidly, and at last the facts came out, but only to the
club-members. They felt that it would not be creditable to allow such
scandalous stories to be repeated to the world at large, which would
only too willingly point the finger of scorn at them on learning that
their chief officer had, in spite of every lure, gone right. Some
might even go so far as to insinuate that maybe other members were
better than they seemed to be. No; Symonds’s disreputable goodness
should continue to be as well cloaked as he had cloaked it while
alive.
The story of his goodness is as follows: It seems that every third
week of his life had been spent in Boston, and while there he had
earned a large income as a life-insurance agent. It was his wont
to spend this money in doing good. Nothing was known in the Hub of
his private life. He lived at the Adams House, and cultivated an
austerity of manner that repelled people; but by underhand means he
contrived to ameliorate a deal of misery.
Having become convinced in his early youth that unostentatious
benevolence was preferable to a life of good works blazoned forth
to an admiring world, he had habituated himself to every form of
vice, in order, under cover of it, to pursue unobserved the efforts
he was to put forth for the good of his fellow-men. And he had well
succeeded. When Elias Hapgood, who had for thirty years subsisted on
the bounty of an unknown benefactor, read in the Boston “Herald” an
account of the death of Ephrata Symonds, “the wickedest man in New
York,” he breathed a prayer of thankfulness that the world was rid of
such a man, little knowing that he was misjudging his best friend.
And Elias was but one of scores that had been similarly benefited.
Symonds’s charities had been literally endless and invariably
anonymous. And now, after having, as it were, lived down his good
works, it was a little hard that death should have torn from him the
lifelong mask of deceit, and set him before his fellow-members for
what he was--a thoroughly good man.
III
It was a special business meeting of the Evil-doers’ Club. The
chairman rapped for order, and the secretary read the following
resolutions:
“WHEREAS, It has pleased Nature to take from among us Ephrata
Symonds, for some time our honored president;
“WHEREAS, We had always supposed him to be a man of the most
exemplary wickedness, a man before whom all Evil-doers might well
hide their diminished heads in despair of ever approaching his level
of degradation;
“WHEREAS, His life had always seemed to us a perfectly unbroken and
singularly consistent chain of crimes and enormities to be emulated
by us all; and
“WHEREAS, It has lately come to be known that his wickedness was but
a mask to hide a life of well-doing, occupied in its every third week
with deeds of kindness and generosity;
“Therefore be it _Resolved_, That we, as members of this club, have
been most shamefully imposed upon;
“_Resolved_, That we hereby express our contempt for a man who,
with every incentive to be always bad, should have so far forgotten
himself as to lead a third of a worthy life.”
The secretary had not finished reading the resolutions when a
messenger brought in a letter which he handed to the chairman as the
clock pointed to eight fifty-eight.
It ran in this fashion:
FELLOW-MEMBERS: It is, by the time of reading this, probably plain
to you that you have been taken in by me, and that, so far from my
really having been a wicked person, I was a credit to my race and
time.
True to my desire that to the rest of the world I should be
accounted a bad man, I have caused to be delivered with this letter
a box. It works its purpose at nine o’clock. Sit where you are and
do not attempt to escape. The secret of my goodness rests, and
shall rest, with you.
Yours insincerely, EPHRATA SYMONDS.
As the chairman finished reading he glanced at the clock. It was on
the stroke of nine! He seized the box, and with a wild cry attempted
to throw it through the window, but it was too late. A whirring noise
was heard, followed by a terrific explosion, that left of club-house
and -members naught save a hole in the ground.
Symonds’s culpable goodness remained unknown to the world.
XXXI
A STRANGER TO LUCK
When I got off the train at Darbyville, which, as all will remember,
is the junction of the L. M. & N. and O. P. & Q. railroads, and found
that, owing to an accident, it would be an hour before the train
came in on the latter road, I was vexed. Although ordinarily my own
thoughts are agreeable companions, yet events of the past week, in
which my good judgment had not borne a conspicuous part, made it
likely that for the nonce these thoughts of mine would be more or
less unpleasant, and so I cast about for some human nature to study.
At one end of the platform three or four farmers were seated
upon trunks. They were alert-looking men, and, like me, were
waiting for the train. As I neared them, one of their number, a
tall, lanky, sharp-boned, knife-featured fellow, imperturbably
good-natured-looking, and with an expression of more than ordinary
intelligence in his eyes, left them and sauntered off down the road
with long, irregular strides.
It was one of those calm, clear, dry days when sounds carry well,
and although I did not join them, yet I heard every word of the
conversation. Indeed, as their glances from time to time showed, they
were not averse to having an auditor.
“It’s cur’us,” said one of them, a ruddy-faced man with a white
beard, “how unlucky a man c’n be an’ yit manage to live.” His eyes
followed the shambling figure that had just left them. “I’ll help
myself to some of thet terbacker, Jed. Left mine to hum, an’ I have
the teethache--awful.” This to a short, stout man with a smooth face,
who had just taken a liberal mouthful of tobacco from a paper that he
drew from his hip-pocket.
“He’p ’se’f!” said the one addressed. Then he added, “Meanin’ Seth, I
s’pose?”
“Yes,” replied the other. “I b’lieve thet ef Seth was to hev anythin’
really fort’nit happen to him, it would throw him off his balance.”
“’N’ yit ther’ never was a feller thet better deserved good luck than
Seth. Most obligin’ man I ever saw. Ain’t no fool, nuther,” remarked
the third and last member of the group, a typical Uncle Sam in
appearance, with prominent front teeth, and a habit of laughing dryly
at everything that he or any one else said.
“He don’t suffer fer the actooal needs of life, doos he?” asked the
stout man whom the others called Jed.
“No--oh, no,” answered Sam (for it turned out that so the typical
Yankee was called). “No; he gits enough to eat and wear, but he never
hez a cent to lay by, and never will.”
“Don’t drink, doos he?” asked Jed, who seemed to belong to a
different town from the one wherein the others and Seth abode. His
acquaintance with the one under discussion was evidently by no means
intimate.
“No; he ain’t got no vices ’t I know of. Jes’ onlucky.”
“It’s s’prisin’ haow tantalizin’ly clus good fortin hez come to
him--different times,” said the one who had asked for the tobacco,
and whom the others called Silas.
“You’re _right_, Silas,” assented Sam. “He c’n come nearer to good
luck ’thout techin’ it ’an any man I ever see.”
“Don’t seem to worrit him much,” said Jed. “He seems cheerful.”
“Don’t nothin’ worrit _him_,” Sam continued. “Most easy-goin’ man on
the face of the airth. _He_ don’t ask fer sympathy. He takes great
doses of bad luck ’s ef ’twas good fer his health.”
“Never fergit,” said Silas, “the time when he bought a fine new milch
Jarsey at auction fer five dollars. Why, he hed two offers fer her
nex’ day, an’ I _know_ one of ’em was forty dollars--”
“Well, naow I call that purty lucky,” interrupted Jed.
“Wait!” continued Silas, seating himself more comfortably on a
trunk. “Seth he wouldn’t sell. Said he never did hev his fill of
milk, an’ he was goin’ to keep her. Very nex’ day, b’ George!
she choked on a turnip, an’ when he faound her she was cold. Man
sympathized with him. ‘Too bad, Seth,’ says he; ‘ye ’r’ aout forty
dollars.’ ‘Five’s all I figger it at,’ says Seth. ‘Didn’t _keer_ to
sell.’
[Illustration]