University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
THE BED-ROCK.

In the strong light that fell upon her face, Mr.
Gray had an opportunity to examine her features
more closely. Her eyes, which were dark and
singularly brilliant, were half closed, either
from some peculiar conformation of the lids, or
an habitual effort to conceal expression. Her
skin was colorless, with that satin-like lustre
that belongs to some brunettes, relieved by one
or two freckles that were scarcely blemishes.
Her face was squared a little at the lower angles,
but the chin was round and soft and the curves
about the mouth full and tender enough to destory
the impression left by contemplation of
those rigid outlines. The effect of its general
contour was that of a handsome woman of
thirty. In detail, as the eye dwelt upon any
particular feature, you could have added a margin
of ten years, either way.

“Mrs. Smith—Mr. Gray,” said the lawyer,
briskly. “Mr. Gray is the gentleman who,
since the decease of your husband, has taken
such a benevolent interest in our playful Narcissa—Melissa,
I should say. He is the preceptor
of our district school, and besides his relation as
teacher to your daughter, has, I may say in our

legal fashion, stood in loco parentis—in other
words, has been a parent, a—a—father to her.”

At the conclusion of this speech, Mrs. Smith
darted a quick glance at Mr. Gray, which was
unintelligible to any but a woman. As there
were none of her own keen-witted sex present,
to make an ungracious interpretation of it, it
passed unnoticed, except the slight embarrassment
and confusion it caused the young man
from its apparent gratuity.

“We have met before, I believe,” said Mrs.
Smith, with her bright eyes half hid, and her
white teeth half disclosed. “I can easily imagine
Mr. Gray's devotion to a friend from his
courtesy to a stranger. Let me thank you again
for both my daughter and myself.”

In the desperate hope of saying something
natural, Mr. Gray asked if she had seen Melissa
yet.

“O dear, no! Think how provoking. Judge
Plunkett says it is absolutely impossible till
some tiresome formalities are over. There are
so many stupid forms to go through with first.
But how is she? You have seen her, have you
not? you will see her again to-night, perhaps?
How I long to embrace her again. She was a
mere baby when she left me. Tell her how I
long to fly to her!”

Her impassioned utterance and the dramatic
gestures that accompanied these words afforded
a singular contrast to the cool way with which
she rearranged the folds of her dress, when she
had finished; folding her hands over her lap
and settling herself unmistakably back again on
the sofa. Perhaps it was this that made Mr.
Gray think she had, at some time, been an actress.
But the next moment he caught her eye
again and felt pleased—and again vexed with
himself for being so—and in this mental condition
began to speak in favor of his old pupil.
His embarrassment passed away as he warmed
with his subject, dwelling at length on Mliss's
better qualities, and did not return until in a
breathless pause he became aware that this
woman's bright eyes were bent upon him. The
color rose in his cheek, and with a half-muttered
apology for his prolixity, he offered his excuses
to retire.

“Stay a moment, Mr. Gray,” said the lawyer.
“You are going to town, and will not think it a
trouble to see Mrs. Smith safely back to her
hotel. You can talk these things over with our
fair friend on the way. To-morrow, at ten, I
trust to see you both again.”

“Perhaps I am taxing Mr. Gray's gallantry
too much,” interposed the lady with a very vivid
disclosure of eyes and teeth.

“Mr. Gray would be only too happy.”

After he had uttered this civility, there was a
slight consciousness of truth about it that embarrassed
him again. But Mrs. Smith took his
proffered arm and they bade the lawyer good-night,
and passed out in the starlit night together.

Four weeks have elapsed since the advent of
Mrs. Smith to the settlement. Four weeks that
might have been years in any other but a California
mining camp, for the wonderful change
that has been wrought in its physical aspect.
Each stage has brought its load of fresh adventurers;
another hotel which sprang up on the
site of the National has its new landlord, and a
new set of faces about its hospitable board,
where the conventional bean appears daily as a
modest vegetable, or in the insincerer form of
coffee. The saw-mills have been hard at work
for the last month, and huge gaps appear in the
circling files of redwood where the fallen trees
are transmitted to a new style of existence in
the damp, sappy tenements that have risen over
the burnt district. The “great strike” at
Smith's Pocket has been heralded abroad, and
above and below, and on either side of the
crumbling tunnel that bears that name other
tunnels are piercing the bowels of the mountain,
shafts are being sunk, and claims are taken
up even to the crest of Red Mountain, in the
hope of striking the great Smith lead. Already
an animated discussion has sprung up in the
columns of the Red Mountain Banner in regard
to the direction of the famous lead—a discussion
assisted by correspondents who have assumed
all the letters of the alphabet in their
anonymous arguments, and have formed the opposing
“angle” and “dip” factions of Smith's
Pocket.

But whatever be the direction of the lead, the
progress of the settlement has been steadily onward,
with an impetus gained by the late disaster.
That classical but much-abused bird, the
Phœnix, has been invoked from its ashes in
several editorials in the Banner to sit as a type
of resuscitated Smith's Pocket, while in the
homelier phrase of an honest miner “it seemed
as if the fire kem to kinder clean out things for
a fresh start.”

Meanwhile the quasi-legal administration of
the estate of Smith is drawing near a termination
that seems to credit the prophetic assertion
of Judge Plunkett. One fact has been evolved
in the process of examination, viz: that Smith
had discovered the new lead before he was murdered.
It was a fair hypothesis that the man
who assumed the benefit of his discovery was
the murderer, but as this did not immediately
involve the settlement of the estate it excited
little comment or opposition. The probable

murderer had escaped; judicial investigations,
even in the hands of the people, had been attended
with disastrous public results, and there
was no desire on the part of Justice to open the
case and deal with an abstract principle when
there was no opportunity of making an individual
example. The circumstances were being
speedily forgotten in the new excitement; even
the presence of Mrs. Smith lost its novelty. The
Banner, when alluding to her husband, spoke of
him as the “late J. Smith, Esq.,” attributing
the present activity of business as the result of
his lifelong example of untiring energy, and
generally laid the foundation of a belief which
thereafter obtained that he died comfortably in
the bosom of his family, surrounded by disconsolate
friends. The history of all pioneer settlements
had this legendary basis, and in the progress
of this story Mliss may live to see the day
when her father's connection with the origin of
the settlement shall become apochryphal, and
contested like that of Romulus and Remus and
their wolfish wet-nurse.

It is to the everlasting credit and honor of
Smith's Pocket that the orphan and widow
meet no opposition from the speculative community,
and that the claim's utmost boundaries
are liberally rendered. How far this circumstance
may be owing to the rare personal
attractions of the charming widow, or to Mliss's
personal popularity, I shall not pretend to say.
It is enough that when the brief of Judge
Plunkett's case is ready there are crowds of
willing witnesses to substantiate and corroborate
doubtful points to an extent that is
more creditable to their generosity than their
veracity.

Mliss has seen her mother. Mr. Gray, with
his knowledge of his pupil's impulsiveness, has
been surprised to notice that the new relationship
seems to awaken none of those emotions in
the child's nature that he confidently looked for.
On the occasion of their first meeting, to which
Mr. Gray was admitted, Mliss maintained a
guarded shyness totally different from her
usually frank boldness—a shyness that was the
more remarkable from its contrast with the unrepressed
and somewhat dramatic emotions of
Mrs Smith. Now, under her mother's protection
and care, he observes another radical
change in Mliss's appearance. She is dressed
more tastefully and neatly—not entirely the result
of a mother's influence, but apparently the
result of some natural instinct, now for the
first time indulged, and exhibited in a ribbon
or a piece of jewelry, worn with a certain air and
consciousness. There is a more strict attention
to the conventionalities of life; her speech is
more careful and guarded; her walk, literally
more womanly and graceful. Those things Mr.
Gray naturally attributes to the result of the
new relation, though he cannot help recalling
his meeting with Mliss in the woods on the
morning of the fire, and of dating many of
these changes from thence.

It is a pleasant morning, and Mr. Gray is
stirring early. He has been busied in preparation
the night previous, for this is his last
day in Smith's Pocket. He lingers for some
time about the schoolhouse, gathering up those
little trifles which lay about his desk, which
have each a separate history in his experience of
Smith's Pocket, and are part of the encrustations
of his life, Lastly, a file of the Red Mountain
Banner is taken from the same receptacle
and packed away in his bag. He walks to the
door and turns to look back. Has he forgotten
anything? No, nothing. But still he lingers.
He wonders who will take his place at the desk,
and for the first time in his pedagogue experience,
perhaps, feels something of an awful responsibility
as he thinks of his past influence
over the wretched little beings who used to
tremble at his nod, and whose future ill or
good he may have helped to fashion. At last he
closes the door, almost tenderly, and walks
thoughtfully down the road. He has to pass the
cabin of an Irish miner, whose little boy is toddling
in the ditch, with pinafore, hands, and
face in a chronic state of untidiness. Mr. Gray
seizes him with a hilarious impulse, and after a
number of rapid journeys to Banbury Cross in
search of an apocryphal old woman who mounted
a mythical white horse, he kissed the cleanest
place on his broad expanse of cheek, presses
some silver into his chubby fist, tells him to be
a good boy, and deposits him in the ditch again.
Having in this youthful way atoned for certain
sins of omission a little further back, he proceeds,
with a sense of perfect absolution, on his
way to the settlement.

A few hours lie between him and his departure,
to be employed in friendly visits to Mrs.
Morpher, Dr. Duchesne, Mliss, and her mother.
The Mountain Ranch is the nearest, and thither
Mr. Gray goes first. Mrs. Morpher, over a
kneading trough, with her bare arm whitened
with flour, is genuinely grieved at parting with
the master, and in spite of Mr. Gray's earnest
remonstrauces, insists upon conducting him into
the chill parlor, leaving him there until she
shall have attired herself in a manner becoming
to “company.” “I don't want you to go at all—
no more I don't,” said Mrs. Morpher, with all
sincerity, as she seats herself finally on the
shining horse-hair sofa. “The children will

miss you. I don't believe that any one will do
for Risty, Kerg, and Clytie, what you have done.
But I suppose you know best what's best. Young
men likes to see the world, and it ain't expected
one so young as you should settle down yet.
That's what I was telling Clytie this morning.
That was just the way with my John afore he
was married. I suppose you'll see Mliss and Her
before you go. They say that she is going to
San Francisco soon. Is it so?”

Mr. Gray understands the personal pronoun to
refer to Mrs. Smith, a title Mrs. Morpher never
granted Mliss's mother, for whom she entertained
an instinctive dislike. He answers in
the affirmative, however, with a consciousness
of uneasiness under the inquiry; and as the
answer does not seem to please Mrs. Morpher,
he is constrained to commend Mliss's manifest
improvement under her mother's care.

“Well,” said Mrs. Morpher, with a significant
sigh, “I hope it's so; but bless us, where's Clytie?
you musn't go without saying `good-by' to
her,” and Mrs. Morpher started away in search
of her daughter.

The dining-room scarcely closes before the
bed-room door opens, and Clytie crosses the parlor
softly with something in her hands. “You
are going now?” said Clytie, hurriedly.

“Yes.”

“Will you take this,” she said, putting a
sealed package into his hand, “and keep it,
without opening it, until—”

“Until when, Clytie?”

“Until you're married?”

Mr. Gray laughed.

“Promise me,” repeated Clytie.

“But I may expire in the meantime, through
sheer curiosity,” said Mr. Gray.

“Promise,' said Clytie, gravely.

“I promise, then.”

Mr. Gray received the package. “Good-by,
said Clytie, softly.

Clytie's rosy cheek was very near Mr. Gray.
There was nobody by. He was going away. It
was the last time. He kisses her just before the
door opens again to Mrs. Morpher.

Another shake of hands all round, and Mr.
Gray passed out of the Mountain Ranch forever.

Dr. Duchssne's office is near at hand, but for
some reason that Mr. Gray cannot entirely explain
to himself, he prefers to go to Mrs. Smith's
first. The little cottage which they have taken
temporarily is soon reached, and as the young
man stands at the door he reknots the bow of
his cravat and passes his fingers through his
curls—trifles that to Dr. Duchese or any other
critical middle-aged person might look bad.

Mliss and Mrs. Smith are both at home. They
have been waiting for him so long. Was it that
pretty daughter of Mrs. Morpher—the fair young
lady with blonde curls—who caused the detention?
Is not Mr. Gray a sly young fellow for all
his seeming frankness? So he must go to-day.
He cannot possibly wait a few days, and so go
with them? Thus Mrs. Smith, between her
red lips and white teeth, and under her half-closed
eyes, for Mliss stands quietly apart without
speaking. Her reserve during the interview
contrasts with the vivacity of her mother as
though they had changed respective places in
relationship. Mr. Gray is troubled by this and
as he rises to go he takes Miss Mliss's hand in
his.

“Have you nothing to say to me before I go,”
he asked.

“Good-by,” said Mliss.

“Nothing more?”

“That's enough,” rejoined the child simply.

Mr. Gray bit his lips.

“I may never see you again, you know,
Mliss,” he continued.

“You will see us again,” said Mliss, quietly,
raising her great dark eyes to his.

The blood mounted to his cheek and crimsoned
his forehead. He was conscious, too, that
the mother's face had taken fire at his own, as
she walked away toward the window.

“Good-by, then,” said Mr. Gray, pettishly, as
he stooped to kiss her.

Mliss accepted the salute, stoically.

Mr. Gray took Mrs. Smith's hand; her face
had resumed its colorless, satin-like sheen.

“Mliss knows the strength of your good will,
and makes her calculations accordingly. I hope
she may not be mistaken,” she said, with a languid
tenderness of voice and eye.

The young man bent a moment over her outstretched
hand and withdrew, as the Wingdam
stage noisily rattled up before the National
Hotel.

There was but little time left to spend with
Dr. Duchesne, so the physician walked with him
to the stage-office. There were a few of the old
settlers lounging by the stage, who had discerned,
just as the master was going away, how
much they liked him. Mr. Gray had gone
through the customary bibulous formula of
leave-taking; with a hearty shake of the doctor's
hand, and a promise to write, he climbed
to the box of the stage.

“All aboard!” cried the driver, and with a
preliminary bound, the stage rolled down Main
street.

Mr. Gray remained buried in thought as they
rolled through the town, each object in passing
recalling some incident of his past experience.
The stage had reached the outskirts of the settlement

when he detected a well-known little
figure running down a by-trail to intersect the
road before the stage had passed. He called the
drivers attention to it, and as they drew up at
the crossing Aristides's short legs and well-known
features were plainly discernible through
the dust. He was holding in his hand a letter.

“Well, my little man, what is it?” said the
driver, imptiently.

“A letter for the master,” gasped the exhausted
child.

“Give it here?—Any answer?”

“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Gray

“Look sharp then, and get your billet duxis
before you go next time.”

Mr. Gray hurriedly broke the seal and read
these words:

“Any answer?” said the driver.

“None!”

“Get-up!”

And the stage rolled away from Smith's
Pocket leaving the just Aristides standing in
the dust of its triumphal wheels.