 | Tales of the Argonauts, and other sketches |  |
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE.
1. CHAPTER I.
IT was nearly two o'clock in the morning.
The lights were out in Robinson's Hall,
where there had been dancing and revelry; and
the moon, riding high, painted the black windows
with silver. The cavalcade, that an hour
ago had shocked the sedate pines with song and
laughter, were all dispersed. One enamoured
swain had ridden east, another west, another
north, another south; and the object of their
adoration, left within her bower at Chemisal
Ridge, was calmly going to bed.
I regret that I am not able to indicate the
exact stage of that process. Two chairs were
already filled with delicate inwrappings and
white confusion; and the young lady herself,
half-hidden in the silky threads of her yellow
hair, had at one time borne a faint resemblance
to a partly-husked ear of Indian corn. But she
was now clothed in that one long, formless garment
that makes all women equal; and the
round shoulders and neat waist, that an hour
Four Forks, had utterly disappeared. The face
above it was very pretty: the foot below, albeit
shapely, was not small. “The flowers, as a
general thing, don't raise their heads much to
look after me,” she had said with superb frankness
to one of her lovers.
The expression of the “Rose” to-night was
contentedly placid. She walked slowly to the
window, and, making the smallest possible peep-hole
through the curtain, looked out. The
motionless figure of a horseman still lingered on
the road, with an excess of devotion that only a
coquette, or a woman very much in love, could
tolerate. The “Rose,” at that moment, was
neither, and, after a reasonable pause, turned
away, saying quite audibly that it was “too
ridiculous for any thing.” As she came back to
her dressing-table, it was noticeable that she
walked steadily and erect, without that slight
affectation of lameness common to people with
whom bare feet are only an episode. Indeed, it
was only four years ago, that without shoes or
stockings, a long-limbed, colty girl, in a waistless
calico gown, she had leaped from the tail-board
of her father's emigrant-wagon when it
first drew up at Chemisal Ridge. Certain wild
habits of the “Rose” had outlived transplanting
and cultivation.
A knock at the door surprised her. In
another moment she had leaped into bed, and
with darkly-frowning eyes, from its secure
recesses demanded “Who's there?”
An apologetic murmur on the other side of
the door was the response.
“Why, father! — is that you?”
There were further murmurs, affirmative,
deprecatory, and persistent.
“Wait,” said the “Rose.” She got up, unlocked
the door, leaped nimbly into bed again,
and said, “Come.”
The door opened timidly. The broad, stooping
shoulders, and grizzled head, of a man past
the middle age, appeared: after a moment's
hesitation, a pair of large, diffident feet, shod
with canvas slippers, concluded to follow. When
the apparition was complete, it closed the door
softly, and stood there, — a very shy ghost indeed,
— with apparently more than the usual
spiritual indisposition to begin a conversation.
The “Rose” resented this impatiently, though,
I fear, not altogether intelligibly.
“Do, father, I declare!”
“You was abed, Jinny,” said Mr. McClosky
slowly, glancing, with a singular mixture of
masculine awe and paternal pride, upon the two
chairs and their contents, — “you was abed and
ondressed.”
“I was.”
“Surely,” said Mr. McClosky, seating himself
on the extreme edge of the bed, and painfully
tucking his feet away under it, — “surely.”
After a pause, he rubbed a short, thick, stumpy
beard, that bore a general resemblance to a
badly-worn blacking-brush, with the palm of
his hand, and went on, “You had a good time,
Jinny?”
“Yes, father.”
“They was all there?”
“Yes, Rance and York and Ryder and
Jack.”
“And Jack!” Mr. McClosky endeavored to
throw an expression of arch inquiry into his
small, tremulous eyes; but meeting the unabashed,
widely-opened lid of his daughter, he
winked rapidly, and blushed to the roots of his
hair.
“Yes, Jack was there,” said Jenny, without
change of color, or the least self-consciousness
in her great gray eyes; “and he came home
with me.” She paused a moment, locking her
two hands under her head, and assuming a more
comfortable position on the pillow. “He asked
me that same question again, father, and I said,
`Yes.' It's to be — soon. We're going to live
at Four Forks, in his own house; and next
winter we're going to Sacramento. I suppose
question with a slight kick through the bed-clothes,
as the parental McClosky had fallen
into an abstract revery.
“Yes, surely,” said Mr. McClosky, recovering
himself with some confusion. After a pause,
he looked down at the bed-clothes, and, patting
them tenderly, continued, “You couldn't have
done better, Jinny. They isn't a girl in Tuolumne
ez could strike it ez rich as you hev —
even if they got the chance.” He paused
again, and then said, “Jinny?”
“Yes, father.”
“You'se in bed, and ondressed?”
“Yes.”
“You couldn't,” said Mr. McClosky, glancing
hopelessly at the two chairs, and slowly rubbing
his chin, — “you couldn't dress yourself again
could yer?”
“Why, father!”
“Kinder get yourself into them things
again?” he added hastily. “Not all of 'em,
you know, but some of 'em. Not if I helped
you' — sorter stood by, and lent a hand now
and then with a strap, or a buckle, or a necktie,
or a shoestring?” he continued, still looking at
the chairs, and evidently trying to boldly familiarize
himself with their contents.
“Are you crazy, father?” demanded Jenny,
of her yellow mane. Mr. McClosky rubbed
one side of his beard, which already had the
appearance of having been quite worn away by
that process, and faintly dodged the question.
“Jinny,” he said, tenderly stroking the bed-clothes
as he spoke, “this yer's what's the
matter. Thar is a stranger down stairs, — a
stranger to you, lovey, but a man ez I've
knowed a long time. He's been here about an
hour; and he'll be here ontil fower o'clock,
when the up-stage passes. Now I wants ye,
Jinny dear, to get up and come down stairs, and
kinder help me pass the time with him. It's
no use, Jinny,” he went on, gently raising his
hand to deprecate any interruption, “it's no
use! He won't go to bed; he won't play
keerds; whiskey don't take no effect on him.
Ever since I knowed him, he was the most onsatisfactory
critter to hev round” —
“What do you have him round for, then?”
interrupted Miss Jinny sharply.
Mr. McClosky's eyes fell. “Ef he hedn't kem
out of his way to-night to do me a good turn, I
wouldn't ask ye, Jinny. I wouldn't, so help me!
But I thought, ez I couldn't do any thing with
him, you might come down, and sorter fetch
him, Jinny, as you did the others.”
Miss Jenny shrugged her pretty shoulders.
“Is he old, or young?”
“He's young enough, Jinny; but he knows a
power of things.”
“What does he do?”
“Not much, I reckon. He's got money in the
mill at Four Forks. He travels round a good
deal. I've heard, Jinny that he's a poet —
writes them rhymes, you know.” Mr. McClosky
here appealed submissively but directly
to his daughter. He remembered that she had
frequently been in receipt of printed elegaic
couplets known as “mottoes,” containing enclosures
equally saccharine.
Miss Jenny slightly curled her pretty lip.
She had that fine contempt for the illusions of
fancy which belongs to the perfectly healthy
young animal.
“Not,” continued Mr. McClosky, rubbing his
head reflectively, “not ez I'd advise ye, Jinny,
to say any thing to him about poetry. It ain't
twenty minutes ago ez I did. I set the
whiskey afore him in the parlor. I wound up
the music-box, and set it goin'. Then I sez to
him, sociable-like and free, `Jest consider yourself
in your own house, and repeat what you
allow to be your finest production,' and he
raged. That man, Jinny, jest raged! Thar's
no end of the names he called me. You see,
Jinny,” continued Mr. McClosky apologetically,
“he's known me a long time.”
But his daughter had already dismissed the
question with her usual directness. “I'll be
down in a few moments, father,” she said after
a pause, “but don't say any thing to him about
it — don't say I was abed.”
Mr. McClosky's face beamed. “You was
allers a good girl, Jinny,” he said, dropping on
one knee the better to imprint a respectful kiss
on her forehead. But Jenny caught him by
the wrists, and for a moment held him captive.
“Father,” said she, trying to fix his shy eyes
with the clear, steady glance of her own, “all
the girls that were there to-night had some one
with them. Mame Robinson had her aunt;
Lucy Rance had her mother; Kate Pierson had
her sister — all, except me, had some other
woman. Father dear,” her lip trembled just a
little, “I wish mother hand't died when I was
so small. I wish there was some other woman
in the family besides me. I ain't lonely with
you, father dear; but if there was only some
one, you know, when the time comes for John
and me” —
Her voice here suddenly gave out, but not
her brave eyes, that were still fixed earnestly
upon his face. Mr. McClosky, apparently
tracing out a pattern on the bedquilt, essayed
words of comfort.
“Thar ain't one of them gals ez you've
with a whole Noah's ark of relations at their
backs! Thar ain't one ez wouldn't sacrifice
her nearest relation to make the strike that
you hev. Ez to mothers, maybe, my dear
you're doin' better without one.” He rose
suddenly, and walked toward the door. When
he reached it, he turned, and, in his old deprecating
manner, said, “Don't be long, Jinny,”
smiled, and vanished from the head downward,
his canvas slippers asserting themselves resolutely
to the last.
When Mr. McClosky reached his parlor
again, his troublesome guest was not there.
The decanter stood on the table untouched;
three or four books lay upon the floor; a
number of photographic views of the Sierras
were scattered over the sofa; two sofa-pillows,
a newspaper, and a Mexican blanket, lay on the
carpet, as if the late occupant of the room had
tried to read in a recumbent position. A
French window opening upon a veranda, which
never before in the history of the house had
been unfastened, now betrayed by its waving
lace curtain the way that the fugitive had
escaped. Mr. McClosky heaved a sigh of
despair. He looked at the gorgeous carpet
purchased in Sacramento at a fabulous price, at
the crimson satin and rosewood furniture unparalleled
massively-framed pictures on the walls, and
looked beyond it, through the open window, to
the reckless man, who, fleeing these sybaritic
allurements, was smoking a cigar upon the
moonlit road. This room, which had so often
awed the youth of Tuolumne into filial respect,
was evidently a failure. It remained to be seen
if the “Rose” herself had lost her fragrance.
“I reckon Jinny will fetch him yet,” said Mr.
McClosky with parental faith.
He stepped from the window upon the
veranda; but he had scarcely done this, before
his figure was detected by the stranger, who at
once crossed the road. When within a few
feet of McClosky, he stopped. “You persistent
old plantigrade!” he said in a low voice, audible
only to the person addressed, and a face full of
affected anxiety, “why don't you go to bed?
Didn't I tell you to go and leave me here
alone? In the name of all that's idiotic and
imbecile, why do you contiuue to shuffle about
here? Or are you trying to drive me crazy
with your presence, as you have with that
wretched music-box that I've just dropped
under yonder tree? It's an hour and a half yet
before the stage passes: do you think, do you
imagine for a single moment, that I can tolerate
you until then, eh? Why don't you speak?
you have the audacity to add somnambulism to
your other weaknesses? you're not low enough
to repeat yourself under any such weak pretext
as that, eh?”
A fit of nervous coughing ended this extraordinary
exordium; and half sitting, half leaning
against the veranda, Mr. McClosky's guest
turned his face, and part of a slight elegant
figure, toward his host. The lower portion of
this upturned face wore an habitual expression
of fastidious discontent, with an occasional line
of physical suffering. But the brow above was
frank and critical; and a pair of dark, mirthful
eyes, sat in playful judgment over the supersensitive
mouth and its suggestion.
“I allowed to go to bed, Ridgeway,” said Mr.
McClosky meekly; “but my girl Jinny's jist
got back from a little tear up at Robinson's, and
ain't inclined to turn in yet. You know what
girls is. So I thought we three would jist have
a social chat together to pass away the time.”
“You mendacious old hypocrite! She got
back an hour ago,” said Ridgeway, “as that savage-looking
escort of hers, who has been haunting
the house ever since, can testify. My belief
is, that, like an enterprising idiot as you are,
you've dragged that girl out of her bed, that we
might mutually bore each other.”
Mr. McClosky was too much stunned by this
evidence of Ridgeway's apparently superhuman
penetration to reply. After enjoying his host's
confusion for a moment with his eyes, Ridgeway's
mouth asked grimly, —
“And who is this girl, anyway?”
“Nancy's.”
“Your wife's?”
“Yes. But look yar, Ridgeway,” said
McClosky, laying one hand imploringly on
Ridgeway's sleeve, “not a word about her to
Jinny. She thinks her mother's dead — died in
Missouri. Eh!”
Ridgeway nearly rolled from the veranda in
an excess of rage. “Good God! Do you
mean to say that you have been concealing
from her a fact that any day, any moment, may
come to her ears? That you've been letting
her grow up in ignorance of something that by
this time she might have outgrown and forgotten?
That you have been, like a besotted
old ass, all these years slowly forging a thunderbolt
that any one may crush her with? That”
— but here Ridgeway's cough took possession
of his voice, and even put a moisture into his
dark eyes, as he looked at McClosky's aimless
hand feebly employed upon his beard.
“But,” said McClosky, “look how she's
done! She's held her head as high as any of
richest man in the county; and,” he added
cunningly, “Jack Ashe ain't the kind o' man to
sit by and hear any thing said of his wife or
her relations, you bet! But hush — that's her
foot on the stairs. She's cummin'.”
She came. I don't think the French window
ever held a finer view than when she put aside
the curtains, and stepped out. She had dressed
herself simply and hurriedly, but with a
woman's knowledge of her best points; so that
you got the long curves of her shapely limbs,
the shorter curves of her round waist and
shoulders, the long sweep of her yellow braids,
the light of her gray eyes, and even the delicate
rose of her complexion, without knowing
how it was delivered to you.
The introduction by Mr. McClosky was brief.
When Ridgeway had got over the fact that it
was two o'clock in the morning, and that the
cheek of this Tuolumne goddess nearest him
was as dewy and fresh as an infant's, that she
looked like Marguerite, without, probably, ever
having heard of Gœthe's heroine, he talked, I
dare say, very sensibly. When Miss Jenny —
who from her childhood had been brought up
among the sons of Anak, and who was accustomed
to have the supremacy of our noble sex
presented to her as a physical fact — found herself
power in the slight and elegant figure beside
her, she was at first frightened and cold. But
finding that this power, against which the
weapons of her own physical charms were of
no avail, was a kindly one, albeit general, she
fell to worshipping it, after the fashion of
woman, and casting before it the fetishes and
other idols of her youth. She even confessed
to it. So that, in half an hour, Ridgeway was
in possession of all the facts connected with
her life, and a great many, I fear, of her fancies
—except one. When Mr. McClosky found the
young people thus amicably disposed, he calmly
went to sleep.
It was a pleasant time to each. To Miss
Jenny it had the charm of novelty; and she
abandoned herself to it, for that reason, much
more freely and innocently than her companion,
who knew something more of the inevitable logic
of the position. I do not think, however, he had
any intention of love-making. I do not think
he was at all conscious of being in the attitude.
I am quite positive he would have shrunk from
the suggestion of disloyalty to the one woman
whom he admitted to himself he loved. But,
like most poets, he was much more true to an
idea than a fact, and having a very lofty conception
of womanhood, with a very sanguine nature,
realization of his ideal. It was, perhaps, an
unfortunate thing for the women, particularly as
he brought to each trial a surprising freshness,
which was very deceptive, and quite distinct
from the blasé familiarity of the man of gallantry.
It was this perennial virginity of the affections
that most endeared him to the best women,
who were prone to exercise toward him a chivalrous
protection,—as of one likely to go astray,
unless looked after,—and indulged in the dangerous
combination of sentiment with the
highest maternal instincts. It was this quality
which caused Jenny to recognize in him a
certain boyishness that required her womanly
care, and even induced her to offer to accompany
him to the cross-roads when the time for
his departure arrived. With her superior
knowledge of woodcraft and the locality, she
would have kept him from being lost. I wot
not but that she would have protected him from
bears or wolves, but chiefly, I think, from the
feline fascinations of Mame Robinson and Lucy
Rance, who might be lying in wait for this
tender young poet. Nor did she cease to be
thankful that Providence had, so to speak,
delivered him as a trust into her hands.
It was a lovely night. The moon swung low,
and languished softly on the snowy ridge
air; and a strange incense from the woods perfumed
their young blood, and seemed to swoon
in their pulses. Small wonder that they lingered
on the white road, that their feet climbed,
unwillingly the little hill where they were to
part, and that, when they at last reached it,
even the saving grace of speech seemed to have
forsaken them.
For there they stood alone. There was no
sound nor motion in earth, or woods, or heaven.
They might have been the one man and woman
for whom this goodly earth that lay at their
feet, rimmed with the deepest azure, was
created. And, seeing this, they turned toward
each other with a sudden instinct, and their
hands met, and then their lips in one long kiss.
And then out of the mysterious distance
came the sound of voices, and the sharp clatter
of hoofs and wheels, and Jenny slid away — a
white moonbeam — from the hill. For a moment
she glimmered through the trees, and
then, reaching the house, passed her sleeping
father on the veranda, and, darting into her
bedroom, locked the door, threw open the
window, and, falling on her knees beside it,
leaned her hot cheeks upon her hands, and
listened. In a few moments she was rewarded
by the sharp clatter of hoofs on the stony road;
was swiftly lost in the shadows of the lower
road. At another time she might have recognized
the man; but her eyes and ears were now
all intent on something else. It came presently
with dancing lights, a musical rattle of harness,
a cadence of hoof-beats, that set her heart to
beating in unison — and was gone. A sudden
sense of loneliness came over her; and tears
gathered in her sweet eyes.
She arose, and looked around her. There was
the little bed, the dressing-table, the roses that
she had worn last night, still fresh and blooming
in the little vase. Every thing was there;
but every thing looked strange. The roses should
have been withered, for the party seemed so
long ago. She could hardly remember when she
had worn this dress that lay upon the chair.
So she came back to the window, and sank down
beside it, with her cheek a trifle paler, leaning
on her hand, and her long braids reaching to
the floor. The stars paled slowly, like her
cheek; yet with eyes that saw not, she still
looked from her window for the coming dawn.
It came, with violet deepening into purple,
with purple flushing into rose, with rose shining
into silver, and glowing into gold. The straggling
line of black picket-fence below, that had
faded away with the stars, came back with the
fence? Jenny raised her head, and looked
intently. It was a man endeavoring to climb
the pickets, and falling backward with each
attempt. Suddenly she started to her feet, as
if the rosy flushes of the dawn had crimsoned
her from forehead to shoulders; then she stood,
white as the wall, with her hands clasped upon
her bosom; then, with a single bound, she
reached the door, and, with flying braids and
fluttering skirt, sprang down the stairs, and out
to the garden walk. When within a few feet
of the fence, she uttered a cry, the first she had
given, — the cry of a mother over her stricken
babe, of a tigress over her mangled cub; and in
another moment she had leaped the fence, and
knelt beside Ridgeway, with his fainting head
upon her breast.
“My boy, my poor, poor boy! who has done
this?”
Who, indeed? His clothes were covered
with dust; his waistcoat was torn open; and
his handkerchief, wet with the blood it could
not stanch, fell from a cruel stab beneath his
shoulder.
“Ridgeway, my poor boy! tell me what has
happened.”
Ridgeway slowly opened his heavy blue-veined
lids, and gazed upon her. Presently a
smile stole over his lips as he whispered
slowly, —
“It — was — your kiss — did it, Jenny dear!
I had forgotten — how high-priced the article
was here. Never mind, Jenny!” — he feebly
raised her hand to his white lips, — “it was —
worth it,” and fainted away.
Jenny started to her feet, and looked wildly
around her. Then, with a sudden resolution,
she stooped over the insensible man, and with
one strong effort lifted him in her arms as if
he had been a child. When her father, a
moment later, rubbed his eyes, and awoke from
his sleep upon the veranda, it was to see a
goddess, erect and triumphant, striding toward
the house with the helpless body of a man
lying across that breast where man had never
lain before, — a goddess, at whose imperious
mandate he arose, and cast open the doors before
her. And then, when she had laid her
unconscious burden on the sofa, the goddess
fled; and a woman, helpless and trembling,
stood before him, — a woman that cried out that
she had “killed him,” that she was “wicked,
wicked!” and that, even saying so, staggered,
and fell beside her late burden. And all that
Mr. McClosky could do was to feebly rub his
beard, and say to himself vaguely and incoherently,
that “Jinny had fetched him.”
2. CHAPTER II.
Before noon the next day, it was generally
believed throughout Four Forks that Ridgeway
Dent had been attacked and wounded at Chemisal
Ridge by a highwayman, who fled on the
approach of the Wingdam coach. It is to be
presumed that this statement met with Ridgeway's
approval, as he did not contradict it, nor
supplement it with any details. His wound
was severe, but not dangerous. After the first
excitement had subsided, there was, I think, a
prevailing impression common to the provincial
mind, that his misfortune was the result of the
defective moral quality of his being a stranger,
and was, in a vague sort of a way, a warning to
others, and a lesson to him. “Did you hear
how that San-Francisco feller was took down
the other night?” was the average tone of introductory
remark. Indeed, there was a general
suggestion that Ridgeway's presence was one
that no self-respecting, high-minded highwayman,
honorably conservative of the best interests
of Tuolumne County, could for a moment
tolerate.
Except for the few words spoken on that
eventful morning, Ridgeway was reticent of
the past. When Jenny strove to gather some
his unknown assailant, a subtle twinkle in his
brown eyes was the only response. When Mr.
McClosky attempted the same process, the
young gentleman threw abusive epithets, and,
eventually slippers, teaspoons, and other lighter
articles within the reach of an invalid, at the
head of his questioner. “I think he's coming
round, Jinny,” said Mr. McClosky: “he laid
for me this morning with a candlestick.”
It was about this time that Miss Jenny,
having sworn her father to secrecy regarding
the manner in which Ridgeway had been
carried into the house, conceived the idea of
addressing the young man as “Mr. Dent,” and
of apologizing for intruding whenever she
entered the room in the discharge of her household
duties. It was about this time that she
became more rigidly conscientious to those
duties, and less general in her attentions. It
was at this time that the quality of the invalid's
diet improved, and that she consulted him less
frequently about it. It was about this time
that she began to see more company, that the
house was greatly frequented by her former
admirers, with whom she rode, walked, and
danced. It was at about this time also, and
when Ridgeway was able to be brought out on
the veranda in a chair, that, with great archness
Ashe, the sister of her betrothed, a flashing
brunette, and terrible heart-breaker of Four
Forks. And, in the midst of this gayety, she
concluded that she would spend a week with
the Robinsons, to whom she owed a visit. She
enjoyed herself greatly there, so much, indeed,
that she became quite hollow-eyed, the result,
as she explained to her father, of a too frequent
indulgence in festivity. “You see, father, I
won't have many chances after John and I are
married: you know how queer he is, and I must
make the most of my time;” and she laughed
an odd little laugh, which had lately become
habitual to her. “And how is Mr. Dent
getting on?” Her father replied that he was
getting on very well indeed, — so well, in fact,
that he was able to leave for San Francisco two
days ago. “He wanted to be remembered to
you, Jinny, — `remembered kindly,' — yes, they
is the very words he used,” said Mr. McClosky,
looking down, and consulting one of his large
shoes for corroboration. Miss Jenny was glad
to hear that he was so much better. Miss
Jenny could not imagine any thing that pleased
her more than to know that he was so strong as
to be able to rejoin his friends again, who must
love him so much, and be so anxious about him.
Her father thought she would be pleased, and,
for her to hurry back. Miss Jenny, in a
high metallic voice, did not know that she had
expressed any desire to stay, still if her presence
had become distasteful at home, if her
own father was desirous of getting rid of her,
if, when she was so soon to leave his roof forever,
he still begrudged her those few days remaining,
if — “My God, Jinny, so help me!”
said Mr. McClosky, clutching despairingly at
his beard, “I didn't go for to say any thing of
the kind. I thought that you” — “Never
mind, father,” interrupted Jenny magnanimously,
“you misunderstood me: of course
you did, you couldn't help it — you're a MAN!”
Mr. McClosky, sorely crushed, would have
vaguely protested; but his daughter, having
relieved herself, after the manner of her sex,
with a mental personal application of an
abstract statement, forgave him with a kiss.
Nevertheless, for two or three days after her
return, Mr. McClosky followed his daughter
about the house with yearning eyes, and occasionally
with timid, diffident feet. Sometimes
he came upon her suddenly at her household
tasks, with an excuse so palpably false, and a
careless manner so outrageously studied, that
she was fain to be embarrassed for him. Later,
he took to rambling about the house at night,
repassing through the hall after she had retired.
On one occasion, he was surprised, first by sleep,
and then by the early-rising Jenny, as he lay on
the rug outside her chamber-door. “You
treat me like a child, father,” said Jenny. “I
thought, Jinny,” said the father apologetically,
—“I thought I heard sounds as if you was takin'
on inside, and, listenin' I fell asleep.” — “You
dear, old simple-minded baby!” said Jenny, looking
past her father's eyes, and lifting his grizzled
locks one by one with meditative fingers:
“what should I be takin' on for? Look how
much taller I am than you!” she said, suddenly
lifting herself up to the extreme of her superb
figure. Then rubbing his head rapidly with
both hands, as if she were anointing his hair
with some rare unguent, she patted him on the
back, and returned to her room. The result of
this and one or two other equally sympathetic
interviews was to produce a change in Mr.
McClosky's manner, which was, if possible,
still more discomposing. He grew unjustifiably
hilarious, cracked jokes with the servants, and
repeated to Jenny humorous stories, with the
attitude of facetiousness carefully preserved
throughout the entire narration, and the point
utterly ignored and forgotten. Certain incidents
reminded him of funny things, which
relevancy or application. He occasionally
brought home with him practical humorists,
with a sanguine hope of setting them going,
like the music-box, for his daughter's edification.
He essayed the singing of melodies with
great freedom of style, and singular limitation
of note. He sang “Come haste to the Wedding,
Ye Lasses and Maidens,” of which he
knew a single line, and that incorrectly, as
being peculiarly apt and appropriate. Yet
away from the house and his daughter's presence,
he was silent and distraught. His absence
of mind was particularly noted by his workmen
at the Empire Quartz Mill. “Ef the old
man don't look out and wake up,” said his foreman,
“he'll hev them feet of his yet under the
stamps. When he ain't givin' his mind to 'em,
they is altogether too promiskuss.”
A few nights later, Miss Jenny recognized
her father's hand in a timid tap at the door.
She opened it, and he stood before her, with
a valise in his hand, equipped as for a journey.
“I takes the stage to-night, Jinny dear, from
Four Forks to 'Frisco. Maybe I may drop in
on Jack afore I go. I'll be back in a week.
Good-by.”
“Good-by.” He still held her hand. Presently
he drew her back into the room, closing
was a look of profound cunning in his eye as
he said slowly, —
“Bear up, and keep dark, Jinny dear, and
trust to the old man. Various men has various
ways. Thar is ways as is common, and ways as
is uncommon; ways as is easy, and ways as is
oneasy. Bear up, and keep dark.” With this
Delphic utterance he put his finger to his lips,
and vanished.
It was ten o'clock when he reached Four
Forks. A few minutes later, he stood on the
threshold of that dwelling described by the
Four Forks “Sentinel” as “the palatial residence
of John Ashe,” and known to the local
satirist as the “ash-box.” “Hevin' to lay by
two hours, John,” he said to his prospective
son-in-law, as he took his hand at the door,
“a few words of social converse, not on business,
but strictly private, seems to be about as
nat'ral a thing as a man can do.” This introduction,
evidently the result of some study, and
plainly committed to memory, seemed so satisfactory
to Mr. McClosky, that he repeated it
again, after John Ashe had led him into his
private office, where, depositing his valise in
the middle of the floor, and sitting down before
it, he began carefully to avoid the eye of his
host. John Ashe, a tall, dark, handsome Kentuckian,
were evidently full of serious import, waited
with a kind of chivalrous respect the further
speech of his guest. Being utterly devoid of
any sense of the ridiculous, he always accepted
Mr. McClosky as a grave fact, singular only
from his own want of experience of the class.
“Ores is running light now,” said Mr. McClosky
with easy indifference.
John Ashe returned that he had noticed the
same fact in the receipts of the mill at Four
Forks.
Mr. McClosky rubbed his beard, and looked
at his valise, as if for sympathy and suggestion.
“You don't reckon on having any trouble
with any of them chaps as you cut out with
Jinny?”
John Ashe, rather haughtily, had never
thought of that. “I saw Rance hanging round
your house the other night, when I took your
daughter home; but he gave me a wide berth,”
he added carelessly.
“Surely,” said Mr. McClosky, with a peculiar
winking of the eye. After a pause, he took
a fresh departure from his valise.
“A few words, John, ez between man and
man, ez between my daughter's father and her
husband who expects to be, is about the thing,
say them. They're about Jinny, my gal.”
Ashe's grave face brightened, to Mr. McClosky's
evident discomposure.
“Maybe I should have said about her
mother; but, the same bein' a stranger to you,
I says naterally, `Jinny.”'
Ashe nodded courteously. Mr. McClosky,
with his eyes on his valise, went on, —
“It is sixteen year ago as I married Mrs.
McClosky in the State of Missouri. She let on,
at the time, to be a widder, — a widder with one
child. When I say let on, I mean to imply
that I subsekently found out that she was not a
widder, nor a wife; and the father of the child
was, so to speak, onbeknowst. Thet child was
Jinny — my gal.”
With his eyes on his valise, and quietly
ignoring the wholly-crimsoned face and swiftly-darkening
brow of his host, he continued, —
“Many little things sorter tended to make
our home in Missouri onpleasant. A disposition
to smash furniture, and heave knives
around; an inclination to howl when drunk,
and that frequent; a habitooal use of vulgar
language, and a tendency to cuss the casooal
visitor, — seemed to pint,” added Mr. McClosky
with submissive hesitation “that — she
— was — so to speak — quite onsuited to the
marriage relation in its holiest aspeck.”
“Damnation! Why didn't” — burst out
John Ashe, erect and furious.
“At the end of two year,” continued Mr.
McClosky, still intent on the valise, “I allowed
I'd get a diworce. Et about thet time, however,
Providence sends a circus into thet town,
and a feller ez rode three horses to onct. Hevin'
allez a taste for athletic sports, she left town
with this feller, leavin' me and Jinny behind.
I sent word to her, thet, if she would give Jinny
to me, we'd call it quits. And she did.”
“Tell me,” gasped Ashe, “did you ask your
daughter to keep this from me? or did she do it
of her own accord?”
“She doesn't know it,” said Mr. McClosky.
“She thinks I'm her father, and that her
mother's dead.”
“Then, sir, this is your” —
“I don't know,” said Mr. McClosky slowly,
“ez I've asked any one to marry my Jinny. I
don't know ez I've persood that ez a biziness, or
even taken it up as a healthful recreation.”
John Ashe paced the room furiously. Mr.
McClosky's eyes left the valise, and followed
him curiously. “Where is this woman?” demanded
Ashe suddenly. McClosky's eyes
sought the valise again.
“She went to Kansas; from Kansas she went
into Texas; from Texas she eventooally came
with money, when her business was slack,
through a friend.”
John Ashe groaned. “She's gettin' rather
old and shaky for hosses, and now does the
tight-rope business and flying trapeze. Never
hevin' seen her perform,” continued Mr. McClosky
with conscientious caution, “I can't say
how she gets on. On the bills she looks well.
Thar is a poster,” said Mr. McClosky glancing
at Ashe, and opening his valise, — “thar is
a poster givin' her performance at Marysville
next month.” Mr. McClosky slowly unfolded
a large yellow-and-blue printed poster, profusely
illustrated. “She calls herself `Mams'elle
J. Miglawski, the great Russian Trapeziste.”'
John Ashe tore it from his hand. “Of
course,” he said, suddenly facing Mr. McClosky,
“you don't expect me to go on with this?”
Mr. McClosky took up the poster, carefully
refolded it, and returned it to his valise.
“When you break off with Jinny,” he said
quietly, “I don't want any thing said 'bout
this. She doesn't know it. She's a woman,
and I reckon you're a white man.”
“But what am I to say? How am I to go
back of my word?”
“Write her a note. Say something hez come
you break it off. You needn't be afeard Jinny'll
ever ask you what.”
John Ashe hesitated. He felt he had been
cruelly wronged. No gentleman, no Ashe,
could go on further in this affair. It was preposterous
to think of it. But somehow he felt
at the moment very unlike a gentleman, or an
Ashe, and was quite sure he should break down
under Jenny's steady eyes. But then — he
could write to her.
“So ores is about as light here as on the
Ridge. Well, I reckon they'll come up before
the rains. Good-night.” Mr. McClosky took
the hand that his host mechanically extended,
shook it gravely, and was gone.
When Mr. McClosky, a week later, stepped
again upon his own veranda, he saw through
the French window the figure of a man in his
parlor. Under his hospitable roof, the sight was
not unusual; but, for an instant, a subtle sense
of disappointment thrilled him. When he saw
it was not the face of Ashe turned toward him,
he was relieved; but when he saw the tawny
beard, and quick, passionate eyes of Henry
Rance, he felt a new sense of apprehension, so
that he fell to rubbing his beard almost upon
his very threshold.
Jenny ran into the hall, and seized her
father with a little cry of joy. “Father,” said
Jenny in a hurried whisper, “don't mind him,”
indicating Rance with a toss of her yellow
braids: “he's going soon. And I think, father,
I've done him wrong. But it's all over with
John and me now. Read that note, and see
how he's insulted me.” Her lip quivered; but
she went on, “It's Ridgeway that he means,
father; and I believe it was his hand struck
Ridgeway down, or that he knows who did.
But hush now! not a word.”
She gave him a feverish kiss, and glided back
into the parlor, leaving Mr. McClosky, perplexed
and irresolute, with the note in his hand. He
glanced at it hurriedly, and saw that it was
couched in almost the very words he had suggested.
But a sudden, apprehensive recollection
came over him. He listened; and, with an
exclamation of dismay, he seized his hat, and
ran out of the house, but too late. At the
same moment a quick, nervous footstep was
heard upon the veranda; the French window
flew open, and, with a light laugh of greeting,
Ridgeway stepped into the room.
Jenny's finer ear first caught the step. Jenny's
swifter feelings had sounded the depths of
hope, of joy, of despair, before he entered the
room. Jenny's pale face was the only one that
stood before them. An angry flush suffused
even the pink roots of Rance's beard as he rose
to his feet. An ominous fire sprang into Ridgeway's
eyes, and a spasm of hate and scorn
passed over the lower part of his face, and left
the mouth and jaw immobile and rigid.
Yet he was the first to speak. “I owe you an
apology,” he said to Jenny, with a suave scorn
that brought the indignant blood back to her
cheek, “for this intrusion; but I ask no pardon
for withdrawing from the only spot where that
man dare confront me with safety.”
With an exclamation of rage, Rance sprang
toward him. But as quickly Jenny stood between
them, erect and menacing. “There must
be no quarrel here,” she said to Rance. “While
I protect your right as my guest, don't oblige
me to remind you of mine as your hostess.”
She turned with a half-deprecatory air to Ridgeway;
but he was gone. So was her father.
Only Rance remained with a look of ill-concealed
triumph on his face.
Without looking at him, she passed toward
the door. When she reached it, she turned.
“You asked me a question an hour ago. Come
to me in the garden, at nine o'clock to-night,
and I will answer you. But promise me, first,
to keep away from Mr. Dent. Give me your
seeks you. Do you promise? It is well.”
He would have taken her hand; but she
waved him away. In another moment he heard
the swift rustle of her dress in the hall, the
sound of her feet upon the stair, the sharp
closing of her bedroom door, and all was quiet.
And even thus quietly the day wore away;
and the night rose slowly from the valley, and
overshadowed the mountains with purple wings
that fanned the still air into a breeze, until the
moon followed it, and lulled every thing to rest
as with the laying-on of white and benedictory
hands. It was a lovely night; but Henry Rance,
waiting impatiently beneath a sycamore at the
foot of the garden, saw no beauty in earth or
air or sky. A thousand suspicions common to a
jealous nature, a vague superstition of the spot,
filled his mind with distrust and doubt. “If
this should be a trick to keep my hands off that
insolent pup!” he muttered. But, even as the
thought passed his tongue, a white figure slid
from the shrubbery near the house, glided along
the line of picket-fence, and then stopped, midway,
motionless in the moonlight.
It was she. But he scarcely recognized her
in the white drapery that covered her head and
shoulders and breast. He approached her with
a hurried whisper. “Let us withdraw from the
moonlight. Everybody can see us here.”
“We have nothing to say that cannot be said
in the moonlight, Henry Rance,” she replied,
coldly receding from his proffered hand. She
trembled for a moment, as if with a chill, and
then suddenly turned upon him. “Hold up
your head, and let me look at you! I've known
only what men are: let me see what a traitor
looks like!”
He recoiled more from her wild face than her
words. He saw from the first that her hollow
cheeks and hollow eyes were blazing with fever.
He was no coward; but he would have fled.
“You are ill, Jenny,” he said: “you had best
return to the house. Another time” —
“Stop!” she cried hoarsely. “Move from
this spot, and I'll call for help! Attempt to
leave me now, and I'll proclaim you the assassin
that you are!”
“It was a fair fight,” he said doggedly.
“Was it a fair fight to creep behind an unarmed
and unsuspecting man? Was it a fair
fight to try to throw suspicion on some one else?
Was it a fair fight to deceive me? Liar and
coward that you are!”
He made a stealthy step toward her with evil
eyes, and a wickeder hand that crept within his
breast. She saw the motion; but it only stung
her to newer fury.
“Strike!” she said with blazing eyes, throwing
you afraid of the woman who dares you? Or
do you keep your knife for the backs of unsuspecting
men? Strike, I tell you! No? Look,
then!” With a sudden movement, she tore
from her head and shoulders the thick lace
shawl that had concealed her figure, and stood
before him. “Look!” she cried passionately,
pointing to the bosom and shoulders of her
white dress, darkly streaked with faded stains
and ominous discoloration, — “look! This is
the dress I wore that morning when I found
him lying here, — here, — bleeding from your
cowardly knife. Look! Do you see? This is his
blood, — my darling boy's blood! — one drop of
which, dead and faded as it is, is more precious
to me than the whole living pulse of any other
man. Look! I come to you to-night, christened
with his blood, and dare you to strike, —
dare you to strike him again through me, and
mingle my blood with his. Strike, I implore
you! Strike! if you have any pity on me, for
God's sake! Strike! if you are a man! Look!
Here lay his head on my shoulder; here I held
him to my breast, where never — so help me my
God! — another man — Ah!” —
She reeled against the fence, and something
that had flashed in Rance's hand dropped at her
feet; for another flash and report rolled him
two men strode, and caught her ere she fell.
“She has only fainted,” said Mr. McClosky.
“Jinny dear, my girl, speak to me!”
“What is this on her dress?” said Ridgeway,
kneeling beside her, and lifting his set and colorless
face. At the sound of his voice, the color
came faintly back to her cheek: she opened her
eyes, and smiled.
“It's only your blood, dear boy,” she said;
“but look a little deeper, and you'll find my
own.”
She put up her two yearning hands, and drew
his face and lips down to her own. When
Ridgeway raised his head again, her eyes were
closed; but her mouth still smiled as with the
memory of a kiss.
They bore her to the house, still breathing,
but unconscious. That night the road was filled
with clattering horsemen; and the summoned
skill of the countryside for leagues away
gathered at her couch. The wound, they
said, was not essentially dangerous; but they
had grave fears of the shock to a system that
already seemed suffering from some strange and
unaccountable nervous exhaustion. The best
medical skill of Tuolumne happened to be young
and observing, and waited patiently an opportunity
to account for it. He was presently
rewarded.
For toward morning she rallied, and looked
feebly around. Then she beckoned her father
toward her, and whispered, “Where is he?”
“They took him away, Jinny dear, in a cart.
He won't trouble you agin.” He stopped; for
Miss Jenny had raised herself on her elbow, and
was levelling her black brows at him. But two
kicks from the young surgeon, and a significant
motion towards the door, sent Mr. McClosky
away muttering. “How should I know that
`he' meant Ridgeway?” he said apologetically,
as he went and returned with the young gentleman.
The surgeon, who was still holding her
pulse, smiled, and thought that — with a little
care — and attention — the stimulants — might
be — diminished — and — he — might leave —
the patient for some hours with perfect safety.
He would give further directions to Mr.
McClosky — down stairs.
It was with great archness of manner, that,
half an hour later, Mr. McClosky entered the
room with a preparatory cough; and it was with
some disappointment that he found Ridgeway
standing quietly by the window, and his daughter
apparently fallen into a light doze. He was
still more concerned, when, after Ridgeway had
retired, noticing a pleasant smile playing about
her lips, he said softly —
“You was thinking of some one, Jinny?”
“Yes, father,” the gray eyes met his steadily,
— “of poor John Ashe!”
Her recovery was swift. Nature, that had
seemed to stand jealously aloof from her in her
mental anguish, was kind to the physical hurt
of her favorite child. The suberb physique,
which had been her charm and her trial, now
stood her in good stead. The healing balsam of
the pine, the balm of resinous gums, and the
rare medicaments of Sierran altitudes, touched
her as it might have touched the wounded doe;
so that in two weeks she was able to walk about.
And when, at the end of the month, Ridgeway
returned from a flying visit to San Francisco,
and jumped from the Wingdam coach at four
o'clock in the morning, the Rose of Tuolumne,
with the dewy petals of either cheek fresh as
when first unfolded to his kiss, confronted him
on the road.
With a common instinct, their young feet both
climbed the little hill now sacred to their
thought. When they reached its summit, they
were both, I think, a little disappointed.
There is a fragrance in the unfolding of a passion,
that escapes the perfect flower. Jenny
thought the night was not as beautiful; Ridgeway,
that the long ride had blunted his perceptions.
But they had the frankness to confess it
to each other, with the rare delight of such a
they thought each had forgotten. And with
this, and an occasional pitying reference to the
blank period when they had not known each
other, hand in hand they reached the house.
Mr. McClosky was awaiting them impatiently
upon the veranda. When Miss Jenny had
slipped up stairs to replace a collar that stood
somewhat suspiciously awry, Mr. McClosky
drew Ridgeway solemnly aside. He held a
large theatre poster in one hand, and an open
newspaper in the other.
“I allus said,” he remarked slowly, with the
air of merely renewing a suspended conversation,
— “I allus said that riding three horses to onct
wasn't exactly in her line. It would seem that
it ain't. From remarks in this yer paper, it
would appear that she tried it on at Marysville
last week, and broke her neck.”
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