 | CHAPTER IV. The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
The long wet season had drawn near its close.
Signs of spring were visible in the swelling buds
and rushing torrents. The pine-forests exhaled
the fresher spicery. The azaleas were already budding,
the Ceanothus getting ready its lilac livery
for spring. On the green upland which climbed
Red Mountain at its southern aspect the long
spike of the monk's-hood shot up from its broad-leaved
stool, and once more shook its dark-blue
bells. Again the billow above Smith's grave was
soft and green, its crest just tossed with the foam
of daisies and buttercups. The little graveyard
had gathered a few new dwellers in the past year,
and the mounds were placed two by two by the
little paling until they reached Smith's grave, and
there there was but one. General superstition
had shunned it, and the plot beside Smith was
vacant.
There had been several placards posted about
the town, intimating that, at a certain period, a
celebrated dramatic company would perform, for
a few days, a series of “side-splitting” and
“screaming farces”; that, alternating pleasantly
with this, there would be some melodrama and a
grand divertisement, which would include singing,
great fluttering among the little folk, and were
the theme of much excitement and great speculation
among the master's scholars. The master
had promised Mliss, to whom this sort of thing
was sacred and rare, that she should go, and on
that momentous evening the master and Mliss
“assisted.”
The performance was the prevalent style of
heavy mediocrity; the melodrama was not bad
enough to laugh at nor good enough to excite.
But the master, turning wearily to the child, was
astonished, and felt something like self-accusation
in noticing the peculiar effect upon her excitable
nature. The red blood flushed in her cheeks at
each stroke of her panting little heart. Her small
passionate lips were slightly parted to give vent
to her hurried breath. Her widely opened lids
threw up and arched her black eyebrows. She did
not laugh at the dismal comicalities of the funny
man, for Mliss seldom laughed. Nor was she discreetly
affected to the delicate extremes of the
corner of a white handkerchief, as was the tender-hearted
“Clytie,” who was talking with her “feller”
and ogling the master at the same moment. But
when the performance was over, and the green
curtain fell on the little stage, Mliss drew a long
deep breath, and turned to the master's grave face
with a half-apologetic smile and wearied gesture.
the lids of her black eyes, as if to dwell once more
in fancy on the mimic stage.
On their way to Mrs. Morpher's the master
thought proper to ridicule the whole performance.
Now he should n't wonder if Mliss thought that
the young lady who acted so beautifully was
really in earnest, and in love with the gentleman
who wore such fine clothes. Well, if she were in
love with him it was a very unfortunate thing!
“Why?” said Mliss, with an upward sweep of the
drooping lid. “Oh! well, he could n't support his
wife at his present salary, and pay so much a week
for his fine clothes, and then they would n't receive
as much wages if they were married as if
they were merely lovers, — that is,” added the
master, “if they are not already married to somebody
else; but I think the husband of the pretty
young countess takes the tickets at the door, or
pulls up the curtain, or snuffs the candles, or does
something equally refined and elegant. As to the
young man with nice clothes, which are really nice
now, and must cost at least two and a half or
three dollars, not to speak of that mantle of
red drugget which I happen to know the price of,
for I bought some of it for my room once, — as to
this young man, Lissy, he is a pretty good fellow,
and if he does drink occasionally, I don't think
people ought to take advantage of it and give him
I am sure he might owe me two dollars and a half
a long time, before I would throw it up in his face,
as the fellow did the other night at Wingdam.”
Mliss had taken his hand in both of hers and
was trying to look in his eyes, which the young
man kept as resolutely averted. Mliss had a
faint idea of irony, indulging herself sometimes in
a species of sardonic humor, which was equally
visible in her actions and her speech. But the
young man continued in this strain until they had
reached Mrs. Morpher's, and he had deposited
Mliss in her maternal charge. Waiving the invitation
of Mrs. Morpher to refreshment and rest, and
shading his eyes with his hand to keep out the
blue-eyed Clytemnestra's siren glances, he excused
himself, and went home.
For two or three days after the advent of the
dramatic company, Mliss was late at school, and
the master's usual Friday afternoon ramble was
for once omitted, owing to the absence of his
trustworthy guide. As he was putting away his
books and preparing to leave the school-house, a
small voice piped at his side, “Please, sir?” The
master turned and there stood Aristides Morpher.
“Well, my little man,” said the master, impatiently,
“what is it? quick!”
“Please, sir, me and `Kerg' thinks that Mliss
is going to run away agin.”
“What 's that, sir?” said the master, with that
unjust testiness with which we always receive disagreeable
news.
“Why, sir, she don't stay home any more, and
`Kerg' and me see her talking with one of those
actor fellers, and she 's with him now; and please,
sir, yesterday she told `Kerg' and me she could
make a speech as well as Miss Cellerstina Montmoressy,
and she spouted right off by heart,” and
the little fellow paused in a collapsed condition.
“What actor?” asked the master.
“Him as wears the shiny hat. And hair. And
gold pin. And gold chain,” said the just Aristides,
putting periods for commas to eke out his breath.
The master put on his gloves and hat, feeling an
unpleasant tightness in his chest and thorax, and
walked out in the road. Aristides trotted along
by his side, endeavoring to keep pace with his
short legs to the master's strides, when the master
stopped suddenly, and Aristides bumped up against
him. “Where were they talking?” asked the master,
as if continuing the conversation.
“At the Arcade,” said Aristides.
When they reached the main street the master
paused. “Run down home,” said he to the boy.
“If Mliss is there, come to the Arcade and tell me.
If she is n't there, stay home; run!” And off
trotted the short-legged Aristides.
The Arcade was just across the way, — a long,
and restaurant. As the young man crossed
the plaza he noticed that two or three of the passers-by
turned and looked after him. He looked at his
clothes, took out his handkerchief and wiped his
face, before he entered the bar-room. It contained
the usual number of loungers, who stared at him as
he entered. One of them looked at him so fixedly
and with such a strange expression that the master
stopped and looked again, and then saw it was only
his own reflection in a large mirror. This made the
master think that perhaps he was a little excited,
and so he took up a copy of the Red Mountain
Banner from one of the tables, and tried to recover
his composure by reading the column of advertisements.
He then walked through the bar-room, through
the restaurant, and into the billiard-room. The
child was not there. In the latter apartment a
person was standing by one of the tables with a
broad-brimmed glazed hat on his head. The master
recognized him as the agent of the dramatic
company; he had taken a dislike to him at their
first meeting, from the peculiar fashion of wearing
his beard and hair. Satisfied that the object of his
search was not there, he turned to the man with a
glazed hat. He had noticed the master, but tried
that common trick of unconsciousness, in which
vulgar natures always fail. Balancing a billiard-cue
in the centre of the table. The master stood opposite
to him until he raised his eyes; when their
glances met, the master walked up to him.
He had intended to avoid a scene or quarrel, but
when he began to speak, something kept rising in
his throat and retarded his utterance, and his own
voice frightened him, it sounded so distant, low,
and resonant. “I understand,” he began, “that
Melissa Smith, an orphan, and one of my scholars,
has talked with you about adopting your profession.
Is that so?”
The man with the glazed hat leaned over the
table, and made an imaginary shot, that sent the
ball spinning round the cushions. Then walking
round the table he recovered the ball and placed
it upon the spot. This duty discharged, getting
ready for another shot, he said, —
“S'pose she has?”
The master choked up again, but, squeezing the
cushion of the table in his gloved hand, he went
on: —
“If you are a gentleman, I have only to tell you
that I am her guardian, and responsible for her career.
You know as well as I do the kind of life
you offer her. As you may learn of any one here,
I have already brought her out of an existence
worse than death, — out of the streets and the contamination
of vice. I am trying to do so again.
mother, sister, or brother. Are you seeking to give
her an equivalent for these?”
The man with the glazed hat examined the point
of his cue, and then looked around for somebody
to enjoy the joke with him.
“I know that she is a strange, wilful girl,” continued
the master, “but she is better than she was.
I believe that I have some influence over her still.
I beg and hope, therefore, that you will take no
further steps in this matter, but as a man, as a gentleman,
leave her to me. I am willing —” But
here something rose again in the master's throat,
and the sentence remained unfinished.
The man with the glazed hat, mistaking the
master's silence, raised his head with a coarse,
brutal laugh, and said in a loud voice, —
“Want her yourself, do you? That cock won't
fight here, young man!”
The insult was more in the tone than the words,
more in the glance than tone, and more in the
man's instinctive nature than all these. The
best appreciable rhetoric to this kind of animal is
a blow. The master felt this, and, with his pent-up,
nervous energy finding expression in the one
act, he struck the brute full in his grinning face.
The blow sent the glazed hat one way and the cue
another, and tore the glove and skin from the
master's hand from knuckle to joint. It opened
the peculiar shape of his beard for some time to
come.
There was a shout, an imprecation, a scuffle, and
the trampling of many feet. Then the crowd
parted right and left, and two sharp quick reports
followed each other in rapid succession. Then
they closed again about his opponent, and the master
was standing alone. He remembered picking
bits of burning wadding from his coat-sleeve with
his left hand. Some one was holding his other
hand. Looking at it, he saw it was still bleeding
from the blow, but his fingers were clenched
around the handle of a glittering knife. He could
not remember when or how he got it.
The man who was holding his hand was Mr.
Morpher. He hurried the master to the door, but
the master held back, and tried to tell him as well
as he could with his parched throat about “Mliss.”
“It 's all right, my boy,” said Mr. Morpher. “She 's
home!” And they passed out into the street together.
As they walked along Mr. Morpher said
that Mliss had come running into the house a few
moments before, and had dragged him out, saying
that somebody was trying to kill the master at the
Arcade. Wishing to be alone, the master promised
Mr. Morpher that he would not seek the Agent
again that night, and parted from him, taking the
road toward the school-house. He was surprised
surprised to find Mliss sitting there.
The master's nature, as I have hinted before,
had, like most sensitive organizations, a selfish
basis. The brutal taunt thrown out by his late
adversary still rankled in his heart. It was possible,
he thought, that such a construction might
be put upon his affection for the child, which
at best was foolish and Quixotic. Besides, had
she not voluntarily abnegated his authority and
affection? And what had everybody else said
about her? Why should he alone combat the
opinion of all, and be at last obliged tacitly to
confess the truth of all they had predicted? And
he had been a participant in a low bar-room fight
with a common boor, and risked his life, to prove
what? What had he proved? Nothing? What
would the people say? What would his friends
say? What would McSnagley say?
In his self-accusation the last person he should
have wished to meet was Mliss. He entered the
door, and, going up to his desk, told the child, in a
few cold words, that he was busy, and wished to
be alone. As she rose he took her vacant seat, and,
sitting down, buried his head in his hands. When
he looked up again she was still standing there.
She was looking at his face with an anxious expression.
“Did you kill him?” she asked.
“No!” said the master.
“That 's what I gave you the knife for!” said
the child, quickly.
“Gave me the knife?” repeated the master, in
bewilderment.
“Yes, gave you the knife. I was there under the
bar. Saw you hit him. Saw you both fall. He
dropped his old knife. I gave it to you. Why
did n't you stick him?” said Mliss rapidly, with an
expressive twinkle of the black eyes and a gesture
of the little red hand.
The master could only look his astonishment.
“Yes,” said Mliss. “If you 'd asked me, I 'd
told you I was off with the play-actors. Why
was I off with the play-actors? Because you
would n't tell me you was going away. I knew
it. I heard you tell the Doctor so. I was n't
a goin' to stay here alone with those Morphers.
I 'd rather die first.”
With a dramatic gesture which was perfectly
consistent with her character, she drew from her
bosom a few limp green leaves, and, holding them
out at arm's-length, said in her quick vivid way,
and in the queer pronunciation of her old life,
which she fell into when unduly excited, —
“That 's the poison plant you said would kill
me. I 'll go with the play-actors, or I 'll eat this
and die here. I don't care which. I won't stay
here, where they hate and despise me! Neither
me too!”
The passionate little breast heaved, and two big
tears peeped over the edge of Mliss's eyelids, but
she whisked them away with the corner of her
apron as if they had been wasps.
“If you lock me up in jail,” said Mliss, fiercely,
“to keep me from the play-actors, I 'll poison
myself. Father killed himself, — why should n't
I? You said a mouthful of that root would kill
me, and I always carry it here,” and she struck
her breast with her elenched fist.
The master thought of the vacant plot beside
Smith's grave, and of the passionate little figure
before him. Seizing her hands in his and looking
full into her truthful eyes, he said, —
“Lissy, will you go with me?”
The child put her arms around his neck, and
said joyfully, “Yes.”
“But now — to-night?”
“To-night.”
And, hand in hand, they passed into the road,
— the narrow road that had once brought her
weary feet to the master's door, and which it
seemed she should not tread again alone. The
stars glittered brightly above them. For good or
ill the lesson had been learned, and behind them
the school of Red Mountain closed upon them forever.
| CHAPTER IV. The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches | |