 | Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches |  |
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS.
1. PART I. — WEST.
The sun was rising in the foot-hills. But for
an hour the black mass of Sierra eastward
of Angel's had been outlined with fire, and the
conventional morning had come two hours before
with the down coach from Placerville. The dry,
cold, dewless California night still lingered in the
long cañons and folded skirts of Table Mountain.
Even on the mountain road the air was still sharp,
and that urgent necessity for something to keep
out the chill, which sent the barkeeper sleepily
among his bottles and wineglasses at the station,
obtained all along the road.
Perhaps it might be said that the first stir of
life was in the bar-rooms. A few birds twittered
in the sycamores at the roadside, but long before
that glasses had clicked and bottles gurgled in the
saloon of the Mansion House. This was still lit
by a dissipated-looking hanging-lamp, which was
evidently the worse for having been up all night,
and bore a singular resemblance to a faded reveller
of Angel's, who even then sputtered and flickered
in his socket in an arm-chair below it, — a resemblance
pierced the window-pane, the barkeeper, moved
by a sentiment of consistency and compassion, put
them both out together.
Then the sun came up haughtily. When it had
passed the eastern ridge it began, after its habit,
to lord it over Angel's, sending the thermometer
up twenty degrees in as many minutes, driving the
mules to the sparse shade of corrals and fences,
making the red dust incandescent, and renewing
its old imperious aggression on the spiked bosses
of the convex shield of pines that defended Table
Mountain. Thither by nine o'clock all coolness
had retreated, and the “outsides” of the up stage
plunged their hot faces in its aromatic shadows as
in water.
It was the custom of the driver of the Wingdam
coach to whip up his horses and enter Angel's at
that remarkable pace which the woodcuts in the
hotel bar-room represented to credulous humanity
as the usual rate of speed of that conveyance. At
such times the habitual expression of disdainful
reticence and lazy official severity which he wore
on the box became intensified as the loungers
gathered about the vehicle, and only the boldest
ventured to address him. It was the Hon. Judge
Beeswinger, Member of Assembly, who to-day
presumed, perhaps rashly, on the strength of his
official position.
“Any political news from below, Bill?” he
asked, as the latter slowly descended from his
lofty perch, without, however, any perceptible
coming down of mien or manner.
“Not much,” said Bill, with deliberate gravity.
“The President o' the United States hez n't bin
hisself sens you refoosed that seat in the Cabinet.
The ginral feelin' in perlitical circles is one o' regret.”
Irony, even of this outrageous quality, was too
common in Angel's to excite either a smile or a
frown. Bill slowly entered the bar-room during
a dry, dead silence, in which only a faint spirit
of emulation survived.
“Ye did n't bring up that agint o' Rothschild's
this trip?” asked the barkeeper, slowly, by way
of vague contribution to the prevailing tone of
conversation.
“No,” responded Bill, with thoughtful exactitude.
“He said he could n't look inter that claim
o' Johnson's without first consultin' the Bank o'
England.”
The Mr. Johnson here alluded to being present
as the faded reveller the barkeeper had lately put
out, and as the alleged claim notoriously possessed
no attractions whatever to capitalists, expectation
naturally looked to him for some response to this
evident challenge. He did so by simply stating that
he would “take sugar” in his, and by walking unsteadily
invitation. To the credit of Bill be it recorded
that he did not attempt to correct the mistake, but
gravely touched glasses with him, and after saying
“Here 's another nail in your coffin,” — a cheerful
sentiment, to which “And the hair all off your
head,” was playfully added by the others, — he
threw off his liquor with a single dexterous movement
of head and elbow, and stood refreshed.
“Hello, old major!” said Bill, suddenly setting
down his glass. “Are you there?”
It was a boy, who, becoming bashfully conscious
that this epithet was addressed to him, retreated
sideways to the doorway, where he stood
beating his hat against the door-post with an
assumption of indifference that his downcast but
mirthful dark eyes and reddening cheek scarcely
bore out. Perhaps it was owing to his size, perhaps
it was to a certain cherubic outline of face and figure,
perhaps to a peculiar trustfulness of expression,
that he did not look half his age, which was really
fourteen.
Everybody in Angel's knew the boy. Either
under the venerable title bestowed by Bill, or as
“Tom Islington,” after his adopted father, his was
a familiar presence in the settlement, and the
theme of much local criticism and comment. His
waywardness, indolence, and unaccountable amiability
— a quality at once suspicious and gratuitous
often been the subject of fierce discussion. A
large and reputable majority believed him destined
for the gallows; a minority not quite so
reputable enjoyed his presence without troubling
themselves much about his future; to one or two
the evil predictions of the majority possessed
neither novelty nor terror.
“Anything for me, Bill?” asked the boy, half
mechanically, with the air of repeating some jocular
formulary perfectly understood by Bill.
“Anythin' for you!” echoed Bill, with an overacted
severity equally well understood by Tommy,
— “anythin' for you? No! And it 's my opinion
there won't be anythin' for you ez long ez you
hang around bar-rooms and spend your valooable
time with loafers and bummers. Git!”
The reproof was accompanied by a suitable exaggeration
of gesture (Bill had seized a decanter),
before which the boy retreated still good-humoredly.
Bill followed him to the door. “Dern my skin, if
he hez n't gone off with that bummer Johnson,”
he added, as he looked down the road.
“What 's he expectin', Bill?” asked the barkeeper.
“A letter from his aunt. Reckon he 'll hev to
take it out in expectin'. Likely they 're glad to
get shut o' him.”
“He 's leadin' a shiftless, idle life here,” interposed
the Member of Assembly.
“Well,” said Bill, who never allowed any one
but himself to abuse his protégé, “seein' he ain't
expectin' no offis from the hands of an enlightened
constitooency, it is rayther a shiftless life.” After
delivering this Parthian arrow with a gratuitous
twanging of the bow to indicate its offensive
personality, Bill winked at the barkeeper, slowly
resumed a pair of immense, bulgy buckskin
gloves, which gave his fingers the appearance
of being painfully sore and bandaged, strode to
the door without looking at anybody, called
out, “All aboard,” with a perfunctory air of supreme
indifference whether the invitation was
heeded, remounted his box, and drove stolidly
away.
Perhaps it was well that he did so, for the conversation
at once assumed a disrespectful attitude
toward Tom and his relatives. It was more than
intimated that Tom's alleged aunt was none other
than Tom's real mother, while it was also asserted
that Tom's alleged uncle did not himself participate
in this intimate relationship to the boy to an
extent which the fastidious taste of Angel's deemed
moral and necessary. Popular opinion also believed
that Islington, the adopted father, who received
a certain stipend ostensibly for the boy's
support, retained it as a reward for his reticence
regarding these facts. “He ain't ruinin' hisself
by wastin' it on Tom,” said the barkeeper, who
of Islington's disbursements. But at this point
exhausted nature languished among some of the
debaters, and he turned from the frivolity of conversation
to his severer professional duties.
It was also well that Bill's momentary attitude
of didactic propriety was not further excited by
the subsequent conduct of his protégé. For by
this time Tom, half supporting the unstable Johnson,
who developed a tendency to occasionally dash
across the glaring road, but checked himself midway
each time, reached the corral which adjoined
the Mansion House. At its farther extremity was
a pump and horse-trough. Here, without a word
being spoken, but evidently in obedience to some
habitual custom, Tom led his companion. With
the boy's assistance, Johnson removed his coat and
neckcloth, turned back the collar of his shirt, and
gravely placed his head beneath the pump-spout.
With equal gravity and deliberation, Tom took his
place at the handle. For a few moments only the
splashing of water and regular strokes of the pump
broke the solemnly ludicrous silence. Then there
was a pause in which Johnson put his hands to
his dripping head, felt of it critically as if it belonged
to somebody else, and raised his eyes to his
companion. “That ought to fetch it,” said Tom,
in answer to the look. “Ef it don't,” replied Johnson,
doggedly, with an air of relieving himself of
to, thet 's all!”
If “it” referred to some change in the physiognomy
of Johnson, “it” had probably been “fetched”
by the process just indicated. The head that went
under the pump was large, and clothed with bushy,
uncertain-colored hair; the face was flushed, puffy,
and expressionless, the eyes injected and full. The
head that came out from under the pump was of
smaller size and different shape, the hair straight,
dark, and sleek, the face pale and hollow-cheeked,
the eyes bright and restless. In the haggard, nervous
ascetic that rose from the horse-trough there
was very little trace of the Bacchus that had bowed
there a moment before. Familiar as Tom must
have been with the spectacle, he could not help
looking inquiringly at the trough, as if expecting
to see some traces of the previous Johnson in its
shallow depths.
A narrow strip of willow, alder, and buckeye —
a mere dusty, ravelled fringe of the green mantle
that swept the high shoulders of Table Mountain
— lapped the edge of the corral. The silent pair
were quick to avail themselves of even its scant
shelter from the overpowering sun. They had not
proceeded far, before Johnson, who was walking
quite rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself
up, and turned to his companion with an
interrogative “Eh?”
“I did n't speak,” said Tommy, quietly.
“Who said you spoke?” said Johnson, with a
quick look of cunning. “In course you did n't
speak, and I did n't speak, neither. Nobody spoke.
Wot makes you think you spoke?” he continued,
peering curiously into Tommy's eyes.
The smile which habitually shone there quickly
vanished as the boy stepped quietly to his companion's
side, and took his arm without a word.
“In course you did n't speak, Tommy,” said
Johnson, deprecatingly. “You ain't a boy to go
for to play an ole soaker like me. That 's wot I
like you for. Thet 's wot I seed in you from the
first. I sez, `Thet 'ere boy ain't goin' to play you,
Johnson! You can go your whole pile on him,
when you can't trust even a bar-keep.' Thet 's
wot I said. Eh?”
This time Tommy prudently took no notice of
the interrogation, and Johnson went on: “Ef I
was to ask you another question, you would n't
go to play me neither, — would you, Tommy?”
“No,” said the boy.
“Ef I was to ask you,” continued Johnson, without
heeding the reply, but with a growing anxiety
of eye and a nervous twitching of his lips, — “ef I
was to ask you, fur instance, ef that was a jackass
rabbit thet jest passed, — eh? — you 'd say it was
or was not, ez the case may be. You would n't
play the ole man on thet?”
“No,” said Tommy, quietly, “it was a jackass
rabbit.”
“Ef I was to ask you,” continued Johnson, “ef
it wore, say, fur instance, a green hat with yaller
ribbons, you would n't play me, and say it did,
onless,” — he added, with intensified cunning, —
“onless it did?”
“No,” said Tommy, “of course I would n't; but
then, you see, it did.”
“It did?”
“It did!” repeated Tommy, stoutly; “a green
hat with yellow ribbons — and — and — a red
rosette.”
“I did n't get to see the ros-ette,” said Johnson,
with slow and conscientious deliberation, yet
with an evident sense of relief; “but that ain't
sayin' it warn't there, you know. Eh?”
Tommy glanced quietly at his companion. There
were great beads of perspiration on his ashen-gray
forehead and on the ends of his lank hair; the
hand which twitched spasmodically in his was
cold and clammy, the other, which was free, had
a vague, purposeless, jerky activity, as if attached
to some deranged mechanism. Without any apparent
concern in these phenomena, Tommy halted,
and, seating himself on a log, motioned his companion
to a place beside him. Johnson obeyed
without a word. Slight as was the act, perhaps
no other incident of their singular companionship
careless, half-effeminate, but self-possessed boy
over this doggedly self-willed, abnormally excited
man.
“It ain't the square thing,” said Johnson, after
a pause, with a laugh that was neither mirthful
nor musical, and frightened away a lizard that had
been regarding the pair with breathless suspense,
— “it ain't the square thing for jackass rabbits
to wear hats, Tommy, — is it, eh?”
“Well,” said Tommy, with unmoved composure,
“sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
Animals are mighty queer.” And here Tommy
went off in an animated, but, I regret to say, utterly
untruthful and untrustworthy account of
the habits of California fauna, until he was interrupted
by Johnson.
“And snakes, eh, Tommy?” said the man, with
an abstracted air, gazing intently on the ground
before him.
“And snakes,” said Tommy; “but they don't
bite, — at least not that kind you see. There! —
don't move, Uncle Ben, don't move; they 're gone
now. And it 's about time you took your dose.”
Johnson had hurriedly risen as if to leap upon
the log, but Tommy had as quickly caught his
arm with one hand while he drew a bottle from
his pocket with the other. Johnson paused, and
eyed the bottle. “Ef you say so, my boy,” he
“say `when,' then.” He raised the bottle to his
lips and took a long draught, the boy regarding
him critically. “When,” said Tommy, suddenly.
Johnson started, flushed, and returned the bottle
quickly. But the color that had risen to his cheek
stayed there, his eye grew less restless, and as they
moved away again, the hand that rested on Tommy's
shoulder was steadier.
Their way lay along the flank of Table Mountain,
— a wandering trail through a tangled solitude
that might have seemed virgin and unbroken
but for a few oyster-cans, yeast-powder tins, and
empty bottles that had been apparently stranded
by the “first low wash” of pioneer waves. On
the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a few
tufts of gray hair caught from a passing grizzly,
but in strange juxtaposition at its foot lay an
empty bottle of incomparable bitters, — the chefd'œuvre
of a hygienic civilization, and blazoned
with the arms of an all-healing republic. The
head of a rattlesnake peered from a case that had
contained tobacco, which was still brightly placarded
with the high-colored effigy of a popular
danseuse. And a little beyond this the soil was
broken and fissured, there was a confused mass of
roughly hewn timber, a straggling line of sluicing,
a heap of gravel and dirt, a rude cabin, and the
claim of Johnson.
Except for the rudest purposes of shelter from
rain and cold, the cabin possessed but little advantage
over the simple savagery of surrounding
nature. It had all the practical directness of the
habitation of some animal, without its comfort or
picturesque quality; the very birds that haunted
it for food must have felt their own superiority as
architects. It was inconceivably dirty, even with
its scant capacity for accretion; it was singularly
stale, even in its newness and freshness of material.
Unspeakably dreary as it was in shadow, the sunlight
visited it in a blind, aching, purposeless way,
as if despairing of mellowing its outlines or of
even tanning it into color.
The claim worked by Johnson in his intervals
of sobriety was represented by half a dozen rude
openings in the mountain-side, with the heaped-up
débris of rock and gravel before the mouth of
each. They gave very little evidence of engineering
skill or constructive purpose, or indeed showed
anything but the vague, successively abandoned
essays of their projector. To-day they served
another purpose, for as the sun had heated the
little cabin almost to the point of combustion,
curling up the long dry shingles, and starting aromatic
tears from the green pine beams, Tommy led
Johnson into one of the larger openings, and with
a sense of satisfaction threw himself panting upon
its rocky floor. Here and there the grateful dampness
a monotonous and soothing drip from the rocks
above. Without lay the staring sunlight, — colorless,
clarified, intense.
For a few moments they lay resting on their
elbows in blissful contemplation of the heat they
had escaped. “Wot do you say,” said Johnson,
slowly, without looking at his companion, but abstractly
addressing himself to the landscape beyond,
— “wot do you say to two straight games
fur one thousand dollars?”
“Make it five thousand,” replied Tommy, reflectively,
also to the landscape, “and I 'm in.”
“Wot do I owe you now?” said Johnson, after
a lengthened silence.
“One hundred and seventy-five thousand two
hundred and fifty dollars,” replied Tommy, with
business-like gravity.
“Well,” said Johnson, after a deliberation commensurate
with the magnitude of the transaction,
“ef you win, call it a hundred and eighty thousand,
round. War 's the keerds?”
They were in an old tin box in a crevice of a
rock above his head. They were greasy and worn
with service. Johnson dealt, albeit his right hand
was still uncertain, — hovering, after dropping the
cards, aimlessly about Tommy, and being only recalled
by a strong nervous effort. Yet, notwithstanding
this incapacity for even honest manipulation,
the bottom of the pack with such shameless inefficiency
and gratuitous unskilfulness, that even
Tommy was obliged to cough and look elsewhere
to hide his embarrassment. Possibly for this reason
the young gentleman was himself constrained,
by way of correction, to add a valuable card to his
own hand, over and above the number he legitimately
held.
Nevertheless, the game was unexciting, and
dragged listlessly. Johnson won. He recorded
the fact and the amount with a stub of pencil and
shaking fingers in wandering hieroglyphics all over
a pocket diary. Then there was a long pause,
when Johnson slowly drew something from his
pocket, and held it up before his companion. It
was apparently a dull red stone.
“Ef,” said Johnson, slowly, with his old look of
simple cunning, — “ef you happened to pick up
sich a rock ez that, Tommy, what might you say
it was?”
“Don't know,” said Tommy.
“Might n't you say,” continued Johnson, cautiously,
“that it was gold, or silver?”
“Neither,” said Tommy, promptly.
“Might n't you say it was quicksilver? Might
n't you say that ef thar was a friend o' yourn ez
knew war to go and turn out ten ton of it a day,
and every ton worth two thousand dollars, that he
that you used sich language, which you don't?”
“But,” said the boy, coming to the point with
great directness, “do you know where to get it?
have you struck it, Uncle Ben?”
Johnson looked carefully around. “I hev,
Tommy. Listen. I know whar thar 's cartloads
of it. But thar 's only one other specimen — the
mate to this yer — thet 's above ground, and thet 's
in 'Frisco. Thar 's an agint comin' up in a day or
two to look into it. I sent for him. Eh?”
His bright, restless eyes were concentrated on
Tommy's face now, but the boy showed neither
surprise nor interest. Least of all did he betray
any recollection of Bill's ironical and gratuitous
corroboration of this part of the story.
“Nobody knows it,” continued Johnson, in a
nervous whisper, — “nobody knows it but you and
the agint in 'Frisco. The boys workin' round yar
passes by and sees the old man grubbin' away, and
no signs o' color, not even rotten quartz; the boys
loafin' round the Mansion House sees the old man
lyin' round free in bar-rooms, and they laughs
and sez, `Played out,' and spects nothin'. Maybe
ye think they spects suthin now, eh?” queried
Johnson, suddenly, with a sharp look of suspicion.
Tommy looked up, shook his head, threw a stone
at a passing rabbit, but did not reply.
“When I fust set eyes on you, Tommy,” continued
you kem and pumped for me, an entire stranger,
and hevin no call to do it, I sez, `Johnson, Johnson,'
sez I, `yer 's a boy you kin trust. Yer 's a boy
that won't play you; yer 's a chap that 's white
and square,' — white and square, Tommy: them 's
the very words I used.”
He paused for a moment, and then went on in
a confidential whisper, “`You want capital, Johnson,'
sez I, `to develop your resources, and you
want a pardner. Capital you can send for, but
your pardner, Johnson, — your pardner is right
yer. And his name, it is Tommy Islington.'
Them 's the very words I used.”
He stopped and chafed his clammy hands upon
his knees. “It 's six months ago sens I made you
my pardner. Thar ain't a lick I 've struck sens
then, Tommy, thar ain't a han'ful o' yearth I 've
washed, thar ain't a shovelful o' rock I 've turned
over, but I tho't o' you. `Share, and share alike,'
sez I. When I wrote to my agint, I wrote ekal
for my pardner, Tommy Islington, he hevin no
call to know ef the same was man or boy.”
He had moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps
have laid his hand caressingly upon him, but
even in his manifest affection there was a singular
element of awed restraint and even fear, — a suggestion
of something withheld even his fullest confidences,
a hopeless perception of some vague barrier
have been at times dimly conscious that, in the
eyes which Tommy raised to his, there was thorough
intellectual appreciation, critical good-humor,
even feminine softness, but nothing more. His
nervousness somewhat heightened by his embarrassment,
he went on with an attempt at calmness
which his twitching white lips and unsteady fingers
made pathetically grotesque. “Thar 's a bill
o' sale in my bunk, made out accordin' to law, of
an ekal ondivided half of the claim, and the consideration
is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
— gambling debts, — gambling debts from me
to you, Tommy, — you understand?” — nothing
could exceed the intense cunning of his eye at
this moment, — “and then thar 's a will.”
“A will?” said Tommy, in amused surprise.
Johnson looked frightened.
“Eh?” he said, hurriedly, “wot will? Who
said anythin' 'bout a will, Tommy?”
“Nobody,” replied Tommy, with unblushing calm.
Johnson passed his hand over his cold forehead,
wrung the damp ends of his hair with his fingers,
and went on: “Times when I 'm took bad ez I
was to-day, the boys about yer sez — you sez,
maybe, Tommy — it 's whiskey. It ain't, Tommy.
It 's pizen, — quicksilver pizen. That 's what 's
the matter with me. I 'm salviated! Salviated
with merkery.
“I 've heerd o' it before,” continued Johnson,
appealing to the boy, “and ez a boy o' permiskus
reading, I reckon you hev too. Them men as
works in cinnabar sooner or later gets salviated.
It 's bound to fetch 'em some time. Salviated by
merkery.”
“What are you goin' to do for it?” asked Tommy.
“When the agint comes up, and I begins to
realize on this yer mine,” said Johnson, contemplatively,
“I goes to New York. I sez to the
barkeep' o' the hotel, `Show me the biggest doctor
here.' He shows me. I sez to him, `Salviated
by merkery, — a year's standin', — how much?'
He sez, `Five thousand dollars, and take two o'
these pills at bedtime, and an ekil number o' powders
at meals, and come back in a week.' And I
goes back in a week, cured, and signs a certifikit to
that effect.”
Encouraged by a look of interest in Tommy's
eye, he went on.
“So I gets cured. I goes to the barkeep', and
I sez, `Show me the biggest, fashionblest house
thet 's for sale yer.' And he sez, `The biggest,
nat'rally b'longs to John Jacob Astor.' And I
sez, `Show him,' and he shows him. And I sez,
`Wot might you ask for this yer house?' And he
looks at me scornful, and sez, `Go 'way, old man;
you must be sick.' And I fetches him one over
his own price for the house. I stocks that house
with mohogany furniture and pervisions, and thar
we lives, — you and me, Tommy, you and me!”
The sun no longer shone upon the hillside. The
shadows of the pines were beginning to creep over
Johnson's claim, and the air within the cavern
was growing chill. In the gathering darkness
his eyes shone brightly as he went on: “Then
thar comes a day when we gives a big spread.
We invites govners, members o' Congress, gentlemen
o' fashion, and the like. And among
'em I invites a Man as holds his head very high,
a Man I once knew; but he does n't know I
knows him, and he does n't remember me. And
he comes and he sits opposite me, and I watches
him. And he 's very airy, this Man, and very
chipper, and he wipes his mouth with a white
hankercher, and he smiles, and he ketches my eye.
And he sez, `A glass o' wine with you, Mr. Johnson';
and he fills his glass and I fills mine, and
we rises. And I heaves that wine, glass and all,
right into his damned grinnin' face. And he
jumps for me, — for he is very game, this Man,
very game, — but some on 'em grabs him, and he
sez, `Who be you?' And I sez, `Skaggs! damn
you, Skaggs! Look at me! Gimme back my
wife and child, gimme back the money you stole,
gimme back the good name you took away, gimme
twelve years! Give 'em to me, damn you, quick,
before I cuts your heart out!' And naterally,
Tommy, he can't do it. And so I cuts his heart
out, my boy; I cuts his heart out.”
The purely animal fury of his eye suddenly
changed again to cunning. “You think they
hangs me for it, Tommy, but they don't. Not
much, Tommy. I goes to the biggest lawyer there,
and I says to him, `Salviated by merkery, — you
hear me, — salviated by merkery.' And he winks
at me, and he goes to the judge, and he sez, `This
yer unfortnet man is n't responsible, — he 's been
salviated by merkery.' And he brings witnesses;
you comes, Tommy, and you sez ez how you 've
seen me took bad afore; and the doctor, he comes,
and he sez as how he 's seen me frightful; and
the jury, without leavin' their seats, brings in a
verdict o' justifiable insanity, — salviated by merkery.”
In the excitement of his climax he had risen to
his feet, but would have fallen had not Tommy
caught him and led him into the open air. In
this sharper light there was an odd change visible
in his yellow-white face, — a change which caused
Tommy to hurriedly support him, half leading, half
dragging him toward the little cabin. When they
had reached it, Tommy placed him on a rude
“bunk,” or shelf, and stood for a moment in anxious
him. Then he said rapidly: “Listen, Uncle
Ben. I 'm goin' to town — to town, you understand
— for the doctor. You 're not to get up
or move on any account until I return. Do you
hear?” Johnson nodded violently. “I 'll be back
in two hours.” In another moment he was gone.
For an hour Johnson kept his word. Then he
suddenly sat up, and began to gaze fixedly at a
corner of the cabin. From gazing at it he began
to smile, from smiling at it he began to talk, from
talking at it he began to scream, from screaming
he passed to cursing and sobbing wildly. Then
he lay quiet again.
He was so still that to merely human eyes he
might have seemed asleep or dead. But a squirrel,
that, emboldened by the stillness, had entered
from the roof, stopped short upon a beam above
the bunk, for he saw that the man's foot was
slowly and cautiously moving toward the floor,
and that the man's eyes were as intent and watchful
as his own. Presently, still without a sound,
both feet were upon the floor. And then the
bunk creaked, and the squirrel whisked into the
eaves of the roof. When he peered forth again,
everything was quiet, and the man was gone.
An hour later two muleteers on the Placerville
Road passed a man with dishevelled hair, glaring,
bloodshot eyes, and clothes torn with bramble and
pursued him, when he turned fiercely on the foremost,
wrested a pistol from his grasp, and broke
away. Later still, when the sun had dropped behind
Payne's Ridge, the underbrush on Deadwood
Slope crackled with a stealthy but continuous
tread. It must have been an animal whose dimly
outlined bulk, in the gathering darkness, showed
here and there in vague but incessant motion; it
could be nothing but an animal whose utterance
was at once so incoherent, monotonous, and unremitting.
Yet, when the sound came nearer, and
the chaparral was parted, it seemed to be a man,
and that man Johnson.
Above the baying of phantasmal hounds that
pressed him hard and drove him on, with never
rest or mercy; above the lashing of a spectral whip
that curled about his limbs, sang in his ears, and
continually stung him forward; above the outcries
of the unclean shapes that thronged about him, —
he could still distinguish one real sound, — the
rush and sweep of hurrying waters. The Stanislaus
River! A thousand feet below him drove its
yellowing current. Through all the vacillations of
his unseated mind he had clung to one idea, — to
reach the river, to lave in it, to swim it if need be,
but to put it forever between him and the harrying
shapes, to drown forever in its turbid depths
the thronging spectres, to wash away in its yellow
now he was leaping from boulder to boulder, from
blackened stump to stump, from gnarled bush to
bush, caught for a moment and withheld by clinging
vines, or plunging downward into dusty hollows,
until, rolling, dropping, sliding, and stumbling, he
reached the river-bank, whereon he fell, rose, staggered
forward, and fell again with outstretched
arms upon a rock that breasted the swift current.
And there he lay as dead.
A few stars came out hesitatingly above Deadwood
Slope. A cold wind that had sprung up
with the going down of the sun fanned them into
momentary brightness, swept the heated flanks of
the mountain, and ruffled the river. Where the
fallen man lay there was a sharp curve in the
stream, so that in the gathering shadows the rushing
water seemed to leap out of the darkness and
to vanish again. Decayed drift-wood, trunks of
trees, fragments of broken sluicing, — the wash
and waste of many a mile, — swept into sight a
moment, and were gone. All of decay, wreck, and
foulness gathered in the long circuit of mining-camp
and settlement, all the dregs and refuse of
a crude and wanton civilization, reappeared for
an instant, and then were hurried away in the
darkness and lost. No wonder that as the wind
ruffled the yellow waters the waves seemed to lift
their unclean hands toward the rock whereon the
too, and hurry him toward the sea.
It was very still. In the clear air a horn blown
a mile away was heard distinctly. The jingling
of a spur and a laugh on the highway over Payne's
Ridge sounded clearly across the river. The rattling
of harness and hoofs foretold for many minutes
the approach of the Wingdam coach, that at
last, with flashing lights, passed within a few feet
of the rock. Then for an hour all again was
quiet. Presently the moon, round and full, lifted
herself above the serried ridge and looked down
upon the river. At first the bared peak of Deadwood
Hill gleamed white and skull-like. Then
the shadows of Payne's Ridge cast on the slope
slowly sank away, leaving the unshapely stumps,
the dusty fissures, and clinging outcrop of Deadwood
Slope to stand out in black and silver. Still
stealing softly downward, the moonlight touched
the bank and the rock, and then glittered brightly
on the river. The rock was bare and the man was
gone, but the river still hurried swiftly to the sea.
“Is there anything for me?” asked Tommy
Islington, as, a week after, the stage drew up at the
Mansion House, and Bill slowly entered the bar-room.
Bill did not reply, but, turning to a stranger
who had entered with him, indicated with a
jerk of his finger the boy. The stranger turned
looked critically at Tommy. “Is there anything
for me?” repeated Tommy, a little confused at the
silence and scrutiny. Bill walked deliberately to
the bar, and, placing his back against it, faced
Tommy with a look of demure enjoyment.
“Ef,” he remarked slowly, — “ef a hundred
thousand dollars down and half a million in perspektive
is ennything, Major, THERE IS!”
2. PART II. — EAST.
IT was characteristic of Angel's that the disappearance
of Johnson, and the fact that he had
left his entire property to Tommy, thrilled the
community but slightly in comparison with the
astounding discovery that he had anything to
leave. The finding of a cinnabar lode at Angel's
absorbed all collateral facts or subsequent details.
Prospectors from adjoining camps thronged the
settlement; the hillside for a mile on either side
of Johnson's claim was staked out and pre-empted;
trade received a sudden stimulus; and, in the excited
rhetoric of the “Weekly Record,” “a new era
had broken upon Angel's.” “On Thursday last,”
added that paper, “over five hundred dollars was
taken in over the bar of the Mansion House.”
Of the fate of Johnson there was little doubt.
He had been last seen lying on a boulder on the
river-bank by outside passengers of the Wingdam
night coach, and when Finn of Robinson's Ferry
admitted to have fired three shots from a revolver
at a dark object struggling in the water near the
ferry, which he “suspicioned” to be a bear, the
have been the fallibility of his judgment, of the
accuracy of his aim there could be no doubt. The
general belief that Johnson, after possessing himself
of the muleteer's pistol, could have run amuck,
gave a certain retributive justice to this story, which
rendered it acceptable to the camp.
It was also characteristic of Angel's that no
feeling of envy or opposition to the good fortune
of Tommy Islington prevailed there. That he was
thoroughly cognizant, from the first, of Johnson's
discovery, that his attentions to him were interested,
calculating, and speculative was, however, the general
belief of the majority, — a belief that, singularly
enough, awakened the first feelings of genuine
respect for Tommy ever shown by the camp. “He
ain't no fool; Yuba Bill seed thet from the first,”
said the barkeeper. It was Yuba Bill who applied
for the guardianship of Tommy after his accession
to Johnson's claim, and on whose bonds the richest
men of Calaveras were represented. It was Yuba
Bill, also, when Tommy was sent East to finish his
education, accompanied him to San Francisco, and,
before parting with his charge on the steamer's
deck, drew him aside, and said, “Ef at enny time
you want enny money, Tommy, over and 'bove your
'lowance, you kin write; but ef you 'll take my
advice,” he added, with a sudden huskiness mitigating
the severity of his voice, “you 'll forget every
ever met or knew at Angel's, — ev'ry one, Tommy,
— ev'ry one! And so — boy — take care of yourself
— and — and — God bless ye, and pertikerly
d—n me for a first-class A 1 fool.” It was
Yuba Bill, also, after this speech, glared savagely
around, walked down the crowded gang-plank
with a rigid and aggressive shoulder, picked a
quarrel with his cabman, and, after bundling that
functionary into his own vehicle, took the reins
himself, and drove furiously to his hotel. “It cost
me,” said Bill, recounting the occurrence somewhat
later at Angel's, — “it cost me a matter o' twenty
dollars afore the jedge the next mornin'; but you
kin bet high thet I taught them 'Frisco chaps
suthin new about drivin'. I did n't make it lively
in Montgomery Street for about ten minutes, —
O no!”
And so by degrees the two original locaters of
the great Cinnabar Lode faded from the memory
of Angel's, and Calaveras knew them no more. In
five years their very names had been forgotten;
in seven the name of the town was changed; in
ten the town itself was transported bodily to the
hillside, and the chimney of the Union Smelting
Works by night flickered like a corpse-light over
the site of Johnson's cabin, and by day poisoned
the pure spices of the pines. Even the Mansion
House was dismantled, and the Wingdam stage
City. Only the bared crest of Deadwood
Hill, as of old, sharply cut the clear blue sky, and
at its base, as of old, the Stanislaus River, unwearied
and unresting, babbled, whispered, and
hurried away to the sea.
A midsummer's day was breaking lazily on the
Atlantic. There was not wind enough to move
the vapors in the foggy offing, but where the vague
distance heaved against a violet sky there were
dull red streaks that, growing brighter, presently
painted out the stars. Soon the brown rocks of
Greyport appeared faintly suffused, and then the
whole ashen line of dead coast was kindled, and
the lighthouse beacons went out one by one.
And then a hundred sail, before invisible, started
out of the vapory horizon, and pressed toward the
shore. It was morning, indeed, and some of the
best society in Greyport, having been up all night,
were thinking it was time to go to bed.
For as the sky flashed brighter it fired the clustering
red roofs of a picturesque house by the sands
that had all that night, from open lattice and illuminated
balcony, given light and music to the
shore. It glittered on the broad crystal spaces of
a great conservatory that looked upon an exquisite
lawn, where all night long the blended odors of
sea and shore had swooned under the summer
colored lamps on the long veranda, and startled
a group of ladies and gentlemen who had stepped
from the drawing-room window to gaze upon it.
It was so searching and sincere in its way, that, as
the carriage of the fairest Miss Gillyflower rolled
away, that peerless young woman, catching sight
of her face in the oval mirror, instantly pulled
down the blinds, and, nestling the whitest shoulders
in Greyport against the crimson cushions, went to
sleep.
“How haggard everybody is! Rose, dear, you
look almost intellectual,” said Blanche Masterman.
“I hope not,” said Rose, simply. “Sunrises are
very trying. Look how that pink regularly puts
out Mrs. Brown-Robinson, hair and all!”
“The angels,” said the Count de Nugat, with a
polite gesture toward the sky, “must have find
these celestial combinations very bad for the toilette.”
“They 're safe in white, — except when they sit
for their pictures in Venice,” said Blanche. “How
fresh Mr. Islington looks! It 's really uncomplimentary
to us.”
“I suppose the sun recognizes in me no rival,”
said the young man, demurely. “But,” he added,
“I have lived much in the open air, and require
very little sleep.”
“How delightful!” said Mrs. Brown-Robinson,
the glowing sentiment of sixteen and the practical
experiences of thirty-two in dangerous combination;
— “how perfectly delightful! What sunrises you
must have seen, and in such wild, romantic places!
How I envy you! My nephew was a classmate
of yours, and has often repeated to me those charming
stories you tell of your adventures. Won't
you tell some now? Do! How you must tire of
us and this artificial life here, so frightfully artificial,
you know” (in a confidential whisper); “and
then to think of the days when you roamed the
great West with the Indians, and the bisons, and
the grizzly bears! Of course, you have seen grizzly
bears and bisons?”
“Of course he has, dear,” said Blanche, a little
pettishly, throwing a cloak over her shoulders, and
seizing her chaperon by the arm; “his earliest infancy
was soothed by bisons, and he proudly points
to the grizzly bear as the playmate of his youth.
Come with me, and I 'll tell you all about it. How
good it is of you,” she added, sotto voce, to Islington,
as he stood by the carriage, — “how perfectly good
it is of you to be like those animals you tell us of,
and not know your full power. Think, with your
experiences and our credulity, what stories you
might tell! And you are going to walk? Good
night, then.” A slim, gloved hand was frankly extended
from the window, and the next moment the
carriage rolled away.
“Is n't Islington throwing away a chance there?”
said Captain Merwin, on the veranda.
“Perhaps he could n't stand my lovely aunt's
superadded presence. But then, he 's the guest
of Blanche's father, and I dare say they see enough
of each other as it is.”
“But is n't it a rather dangerous situation?”
“For him, perhaps; although he 's awfully
old, and very queer. For her, with an experience
that takes in all the available men in both hemispheres,
ending with Nugat over there, I should
say a man more or less would n't affect her much,
anyway. Of course,” he laughed, “these are the
accents of bitterness. But that was last year.”
Perhaps Islington did not overhear the speaker;
perhaps, if he did, the criticism was not new. He
turned carelessly away, and sauntered out on the
road to the sea. Thence he strolled along the sands
toward the cliffs, where, meeting an impediment in
the shape of a garden wall, he leaped it with a certain
agile, boyish ease and experience, and struck across
an open lawn toward the rocks again. The best society
of Greyport were not early risers, and the
spectacle of a trespasser in an evening dress excited
only the criticism of grooms hanging about
the stables, or cleanly housemaids on the broad verandas
that in Greyport architecture dutifully gave
upon the sea. Only once, as he entered the boundaries
of Cliffwood Lodge, the famous seat of
scrutiny; but a slouching figure that vanished
quickly in the lodge offered no opposition to his
progress. Avoiding the pathway to the lodge, Islington
kept along the rocks until, reaching a little
promontory and rustic pavilion, he sat down and
gazed upon the sea.
And presently an infinite peace stole upon him.
Except where the waves lapped lazily the crags
below, the vast expanse beyond seemed unbroken
by ripple, heaving only in broad ponderable sheets,
and rhythmically, as if still in sleep. The air was
filled with a luminous haze that caught and held
the direct sunbeams. In the deep calm that lay
upon the sea, it seemed to Islington that all the
tenderness of culture, magic of wealth, and spell
of refinement that for years had wrought upon
that favored shore had extended its gracious influence
even here. What a pampered and caressed
old ocean it was; cajoled, flattered, and fêted where
it lay! An odd recollection of the turbid Stanislaus
hurrying by the ascetic pines, of the grim
outlines of Deadwood Hill, swam before his eyes,
and made the yellow green of the velvet lawn
and graceful foliage seem almost tropical by contrast.
And, looking up, a few yards distant he beheld
a tall slip of a girl gazing upon the sea, —
Blanche Masterman.
She had plucked somewhere a large fan-shaped
blond masses of her hair, and hiding her gray
eyes. She had changed her festal dress, with its
amplitude of flounce and train, for a closely fitting
half-antique habit whose scant outlines would
have been trying to limbs less shapely, but which
prettily accented the graceful curves and sweeping
lines of this Greyport goddess. As Islington rose,
she came toward him with a frankly outstretched
hand and unconstrained manner. Had she observed
him first? I don't know.
They sat down together on a rustic seat, Miss
Blanche facing the sea, and shading her eyes with
the leaf.
“I don't really know how long I have been
sitting here,” said Islington, “or whether I have
not been actually asleep and dreaming. It seemed
too lovely a morning to go to bed. But you?”
From behind the leaf, it appeared that Miss
Blanche, on retiring, had been pursued by a hideous
winged bug which defied the efforts of herself and
maid to dislodge. Odin, the Spitz dog, had insisted
upon scratching at the door. And it made her
eyes red to sleep in the morning. And she had
an early call to make. And the sea looked
lovely.
“I 'm glad to find you here, whatever be the
cause,” said Islington, with his old directness.
“To-day, as you know, is my last day in Greyport,
this blue sky than even beneath your father's
wonderful frescos yonder I want to remember
you, too, as part of this pleasant prospect which
belongs to us all, rather than recall you in anybody's
particular setting.”
“I know,” said Blanche, with equal directness,
“that houses are one of the defects of our civilization;
but I don't think I ever heard the idea as
elegantly expressed before. Where do you go?”
“I don't know yet. I have several plans. I
may go to South America and become president
of one of the republics, — I am not particular
which. I am rich, but in that part of America
which lies outside of Greyport it is necessary for
every man to have some work. My friends think
I should have some great aim in life, with a capital
A. But I was born a vagabond, and a vagabond I
shall probably die.”
“I don't know anybody in South America,” said
Blanche, languidly. “There were two girls here
last season, but they did n't wear stays in the
house, and their white frocks never were properly
done up. If you go to South America, you must
write to me.”
“I will. Can you tell me the name of this
flower which I found in your greenhouse. It
looks much like a California blossom.”
“Perhaps it is. Father bought it of a half-crazy
him?”
Islington laughed. “I am afraid not. But let
me present this in a less business-like fashion.”
“Thank you. Remind me to give you one in return
before you go, — or will you choose yourself?”
They had both risen as by a common instinct.
“Good by.”
The cool flower-like hand lay in his for an instant.
“Will you oblige me by putting aside that leaf
a moment before I go?”
“But my eyes are red, and I look like a
perfect fright.”
Yet, after a long pause, the leaf fluttered down, and
a pair of very beautiful but withal very clear and
critical eyes met his. Islington was constrained to
look away. When he turned again, she was gone.
“Mister Hislington, — sir!”
It was Chalker, the English groom, out of breath
with running.
“Seein' you alone, sir, — beg your pardon, sir, —
but there 's a person —”
“A person! what the devil do you mean?
Speak English — no, damn it, I mean don't,” said
Islington, snappishly.
“I sed a person, sir. Beg pardon — no offence
— but not a gent, sir. In the lib'ry.”
A little amused even through the utter dissatisfaction
suddenly come upon him, Islington, as he walked
toward the lodge, asked, “Why is n't he a gent?
“No gent — beggin' your pardin, sir — 'ud guy
a man in sarvis, sir. Takes me 'ands so, sir, as I
sits in the rumble at the gate, and puts 'em downd
so, sir, and sez, `Put 'em in your pocket, young man,
— or is it a road agint you expects to see, that you
'olds hup your 'ands, hand crosses 'em like to that,'
sez he. `'Old 'ard,' sez he, `on the short curves, or
you 'll bust your precious crust,' sez he. And hasks
for you, sir. This way, sir.”
They entered the lodge. Islington hurried down
the long Gothic hall, and opened the library door.
In an arm-chair, in the centre of the room, a
man sat apparently contemplating a large, stiff,
yellow hat with an enormous brim, that was placed
on the floor before him. His hands rested lightly
between his knees, but one foot was drawn up at
the side of his chair in a peculiar manner. In the
first glance that Islington gave, the attitude in
some odd, irreconcilable way suggested a brake.
In another moment he dashed across the room, and,
holding out both hands, cried, “Yuba Bill!”
The man rose, caught Islington by the shoulders,
wheeled him round, hugged him, felt of his ribs
like a good-natured ogre, shook his hands violently,
laughed, and then said, somewhat ruefully,
“And how ever did you know me?”
Seeing that Yuba Bill evidently regarded himself
as in some elaborate disguise, Islington
laughed, and suggested that it must have been instinct.
“And you?” said Bill, holding him at arm's
length, and surveying him critically, — “you! — toe
think — toe think — a little cuss no higher nor a
trace, a boy as I 've flicked outer the road with a
whip time in agin, a boy ez never hed much clothes
to speak of, turned into a sport!”
Islington remembered, with a thrill of ludicrous
terror, that he still wore his evening dress.
“Turned,” continued Yuba Bill, severely, —
“turned into a restyourant waiter, — a garsong!
Eh, Alfonse, bring me a patty de foy grass and an
omelette, demme!”
“Dear old chap!” said Islington, laughing, and
trying to put his hand over Bill's bearded mouth,
“but you — you don't look exactly like yourself!
You 're not well, Bill.” And indeed, as he turned
toward the light, Bill's eyes appeared cavernous,
and his hair and beard thickly streaked with gray.
“Maybe it 's this yer harness,” said Bill, a little
anxiously. “When I hitches on this yer curb”
(he indicated a massive gold watch-chain with
enormous links), “and mounts this `morning star,”'
(he pointed to a very large solitaire pin which had
the appearance of blistering his whole shirt-front),
“it kinder weighs heavy on me, Tommy. Otherwise
evaded Islington's keen eye, and turned from the
light.
“You have something to tell me, Bill,” said
Islington, suddenly, and with almost brusque directness;
“out with it.”
Bill did not speak, but moved uneasily toward
his hat.
“You did n't come three thousand miles, without
a word of warning, to talk to me of old times,” said
Islington, more kindly, “glad as I would have been
to see you. It is n't your way, Bill, and you know
it. We shall not be disturbed here,” he added, in
reply to an inquiring glance that Bill directed to
the door, “and I am ready to hear you.”
“Firstly, then,” said Bill, drawing his chair
nearer Islington, “answer me one question, Tommy,
fair and square, and up and down.”
“Go on,” said Islington, with a slight smile.
“Ef I should say to you, Tommy, — say to you
to-day, right here, you must come with me, — you
must leave this place for a month, a year, two
years maybe, perhaps forever, — is there anything
that 'ud keep you, — anything, my boy, ez
you could n't leave?”
“No,” said Tommy, quietly; “I am only visiting
here. I thought of leaving Greyport to-day.”
“But if I should say to you, Tommy, come
with me on a pasear to Chiny, to Japan, to South
Ameriky, p'r'aps, could you go?”
“Yes,” said Islington, after a slight pause.
“Thar is n't ennything,” said Bill, drawing a
little closer, and lowering his voice confidentially, —
“ennything in the way of a young woman — you
understand, Tommy — ez would keep you? They 're
mighty sweet about here; and whether a man is
young or old, Tommy, there 's always some woman
as is brake or whip to him!”
In a certain excited bitterness that characterized
the delivery of this abstract truth, Bill did
not see that the young man's face flushed slightly
as he answered “No.”
“Then listen. It 's seven years ago, Tommy,
thet I was working one o' the Pioneer coaches over
from Gold Hill. Ez I stood in front o' the stage-office,
the sheriff o' the county comes to me, and
he sez, `Bill,' sez he, `I 've got a looney chap, as
I 'm in charge of, taking 'im down to the 'sylum in
Stockton. He 'z quiet and peaceable, but the insides
don't like to ride with him. Hev you enny objection
to give him a lift on the box beside you?' I
sez, `No; put him up.' When I came to go and
get up on that box beside him, that man, Tommy,
— that man sittin' there, quiet and peaceable, was
— Johnson!
“He did n't know me, my boy,” Yuba Bill continued,
rising and putting his hands on Tommy's
shoulders, — “he did n't know me. He did n't know
nothing about you, nor Angel's, nor the quicksilver
was Skaggs, but I knowd it was Johnson. Thar
was times, Tommy, you might have knocked me
off that box with a feather; thar was times
when if the twenty-seven passengers o' that stage
hed found theirselves swimming in the American
River five hundred feet below the road, I never
could have explained it satisfactorily to the company,
— never.
“The sheriff said,” Bill continued hastily, as if
to preclude any interruption from the young man,
— “the sheriff said he had been brought into Murphy's
Camp three years before, dripping with water,
and sufferin' from perkussion of the brain, and
had been cared for generally by the boys 'round.
When I told the sheriff I knowed 'im, I got him
to leave him in my care; and I took him to 'Frisco,
Tommy, to 'Frisco, and I put him in charge o'
the best doctors there, and paid his board myself.
There was nothin' he did n't have ez he wanted.
Don't look that way, my dear boy, for God's sake,
don't!”
“O Bill,” said Islington, rising and staggering
to the window, “why did you keep this from me?”
“Why?” said Bill, turning on him savagely, —
“why? because I warn't a fool. Thar was you,
winnin' your way in college; thar was you, risin'
in the world, and of some account to it; Yer was
an old bummer, ez good ez dead to it, — a man ez
it! But you allus liked him better nor me,” said
Bill, bitterly.
“Forgive me, Bill,” said the young man, seizing
both his hands. “I know you did it for the best;
but go on.”
“Thar ain't much more to tell, nor much use to
tell it, as I can see,” said Bill, moodily. “He never
could be cured, the doctors said, for he had what
they called monomania, — was always talking
about his wife and darter that somebody had stole
away years ago, and plannin' revenge on that somebody.
And six months ago he was missed. I
tracked him to Carson, to Salt Lake City, to Omaha,
to Chicago, to New York, — and here!”
“Here!” echoed Islington.
“Here! And that 's what brings me here to-day.
Whethers he 's crazy or well, whethers he 's huntin'
you or lookin' up that other man, you must get
away from here. You must n't see him. You and
me, Tommy, will go away on a cruise. In three
or four years he 'll be dead or missing, and then
we 'll come back. Come.” And he rose to his feet.
“Bill,” said Islington, rising also, and taking
the hand of his friend, with the same quiet obstinacy
that in the old days had endeared him to
Bill, “wherever he is, here or elsewhere, sane or
crazy, I shall seek and find him. Every dollar
that I have shall be his, every dollar that I have
thank God, and can work; and if there is a way
out of this miserable business, I shall find it.”
“I knew,” said Bill, with a surliness that ill
concealed his evident admiration of the calm figure
before him — “I knew the partikler style of
d—n fool that you was, and expected no better.
Good by, then — God Almighty! who's that?”
He was on his way to the open French window,
but had started back, his face quite white and
bloodless, and his eyes staring. Islington ran to
the window, and looked out. A white skirt vanished
around the corner of the veranda. When
he returned, Bill had dropped into a chair.
“It must have been Miss Masterman, I think;
but what 's the matter?”
“Nothing,” said Bill, faintly; “have you got
any whiskey handy?”
Islington brought a decanter, and, pouring out
some spirits, handed the glass to Bill. Bill
drained it, and then said, “Who is Miss Masterman?”
“Mr. Masterman's daughter; that is, an adopted
daughter, I believe.”
“Wot name?”
“I really don't know,” said Islington, pettishly,
more vexed than he cared to own at this questioning.
Yuba Bill rose and walked to the window,
at Islington, hesitated, and then returned to his
chair.
“I did n't tell you I was married, — did I?” he
said suddenly, looking up in Islington's face with
an unsuccessful attempt at a reckless laugh.
“No,” said Islington, more pained at the manner
than the words.
“Fact,” said Yuba Bill. “Three years ago it
was, Tommy, — three years ago!”
He looked so hard at Islington, that, feeling
he was expected to say something, he asked vaguely,
“Who did you marry?”
“Thet 's it!” said Yuba Bill; “I can't ezactly
say; partikly, though, a she devil! generally, the
wife of half a dozen other men.”
Accustomed, apparently, to have his conjugal
infelicities a theme of mirth among men, and
seeing no trace of amusement on Islington's
grave face, his dogged, reckless manner softened,
and, drawing his chair closer to Islington, he went
on: “It all began outer this: we was coming down
Watson's grade one night pretty free, when the
expressman turns to me and sez, `There 's a row
inside, and you 'd better pull up!' I pulls up, and
out hops, first a woman, and then two or three
chaps swearing and cursin', and tryin' to drag some
one arter them. Then it 'pear'd, Tommy, thet it
was this woman's drunken husband they was going
the coach; and if it had n't been for me, my boy,
they 'd hev left that chap thar in the road. But I
fixes matters up by putting her alongside o' me on
the box, and we drove on. She was very white,
Tommy, — for the matter o' that, she was always
one o' these very white women, that never got red
in the face, — but she never cried a whimper.
Most wimin would have cried. It was queer, but
she never cried. I thought so at the time.
“She was very tall, with a lot o' light hair meandering
down the back of her head, as long as a
deer-skin whip-lash, and about the color. She
hed eyes thet 'd bore you through at fifty yards,
and pooty hands and feet. And when she kinder
got out o' that stiff, narvous state she was in, and
warmed up a little, and got chipper, by G—d, sir,
she was handsome, — she was that!”
A little flushed and embarrassed at his own enthusiasm,
he stopped, and then said, carelessly,
“They got off at Murphy's.”
“Well,” said Islington.
“Well, I used to see her often arter thet, and
when she was alone she allus took the box-seat.
She kinder confided her troubles to me, how her
husband got drunk and abused her; and I did n't
see much o' him, for he was away in 'Frisco arter
thet. But it was all square, Tommy, — all square
'twixt me and her.
“I got a going there a good deal, and then one
day I sez to myself, `Bill, this won't do,' and I
got changed to another route. Did you ever know
Jackson Filltree, Tommy?” said Bill, breaking off
suddenly.
“No.”
“Might have heerd of him, p'r'aps?”
“No,” said Islington, impatiently.
“Jackson Filltree ran the express from White's
out to Summit, 'cross the North Fork of the Yuba.
One day he sez to me, `Bill, that 's a mighty bad
ford at the North Fork.' I sez, `I believe you,
Jackson.' `It 'll git me some day, Bill, sure,' sez
he. I sez, `Why don't you take the lower ford?'
`I don't know,' sez he, `but I can't.' So ever after,
when I met him, he sez, `That North Fork ain't got
me yet.' One day I was in Sacramento, and up
comes Filltree. He sez, `I 've sold out the express
business on account of the North Fork, but it 's
bound to get me yet, Bill, sure'; and he laughs.
Two weeks after they finds his body below the
ford, whar he tried to cross, comin' down from
the Summit way. Folks said it was foolishness:
Tommy, I sez it was Fate! The second day arter I
was changed to the Placerville route, thet woman
comes outer the hotel above the stage-office. Her
husband, she said, was lying sick in Placerville;
that 's what she said; but it was Fate, Tommy,
Fate. Three months afterward, her husband takes
dies. There 's folks ez sez she gave it to him, but
it 's Fate. A year after that I married her, — Fate,
Tommy, Fate!
“I lived with her jest three months,” he went
on, after a long breath, — “three months! It ain't
much time for a happy man. I 've seen a good
deal o' hard life in my day, but there was days in
that three months longer than any day in my life,
— days, Tommy, when it was a toss-up whether I
should kill her or she me. But thar, I 'm done.
You are a young man, Tommy, and I ain't goin'
to tell things thet, old as I am, three years ago I
could n't have believed.”
When at last, with his grim face turned toward
the window, he sat silently with his clinched
hands on his knees before him, Islington asked
where his wife was now.
“Ask me no more, my boy, — no more. I 've said
my say.” With a gesture as of throwing down a
pair of reins before him, he rose, and walked to
the window.
“You kin understand, Tommy, why a little trip
around the world 'ud do me good. Ef you can't
go with me, well and good. But go I must.”
“Not before luncheon, I hope,” said a very sweet
voice, as Blanche Masterman suddenly stood before
them. “Father would never forgive me if in his
absence I permitted one of Mr. Islington's friends
And you will give me your arm now; and when
Mr. Islington has done staring, he will follow us
into the dining-room and introduce you.”
“I have quite fallen in love with your friend,”
said Miss Blanche, as they stood in the drawing-room
looking at the figure of Bill, strolling, with
his short pipe in his mouth, through the distant
shrubbery. “He asks very queer questions, though.
He wanted to know my mother's maiden name.”
“He is an honest fellow,” said Islington, gravely.
“You are very much subdued. You don't
thank me, I dare say, for keeping you and your
friend here; but you could n't go, you know, until
father returned.”
Islington smiled, but not very gayly.
“And then I think it much better for us to part
here under these frescos, don't you? Good by.”
She extended her long, slim hand.
“Out in the sunlight there, when my eyes
were red, you were very anxious to look at me,”
she added, in a dangerous voice.
Islington raised his sad eyes to hers. Something
glittering upon her own sweet lashes trembled
and fell.
“Blanche!”
She was rosy enough now, and would have withdrawn
her hand, but Islington detained it. She
was not quite certain but that her waist was also
you sure that there is n't anything in the way of
a young woman that would keep you?”
“Blanche!” said Islington in reproachful horror.
“If gentlemen will roar out their secrets before
an open window, with a young woman lying on a
sofa on the veranda, reading a stupid French
novel, they must not be surprised if she gives
more attention to them than her book.”
“Then you know all, Blanche?”
“I know,” said Blanche, “let 's see — I know
the partiklar style of — ahem! — fool you was,
and expected no better. Good by.” And, gliding
like a lovely and innocent milk snake out of his
grasp, she slipped away.
To the pleasant ripple of waves, the sound of
music and light voices, the yellow midsummer
moon again rose over Greyport. It looked upon
formless masses of rock and shrubbery, wide
spaces of lawn and beach, and a shimmering
expanse of water. It singled out particular objects,
— a white sail in shore, a crystal globe upon
the lawn, and flashed upon something held between
the teeth of a crouching figure scaling the
low wall of Cliffwood Lodge. Then, as a man
and woman passed out from under the shadows of
the foliage into the open moonlight of the garden
path, the figure leaped from the wall, and stood
erect and waiting in the shadow.
It was the figure of an old man, with rolling
eyes, his trembling hand grasping a long, keen
knife, — a figure more pitiable than pitiless, more
pathetic than terrible. But the next moment the
knife was stricken from his hand, and he struggled
in the firm grasp of another figure that apparently
sprang from the wall beside him.
“D—n you, Masterman!” cried the old man,
hoarsely; “give me fair play, and I 'll kill you
yet!”
“Which my name is Yuba Bill,” said Bill,
quietly, “and it 's time this d—n fooling was
stopped.”
The old man glared in Bill's face savagely. “I
know you. You 're one of Masterman's friends, —
d—n you, — let me go till I cut his heart out, —
let me go! Where is my Mary? — where is my
wife? — there she is! there! — there! — there!
Mary!” He would have screamed, but Bill
placed his powerful hand upon his mouth, as he
turned in the direction of the old man's glance.
Distinct in the moonlight the figures of Islington
and Blanche, arm in arm, stood out upon the garden
path.
“Give me my wife!” muttered the old man
hoarsely, between Bill's fingers. “Where is she?”
A sudden fury passed over Yuba Bill's face.
“Where is your wife?” he echoed, pressing the old
man back against the garden wall, and holding him
thrusting his grim sardonic jaw and savage
eyes into the old man's frightened face. “Where
is Jack Adam's wife? Where is MY wife? Where
is the she-devil that drove one man mad, that sent
another to hell by his own hand, that eternally
broke and ruined me? Where! Where! Do you
ask where? In jail in Sacramento, — in jail, do you
hear? — in jail for murder, Johnson, — murder!”
The old man gasped, stiffened, and then, relaxing,
suddenly slipped, a mere inanimate mass, at
Yuba Bill's feet. With a sudden revulsion of
feeling, Yuba Bill dropped at his side, and, lifting
him tenderly in his arms, whispered, “Look up, old
man, Johnson! look up, for God's sake! — it 's me,
— Yuba Bill! and yonder is your daughter, and —
Tommy! — don't you know — Tommy, little Tommy
Islington?”
Johnson's eyes slowly opened. He whispered,
“Tommy! yes, Tommy! Sit by me, Tommy. But
don't sit so near the bank. Don't you see
how the river is rising and beckoning to me, —
hissing, and boilin' over the rocks? It 's gittin
higher! — hold me, Tommy, — hold me, and don't
let me go yet. We 'll live to cut his heart out,
Tommy, — we 'll live — we 'll —” His head sank,
and the rushing river, invisible to all eyes save
his, leaped toward him out of the darkness, and
bore him away, no longer to the darkness, but
through it to the distant, peaceful, shining sea.
| Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches | |