EREMA;
OR, MY FATHER'S SIN
By R. D. Blackmore
1877
CONTENTS
[ CHAPTER I -- A LOST LANDMARK ]
[ CHAPTER II -- A PACIFIC SUNSET]
[ CHAPTER III -- A STURDY COLONIST ]
[ CHAPTER IV -- THE “KING OF THE MOUNTAINS]
[ CHAPTER VII -- DISCOMFITURE ]
[ CHAPTER VIII -- A DOUBTFUL LOSS ]
[ CHAPTER XII -- GOLD AND GRIEF ]
[ CHAPTER XIII -- THE SAWYER'S PRAYER ]
[ CHAPTER XIV -- NOT FAR TO SEEK ]
[ CHAPTER XV -- BROUGHT TO BANK ]
[ CHAPTER XVI -- FIRM AND INFIRM ]
[ CHAPTER XVII -- HARD AND SOFT ]
[ CHAPTER XVIII -- OUT OF THE GOLDEN GATE ]
[ CHAPTER XIX -- INSIDE THE CHANNEL ]
[ CHAPTER XXII -- BETSY BOWEN ]
[ CHAPTER XXIII -- BETSY'S TALE ]
[ CHAPTER XXIV -- BETSY'S TALE—(Continued.) ]
[ CHAPTER XXV -- BETSY'S TALE—(Concluded.) ]
[ CHAPTER XXVI -- AT THE BANK ]
[ CHAPTER XXVII -- COUSIN MONTAGUE ]
[ CHAPTER XXIX -- AT THE PUMP ]
[ CHAPTER XXX -- COCKS AND COXCOMBS ]
[ CHAPTER XXXIII -- LORD CASTLEWOOD ]
[ CHAPTER XXXV -- THE SEXTON ]
[ CHAPTER XXXVI -- A SIMPLE QUESTION ]
[ CHAPTER XXXVII -- SOME ANSWER TO IT ]
[ CHAPTER XXXVIII -- A WITCH ]
[ CHAPTER XXXIX -- NOT AT HOME ]
[ CHAPTER XL -- THE MAN AT LAST ]
[ CHAPTER XLI -- A STRONG TEMPTATION ]
[ CHAPTER XLII -- MASTER WITHYPOOL ]
[ CHAPTER XLIII -- GOING TO THE BOTTOM ]
[ CHAPTER XLIV -- HERMETICALLY SEALED ]
[ CHAPTER XLVII -- CADMEIAN VICTORY ]
[ CHAPTER XLVIII -- A RETURN CALL ]
[ CHAPTER XLIX -- WANTED, A SAWYER ]
[ CHAPTER LI -- LIFE SINISTER ]
[ CHAPTER LII -- FOR LIFE, DEATH ]
[ CHAPTER LIII -- BRUNTSEA DEFIANT ]
[ CHAPTER LIV -- BRUNTSEA DEFEATED ]
[ CHAPTER LV -- A DEAD LETTER ]
[ CHAPTER LVI -- WITH HIS OWN SWORD ]
[ CHAPTER LVII -- FEMALE SUFFRAGE ]
[ CHAPTER LVIII -- BEYOND DESERT, AND DESERTS ]
CHAPTER I
A LOST LANDMARK
“The sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”
These are the words that have followed me always. This is the curse which has fallen on my life.
If I had not known my father, if I had not loved him, if I had not closed his eyes in desert silence deeper than the silence of the grave, even if I could have buried and bewailed him duly, the common business of this world and the universal carelessness might have led me down the general track that leads to nothing.
Until my father fell and died I never dreamed that he could die. I knew that his mind was quite made up to see me safe in my new home, and then himself to start again for still remoter solitudes. And when his mind was thus made up, who had ever known him fail of it?
If ever a resolute man there was, that very man was my father. And he showed it now, in this the last and fatal act of his fatal life. “Captain, here I leave you all,” he shouted to the leader of our wagon train, at a place where a dark, narrow gorge departed from the moilsome mountain track. “My reasons are my own; let no man trouble himself about them. All my baggage I leave with you. I have paid my share of the venture, and shall claim it at Sacramento. My little girl and I will take this short-cut through the mountains.”
“General!” answered the leader of our train, standing up on his board in amazement. “Forgive and forget, Sir; forgive and forget. What is a hot word spoken hotly? If not for your own sake, at least come back for the sake of your young daughter.”
“A fair haven to you!” replied my father. He offered me his hand, and we were out of sight of all that wearisome, drearisome, uncompanionable company with whom, for eight long weeks at least, we had been dragging our rough way. I had known in a moment that it must be so, for my father never argued. Argument, to his mind, was a very nice amusement for the weak. My spirits rose as he swung his bear-skin bag upon his shoulder, and the last sound of the laboring caravan groaned in the distance, and the fresh air and the freedom of the mountains moved around us. It was the 29th of May—Oak-apple Day in England—and to my silly youth this vast extent of snowy mountains was a nice place for a cool excursion.
Moreover, from day to day I had been in most wretched anxiety, so long as we remained with people who could not allow for us. My father, by his calm reserve and dignity and largeness, had always, among European people, kept himself secluded; but now in this rough life, so pent in trackless tracts, and pressed together by perpetual peril, every body's manners had been growing free and easy. Every man had been compelled to tell, as truly as he could, the story of his life thus far, to amuse his fellow-creatures—every man, I mean, of course, except my own poor father. Some told their stories every evening, until we were quite tired—although they were never the same twice over; but my father could never be coaxed to say a syllable more than, “I was born, and I shall die.”
This made him very unpopular with the men, though all the women admired it; and if any rough fellow could have seen a sign of fear, the speaker would have been insulted. But his manner and the power of his look were such that, even after ardent spirits, no man saw fit to be rude to him. Nevertheless, there had always been the risk of some sad outrage.
“Erema,” my father said to me, when the dust from the rear of the caravan was lost behind a cloud of rocks, and we two stood in the wilderness alone—“do you know, my own Erema, why I bring you from them?”
“Father dear, how should I know? You have done it, and it must be right.”
“It is not for their paltry insults. Child, you know what I think all that. It is for you, my only child, that I am doing what now I do.”
I looked up into his large, sad eyes without a word, in such a way that he lifted me up in his arms and kissed me, as if I were a little child instead of a maiden just fifteen. This he had never done before, and it made me a little frightened. He saw it, and spoke on the spur of the thought, though still with one arm round me.
“Perhaps you will live to be thankful, my dear, that you had a stern, cold father. So will you meet the world all the better; and, little one, you have a rough world to meet.”
For a moment I was quite at a loss to account for my father's manner; but now, in looking back, it is so easy to see into things. At the time I must have been surprised, and full of puzzled eagerness.
Not half so well can I recall the weakness, anguish, and exhaustion of body and spirit afterward. It may have been three days of wandering, or it may have been a week, or even more than that, for all that I can say for certain. Whether the time were long or short, it seemed as if it would never end. My father believed that he knew the way to the house of an old settler, at the western foot of the mountains, who had treated him kindly some years before, and with whom he meant to leave me until he had made arrangements elsewhere. If we had only gone straightway thither, night-fall would have found us safe beneath that hospitable roof.
My father was vexed, as I well remember, at coming, as he thought, in sight of some great landmark, and finding not a trace of it. Although his will was so very strong, his temper was good about little things, and he never began to abuse all the world because he had made a mistake himself.
“Erema,” he said, “at this corner where we stand there ought to be a very large pine-tree in sight, or rather a great redwood-tree, at least twice as high as any tree that grows in Europe, or Africa even. From the plains it can be seen for a hundred miles or more. It stands higher up the mountainside than any other tree of even half its size, and that makes it so conspicuous. My eyes must be failing me, from all this glare; but it must be in sight. Can you see it now?”
“I see no tree of any kind whatever, but scrubby bushes and yellow tufts; and oh, father, I am so thirsty!”
“Naturally. But now look again. It stands on a ridge, the last ridge that bars the view of all the lowland. It is a very straight tree, and regular, like a mighty column, except that on the northern side the wind from the mountains has torn a gap in it. Are you sure that you can not see it—a long way off, but conspicuous?”
“Father, I am sure that I can not see any tree half as large as a broomstick. Far or near, I see no tree.”
“Then my eyes are better than my memory. We must cast back for a mile or two; but it can not make much difference.”
“Through the dust and the sand?” I began to say; but a glance from him stopped my murmuring. And the next thing I can call to mind must have happened a long time afterward.
Beyond all doubt, in this desolation, my father gave his life for mine. I did not know it at the time, nor had the faintest dream of it, being so young and weary-worn, and obeying him by instinct. It is a fearful thing to think of—now that I can think of it—but to save my own little worthless life I must have drained every drop of water from his flat half-gallon jar. The water was hot and the cork-hole sandy, and I grumbled even while drinking it; and what must my father (who was dying all the while for a drop, but never took one)—what must he have thought of me?
But he never said a word, so far as I remember; and that makes it all the worse for me. We had strayed away into a dry, volcanic district of the mountains, where all the snow-rivers run out quite early; and of natural springs there was none forth-coming. All we had to guide us was a little traveler's compass (whose needle stuck fast on the pivot with sand) and the glaring sun, when he came to sight behind the hot, dry, driving clouds. The clouds were very low, and flying almost in our faces, like vultures sweeping down on us. To me they seemed to shriek over our heads at the others rushing after them. But my father said that they could make no sound, and I never contradicted him.
CHAPTER II
A PACIFIC SUNSET
At last we came to a place from which the great spread of the earth was visible. For a time—I can not tell how long—we had wholly lost ourselves, going up and down, and turning corners, without getting further. But my father said that we must come right, if we made up our minds to go long enough. We had been in among all shapes, and want of shapes, of dreariness, through and in and out of every thrup and thrum of weariness, scarcely hoping ever more to find our way out and discover memory of men for us, when all of a sudden we saw a grand sight. The day had been dreadfully hot and baffling, with sudden swirls of red dust arising, and driving the great drought into us. To walk had been worse than to drag one's way through a stubbly bed of sting-nettles. But now the quick sting of the sun was gone, and his power descending in the balance toward the flat places of the land and sea. And suddenly we looked forth upon an immeasurable spread of these.
We stood at the gate of the sandy range, which here, like a vast brown patch, disfigures the beauty of the sierra. On either side, in purple distance, sprang sky-piercing obelisks and vapor-mantled glaciers, spangled with bright snow, and shodden with eternal forest. Before us lay the broad, luxuriant plains of California, checkered with more tints than any other piece of earth can show, sleeping in alluvial ease, and veined with soft blue waters. And through a gap in the brown coast range, at twenty leagues of distance, a light (so faint as to seem a shadow) hovered above the Pacific.
But none of all this grandeur touched our hearts except the water gleam. Parched with thirst, I caught my father's arm and tried to urge him on toward the blue enchantment of ecstatic living water. But, to my surprise, he staggered back, and his face grew as white as the distant snow. I managed to get him to a sandy ledge, with the help of his own endeavors, and there let him rest and try to speak, while my frightened heart throbbed over his.
“My little child,” he said at last, as if we were fallen back ten years, “put your hand where I can feel it.”
My hand all the while had been in his, and to let him know where it was, it moved. But cold fear stopped my talking.
“My child, I have not been kind to you,” my father slowly spoke again, “but it has not been from want of love. Some day you will see all this, and some day you will pardon me.”
He laid one heavy arm around me, and forgetting thirst and pain, with the last intensity of eyesight watched the sun departing. To me, I know not how, great awe was every where, and sadness. The conical point of the furious sun, which like a barb had pierced us, was broadening into a hazy disk, inefficient, but benevolent. Underneath him depth of night was waiting to come upward (after letting him fall through) and stain his track with redness. Already the arms of darkness grew in readiness to receive him: his upper arc was pure and keen, but the lower was flaked with atmosphere; a glow of hazy light soon would follow, and one bright glimmer (addressed more to the sky than to the earth), and after that a broad, soft gleam; and after that how many a man should never see the sun again, and among them would be my father.
He, for the moment, resting there, with heavy light upon him, and the dark jaws of the mountain desert yawning wide behind him, and all the beautiful expanse of liberal earth before him—even so he seemed to me, of all the things in sight, the one that first would draw attention. His face was full of quiet grandeur and impressive calm, and the sad tranquillity which comes to those who know what human life is through continual human death. Although, in the matter of bodily strength, he was little past the prime of life, his long and abundant hair was white, and his broad and upright forehead marked with the meshes of the net of care. But drought and famine and long fatigue had failed even now to change or weaken the fine expression of his large, sad eyes. Those eyes alone would have made the face remarkable among ten thousand, so deep with settled gloom they were, and dark with fatal sorrow. Such eyes might fitly have told the grief of Adrastus, son of Gordias, who, having slain his own brother unwitting, unwitting slew the only son of his generous host and savior.
The pale globe of the sun hung trembling in the haze himself had made. My father rose to see the last, and reared his tall form upright against the deepening background. He gazed as if the course of life lay vanishing below him, while level land and waters drew the breadth of shadow over them. Then the last gleam flowed and fled upon the face of ocean, and my father put his dry lips to my forehead, saying nothing.
His lips might well be dry, for he had not swallowed water for three days; but it frightened me to feel how cold they were, and even tremulous. “Let us run, let us run, my dear father!” I cried. “Delicious water! The dark falls quickly; but we can get there before dark. It is all down hill. Oh, do let us run at once!”
“Erema,” he answered, with a quiet smile, “there is no cause now for hurrying, except that I must hurry to show you what you have to do, my child. For once, at the end of my life, I am lucky. We have escaped from that starving desert at a spot—at a spot where we can see—”
For a little while he could say no more, but sank upon the stony seat, and the hand with which he tried to point some distant landmark fell away. His face, which had been so pale before, became of a deadly whiteness, and he breathed with gasps of agony. I knelt before him and took his hands, and tried to rub the palms, and did whatever I could think of.
“Oh, father, father, you have starved yourself, and given every thing to me! What a brute I was to let you do it! But I did not know; I never knew! Please God to take me also!”
He could not manage to answer this, even if he understood it; but he firmly lifted his arm again, and tried to make me follow it.
“What does it matter? Oh, never mind, never mind such, a wretch as I am! Father, only try to tell me what I ought to do for you.”
“My child! my child!” were his only words; and he kept on saying, “My child! my child!” as if he liked the sound of it.
At what time of the night my father died I knew not then or afterward. It may have been before the moon came over the snowy mountains, or it may not have been till the worn-out stars in vain repelled the daybreak. All I know is that I ever strove to keep more near to him through the night, to cherish his failing warmth, and quicken the slow, laborious, harassed breath. From time to time he tried to pray to God for me and for himself; but every time his mind began to wander and to slip away, as if through want of practice. For the chills of many wretched years had deadened and benumbed his faith. He knew me, now and then, betwixt the conflict and the stupor; for more than once he muttered feebly, and as if from out a dream,
“Time for Erema to go on her way. Go on your way, and save your life; save your life, Erema.”
There was no way for me to go, except on my knees before him. I took his hands, and made them lissome with a soft, light rubbing. I whispered into his ear my name, that he might speak once more to me; and when he could not speak, I tried to say what he would say to me.
At last, with a blow that stunned all words, it smote my stupid, wandering mind that all I had to speak and smile to, all I cared to please and serve, the only one left to admire and love, lay here in my weak arms quite dead. And in the anguish of my sobbing, little things came home to me, a thousand little things that showed how quietly he had prepared for this, and provided for me only. Cold despair and self-reproach and strong rebellion dazed me, until I lay at my father's side, and slept with his dead hand in mine. There in the desert of desolation pious awe embraced me, and small phantasms of individual fear could not come nigh me.
By-and-by long shadows of morning crept toward me dismally, and the pallid light of the hills was stretched in weary streaks away from me. How I arose, or what I did, or what I thought, is nothing now. Such times are not for talking of. How many hearts of anguish lie forlorn, with none to comfort them, with all the joy of life died out, and all the fear of having yet to live, in front arising!
Young and weak, and wrong of sex for doing any valiance, long I lay by my father's body, wringing out my wretchedness. Thirst and famine now had flown into the opposite extreme; I seemed to loathe the thought of water, and the smell of food would have made me sick. I opened my father's knapsack, and a pang of new misery seized me. There lay nearly all his rations, which he had made pretense to eat as he gave me mine from time to time. He had starved himself; since he failed of his mark, and learned our risk of famishing, all his own food he had kept for me, as well as his store of water. And I had done nothing but grumble and groan, even while consuming every thing. Compared with me, the hovering vultures might be considered angels.
When I found all this, I was a great deal too worn out to cry or sob. Simply to break down may be the purest mercy that can fall on truly hopeless misery. Screams of ravenous maws and flaps of fetid wings came close to me, and, fainting into the arms of death, I tried to save my father's body by throwing my own over it.
CHAPTER III
A STURDY COLONIST
For the contrast betwixt that dreadful scene and the one on which my dim eyes slowly opened, three days afterward, first I thank the Lord in heaven, whose gracious care was over me, and after Him some very simple members of humanity.
A bronze-colored woman, with soft, sad eyes, was looking at me steadfastly. She had seen that, under tender care, I was just beginning to revive, and being acquainted with many troubles, she had learned to succor all of them. This I knew not then, but felt that kindness was around me.
“Arauna, arauna, my shild,” she said, in a strange but sweet and soothing voice, “you are with the good man in the safe, good house. Let old Suan give you the good food, my shild.”
“Where is my father? Oh, show me my father?” I whispered faintly, as she raised me in the bed and held a large spoon to my lips.
“You shall—you shall; it is too very much Inglese; me tell you when have long Sunday time to think. My shild, take the good food from poor old Suan.”
She looked at me with such beseeching eyes that, even if food had been loathsome to me, I could not have resisted her; whereas I was now in the quick-reviving agony of starvation. The Indian woman fed me with far greater care than I was worth, and hushed me, with some soothing process, into another abyss of sleep.
More than a week passed by me thus, in the struggle between life and death, before I was able to get clear knowledge of any body or any thing. No one, in my wakeful hours, came into my little bedroom except this careful Indian nurse, who hushed me off to sleep whenever I wanted to ask questions. Suan Isco, as she was called, possessed a more than mesmeric power of soothing a weary frame to rest; and this was seconded, where I lay, by the soft, incessant cadence and abundant roar of water. Thus every day I recovered strength and natural impatience.
“The master is coming to see you, shild,” Suan said to me one day, when I had sat up and done my hair, and longed to be down by the water-fall; “if, if—too much Inglese—old Suan say no more can now.”
“If I am ready and able and willing! Oh, Suan, run and tell him not to lose one moment.”
“No sure; Suan no sure at all,” she answered, looking at me calmly, as if there were centuries yet to spare. “Suan no hurry; shild no hurry; master no hurry: come last of all.”
“I tell you, Suan, I want to see him. And I am not accustomed to be kept waiting. My dear father insisted always—But oh, Suan, Suan, he is dead—I am almost sure of it.”
“Him old man quite dead enough, and big hole dug in the land for him. Very good; more good than could be. Suan no more Inglese.”
Well as I had known it long, a catching of the breath and hollow, helpless pain came through me, to meet in dry words thus the dread which might have been but a hovering dream. I turned my face to the wall, and begged her not to send the master in.
But presently a large, firm hand was laid on my shoulder softly, and turning sharply round, I beheld an elderly man looking down at me. His face was plain and square and solid, with short white curls on a rugged forehead, and fresh red cheeks, and a triple chin—fit base for remarkably massive jaws. His frame was in keeping with his face, being very large and powerful, though not of my father's commanding height. His dress and appearance were those of a working—and a really hard-working—man, sober, steadfast, and self-respecting; but what engaged my attention most was the frank yet shrewd gaze of deep-set eyes. I speak of things as I observed them later, for I could not pay much heed just then.
“'Tis a poor little missy,” he said, with a gentle tone. “What things she hath been through! Will you take an old man's hand, my dear? Your father hath often taken it, though different from his rank of life. Sampson Gundry is my name, missy. Have you ever heard your father tell of it?”
“Many and many a time,” I said, as I placed my hot little hand in his. “He never found more than one man true on earth, and it was you, Sir.”
“Come, now,” he replied, with his eyes for a moment sparkling at my warmth of words; “you must not have that in your young head, missy. It leads to a miserable life. Your father hath always been unlucky—the most unlucky that ever I did know. And luck cometh out in nothing clearer than in the kind of folk we meet. But the Lord in heaven ordereth all. I speak like a poor heathen.”
“Oh, never mind that!” I cried: “only tell me, were you in time to save—to save—” I could not bear to say what I wanted.
“In plenty of time, my dear; thanks to you. You must have fought when you could not fight: the real stuff, I call it. Your poor father lies where none can harm him. Come, missy, missy, you must not take on so. It is the best thing that could befall a man so bound up with calamity. It is what he hath prayed for for many a year—if only it were not for you. And now you are safe, and for sure he knows it, if the angels heed their business.”
With these words he withdrew, and kindly sent Suan back to me, knowing that her soothing ways would help me more than argument. To my mind all things lay in deep confusion and abasement. Overcome with bodily weakness and with bitter self-reproach, I even feared that to ask any questions might show want of gratitude. But a thing of that sort could not always last, and before very long I was quite at home with the history of Mr. Gundry.
Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in England, betook himself to the United States in the last year of the last century. He had always been a most upright man, as well as a first-rate fisherman; and his family had made a rule—as most respectable families at that time did—to run a nice cargo of contraband goods not more than twice in one season. A highly querulous old lieutenant of the British navy (who had served under Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept “the rheumatics” in either stump) was appointed, in an evil hour, to the Cornish coast-guard; and he never rested until he had caught all the best county families smuggling. Through this he lost his situation, and had to go to the workhouse; nevertheless, such a stir had been roused that (to satisfy public opinion) they made a large sacrifice of inferior people, and among them this Solomon Gundry. Now the Gundries had long been a thickset race, and had furnished some champion wrestlers; and Solomon kept to the family stamp in the matter of obstinacy. He made a bold mark at the foot of a bond for 150 pounds; and with no other sign than that, his partner in their stanch herring-smack (the Good Hope, of Mevagissey) allowed him to make sail across the Atlantic with all he cared for.
This Cornish partner deserved to get all his money back; and so he did, together with good interest. Solomon Gundry throve among a thrifty race at Boston; he married a sweet New England lass, and his eldest son was Sampson. Sampson, in the prime of life, and at its headstrong period, sought the far West, overland, through not much less of distance, and through even more of danger, than his English father had gone through. His name was known on the western side of the mighty chain of mountains before Colonel Fremont was heard of there, and before there was any gleam of gold on the lonely sunset frontage.
Here Sampson Gundry lived by tillage of the nobly fertile soil ere Sacramento or San Francisco had any name to speak of. And though he did not show regard for any kind of society, he managed to have a wife and son, and keep them free from danger. But (as it appears to me the more, the more I think of every thing) no one must assume to be aside the reach of Fortune because he has gathered himself so small that she should not care to strike at him. At any rate, good or evil powers smote Sampson Gundry heavily.
First he lost his wife, which was a “great denial” to him. She fell from a cliff while she was pegging out the linen, and the substance of her frame prevented her from ever getting over it. And after that he lost his son, his only son—for all the Gundries were particular as to quality; and the way in which he lost his son made it still more sad for him.
A reputable and valued woman had disappeared in a hasty way from a cattle-place down the same side of the hills. The desire of the Indians was to enlarge her value and get it. There were very few white men as yet within any distance to do good; but Sampson Gundry vowed that, if the will of the Lord went with him, that woman should come back to her family without robbing them of sixpence. To this intent he started with a company of some twenty men—white or black or middle-colored (according to circumstances). He was their captain, and his son Elijah their lieutenant. Elijah had only been married for a fortnight, but was full of spirit, and eager to fight with enemies; and he seems to have carried this too far; for all that came back to his poor bride was a lock of his hair and his blessing. He was buried in a bed of lava on the western slope of Shasta, and his wife died in her confinement, and was buried by the Blue River.
It was said at the time and long afterward that Elijah Gundry—thus cut short—was the finest and noblest young man to be found from the mountains to the ocean. His father, in whose arms he died, led a sad and lonely life for years, and scarcely even cared (although of Cornish and New England race) to seize the glorious chance of wealth which lay at his feet beseeching him. By settlement he had possessed himself of a large and fertile district, sloping from the mountain-foot along the banks of the swift Blue River, a tributary of the San Joaquin. And this was not all; for he also claimed the ownership of the upper valley, the whole of the mountain gorge and spring head, whence that sparkling water flows. And when that fury of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very few men could have done what he did without even thinking twice of it.
For Sampson Gundry stood, like a bull, on the banks of his own river, and defied the worst and most desperate men of all nations to pollute it. He had scarcely any followers or steadfast friends to back him; but his fame for stern courage was clear and strong, and his bodily presence most manifest. Not a shovel was thrust nor a cradle rocked in the bed of the Blue River.
But when a year or two had passed, and all the towns and villages, and even hovels and way-side huts, began to clink with money, Mr. Gundry gradually recovered a wholesome desire to have some. For now his grandson Ephraim was growing into biped shape, and having lost his mother when he first came into the world, was sure to need the more natural and maternal nutriment of money.
Therefore Sampson Gundry, though he would not dig for gold, wrought out a plan which he had long thought of. Nature helped him with all her powers of mountain, forest, and headlong stream. He set up a saw-mill, and built it himself; and there was no other to be found for twelve degrees of latitude and perhaps a score of longitude.
CHAPTER IV
THE “KING OF THE MOUNTAINS.”
If I think, and try to write forever with the strongest words, I can not express to any other mind a thousandth part of the gratitude which was and is, and ought to be forever, in my own poor mind toward those who were so good to me. From time to time it is said (whenever any man with power of speech or fancy gets some little grievances) that all mankind are simply selfish, miserly, and miserable. To contradict that saying needs experience even larger, perhaps, than that which has suggested it; and this I can not have, and therefore only know that I have not found men or women behave at all according to that view of them.
Whether Sampson Gundry owed any debt, either of gratitude or of loyalty, to my father, I did not ask; and he seemed to be (like every one else) reserved and silent as to my father's history. But he always treated me as if I belonged to a rank of life quite different from and much above his own. For instance, it was long before he would allow me to have my meals at the table of the household.
But as soon as I began in earnest to recover from starvation, loss, and loneliness, my heart was drawn to this grand old man, who had seen so many troubles. He had been here and there in the world so much, and dealt with so many people, that the natural frankness of his mind was sharpened into caution. But any weak and helpless person still could get the best of him; and his shrewdness certainly did not spring from any form of bitterness. He was rough in his ways sometimes, and could not bear to be contradicted when he was sure that he was right, which generally happened to him. But above all things he had one very great peculiarity, to my mind highly vexatious, because it seemed so unaccountable. Sampson Gundry had a very low opinion of feminine intellect. He never showed this contempt in any unpleasant way, and indeed he never, perhaps, displayed it in any positive sayings. But as I grew older and began to argue, sure I was that it was there; and it always provoked me tenfold as much by seeming to need no assertion, but to stand as some great axiom.
The other members of the household were his grandson Ephraim (or “Firm” Gundry), the Indian woman Suan Isco, and a couple of helps, of race or nation almost unknown to themselves. Suan Isco belonged to a tribe of respectable Black Rock Indians, and had been the wife of a chief among them, and the mother of several children. But Klamath Indians, enemies of theirs (who carried off the lady of the cattle ranch, and afterward shot Elijah), had Suan Isco in their possession, having murdered her husband and children, and were using her as a mere beast of burden, when Sampson Gundry fell on them. He, with his followers, being enraged at the cold-blooded death of Elijah, fell on those miscreants to such purpose that women and children alone were left to hand down their bad propensities.
But the white men rescued and brought away the stolen wife of the stockman, and also the widow of the Black Rock chief. She was in such poor condition and so broken-hearted that none but the finest humanity would have considered her worth a quarter of the trouble of her carriage. But she proved to be worth it a thousandfold; and Sawyer Gundry (as now he was called) knew by this time all the value of uncultivated gratitude. And her virtues were so many that it took a long time to find them out, for she never put them forward, not knowing whether they were good or bad.
Until I knew these people, and the pure depth of their kindness, it was a continual grief to me to be a burden upon them. But when I came to understand them and their simple greatness, the only thing I was ashamed of was my own mistrust of them. Not that I expected ever that any harm would be done to me, only that I knew myself to have no claim on any one.
One day, when I was fit for nothing but to dwell on trouble, Sampson Gundry's grandson “Firm”—as he was called for Ephraim—ran up the stairs to the little room where I was sitting by myself.
“Miss Rema, will you come with us?” he said, in his deep, slow style of speech. “We are going up the mountain, to haul down the great tree to the mill.”
“To be sure I will come,” I answered, gladly. “What great tree is it, Mr. Ephraim?”
“The largest tree any where near here—the one we cut down last winter. Ten days it took to cut it down. If I could have saved it, it should have stood. But grandfather did it to prove his rights. We shall have a rare job to lead it home, and I doubt if we can tackle it. I thought you might like to see us try.”
In less than a minute I was ready, for the warmth and softness of the air made cloak or shawl unbearable. But when I ran down to the yard of the mill, Mr. Gundry, who was giving orders, came up and gave me an order too.
“You must not go like this, my dear. We have three thousand feet to go upward. The air will be sharp up there, and I doubt if we shall be home by night-fall. Run, Suan, and fetch the young lady's cloak, and a pair of thicker boots for change.”
Suan Isco never ran. That manner of motion was foreign to her, at least as we accomplish it. When speed was required, she attained it by increased length of stride and great vigor of heel. In this way she conquered distance steadily, and with very little noise.
The air, and the light, and the beauty of the mountains were a sudden joy to me. In front of us all strode Sampson Gundry, clearing all tangles with a short, sharp axe, and mounting steep places as if twoscore were struck off his threescore years and five. From time to time he turned round to laugh, or see that his men and trained bullocks were right; and then, as his bright eyes met my dark ones, he seemed to be sorry for the noise he made. On the other hand, I was ashamed of damping any one's pleasure by being there.
But I need not have felt any fear about this. Like all other children, I wrapped myself up too much in my own importance, and behaved as if my state of mind was a thing to be considered. But the longer we rose through the freedom and the height, the lighter grew the heart of every one, until the thick forest of pines closed round us, and we walked in a silence that might be felt.
Hence we issued forth upon the rough bare rock, and after much trouble with the cattle, and some bruises, stood panting on a rugged cone, or crest, which had once been crowned with a Titan of a tree. The tree was still there, but not its glory; for, alas! the mighty trunk lay prostrate—a grander column than ever was or will be built by human hands. The tapering shaft stretched out of sight for something like a furlong, and the bulk of the butt rose over us so that we could not see the mountains. Having never seen any such tree before, I must have been amazed if I had been old enough to comprehend it.
Sampson Gundry, large as he was, and accustomed to almost every thing, collected his men and the whole of his team on the ground-floor or area of the stump before he would say any thing. Here we all looked so sadly small that several of the men began to laugh; the bullocks seemed nothing but raccoons or beavers to run on the branches or the fibres of the tree; and the chains and the shackles, and the blocks and cranes, and all the rest of the things they meant to use, seemed nothing whatever, or at all to be considered, except as a spider's web upon this tree.
The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected to do, looked blank. Some rubbed their horns into one another's sadly, and some cocked their tails because they felt that they could not be called upon to work. The light of the afternoon sun came glancing along the vast pillar, and lit its dying hues—cinnamon, purple, and glabrous red, and soft gray where the lichens grew.
Every body looked at Mr. Gundry, and he began to cough a little, having had lately some trouble with his throat. Then in his sturdy manner he spoke the truth, according to his nature. He set his great square shoulders against the butt of the tree, and delivered himself:
“Friends and neighbors, and hands of my own, I am taken in here, and I own to it. It serves me right for disbelieving what my grandson, Firm Gundry, said. I knew that the tree was a big one, of course, as every body else does; but till you see a tree laid upon earth you get no grip of his girth, no more than you do of a man till he lieth a corpse. At the time of felling I could not come anigh him, by reason of an accident; and I had some words with this boy about it, which kept me away ever since that time. Firm, you were right, and I was wrong. It was a real shame, now I see it, to throw down the 'King of the Mountains.' But, for all that, being down, we must use him. He shall be sawn into fifty-foot lengths. And I invite you all to come again, for six or seven good turns at him.”
At the hearing of this, a cheer arose, not only for the Sawyer's manly truth, but also for his hospitality; because on each of these visits to the mountain he was the host, and his supplies were good. But before the descent with the empty teams began, young Ephraim did what appeared to me to be a gallant and straightforward thing. He stood on the chine of the fallen monster, forty feet above us, having gained the post of vantage by activity and strength, and he asked if he might say a word or two.
“Say away, lad,” cried his grandfather, supposing, perhaps, in his obstinate way (for truly he was very obstinate), that his grandson was going now to clear himself from art or part in the murder of that tree—an act which had roused indignation over a hundred leagues of lowland.
“Neighbors,” said Firm, in a clear young voice, which shook at first with diffidence, “we all have to thank you, more than I can tell, for coming to help us with this job. It was a job which required to be done for legal reasons which I do not understand, but no doubt they were good ones. For that we have my grandfather's word; and no one, I think, will gainsay it. Now, having gone so far, we will not be beaten by it, or else we shall not be Americans.”
These simple words were received with great applause; and an orator, standing on the largest stump to be found even in America, delivered a speech which was very good to hear, but need not now be repeated. And Mr. Gundry's eyes were moist with pleasure at his grandson's conduct.
“Firm knoweth the right thing to do,” he said; “and like a man he doeth it. But whatever aileth you, Miss Rema, and what can 'e see in the distance yonner? Never mind, my dear, then. Tell me by-and-by, when none of these folk is 'longside of us.”
But I could not bear to tell him, till he forced it from me under pain of his displeasure. I had spied on the sky-line far above us, in the desert track of mountain, the very gap in which my father stood and bade me seek this landmark. His memory was true, and his eyesight also; but the great tree had been felled. The death of the “King of the Mountains” had led to the death of the king of mankind, so far as my little world contained one.
CHAPTER V
UNCLE SAM
The influence of the place in which I lived began to grow on me. The warmth of the climate and the clouds of soft and fertile dust were broken by the refreshing rush of water and the clear soft green of leaves. We had fruit trees of almost every kind, from the peach to the amber cherry, and countless oaks by the side of the river—not large, but most fantastic. Here I used to sit and wonder, in a foolish, childish way, whether on earth there was any other child so strangely placed as I was. Of course there were thousands far worse off, more desolate and destitute, but was there any more thickly wrapped in mystery and loneliness?
A wanderer as I had been for years, together with my father, change of place had not supplied the knowledge which flows from lapse of time. Faith, and warmth, and trust in others had not been dashed out of me by any rude blows of the world, as happens with unlucky children huddled together in large cities. My father had never allowed me much acquaintance with other children; for six years he had left me with a community of lay sisters, in a little town of Languedoc, where I was the only pupil, and where I was to remain as I was born, a simple heretic. Those sisters were very good to me, and taught me as much as I could take of secular accomplishment. And it was a bitter day for me when I left them for America.
For during those six years I had seen my father at long intervals, and had almost forgotten the earlier days when I was always with him. I used to be the one little comfort of his perpetual wanderings, when I was a careless child, and said things to amuse him. Not that he ever played with me any more than he played with any thing; but I was the last of his seven children, and he liked to watch me grow. I never knew it, I never guessed it, until he gave his life for mine; but, poor little common thing as I was, I became his only tie to earth. Even to me he was never loving, in the way some fathers are. He never called me by pet names, nor dandled me on his knee, nor kissed me, nor stroked down my hair and smiled. Such things I never expected of him, and therefore never missed them; I did not even know that happy children always have them.
But one thing I knew, which is not always known to happier children: I had the pleasure of knowing my own name. My name was an English one—Castlewood—and by birth I was an English girl, though of England I knew nothing, and at one time spoke and thought most easily in French. But my longing had always been for England, and for the sound of English voices and the quietude of English ways. In the chatter and heat and drought of South France some faint remembrance of a greener, cooler, and more silent country seemed to touch me now and then. But where in England I had lived, or when I had left that country, or whether I had relations there, and why I was doomed to be a foreign girl—all these questions were but as curling wisps of cloud on memory's sky.
Of such things (much as I longed to know a good deal more about them) I never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a roundabout way, such as clever children have, get second-hand information. In the first place, I was not a clever child; for the next point, I never had underhand skill; and finally, there was no one near me who knew any thing about me. Like all other girls—and perhaps the very same tendency is to be found in boys—I had strong though hazy ideas of caste. The noble sense of equality, fraternity, and so on, seems to come later in life than childhood, which is an age of ambition. I did not know who in the world I was, but felt quite sure of being somebody.
One day, when the great tree had been sawn into lengths, and with the aid of many teams brought home, and the pits and the hoisting tackle were being prepared and strengthened to deal with it, Mr. Gundry, being full of the subject, declared that he would have his dinner in the mill yard. He was anxious to watch, without loss of time, the settlement of some heavy timbers newly sunk in the river's bed, to defend the outworks of the mill. Having his good leave to bring him his pipe, I found him sitting upon a bench with a level fixed before him, and his empty plate and cup laid by, among a great litter of tools and things. He was looking along the level with one eye shut, and the other most sternly intent; but when I came near he rose and raised his broad pith hat, and made me think that I was not interrupting him.
“Here is your pipe, Uncle Sam,” I said; for, in spite of all his formal ways, I would not be afraid of him. I had known him now quite long enough to be sure he was good and kind. And I knew that the world around these parts was divided into two hemispheres, the better half being of those who loved, and the baser half made of those who hated, Sawyer Sampson Gundry.
“What a queer world it is!” said Mr. Gundry, accepting his pipe to consider that point. “Who ever would have dreamed, fifty years agone, that your father's daughter would ever have come with a pipe to light for my father's son?”
“Uncle Sam,” I replied, as he slowly began to make those puffs which seem to be of the highest essence of pleasure, and wisps of blue smoke flitted through his white eyebrows and among the snowy curls of hair—“dear Uncle Sam, I am sure that it would be an honor to a princess to light a pipe for a man like you.”
“Miss Rema, I should rather you would talk no nonsense,” he answered, very shortly, and he set his eye along his level, as if I had offended him. Not knowing how to assert myself and declare that I had spoken my honest thoughts, I merely sat down on the bench and waited for him to speak again to me. But he made believe to be very busy, and scarcely to know that I was there. I had a great mind to cry, but resolved not to do it.
“Why, how is this? What's the matter?” he exclaimed at last, when I had been watching the water so long that I sighed to know where it was going to. “Why, missy, you look as if you had never a friend in all the wide world left.”
“Then I must look very ungrateful,” I said; “for at any rate I have one, and a good one.”
“And don't you know of any one but me, my dear?”
“You and Suan Isco and Firm—those are all I have any knowledge of.”
“'Tis a plenty—to my mind, almost too many. My plan is to be a good friend to all, but not let too many be friends with me. Rest you quite satisfied with three, Miss Rema. I have lived a good many years, and I never had more than three friends worth a puff of my pipe.”
“But one's own relations, Uncle Sam—people quite nearly related to us: it is impossible for them to be unkind, you know.”
“Do I, my dear? Then I wish that I did. Except one's own father and mother, there is not much to be hoped for out of them. My own brother took a twist against me because I tried to save him from ruin; and if any man ever wished me ill, he did. And I think that your father had the same tale to tell. But there! I know nothing whatever about that.”
“Now you do, Mr. Gundry; I am certain that you do, and beg you to tell me, or rather I demand it. I am old enough now, and I am certain my dear father would have wished me to know every thing. Whatever it was, I am sure that he was right; and until I know that, I shall always be the most miserable of the miserable.”
The Sawyer looked at me as if he could not enter into my meaning, and his broad, short nose and quiet eyes were beset with wrinkles of inquiry. He quite forgot his level and his great post in the river, and tilted back his ancient hat, and let his pipe rest on his big brown arm. “Lord bless me!” he said, “what a young gal you are! Or, at least, what a young Miss Rema. What good can you do, miss, by making of a rout? Here you be in as quiet a place as you could find, and all of us likes and pities you. Your father was a wise man to settle you here in this enlightened continent. Let the doggoned old folk t'other side of the world think out their own flustrations. A female young American you are now, and a very fine specimen you will grow. 'Tis the finest thing to be on all God's earth.”
“No, Mr. Gundry, I am an English girl, and I mean to be an Englishwoman. The Americans may be more kind and generous, and perhaps my father thought so, and brought me here for that reason. And I may be glad to come back to you again when I have done what I am bound to do. Remember that I am the last of seven children, and do not even know where the rest are buried.”
“Now look straight afore you, missy. What do you see yonner?” The Sawyer was getting a little tired, perhaps, of this long interruption.
“I see enormous logs, and a quantity of saws, and tools I don't even know the names of. Also I see a bright, swift river.”
“But over here, missy, between them two oaks. What do you please to see there, Miss Rema?”
“What I see there, of course, is a great saw-mill.”
“But it wouldn't have been 'of course,' and it wouldn't have been at all, if I had spent all my days a-dwelling on the injuries of my family. Could I have put that there unekaled sample of water-power and human ingenuity together without laboring hard for whole months of a stretch, except upon the Sabbath, and laying awake night after night, and bending all my intellect over it? And could I have done that, think you now, if my heart was a-mooning upon family wrongs, and this, that, and the other?”
Here Sampson Gundry turned full upon me, and folded his arms, and spread his great chin upon his deer-skin apron, and nodded briskly with his deep gray eyes, surveying me in triumph. To his mind, that mill was the wonder of the world, and any argument based upon it, with or without coherence, was, like its circular saws, irresistible. And yet he thought that women can not reason! However, I did not say another word just then, but gave way to him, as behooved a child. And not only that, but I always found him too good to be argued with—too kind, I mean, and large of heart, and wedded to his own peculiar turns. There was nothing about him that one could dislike, or strike fire at, and be captious; and he always proceeded with such pity for those who were opposed to him that they always knew they must be wrong, though he was too polite to tell them so. And he had such a pleasant, paternal way of looking down into one's little thoughts when he put on his spectacles, that to say any more was to hazard the risk of ungrateful inexperience.
CHAPTER VI
A BRITISHER
The beautiful Blue River came from the jagged depths of the mountains, full of light and liveliness. It had scarcely run six miles from its source before it touched our mill-wheel; but in that space and time it had gathered strong and copious volume. The lovely blue of the water (like the inner tint of a glacier) was partly due to its origin, perhaps, and partly to the rich, soft tone of the granite sand spread under it. Whatever the cause may have been, the river well deserved its title.
It was so bright and pure a blue, so limpid and pellucid, that it even seemed to out-vie the tint of the sky which it reflected, and the myriad sparks of sunshine on it twinkled like a crystal rain. Plodding through the parched and scorching dust of the mountain-foot, through the stifling vapor and the blinding, ochreous glare, the traveler suddenly came upon this cool and calm delight. It was not to be descried afar, for it lay below the level, and the oaks and other trees of shelter scarcely topped the narrow comb. There was no canyon, such as are—and some of them known over all the world—both to the north and south of it. The Blue River did not owe its birth to any fierce convulsion, but sparkled on its cheerful way without impending horrors. Standing here as a child, and thinking, from the manner of my father, that strong men never wept nor owned the conquest of emotion, I felt sometimes a fool's contempt for the gushing transport of brave men. For instance, I have seen a miner, or a tamer of horses, or a rough fur-hunter, or (perhaps the bravest of all) a man of science and topography, jaded, worn, and nearly dead with drought and dearth and choking, suddenly, and beyond all hope, strike on this buried Eden. And then he dropped on his knees and spread his starved hands upward, if he could, and thanked the God who made him, till his head went round, and who knows what remembrance of loved ones came to him? And then, if he had any moisture left, he fell to a passion of weeping.
In childish ignorance I thought that this man weakly degraded himself, and should have been born a woman. But since that time I have truly learned that the bravest of men are those who feel their Maker's Land most softly, and are not ashamed to pay the tribute of their weakness to Him.
Living, as we did, in a lonely place, and yet not far from a track along the crest of the great Californian plain from Sacramento southward, there was scarcely a week which did not bring us some traveler needing comfort. Mr. Gundry used to be told that if he would set up a rough hotel, or house of call for cattle-drovers, miners, loafers, and so on, he might turn twice the money he could ever make by his thriving saw-mill. But he only used to laugh, and say that nature had made him too honest for that; and he never thought of charging any thing for his hospitality, though if a rich man left a gold piece, or even a nugget, upon a shelf, as happened very often, Sawyer Gundry did not disdain to set it aside for a rainy day. And one of his richest or most lavish guests arrived on my account, perhaps.
It happened when daylight was growing shorter, and the red heat of the earth was gone, and the snow-line of distant granite peaks had crept already lower, and the chattering birds that spent their summer in our band of oak-trees were beginning to find their food get short, and to prime swift wings for the lowland; and I, having never felt bitter cold, was trembling at what I heard of it. For now it was clear that I had no choice but to stay where I was for the present, and be truly thankful to God and man for having the chance of doing so. For the little relics of my affairs—so far as I had any—had taken much time in arrangement, perhaps because it was so hard to find them. I knew nothing, except about my own little common wardrobe, and could give no information about the contents of my father's packages. But these, by dint of perseverance on the part of Ephraim (who was very keen about all rights), had mainly been recovered, and Mr. Gundry had done the best that could be done concerning them. Whatever seemed of a private nature, or likely to prove important, had been brought home to Blue River Mills; the rest had been sold, and had fetched large prices, unless Mr. Gundry enlarged them.
He more than enlarged, he multiplied them, as I found out long afterward, to make me think myself rich and grand, while a beggar upon his bounty. I had never been accustomed to think of money, and felt some little contempt for it—not, indeed, a lofty hatred, but a careless wonder why it seemed to be always thought of. It was one of the last things I ever thought of; and those who were waiting for it were—until I got used to them—obliged in self-duty to remind me.
This, however, was not my fault. I never dreamed of wronging them. But I had earned no practical knowledge of the great world any where, much though I had wandered about, according to vague recollections. The duty of paying had never been mine; that important part had been done for me. And my father had such a horror always of any growth of avarice that he never gave me sixpence.
And now, when I heard upon every side continual talk of money, from Suan Isco upward, I thought at first that the New World must be different from the Old one, and that the gold mines in the neighborhood must have made them full of it; and once or twice I asked Uncle Sam; but he only nodded his head, and said that it was the practice every where. And before very long I began to perceive that he did not exaggerate.
Nothing could prove this point more clearly than the circumstance above referred to—the arrival of a stranger, for the purpose of bribing even Uncle Sam himself. This happened in the month of November, when the passes were beginning to be blocked with snow, and those of the higher mountain tracts had long been overwhelmed with it. On this particular day the air was laden with gray, oppressive clouds, threatening a heavy downfall, and instead of faring forth, as usual, to my beloved river, I was kept in-doors, and even up stairs, by a violent snow-headache. This is a crushing weight of pain, which all new-comers, or almost all, are obliged to endure, sometimes for as much as eight-and-forty hours, when the first great snow of the winter is breeding, as they express it, overhead. But I was more lucky than most people are; for after about twelve hours of almost intolerable throbbing, during which the sweetest sound was odious, and the idea of food quite loathsome, the agony left me, and a great desire for something to eat succeeded. Suan Isco, the kindest of the kind, was gone down stairs at last, for which I felt ungrateful gratitude—because she had been doing her best to charm away my pain by low, monotonous Indian ditties, which made it ten times worse; and yet I could not find heart to tell her so.
Now it must have been past six o'clock in the evening of the November day when the avalanche slid off my head, and I was able to lift it. The light of the west had been faint, and was dead; though often it used to prolong our day by the backward glance of the ocean. With pangs of youthful hunger, but a head still weak and dazy, I groped my way in the dark through the passage and down the stairs of redwood.
At the bottom, where a railed landing was, and the door opened into the house-room, I was surprised to find that, instead of the usual cheerful company enjoying themselves by the fire-light, there were only two people present. The Sawyer sat stiffly in his chair of state, delaying even the indulgence of his pipe, and having his face set sternly, as I had never before beheld it. In the visitor's corner, as we called it, where people sat to dry themselves, there was a man, and only one.
Something told me that I had better keep back and not disturb them. The room was not in its usual state of comfort and hospitality. Some kind of meal had been made at the table, as always must be in these parts; but not of the genial, reckless sort which random travelers carried on without any check from the Sawyer. For he of all men ever born in a civilized age was the finest host, and a guest beneath his roof was sacred as a lady to a knight. Hence it happened that I was much surprised. Proper conduct almost compelled me to withdraw; but curiosity made me take just one more little peep, perhaps. Looking back at these things now, I can not be sure of every thing; and indeed if I could, I must have an almost supernatural memory. But I remember many things; and the headache may have cleared my mind.
The stranger who had brought Mr. Gundry's humor into such stiff condition was sitting in the corner, a nook where light and shadow made an eddy. He seemed to be perfectly unconcerned about all the tricks of the hearth flame, presenting as he did a most solid face for any light to play upon. To me it seemed to be a weather-beaten face of a bluff and resolute man, the like of which we attribute to John Bull. At any rate, he was like John Bull in one respect: he was sturdy and square, and fit to hold his own with any man.
Strangers of this sort had come (as Englishmen rove every where), and been kindly welcomed by Uncle Sam, who, being of recent English blood, had a kind of hankering after it, and would almost rather have such at his board than even a true-born American; and infinitely more welcome were they than Frenchman, Spaniard, or German, or any man not to be distinguished, as was the case with some of them. Even now it was clear that the Sawyer had not grudged any tokens of honor, for the tall, square, brazen candlesticks, of Boston make, were on the table, and very little light they gave. The fire, however, was grandly roaring of stub-oak and pine antlers, and the black grill of the chimney bricks was fringed with lifting filaments. It was a rich, ripe light, affording breadth and play for shadow; and the faces of the two men glistened, and darkened in their creases.
I was dressed in black, and could not be seen, though I could see them so clearly; and I doubted whether to pass through, upon my way to the larder, or return to my room and starve a little longer; for I did not wish to interrupt, and had no idea of listening. But suddenly I was compelled to stop; and to listen became an honest thing, when I knew what was spoken of—or, at any rate, I did it.
“Castlewood, Master Colonist; Castlewood is the name of the man that I have come to ask about. And you will find it worth your while to tell me all you know of him.” Thus spoke the Englishman sitting in the corner; and he seemed to be certain of producing his effect.
“Wal,” said Uncle Sam, assuming what all true Britons believe to be the universal Yankee tone, while I knew that he was laughing in his sleeve, “Squire, I guess that you may be right. Considerations of that 'ere kind desarves to be considered of.”
“Just so. I knew that you must see it,” the stranger continued, bravely. “A stiff upper lip, as you call it here, is all very well to begin with. But all you enlightened members of the great republic know what is what. It will bring you more than ten years' income of your saw-mill, and farm, and so on, to deal honestly with me for ten minutes. No more beating about the bush and fencing with me, as you have done. Now can you see your own interest?”
“I never were reckoned a fool at that. Squire, make tracks, and be done with it.”
“Then, Master Colonist, or Colonel—for I believe you are all colonels here—your task is very simple. We want clear proof, sworn properly and attested duly, of the death of a villain—George Castlewood, otherwise the Honorable George Castlewood, otherwise Lord Castlewood: a man who murdered his own father ten years ago this November: a man committed for trial for the crime, but who bribed his jailers and escaped, and wandered all over the Continent. What is that noise? Have you got rats?”
“Plenty of foreign rats, and native 'coons, and skunks, and other varmint. Wal, Squire, go on with it.”
The voice of Uncle Sam was stern, and his face full of rising fury, as I, who had made that noise in my horror, tried to hush my heart with patience.
“The story is well known,” continued the stranger: “we need make no bones of it. George Castlewood went about under a curse—”
“Not quite so loud, Squire, if you please. My household is not altogether seasoned.”
“And perhaps you have got the young lady somewhere. I heard a report to that effect. But here you think nothing of a dozen murders. Now, Gundry, let us have no squeamishness. We only want justice, and we can pay for it. Ten thousand dollars I am authorized to offer for a mere act of duty on your part. We have an extradition treaty. If the man had been alive, we must have had him. But as he has cheated the hangman by dying, we can only see his grave and have evidence. And all well-disposed people must rejoice to have such a quiet end of it. For the family is so well known, you see.”
“I see,” Mr. Gundry answered, quietly, laying a finger on his lips. “Guess you want something more than that, though, Squire. Is there nothing more than the grave to oblige a noble Britisher with?”
“Yes, Colonel; we want the girl as well. We know that she was with him in that caravan, or wagon train, or whatever you please to call it. We know that you have made oath of his death, produced his child, and obtained his trunks, and drawn his share in the insurance job. Your laws must be queer to let you do such things. In England it would have taken at least three years, and cost a deal more than the things were worth, even without a Chancery suit. However, of his papers I shall take possession; they can be of no earthly use to you.”
“To be sure. And possession of his darter too, without so much as a Chancery suit. But what is to satisfy me, Squire, agin goin' wrong in this little transaction?”
“I can very soon satisfy you,” said the stranger, “as to their identity. Here is their full, particular, and correct description—names, weights, and colors of the parties.”
With a broad grin at his own exquisite wit, the bluff man drew forth his pocket-book, and took out a paper, which he began to smooth on his knee quite leisurely. Meanwhile, in my hiding-place, I was trembling with terror and indignation. The sense of eavesdropping was wholly lost, in that of my own jeopardy. I must know what was arranged about me; for I felt such a hatred and fear of that stranger that sooner than be surrendered to him I would rush back to my room and jump out of the window, and trust myself to the trackless forest and the snowy night. I was very nearly doing so, but just had sense enough to wait and hear what would be said of me. So I lurked in the darkness, behind the rails, while the stranger read slowly and pompously.
CHAPTER VII
DISCOMFITURE
The Englishman drew forth a double eyeglass from a red velvet waistcoat, and mounting it on his broad nose, came nearer to get the full light of the candles. I saw him as clearly as I could wish, and, indeed, a great deal too clearly; for the more I saw of the man, the more I shrank from the thought of being in his power. Not that he seemed to be brutal or fierce, but selfish, and resolute, and hard-hearted, and scornful of lofty feelings. Short dust-colored hair and frizzly whiskers framed his large, thick-featured face, and wearing no mustache, he showed the clumsy sneer of a wide, coarse mouth. I watched him with all my eyes, because of his tone of authority about myself. He might even be my guardian or my father's nearest relation—though he seemed to be too ill-bred for that.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel,” he went on, in a patronizing tone, such as he had assumed throughout. “Here it is. Now prick your ears up, and see if these candid remarks apply. I am reading from a printed form, you see:
“'George Castlewood is forty-eight years old, but looks perhaps ten years older. His height is over six feet two, and he does not stoop or slouch at all. His hair is long and abundant, but white; his eyes are dark, piercing, and gloomy. His features are fine, and of Italian cast, but stern, morose, and forbidding, and he never uses razor. On the back of his left hand, near the wrist, there is a broad scar. He dresses in half-mourning always, and never wears any jewelry, but strictly shuns all society, and prefers uncivilized regions. He never stays long in any town, and follows no occupation, though his aspect and carriage are military, as he has been a cavalry officer. From time to time he has been heard of in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is now believed to be in America.
“'His only surviving child, a girl of about fifteen, has been seen with him. She is tall and slight and very straight, and speaks French better than English. Her hair is very nearly black, and her eyes of unusual size and lustre. She is shy, and appears to have been kept under, and she has a timid smile. Whether she knows of her father's crime or not is quite uncertain; but she follows him like a dog almost.'
“There now, Colonel,” cried the Englishman, as he folded the paper triumphantly; “most of that came from my information, though I never set eyes upon the child. Does the cap fit or not, Brother Jonathan?”
Mr. Gundry was leaning back in his own corner, with a favorite pipe, carved by himself, reposing on his waistcoat. And being thus appealed to, he looked up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been dozing, though he never had been more wide awake, as I, who knew his attitudes, could tell. And my eyes filled with tears of love and shame, for I knew by the mere turn of his chin that he never would surrender me.
“Stranger,” he said, in a most provoking drawl, “a hard day's work tells its tale on me, you bet. You do read so bootiful, you read me hard asleep. And the gutturals of that furrin English is always a little hard to catch. Mought I trouble you just to go through it again? You likes the sound of your own voice; and no blame to you, being such a swate un.”
The Englishman looked at him keenly, as if he had some suspicion of being chaffed; but the face of the Sawyer was so grave and the bend of his head so courteous that he could not refuse to do as he was asked. But he glanced first at the whiskey bottle standing between the candlesticks; and I knew it boded ill for his errand when Uncle Sam, the most hospitable of men, feigned pure incomprehension of that glance. The man should have no more under that roof.
With a sullen air and a muttered curse, at which Mr. Gundry blew a wreath of smoke, the stranger unfolded his paper again, and saying, “Now I beg you to attend this time,” read the whole of his description, with much emphasis, again, while the Sawyer turned away and beat time upon the hearth, with his white hair, broad shoulders, and red ears prominent. The Englishman looked very seriously vexed, but went through his business doggedly. “Are you satisfied now?” he asked when he had finished.
“Wal, now, Squire,” replied Uncle Sam, still keeping up his provoking drawl, but turning round and looking at the stranger very steadfastly, “some thin's is so pooty and so ilegantly done, they seems a'most as good as well-slung flapjacks. A natteral honest stomick can't nohow have enough of them. Mought I be so bold, in a silly, mountaneous sort of a way, as to ax for another heerin' of it?”
“Do you mean to insult me, Sir?” shouted the visitor, leaping up with a flaming face, and throwing himself into an attitude of attack.
“Stranger, I mought,” answered Mr. Gundry, standing squarely before him, and keeping his hands contemptuously behind his back—“I mought so do, barrin' one little point. The cutest commissioner in all the West would have to report 'Non compos' if his orders was to diskiver somethin' capable of bein' insulted in a fellow of your natur'.”
With these words Uncle Sam sat down, and powerfully closed his mouth, signifying that now the matter was taken through every phase of discussion, and had been thoroughly exhausted. His visitor stared at him for a moment, as if at some strange phenomenon, and then fell back into self-command, without attempting bluster.
“Colonel, you are a 'cure,' as we call it on our side of the herring pond. What have I done to 'riz your dander,' as you elegantly express it here?”
“Britisher, nothing. You know no better. It takes more than that to put my back up. But forty years agone I do believe I must 'a heaved you out o' window.”
“Why, Colonel, why? Now be reasonable. Not a word have I said reflecting either upon you or your country; and a finer offer than I have made can not come to many of you, even in this land of gold. Ten thousand dollars I offer, and I will exceed my instructions and say fifteen, all paid on the nail by an order on Frisco, about which you may assure yourself. And what do I ask in return? Legal proof of the death of a man whom we know to be dead, and the custody of his child, for her own good.”
“Squire, I have no other answer to make. If you offered me all the gold dug in these mountains since they were discovered, I could only say what I have said before. You came from Sylvester's ranch—there is time for you to get back ere the snow begins.”
“What a hospitable man you are! Upon my word, Gundry, you deserve to have a medal from our Humane Society. You propose to turn me out of doors to-night, with a great fall of snow impending?”
“Sir, the fault is entirely your own. What hospitality can you expect after coming to buy my guest? If you are afraid of the ten-mile ride, my man at the mill will bed you. But here you must not sleep, because I might harm you in the morning. I am apt to lose my temper sometimes, when I go on to think of things.”
“Colonel, I think I had better ride back. I fear no man, nor his temper, nor crotchets. But if I were snowed up at your mill, I never might cross the hill-foot for months; but from Sylvester's I can always get to Minto. You refuse, then, to help me in any way?”
“More than that. I will do every thing in my power to confound you. If any one comes prowling after that young lady, he shall be shot.”
“That is most discouraging. However, you may think better of it. Write to this address if you do. You have the girl here, of course?”
“That is her concern and mine. Does your guide know the way right well! The snow is beginning. You do not know our snows, any more than you know us.”
“Never mind, Mr. Gundry. I shall do very well. You are rough in your ways, but you mean to do the right; and your indignation is virtuous. But mark my words upon one little point. If George Castlewood had been living, I have such credentials that I would have dragged him back with me in spite of all your bluster. But over his corpse I have no control, in the present condition of treaties. Neither can I meddle with his daughter, if it were worth while to do so. Keep her and make the best of her, my man. You have taken a snake in the grass to your bosom, if that is what you are up for. A very handsome girl she may be, but a bad lot, as her father was. If you wish the name of Gundry to have its due respect hereafter, let the heir of the sawmills have nothing to do with the Honorable Miss Castlewood.”
“Let alone, let alone,” Uncle Sam said, angrily. “It is well for you that the 'heir of the saw-mills' hath not heard your insolence. Firm is a steady lad; but he knoweth well which foot to kick with. No fear of losing the way to Sylvester's ranch with Firm behind you. But, meddlesome as you be, and a bitter weed to my experience, it shall not be said that Sampson Gundry sent forth a fellow to be frozen. Drink a glass of hot whiskey before you get to saddle. Not in friendship, mind you, Sir, but in common human nature.”
That execrable man complied, for he began to be doubtful of the driving snow, now huddling against the window-frames. And so he went out; and when he was gone, I came forth into the fire-light, and threw my arms round the Sawyer's neck and kissed him till he was ashamed of me.
“Miss Rema, my dear, my poor little soul, what makes you carry on so?”
“Because I have heard every word, Uncle Sam, and I was base enough to doubt you.”
CHAPTER VIII
A DOUBTFUL LOSS
When I tried to look out of my window in the morning, I was quite astonished at the state of things. To look out fairly was impossible; for not only was all the lower part of the frame hillocked up like a sandglass, and the sides filled in with dusky plaits, but even in the middle, where some outlook was, it led to very little. All the air seemed choked with snow, and the ground coming up in piles to meet it; all sounds were deadened in the thick gray hush, and nothing had its own proportion. Never having seen such a thing before, I was frightened, and longed to know more of it.
Mr. Gundry had a good laugh at me, in which even Suan Isco joined, when I proposed to sweep a path to the mill, and keep it open through the winter.
“It can be done—I am sure it can,” I exclaimed, with vigorous ignorance. “May I do it if I can? It only requires perseverance. If you keep on sweeping as fast as it falls, you must overcome it. Don't you see, Uncle Sam?”
“To be sure I do, Miss Rema, as plain as any pikestaff. Suan, fetch a double bundle of new brooms from top loft, and don't forget while you be up there to give special orders—no snow is to fall at night or when missy is at dinner.”
“You may laugh as much as you please, Uncle Sam, but I intend to try it. I must try to keep my path to—somewhere.”
“What a fool I am, to be sure!” said Mr. Gundry, softly. “There, now, I beg your pardon, my dear, for never giving a thought to it. Firm and I will do it for you, as long as the Lord allows of it. Why, the snow is two foot deep a'ready, and twenty foot in places. I wonder whether that rogue of a Goad got home to Sylvester's ranch last night? No fault of mine if he never did, for go he would in spite of me.”
I had not been thinking of Mr. Goad, and indeed I did not know his name until it was told in this way. My mind was dwelling on my father's grave, where I used to love to sit and think; and I could not bear the idea of the cold snow lying over it, with nobody coming to care for him. Kind hands had borne him down the mountains (while I lay between life and death) and buried him in the soft peach orchard, in the soothing sound of the mill-wheel. Here had been planted above his head a cross of white un-painted wood, bearing only his initials, and a small “Amen” below them.
With this I was quite content, believing that he would have wished no better, being a very independent man, and desirous of no kind of pomp. There was no “consecrated ground” within miles and miles of traveling; but I hoped that he might rest as well with simple tears to hallow it. For often and often, even now, I could not help giving way and sobbing, when I thought how sad it was that a strong, commanding, mighty man, of great will and large experience, should drop in a corner of the world and die, and finally be thought lucky—when he could think for himself no longer—to obtain a tranquil, unknown grave, and end with his initials, and have a water-wheel to sing to him. Many a time it set me crying, and made me long to lie down with him, until I thought of earth-worms.
All that could be done was done by Sampson and Firm Gundry, to let me have my clear path, and a clear bourne at the end of it. But even with a steam snow-shovel they could not have kept the way unstopped, such solid masses of the mountain clouds now descended over us. And never had I been so humored in my foolish wishes: I was quite ashamed to see the trouble great men took to please me.
“Well, I am sorry to hear it, Firm,” said the Sawyer, coming in one day, with clouts of snow in his snowy curls. “Not that I care a cent for the fellow—and an impudenter fellow never sucked a pipe. Still, he might have had time to mend, if his time had been as good as the room for it. However, no blame rests on us. I told him to bed down to saw-mill. They Englishmen never know when they are well off. But the horse got home, they tell me?”
“The horse got home all right, grandfather, and so did the other horse and man. But Sylvester thinks that a pile of dollars must have died out in the snow-drift. It is a queer story. We shall never know the rights.”
“How many times did I tell him,” the Sawyer replied, without much discontent, “that it were a risky thing to try the gulches, such a night as that? His own way he would have, however; and finer liars than he could ever stick up to be for a score of years have gone, time upon time, to the land of truth by means of that same view of things. They take every body else for a liar.”
“Oh, Uncle Sam, who is it?” I cried. “Is it that dreadful—that poor man who wanted to carry me away from you?”
“Now you go in, missy; you go to the fire-hearth,” Mr. Gundry answered, more roughly than usual. “Leave you all such points to the Lord. They are not for young ladies to talk about.”
“Grandfather, don't you be too hard,” said Firm, as he saw me hurrying away. “Miss Rema has asked nothing unbecoming, but only concerning her own affairs. If we refuse to tell her, others will.”
“Very well, then, so be it,” the Sawyer replied; for he yielded more to his grandson than to the rest of the world put together. “Turn the log up, Firm, and put the pan on. You boys can go on without victuals all day, but an old man must feed regular. And, bad as he was, I thank God for sending him on his way home with his belly full. If ever he turneth up in the snow, that much can be proved to my account.”
Young as I was, and little practiced in the ways of settlers, I could not help perceiving that Uncle Sam was very much put out—not at the death of the man so sadly, as at the worry of his dying so in going from a hospitable house. Mr. Gundry cared little what any body said concerning his honor, or courage, or such like; but the thought of a whisper against his hospitality would rouse him.
“Find him, Firm, find him,” he said, in his deep sad voice, as he sat down on the antlered stump and gazed at the fire gloomily. “And when he is found, call a public postmortem, and prove that we gave him his bellyful.”
Ephraim, knowing the old man's ways, and the manners, perhaps, of the neighborhood, beckoned to Suan to be quick with something hot, that he might hurry out again. Then he took his dinner standing, and without a word went forth to seek.
“Take the snow-harrow, and take Jowler,” the old man shouted after him, and the youth turned round at the gate and waved his cap to show that he heard him. The snow was again falling heavily, and the afternoon was waning; and the last thing we saw was the brush of the mighty tail of the great dog Jowler.
“Oh, uncle, Firm will be lost himself!” I cried, in dismay at the great white waste. “And the poor man, whoever he is, must be dead. Do call him back, or let me run.”
Mr. Gundry's only answer was to lead me back to the fireside, where he made me sit down, and examined me, while Suan was frying the butter-beans.
“Who was it spied you on the mountains, missy, the whole of the way from the redwood-tree, although you lay senseless on the ground, and he was hard at work with the loppings?”
“Why, Ephraim, of course, Uncle Sam; every body says that nobody else could have noticed such a thing at such a distance.”
“Very well, my dear; and who was it carried you all the way to this house, without stopping, or even letting your head droop down, although it was a burning hot May morn?”
“Mr. Gundry, as if you did not know a great deal better than I do! It was weeks before I could thank him, even. But you must have seen him do it all.”
The Sawyer rubbed his chin, which was large enough for a great deal of rubbing; and when he did that, I was always sure that an argument went to his liking. He said nothing more for the present, but had his dinner, and enjoyed it.
“Supposing now that he did all that,” he resumed, about an hour afterward, “is Firm the sort of boy you would look to to lose his own self in a snow-drift? He has three men with him, and he is worth all three, let alone the big dog Jowler, who has dug out forty feet of snow ere now. If that rogue of an Englishman, Goad, has had the luck to cheat the hangman, and the honor to die in a Californy snow-drift, you may take my experience for it, missy, Firm and Jowler will find him, and clear Uncle Sam's reputation.”
CHAPTER IX
WATER-SPOUT
If Mr. Gundry was in one way right, he was equally wrong in the other. Firm came home quite safe and sound, though smothered with snow and most hungry; but he thought that he should have staid out all the night, because he had failed of his errand. Jowler also was full of discontent and trouble of conscience. He knew, when he kicked up his heels in the snow, that his duty was to find somebody, and being of Alpine pedigree, and trained to act up to his ancestry, he now dropped his tail with failure.
“It comes to the same thing,” said Sawyer Gundry; “it is foolish to be so particular. A thousand better men have sunk through being so pig-headed. We shall find the rogue toward the end of March, or in April, if the season suits. Firm, eat your supper and shake yourself.”
This was exactly the Sawyer's way—to take things quietly when convinced that there was no chance to better them. He would always do his best about the smallest trifle; but after that, be the matter small or great, he had a smiling face for the end of it.
The winter, with all its weight of sameness and of dreariness, went at last, and the lovely spring from the soft Pacific found its gradual way to us. Accustomed as I was to gentler climates and more easy changes, I lost myself in admiration of this my first Californian spring. The flowers, the leagues and leagues of flowers, that burst into color and harmony—purple, yellow, and delicate lilac, woven with bright crimson threads, and fringed with emerald-green by the banks, and blue by the course of rivers, while deepened here and there by wooded shelter and cool places, with the silver-gray of the soft Pacific waning in far distance, and silken vapor drawing toward the carding forks of the mountain range; and over all the never-wearying azure of the limpid sky: child as I was, and full of little worldly troubles on my own account, these grand and noble sights enlarged me without any thinking.
The wheat and the maize were grown apace, and beans come into full blossom, and the peaches swinging in the western breeze were almost as large as walnuts, and all things in their prime of freshness, ere the yellow dust arrived, when a sudden melting of snow in some gully sent a strong flood down our Blue River. The saw-mill happened to be hard at work; and before the gear could be lifted, some damage was done to the floats by the heavy, impetuous rush of the torrent. Uncle Sam was away, and so was Firm; from which, perhaps, the mischief grew. However, the blame was all put on the river, and little more was said of it.
The following morning I went down before even Firm was out-of-doors, under some touch, perhaps, of natural desire to know things. The stream was as pure and bright as ever, hastening down its gravel-path of fine granite just as usual, except that it had more volume and a stronger sense of freshness. Only the bent of the grasses and the swath of the pendulous twigs down stream remained to show that there must have been some violence quite lately.
All Mr. Gundry's strengthening piles and shores were as firm as need be, and the clear blue water played around them as if they were no constraint to it. And none but a practiced eye could see that the great wheel had been wounded, being undershot, and lifted now above the power of the current, according to the fine old plan of locking the door when the horse is gone.
When I was looking up and wondering where to find the mischief, Martin, the foreman, came out and crossed the plank, with his mouth full of breakfast.
“Show me,” I said, with an air, perhaps, of very young importance, “where and what the damage is. Is there any strain to the iron-work?”
“Lor' a mercy, young missus!” he answered, gruffly, being by no means a polished man, “where did you ever hear of ironwork? Needles and pins is enough for you. Now don't you go and make no mischief.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” I answered. “If you have been careless, that is no concern of mine.”
“Careless, indeed! And the way I works, when others is a-snorin' in their beds! I might just as well do nort, every bit, and get more thanks and better wages. That's the way of the world all over. Come Saturday week, I shall better myself.”
“But if it's the way of the world all over, how will you better yourself, unless you go out of the world altogether!” I put this question to Martin with the earnest simplicity of the young, meaning no kind of sarcasm, but knowing that scarcely a week went by without his threatening to “better himself.” And they said that he had done so for seven years or more.
“Don't you be too sharp,” he replied, with a grim smile, partly at himself, perhaps. “If half as I heard about you is true, you'll want all your sharpness for yourself, Miss Remy. And the Britishers are worse than we be.”
“Well, Martin, I am sure you would help me,” I said, “if you saw any person injuring me. But what is it I am not to tell your master?”
“My master, indeed! Well, you need not tell old Gundry any thing about what you have seen. It might lead to hard words; and hard words are not the style of thing I put up with. If any man tries hard words with me, I knocks him down, up sticks, and makes tracks.”
I could not help smiling at the poor man's talk. Sawyer Gundry could have taken him with one hand and tossed him over the undershot wheel.
“You forget that I have not seen any thing,” I said, “and understand nothing but 'needles and pins.' But, for fear of doing any harm, I will not even say that I have been down here, unless I am asked about it.”
“Miss Remy, you are a good girl, and you shall have the mill some day. Lord, don't your little great eyes see the job they are a-doin' of? The finest stroke in all Californy, when the stubborn old chap takes to quartz-crushing.”
All this was beyond me, and I told him so, and we parted good friends, while he shook his long head and went home to feed many pappooses. For the strangest thing of all things was, though I never at that time thought of it, that there was not any one about this place whom any one could help liking. Martin took as long as any body to be liked, until one understood him; but after that he was one of the best, in many ways that can not be described. Also there was a pair of negroes, simply and sweetly delightful. They worked all day and they sang all night, though I had not the pleasure of hearing them; and the more Suan Isco despised them—because they were black, and she was only brown—the more they made up to her, not at all because she governed the supply of victuals. It was childish to have such ideas, though Suan herself could never get rid of them. The truth, as I came to know afterward, was that a large, free-hearted, and determined man was at the head of every thing. Martin was the only one who ever grumbled, and he had established a long right to do so by never himself being grumbled at.
“I'll be bound that poor fellow is in a sad way,” Mr. Gundry said at breakfast-time. “He knows how much he is to blame, and I fear that he won't eat a bit for the day. Martin is a most conscientious man. He will offer to give up his berth, although it would be his simple ruin.”
I was wise enough not to say a word, though Firm looked at me keenly. He knew that I had been down at the mill, and expected me to say something.
“We all must have our little mistakes,” continued Sawyer Gundry; “but I never like to push a man when he feels it. I shall not say a syllable to Martin; and, Ephraim, you will do the like. When a fellow sticks well to his work like Martin, never blame him for a mere accident.”
Firm, according to his habit, made no answer when he did not quite agree. In talking with his own age he might have argued, but he did not argue with his grandfather.
“I shall just go down and put it right myself. Martin is a poor hand at repairing. Firm, you go up the gulch, and see if the fresh has hurt the hurdles. Missy, you may come with me, if you please, and sketch me at work in the mill-wheel. You have drawn that wheel such a sight of times, you must know every feather of it better than the man who made it.”
“Uncle Sam, you are too bad,” I said. “I have never got it right, and I never shall.”
I did not dare as yet to think what really proved to be true in the end—that I could not draw the wheel correctly because itself was incorrect. In spite of all Mr. Gundry's skill and labor and ingenuity, the wheel was no true circle. The error began in the hub itself, and increased, of course, with the distance; but still it worked very well, like many other things that are not perfect.
Having no idea of this as yet, and doubting nothing except my own perception of “perspective,” I sat down once more in my favorite spot, and waited for the master to appear as an active figure in the midst of it. The air was particularly bright and clear, even for that pure climate, and I could even see the blue-winged flies darting in and out of the oozy floats. But half-way up the mountains a white cloud was hanging, a cloud that kept on changing shape. I only observed it as a thing to put in for my background, because I was fond of trying to tone and touch up my sketches with French chalks.
Presently I heard a harsh metallic sound and creaking of machinery. The bites, or clamps, or whatever they are called, were being put on, to keep the wheel from revolving with the Sawyer's weight. Martin, the foreman, was grumbling and growling, according to his habit, and peering through the slot, or channel of stone, in which the axle worked, and the cheery voice of Mr. Gundry was putting down his objections. Being much too large to pass through the slot, Mr. Gundry came round the corner of the building, with a heavy leathern bag of tools strapped round his neck, and his canvas breeches girt above his knees. But the foreman staid inside to hand him the needful material into the wheel.
The Sawyer waded merrily down the shallow blue water, for he was always like a boy when he was at work, and he waved his little skull-cap to me, and swung himself up into the wheel, as if he were nearer seventeen than seventy. And presently I could only see his legs and arms as he fell to work. Therefore I also fell to work, with my best attempts at penciling, having been carefully taught enough of drawing to know that I could not draw. And perhaps I caught from the old man's presence and the sound of his activity that strong desire to do my best which he seemed to impart to every one.
At any rate, I was so engrossed that I scarcely observed the changing light, except as a hindrance to my work and a trouble to my distance, till suddenly some great drops fell upon my paper and upon my hat, and a rush of dark wind almost swept me from the log upon which I sat. Then again all was a perfect calm, and the young leaves over the stream hung heavily on their tender foot-stalks, and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned back, and the ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But there seemed to be a sense of fear in the waiting silence of earth and air.
This deep, unnatural stillness scared me, and I made up my mind to run away. But the hammer of the Sawyer sounded as I had never heard it sound. He was much too hard at work to pay any heed to sky or stream, and the fall of his strokes was dead and hollow, as if the place resented them.
“Come away, come away,” I cried, as I ran and stood on the opposite bank to him; “there is something quite wrong in the weather, I am sure. I entreat you to come away at once, Uncle Sam. Every thing is so strange and odd.”
“Why, what's to do now?” asked the Sawyer, coming to my side of the wheel and looking at me, with his spectacles tilted up, and his apron wedged in a piece of timber, and his solid figure resting in the impossibility of hurry. “Missy, don't you make a noise out there. You can't have your own way always.”
“Oh, Uncle Sam, don't talk like that. I am in such a fright about you. Do come out and look at the mountains.”
“I have seen the mountains often enough, and I am up to every trick of them. There may be a corn or two of rain; no more. My sea-weed was like tinder. There can't be no heavy storm when it is like that. Don't you make pretense, missy, to know what is beyond you.”
Uncle Sam was so seldom cross that I always felt that he had a right to be so. And he gave me one of his noble smiles to make up for the sharpness of his words, and then back he went to his work again. So I hoped that I was altogether wrong, till a bolt of lightning, like a blue dagger, fell at my very feet, and a crash of thunder shook the earth and stunned me. These opened the sluice of the heavens, and before I could call out I was drenched with rain. Clinging to a bush, I saw the valley lashed with cloudy blasts, and a whirling mass of spiral darkness rushing like a giant toward me. And the hissing and tossing and roaring mixed whatever was in sight together.
Such terror fell upon me at first that I could not look, and could scarcely think, but cowered beneath the blaze of lightning as a singed moth drops and shivers. And a storm of wind struck me from my hold, so that I fell upon the wet earth. Every moment I expected to be killed, for I never could be brave in a thunder-storm, and had not been told much in France of God's protection around me. And the darts of lightning hissed and crossed like a blue and red web over me. So I laid hold of a little bent of weed, and twisted it round my dabbled wrist, and tried to pray to the Virgin, although I had often been told it was vanity.
Then suddenly wiping my eyes, I beheld a thing which entirely changed me. A vast, broad wall of brown water, nearly as high as the mill itself, rushed down with a crest of foam from the mountains. It seemed to fill up all the valley and to swallow up all the trees; a whole host of animals fled before it, and birds, like a volley of bullets, flew by. I lost not a moment in running away, and climbing a rock and hiding. It was base, ungrateful, and a nasty thing to do; but I did it almost without thinking. And if I had staid to cry out, what good could I have done—only to be swept away?
Now, as far as I can remember any thing out of so much horror, I must have peeped over the summit of my rock when the head of the deluge struck the mill. But whether I saw it, or whether I knew it by any more summary process, such as outruns the eyes sometimes, is more than I dare presume to say. Whichever way I learned it, it was thus:
A solid mass of water, much bigger than the mill itself, burst on it, dashed it to atoms, leaped off with it, and spun away the great wheel anyhow, like the hoop of a child sent trundling. I heard no scream or shriek; and, indeed, the bellow of a lion would have been a mere whisper in the wild roar of the elements. Only, where the mill had been, there was nothing except a black streak and a boil in the deluge. Then scores of torn-up trees swept over, as a bush-harrow jumps on the clods of the field; and the unrelenting flood cast its wrath, and shone quietly in the lightning.
“Oh, Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam!” I cried. But there was not a sign to be seen of him; and I thought of his gentle, good, obstinate ways, and my heart was almost broken. “What a brute—what a wretch I am!” I kept saying, as if I could have helped it; and my fear of the lightning was gone, and I stood and raved with scorn and amazement.
In this misery of confusion it was impossible to think, and instinct alone could have driven my despair to a desperate venture. With my soaked clothes sticking between my legs, I ran as hard as they would go, by a short-cut over a field of corn, to a spot where the very last bluff or headland jutted into the river. This was a good mile below the mill according to the bends of channel, but only a furlong or so from the rock upon which I had taken refuge. However, the flood was there before me, and the wall of water dashed on to the plains, with a brindled comb behind it.
Behind it also came all the ruin of the mill that had any floatage, and bodies of bears and great hogs and cattle, some of them alive, but the most part dead. A grand black bull tossed back his horns, and looked at me beseechingly: he had frightened me often in quiet days, but now I was truly grieved for him. And then on a wattle of brush-wood I saw the form of a man—the Sawyer.
His white hair draggled in the wild brown flood, and the hollow of his arms was heaped with froth, and his knotted legs hung helpless. Senseless he lay on his back, and sometimes the wash of the waves went over him. His face was livid, but his brave eyes open, and a heavy weight hung round his neck. I had no time to think, and deserve no praise, for I knew not what I did. But just as an eddy swept him near me, I made a desperate leap at him, and clutched at something that tore my hands, and then I went under the water. My senses, however, were not yet gone, and my weight on the wattle stopped it, and I came up gurgling, and flung one arm round a fat, woolly sheep going by me. The sheep was water-logged, and could scarcely keep his own poor head from drowning, and he turned his mild eyes and looked at me, but I could not spare him. He struck for the shore in forlorn hope, and he towed us in some little.
It is no good for me to pretend to say how things were managed for us, for of course I could do nothing. But the sheep must have piloted us to a tree, whose branches swept the torrent. Here I let him go, and caught fast hold; and Uncle Sam's raft must have stuck there also, for what could my weak arm have done? I remember only to have felt the ground at last, as the flood was exhausted; and good people came and found him and me, stretched side by side, upon rubbish and mud.
CHAPTER X
A NUGGET
In a sacred corner (as soon as ever we could attend to any thing) we hung up the leathern bag of tools, which had done much more toward saving the life of Uncle Sam than I did; for this had served as a kind of kedge, or drag, upon his little craft, retarding it from the great roll of billows, in which he must have been drowned outright. And even as it was, he took some days before he was like himself again.
Firm, who had been at the head of the valley, repairing some broken hurdles, declared that a water-spout had burst in the bosom of the mountain gorge where the Blue River has its origin, and the whole of its power got ponded back by a dam, which the Sawyer himself had made, at about five furlongs above the mill. Ephraim, being further up the gulch, and high above the roaring flood, did his utmost with the keen edge of his eyes to pierce into the mischief; but it rained so hard, and at the same time blew so violently around him, that he could see nothing of what went on, but hoped for the best, with uneasiness.
Now when the Sawyer came round so well as to have a clear mind of things, and learn that his mill was gone and his business lost, and himself, at this ripe time of life, almost driven to begin the world again, it was natural to expect that he ought to indulge in a good deal of grumbling. Many people came to comfort him, and to offer him deep condolence and the truest of true sympathy, and every thing that could be thought of, unless it were a loan of money. Of that they never thought, because it was such a trifling matter; and they all had confidence in his power to do any thing but pay them. They told him that he was a young man still, and Providence watched over him; in a year or two he would be all the better for this sad visitation. And he said yes to their excellent advice, and was very much obliged to them. At the same time it was clear to me, who watched him like a daughter, that he became heavy in his mind, and sighed, as these kind friends, one after the other, enjoyed what he still could do for them, but rode away out of his gate with too much delicacy to draw purse-strings. Not that he would have accepted a loan from the heartiest heart of all of them, only that he would have liked the offer, to understand their meaning. And several of them were men—as Firm, in his young indignation, told me—who had been altogether set up in life by the kindness of Sampson Gundry.
Perhaps the Sawyer, after all his years, had no right to be vexed by this. But whether he was right or wrong, I am sure that it preyed upon his mind, though he was too proud to speak of it. He knew that he was not ruined, although these friends assumed that he must be; and some of them were quite angry with him because they had vainly warned him. He could not remember these warnings, yet he contradicted none of them; and fully believing in the goodness of the world, he became convinced that he must have been hard in the days of his prosperity.
No sooner was he able to get about again than he went to San Francisco to raise money on his house and property for the rebuilding of the mill. Firm rode with him to escort him back, and so did Martin, the foreman; for although the times were not so bad as they used to be some ten years back, in the height of the gold fever, it still was a highly undesirable thing for a man who was known to have money about him to ride forth alone from San Francisco, or even Sacramento town. And having mentioned the foreman Martin, in justice to him I ought to say that although his entire loss from the disaster amounted only to a worn-out waistcoat of the value of about twenty cents, his vehemence in grumbling could only be equaled by his lofty persistence. By his great activity in running away and leaving his employer to meet the brunt, he had saved not only himself, but his wife and children and goods and chattels. This failed, however, to remove or even assuage his regret for the waistcoat; and he moaned and threatened to such good purpose that a speedy subscription was raised, which must have found him in clothes for the rest of his life, as well as a silver tea-pot with an inscription about his bravery.
When the three were gone, after strict injunctions from Mr. Gundry, and his grandson too, that I was on no account to venture beyond calling distance from the house, for fear of being run away with, I found the place so sad and lonesome that I scarcely knew what to do. I had no fear of robbers, though there were plenty in the neighborhood; for we still had three or four men about, who could be thoroughly trusted, and who staid with us on half wages rather than abandon the Sawyer in his trouble. Suan Isco, also, was as brave as any man, and could shoot well with a rifle. Moreover, the great dog Jowler was known and dreaded by all his enemies. He could pull down an Indian, or two half-castes, or three Mexicans, in about a second; and now he always went about with me, having formed a sacred friendship.
Uncle Sam had kissed me very warmly when he said “good-by,” and Firm had shown some disposition to follow his example; but much as I liked and admired Firm, I had my own ideas as to what was unbecoming, and now in my lonely little walks I began to think about it. My father's resting-place had not been invaded by the imperious flood, although a line of driftage, in a zigzag swath, lay near the mound. This was my favorite spot for thinking, when I felt perplexed and downcast in my young unaided mind. For although I have not spoken of my musings very copiously, any one would do me wrong who fancied that I was indifferent. Through the great kindness of Mr. Gundry and other good friends around me, I had no bitter sense as yet of my own dependence and poverty. But the vile thing I had heard about my father, the horrible slander and wicked falsehood—for such I was certain it must be—this was continually in my thoughts, and quite destroyed my cheerfulness. And the worst of it was that I never could get my host to enter into it. Whenever I began, his face would change and his manner grow constrained, and his chief desire always seemed to lead me to some other subject.
One day, when the heat of the summer came forth, and the peaches began to blush toward it, and bronze-ribbed figs grew damask-gray with a globule of sirup in their eyes, and melons and pumpkins already had curved their fluted stalks with heaviness, and the dust of the plains was beginning to fly, and the bright spring flowers were dead more swiftly even than they first were born, I sat with Suan Isco at my father's cross, and told her to make me cry with some of all the many sad things she knew. She knew a wondrous number of things insatiably sad and wild; and the quiet way in which she told them (not only without any horror, but as if they were rightly to be expected), also the deep and rather guttural tone of voice, and the stillness of the form, made it impossible to help believing verily every word she said.
That there should be in the world such things, so dark, unjust, and full of woe, was enough to puzzle a child brought up among the noblest philosophers; whereas I had simply been educated by good unpretentious women, who had partly retired from the world, but not to such a depth as to drown all thought of what was left behind them. These were ready at any time to return upon good opportunity; and some of them had done so, with many tears, when they came into property.
“Please to tell me no more now,” I said at last to Suan; “my eyes are so sore they will be quite red, and perhaps Uncle Sam will come home to-night. I am afraid he has found some trouble with the money, or he ought to have been at home before. Don't you think so, Suan?”
“Yes, yes; trouble with the money. Always with the white mans that.”
“Very well. I shall go and look for some money. I had a most wonderful dream last night. Only I must go quite alone. You had better go and look to the larder, Suan. If they come, they are sure to be hungry.”
“Yes, yes; the white mans always hungry, sep when thirsty.”
The Indian woman, who had in her heart a general contempt for the white race, save those of our own household, drew her bright-colored shawl around her, and set off with her peculiar walk. Her walk was not ungraceful, because it was so purely natural; but it differed almost as much as the step of a quadruped from what we are taught. I, with heavy thoughts but careless steps, set off on my wanderings. I wanted to try to have no set purpose, course, or consideration, but to go wherever chance should lead me, without choice, as in my dream. And after many vague turns, and even closings of rebellious eyes, I found myself, perhaps by the force of habit, at the ruins of the mill.
I seemed to recognize some resemblance (which is as much as one can expect) to the scene which had been in my sleep before me. But sleeping I had seen roaring torrents; waking, I beheld a quiet stream. The little river, as blue as ever, and shrinking from all thoughts of wrath, showed nothing in its pure gaze now but a gladness to refresh and cool. In many nicely sheltered corners it was full of soft reflection as to the good it had to do; and then, in silver and golden runnels, on it went to do it. And the happy voice and many sweetly flashing little glances told that it knew of the lovely lives beside it, created and comforted by itself.
But I looked at the dark ruin it had wrought, and like a child I was angry with it for the sake of Uncle Sam. Only the foundations and the big heavy stones of the mill were left, and the clear bright water purled around, or made little eddies among them. All were touched with silvery sound, and soft caressing dimples. But I looked at the passionate mountains first, to be sure of no more violence; for if a burned child dreads the fire, one half drowned may be excused for little faith in water. The mountains in the sunshine looked as if nothing could move their grandeur, and so I stepped from stone to stone, in the bed of the placid brightness.
Presently I came to a place where one of the great black piles, driven in by order of the Sawyer, to serve as a back-stay for his walls, had been swept by the flood from its vertical sinking, but had not been swept away. The square tarred post of mountain pine reclined down stream, and gently nodded to the current's impact. But overthrown as it was, it could not make its exit and float away, as all its brethren had done. At this I had wondered before, and now I went to see what the reason was. By throwing a short piece of plank from one of the shattered foundations into a nick in the shoulder of the reclining pile, I managed to get there and sit upon it, and search for its obstruction.
The water was flowing smoothly toward me, and as clear as crystal, being scarcely more than a foot in depth. And there, on the upper verge of the hole, raised by the leverage of the butt from the granite sand of the river-bed, I saw a great bowlder of rich yellow light. I was so much amazed that I cried out at once, “Oh! what a beautiful great yellow fish!” And I shouted to Jowler, who had found where I was, and followed me, as usual. The great dog was famous for his love of fishing, and had often brought a fine salmon forth.
Jowler was always a zealous fellow, and he answered eagerly to my call by dashing at once into the water, and following the guidance of my hand. But when he saw what I pointed at, he was bitterly disappointed, and gave me to understand as much by looking at me foolishly. “Now don't be a stupid dog,” I said; “do what I tell you immediately. Whatever it is, bring it out, Sir.”
Jowler knew that I would be obeyed whenever I called him “Sir;” so he ducked his great head under the water, and tugged with his teeth at the object. His back corded up, and his tail grew rigid with the intensity of his labor, but the task was quite beyond him. He could not even stir the mighty mass at which he struggled, but he bit off a little projecting corner, and came to me with it in his mouth. Then he laid his dripping jaws on my lap, and his ears fell back, and his tail hung down with utter sense of failure.
I patted his broad intelligent forehead, and wiped his black eyes with his ears, and took from his lips what he offered to me. Then I saw that his grinders were framed with gold, as if he had been to a dentist regardless of expense, and into my hand he dropped a lump of solid glittering virgin ore. He had not the smallest idea of having done any thing worthy of human applause; and he put out his long red tongue and licked his teeth to get rid of uneatable dross, and gave me a quiet nudge to ask what more I wanted of him.
CHAPTER XI
ROVERS
From Jowler I wanted nothing more. Such matters were too grand for him. He had beaten the dog of Hercules, who had only brought the purple dye—a thing requiring skill and art and taste to give it value. But gold does well without all these, and better in their absence. From handling many little nuggets, and hearkening to Suan Isco's tales of treachery, theft, and murder done by white men for the sake of this, I knew that here I had found enough to cost the lives of fifty men.
At present, however, I was not possessed with dread so much as I was with joy, and even a secret exultation, at the power placed in my hands. For I was too young to moralize or attempt philosophy. Here I had a knowledge which the wisest of mankind might envy, much as they despise it when they have no chance of getting it. I looked at my father's grave, in the shadow of the quiet peach-trees, and I could not help crying as I thought that this was come too late for him. Then I called off Jowler, who wished (like a man) to have another tug at it; and home I ran to tell my news, but failing of breath, had time to think.
It was lucky enough that this was so, for there might have been the greatest mischief; and sadly excited as I was, the trouble I had seen so much of came back to my beating heart and told me to be careful. But surely there could be no harm in trusting Suan Isco. However, I looked at her several times, and was not quite so sure about it. She was wonderfully true and faithful, and scarcely seemed to concede to gold its paramount rank and influence. But that might only have been because she had never known the want of it, or had never seen a lump worth stealing, which I was sure that this must be; and the unregenerate state of all who have never been baptized had been impressed on me continually. How could I mistrust a Christian, and place confidence in an Indian? Therefore I tried to sleep without telling any one, but was unable.
But, as it happened, my good discovery did not keep me so very long awake, for on the following day our troop of horsemen returned from San Francisco. Of course I have done very foolish things once and again throughout my life, but perhaps I never did any thing more absurd than during the whole of that day. To begin with, I was up before the sun, and down at the mill, and along the plank, which I had removed overnight, but now replaced as my bridge to the pine-wood pile. Then I gazed with eager desire and fear—which was the stronger I scarcely knew—for the yellow under-gleam, to show the safety of my treasure. There it lay, as safe as could be, massive, grand, and beautiful, with tones of varying richness as the ripples varied over it. The pale light of the morning breathed a dewy lustre down the banks; the sun (although unrisen yet) drew furrows through the mountain gaps; the birds from every hanging tree addressed the day with melody; the crystal water, purer than religion's brightest dream, went by; and here among them lay, unmoved, unthought of, and inanimate, the thing which to a human being is worth all the rest put together.
This contemplation had upon me an effect so noble that here I resolved to spend my time, for fear of any robbery. I was afraid to gaze more than could be helped at this grand sight, lest other eyes should spy what was going on, and long to share it. And after hurrying home to breakfast and returning in like haste, I got a scare, such as I well deserved, for being so extremely foolish.
The carpentry of the mill-wheel had proved so very stanch and steadfast that even in that raging deluge the whole had held together. It had been bodily torn from its hold and swept away down the valley; but somewhere it grounded, as the flood ebbed out, and a strong team had tugged it back again. And the Sawyer had vowed that, come what would, his mill should work with the self-same wheel which he with younger hands had wrought. Now this wheel (to prevent any warp, and save the dry timber from the sun) was laid in a little shady cut, where water trickled under it. And here I had taken up my abode to watch my monster nugget.
I had pulled my shoes and stockings off, and was paddling in the runnel, sheltered by the deep rim of the wheel, and enjoying the water. Little fish darted by me, and lovely spotted lizards played about, and I was almost beginning even to forget my rock of gold. In self-defense it is right to say that for the gold, on my own account, I cared as much as I might have done for a fig worm-eaten. It was for Uncle Sam, and all his dear love, that I watched the gold, hoping in his sad disaster to restore his fortunes. But suddenly over the rim of the wheel (laid flat in the tributary brook) I descried across the main river a moving company of horsemen.
These men could have nothing to do with Uncle Sam and his party, for they were coming from the mountain-side, while he would return by the track across the plains. And they were already so near that I could see their dress quite plainly, and knew them to be Mexican rovers, mixed with loose Americans. There are few worse men on the face of the earth than these, when in the humor, and unluckily they seem almost always to be in that humor. Therefore, when I saw their battered sun-hats and baggy slouching boots, I feared that little ruth, or truth, or mercy dwelt between them.
On this account I shrank behind the shelter of the mill-wheel, and held my head in one trembling hand, and with the other drew my wind-tossed hair into small compass. For my blood ran cold at the many dreadful things that came into my mind. I was sure that they had not spied me yet, and my overwhelming desire was to decline all introduction.
I counted fourteen gentlemen, for so they always styled themselves, and would pistol any man who expressed a contrary opinion. Fourteen of them rode to the brink of the quiet blue river on the other side; and there they let their horses drink, and some dismounted and filled canteens, and some of longer reach stooped from the saddle and did likewise. But one, who seemed to be the captain, wanted no water for his rum.
“Cut it short, boys,” I heard him say, with a fine South Californian twang (which, as well as his free swearing, I will freely omit). “If we mean to have fair play with the gal, now or never's the time for it: old Sam may come home almost any time.”
What miserable cowards! Though there were so many of them, they really had no heart to face an old man known for courage. Frightened as I was, perhaps good indignation helped me to flutter no more, and not faint away, but watch those miscreants steadily.
The horses put down their sandy lips over and over again to drink, scarcely knowing when they ought to stop, and seemed to get thicker before my eyes. The dribbling of the water from their mouths prepared them to begin again, till the riders struck the savage unroweled spur into their refreshment. At this they jerked their noses up, and looked at one another to say that they expected it, and then they lifted their weary legs and began to plash through the river.
It is a pretty thing to see a skillful horse plod through a stream, probing with his eyes the depth, and stretching his head before his feet, and at every step he whisks his tail to tell himself that he is right. In my agony of observation all these things I heeded, but only knew that I had done so when I thought long afterward. At the moment I was in such a fright that my eyes worked better than my mind. However, even so, I thought of my golden millstone, and was aware that they crossed below, and could not see it.
They gained the bank upon our side within fifty yards of where I crouched; and it was not presence of mind, but abject fear, which kept me crouching. I counted them again as they leaped the bank and seemed to look at me. I could see the dark array of eyes, and could scarcely keep from shrieking. But my throat was dry and made no sound, and a frightened bird set up a scream, which drew off their attention.
In perils of later days I often thought of this fear, and almost felt that the hand of Heaven had been stretched forth on purpose to help my helplessness.
For the moment, however, I lay as close as if under the hand of the evil one; and the snorting of the horses passed me, and wicked laughter of the men. One was telling a horrible tale, and the rest rejoicing in it; and the bright sun, glowing on their withered skin, discovered perhaps no viler thing in all the world to shine upon. One of them even pointed at my mill-wheel with a witty gibe—at least, perhaps, it was wit to him—about the Sawyer's misfortune; but the sun was then in his eyes, and my dress was just of the color of the timber. So on they rode, and the pleasant turf (having lately received some rain) softly answered to the kneading of their hoofs as they galloped away to surround the house.
I was just at the very point of rising and running up into the dark of the valley, when a stroke of arithmetic stopped me. Fourteen men and fourteen horses I had counted on the other side; on this side I could not make any more than thirteen of them. I might have made a mistake; but still I thought I would stop just a minute to see. And in that minute I saw the other man walking slowly on the opposite bank. He had tethered his horse, and was left as outpost to watch and give warning of poor Uncle Sam's return.
At the thought of this, my frightened courage, in some extraordinary way, came back. I had played an ignoble part thus far, as almost any girl might have done. But now I resolved that, whatever might happen, my dear friend and guardian should not be entrapped and lose his life through my cowardice. We had been expecting him all the day; and if he should come and fall into an ambush, I only might survive to tell the tale. I ought to have hurried and warned the house, as my bitter conscience told me; but now it was much too late for that. The only amends that I could make was to try and warn our travelers.
Stooping as low as I could, and watching my time to cross the more open places when the sentry was looking away from me, I passed up the winding of the little watercourse, and sheltered in the swampy thicket which concealed its origin. Hence I could see for miles over the plain—broad reaches of corn land already turning pale, mazy river fringed with reed, hamlets scattered among clustering trees, and that which I chiefly cared to see, the dusty track from Sacramento.
Whether from ignorance of the country or of Mr. Gundry's plans, the sentinel had been posted badly. His beat commanded well enough the course from San Francisco; but that from Sacramento was not equally clear before him. For a jut of pine forest ran down from the mountains and cut off a part of his view of it. I had not the sense or the presence of mind to perceive this great advantage, but having a plain, quick path before me, forth I set upon it. Of course if the watchman had seen me, he would have leaped on his horse and soon caught me; but of that I scarcely even thought, I was in such confusion.
When I had run perhaps a mile (being at that time very slight, and of active figure), I saw a cloud of dust, about two miles off, rising through the bright blue haze. It was rich yellow dust of the fertile soil, which never seems to cake or clot. Sometimes you may walk for miles without the smallest fear of sinking, the earth is so elastic. And yet with a slight exertion you may push a walking-stick down through it until the handle stops it. My heart gave a jump: that cloud of dust was a sign of men on horseback. And who could it be but Uncle Sam and Firm and the foreman Martin?
As soon as it began to show itself, it proved to be these very three, carelessly lounging on their horses' backs, overcome with heat and dust and thirst. But when they saw me there all alone under the fury of the sun, they knew that something must have gone amiss, and were all wide awake in a moment.
“Well, now,” said the Sawyer, when I had told my tale as well as short breath allowed, “put this thing over your head, my dear, or you may gain a sun-stroke. I call it too bad of them skunks to drive you in Californy noon, like this.”
“Oh, Uncle Sam, never think of me; think of your house and your goods and Suan, and all at those bad men's mercy!”
“The old house ain't afire yet,” he answered, looking calmly under his hand in that direction. “And as for Suan, no fear at all. She knows how to deal with such gallowses; and they will keep her to cook their dinner. Firm, my lad, let us go and embrace them. They wouldn't 'a made much bones of shooting us down if we hadn't known of it, and if they had got miss afore the saddle. But if they don't give bail, as soon as they see me ride up to my door, my name's not Sampson Gundry. Only you keep out of the way, Miss Remy. You go to sleep a bit, that's a dear, in the graywitch spinny yonder, and wait till you hear Firm sound the horn. And then come you in to dinner-time; for the Lord is always over you.”
I hastened to the place which he pointed out—a beautiful covert of birch-trees—but to sleep was out of the question, worn out though I was with haste and heat, and (worst of all) with horror. In a soft mossy nest, where a breeze from the mountains played with the in and out ways of the wood, and the murmurous dream of genial insects now was beginning to drowse upon the air, and the heat of the sun could almost be seen thrilling through the alleys like a cicale's drum—here, in the middle of the languid peace, I waited for the terror of the rifle-crack.
For though Uncle Sam had spoken softly, and made so little of the peril he would meet, I had seen in his eyes some token of the deep wrath and strong indignation which had kept all his household and premises safe. And it seemed a most ominous sign that Firm had never said a word, but grasped his gun, and slowly got in front of his grandfather.
CHAPTER XII
GOLD AND GRIEF
It may have been an hour, but it seemed an age, ere the sound of the horn, in Firm's strong blast, released me from my hiding-place. I had heard no report of fire-arms, nor perceived any sign of conflict; and certainly the house was not on fire, or else I must have seen the smoke. For being still in great alarm, I had kept a very sharp lookout.
Ephraim Gundry came to meet me, which was very kind of him. He carried his bugle in his belt, that he might sound again for me, if needful. But I was already running toward the house, having made up my mind to be resolute. Nevertheless, I was highly pleased to have his company, and hear what had been done.
“Please to let me help you,” he said, with a smile. “Why, miss, you are trembling dreadfully. I assure you there is no cause for that.”
“But you might have been killed, and Uncle Sam, and Martin, and every body. Oh, those men did look so horrible!”
“Yes, they always do till you come to know them. But bigger cowards were never born. If they can take people by surprise, and shoot them without any danger, it is a splendid treat to them. But if any one like grandfather meets them face to face in the daylight, their respect for law and life returns. It is not the first visit they have paid us. Grandfather kept his temper well. It was lucky for them that he did.”
Remembering that the Rovers must have numbered nearly three to one, even if all our men were stanch, I thought it lucky for ourselves that there had been no outbreak. But Firm seemed rather sorry that they had departed so easily. And knowing that he never bragged, I began to share his confidence.
“They must be shot, sooner or later,” he said, “unless, indeed, they should be hanged. Their manner of going on is out of date in these days of settlement. It was all very well ten years ago. But now we are a civilized State, and the hand of law is over us. I think we were wrong to let them go. But of course I yield to the governor. And I think he was afraid for your sake. And to tell the truth, I may have been the same.”
Here he gave my arm a little squeeze, which appeared to me quite out of place; therefore I withdrew and hurried on. Before he could catch me I entered the door, and found the Sawyer sitting calmly with his own long pipe once more, and watching Suan cooking.
“They rogues have had all the best of our victuals,” he said, as soon as he had kissed me. “Respectable visitors is my delight, and welcome to all of the larder; but at my time of life it goes agin the grain to lease out my dinner to galley-rakers. Suan, you are burning the fat again.”
Suan Isco, being an excellent cook (although of quiet temper), never paid heed to criticism, but lifted her elbow and went on. Mr. Gundry knew that it was wise to offer no further meddling, although it is well to keep them up to their work by a little grumbling. But when I came to see what broken bits were left for Suan to deal with, I only wondered that he was not cross.
“Thank God for a better meal than I deserve,” he said, when they all had finished. “Suan, you are a treasure, as I tell you every day a'most. Now if they have left us a bottle of wine, let us have it up. We be all in the dumps. But that will never do, my lad.”
He patted Firm on the shoulder, as if he were the younger man of the two, and his grandson went down to the wreck of the cellar; while I, who had tried to wait upon them in an eager, clumsy way, perceived that something was gone amiss, something more serious and lasting than the mischief made by the robber troop. Was it that his long ride had failed, and not a friend could be found to help him?
When Martin and the rest were gone, after a single glass of wine, and Ephraim had made excuse of something to be seen to, the Sawyer leaned back in his chair, and his cheerful face was troubled. I filled his pipe and lit it for him, and waited for him to speak, well knowing his simple and outspoken heart. But he looked at me and thanked me kindly, and seemed to be turning some grief in his mind.
“It ain't for the money,” he said at last, talking more to himself than to me; “the money might 'a been all very well and useful in a sort of way. But the feelin'—the feelin' is the thing I look at, and it ought to have been more hearty. Security! Charge on my land, indeed! And I can run away, but my land must stop behind! What security did I ask of them? 'Tis enough a'most to make a rogue of me.”
“Nothing could ever do that, Uncle Sam,” I exclaimed, as I came and sat close to him, while he looked at me bravely, and began to smile.
“Why, what was little missy thinking of?” he asked. “How solid she looks! Why, I never see the like!”
“Then you ought to have seen it, Uncle Sam. You ought to have seen it fifty times, with every body who loves you. And who can help loving you, Uncle Sam?”
“Well, they say that I charged too much for lumber, a-cuttin' on the cross, and the backstroke work. And it may 'a been so, when I took agin a man. But to bring up all that, with the mill strown down, is a cowardly thing, to my thinking. And to make no count of the beadin' I threw in, whenever it were a straightforrard job, and the turpsy knots, and the clogging of the teeth—'tis a bad bit to swallow, when the mill is strown.”
“But the mill shall not be strown, Uncle Sam. The mill shall be built again. And I will find the money.”
Mr. Gundry stared at me and shook his head. He could not bear to tell me how poor I was, while I thought myself almost made of money. “Five thousand dollars you have got put by for me,” I continued, with great importance. “Five thousand dollars from the sale and the insurance fund. And five thousand dollars must be five-and-twenty thousand francs. Uncle Sam, you shall have every farthing of it. And if that won't build the mill again, I have got my mother's diamonds.”
“Five thousand dollars!” cried the Sawyer, in amazement, opening his great gray eyes at me. And then he remembered the tale which he had told, to make me seem independent. “Oh yes, to be sure, my dear; now I recollect. To be sure—to be sure—your own five thousand dollars. But never will I touch one cent of your nice little fortune; no, not to save my life. After all, I am not so gone in years but what I can build the mill again myself. The Lord hath spared my hands and eyes, and gifted me still with machinery. And Firm is a very handy lad, and can carry out a job pretty fairly, with better brains to stand over him, although it has not pleased the Lord to gift him with sense of machinery, like me. But that is all for the best, no doubt. If Ephraim had too much of brains, he might have contradicted me. And that I could never abide, God knows, from any green young jackanapes.”
“Oh, Uncle Sam, let me tell you something—something very important!”
“No, my dear, nothing more just now. It has done me good to have a little talk, and scared the blue somethings out of me. But just go and ask whatever is become of Firm. He was riled with them greasers. It was all I could do to keep the boy out of a difficulty with them. And if they camp any where nigh, it is like enough he may go hankerin' after them. The grand march of intellect hathn't managed yet to march old heads upon young shoulders. And Firm might happen to go outside the law.”
The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though mild of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from tales of Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol of him. And now, when she could not say where he was, but only was sure that he must be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great medicine man which she had hung about him), it seemed to me, according to what I was used to, that in these regions human life was held a great deal too lightly.
It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is the duty of a fellow-creature. He was a very good young man, and in his way good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite, and a very good carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly always listened. But of course he was not to be compared as yet to his grandfather, the true Sawyer.
When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm, and the impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found Mr. Gundry in a genial mood. He never made himself uneasy about any trifles. He always had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways of Providence, and having lost his only son Elijah, he was sure that he never could lose Firm. He had taken his glass of hot whiskey and water, which always made him temperate; and if he felt any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on them now from a high point of view.
“I may 'a said a little too much, my dear, about the badness of mankind,” he observed, with his pipe lying comfortably on his breast; “all sayings of that sort is apt to go too far. I ought to have made more allowance for the times, which gets into a ticklish state, when a old man is put about with them. Never you pay no heed whatever to any harsh words I may have used. All that is a very bad thing for young folk.”
“But if they treated you badly, Uncle Sam, how can you think that they treated you well?”
He took some time to consider this, because he was true in all his thoughts; and then he turned off to something else.
“Why, the smashing of the mill may have been a mercy, although in disguise to the present time of sight. It will send up the price of scantlings, and we was getting on too fast with them. By the time we have built up the mill again we shall have more orders than we know how to do with. When I come to reckon of it, to me it appears to be the reasonable thing to feel a lump of grief for the old mill, and then to set to and build a stronger one. Yes, that must be about the right thing to do. And we'll have all the neighbors in when we lay foundations.”
“But what will be the good of it, Uncle Sam, when the new mill may at any time be washed away again?”
“Never, at any time,” he answered, very firmly, gazing through the door as if he saw the vain endeavor. “That little game can easily be stopped, for about fifty dollars, by opening down the bank toward the old track of the river. The biggest waterspout that ever came down from the mountains could never come anigh the mill, but go right down the valley. It hath been in my mind to do it often, and now that I see the need, I will. Firm and I will begin tomorrow.”
“But where is all the money to come from, Uncle Sam? You said that all your friends had refused to help you.”
“Never mind, my dear. I will help myself. It won't be the first time, perhaps, in my life.”
“But supposing that I could help you, just some little? Supposing that I had found the biggest lump of gold ever found in all California?”
Mr. Gundry ought to have looked surprised, and I was amazed that he did not; but he took it as quietly as if I had told him that I had just picked up a brass button of his; and I thought that he doubted my knowledge, very likely, even as to what gold was.
“It is gold, Uncle Sam, every bit of it gold—here is a piece of it; just look—and as large, I am sure, as this table. And it may be as deep as this room, for all that one can judge to the contrary. Why, it stopped the big pile from coming to the top, when even you went down the river.”
“Well, now, that explains a thing or two,” said the Sawyer, smiling peacefully, and beginning to think of another pipe, if preparation meant any thing. “Two things have puzzled me about that stump, and, indeed, I might say three things. Why did he take such a time to drive? and why would he never stand up like a man? and why wouldn't he go away when he ought to?”
“Because he had the best of all reasons, Uncle Sam. He was anchored on his gold, as I have read in French, and he had a good right to be crooked about it, and no power could get him away from it.”
“Hush, my dear, hush! It is not at all good for young people to let their minds run on so. But this gold looks very good indeed. Are you sure that it is a fair sample, and that there is any more of it?”
“How can you be so dreadfully provoking, Uncle Sam, when I tell you that I saw it with my own eyes? And there must be at least half a ton of it.”
“Well, half a hundred-weight will be enough for me. And you shall have all the rest, my dear—that is, if you will spare me a bit, Miss Remy. It all belongs to you by discovery, according to the diggers' law. And your eyes are so bright about it, miss, that the whole of your heart must be running upon it.”
“Then you think me as bad as the rest of the world! How I wish that I had never seen it! It was only for you that I cared about it—for you, for you; and I will never touch a scrap of it.”
Mr. Gundry had only been trying me, perhaps. But I did not see it in that light, and burst into a flood of childish tears, that he should misunderstand me so. Gold had its usual end, in grief. Uncle Sam rose up to soothe me and to beg my pardon, and to say that perhaps he was harsh because of the treatment he had received from his friends. He took me in his arms and kissed me; but before I could leave off sobbing, the crack of a rifle rang through the house, and Suan Isco, with a wail, rushed out.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SAWYER'S PRAYER
The darkness of young summer night was falling on earth and tree and stream. Every thing looked of a different form and color from those of an hour ago, and the rich bloom of shadow mixed with color, and cast by snowy mountains, which have stored the purple adieu of the sun, was filling the air with delicious calm. The Sawyer ran out with his shirt sleeves shining, so that any sneaking foe might shoot him; but, with the instinct of a settler, he had caught up his rifle. I stood beneath a carob-tree, which had been planted near the porch, and flung fantastic tassels down, like the ear-rings of a negress. And not having sense enough to do good, I was only able to be frightened.
Listening intently, I heard the sound of skirring steps on the other side of and some way down the river; and the peculiar tread, even thus far off, was plainly Suan Isco's. And then in the stillness a weary and heavy foot went toiling after it. Before I could follow, which I longed to do, to learn at once the worst of it, I saw the figure of a man much nearer, and even within twenty yards of me, gliding along without any sound. Faint as the light was, I felt sure that it was not one of our own men, and the barrel of a long gun upon his shoulder made a black line among silver leaves. I longed to run forth and stop him, but my courage was not prompt enough, and I shamefully shrank away behind the trunk of the carob-tree. Like a sleuth, compact, and calm-hearted villain, he went along without any breath of sound, stealing his escape with skill, till a white bower-tent made a background for him, and he leaped up and fell flat without a groan. The crack of a rifle came later than his leap, and a curl of white smoke shone against a black rock, and the Sawyer, in the distance, cried, “Well, now!” as he generally did when satisfied.
So scared was I that I caught hold of a cluster of pods to steady me; and then, without any more fear for myself, I ran to see whether it was possible to help. But the poor man lay beyond earthly help; he was too dead to palpitate. His life must have left him in the air, and he could not even have felt his fall.
In violent terror, I burst into tears, and lifted his heavy head, and strove to force his hot hands open, and did I know not what, without thinking, laboring only to recall his life.
“Are you grieving for the skulk who has shot my Firm?” said a stern voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr. Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam. I tried to speak to him, but was too frightened. The wrath of blood was in his face, and all his kind desires were gone.
“Yes, like a girl, you are sorry for a man who has stained this earth, till his only atonement is to stain it with his blood. Captain Pedro, there you lie, shot, like a coward, through the back. I wish you were alive to taste my boots. Murderer of men and filthy ravisher of women, miscreant of God, how can I keep from trampling on you?”
It never had been in my dream that a good man could so entirely forget himself. I wanted to think that it must be somebody else, and not our Uncle Sam. But he looked toward the west, as all men do when their spirits are full of death, and the wan light showed that his chin was triple.
Whether it may have been right or wrong, I made all haste to get away. The face of the dead man was quite a pleasant thing, compared with the face of the old man living. He may not have meant it, and I hope he never did, but beyond all controversy he looked barbarous for the moment.
As I slipped away, to know the worst, there I saw him standing still, longing to kick the vile man's corpse, but quieted by the great awe of death. If the man had stirred, or breathed, or even moaned, the living man would have lost all reverence in his fury. But the power of the other world was greater than even revenge could trample on. He let it lie there, and he stooped his head, and went away quite softly.
My little foolish heart was bitterly visited by a thing like this. The Sawyer, though not of great human rank, was gifted with the largest human nature that I had ever met with. And though it was impossible as yet to think, a hollow depression, as at the loss of some great ideal, came over me.
Returning wretchedly to the house, I met Suan Isco and two men bringing the body of poor Firm. His head and both his arms hung down, and they wanted somebody to lift them; and this I ran to do, although they called out to me not to meddle. The body was carried in, and laid upon three chairs, with a pillow at the head; and then a light was struck, and a candle brought by somebody or other. And Suan Isco sat upon the floor, and set up a miserable Indian dirge.
“Stow away that,” cried Martin of the mill, for he was one of those two men; “wait till the lad is dead, and then pipe up to your liking. I felt him try to kick while we carried him along. He come forth on a arrand of that sort, and he seem to 'a been disappointed. A very fine young chap I call him, for to try to do it still, howsomever his mind might be wandering. Missy, keep his head up.”
I did as I was told, and watched poor Firm as if my own life hung upon any sign of life in him. When I look back at these things, I think that fright and grief and pity must have turned an excitable girl almost into a real woman. But I had no sense of such things then.
“I tell you he ain't dead,” cried Martin; “no more dead than I be. He feels the young gal's hand below him, and I see him try to turn up his eyes. He has taken a very bad knock, no doubt, and trouble about his breathing. I seed a fellow scalped once, and shot through the heart; but he came all round in about six months, and protected his head with a document. Firm, now, don't you be a fool. I have had worse things in my family.”
Ephraim Gundry seemed to know that some one was upbraiding him. At any rate, his white lips trembled with a weak desire to breathe, and a little shadow of life appeared to flicker in his open eyes. And on my sleeve, beneath his back, some hot bright blood came trickling.
“Keep him to that,” said Martin, with some carpenter sort of surgery; “less fear of the life when the blood begins to run. Don't move him, missy; never mind your arm. It will be the saving of him.”
I was not strong enough to hold him up, but Suan ran to help me; and they told me afterward that I fell faint, and no doubt it must have been so. But when the rest were gone, and had taken poor Firm to his straw mattress, the cold night air must have flowed into the room, and that, perhaps, revived me. I went to the bottom of the stairs and listened, and then stole up to the landing, and heard Suan Isco, who had taken the command, speaking cheerfully in her worst English. Then I hoped for the best, and, without any knowledge, wandered forth into the open air.
Walking quite as in a dream this time (which I had vainly striven to do when seeking for my nugget), I came to the bank of the gleaming river, and saw the water just in time to stop from stepping into it. Careless about this and every other thing for the moment, I threw myself on the sod, and listened to the mournful melody of night. Sundry unknown creatures, which by day keep timid silence, were sending timid sounds into the darkness, holding quiet converse with themselves, or it, or one another. And the silvery murmur of the wavelets soothed the twinkling sleep of leaves.
I also, being worn and weary, and having a frock which improved with washing, and was spoiled already by nursing Firm, was well content to throw myself into a niche of river-bank and let all things flow past me. But before any thing had found time to flow far, or the lullaby of night had lulled me, there came to me a sadder sound than plaintive Nature can produce without her Master's aid, the saddest sound in all creation—a strong man's wail.
Child as I was—and, perhaps, all the more for that reason as knowing so little of mankind—I might have been more frightened, but I could not have been a bit more shocked, by the roaring of a lion. For I knew in a moment whose voice it was, and that made it pierce me tenfold. It was Uncle Sam, lamenting to himself, and to his God alone, the loss of his last hope on earth. He could not dream that any other than his Maker (and his Maker's works, if ever they have any sympathy) listened to the wild outpourings of an aged but still very natural heart, which had always been proud of controlling itself. I could see his great frame through a willow-tree, with the sere grass and withered reeds around, and the faint gleam of fugitive water beyond. He was kneeling toward his shattered mill, having rolled his shirt sleeves back to pray, and his white locks shone in the starlight; then, after trying several times, he managed to pray a little. First (perhaps partly from habit), he said the prayer of Our Lord pretty firmly, and then he went on to his own special case, with a doubting whether he should mention it. But as he went on he gathered courage, or received it from above, and was able to say what he wanted.
“Almighty Father of the living and the dead, I have lived long, and shall soon be dead, and my days have been full of trouble. But I never had such trouble as this here before, and I don't think I ever shall get over it. I have sinned every day of my life, and not thought of Thee, but of victuals, and money, and stuff; and nobody knows, but myself and Thou, all the little bad things inside of me. I cared a deal more to be respectable and get on with my business than to be prepared for kingdom come. And I have just been proud about the shooting of a villain, who might 'a gone free and repented. There is nobody left to me in my old age. Thou hast taken all of them. Wife, and son, and mill, and grandson, and my brother who robbed me—the whole of it may have been for my good, but I have got no good out of it. Show me the way for a little time, O Lord, to make the best of it; and teach me to bear it like a man, and not break down at this time of life. Thou knowest what is right. Please to do it. Amen.”
CHAPTER XIV
NOT FAR TO SEEK
In the present state of controversies most profoundly religious, the Lord alone can decide (though thousands of men would hurry to pronounce) for or against the orthodoxy of the ancient Sawyer's prayer. But if sound doctrine can be established by success (as it always is), Uncle Sam's theology must have been unusually sound; for it pleased a gracious Power to know what he wanted, and to grant it.
Brave as Mr. Gundry was, and much-enduring and resigned, the latter years of his life on earth must have dragged on very heavily, with abstract resignation only, and none of his blood to care for him. Being so obstinate a man, he might have never admitted this, but proved against every one's voice, except his own, his special blessedness. But this must have been a trial to him, and happily he was spared from it.
For although Firm had been very badly shot, and kept us for weeks in anxiety about him, his strong young constitution and well-nourished frame got over it. A truly good and learned doctor came from Sacramento, and we hung upon his words, and found that there he left us hanging. And this was the wisest thing perhaps that he could do, because in America medical men are not absurdly expected, as they are in England, to do any good, but are valued chiefly upon their power of predicting what they can not help. And this man of science perceived that he might do harm to himself and his family by predicting amiss, whereas he could do no good to his patient by predicting rightly. And so he foretold both good and evil, to meet the intentions of Providence.
He had not been sent for in vain, however; and to give him his due, he saved Ephraim's life, for he drew from the wound a large bullet, which, if left, must have poisoned all his circulation, although it was made of pure silver. The Sawyer wished to keep this silver bullet as a token, but the doctor said that it belonged to him according to miners' law; and so it came to a moderate argument. Each was a thoroughly stubborn man, according to the bent of all good men, and reasoning increased their unreason. But the doctor won—as indeed he deserved, for the extraction had been delicate—because, when reason had been exhausted, he just said this:
“Colonel Gundry, let us have no more words. The true owner is your grandson. I will put it back where I took it from.”
Upon this, the Sawyer being tickled, as men very often are in sad moments, took the doctor by the hand, and gave him the bullet heartily. And the medical man had a loop made to it, and wore it upon his watch chain. And he told the story so often (saying that another man perhaps might have got it out, but no other man could have kept it), that among a great race who judge by facts it doubled his practice immediately.
The leader of the robbers, known far and wide as “Captain Pedro,” was buried where he fell; and the whole so raised Uncle Sam's reputation that his house was never attacked again; and if any bad characters were forced by circumstances to come near him, they never asked for any thing stronger than ginger-beer or lemonade, and departed very promptly. For as soon as Ephraim Gundry could give account of his disaster, it was clear that Don Pedro owed his fate to a bottle of the Sawyer's whiskey. Firm had only intended to give him a lesson for misbehavior, being fired by his grandfather's words about swinging me on the saddle. This idea had justly appeared to him to demand a protest; to deliver which he at once set forth with a valuable cowhide whip. Coming thus to the Rovers' camp, and finding their captain sitting in the shade to digest his dinner, Firm laid hold of him by the neck, and gave way to feelings of severity. Don Pedro regretted his misconduct, and being lifted up for the moment above his ordinary view, perceived that he might have done better, and shaped the pattern of his tongue to it. Firm, hearing this, had good hopes of him; yet knowing how volatile repentance is, he strove to form a well-marked track for it. And when the captain ceased to receive cowhide, he must have had it long enough to miss it.
Now this might have ended honorably and amicably for all concerned, if the captain had known when he was well off. Unluckily he had purloined a bottle of Mr. Gundry's whiskey, and he drew the cork now to rub his stripes, and the smell of it moved him to try it inside. And before very long his ideas of honor, which he had sense enough to drop when sober, began to come into his eyes again, and to stir him up to mischief. Hence it was that he followed Firm, who was riding home well satisfied, and appeased his honor by shooting in cold blood, and justice by being shot anyhow.
It was beautiful, through all this trying time, to watch Uncle Sam's proceedings: he appeared so delightfully calm and almost careless whenever he was looked at. And then he was ashamed of himself perpetually, if any one went on with it. Nobody tried to observe him, of course, or remark upon any of his doings, and for this he would become so grateful that he would long to tell all his thoughts, and then stop. This must have been a great worry to him, seeing how open his manner was; and whenever he wanted to hide any thing, he informed us of that intention. So that we exhorted Firm every day to come round and restore us to our usual state. This was the poor fellow's special desire; and often he was angry with himself, and made himself worse again by declaring that he must be a milksop to lie there so long. Whereas, it was much more near the truth that few other men, even in the Western States, would ever have got over such a wound. I am not learned enough to say exactly where the damage was, but the doctor called it, I think, the sternum, and pronounced that “a building-up process” was required, and must take a long time, if it ever could be done.
It was done at last, thanks to Suan Isco, who scarcely ever left him by day or night, and treated him skillfully with healing herbs. But he, without meaning it, vexed her often by calling for me—a mere ignorant child. Suan was dreadfully jealous of this, and perhaps I was proud of that sentiment of hers, and tried to justify it, instead of laboring to remove it, as would have been the more proper course. And Firm most ungratefully said that my hand was lighter than poor Suan's, and every thing I did was better done, according to him, which was shameful on his part, and as untrue as any thing could be. However, we yielded to him in all things while he was so delicate; and it often made us poor weak things cry to be the masters of a tall strong man.
Firm Gundry received that shot in May, about ten days before the twelvemonth was completed from my father's death. The brightness of summer and beauty of autumn went by without his feeling them, and while his system was working hard to fortify itself by walling up, as the learned man had called it. There had been some difficulties in this process, caused partly, perhaps, by our too lavish supply of the raw material; and before Firm's gap in his “sternum” was stopped, the mountains were coming down upon us, as we always used to say when the snow-line stooped. In some seasons this is a sharp time of hurry, broken with storms, and capricious, while men have to slur in the driving weather tasks that should have been matured long since. But in other years the long descent into the depth of winter is taken not with a jump like that, but gently and softly and windingly, with a great many glimpses back at the summer, and a good deal of leaning on the arm of the sun.
And so it was this time. The autumn and the winter for a fortnight stood looking quietly at each other. They had quite agreed to share the hours, to suit the arrangements of the sun. The nights were starry and fresh and brisk, without any touch of tartness; and the days were sunny and soft and gentle, without any sense of languor. It was a lovely scene—blue shadows gliding among golden light.
The Sawyer came forth, and cried, “What a shame! This makes me feel quite young again. And yet I have done not a stroke of work. No excuse; make no excuse. I can do that pretty well for myself. Praise God for all His mercies. I might do worse, perhaps, than have a pipe.”
Then Firm came out to surprise him, and to please us all with the sight of himself. He steadied his steps with one great white hand upon his grandfather's Sunday staff, and his clear blue eyes were trembling with a sense of gratitude and a fear of tears. And I stepped behind a red strawberry-tree, for my sense of respect for him almost made me sob.
Then Jowler thought it high time to appear upon the scene, and convince us that he was not a dead dog yet. He had known tribulation, as his master had, and had found it a difficult thing to keep from the shadowy hunting ground of dogs who have lived a conscientious life. I had wondered at first what his reason could have been for not coming forward, according to his custom, to meet that troop of robbers. But his reason, alas! was too cogent to himself, though nobody else in that dreadful time could pay any attention to him. The Rovers, well knowing poor Jowler's repute, and declining the fair mode of testing it, had sent in advance a very crafty scout, a half-bred Indian, who knew as much about dogs as they could ever hope to know about themselves. This rogue approached faithful Jowler—so we were told long afterward—not in an upright way, but as if he had been a brother quadruped. And he took advantage of the dog's unfeigned surprise and interest to accost him with a piece of kidney containing a powerful poison. According to all sound analogy, this should have stopped the dear fellow's earthly tracks; but his spirit was such that he simply went away to nurse himself up in retirement. Neither man nor dog can tell what agonies he suffered; and doubtless his tortures of mind about duty unperformed were the worst of all. These things are out of human knowledge in its present unsympathetic state. Enough that poor Jowler came home at last, with his ribs all up and his tail very low.
Like friends who have come together again, almost from the jaws of death, we sat in the sunny noon, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The trees above us looked proud and cheerful, laying aside the mere frippery of leaves with a good grace and contented arms, and a surety of having quite enough next spring. Much of the fruity wealth of autumn still was clustering in our sight, heavily fetching the arched bough down to lessen the fall, when fall they must. And against the golden leaves of maple behind the unpretending roof a special wreath of blue shone like a climbing Ipomaea. But coming to examine this, one found it to be nothing more nor less than the smoke of the kitchen chimney, busy with a quiet roasting job.
This shows how clear the air was; but a thousand times as much could never tell how clear our spirits were. Nobody made any “demonstration,” or cut any frolicsome capers, or even said any thing exuberant. The steadfast brooding breed of England, which despises antics, was present in us all, and strengthened by a soil whose native growth is peril, chance, and marvel. And so we nodded at one another, and I ran over and courtesied to Uncle Sam, and he took me to him.
“You have been a dear good child,” he said, as he rose, and looked over my head at Firm. “My own granddarter, if such there had been, could not have done more to comfort me, nor half so much, for aught I know. There is no picking and choosing among the females, as God gives them. But he has given you for a blessing and saving to my old age, my dearie.”
“Oh, Uncle Sam, now the nugget!” I cried, desiring like a child to escape deep feeling, and fearing any strong words from Firm. “You have promised me ever so long that I should be the first to show Firm the nugget.”
“And so you shall, my dear, and Firm shall see it before he is an hour older, and Jowler shall come down to show us where it is.”
Firm, who had little faith in the nugget, but took it for a dream of mine, and had proved conclusively from his pillow that it could not exist in earnest, now with a gentle, satirical smile declared his anxiety to see it; and I led him along by his better arm, faster, perhaps, than he ought to have walked.
In a very few minutes we were at the place, and I ran eagerly to point it; but behold, where the nugget had been, there was nothing except the white bed of the river! The blue water flowed very softly on its way, without a gleam of gold to corrupt it.
“Oh, nobody will ever believe me again!” I exclaimed, in the saddest of sad dismay. “I dreamed about it first, but it never can have been a dream throughout. You know that I told you about it, Uncle Sam, even when you were very busy, and that shows that it never could have been a dream.”
“You told me about it, I remember now,” Mr. Gundry answered, dryly; “but it does not follow that there was such a thing. My dear, you may have imagined it; because it was the proper time for it to come, when my good friends had no money to lend. Your heart was so good that it got into your brain, and you must not be vexed, my dear child; it has done you good to dream of it.”
“I said so all along,” Firm observed. “Miss Rema felt that it ought to be, and so she believed that it must be, there. She is always so warm and trustful.”
“Is that all you are good for?” I cried, with no gratitude for his compliment. “As sure as I stand here, I saw a great bowlder of gold, and so did Jowler, and I gave you the piece that he brought up. Did you take them all in a dream, Uncle Sam? Come, can you get over that?”
I assure you that for the moment I knew not whether I stood upon my feet or head, until I perceived an extraordinary grin on the Sawyer's ample countenance; but Firm was not in the secret yet, for he gazed at me with compassion, and Uncle Sam looked at us both as if he were balancing our abilities.
“Send your dog in, missy,” at last he said. “He is more your dog than mine, I believe, and he obeys you like a Christian. Let him go and find it if he can.”
At a sign from me, the great dog dashed in, and scratched with all four feet at once, and made the valley echo with the ring of mighty barkings; and in less than two minutes there shone the nugget, as yellow and as big as ever.
“Ha! ha! I never saw a finer thing,” shouted Uncle Sam, like a school-boy. “I were too many for you, missy dear; but the old dog wollops the whole of us. I just shot a barrow-load of gravel on your nugget, to keep it all snug till Firm should come round; and if the boy had never come round, there the gold might have waited the will of the Almighty. It is a big spot, anyhow.”
It certainly was not a little spot, though they all seemed to make so light of it—which vexed me, because I had found it, and was as proud as if I had made it. Not by any means that the Sawyer was half as careless as he seemed to be; he put on much of this for my sake, having very lofty principles, especially concerning the duty of the young. Young people were never to have small ideas, so far as he could help it, particularly upon such matters as Mammon, or the world, or fashion; and not so very seldom he was obliged to catch himself up in his talking, when he chanced to be going on and forgetting that I, who required a higher vein of thought for my youth, was taking his words downright; and I think that all this had a great deal to do with his treating all that gold in such an exemplary manner; for if it had really mattered nothing, what made him go in the dark and shoot a great barrow-load of gravel over it?
CHAPTER XV
BROUGHT TO BANK
The sanity of a man is mainly tested among his neighbors and kindred by the amount of consideration which he has consistently given to cash. If money has been the chief object of his life, and he for its sake has spared nobody, no sooner is he known to be successful than admiration overpowers all the ill-will he has caused. He is shrewd, sagacious, long-headed, and great; he has earned his success, and few men grudge, while many seek to get a slice of it; but he, as a general rule, declines any premature distribution, and for this custody of his wealth he is admired all the more by those who have no hope of sharing it.
As soon as ever it was known that Uncle Sam had lodged at his banker's a tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, friends from every side poured in, all in hot haste, to lend him their last farthing. The Sawyer was pleased with their kindness, but thought that his second-best whiskey met the merits of the case. And he was more particular than usual with his words; for, according to an old saying of the diggers, a big nugget always has children, and, being too heavy to go very far, it is likely to keep all its little ones at home. Many people, therefore, were longing to seek for the frogs of this great toad; for so in their slang the miners called them, with a love of preternatural history. But Mr. Gundry allowed no search for the frogs, or even the tadpoles, of his patriarchal nugget. And much as he hated the idea of sowing the seeds of avarice in any one, he showed himself most consistent now in avoiding that imputation; for not only did he refuse to show the bed of his great treasure, after he had secured it, but he fenced the whole of it in, and tarred the fence, and put loopholes in it; and then he established Jowler where he could neither be shot nor poisoned, and kept a man with a double-barreled rifle in the ruin of the mill, handy to shoot, but not easy to be shot; and this was a resolute man, being Martin himself, who had now no business. Of course Martin grumbled; but the worse his temper was, the better for his duty, as seems to be the case with a great many men; and if any one had come to console him in his grumbling, never would he have gone away again.
It would have been reckless of me to pretend to say what any body ought to do; from the first to the last I left every thing to those who knew so much better; at the same time I felt that it might have done no harm if I had been more consulted, though I never dreamed of saying so, because the great gold had been found by me, and although I cared for it scarcely more than for the tag of a boot-lace, nobody seemed to me able to enter into it quite as I did; and as soon as Firm's danger and pain grew less, I began to get rather impatient, but Uncle Sam was not to be hurried.
Before ever he hoisted that rock of gold, he had made up his mind for me to be there, and he even put the business off, because I would not come one night, for I had a superstitious fear on account of its being my father's birthday. Uncle Sam had forgotten the date, and begged my pardon for proposing it; but he said that we must not put it off later than the following night, because the moonlight would be failing, and we durst not have any kind of lamp, and before the next moon the hard weather might begin. All this was before the liberal offers of his friends, of which I have spoken first, although they happened to come after it.
While the Sawyer had been keeping the treasure perdu, to abide the issue of his grandson's illness, he had taken good care both to watch it and to form some opinion of its shape and size; for, knowing the pile which I had described, he could not help finding it easily enough; and indeed the great fear was that others might find it, and come in great force to rob him; but nothing of that sort had happened, partly because he held his tongue rigidly, and partly, perhaps, because of the simple precaution which he had taken.
Now, however, it was needful to impart the secret to one man at least; for Firm, though recovering, was still so weak that it might have killed him to go into the water, or even to exert himself at all; and strong as Uncle Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-tackle, he alone could never bring that piece of bullion to bank; so, after much consideration, he resolved to tell Martin of the mill, as being the most trusty man about the place, as well as the most surly; but he did not tell him until every thing was ready, and then he took him straightway to the place.
Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan Isco, who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to keep watch, or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an ordinary man. The night was sultry, and the fire-flies (though dull in the radiance of the moon) darted, like soft little shooting-stars, across the still face of shadow, and the flood of the light of the moon was at its height, submerging every thing.
While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of attracting any wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the Sawyer rising from a hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin the foreman, and we soon saw that due preparation had been made, for they took from under some drift-wood (which had prevented us from observing it) a small movable crane, and fixed it on a platform of planks which they set up in the river-bed.
“Palefaces eat gold,” Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to satisfy herself. “Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of one other's ears. Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now.”
“Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan,” I answered; “as if it were possible to have enough!”
“For my part,” said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the evening, “I wish it had never been found at all. As sure as I stand here, mischief will come of it. It will break up our household. I hope it will turn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the face, as those big nuggets do, ninety-nine out of a hundred. I have had no faith in it all along.”
“Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose,” I answered, rather pettishly, for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about my nugget. “Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have had great faith in it.”
“Can't say, can't say,” was all Firm's reply; and he fell into the silent vein again.
“Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!” cried the Sawyer, who was splashing for his life in the water. “I've tackled 'un now. Just tighten up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like. You can't lift 'un! Lord bless 'ee, not you. It 'll take all I know to do that, I guess; and Firm ain't to lay no hand to it. Don't you be in such a doggoned hurry. Hold hard, can't you?”
For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught hold of a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the Sawyer swung himself up to bank, and in half a minute all was orderly. He showed us exactly where to throw our weight, and he used his own to such good effect that, after some creaking and groaning, the long horn of the crane rose steadily, and a mass of dripping sparkles shone in the moonlight over the water.
“Hurrah! what a whale! How the tough ash bends!” cried Uncle Sam, panting like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself. “Martin, lay your chest to it. We'll grass him in two seconds. Californy never saw a sight like this, I reckon.”
There was plenty of room for us all to stand round the monster and admire it. In shape it was just like a fat toad, squatting with his shoulders up and panting. Even a rough resemblance to the head and the haunches might be discovered, and a few spots of quartz shone here and there on the glistening and bossy surface. Some of us began to feel and handle it with vast admiration; but Firm, with his heavy boots, made a vicious kick at it, and a few bright scales, like sparks, flew off.
“Why, what ails the lad?” cried the Sawyer, in some wrath; “what harm hath the stone ever done to him? To my mind, this here lump is a proof of the whole creation of the world, and who hath lived long enough to gainsay? Here this lump hath lain, without changing color, since creation's day; here it is, as big and heavy as when the Lord laid hand to it. What good to argue agin such facts? Supposin' the world come out o' nothing, with nobody to fetch it, or to say a word of orders, how ever could it 'a managed to get a lump of gold like this in it? They clever fellers is too clever. Let 'em put all their heads together, and turn out a nugget, and I'll believe them.”
Uncle Sam's reasoning was too deep for any but himself to follow. He was not long in perceiving this, though we were content to admire his words without asking him to explain them; so he only said, “Well, well,” and began to try with both hands if he could heft this lump. He stirred it, and moved it, and raised it a little, as the glisten of the light upon its roundings showed; but lift it fairly from the ground he could not, however he might bow his sturdy legs and bend his mighty back to it; and, strange to say, he was pleased for once to acknowledge his own discomfiture.
“Five hundred and a half I used to lift to the height of my knee-cap easily; I may 'a fallen off now a hundred-weight with years, and strings in my back, and rheumatics; but this here little toad is a clear hundredweight out and beyond my heftage. If there's a pound here, there's not an ounce under six hundred-weight, I'll lay a thousand dollars. Miss Rema, give a name to him. All the thundering nuggets has thundering names.”
“Then this shall be called 'Uncle Sam,'” I answered, “because he is the largest and the best of all.”
“It shall stand, miss,” cried Martin, who was in great spirits, and seemed to have bettered himself forever. “You could not have given it a finer name, miss, if you had considered for a century. Uncle Sam is the name of our glorious race, from the kindness of our natur'. Every body's uncle we are now, in vartue of superior knowledge, and freedom, and giving of general advice, and stickin' to all the world, or all the good of it. Darned if old Sam aren't the front of creation!”
“Well, well,” said the Sawyer, “let us call it 'Uncle Sam,' if the dear young lady likes it; it would be bad luck to change the name; but, for all that, we must look uncommon sharp, or some of our glorious race will come and steal it afore we unbutton our eyes.”
“Pooh!” cried Martin; but he knew very well that his master's words were common-sense; and we left him on guard with a double-barreled gun, and Jowler to keep watch with him. And the next day he told us that he had spent the night in such a frame of mind from continual thought that when our pet cow came to drink at daybreak, it was but the blowing of her breath that saved her from taking a bullet between her soft tame eyes.
Now it could not in any kind of way hold good that such things should continue; and the Sawyer, though loath to lose sight of the nugget, perceived that he must not sacrifice all the morals of the neighborhood to it, and he barely had time to dispatch it on its road at the bottom of a load of lumber, with Martin to drive, and Jowler to sit up, and Firm to ride behind, when a troop of mixed robbers came riding across, with a four-wheel cart and two sturdy mules—enough to drag off every thing. They had clearly heard of the golden toad, and desired to know more of him; but Uncle Sam, with his usual blandness, met these men at the gate of his yard, and upon the top rail, to ease his arm, he rested a rifle of heavy metal, with seven revolving chambers. The robbers found out that they had lost their way, and Mr. Gundry answered that so they had, and the sooner they found it in another direction, the better it would be for them. They thought that he had all his men inside, and they were mighty civil, though we had only two negroes to help us, and Suan Isco, with a great gun cocked. But their curiosity was such that they could not help asking about the gold; and, sooner than shoot them, Uncle Sam replied that, upon his honor, the nugget was gone. And the fame of his word was so well known that these fellows (none of whom could tell the truth, even at confession) believed him on the spot, and begged his pardon for trespassing on his premises. They hoped that he would not say a word to the Vigilance Committee, who hanged a poor fellow for losing his road; and he told them that if they made off at once, nobody should pursue them; and so they rode off very happily.
CHAPTER XVI
FIRM AND INFIRM
Strange as it may appear, our quiet little home was not yet disturbed by that great discovery of gold. The Sawyer went up to the summit of esteem in public opinion; but to himself and to us he was the same as ever. He worked with his own hard hands and busy head just as he used to do; for although the mill was still in ruins, there was plenty of the finer work to do, which always required hand-labor. And at night he would sit at the end of the table furthest from the fire-place, with his spectacles on, and his red cheeks glowing, while he designed the future mill, which was to be built in the spring, and transcend every mill ever heard, thought, or dreamed of.
We all looked forward to a quiet winter, snug with warmth and cheer in-doors, and bright outside with sparkling trees, brisk air, and frosty appetite, when a foolish idea arose which spoiled the comfort at least of two of us. Ephraim Gundry found out, or fancied, that he was entirely filled with love of a very young maid, who never dreamed of such things, and hated even to hear of them; and the maid, unluckily, was myself.
During the time of his ailment I had been with him continually, being only too glad to assuage his pain, or turn his thoughts away from it. I partly suspected that he had incurred his bitter wound for my sake; though I never imputed his zeal to more than a young man's natural wrath at an outrage. But now he left me no longer in doubt, and made me most uncomfortable. Perhaps I was hard upon him, and afterward I often thought so, for he was very kind and gentle; but I was an orphan child, and had no one to advise me in such matters. I believe that he should have considered this, and allowed me to grow a little older; but perhaps he himself was too young as yet and too bashful to know how to manage things. It was the very evening after his return from Sacramento, and the beauty of the weather still abode in the soft warm depth around us. In every tint of rock and tree and playful glass of river a quiet clearness seemed to lie, and a rich content of color. The grandeur of the world was such that one could only rest among it, seeking neither voice nor thought.
Therefore I was more surprised than pleased to hear my name ring loudly through the echoing hollows, and then to see the bushes shaken, and an eager form leap out. I did not answer a word, but sat with a wreath of white bouvardia and small adiantum round my head, which I had plaited anyhow.
“What a lovely dear you are!” cried Firm, and then he seemed frightened at his own words.
“I had no idea that you would have finished your dinner so soon as this, Mr. Firm.”
“And you did not want me. You are vexed to see me. Tell the truth, Miss Rema.”
“I always tell the truth,” I answered; “and I did not want to be disturbed just now. I have so many things to think of.”
“And not me among them. Oh no, of course you never think of me, Erema.”
“It is very unkind of you to say that,” I answered, looking clearly at him, as a child looks at a man. “And it is not true, I assure you, Firm. Whenever I have thought of dear Uncle Sam, I very often go on to think of you, because he is so fond of you.”
“But not for my own sake, Erema; you never think of me for my own sake.”
“But yes, I do, I assure you, Mr. Firm; I do greatly. There is scarcely a day that I do not remember how hungry you are, and I think of you.”
“Tush!” replied Firm, with a lofty gaze. “Even for a moment that does not in any way express my meaning. My mind is very much above all eating when it dwells upon you, Erema. I have always been fond of you, Erema.”
“You have always been good to me, Firm,” I said, as I managed to get a great branch between us. “After your grandfather, and Suan Isco, and Jowler, I think that I like you best of almost any body left to me. And you know that I never forget your slippers.”
“Erema, you drive me almost wild by never understanding me. Now will you just listen to a little common-sense? You know that I am not romantic.”
“Yes, Firm; yes, I know that you never did any thing wrong in any way.”
“You would like me better if I did. What an extraordinary thing it is! Oh, Erema, I beg your pardon.”
He had seen in a moment, as men seem to do, when they study the much quicker face of a girl, that his words had keenly wounded me—that I had applied them to my father, of whom I was always thinking, though I scarcely ever spoke of him. But I knew that Firm had meant no harm, and I gave him my hand, though I could not speak.
“My darling,” he said, “you are very dear to me—dearer than all the world besides. I will not worry you any more. Only say that you do not hate me.”
“How could I? How could any body? Now let us go in and attend to Uncle Sam. He thinks of every body before himself.”
“And I think of every body after myself. Is that what you mean, Erema?”
“To be sure! if you like. You may put any meaning on my words that you think proper. I am accustomed to things of that sort, and I pay no attention whatever, when I am perfectly certain that I am right.”
“I see,” replied Firm, applying one finger to the side of his nose in deep contemplation, which, of all his manners, annoyed me most. “I see how it is; Miss Rema is always perfectly certain that she is right, and the whole of the rest of the world quite wrong. Well, after all, there is nothing like holding a first-rate opinion of one's self.”
“You are not what I thought of you,” I cried, being vexed beyond bearance by such words, and feeling their gross injustice. “If you wish to say any thing more, please to leave it until you recover your temper. I am not quite accustomed to rudeness.”
With these words, I drew away and walked off, partly in earnest and partly in joke, not wishing to hear another word; and when I looked back, being well out of sight, there he sat still, with his head on his hands, and my heart had a little ache for him.
However, I determined to say no more, and to be extremely careful. I could not in justice blame Ephraim Gundry for looking at me very often. But I took good care not to look at him again unless he said something that made me laugh, and then I could scarcely help it. He was sharp enough very soon to find out this; and then he did a thing which was most unfair, as I found out long afterward. He bought an American jest-book, full of ideas wholly new to me, and these he committed to heart, and brought them out as his own productions. If I had only known it, I must have been exceedingly sorry for him. But Uncle Sam used to laugh and rub his hands, perhaps for old acquaintance' sake; and when Uncle Sam laughed, there was nobody near who could help laughing with him. And so I began to think Firm the most witty and pleasant of men, though I tried to look away.
But perhaps the most careful and delicate of things was to see how Uncle Sam went on. I could not understand him at all just then, and thought him quite changed from my old Uncle Sam; but afterward, when I came to know, his behavior was as clear and shallow as the water of his own river. He had very strange ideas about what he generally called “the female kind.” According to his ideas (and perhaps they were not so unusual among mankind, especially settlers), all “females” were of a good but weak and consistently inconsistent sort. The surest way to make them do whatever their betters wanted, was to make them think that it was not wanted, but was hedged with obstacles beyond their power to overcome, and so to provoke and tantalize them to set their hearts upon doing it. In accordance with this idea (than which there can be none more mistaken), he took the greatest pains to keep me from having a word to say to Firm; and even went so far as to hint, with winks and nods of pleasantry, that his grandson's heart was set upon the pretty Miss Sylvester, the daughter of a man who owned a herd of pigs, much too near our saw-mills, and herself a young woman of outrageous dress, and in a larger light contemptible. But when Mr. Gundry, without any words, conveyed this piece of news to me, I immediately felt quite a liking for gaudy but harmless Pennsylvania—for so her parents had named her when she was too young to help it; and I heartily hoped that she might suit Firm, which she seemed all the more likely to do as his conduct could not be called noble. Upon that point, however, I said not a word, leaving him purely to judge for himself, and feeling it a great relief that now he could not say any thing more to me. I was glad that his taste was so easily pleased, and I told Suan Isco how glad I was.
This I had better have left unsaid, for it led to a great explosion, and drove me away from the place altogether before the new mill was finished, and before I should otherwise have gone from friends who were so good to me; not that I could have staid there much longer, even if this had never come to pass; for week by week and month by month I was growing more uneasy: uneasy not at my obligations or dependence upon mere friends (for they managed that so kindly that I seemed to confer the favor), but from my own sense of lagging far behind my duty.
For now the bright air, and the wholesome food, and the pleasure of goodness around me, were making me grow, without knowledge or notice, into a tall and not altogether to be overlooked young woman. I was exceedingly shy about this, and blushed if any one spoke of it; but yet in my heart I felt it was so; and how could I help it? And when people said, as rough people will, and even Uncle Sam sometimes, “Handsome is as handsome does,” or “Beauty is only skin-deep,” and so on, I made it my duty not to be put out, but to bear it in mind and be thankful. And though I had no idea of any such influence at the moment, I hope that the grandeur of nature around and the lofty style of every thing may have saved me from dwelling too much on myself, as Pennsylvania Sylvester did.
Now the more I felt my grown-up age and health and buoyant vigor, the surer I knew that the time was come for me to do some good with them; not to benefit the world in general, in a large and scattery way (as many young people set out to do, and never get any further), but to right the wrong of my own house, and bring home justice to my own heart. This may be thought a partial and paltry object to set out with; and it is not for me to say otherwise. At the time, it occurred to me in no other light except as my due business, and I never took any large view at all. But even now I do believe (though not yet in pickle of wisdom) that if every body, in its own little space and among its own little movements, will only do and take nothing without pure taste of the salt of justice, no reeking atrocity of national crimes could ever taint the heaven.
Such questions, however, become me not. I have only to deal with very little things, sometimes too slim to handle well, and too hazy to be woven; and if they seem below my sense and dignity to treat of, I can only say that they seemed very big at the time when I had to encounter them.
For instance, what could be more important, in a little world of life, than for Uncle Sam to be put out, and dare even to think ill of me? Yet this he did; and it shows how shallow are all those theories of the other sex which men are so pleased to indulge in. Scarcely any thing could be more ridiculous from first to last, when calmly and truly considered, than the firm belief which no power of reason could for the time root out of him.
Uncle Sam, the dearest of all mankind to me, and the very kindest, was positively low-enough to believe, in his sad opinion of the female race, that my young head was turned because of the wealth to which I had no claim, except through his own justice. He had insisted at first that the whole of that great nugget belonged to me by right of sole discovery. I asked him whether, if any stranger had found it, it would have been considered his, and whether he would have allowed a “greaser,” upon finding, to make off with it. At the thought of this, Mr. Gundry gave a little grunt, and could not go so far as to maintain that view of it. But he said that my reasoning did not fit; that I was not a greaser, but a settled inhabitant of the place, and entitled to all a settler's rights; that the bed of the river would have been his grave but for the risk of my life, and therefore whatever I found in the bed of the river belonged to me, and me only.
In argument he was so much stronger than I could ever attempt to be that I gave it up, and could only say that if he argued forever it could never make any difference. He did not argue forever, but only grew obstinate and unpleasant, so that I yielded at last to own the half share of the bullion.
Very well. Every body would have thought, who has not studied the nature of men or been dragged through it heavily, that now there could be no more trouble between two people entirely trusting each other, and only anxious that the other should have the best of it. Yet, instead of that being the case, the mischief, the myriad mischief, of money set in, until I heartily wished sometimes that my miserable self was down in the hole which the pelf had left behind it.
For what did Uncle Sam take into his head (which was full of generosity and large ideas, so loosely packed that little ones grew between them, especially about womankind)—what else did he really seem to think, with the downright stubbornness of all his thoughts, but that I, his poor debtor and pensioner and penniless dependent, was so set up and elated by this sudden access of fortune that henceforth none of the sawing race was high enough for me to think of? It took me a long time to believe that so fair and just a man ever could set such interpretation upon me. And when it became too plain that he did so, truly I know not whether grief or anger was uppermost in my troubled heart.
CHAPTER XVII
HARD AND SOFT
Before very long it was manifest enough that Mr. Gundry looked down upon Miss Sylvester with a large contempt. But while this raised my opinion of his judgment, it almost deprived me of a great relief—the relief of supposing that he wished his grandson to marry this Pennsylvania. For although her father, with his pigs and cattle, and a low sort of hostelry which he kept, could settle “a good pile of dollars” upon her, and had kept her at the “learnedest ladies' college” even in San Francisco till he himself trembled at her erudition, still it was scarcely to be believed that a man of the Sawyer's strong common-sense and disregard of finery would ever accept for his grandchild a girl made of affectation, vulgarity, and conceit. And one day, quite in the early spring, he was so much vexed with the fine lady's airs that he left no doubt about his meaning.
Miss Sylvester was very proud of the figure she made on horseback; and having been brought up, perhaps as a child, to ride after pigs and so on, she must have had fine opportunities of acquiring a graceful style of horsemanship. And now she dashed through thick and thin in a most commanding manner, caring no more for a snow-drift than ladies do for a scraping of the road. No one with the least observation could doubt that this young woman was extremely anxious to attract Firm Gundry's notice; and therefore, on the day above spoken of, once more she rode over, with her poor father in waiting upon her as usual.
Now I know very well how many faults I have, and to deny them has never been my practice; but this is the honest and earnest truth, that no smallness of mind, or narrowness of feeling, or want of large or fine sentiments made me bolt my door when that girl was in the house. I simply refused, after seeing her once, to have any thing more to say to her; by no means because of my birth and breeding (which are things that can be most easily waived when the difference is acknowledged), nor yet on account of my being brought up in the company of ladies, nor even by reason of any dislike which her bold brown eyes put into me. My cause was sufficient and just and wise. I felt myself here as a very young girl, in safe and pure and honest hands, yet thrown on my own discretion, without any feminine guidance whatever. And I had learned enough from the wise French sisters to know at a glance that Miss Sylvester was not a young woman who would do me good.
Even Uncle Sam, who was full of thought and delicate care about me, so far as a man can understand, and so far as his simple shrewdness went, in spite of all his hospitable ways and open universal welcome, though he said not a word (as on such a point he was quite right in doing)—even he, as I knew by his manner, was quite content with my decision. But Firm, being young and in many ways stupid, made a little grievance of it. And, of course, Miss Sylvester made a great one.
“Oh, I do declare, I am going away,” through my open window I heard her exclaim in her sweetly affected tone, at the end of that long visit, “without even having the honor of saying a kind word to your young visitor. Do not wait for me, papa; I must pay my devoirs. Such a distinguished and travelled person can hardly be afflicted with mauvaise honte. Why does she not rush to embrace me? All the French people do; and she is so French! Let me see her, for the sake of my accent.”
“We don't want no French here, ma'am,” replied Uncle Sam, as Sylvester rode off, “and the young lady wants no Doctor Hunt. Her health is as good as your own, and you never catch no French actions from her. If she wanted to see you, she would 'a come down.”
“Oh, now, this is too barbarous! Colonel Gundry, you are the most tyrannous man; in your own dominions an autocrat. Every body says so, but I never would believe it. Oh, don't let me go away with that impression. And you do look so good-natured!”
“And so I mean to look, Miss Penny, until you are out of sight.”
The voice of the Sawyer was more dry than that of his oldest and rustiest saw. The fashionable and highly finished girl had no idea what to make of him; but gave her young horse a sharp cut, to show her figure as she reined him; and then galloping off, she kissed her tan gauntlet with crimson net-work down it, and left Uncle Sam to revolve his rudeness, with the dash of the wet road scattered in the air.
“I wouldn't 'a spoke to her so course,” he said to Firm, who now returned from opening the gate and delivering his farewell, “if she wasn't herself so extra particular, gild me, and sky-blue my mouldings fine. How my mother would 'a stared at the sight of such a gal! Keep free of her, my lad, keep free of her. But no harm to put her on, to keep our missy alive and awake, my boy.”
Immediately I withdrew from ear-shot, more deeply mortified than I can tell, and perhaps doing Firm an injustice by not waiting for his answer. I knew not then how lightly men will speak of such delicate subjects; and it set me more against all thoughts of Firm than a month's reflection could have done. When I came to know more of the world, I saw that I had been very foolish. At the time, however, I was firmly set in a strong resolve to do that which alone seemed right, or even possible—to quit with all speed a place which could no longer be suited for me.
For several days I feared to say a single word about it, while equally I condemned myself for having so little courage. But it was not as if there were any body to help me, or tell me what to do; sometimes I was bold with a surety of right, and then again I shook with the fear of being wrong. Because, through the whole of it, I felt how wonderfully well I had been treated, and what a great debt I owed of kindness; and it seemed to be only a nasty little pride which made me so particular. And being so unable to settle for myself, I waited for something to settle it.
Something came, in a way which I had not by any means expected. I had told Suan Isco how glad I was that Firm had fixed his liking steadily upon Miss Sylvester. If any woman on earth could be trusted not to say a thing again, that one was this good Indian. Not only because of her provident habits, but also in right of the difficulty which encompassed her in our language. But she managed to get over both of these, and to let Mr. Ephraim know, as cleverly as if she had lived in drawing-rooms, whatever I had said about him. She did it for the best; but it put him in a rage, which he came at once to have out with me.
“And so, Miss Erema,” he said, throwing down his hat upon the table of the little parlor, where I sat with an old book of Norman ballads, “I have your best wishes, then, have I, for a happy marriage with Miss Sylvester?”
I was greatly surprised at the tone of his voice, while the flush on his cheeks and the flash of his eyes, and even his quick heavy tread, showed plainly that his mind was a little out of balance. He deserved it, however, and I could not grieve.
“You have my best wishes,” I replied, demurely, “for any state of life to which you may be called. You could scarcely expect any less of me than that.”
“How kind you are! But do you really wish that I should marry old Sylvester's girl?”
Firm, as he asked this question, looked so bitterly reproachful (as if he were saying, “Do you wish to see me hanged?”), while his eyes took a form which reminded me so of the Sawyer in a furious puzzle, that it was impossible for me to answer as lightly as I meant to do.
“No, I can not say, Firm, that I wish it at all; unless your heart is set on it—”
“Don't you know, then, where my heart is set?” he asked me, in a deep voice, coming nearer, and taking the ballad-book from my hands. “Why will you feign not to know, Erema, who is the only one I can ever think of twice? Above me, I know, in every possible way—birth and education and mind and appearance, and now far above me in money as well. But what are all these things? Try to think if only you could like me. Liking gets over every thing, and without it nothing is any thing. Why do I like you so, Erema? Is it because of your birth, and teaching, and manners, and sweet looks, and all that, or even because of your troubles?”
“How can I tell, Firm—how can I tell? Perhaps it is just because of myself. And why do you do it at all, Firm?”
“Ah, why do I do it? How I wish I knew! Perhaps then I might cure it. To begin with, what is there, after all, so very wonderful about you?”
“Oh, nothing, I should hope. Most surely nothing. It would grieve me to be at all wonderful. That I leave for American ladies.”
“Now you don't understand me. I mean, of course, that you are wonderfully good and kind and clever; and your eyes, I am sure, and your lips and smile, and all your other features—there is nothing about them that can be called any thing else but wonderful.”
“Now, Firm, how exceedingly foolish you are! I did hope that you knew better.”
“Erema, I never shall know better. I never can swerve or change, if I live to be a hundred and fifty. You think me presumptuous, no doubt, from what you are brought up to. And you are so young that to seek to bind you, even if you loved me, would be an unmanly thing. But now you are old enough, and you know your own mind surely well enough, just to say whether you feel as if you could ever love me as I love you.”
He turned away, as if he felt that he had no right to press me so, and blamed himself for selfishness; and I liked him better for doing that than for any thing he had done before. Yet I knew that I ought to speak clearly, and though my voice was full of tears, I tried.
“Dear Firm,” I said, as I took his hand and strove to look at him steadily, “I like and admire you very much; and by-and-by—by-and-by, I might, that is, if you did not hurry me. Of all the obstacles you have mentioned, none is worth considering. I am nothing but a poor castaway, owing my life to Uncle Sam and you. But one thing there is which could never be got over, even if I felt as you feel toward me. Never can I think of little matters, or of turning my thoughts to—to any such things as you speak of, as long as a vile reproach and wicked imputation lies on me. And before even that, I have to think of my father, who gave his life for me. Firm, I have been here too long delaying, and wasting my time in trifles. I ought to have been in Europe long ago. If I am old enough for what you talk of, I am old enough to do my duty. If I am old enough for love, as it is called, I am old enough for hate. I have more to do with hate than love, I think.”
“Erema,” cried Firm, “what a puzzle you are! I never even dreamed that you could be so fierce. You are enough to frighten Uncle Sam himself.”
“If I frighten you, Firm, that is quite enough. You see now how vain it is to say another word.”
“I do not see any thing of the sort. Come back, and look at me quite calmly.”
Being frightened at the way in which I had spoken, and having passed the prime of it, I obeyed him in a moment, and came up gently and let him look at me to his liking. For little as I thought of such things till now, I seemed already to know more about them, or at least to wonder—which is the stir of the curtain of knowledge. I did not say any thing, but labored to think nothing and to look up with unconscious eyes. But Firm put me out altogether by his warmth, and made me flutter like a stupid little bird.
“My darling,” he said, smoothing back my hair with a kindness such as I could not resent, and quieting me with his clear blue eyes, “you are not fit for the stormy life to which your high spirit is devoting you. You have not the hardness and bitterness of mind, the cold self-possession and contempt of others, the power of dissembling and the iron will—in a word, the fundamental nastiness, without which you never could get through such a job. Why, you can not be contemptuous even to me!”
“I should hope not. I should earn your contempt, if I could.”
“There, you are ready to cry at the thought. Erema, do not mistake yourself. Remember that your father would never have wished it—would have given his life ten thousand times over to prevent it. Why did he bring you to this remote, inaccessible part of the world except to save you from further thought of evil? He knew that we listen to no rumors here, no social scandals, or malignant lies; but we value people as we find them. He meant this to be a haven for you; and so it shall be if you will only rest; and you shall be the queen of it. Instead of redressing his memory now, you would only distress his spirit. What does he care for the world's gossip now? But he does care for your happiness. I am not old enough to tell you things as I should like to tell them. I wish I could—how I wish I could! It would make all the difference to me.”
“It would make no difference, Firm, to me; because I should know it was selfishness. Not selfishness of yours, I mean, for you never could be selfish; but the vilest selfishness of mine, the same as starved my father. You can not see things as I see them, or else you would not talk so. When you know that a thing is right, you do it. Can you tell me otherwise? If you did, I should despise you.”
“If you put it so, I can say no more. You will leave us forever, Erema?”
“No, not forever. If the good God wills it, I will come back when my work is done. Forgive me, dear Firm, and forget me.”
“There is nothing to forgive, Erema; but a great deal I never can hope to forgot.”
CHAPTER XVIII
OUT OF THE GOLDEN GATE
Little things, or what we call little, always will come in among great ones, or at least among those which we call great. Before I passed the Golden Gate in the clipper ship Bridal Veil (so called from one of the Yosemite cascades) I found out what I had long wished to know—why Firm had a crooked nose. At least, it could hardly be called crooked if any body looked aright at it; but still it departed from the bold straight line which nature must have meant for it, every thing else about him being as straight as could be required. This subject had troubled me more than once, though of course it had nothing whatever to do with the point of view whence I regarded him.
Suan Isco could not tell me, neither could Martin of the mill; I certainly could not ask Firm himself, as the Sawyer told me to do when once I put the question, in despair, to him. But now, as we stood on the wharf exchanging farewells, perhaps forever, and tears of anguish were in my eyes, and my heart was both full and empty, ample and unexpected light was thrown on the curvature of Firm's nose.
For a beautiful girl, of about my own age, and very nicely dressed, came up and spoke to the Sawyer (who stood at my side), and then, with a blush, took his grandson's hand. Firm took off his hat to her very politely, but allowed her to see perhaps by his manner that he was particularly engaged just now; and the young lady, with a quick glance at me, walked off to rejoin her party. But a garrulous old negro servant, who seemed to be in attendance upon her, ran up and caught Firm by his coat, and peered up curiously at his face.
“How young massa's poor nose dis long time? How him feel, spose now again?” he inquired, with a deferential grin. “Young massa ebber able take a pinch of good snuff? He! he! missy berry heavy den? Missy no learn to dance de nose polka den?”
“What on earth does he mean?” I could not help asking, in spite of our sorrowful farewell, as the negro went on with sundry other jokes and cackles at his own facetiousness. And then Uncle Sam, to divert my thoughts, while I waited for signal to say good-by, told me how Firm got a slight twist to his nose.
Ephraim Gundry had been well taught, in all the common things a man should learn, at a good quiet school at Frisco, which distinguished itself from all other schools by not calling itself a college. And when he was leaving to begin home life, with as much put into him as he could manage—for his nature was not bookish—when he was just seventeen years old, and tall and straight and upright, but not set into great bodily strength, which could not yet be expected, a terrible fire broke out in a great block of houses newly occupied, over against the school-house front. Without waiting for master's leave or matron's, the boys, in the Californian style, jumped over the fencing and went to help. And they found a great crowd collected, and flames flaring out of the top of the house. At the top of the house, according to a stupid and therefore general practice, was the nursery, made of more nurses than children, as often happens with rich people. The nurses had run away for their lives, taking two of the children with them; but the third, a fine little girl of ten, had been left behind, and now ran to the window with red hot flames behind her. The window was open, and barbs of fire, like serpents' tongues, played over it.
“Jump, child, jump! for God's sake, jump!” cried half a hundred people, while the poor scared creature quivered on the ledge, and shrank from the frightful depth below. At last, stung by a scorching volley, she gathered her night-gown tight, and leaped, trusting to the many faces and many arms raised toward her. But though many gallant men were there, only one stood fast just where she fell, and that one was the youth, Firm Gundry. Upon him she fell, like a stone from heaven, and though he held up his arms in the smoky glare, she came down badly: badly, at least, for him, but, as her father said, providentially; for one of her soles, or heels, alighted on the bridge of Ephraim's young nose. He caught her on his chest, and forgetful of himself, he bore her to her friends triumphantly, unharmed, and almost smiling. But the symmetry of an important part of his face was spoiled forever.
When I heard of this noble affair, and thought of my own pusillanimous rendering—for verily I had been low enough, from rumors of Firm's pugnacity, to attribute these little defects of line to some fisticuffs with some miner—I looked at Firm's nose through the tears in my eyes, and had a great mind not to go away at all. For what is the noblest of all things in man—as I bitterly learned thereafter, and already had some guesses? Not the power of moving multitudes with eloquence or by orders; not the elevation of one tribe through the lowering of others, nor even the imaginary lift of all by sentiments as yet above them: there may be glory in all of these, but the greatness is not with them. It remains with those who behave like Firm, and get their noses broken.
However, I did not know those things at that time of life, though I thought it right for every man to be brave and good; and I could not help asking who the young lady was, as if that were part of the heroism. The Sawyer, who never was unready for a joke, of however ancient quality, gave a great wink at Firm (which I failed to understand), and asked him how much the young lady was worth. He expected that Firm would say, “Five hundred thousand dollars”—which was about her value, I believe—and Uncle Sam wanted me to hear it; not that he cared a single cent himself, but to let me know what Firm could do.
Firm, however, was not to be led into any trap of that sort. He knew me better than the old man did, and that nothing would stir me to jealousy, and he quite disappointed the Sawyer.
“I have never asked what she is worth,” he said, with a glance of contempt at money; “but she scarcely seems worth looking at, compared—compared with certain others.”
In the distance I saw the young lady again, attempting no attraction, but walking along quite harmlessly, with the talkative negro after her. It would have been below me to pursue the subject, and I waited for others to re-open it; but I heard no more about her until I had been for more than a week at sea, and was able again to feel interest. Then I heard that her name was Annie Banks, of the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., who owned the ship I sailed in.
But now it was nothing to me who she was, or how beautiful, or how wealthy, when I clung for the last time to Uncle Sam, and implored him not to forget me. Over and over again he promised to be full of thoughts of me, even when the new mill was started, which would be a most trying time. He bowed his tall white head into my sheveled hair, and blessed and kissed me, although I never deserved it, and a number of people were looking on. Then I laid my hand in Firm's, and he did not lift it to his lips, or sigh, but pressed it long and softly, and looked into my eyes without a word. And I knew that there would be none to love like them, wherever I might go.
But the last of all to say “good-by” was my beloved Jowler. He jumped into the boat after me (for we were obliged to have a boat, the ship having laden further down), and he put his fore-paws on my shoulders, and whined and drooped his under-jaw. And when he looked at me as he used, to know whether I was in fun or earnest, with more expression in his bright brown eyes than any human being has, I fell back under his weight and sobbed, and could not look at any one.
We had beautiful weather, and the view was glorious, as we passed the Golden Gate, the entrance to what will one day be the capital of the world, perhaps. For, as our captain said, all power and human energy and strength are always going westward, and when they come here they must stop, or else they would be going eastward again, which they never yet have done. His argument may have been right or wrong—and, indeed, it must have been one or the other—but who could think of such things now, with a grander thing than human power—human love fading away behind? I could not even bear to see the glorious mountains sinking, but ran below and cried for hours, until all was dark and calm.
The reason for my sailing by this particular ship, and, indeed, rather suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr. Gundry, who had spent some years in California, was now returning to England by the Bridal Veil. This was Major Hockin, an officer of the British army, now on half-pay, and getting on in years. His wife was going home with him; for their children were married and settled in England, all but one, now in San Francisco. And that one being well placed in the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., had obtained for his father and mother passage upon favorable terms, which was, as we say, “an object to them.”
For the Major, though admirably connected (as his kinship to Colonel Gundry showed), and having a baronet not far off (if the twists of the world were set aside), also having served his country, and received a furrow on the top of his head, which made him brush his hair up, nevertheless, or all the more for that, was as poor as a British officer must be without official sesame. How he managed to feed and teach a large and not clever family, and train them all to fight their way in a battle worse than any of his own, and make gentlemen and ladies of them, whatever they did or wherever they went, he only knew, and his faithful wife, and the Lord who helps brave poverty. Of such things he never spoke, unless his temper was aroused by luxury and self-indulgence and laziness.
But now he was a little better off, through having his children off his hands, and by means of a little property left him by a distant relative. He was on his way home to see to this; and a better man never returned to England, after always standing up for her.
Being a child in the ways of the world, and accustomed to large people, I could not make out Major Hockin at first, and thought him no more than a little man with many peculiarities. For he was not so tall as myself, until he put his high-heeled boots on, and he made such a stir about trifles at which Uncle Sam would have only grunted, that I took him to be nothing more than a fidgety old campaigner. He wore a black-rimmed double eyeglass with blue side-lights at his temples, and his hat, from the shape of his forehead, hung back; he had narrow white wiry whiskers, and a Roman nose, and most prominent chin, and keen gray eyes with gingery brows, which contracted, like sharp little gables over them, whenever any thing displeased him. Rosy cheeks, tight-drawn, close-shaven, and gleaming with friction of yellow soap, added vigor to the general expression of his face, which was firm and quick and straightforward. The weather being warm, and the tropics close at hand, Major Hockin was dressed in a fine suit of Nankin, spruce and trim, and beautifully made, setting off his spare and active figure, which, though he was sixty-two years of age, seemed always to be ready for a game of leap-frog.
We were three days out of the Golden Gate, and the hills of the coast ridge were faint and small, and the spires of the lower Nevada could only be caught when the hot haze lifted; and every body lay about in our ship where it seemed to afford the least smell and heat, and nobody for a moment dreamed—for we really all were dreaming—of any body with energy enough to be disturbed about any thing, when Major Hockin burst in upon us all (who were trying not to be red-hot in the feeble shade of poop awnings), leading by the hand an ancient woman, scarcely dressed with decency, and howling in a tone very sad to hear.
“This lady has been robbed!” cried the Major; “robbed, not fifteen feet below us. Robbed, ladies and gentlemen, of the most cherished treasures of her life, the portrait of her only son, the savings of a life of honest toil, her poor dead husband's tobacco-box, and a fine cut of Colorado cheese.”
“Ten pounds and a quarter, gospel true!” cried the poor woman, wringing her hands, and searching for any kind face among us.
“Go to the captain,” muttered one sleepy gentleman. “Go to the devil,” said another sleepy man: “what have we to do with it?”
“I will neither go to the captain,” replied the Major, very distinctly, “nor yet to the devil, as a fellow who is not a man has dared to suggest to me—”
“All tied in my own pocket-handkerchief!” the poor old woman began to scream; “the one with the three-cornered spots upon 'un. Only two have I ever owned in all my life, and this was the very best of 'em. Oh dear! oh dear! that ever I should come to this exposing of my things!”
“Madam, you shall have justice done, as sure as my name is Hockin. Gentlemen and ladies, if you are not all asleep, how would you like to be treated so? Because the weather is a trifle warm, there you lie like a parcel of Mexicans. If any body picked your pockets, would you have life enough to roll over?”
“I don't think I should,” said a fat young Briton, with a very good-natured face; “but for a poor woman I can stand upright. Major Hockin, here is a guinea for her. Perhaps more of us will give a trifle.”
“Well done!” cried the Major; “but not so much as that. Let us first ascertain all the rights of the case. Perhaps half a crown apiece would reach it.”
Half a crown apiece would have gone beyond it, as we discovered afterward, for the old lady's handkerchief was in her box, lost under some more of her property; and the tide of sleepy charity taking this direction under such vehement impulse, several other steerage passengers lost their goods, but found themselves too late in doing so. But the Major was satisfied, and the rude man who had told him to go amiss, begged his pardon, and thus we sailed on slowly and peaceably.
CHAPTER XIX
INSIDE THE CHANNEL
That little incident threw some light upon Major Hockin's character. It was not for himself alone that he was so particular, or, as many would call it, fidgety, to have every thing done properly; for if any thing came to his knowledge which he thought unfair to any one, it concerned him almost as much as if the wrong had been done to his own home self. Through this he had fallen into many troubles, for his impressions were not always accurate; but they taught him nothing, or rather, as his wife said, “the Major could not help it.” The leading journals of the various places in which Major Hockin sojourned had published his letters of grievances sometimes, in the absence of the chief editor, and had suffered in purse by doing so. But the Major always said, “Ventilate it, ventilate the subject, my dear Sir; bring public opinion to bear on it.” And Mrs. Hockin always said that it was her husband to whom belonged the whole credit of this new and spirited use of the fine word “ventilation.”
As betwixt this faithful pair, it is scarcely needful perhaps to say that the Major was the master. His sense of justice dictated that, as well as his general briskness. Though he was not at all like Mr. Gundry in undervaluing female mind, his larger experience and more frequent intercourse with our sex had taught him to do justice to us; and it was pleasant to hear him often defer to the judgment of ladies. But this he did more, perhaps, in theory than in practice; yet it made all the ladies declare to one another that he was a perfect gentleman. And so he was, though he had his faults; but his faults were such as we approve of.
But Mrs. Hockin had no fault in any way worth speaking of. And whatever she had was her husband's doing, through her desire to keep up with him. She was pretty, even now in her sixtieth year, and a great deal prettier because she never tried to look younger. Silver hair, and gentle eyes, and a forehead in which all the cares of eight children had scarcely imprinted a wrinkle, also a kind expression of interest in whatever was spoken of, with a quiet voice and smile, and a power of not saying too much at a time, combined to make this lady pleasant.
Without any fuss or declaration, she took me immediately under her care; and I doubt not that, after two years passed in the society of Suan Isco and the gentle Sawyer, she found many things in me to amend, which she did by example and without reproof. She shielded me also in the cleverest way from the curiosity of the saloon, which at first was very trying. For the Bridal Veil being a well-known ship both for swift passages and for equipment, almost every berth was taken, and when the weather was calm, quite a large assembly sat down to dinner. Among these, of course, were some ill-bred people, and my youth and reserve and self-consciousness, and so on, made my reluctant face the mark for many a long and searching gaze. My own wish had been not to dine thus in public; but hearing that my absence would only afford fresh grounds for curiosity, I took my seat between the Major and his wife, the former having pledged himself to the latter to leave every thing to her management. His temper was tried more than once to its utmost—which was not a very great distance—but he kept his word, and did not interfere; and I having had some experience with Firm, eschewed all perception of glances. And as for all words, Mrs. Hockin met them with an obtuse obliqueness; so that after a day or two it was settled that nothing could be done about “Miss Wood.”
It had been a very sore point to come to, and cost an unparalleled shed of pride, that I should be shorn of two-thirds of my name, and called “Miss Wood,” like almost anybody else. I refused to entertain such a very poor idea, and clung to the name which had always been mine—for my father would never depart from it—and I even burst into tears, which would, I suppose, be called “sentimental;” but still the stern fact stared me in the face—I must go as “Miss Wood,” or not go at all. Upon this Major Hockin had insisted; and even Colonel Gundry could not move him from his resolution.
Uncle Sam had done his utmost, as was said before, to stop me from wishing to go at all; but when he found my whole heart bent upon it, and even my soul imperiled by the sense of neglecting life's chief duty, his own stern sense of right came in and sided with my prayers to him. And so it was that he let me go, with pity for my youth and sex, but a knowledge that I was in good hands, and an inborn, perhaps “Puritanical” faith, that the Lord of all right would see to me.
The Major, on the other hand, had none of this. He differed from Uncle Sam as much as a trim-cut and highly cultured garden tree differs from a great spreading king of the woods. He was not without a strict sense of religion, especially when he had to march men to church; and he never even used a bad word, except when wicked facts compelled him. When properly let alone, and allowed to nurse his own opinions, he had a respectable idea that all things were certain to be ordered for the best; but nothing enraged him so much as to tell him that when things went against him, or even against his predictions.
It was lucky for me, then, that Major Hockin had taken a most adverse view of my case. He formed his opinions with the greatest haste, and with the greatest perseverance stuck to them; for he was the most generous of mankind, if generous means one quite full of his genus. And in my little case he had made up his mind that the whole of the facts were against me. “Fact” was his favorite word, and one which he always used with great effect, for nobody knows very well what it means, as it does not belong to our language. And so when he said that the facts were against me, who was there to answer that facts are not truth?
This fast-set conclusion of his was known to me not through himself, but through his wife. For I could not yet bring myself to speak of the things that lay close at my heart to him, though I knew that he must be aware of them. And he, like a gentleman, left me to begin. I could often see that he was ready and quite eager to give me the benefit of his opinion, which would only have turned me against him, and irritated him, perhaps, with me. And having no home in England, or, indeed, I might say, any where, I was to live with the Major and his wife, supposing that they could arrange it so, until I should discover relatives.
We had a long and stormy voyage, although we set sail so fairly; and I thought that we never should round Cape Horn in the teeth of the furious northeast winds; and after that we lay becalmed, I have no idea in what latitude, though the passengers now talked quite like seamen, at least till the sea got up again. However, at last we made the English Channel, in the dreary days of November, and after more peril there than any where else, we were safely docked at Southampton. Here the Major was met by two dutiful daughters, bringing their husbands and children, and I saw more of family life (at a distance) than had fallen to my lot to observe before; and although there were many little jars and brawls and cuts at one another, I was sadly inclined to wish sometimes for some brothers and sisters to quarrel with.
But having none to quarrel with, and none to love, except good Mrs. Hockin, who went away by train immediately, I spent such a wretched time in that town that I longed to be back in the Bridal Veil in the very worst of weather. The ooze of the shore and the reek of the water, and the dreary flatness of the land around (after the glorious heaven-clad heights, which made me ashamed of littleness), also the rough, stupid stare of the men, when I went about as an American lady may freely do in America, and the sharpness of every body's voice (instead of the genial tones which those who can not produce them call “nasal,” but which from a higher view are cordial)—taken one after other, or all together, these things made me think, in the first flush of thought, that England was not a nice country. After a little while I found that I had been a great deal too quick, as foreigners are with things which require quiet comprehension. For instance, I was annoyed at having a stupid woman put over me, as if I could not mind myself—a cook, or a nurse, or housekeeper, or something very useful in the Hockin family, but to me a mere incumbrance, and (as I thought in my wrath sometimes) a spy. What was I likely to do, or what was any one likely to do to me, in a thoroughly civilized country, that I could not even stay in private lodgings, where I had a great deal to think of, without this dull creature being forced upon me? But the Major so ordered it, and I gave in.
There I must have staid for the slowest three mouths ever passed without slow starvation finishing my growth, but not knowing how to “form my mind,” as I was told to do. Major Hockin came down once or twice to see me, and though I did not like him, yet it was almost enough to make me do so to see a little liveliness. But I could not and would not put up with a frightful German baron of music, with a polished card like a toast-rack, whom the Major tried to impress on me. As if I could stop to take music lessons!
“Miss Wood,” said Major Hockin, in his strongest manner, the last time he came to see me, “I stand to you in loco parentis. That means, with the duties, relationships, responsibilities, and what not, of the unfortunate—I should say rather of the beloved—parent deceased. I wish to be more careful of you than of a daughter of my own—a great deal more careful, ten times, Miss Wood; I may say a thousand times more careful, because you have not had the discipline which a daughter of mine would have enjoyed. And you are so impulsive when you take an idea! You judge every body by your likings. That leads to error, error, error.”
“My name is not Miss Wood,” I answered; “my name is 'Erema Castlewood.' Whatever need may have been on board ship for nobody knowing who I am, surely I may have my own name now.”
When any body says “surely,” at once up springs a question; nothing being sure, and the word itself at heart quite interrogative. The Major knew all those little things which manage women so manfully. So he took me by the hand and led me to the light and looked at me.
I had not one atom of Russian twist or dyed China grass in my hair, nor even the ubiquitous aid of horse and cow; neither in my face or figure was I conscious of false presentment. The Major was welcome to lead me to the light and to throw up all his spectacles and gaze with all his eyes. My only vexation was with myself, because I could not keep the weakness—which a stranger should not see—out of my eyes, upon sudden remembrance who it was that used to have the right to do such things to me. This it was, and nothing else, that made me drop my eyes, perhaps.
“There, there, my dear!” said Major Hockin, in a softer voice than usual. “Pretty fit you are to combat with the world, and defy the world, and brave the world, and abolish the world—or at least the world's opinion! 'Bo to a goose,' you can say, my dear; but no 'bo' to a gander. No, no; do quietly what I advise—by-the-bye, you have never asked my advice.”
I can not have been hypocritical, for of all things I detest that most; but in good faith I said, being conquered by the Major's relaxation of his eyes,
“Oh, why have you never offered it to me? You knew that I never could ask for it.”
For the moment he looked surprised, as if our ideas had gone crosswise; and then he remembered many little symptoms of my faith in his opinions; which was now growing inevitable, with his wife and daughters, and many grandchildren—all certain that he was a Solomon.
“Erema,” he said, “you are a dear good girl, though sadly, sadly romantic. I had no idea that you had so much sense. I will talk with you, Erema, when we both have leisure.”
“I am quite at leisure, Major Hockin,” I replied, “and only too happy to listen to you.”
“Yes, yes, I dare say. You are in lodgings. You can do exactly as you please. But I have a basin of ox-tail soup, a cutlet, and a woodcock waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Bless me! I am five minutes late already. I will come and have a talk with you afterward.”
“Thank you,” I said; “we had better leave it. It seems of no importance, compared—compared with—”
“My dinner!” said the Major; but he was offended, and so was I a little, though neither of us meant to vex the other.
CHAPTER XX
BRUNTSEA
It would be unfair to Major Hockin to take him for an extravagant man or a self-indulgent one because of the good dinner he had ordered, and his eagerness to sit down to it. Through all the best years of his life he had been most frugal, abstemious, and self-denying, grudging every penny of his own expense, but sparing none for his family. And now, when he found himself so much better off, with more income and less outlay, he could not be blamed for enjoying good things with the wholesome zest of abstinence.
For, coming to the point, and going well into the matter, the Major had discovered that the “little property” left to him, and which he was come to see to, really was quite a fine estate for any one who knew how to manage it, and would not spare courage and diligence. And of these two qualities he had such abundance that, without any outlet, they might have turned him sour.
The property lately devised to him by his cousin, Sir Rufus Hockin, had long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet. Sir Rufus hated all exertion, yet could not comfortably put up with the only alternative—extortion. Having no knowledge of his cousin Nick (except that he was indefatigable), and knowing his own son to be lazier even than himself had been, longing also to inflict even posthumous justice upon the land agent, with the glad consent of his heir he left this distant, fretful, and naked spur of land to his beloved cousin Major Nicholas Hockin.
The Major first heard of this unexpected increase of his belongings while he was hovering, in the land of gold, between his desire to speculate and his dread of speculation. At once he consulted our Colonel Gundry, who met him by appointment at Sacramento; and Uncle Sam having a vast idea of the value of land in England, which the Major naturally made the most of, now being an English land-owner, they spent a most pleasant evening, and agreed upon the line marked out by Providence.
Thus it was that he came home, bringing (by kind arrangement) me, who was much more trouble than comfort to him, and at first disposed to be cold and curt. And thus it was that I was left so long in that wretched Southampton, under the care of a very kind person who never could understand me. And all this while (as I ought to have known, without any one to tell me) Major Hockin was testing the value and beating the bounds of his new estate, and prolonging his dinner from one to two courses, or three if he had been travelling. His property was large enough to afford him many dinners, and rich enough (when rightly treated) to insure their quality.
Bruntsea is a quiet little village on the southeast coast of England, in Kent or in Sussex, I am not sure which, for it has a constitution of its own, and says that it belongs to neither. It used to be a place of size and valor, furnishing ships, and finding money for patriotic purposes. And great people both embarked and landed, one doing this and the other that, though nobody seems to have ever done both, if history is to be relied upon. The glory of the place is still preserved in a seal and an immemorial stick, each of which is blessed with marks as incomprehensible as could be wished, though both are to be seen for sixpence. The name of the place is written in more than forty different ways, they say; and the oldest inhabitant is less positive than the youngest how to spell it.
This village lies in the mouth, or rather at the eastern end of the mouth, of a long and wide depression among the hills, through which a sluggish river wins its muddy consummation. This river once went far along the sea-brink, without entering (like a child who is afraid to bathe), as the Adur does at Shoreham, and as many other rivers do. And in those days the mouth and harbor were under the cliff at Bruntsea, whence its seal and corporation, stick, and other blessings. But three or four centuries ago the river was drawn by a violent storm, like a badger from his barrel, and forced to come straight out and face the sea, without any three miles of dalliance. The time-serving water made the best of this, forsook its ancient bed (as classic nymphs and fountains used to do), and left poor Bruntsea with a dry bank, and no haven for a cockle-shell. A new port, such as it is, incrusted the fickle jaw of the river; piles were driven and earth-works formed, lest the water should return to its old love; and Bruntsea, as concerned her traffic, became but a mark of memory. Her noble corporation never demanded their old channel, but regarded the whole as the will of the Lord, and had the good sense to insist upon nothing except their time-honored ceremonies.
In spite of all these and their importance, land became of no value there. The owner of the Eastern Manor and of many ancient rights, having no means of getting at them, sold them for an “old song,” which they were; and the buyer was one of the Hockin race, a shipwrecked mariner from Cornwall, who had been kindly treated there, and took a fancy accordingly. He sold his share in some mine to pay for it, settled here, and died here; and his son, getting on in the world, built a house, and took to serious smuggling. In the chalk cliff's eastward he found holes of honest value to him, capable of cheap enlargement (which the Cornish holes were not), and much more accessible from France. Becoming a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant, he had the duty and privilege of inquiring into his own deeds, which enabled him to check those few who otherwise might have competed with him. He flourished, and bought more secure estates; and his son, for activity against smugglers, was made a gentle baronet.
These things now had passed away, and the first fee-simple of the Hockin family became a mere load and incumbrance. Sir George and Sir Robert and Sir Rufus, one after another, did not like the hints about contraband dealings which met them whenever they deigned to come down there, till at last the estate (being left to an agent) cost a great deal more than he ever paid in. And thus—as should have been more briefly told—the owner was our Major Hockin.
No wonder that this gentleman, with so many cares to attend to, had no time at first to send for me. And no wonder that when he came down to see me, he was obliged to have good dinners. For the work done by him in those three months surprised every body except himself, and made in old Bruntsea a stir unknown since the time of the Spanish Armada. For he owned the house under the eastern cliff, and the warren, and the dairy-farm inland, and the slope of the ground where the sea used to come, and fields where the people grew potatoes gratis, and all the eastern village, where the tenants paid their rents whenever they found it rational.
A hot young man, in a place like this, would have done a great deal of mischief. Either he would have accepted large views, and applauded this fine communism (if he could afford it, and had no wife), or else he would have rushed at every body headlong, and batted them back to their abutments. Neither course would have created half the excitement which the Major's did. At least, there might have been more talk at first, but not a quarter so much in sum total. Of those things, however, there is time enough to speak, if I dare to say any thing about them.
The things more to my mind (and therefore more likely to be made plain to another mind) are not the petty flickering phantoms of the shadow we call human, and which alone we realize, and dwell inside it and upon it, as if it were all creation; but the infinitely nobler things of ever-changing but perpetual beauty, and no selfishness. These, without deigning to us even sense to be aware of them, shape our little minds and bodies and our large self-importance, and fail to know when the lord or king who owns is buried under them. To have perception of such mighty truths is good for all of us: and I never had keener perception of them than when I sat down on the Major's camp-stool, and saw all his land around me, and even the sea—where all the fish were his, as soon as he could catch them—and largely reflected that not a square foot of the whole world would ever belong to me.
“Bruntlands,” as the house was called, perhaps from standing well above the sea, was sheltered by the curve of the eastern cliff, which looked down over Bruntsea. The cliff was of chalk, very steep toward the sea, and showing a prominent headland toward the south, but prettily rising in grassy curves from the inland and from the westward. And then, where it suddenly chined away from land-slope into sea-front, a long bar of shingle began at right angles to it, and, as level as a railroad, went to the river's mouth, a league or so now to the westward. And beyond that another line of white cliffs rose, and looked well till they came to their headland. Inside this bank of shingle, from end to end, might be traced the old course of the river, and to landward of that trough at the hither end stood, or lay, the calm old village.
Forsaken as it was by the river, this village stuck to its ancient site and home, and instead of migrating, contracted itself, and cast off needless members. Shrunken Bruntsea clung about the oldest of its churches, while the four others fell to rack and ruin, and settled into cow-yards and barns, and places where old men might sit and sigh. But Bruntsea distinctly and trenchantly kept the old town's division into east and west.
East Bruntsea was wholly in the Major's manor, which had a special charter; and most of the houses belonged to him. This ownership hitherto had meant only that the landlord should do all the tumble-down repairs (when the agent reported that they must be done), but never must enter the door for his rent. The borough had been disfranchised, though the snuggest of the snug for generations; and the freemen, thus being robbed of their rights, had no power to discharge their duties. And to complicate matters yet further, for the few who wished to simplify them, the custom of “borough-English” prevailed, and governed the descent of dilapidations, making nice niceties for clever men of law.
“You see a fine property here, Miss Wood,” Major Hockin said to me, as we sat, on the day after I was allowed to come, enjoying the fresh breeze from the sea and the newness of the February air, and looking abroad very generally: “a very fine property, but neglected—shamefully, horribly, atrociously neglected—but capable of noble things, of grand things, of magnificent, with a trifle of judicious outlay.”
“Oh, please not to talk of outlay, my dear,” said good Mrs. Hockin, gently; “it is such an odious word; and where in the world is it to come from?”
“Leave that to me. When I was a boy my favorite copy in my copy-book was, 'Where there's a will there's a way.' Miss Wood, what is your opinion? But wait, you must have time to understand the subject. First we bring a railway—always the first step; why, the line is already made for it by the course of the old river, and the distance from Newport three miles and a half. It ought not to cost quite 200 pounds a mile—the mere outlay for rails and sleepers. The land is all mine, and—and of course other landed proprietors'. Very well: these would all unite, of course; so that not a farthing need be paid for land, which is the best half of the battle. We have the station here—not too near my house; that would never do; I could not bear the noise—but in a fine central place where nobody on earth could object to it—lively, and close at hand for all of them. Unluckily I was just too late. We have lost a Parliamentary year through that execrable calm—you remember all about it. Otherwise we would have had Billy Puff stabled at Bruntsea by the first of May. But never mind; we shall do it all the better and cheaper by taking our time about it. Very well: we have the railway opened and the trade of the place developed. We build a fine terrace of elegant villas, a crescent also, and a large hotel replete with every luxury; and we form the finest sea-parade in England by simply assisting nature. Half London comes down here to bathe, to catch shrimps, to flirt, and to do the rest of it. We become a select, salubrious, influential, and yet economical place; and then what do we do, Mrs. Hockin?”
“My dear, how can I tell? But I hope that we should rest and be thankful.”
“Not a bit of it. I should hope not, indeed. Erema, what do we do then?”
“It is useless to ask me. Well, then, perhaps you set up a handsome saw-mill!”
“A saw-mill! What a notion of Paradise! No; this is what we do—but remember that I speak in the strictest confidence; dishonest antagonism might arise, if we ventilated our ideas too soon—Mrs. Hockin and Miss Wood, we demand the restoration of our river!—the return of our river to its ancient course.”
“I see,” said his wife; “oh, how grand that would be! and how beautiful from our windows! That really, now, is a noble thought!”
“A just one—simply a just one. Justice ought not to be noble, my dear, however rare it may be. Generosity, magnanimity, heroism, and so on—those are the things we call noble, my dear.”
“And the founding of cities. Oh, my dear, I remember, when I was at school, it was always said, in what we called our histories, that the founders of cities had honors paid them, and altars built, and divinities done, and holidays held in their honor.”
“To that I object,” cried the Major, sternly. “If I founded fifty cities, I would never allow one holiday. The Sabbath is enough; one day in seven—fifteen per cent, of one's whole time; and twenty per cent, of your Sunday goes in church. Very right, of course, and loyal, and truly edifying—Mrs. Hockin's father was a clergyman, Miss Wood; and the last thing I would ever allow on my manor would be a Dissenting chapel; but still I will have no new churches here, and a man who might go against me. They all want to pick their own religious views, instead of reflecting who supports them! It never used to be so; and such things shall never occur on my manor. A good hotel, attendance included, and a sound and moderate table d'hote; but no church, with a popish bag sent round, and money to pay, 'without anything to eat.'”
“My dear! my dear!” cried Mrs. Hockin, “I never like you to talk like that. You quite forget who my father was, and your own second son such a very sound priest!”
“A priest! Don't let him come here,” cried the Major, “or I'll let him know what tonsure is, and read him the order of Melchisedec. A priest! After going round the world three times, to come home and be hailed as the father of a priest! Don't let him come near me, or I'll sacrifice him.”
“Now, Major, you are very proud of him,” his good wife answered, as he shook his stick. “How could he help taking orders when he was under orders to do so? And his views are sound to the last degree, most strictly correct and practical—at least except as to celibacy.”
“He holds that his own mother ought never to have been born! Miss Wood, do you call that practical?”
“I have no acquaintance with such things,” I replied; “we had none of them in California. But is it practical, Major Hockin—of course you know best in your engineering—I mean, would it not require something like a tunnel for the river and the railway to run on the same ground?”
“Why, bless me! That seems to have escaped my notice. You have not been with old Uncle Sam for nothing. We shall have to appoint you our chief engineer.”
CHAPTER XXI
LISTLESS
It seemed an unfortunate thing for me, and unfavorable to my purpose, that my host, and even my hostess too, should be so engrossed with their new estate, its beauties and capabilities. Mrs. Hockin devoted herself at once to fowls and pigs and the like extravagant economies, having bought, at some ill-starred moment, a book which proved that hens ought to lay eggs in a manner to support themselves, their families, and the family they belonged to, at the price of one penny a dozen. Eggs being two shillings a dozen in Bruntsea, here was a margin for profit—no less than two thousand per cent, to be made, allowing for all accidents. The lady also found another book, divulging for a shilling the author's purely invaluable secret—how to work an acre of ground, pay house rent, supply the house grandly, and give away a barrow-load of vegetables every day to the poor of the parish, by keeping a pig—if that pig were kept properly. And after that, pork and ham and bacon came of him, while another golden pig went on.
Mrs. Hockin was very soft-hearted, and said that she never could make bacon of a pig like that; and I answered that if she ever got him it would be unwise to do so. However, the law was laid down in both books that golden fowls and diamondic pigs must die the death before they begin to overeat production; and the Major said, “To be sure. Yes, yes. Let them come to good meat, and then off with their heads.” And his wife said that she was sure she could do it. When it comes to a question of tare and tret, false sentiment must be excluded.
At the moment, these things went by me as trifles, yet made me more impatient. Being older now, and beholding what happens with tolerance and complacence, I am only surprised that my good friends were so tolerant of me and so complacent. For I must have been a great annoyance to them, with my hurry and my one idea. Happily they made allowance for me, which I was not old enough to make for them.
“Go to London, indeed! Go to London by yourself!” cried the Major, with a red face, and his glasses up, when I told him one morning that I could stop no longer without doing something. “Mary, my dear, when you have done out there, will you come in and reason—if you can—with Miss Wood. She vows that she is going to London, all alone.”
“Oh, Major Hockin—oh, Nicholas dear, such a thing has happened!” Mrs. Hockin had scarcely any breath to tell us, as she came in through the window. “You know that they have only had three bushels, or, at any rate, not more than five, almost ever since they came. Erema, you know as well as I do.”
“Seven and three-quarter bushels of barley, at five and ninepence a bushel, Mary,” said the Major, pulling out a pocket-book; “besides Indian corn, chopped meat, and potatoes.”
“And fourteen pounds of paddy,” I said—which was a paltry thing of me; “not to mention a cake of graves, three sacks of brewers' grains, and then—I forget what next.”
“You are too bad, all of you. Erema, I never thought you would turn against me so. And you made me get nearly all of it. But please to look here. What do you call this? Is this no reward? Is this not enough? Major, if you please, what do you call this? What a pity you have had your breakfast!”
“A blessing—if this was to be my breakfast. I call that, my dear, the very smallest egg I have seen since I took sparrows' nests. No wonder they sell them at twelve a penny. I congratulate you upon your first egg, my dear Mary.”
“Well, I don't care,” replied Mrs. Hockin, who had the sweetest temper in the world. “Small beginnings make large endings; and an egg must be always small at one end. You scorn my first egg, and Erema should have had it if she had been good. But she was very wicked, and I know not what to do with it.”
“Blow it!” cried the Major. “I mean no harm, ladies. I never use low language. What I mean is, make a pinhole at each end, give a puff, and away goes two pennyworth, and you have a cabinet specimen, which your egg is quite fitted by its cost to be. But now, Mary, talk to Miss Wood, if you please. It is useless for me to say any thing, and I have three appointments in the town”—he always called it “the town” now—“three appointments, if not four; yes, I may certainly say four. Talk to Miss Wood, my dear, if you please. She wants to go to London, which would be absurd. Ladies seem to enter into ladies' logic. They seem to be able to appreciate it better, to see all the turns, and the ins and outs, which no man has intellect enough to see, or at least to make head or tail of. Good-by for the present; I had better be off.”
“I should think you had,” exclaimed Mrs. Hockin, as her husband marched off, with his side-lights on, and his short, quick step, and well-satisfied glance at the hill which belonged to him, and the beach, over which he had rights of plunder—or, at least, Uncle Sam would have called them so, strictly as he stood up for his own.
“Now come and talk quietly to me, my dear,” Mrs. Hockin began, most kindly, forgetting all the marvel of her first-born egg. “I have noticed how restless you are, and devoid of all healthy interest in any thing. 'Listless' is the word. 'Listless' is exactly what I mean, Erema. When I was at your time of life, I could never have gone about caring for nothing. I wonder that you knew that I even had a fowl; much more how much they had eaten!”
“I really do try to do all I can, and that is a proof of it,” I said. “I am not quite so listless as you think. But those things do seem so little to me.”
“My dear, if you were happy, they would seem quite large, as, after all the anxieties of my life, I am able now to think them. It is a power to be thankful for, or, at least, I often think so. Look at my husband! He has outlived and outlasted more trouble than any one but myself could reckon up to him; and yet he is as brisk, as full of life, as ready to begin a new thing to-morrow—when, at our age, there may be no to-morrow, except in that better world, my dear, of which it is high time for him and me to think, as I truly hope we may spare the time to do.”
“Oh, don't talk like that,” I cried. “Please, Mrs. Hockin, to talk of your hens and chicks—at least there will be chicks by-and-by. I am almost sure there will, if you only persevere. It seems unfair to set our minds on any other world till justice has been done in this.”
“You are very young, my child, or you would know that in that case we never should think of it at all. But I don't want to preach you a sermon, Erema, even if I could do so. I only just want you to tell me what you think, what good you imagine that you can do.”
“It is no imagination. I am sure that I can right my father's wrongs. And I never shall rest till I do so.”
“Are you sure that there is any wrong to right?” she asked, in the warmth of the moment; and then, seeing perhaps how my color changed, she looked at me sadly, and kissed my forehead.
“Oh, if you had only once seen him,” I said; “without any exaggeration, you would have been satisfied at once. That he could ever have done any harm was impossible—utterly impossible. I am not as I was. I can listen to almost any thing now quite calmly. But never let me hear such a wicked thing again.”
“You must not go on like that, Erema, unless you wish to lose all your friends. No one can help being sorry for you. Very few girls have been placed as you are. I am sure when I think of my own daughters I can never be too thankful. But the very first thing you have to learn, above all things, is to control yourself.”
“I know it—I know it, of course,” I said; “and I keep on trying my very best. I am thoroughly ashamed of what I said, and I hope you will try to forgive me.”
“A very slight exertion is enough for that. But now, my dear, what I want to know is this—and you will excuse me if I ask too much—what good do you expect to get by going thus to London? Have you any friend there, any body to trust, any thing settled as to what you are to do?”
“Yes, every thing is settled in my own mind,” I answered, very bravely: “I have the address of a very good woman, found among my father's papers, who nursed his children and understood his nature, and always kept her faith in him. There must be a great many more who do the same, and she will be sure to know them and introduce me to them; and I shall be guided by their advice.”
“But suppose that this excellent woman is dead, or not to be found, or has changed her opinion?”
“Her opinion she never could change. But if she is not to be found, I shall find her husband, or her children, or somebody; and besides that, I have a hundred things to do. I have the address of the agent through whom my father drew his income, though Uncle Sam let me know as little as he could. And I know who his bankers were (when he had a bank), and he may have left important papers there.”
“Come, that looks a little more sensible, my dear; bankers may always be relied upon. And there may be some valuable plate, Erema. But why not let the Major go with you? His advice is so invaluable.”
“I know that it is, in all ordinary things. But I can not have him now, for a very simple reason. He has made up his mind about my dear father—horribly, horribly; I can't speak of it. And he never changes his mind; and sometimes when I look at him I hate him.”
“Erema, you are quite a violent girl, although you so seldom show it. Is the whole world divided, then, into two camps—those who think as you wish and those who are led by their judgment to think otherwise? And are you to hate all who do not think as you wish?”
“No, because I do not hate you,” I said; “I love you, though you do not think as I wish. But that is only because you think your husband must be right of course. But I can not like those who have made up their minds according to their own coldness.”
“Major Hockin is not cold at all. On the contrary, he is a warm-hearted man—I might almost say hot-hearted.”
“Yes, I know he is. And that makes it ten times worse. He takes up every body's case—but mine.”
“Sad as it is, you almost make me smile,” my hostess answered, gravely; “and yet it must be very bitter for you, knowing how just and kind my husband is. I am sure that you will give him credit for at least desiring to take your part. And doing so, at least you might let him go with you, if only as a good protection.”
“I have no fear of any one; and I might take him into society that he would not like. In a good cause he would go any where, I know. But in my cause, of course he would be scrupulous. Your kindness I always can rely upon, and I hope in the end to earn his as well.”
“My dear, he has never been unkind to you. I am certain that you never can say that of him. Major Hockin unkind to a poor girl like you!”
“The last thing I wish to claim is any body's pity,” I answered, less humbly than I should have spoken, though the pride was only in my tone, perhaps. “If people choose to pity me, they are very good, and I am not at all offended, because—because they can not help it, perhaps, from not knowing any thing about me. I have nothing whatever to be pitied for, except that I have lost my father, and have nobody left to care for me, except Uncle Sam in America.”
“Your Uncle Sam, as you call him, seems to be a very wonderful man, Erema,” said Mrs. Hockin, craftily, so far as there could be any craft in her; “I never saw him—a great loss on my part. But the Major went up to meet him somewhere, and came home with the stock of his best tie broken, and two buttons gone from his waistcoat. Does Uncle Sam make people laugh so much? or is it that he has some extraordinary gift of inducing people to taste whiskey? My husband is a very—most abstemious man, as you must be well aware, Miss Wood, or we never should have been as we are, I am sure. But, for the first time in all my life, I doubted his discretion on the following day, when he had—what shall I say?—when he had been exchanging sentiments with Uncle Sam.”
“Uncle Sam never takes too much in any way,” I replied to this new attack; “he knows what he ought to take, and then he stops. Do you think that it may have been his 'sentiments,' perhaps, that were too strong and large for the Major?”
“Erema!” cried Mrs. Hockin, with amazement, as if I had no right to think or express my thoughts on life so early; “if you can talk politics at eighteen, you are quite fit to go any where. I have heard a great deal of American ladies, and seen not a little of them, as you know. But I thought that you called yourself an English girl, and insisted particularly upon it.”
“Yes, that I do; and I have good reason. I am born of an old English family, and I hope to be no disgrace to it. But being brought up in a number of ways, as I have been without thinking of it, and being quite different from the fashionable girls Major Hockin likes to walk with—”
“My dear, he never walks with any body but myself!”
“Oh yes, I remember! I was thinking of the deck. There are no fashionable girls here yet. Till the terrace is built, and the esplanade—”
“There shall be neither terrace nor esplanade if the Major is to do such things upon them.”
“I am sure that he never would,” I replied; “it was only their dresses that he liked at all, and that very, to my mind, extraordinary style, as well as unbecoming. You know what I mean, Mrs. Hockin, that wonderful—what shall I call it?—way of looping up.”
“Call me 'Aunt Mary,' my dear, as you did when the waves were so dreadful. You mean that hideous Mexican poncho, as they called it, stuck up here, and going down there. Erema, what observation you have! Nothing ever seems to escape you. Did you ever see any thing so indecorous?”
“It made me feel just as if I ought not to look at them,” I answered, with perfect truth, for so it did; “I have never been accustomed to such things. But seeing how the Major approved of them, and liked to be walking up and down between them, I knew that they must be not only decorous, but attractive. There is no appeal from his judgment, is there?”
“I agree with him upon every point, my dear child; but I have always longed to say a few words about that. For I can not help thinking that he went too far.”
CHAPTER XXII
BETSY BOWEN
So far, then, there was nobody found to go into my case, and to think with me, and to give me friendly countenance, with the exception of Firm Gundry. And I feared that he tried to think with me because of his faithful and manly love, more than from balance of evidence. The Sawyer, of course, held my father guiltless, through his own fidelity and simple ways; but he could not enter into my set thought of a stern duty laid upon me, because to his mind the opinion of the world mattered nothing so long as a man did aright. For wisdom like this, if wisdom it is, I was a great deal too young and ardent; and to me fair fame was of almost equal value with clear conscience. And therefore, wise or foolish, rich or poor, beloved or unloved, I must be listless about other things, and restless in all, until I should establish truth and justice.
However, I did my best to be neither ungrateful nor stupidly obstinate, and, beginning more and more to allow for honest though hateful opinions, I yielded to dear Mrs. Hockin's wish that I should not do any thing out of keeping with English ideas and habits. In a word, I accepted the Major's kind offer to see me quite safe in good hands in London, or else bring me straightway back again. And I took only just things enough for a day or two, meaning to come back by the end of the week. And I kissed Mrs. Hockin just enough for that.
It would not be a new thing for me to say that “we never know what is going to happen;” but, new or stale, it was true enough, as old common sayings of common-sense (though spurned when not wanted) show themselves. At first, indeed, it seemed as if I were come for nothing, at least as concerned what I thought the chief business of my journey. The Major had wished to go first to the bank, and appeared to think nothing of any thing else; but I, on the other hand, did not want him there, preferring to keep him out of my money matters, and so he was obliged to let me have my way.
I always am sorry when I have been perverse, and it seemed to serve me right for willfulness when no Betsy Bowen could be discovered either at the place which we tried first, or that to which we were sent thence. Major Hockin looked at me till I could have cried, as much as to hint that the whole of my story was all of a piece, all a wild-goose chase. And being more curious than ever now to go to the bank and ransack, he actually called out to the cabman to drive without delay to Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin. But I begged him to allow me just one minute while I spoke to the servant-maid alone. Then I showed her a sovereign, at which she opened her mouth in more ways than one, for she told me that “though she had faithfully promised to say nothing about it, because of a dreadful quarrel between her mistress and Mrs. Strouss that was now, and a jealousy between them that was quite beyond belief, she could not refuse such a nice young lady, if I would promise faithfully not to tell.” This promise I gave with fidelity, and returning to the cabman, directed him to drive not to Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin just yet, but to No. 17 European Square, St. Katharine's.
From a maze of streets and rugged corners, and ins and outs nearly as crooked as those of a narrow human nature, we turned at last into European Square, which was no square at all, but an oblong opening pitched with rough granite, and distinguished with a pump. There were great thoroughfares within a hundred yards, but the place itself seemed unnaturally quiet upon turning suddenly into it, only murmurous with distant London din, as the spires of a shell hold the heavings of the sea. After driving three or four times round the pump, for the houses were numbered anyhow, we found No. 17, and I jumped out.
“Now don't be in such a fierce hurry, Miss Wood,” cried the Major, who was now a little crusty; “English ladies allow themselves to be handed out, without hurrying the gentlemen who have the honor.”
“But I wanted to save you the honor,” I said. “I will come back immediately, if you will kindly wait.” And with this I ran up the old steps, and rang and knocked, while several bearded faces came and gazed through dingy windows.
“Can I see Mrs. Strouss?” I asked, when a queer old man in faded brown livery came to the door with a candle in his hand, though the sun was shining.
“I am the Meesther Strouss; when you see me, you behold the good Meeses Strouss also.”
“Thank you, but that will not do,” I replied; “my business is with Mrs. Strouss alone.”
He did not seem to like this at first sight, but politely put the chain-bolt on the door while he retired to take advice; and the Major looked out of the cab and laughed.
“You had better come back while you can,” he said, “though they seem in no hurry to swallow you.”
This was intended to vex me, and I did not even turn my head to him. The house looked very respectable, and there were railings to the area.
“The house is very respectable,” continued Major Hockin, who always seemed to know what I was thinking of, and now in his quick manner ran up the steps; “just look, the scraper is clean. You never see that, or at least not often, except with respectable people, Erema.”
“Pray what would my scraper be? and who is Erema?” cried a strong, clear voice, as the chain of the door was set free, and a stout, tall woman with a flush in her cheeks confronted us. “I never knew more than one Erema—Good mercy!”
My eyes met hers, and she turned as pale as death, and fell back into a lobby chair. She knew me by my likeness to my father, falling on the memories started by my name; and strong as she was, the surprise overcame her, at the sound of which up rushed the small Herr Strouss.
“Vhat are you doing dere, all of you? vhat have you enterprised with my frau? Explain, Vilhelmina, or I call de policemans, vhat I should say de peelers.”
“Stop!” cried the Major, and he stopped at once, not for the word, which would have had no power, although I knew nothing about it then, but because he had received a sign which assured him that here was a brother Mason. In a moment the infuriated husband vanished into the rational and docile brother.
“Ladies and gentlemans, valk in, if you please,” he said, to my great astonishment; “Vilhelmina and my good self make you velcome to our poor house. Vilhelmina, arise and say so.”
“Go to the back kitchen, Hans,” replied Wilhelmina, whose name was “Betsy,” “and don't come out until I tell you. You will find work to do there, and remember to pump up. I wish to hear things that you are not to hear, mind you. Shut yourself in, and if you soap the door to deceive me, I shall know it.”
“Vere goot, vere goot,” said the philosophical German; “I never meddle with nothing, Vilhelmina, no more than vhat I do for de money and de house.”
Betsy, however, was not quite so sure of that. With no more ceremony she locked him in, and then came back to us, who could not make things out.
“My husband is the bravest of the brave,” she told us, while she put down his key on the table; “and a nobler man never lived; I am sure of that. But every one of them foreigners—excuse me, Sir, you are an Englishman?”
“I am,” replied the Major, pulling up his little whiskers; “I am so, madam, and nothing you can say will in any way hurt my feelings. I am above nationalities.”
“Just so, Sir. Then you will feel with me when I say that they foreigners is dreadful. Oh, the day that I ever married one of 'em—but there, I ought to be ashamed of myself, and my lord's daughter facing me.”
“Do you know me?” I asked, with hot color in my face, and my eyes, I dare say, glistening. “Are you sure that you know me? And then please to tell me how.”
As I spoke I was taking off the close silk bonnet which I had worn for travelling, and my hair, having caught in a pin, fell round me, and before I could put it up, or even think of it, I lay in the great arms of Betsy Bowen, as I used to lie when I was a little baby, and when my father was in his own land, with a home and wife and seven little ones. And to think of this made me keep her company in crying, and it was some time before we did any thing else.
“Well, well,” replied the Major, who detested scenes, except when he had made them; “I shall be off. You are in good hands; and the cabman pulled out his watch when we stopped. So did I. But he is sure to beat me. They draw the minute hand on with a magnet, I am told, while the watch hangs on their badge, and they can swear they never opened it. Wonderful age, very wonderful age, since the time when you and I were young, ma'am.”
“Yes, Sir; to be sure, Sir!” Mrs. Strouss replied, as she wiped her eyes to speak of things; “but the most wonderfulest of all things, don't you think, is the going of the time, Sir? No cabby can make it go faster while he waits, or slower while he is a-driving, than the minds inside of us manage it. Why, Sir, it wore only like yesterday that this here tall, elegant, royal young lady was a-lying on my breast, and what a hand she was to kick! And I said that her hair was sure to grow like this. If I was to tell you only half what comes across me—”
“If you did, ma'am, the cabman would make his fortune, and I should lose mine, which is more than I can afford. Erema, after dinner I shall look you up. I know a good woman when I see her, Mrs. Strouss, which does not happen every day. I can trust Miss Castlewood with you. Good-by, good-by for the present.”
It was the first time he had ever called me by my proper name, and that made me all the more pleased with it.
“You see, Sir, why I were obliged to lock him in,” cried the “good woman,” following to the door, to clear every blur from her virtues; “for his own sake I done it, for I felt my cry a-coming, and to see me cry—Lord bless you, the effect upon him is to call out for a walking-stick and a pint of beer.”
“All right, ma'am, all right!” the Major answered, in a tone which appeared to me unfeeling. “Cabman, are you asleep there? Bring the lady's bag this moment.”
As the cab disappeared without my even knowing where to find that good protector again in this vast maze of millions, I could not help letting a little cold fear encroach on the warmth of my outburst. I had heard so much in America of the dark, subtle places of London, and the wicked things that happen all along the Thames, discovered or invented by great writers of their own, that the neighborhood of the docks and the thought of rats (to which I could never grow accustomed) made me look with a flash perhaps of doubt at my new old friend.
“You are not sure of me, Miss Erema,” said Mrs. Strouss, without taking offense. “After all that has happened, who can blame it on you? But your father was not so suspicious, miss. It might have been better for him if he had—according, leastways, to my belief, which a team of wild horses will never drag out.”
“Oh, only let me hear you talk of that!” I exclaimed, forgetting all other things. “You know more about it than any body I have ever met with, except my own father, who would never tell a word.”
“And quite right he was, miss, according to his views. But come to my little room, unless you are afraid. I can tell you some things that your father never knew.”
“Afraid! do you think I am a baby still? But I can not bear that Mr. Strouss should be locked up on my account.”
“Then he shall come out,” said Mrs. Strouss, looking at me very pleasantly. “That was just like your father, Miss Erema. But I fall into the foreign ways, being so much with the foreigners.” Whether she thought it the custom among “foreigners” for wives to lock their husbands in back kitchens was more than she ever took the trouble to explain. But she walked away, in her stout, firm manner, and presently returned with Mr. Strouss, who seemed to be quite contented, and made me a bow with a very placid smile.
“He is harmless; his ideas are most grand and good,” his wife explained to me, with a nod at him. “But I could not have you in with the gentleman, Hans. He always makes mistakes with the gentlemen, miss, but with the ladies he behaves quite well.”
“Yes, yes, with the ladies I am nearly always goot,” Herr Strouss replied, with diffidence. “The ladies comprehend me right, all right, because I am so habitual with my wife. But the gentlemans in London have no comprehension of me.”
“Then the loss is on their side,” I answered, with a smile; and he said, “Yes, yes, they lose vere much by me.”
CHAPTER XXIII
BETSY'S TALE
Now I scarcely know whether it would be more clear to put into narrative what I heard from Betsy Bowen, now Wilhelmina Strouss, or to let her tell the whole in her own words, exactly as she herself told it then to me. The story was so dark and sad—or at least to myself it so appeared—that even the little breaks and turns of lighter thought or livelier manner, which could scarcely fail to vary now and then the speaker's voice, seemed almost to grate and jar upon its sombre monotone. On the other hand, by omitting these, and departing from her homely style, I might do more of harm than good through failing to convey impressions, or even facts, so accurately. Whereas the gist and core and pivot of my father's life and fate are so involved (though not evolved) that I would not miss a single point for want of time or diligence. Therefore let me not deny Mrs. Strouss, my nurse, the right to put her words in her own way. And before she began to do this she took the trouble to have every thing cleared away and the trays brought down, that her boarders (chiefly German) might leave their plates and be driven to their pipes.
“If you please, Miss Castlewood,” Mrs. Strouss said, grandly, “do you or do you not approve of the presence of 'my man,' as he calls himself?—an improper expression, in my opinion; such, however, is their nature. He can hold his tongue as well as any man, though none of them are very sure at that. And he knows pretty nigh as much as I do, so far as his English can put things together, being better accustomed in German. For when we were courting I was fain to tell him all, not to join him under any false pretenses, miss, which might give him grounds against me.”
“Yes, yes, it is all vere goot and true—so goot and true as can be.”
“And you might find him come very handy, my dear, to run of any kind of messages. He can do that very well, I assure you, miss—better than any Englishman.”
Seeing that he wished to stay, and that she desired it, I begged him to stop, though it would have been more to my liking to hear the tale alone.
“Then sit by the door, Hans, and keep off the draught,” said his Wilhelmina, kindly. “He is not very tall, miss, but he has good shoulders; I scarcely know what I should do without him. Well, now, to begin at the very beginning: I am a Welshwoman, as you may have heard. My father was a farmer near Abergavenny, holding land under Sir Watkin Williams, an old friend of your family. My father had too many girls, and my mother scarcely knew what to do with the lot of us. So some of us went out to service, while the boys staid at home to work the land. One of my sisters was lady's-maid to Lady Williams, Sir Watkin's wife, at the time when your father came visiting there for the shooting of the moor-fowl, soon after his marriage with your mother. What a sweet good lady your mother was! I never saw the like before or since. No sooner did I set eyes upon her but she so took my fancy that I would have gone round the world with her. We Welsh are a very hot people, they say—not cold-blooded, as the English are. So, wise or foolish, right, wrong, or what might be, nothing would do for me but to take service, if I could, under Mrs. Castlewood. Your father was called Captain Castlewood then—as fine a young man as ever clinked a spur, but without any boast or conceit about him; and they said that your grandfather, the old lord, kept him very close and spare, although he was the only son. Now this must have been—let me see, how long ago?—about five-and-twenty years, I think. How old are you now, Miss Erema? I can keep the weeks better than the years, miss.”
“I was eighteen on my last birthday. But never mind about the time—go on.”
“But the time makes all the difference, miss, although at the time we may never think so. Well, then, it must have been better than six-and-twenty year agone; for though you came pretty fast, in the Lord's will, there was eight years between you and the first-born babe, who was only just a-thinking of when I begin to tell. But to come back to myself, as was—mother had got too many of us still, and she was glad enough to let me go, however much she might cry over it, as soon as Lady Williams got me the place. My place was to wait upon the lady first, and make myself generally useful, as they say. But it was not very long before I was wanted in other more important ways, and having been brought up among so many children, they found me very handy with the little ones; and being in a poor way, as they were then—for people, I mean, of their birth and place—they were glad enough soon to make head nurse of me, although I was under-two-and-twenty.
“We did not live at the old lord's place, which is under the hills looking on the river Thames, but we had a quiet little house in Hampshire; for the Captain was still with his regiment, and only came to and fro to us. But a happier little place there could not be, with the flowers, and the cow, and the birds all day, and the children running gradually according to their age, and the pretty brook shining in the valley. And as to the paying of their way, it is true that neither of them was a great manager. The Captain could not bear to keep his pretty wife close; and she, poor thing, was trying always to surprise him with other presents besides all the beautiful babies. But they never were in debt all round, as the liars said when the trouble burst; and if they owed two or three hundred pounds, who could justly blame them?
“For the old lord, instead of going on as he should, and widening his purse to the number of the mouths, was niggling at them always for offense or excuse, to take away what little he allowed them. The Captain had his pay, which would go in one hand, and the lady had a little money of her own; but still it was cruel for brought-up people to have nothing better to go on with. Not that the old lord was a miser neither; but it was said, and how far true I know not, that he never would forgive your father for marrying the daughter of a man he hated. And some went so far as to say that if he could have done it, he would have cut your father out of all the old family estates. But such a thing never could I believe of a nobleman having his own flesh and blood.
“But, money or no money, rich or poor, your father and mother, I assure you, my dear, were as happy as the day was long. For they loved one another and their children dearly, and they did not care for any mixing with the world. The Captain had enough of that when put away in quarters; likewise his wife could do without it better and better at every birth, though once she had been the very gayest of the gay, which you never will be, Miss Erema.
“Now, my dear, you look so sad and so 'solid,' as we used to say, that if I can go on at all, I must have something ready. I am quite an old nurse now, remember. Hans, go across the square, and turn on the left hand round the corner, and then three more streets toward the right, and you see one going toward the left, and you go about seven doors down it, and then you see a corner with a lamp-post.”
“Vilhelmina, I do see de lamp-post at de every corner.”
“That will teach you to look more bright, Hans. Then you find a shop window with three blue bottles, and a green one in the middle.”
“How can be any middle to three, without it is one of them?”
“Then let it be two of them. How you contradict me! Take this little bottle, and the man with a gold braid round a cap, and a tassel with a tail to it, will fill it for four-pence when you tell him who you are.”
“Yes, yes; I do now comprehend. You send me vhere I never find de vay, because I am in de vay, Vilhelmina!”
I was most thankful to Mrs. Strouss for sending her husband (however good and kind-hearted he might be) to wander among many shops of chemists, rather than to keep his eyes on me, while I listened to things that were almost sure to make me want my eyes my own. My nurse had seen, as any good nurse must, that, grown and formed as I might be, the nature of the little child that cries for its mother was in me still.
“It is very sad now,” Mrs. Strouss began again, without replying to my grateful glance; “Miss Erema, it is so sad that I wish I had never begun with it. But I see by your eyes—so like your father's, but softer, my dear, and less troublesome—that you will have the whole of it out, as he would with me once when I told him a story for the sake of another servant. It was just about a month before you were born, when the trouble began to break on us. And when once it began, it never stopped until all that were left ran away from it. I have read in the newspapers many and many sad things coming over whole families, such as they call 'shocking tragedies;' but none of them, to my mind, could be more galling than what I had to see with my very own eyes.
“It must have been close upon the middle of September when old Lord Castlewood came himself to see his son's house and family at Shoxford. We heard that he came down a little on the sudden to see to the truth of some rumors which had reached him about our style of living. It was the first time he had ever been there; for although he had very often been invited, he could not bear to be under the roof of the daughter, as he said, of his enemy. The Captain, just happening to come home on leave for his autumn holiday, met his father quite at his own door—the very last place to expect him. He afterward acknowledged that he was not pleased for his father to come 'like a thief in the night.' However, they took him in and made him welcome, and covered up their feelings nicely, as high-bred people do.
“What passed among them was unknown to any but themselves, except so far as now I tell you. A better dinner than usual for two was ready, to celebrate the master's return and the beginning of his holiday; and the old lord, having travelled far that day, was persuaded to sit down with them. The five eldest children (making all except the baby, for you was not born, miss, if you please) they were to have sat up at table, as pretty as could be—three with their high cushioned stools, and two in their arm-chairs screwed on mahogany, stuffed with horsehair, and with rods in front, that the little dears might not tumble out in feeding, which they did—it was a sight to see them! And how they would give to one another, with their fingers wet and shining, and saying, 'Oo, dat for oo.' Oh dear, Miss Erema, you were never born to see it! What a blessing for you! All those six dear darlings laid in their little graves within six weeks, with their mother planted under them; and the only wonder is that you yourself was not upon her breast.
“Pay you no heed to me, Miss Erema, when you see me a-whimpering in and out while I am about it. It makes my chest go easy, miss, I do assure you, though not at the time of life to understand it. All they children was to have sat up for the sake of their dear father, as I said just now; but because of their grandfather all was ordered back. And back they come, as good as gold, with Master George at the head of them, and asked me what milk-teeth was. Grandpa had said that 'a dinner was no dinner if milk-teeth were allowed at it.' The hard old man, with his own teeth false! He deserved to sit down to no other dinner—and he never did, miss.
“You may be sure that I had enough to do to manage all the little ones and answer all their questions; but never having seen a live lord before, and wanting to know if the children would be like him before so very long, I went quietly down stairs, and the biggest of my dears peeped after me. And then, by favor of the parlor-maid—for they kept neither butler nor footman now—I saw the Lord Castlewood, sitting at his ease, with a glass of port-wine before him, and my sweet mistress (the Captain's wife, and your mother, if you understand, miss) doing her very best, thinking of her children, to please him and make the polite to him. To me he seemed very much to be thawing to her—if you can understand, miss, what my meaning is—and the Captain was looking at them with a smile, as if it were just what he had hoped for. From my own eyesight I can contradict the lies put about by nobody knows who, that the father and the son were at hot words even then.
“And I even heard my master, when they went out at the door, vainly persuading his father to take such a bed as they could offer him. And good enough it would have been for ten lords; for I saw nothing wonderful in him, nor fit to compare any way with the Captain. But he would not have it, for no other reason of ill-will or temper, but only because he had ordered his bed at the Moonstock Inn, where his coach and four were resting.
“'I expect you to call me in the morning, George,' I heard him say, as clear as could be, while his son was helping his coat on. 'I am glad I have seen you. There are worse than you. And when the times get better, I will see what I can do.'
“With him this meant more than it might have done; for he was not a man of much promises, as you might tell by his face almost, with his nose so stern, and his mouth screwed down, and the wrinkles the wrong way for smiling. I could not tell what the Captain answered, for the door banged on them, and it woke the baby, who was dreaming, perhaps, about his lordship's face, and his little teeth gave him the wind on his chest, and his lungs was like bellows—bless him!
“Well, that stopped me, Miss Erema, from being truly accurate in my testimony. What with walking the floor, and thumping his back, and rattling of the rings to please him—when they put me on the Testament, cruel as they did, with the lawyers' eyes eating into me, and both my ears buzzing with sorrow and fright, I may have gone too far, with my heart in my mouth, for my mind to keep out of contradiction, wishful as I was to tell the whole truth in a manner to hurt nobody. And without any single lie or glaze of mine, I do assure you, miss, that I did more harm than good; every body in the room—a court they called it, and no bigger than my best parlor—one and all they were convinced that I would swear black was white to save my master and mistress! And certainly I would have done so, and the Lord in heaven thought the better of me, for the sake of all they children, if I could have made it stick together, as they do with practice.”
At thought of the little good she had done, and perhaps the great mischief, through excess of zeal, Mrs. Strouss was obliged to stop, and put her hand to her side, and sigh. And eager as I was for every word of this miserable tale, no selfish eagerness could deny her need of refreshment, and even of rest; for her round cheeks were white, and her full breast trembled. And now she was beginning to make snatches at my hand, as if she saw things she could only tell thus.
CHAPTER XXIV
BETSY'S TALE—(Continued.)
“I am only astonished, my dear,” said my nurse, as soon as she had had some tea and toast, and scarcely the soft roe of a red herring, “that you can put up so well, and abide with my instincts in the way you do. None of your family could have done it, to my knowledge of their dispositions, much less the baby that was next above you. But it often comes about to go in turns like that; 'one, three, five, and seven is sweet, while two, four, and six is a-squalling with their feet.' But the Lord forgive me for an ill word of them, with their precious little bodies washed, and laying in their patterns till the judgment-day.
“But putting by the words I said in the dirty little room they pleased to call a 'court,' and the Testament so filthy that no lips could have a hold of it, my meaning is to tell you, miss, the very things that happened, so that you may fairly judge of them. The Captain came back from going with his father, I am sure, in less than twenty minutes, and smoking a cigar in his elegant way, quite happy and contented, for I saw him down the staircase. As for sign of any haste about him, or wiping of his forehead, or fumbling with his handkerchief, or being in a stew in any sort of way—as the stupid cook who let him in declared, by reason of her own having been at the beer-barrel—solemnly, miss, as I hope to go to heaven, there was nothing of the sort about him.
“He went into the dining-room, and mistress, who had been up stairs to see about the baby, went down to him; and there I heard them talking as pleasant and as natural as they always were together. Not one of them had the smallest sense of trouble hanging over them; and they put away both the decanters and cruets, and came up to bed in their proper order, the master stopping down just to finish his cigar and see to the doors and the bringing up the silver, because there was no man-servant now. And I heard him laughing at some little joke he made as he went into the bedroom. A happier household never went to bed, nor one with better hopes of a happy time to come. And the baby slept beside his parents in his little cot, as his mother liked to have him, with his blessed mouth wide open.
“Now we three (cook and Susan and myself) were accustomed to have a good time of it whenever the master first came home and the mistress was taken up with him. We used to count half an hour more in bed, without any of that wicked bell-clack, and then go on to things according to their order, without any body to say any thing. Accordingly we were all snug in bed, and turning over for another tuck of sleep, when there came a most vicious ringing of the outer bell. 'You get up, Susan,' I heard the cook say, for there only was a door between us; and Susan said, 'Blest if I will! Only Tuesday you put me down about it when the baker came.' Not a peg would either of them stir, no more than to call names on one another; so I slipped on my things, with the bell going clatter all the while, like the day of judgment. I felt it to be hard upon me, and I went down cross a little—just enough to give it well to a body I were not afraid of.
“But the Lord in His mercy remember me, miss! When I opened the door, I had no blood left. There stood two men, with a hurdle on their shoulders, and on the hurdle a body, with the head hanging down, and the front of it slouching, like a sack that has been stolen from; and behind it there was an authority with two buttons on his back, and he waited for me to say something; but to do so was beyond me. Not a bit of caution or of fear about my sham dress-up, as the bad folk put it afterward; the whole of such thoughts was beyond me outright, and no thought of any thing came inside me, only to wait and wonder.
“'This corpse belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who seemed to be the master of it, and was proud to be so. 'Young woman, don't you please to stand like that, or every duffer in the parish will be here, and the boys that come hankering after it. You be off!' he cried out to a boy who was calling some more round the corner. 'Now, young woman, we must come in if you please, and the least said the soonest mended.'
“'Oh, but my mistress, my mistress!' I cried; 'and her time up, as nigh as may be, any day or night before new moon. 'Oh, Mr. Constable, Mr. Rural Polishman, take it to the tool shed, if you ever had a wife, Sir.' Now even this was turned against us as if I had expected it. They said that I must have known who it was, and to a certain length so I did, miss, but only by the dress and the manner of the corpse, and lying with an attitude there was no contradicting.
“I can not tell you now, my dear, exactly how things followed. My mind was gone all hollow with the sudden shock upon it. However, I had thought enough to make no noise immediate, nor tell the other foolish girls, who would have set up bellowing. Having years to deal with little ones brings knowledge of the rest to us. I think that I must have gone to master's door, where Susan's orders were to put his shaving water in a tin, and fetched him out, with no disturbance, only in his dressing-gown. And when I told him what it was, his rosy color turned like sheets, and he just said, 'Hush!' and nothing more. And guessing what he meant, I ran and put my things on properly.
“But having time to think, the shock began to work upon me, and I was fit for nothing when I saw the children smiling up with their tongues out for their bread and milk, as they used to begin the day with. And I do assure you, Miss Erema, my bitterest thought was of your coming, though unknown whether male or female, but both most inconvenient then, with things in such a state of things. You have much to answer for, miss, about it; but how was you to help it, though?
“The tool-shed door was too narrow to let the hurdle and the body in, and finding some large sea-kale pots standing out of use against the door, the two men (who were tired with the weight and fright, I dare say) set down their burden upon these, under a row of hollyhocks, at the end of the row of bee-hives. And here they wiped their foreheads with some rags they had for handkerchiefs, or one of them with his own sleeve, I should say, and, gaining their breath, they began to talk with the boldness of the sunrise over them. But Mr. Rural Polishman, as he was called in those parts, was walking up and down on guard, and despising of their foolish words.
“My master, the Captain, your father, miss, came out of a window and down the cross-walk, while I was at the green door peeping, for I thought that I might be wanted, if only to take orders what was to be done inside. The constable stiffly touched his hat, and marched to the head of the hurdle, and said,
“'Do you know this gentleman?'
“Your father took no more notice of him than if he had been a stiff hollyhock, which he might have resembled if he had been good-looking. The Captain thought highly of discipline always, and no kinder gentleman could there be to those who gave his dues to him. But that man's voice had a low and dirty impertinent sort of a twang with it. Nothing could have been more unlucky. Every thing depended on that fellow in an ignorant neighborhood like that; and his lordship, for such he was now, of course, would not even deign to answer him. He stood over his head in his upright way by a good foot, and ordered him here and there, as the fellow had been expecting, I do believe, to order his lordship. And that made the bitterest enemy of him, being newly sent into these parts, and puffed up with authority. And the two miller's men could not help grinning, for he had waved them about like a pair of dogs.
“But to suppose that my master 'was unmoved, and took it brutally' (as that wretch of a fellow swore afterward), only shows what a stuck-up dolt he was. For when my master had examined his father, and made his poor body be brought in and spread on the couch in the dining-room, and sent me hot-foot for old Dr. Diggory down at the bottom of Shoxford, Susan peeped in through the crack of the door, with the cook to hold her hand behind, and there she saw the Captain on his knees at the side of his father's corpse, not saying a word, only with his head down. And when the doctor came back with me, with his night-gown positive under his coat, the first thing he said was, 'My dear Sir—my lord, I mean—don't take on so; such things will always happen in this world;' which shows that my master was no brute.
“Then the Captain stood up in his strength and height, without any pride and without any shame, only in the power of a simple heart, and he said words fit to hang him:
“'This is my doing! There is no one else to blame. If my father is dead, I have killed him!'
“Several of us now were looking in, and the news going out like a winnowing woman with no one to shut the door after her; our passage was crowding with people that should have had a tar-brush in their faces. And of course a good score of them ran away to tell that the Captain had murdered his father. The milk-man stood there with his yoke and cans, and his naily boots on our new oil-cloth, and, not being able to hide himself plainly, he pulled out his slate and began to make his bill.
“'Away with you all!' your father said, coming suddenly out of the dining-room, while the doctor was unbuttoning my lord, who was dead with all his day clothes on; and every body brushed away like flies at the depth of his voice and his stature. Then he bolted the door, with only our own people and the doctor and the constable inside. Your mother was sleeping like a lamb, as I could swear, having had a very tiring day the day before, and being well away from the noise of the passage, as well as at a time when they must sleep whenever sleep will come, miss. Bless her gentle heart, what a blessing to be out of all that scare of it!
“All this time, you must understand, there was no sign yet what had happened to his lordship, over and above his being dead. All of us thought, if our minds made bold to think, that it must have pleased the Lord to take his lordship either with an appleplexy or a sudden heart-stroke, or, at any rate, some other gracious way not having any flow of blood in it. But now, while your father was gone up stairs—for he knew that his father was dead enough—to be sure that your mother was quiet, and perhaps to smooth her down for trouble, and while I was run away to stop the ranting of the children, old Dr. Diggory and that rural officer were handling poor Lord Castlewood. They set him to their liking, and they cut his clothes off—so Susan told me afterward—and then they found why they were forced to do so, which I need not try to tell you, miss. Only they found that he was not dead from any wise visitation, but because he had been shot with a bullet through his heart.
“Old Dr. Diggory came out shaking, and without any wholesome sense to meet what had arisen, after all his practice with dead men, and he called out 'Murder!' with a long thing in his hand, till my master leaped down the stairs, twelve at a time, and laid his strong hand on the old fool's mouth.
“'Would you kill my wife?' he said; 'you shall not kill my wife.'
“'Captain Castlewood,' the constable answered, pulling out his staff importantly, 'consider yourself my prisoner.'
“The Captain could have throttled him with one hand, and Susan thought he would have done it. But, instead of that, he said, 'Very well; do your duty. But let me see what you mean by it.' Then he walked back again to the body of his father, and saw that he had been murdered.
“But, oh, Miss Erema, you are so pale! Not a bit of food have you had for hours. I ought not to have told you such a deal of it to once. Let me undo all your things, my dear, and give you something cordial; and then lie down and sleep a bit.”
“No, thank you, nurse,” I answered, calling all my little courage back. “No sleep for me until I know every word. And to think of all my father had to see and bear! I am not fit to be his daughter.”
CHAPTER XXV
BETSY'S TALE—(Concluded.)
“Well, now,” continued Mrs. Strouss, as soon as I could persuade her to go on, “if I were to tell you every little thing that went on among them, miss, I should go on from this to this day week, or I might say this day fortnight, and then not half be done with it. And the worst of it is that those little things make all the odds in a case of that sort, showing what the great things were. But only a counselor at the Old Bailey could make head or tail of the goings on that followed.
“For some reason of his own, unknown to any living being but himself, whether it were pride (as I always said) or something deeper (as other people thought), he refused to have any one on earth to help him, when he ought to have had the deepest lawyer to be found. The constable cautioned him to say nothing, as it seems is laid down in their orders, for fear of crimination. And he smiled at this, with a high contempt, very fine to see, but not bodily wise. But even that jack-in-office could perceive that the poor Captain thought of his sick wife up stairs, and his little children, ten times for one thought he ever gave to his own position. And yet I must tell you that he would have no denial, but to know what it was that had killed his parent. When old Dr. Diggory's hands were shaking so that his instrument would not bite on the thing lodged in his lordship's back, after passing through and through him, and he was calling for somebody to run for his assistant, who do you think did it for him, Miss Erema? As sure as I sit here, the Captain! His face was like a rock, and his hands no less; and he said, 'Allow me, doctor. I have been in action.' And he fetched out the bullet—which showed awful nerve, according to my way of thinking—as if he had been a man with three rows of teeth.
“'This bullet is just like those of my own pistol!' he cried, and he sat down hard with amazement. You may suppose how this went against him, when all he desired was to know and tell the truth; and people said that of course he got it out, after a bottleful of doctors failed, because he knew best how it was put in.'
“'I shall now go and see the place, if you please, or whether you please or not,' my master said. 'Constable, you may come and point it out, unless you prefer going to your breakfast. My word is enough that I shall not run away. Otherwise, as you have acted on your own authority, I shall act on mine, and tie you until you have obtained a warrant. Take your choice, my man; and make it quickly, while I offer it.'
“The rural polishman stared at this, being used on the other hand to be made much of. But seeing how capable the Captain was of acting up to any thing, he made a sulky scrape, and said, 'Sir, as you please for the present,' weighting his voice on those last three words, as much as to say, 'Pretty soon you will be handcuffed.' 'Then,' said my master, 'I shall also insist on the presence of two persons, simply to use their eyes without any fear or favor. One is my gardener, a very honest man, but apt to be late in the morning. The other is a faithful servant, who has been with us for several years. Their names are Jacob Rigg and Betsy Bowen. You may also bring two witnesses, if you choose. And the miller's men, of course, will come. But order back all others.'
“'That is perfectly fair and straightforward, my lord,' the constable answered, falling naturally into abeyance to orders. 'I am sure that all of us wishes your lordship kindly out of this rum scrape. But my duty is my duty.'
“With a few more words we all set forth, six in number, and no more; for the constable said that the miller's men, who had first found the late Lord Castlewood, were witnesses enough for him. And Jacob Rigg, whose legs were far apart (as he said) from trenching celery, took us through the kitchen-garden, and out at a gap, which saved every body knowing.
“Then we passed through a copse or two, and across a meadow, and then along the turnpike-road, as far as now I can remember. And along that we went to a stile on the right, without any house for a long way off. And from that stile a foot-path led down a slope of grass land to the little river, and over a hand-bridge, and up another meadow full of trees and bushes, to a gate which came out into the road again a little to this side of the Moonstock Inn, saving a quarter of a mile of road, which ran straight up the valley and turned square at the stone bridge to get to the same inn.
“I can not expect to be clear to you, miss, though I see it all now as I saw it then, every tree, and hump, and hedge of it; only about the distances from this to that, and that to the other, they would be beyond me. You must be on the place itself; and I never could carry distances—no, nor even clever men, I have heard my master say. But when he came to that stile he stopped and turned upon all of us clearly, and as straight as any man of men could be. 'Here I saw my father last, at a quarter past ten o'clock last night, or within a few minutes of that time.' I wished to see him to his inn, but he would not let me do so, and he never bore contradiction. He said that he knew the way well, having fished more than thirty years ago up and down this stream. He crossed this stile, and we shook hands over it, and the moon being bright, I looked into his face, and he said, 'My boy, God bless you!' Knowing his short ways, I did not even look after him, but turned away, and went straight home along this road. Upon my word as an Englishman, and as an officer of her Majesty, that is all I know of it. Now let us go on to the—to the other place.
“We all of us knew in our hearts, I am sure, that the Captain spoke the simple truth, and his face was grand as he looked at us. But the constable thought it his duty to ask,
“'Did you hear no sound of a shot, my lord? For he fell within a hundred yards of this.'
“'I heard no sound of any shot whatever. I heard an owl hooting as I went home, and then the rattle of a heavy wagon, and the bells of horses. I have said enough. Let us go forward.'
“We obeyed him at once; and even the constable looked right and left, as if he had been wrong. He signed to the miller's man to lead the way, and my lord walked proudly after him. The path was only a little narrow track, with the grass, like a front of hair, falling over it on the upper side and on the under, dropping away like side curls; such a little path that I was wondering how a great lord could walk over it. Then we came down a steep place to a narrow bridge across a shallow river—abridge made of only two planks and a rail, with a prop or two to carry them. And one end of the handrail was fastened into a hollow and stubby old hawthorn-tree, overhanging the bridge and the water a good way. And just above this tree, and under its shadow, there came a dry cut into the little river, not more than a yard or two above the wooden bridge, a water-trough such as we have in Wales, miss, for the water to run in, when the farmer pleases; but now there was no water in it, only gravel.
“The cleverest of the miller's men, though, neither of them had much intellect, stepped down at a beck from the constable, right beneath the old ancient tree, and showed us the marks on the grass and the gravel made by his lordship where he fell and lay. And it seemed that he must have fallen off the bridge, yet not into the water, but so as to have room for his body, if you see, miss, partly on the bank, and partly in the hollow of the meadow trough.
“'Have you searched the place well?' the Captain asked. 'Have you found any weapon or implement?'
“'We have found nothing but the corpse, so far,' the constable answered, in a surly voice, not liking to be taught his business. 'My first duty was to save life, if I could. These men, upon finding the body, ran for me, and knowing who it was, I came with it to your house.'
“'You acted for the best, my man. Now search the place carefully, while I stand here. I am on my parole, I shall not run away. Jacob, go down and help them.'
“Whether from being in the army, or what, your father always spoke in such a way that the most stiff-neckedest people began without thinking to obey him. So the constable and the rest went down, while the Captain and I stood upon the plank, looking at the four of them.
“For a long time they looked about, according to their attitudes, without finding any thing more than the signs of the manner in which the poor lord fell, and of these the constable pulled out a book and made a pencil memorial. But presently Jacob, a spry sort of man, cried, 'Hulloa! whatever have I got hold of here? Many a good craw-fish have I pulled out from this bank when the water comes down the gully, but never one exactly like this here afore.'
“'Name of the Lord!' cried the constable, jumping behind the hawthorn stump; 'don't point it at me, you looby! It's loaded, loaded one barrel, don't you see? Put it down, with the muzzle away from me.'
“'Hand it to me, Jacob,' the Captain said. 'You understand a gun, and this goes off just the same.' Constable Jobbins have no fear. 'Yes, it is exactly as I thought. This pistol is one of the double-barreled pair which I bought to take to India. The barrels are rifled; it shoots as true as any rifle, and almost as hard up to fifty yards. The right barrel has been fired, the other is still loaded. The bullet I took from my father's body most certainly came from this pistol.'
“'Can 'e say, can 'e say then, who done it, master?' asked Jacob, a man very sparing of speech, but ready at a beck to jump at constable and miller's men, if only law was with him. 'Can 'e give a clear account, and let me chuck 'un in the river?'
“'No, Jacob, I can do nothing of the kind,' your father answered; while the rural man came up and faced things, not being afraid of a fight half so much as he was of an accident; by reason of his own mother having been blown up by a gunpowder start at Dartford, yet came down all right, miss, and had him three months afterward, according to his own confession; nevertheless, he came up now as if he had always been upright, in the world, and he said, 'My lord, can you explain all this?'
“Your father looked at him with one of his strange gazes, as if he were measuring the man while trying his own inward doing of his own mind. Proud as your father was, as proud as ever can be without cruelty, it is my firm belief, Miss Erema, going on a woman's judgment, that if the man's eyes had come up to my master's sense of what was virtuous, my master would have up and told him the depth and contents of his mind and heart, although totally gone beyond him.
“But Jobbins looked back at my lord with a grin, and his little eyes, hard to put up with. 'Have you nothing to say, my lord? Then I am afeared I must ask you just to come along of me.' And my master went with him, miss, as quiet as a lamb; which Jobbins said, and even Jacob fancied, was a conscience sign of guilt.
“Now after I have told you all this, Miss Erema, you know very nearly as much as I do. To tell how the grief was broken to your mother, and what her state of mind was, and how she sat up on the pillows and cried, while things went on from bad to worse, and a verdict of 'willful murder' was brought against your father by the crowner's men, and you come headlong, without so much as the birds in the ivy to chirp about you, right into the thick of the worst of it. I do assure you, Miss Erema, when I look at your bright eyes and clear figure, the Lord in heaven, who has made many cripples, must have looked down special to have brought you as you are. For trouble upon trouble fell in heaps, faster than I can wipe my eyes to think. To begin with, all the servants but myself and gardener Jacob ran away. They said that the old lord haunted the house, and walked with his hand in the middle of his heart, pulling out a bullet if he met any body, and sighing 'murder' three times, till every hair was crawling. I took it on myself to fetch the Vicar of the parish to lay the evil spirit, as they do in Wales. A nice kind gentleman he was as you could see, and wore a velvet skull-cap, and waited with his legs up. But whether he felt that the power was not in him, or whether his old lordship was frightened of the Church, they never made any opportunity between them to meet and have it out, miss.
“Then it seemed as if Heaven, to avenge his lordship, rained down pestilence upon that house. A horrible disease, the worst I ever met, broke out upon the little harmless dears, the pride of my heart and of every body's eyes, for lovelier or better ones never came from heaven. They was all gone to heaven in a fortnight and three days, and laid in the church-yard at one another's side, with little beds of mould to the measure of their stature, and their little carts and drums, as they made me promise, ready for the judgment-day. Oh, my heart was broken, miss, my heart was broken! I cried so, I thought I could never cry more.
“But when your dear mother, who knew nothing of all this (for we put all their illness, by the doctor's orders, away at the further end of the house), when she was a little better of grievous pain and misery (for being so upset her time was hard), when she sat up on the pillow, looking like a bride almost, except that she had what brides hasn't—a little red thing in white flannel at her side—then she says to me, 'I am ready, Betsy; it is high time for all of them to see their little sister. They always love the baby so, whenever there is a new one. And they are such men and women to it. They have been so good this time that I have never heard them once. And I am sure that I can trust them, Betsy, not to make the baby cry. I do so long to see the darlings. Now do not even whisper to them not to make a noise. They are too good to require it; and it would hurt their little feelings.'
“I had better have been shot, my dear, according as the old lord was, than have the pain that went through all my heart, to see the mother so. She sat up, leaning on one arm, with the hand of the other round your little head, and her beautiful hair was come out of its loops, and the color in her cheeks was like a shell. Past the fringe of the curtain, and behind it too, her soft bright eyes were a-looking here and there for the first to come in of her children. The Lord only knows what lies I told her, so as to be satisfied without them. First I said they were all gone for a walk; and then that the doctor had ordered them away; and then that they had got the measles. That last she believed, because it was worse than what I had said before of them; and she begged to see Dr. Diggory about it, and I promised that she should as soon as he had done his dinner. And then, with a little sigh, being very weak, she went down into her nest again, with only you to keep her company.
“Well, that was bad enough, as any mortal sufferer might have said; enough for one day at any rate. But there was almost worse to come. For when I was having a little sit down stairs, with my supper and half pint of ale (that comes like drawing a long breath to us when spared out of sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery now on my mind, was thinking of all the sad business, with only a little girl in the back kitchen come in to muck up the dishes, there appeared a good knock at the garden door, and I knew it for the thumb of the Captain. I locked the young girl up, by knowing what their tongues are, and then I let your father in, and the candle-sight of him made my heart go low.
“He had come out of prison; and although not being tried, his clothes were still in decency, they had great holes in them, and the gloss all gone to a smell of mere hedges and ditches. The hat on his head was quite out of the fashion, even if it could be called a hat at all, and his beautiful beard had no sign of a comb, and he looked as old again as he had looked a month ago.
“'I know all about it. You need not be afraid,' he said, as I took him to the breakfast-room, where no one up stairs could hear us. 'I know that my children are all dead and buried, except the one that was not born yet. Ill news flies quick. I know all about it. George, Henrietta, Jack, Alf, little Vi, and Tiny. I have seen their graves and counted them, while the fool of a policeman beat his gloves through the hedge within a rod of me. Oh yes, I have much to be thankful for. My life is in my own hand now.'
“'Oh, master; oh, Captain; oh, my lord!' I cried; 'for the sake of God in heaven, don't talk like that. Think of your sweet wife, your dear lady.'
“'Betsy,' he answered, with his eyes full upon me, noble, yet frightful to look at, 'I am come to see my wife. Go and let her know it, according to your own discretion.'
“My discretion would have been not to let him see her, but go on and write to her from foreign countries, with the salt sea between them; but I give you my word that I had no discretion, but from pity and majesty obeyed him. I knew that he must have broken prison, and by good rights ought to be starving. But I could no more offer him the cold ham and pullet than take him by his beard and shake him.
“'Is he come, at last, at last?' my poor mistress said, whose wits were wandering after her children. 'At last, at last! Then he will find them all.'
“'Yes, ma'am, at last, at the last he will,' I answered, while I thought of the burial service, which I had heard three times in a week—for the little ones went to their graves in pairs to save ceremony; likewise of the Epistle of Saint Paul, which is not like our Lord's way of talking at all, but arguing instead of comforting. And not to catch her up in that weak state, I said, 'He will find every one of them, ma'am.'
“'Oh, but I want him for himself, for himself, as much as all the rest put together,' my dear lady said, without listening to me, but putting her hand to her ear to hearken for even so much as a mouse on the stairs. 'Do bring him, Betsy; only bring him, Betsy, and then let me go where my children are.'
“I was surprised at her manner of speaking, which I would not have allowed to her, but more than all about her children, which she could only have been dreaming yet, for nobody else came nigh her except only me, miss, and you, miss, and for you to breathe words was impossible. All you did was to lie very quiet, tucked up into your mother's side; and as regular as the time-piece went, wide came your eyes and your mouth to be fed. If your nature had been cross or squally, 'baby's coffin No. 7' would have come after all the other six, which the thief of a carpenter put down on his bill as if it was so many shavings.
“Well, now, to tell you the downright truth, I have a lot of work to do to-morrow, miss, with three basketfuls of washing coming home, and a man about a tap that leaks and floods the inside of the fender; and if I were to try to put before you the way that those two for the last time of their lives went on to one another—the one like a man and the other like a woman, full of sobs and choking—my eyes would be in such a state to-morrow that the whole of them would pity and cheat me. And I ought to think of you as well, miss, who has been sadly harrowed listening when you was not born yet. And to hear what went on, full of weeping, when yourself was in the world, and able to cry for yourself, and all done over your own little self, would leave you red eyes and no spirit for the night, and no appetite in the morning; and so I will pass it all over, if you please, and let him go out of the backdoor again.
“This he was obliged to do quick, and no mistake, glad as he might have been to say more words, because the fellows who call themselves officers, without any commission, were after him. False it was to say, as was said, that he got out of Winchester jail through money. That story was quite of a piece with the rest. His own strength and skill it was that brought him out triumphantly, as the scratches on his hands and cheeks might show. He did it for the sake of his wife, no doubt. When he heard that the children were all in their graves, and their mother in the way to follow them, madness was better than his state of mind, as the officers told me when they could not catch him—and sorry they would have been to do it, I believe.
“To overhear my betters is the thing of all things most against my nature; and my poor lady being unfit to get up, there was nothing said on the landing, which is the weakest part of gentlefolks. They must have said 'Good-by' to one another quite in silence, and the Captain, as firm a man as ever lived, had lines on his face that were waiting for tears, if nature should overcome bringing up. Then I heard the words, 'for my sake,' and the other said, 'for your sake,' a pledge that passed between them, making breath more long than life is. But when your poor father was by the back-door, going out toward the woods and coppices, he turned sharp round, and he said, 'Betsy Bowen!' and I answered, 'Yes, at your service, Sir.' 'You have been the best woman in the world,' he said—'the bravest, best, and kindest. I leave my wife and my last child to you. The Lord has been hard on me, but He will spare me those two. I do hope and believe He will.'
“We heard a noise of horses in the valley, and the clank of swords—no doubt the mounted police from Winchester a-crossing of the Moonstock Bridge to search our house for the runaway. And the Captain took my hand, and said, 'I trust them to you. Hide the clothes I took off, that they may not know I have been here. I trust my wife and little babe to you, and may God bless you, Betsy!'
“He had changed all his clothes, and he looked very nice, but a sadder face was never seen. As he slipped through the hollyhocks I said to myself, 'There goes a broken-hearted man, and he leaves a broken heart behind.' And your dear mother died on the Saturday night. Oh my! oh my! how sad it was!”
CHAPTER XXVI
AT THE BANK
In telling that sad tale my faithful and soft-hearted nurse had often proved her own mistake in saying, as she did, that tears can ever be exhausted. And I, for my part, though I could scarcely cry for eager listening, was worse off perhaps than if I had wetted each sad fact as it went by. At any rate, be it this way or that, a heavy and sore heart was left me, too distracted for asking questions, and almost too depressed to grieve.
In the morning Mrs. Strouss was bustling here and there and every where, and to look at her nice Welsh cheeks and aprons, and to hear how she scolded the butcher's boy, nobody would for a moment believe that her heart was deeper than her skin, as the saying of the west country is. Major Hockin had been to see me last night, for he never forgot a promise, and had left me in good hands, and now he came again in the morning. According to his usual way of taking up an opinion, he would not see how distracted I was, and full of what I had heard overnight, but insisted on dragging me off to the bank, that being in his opinion of more importance than old stories. I longed to ask Betsy some questions which had been crowding into my mind as she spoke, and while I lay awake at night; however, I was obliged to yield to the business of the morning, and the good Major's zeal and keen knowledge of the world; and he really gave me no time to think.
“Yes, I understand all that as well as if I had heard every word of it,” he said, when he had led me helpless into the Hansom cab he came in, and had slammed down the flood-gates in front of us. “You must never think twice of what old women say” (Mrs. Strouss was some twenty years younger than himself); “they always go prating and finding mares'-nests, and then they always cry. Now did she cry, Erema?”
I would have given a hundred dollars to be able to say, “No, not one drop;” but the truth was against me, and I said, “How could she help it?”
“Exactly!” the Major exclaimed, so loudly that the cabman thought he was ordered to stop. “No, go on, cabby, if your horse can do it. My dear, I beg your pardon, but you are so very simple! You have not been among the eye-openers of the west. This comes of the obsolete Uncle Sam.”
“I would rather be simple than 'cute!'” I replied; “and my own Uncle Sam will be never obsolete.”
Silly as I was, I could never speak of the true Uncle Sam in this far country without the bright shame of a glimmer in my eyes; and with this, which I cared not to hide, I took my companion's hand and stood upon the footway of a narrow and crowded lane.
“Move on! move on!” cried a man with a high-crowned hat japanned at intervals, and, wondering at his rudeness to a lady, I looked at him. But he only said, “Now move on, will you?” without any wrath, and as if he were vexed at our littleness of mind in standing still. Nobody heeded him any more than if he had said, “I am starving,” but it seemed a rude thing among ladies. Before I had time to think more about this—for I always like to think of things—I was led through a pair of narrow swinging doors, and down a close alley between two counters full of people paying and receiving money. The Major, who always knew how to get on, found a white-haired gentleman in a very dingy corner, and whispered to him in a confidential way, though neither had ever seen the other before, and the white-haired gentleman gazed at me as sternly as if I were a bank-note for at least a thousand pounds; and then he said, “Step this way, young lady. Major Hockin, step this way, Sir.”
The young lady “stepped that way” in wonder as to what English English is, and then we were shown into a sacred little room, where the daylight had glass reflectors for it, if it ever came to use them. But as it cared very little to do this, from angular disabilities, three bright gas-lights were burning in soft covers, and fed the little room with a rich, sweet glow. And here shone one of the partners of the bank, a very pleasant-looking gentleman, and very nicely dressed.
“Major Hockin,” he said, after looking at the card, “will you kindly sit down, while I make one memorandum? I had the pleasure of knowing your uncle well—at least I believe that the late Sir Rufus was your uncle.”
“Not so,” replied the Major, well pleased, however. “I fear that I am too old to have had any uncle lately. Sir Rufus Hockin was my first cousin.”
“Oh, indeed! To be sure, I should have known it, but Sir Rufus being much your senior, the mistake was only natural. Now what can I do to serve you, or perhaps this young lady—Miss Hockin, I presume?”
“No,” said his visitor, “not Miss Hockin. I ought to have introduced her, but for having to make my own introduction. Mr. Shovelin, this lady is Miss Erema Castlewood, the only surviving child of the late Captain George Castlewood, properly speaking, Lord Castlewood.”
Mr. Shovelin had been looking at me with as much curiosity as good manners and his own particular courtesy allowed. And I fancied that he felt that I could not be a Hockin.
“Oh, dear, dear me!” was all he said, though he wanted to say, “God bless me!” or something more sudden and stronger. “Lord Castlewood's daughter—poor George Castlewood! My dear young lady, is it possible?”
“Yes, I am my father's child,” I said; “and I am proud to hear that I am like him.”
“That you well may be,” he answered, putting on his spectacles. “You are astonished at my freedom, perhaps; you will allow for it, or at least, you will not be angry with me, when you know that your father was my dearest friend at Harrow; and that when his great trouble fell upon him—”
Here Mr. Shovelin stopped, as behooves a man who begins to outrun himself. He could not tell me that it was himself who had found all the money for my father's escape, which cost much cash as well as much good feeling. Neither did I, at the time, suspect it, being all in the dark upon such points. Not knowing what to say, I looked from the banker to the Major, and back again.
“Can you tell me the exact time?” the latter asked. “I am due in the Temple at 12.30, and I never am a minute late, whatever happens.”
“You will want a swift horse,” Mr. Shovelin answered, “or else this will be an exception to your rule. It is twenty-one minutes past twelve now.”
“May I leave my charge to you, then, for a while? She will be very quiet; she is always so. Erema, will you wait for me?”
I was not quick enough then to see that this was arranged between them. Major Hockin perceived that Mr. Shovelin wished to have a talk with me about dearer matters than money, having children of his own, and being (as his eyes and forehead showed) a man of peculiar views, perhaps, but clearly of general good-will.
“In an hour, in an hour, in less than an hour”—the Major intensified his intentions always—“in three-quarters of an hour I shall be back. Meanwhile, my dear, you will sit upon a stool, and not say a word, nor make any attempt to do any thing every body is not used to.”
This vexed me, as if I were a savage here; and I only replied with a very gentle bow, being glad to see his departure; for Major Hockin was one of those people, so often to be met with, whom any one likes or dislikes according to the changes of their behavior. But Mr. Shovelin was different from that.
“Miss Castlewood, take this chair,” he said; “a hard one, but better than a stool, perhaps. Now how am I to talk to you—as an inquirer upon business matters, or as the daughter of my old friend? Your smile is enough. Well, and you must talk to me in the same unreasonable manner. That being clearly established between us, let us proceed to the next point. Your father, my old friend, wandered from the track, and unfortunately lost his life in a desolate part of America.”
“No; oh no. It was nothing like that. He might have been alive, and here at this moment, if I had not drunk and eaten every bit and drop of his.”
“Now don't, my dear child, don't be so romantic—I mean, look at things more soberly. You did as you were ordered, I have no doubt; George Castlewood always would have that. He was a most commanding man. You do not quite resemble him in that respect, I think.”
“Oh, but did he do it, did he do it?” I cried out. “You were at school with him, and knew his nature. Was it possible for him to do it, Sir?”
“As possible as it is for me to go down to Sevenoaks and shoot my dear old father, who is spending a green and agreeable old age there. Not that your grandfather, if I may say it without causing pain to you, was either green or agreeable. He was an uncommonly sharp old man; I might even say a hard one. As you never saw him, you will not think me rude in saying that much. Your love, of course, is for your father; and if your father had had a father of larger spirit about money, he might have been talking to me pleasantly now, instead of—instead of all these sad things.”
“Please not to slip away from me,” I said, bluntly, having so often met with that. “You believe, as every good person does, that my father was wholly innocent. But do tell me who could have done it instead. Somebody must have done it; that seems clear.”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Shovelin, with a look of calm consideration; “somebody did it, undoubtedly; and that makes the difficulty of the whole affair. 'Cui bono,' as the lawyers say. Two persons only could have had any motive, so far as wealth and fortune go. The first and most prominent, your father, who, of course, would come into every thing (which made the suspicion so hot and strong); and the other, a very nice gentleman, whom it is wholly impossible to suspect.”
“Are you sure of that? People have more than suspected—they have condemned—my father. After that, I can suspect any body. Who is it? Please to tell me.”
“It is the present Lord Castlewood, as he is beginning to be called. He would not claim the title, or even put forward his right in any way, until he had proof of your dear father's death; and even then he behaved so well—”
“He did it! he did it!” I cried, in hot triumph. “My father's name shall be clear of it. Can there be any doubt that he did it? How very simple the whole of it becomes! Nothing astonishes me, except the stupidity of people. He had every thing to gain, and nothing to lose—a bad man, no doubt—though I never heard of him. And putting it all on my father, of course, to come in himself, and abide his time, till the misery killed my father. How simple, how horribly simple, it becomes!”
“You are much too quick, too hot, too sudden. Excuse me a minute”—as a silver bell struck—“I am wanted in the next room. But before I go, let me give you a glass of cold water, and beg you to dismiss that new idea from your mind.”
I could see, as I took with a trembling hand the water he poured out for me, that Mr. Shovelin was displeased. His kind and handsome face grew hard. He had taken me for a nice young lady, never much above the freezing-point, and he had found me boil over in a moment. I was sorry to have grieved him; but if he had heard Betsy Bowen's story, and seen her tell it, perhaps he would have allowed for me. I sat down again, having risen in my warmth, and tried to quiet and command myself by thinking of the sad points only. Of these there were plenty to make pictures of, the like of which had kept me awake all night; and I knew by this time, from finding so much more of pity than real sympathy, that men think a woman may well be all tears, but has no right to even the shadow of a frown. That is their own prerogative.
And so, when Mr. Shovelin returned, with a bundle of papers which had also vexed him—to judge by the way in which he threw them down—I spoke very mildly, and said that I was very sorry for my display of violence, but that if he knew all, he would pardon me; and he pardoned me in a moment.
“I was going to tell you, my dear Miss Castlewood,” he continued, gently, “that your sudden idea must be dismissed, for reasons which I think will content you. In the first place, the present Lord Castlewood is, and always has been, an exemplary man, of great piety and true gentleness; in the next place, he is an invalid, who can not walk a mile with a crutch to help him, and so he has been for a great many years; and lastly, if you have no faith in the rest, he was in Italy at the time, and remained there for some years afterward. There he received and sheltered your poor father after his sad calamity, and was better than a brother to him, as your father, in a letter to me, declared. So you see that you must acquit him.”
“That is not enough. I would beg his pardon on my knees, since he helped my father, for he must have thought him innocent. Now, Mr. Shovelin, you were my father's friend, and you are such a clever man—”
“How do you know that, young lady? What a hurry you are always in!”
“Oh, there can be no doubt about it. But you must not ask reasons, if I am so quick. Now please to tell me what your own conclusion is. I can talk of it calmly now; yes, quite calmly, because I never think of any thing else. Only tell me what you really believe, and I will keep it most strictly to myself.”
“I am sure you will do that,” he answered, smiling, “not only from the power of your will, my dear, but also because I have nothing to say. At first I was strongly inclined to believe (knowing, from my certainty of your father, that the universal opinion must be wrong) that the old lord had done it himself; for he always had been of a headstrong and violent nature, which I am sure will never re-appear in you. But the whole of the evidence went against this, and little as I think of evidence, especially at an inquest, your father's behavior confirmed what was sworn to. Your father knew that his father had not made away with himself in a moment of passion, otherwise he was not the man to break prison and fly trial. He would have said, boldly, 'I am guiltless; there are many things that I can not explain; I can not help that; I will face it out. Condemn me, if you like, and I will suffer.' From your own remembrance of your father's nature, is not that certainly the course he would have taken?”
“I have not an atom of doubt about it. His flight and persistent dread of trial puzzle me beyond imagination. Of his life he was perfectly reckless, except, at least, for my sake.”
“I know that he was,” Mr. Shovelin replied; “as a boy he was wonderfully fearless. As a man, with a sweet wife and a lot of children, he might have begun to be otherwise. But when all those were gone, and only a poor little baby left—”
“Yes, I suppose I was all that.”
“Forgive me. I am looking back at you. Who could dream that you would ever even live, without kith or kin to care for you? Your life was saved by some good woman who took you away to Wales. But when you were such a poor little relic, and your father could scarcely have seen you, to have such a mite left must have been almost a mockery of happiness. That motive could not have been strong enough to prevent a man of proud honor from doing what honor at once demanded. Your father would have returned and surrendered as soon as he heard of his dear wife's death, if in the balance there had been only you.”
“Yes, Mr. Shovelin, perhaps he would. I was never very much as a counter-balance. Yet my father loved me.” I could have told him of the pledge exchanged—“For my sake,” and, “Yes, for your sake,” with love and wedded honor set to fight cold desolate repute—but I did not say a word about it.
“He loved you afterward, of course. But a man who has had seven children is not enthusiastic about a baby. There must have been a larger motive.”
“But when I was the only one left alive. Surely I became valuable then. I can not have been such a cipher.”
“Yes, for a long time you would have been,” replied the Saturnian banker. “I do not wish to disparage your attractions when you were a fortnight old. They may have begun already to be irresistible. Excuse me; you have led me into the light vein, when speaking of a most sad matter. You must blame your self-assertion for it. All I wish to convey to you is my belief that something wholly unknown to us, some dark mystery of which we have no inkling, lies at the bottom of this terrible affair. Some strange motive there must have been, strong enough even to overcome all ordinary sense of honor, and an Englishman's pride in submitting to the law, whatever may be the consequence. Consider that his 'flight from justice,' as it was called, of course, by every one, condemned his case and ruined his repute. Even for that he would not have cared so much as for his own sense of right. And though he was a very lively fellow, as I first remember him, full of tricks and jokes, and so on, which in this busy age are out of date, I am certain that he always had a stern sense of right. One never knows how love affairs and weakness about children may alter almost any man; but my firm conviction is that my dear old school-fellow, George Castlewood, even with a wife and lovely children hanging altogether upon his life, not only would not have broken jail, but would calmly have given up his body to be hanged—pardon me, my dear, for putting it so coarsely—if there had not been something paramount to override even apparent honor. What it can have been I have no idea, and I presume you have none.”
“None whatever,” I said at once, in answer to his inquiring gaze. “I am quite taken by surprise; I never even thought of such a thing. It has always seemed to me so natural that my dear father, being shamefully condemned, because appearances were against him, and nobody could enter into him, should, for the sake of his wife and children, or even of one child like me, depart or banish himself, or emigrate, or, as they might call it, run away. Knowing that he never could have a fair trial, it was the only straightforward and good and affectionate thing for him to do.”
“You can not see things as men see them. We must not expect it of you,” Mr. Shovelin answered, with a kind but rather too superior smile, which reminded me a little of dear Uncle Sam when he listened to what, in his opinion, was only female reason; “but, dear me, here is Major Hockin come! Punctuality is the soul of business.”
“So I always declare,” cried the Major, who was more than three-quarters of an hour late, for which in my heart I thanked him. “My watch keeps time to a minute, Sir, and its master to a second. Well, I hope you have settled all questions of finance, and endowed my young maid with a fortune.”
“So far from that,” Mr. Shovelin replied, in a tone very different from that he used to me, “we have not even said one word of business; all that has been left for your return. Am I to understand that you are by appointment or relationship the guardian of this young lady?”
“God forbid!” cried Major Hockin, shortly. I thought it very rude of him, yet I could not help smiling to see how he threw his glasses up and lifted his wiry crest of hair. “Not that she is bad, I mean, but good, very good; indeed, I may say the very best girl ever known outside of my own family. My cousin, Colonel Gundry, who owns an immense estate in the most auriferous district of all California, but will not spoil his splendid property by mining, he will—he will tell you the very same thing, Sir.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” said the banker, smiling at me, while I wondered what it was, but hoped that it meant my praises. “Now I really fear that I must be very brief, though the daughter of my oldest friend may well be preferred to business. But now we will turn at once to business, if you please.”
CHAPTER XXVII
COUSIN MONTAGUE
Mr. Shovelin went to a corner of the room, which might be called his signal-box, having a little row of port-holes like a toy frigate or accordion, and there he made sounds which brought steps very promptly, one clerk carrying a mighty ledger, and the other a small strong-box.
“No plate,” Major Hockin whispered to me, shaking his gray crest with sorrow; “but there may be diamonds, you know, Erema. One ounce of diamonds is worth a ton of plate.”
“No,” said Mr. Shovelin, whose ears were very keen, “I fear that you will find nothing of mercantile value. Thank you, Mr. Robinson; by-and-by perhaps we shall trouble you. Strictly speaking, perhaps I should require the presence of your father's lawyer, or of some one producing probate, ere I open this box, Miss Castlewood. But having you here, and Major Hockin, and knowing what I do about the matter (which is one of personal confidence), I will dispense with formalities. We have given your father's solicitor notice of this deposit, and requested his attention, but he never has deigned to attend to it; so now we will dispense with him. You see that the seal is unbroken; you know your father's favorite seal, no doubt. The key is nothing; it was left to my charge. You wish that I should open this?”
Certainly I did, and the banker split the seal with an ebony-handled paper-knife, and very soon unlocked the steel-ribbed box, whose weight was chiefly of itself. Some cotton-wool lay on the top to keep the all-penetrative dust away, and then a sheet of blue foolscap paper, partly covered with clear but crooked writing, and under that some little twists of silver paper, screwed as if there had been no time to tie them, and a packet of letters held together by a glittering bracelet.
“Poor fellow!” Mr. Shovelin said, softly, while I held my breath, and the Major had the courtesy to be silent. “This is his will; of no value, I fear, in a pecuniary point of view, but of interest to you his daughter. Shall I open it, Miss Castlewood, or send it to his lawyers?”
“Open it, and never think of them,” said I. “Like the rest, they have forsaken him. Please to read it to yourself, and then tell us.”
“Oh, I wish I had known this before!” cried the banker, after a rapid glance or two. “Very kind, very flattering, I am sure! Yes, I will do my duty by him; I wish there was more to be done in the case. He has left me sole executor, and trustee of all his property, for the benefit of his surviving child. Yet he never gave me the smallest idea of expecting me to do this for him. Otherwise, of course, I should have had this old box opened years ago.”
“We must look at things as they are,” said Major Hockin, for I could say nothing. “The question is, what do you mean to do now?”
“Nothing whatever,” said the banker, crisply, being displeased at the other's tone; and then, seeing my surprise, he addressed himself to me: “Nothing at present, but congratulate myself upon my old friend's confidence, and, as Abernethy said, 'take advice.' A banker must never encroach upon the province of the lawyer. But so far as a layman may judge, Major Hockin, I think you will have to transfer to me the care of this young lady.”
“I shall be only too happy, I assure you,” the Major answered, truthfully. “My wife has a great regard for her, and so have I—the very greatest, the strongest regard, and warm parental feelings; as you know, Erema. But—but, I am not so young as I was; and I have to develop my property.”
“Of which she no longer forms a part,” Mr. Shovelin answered, with a smile at me, which turned into pleasure my momentary pain at the other's calm abandonment. “You will find me prompt and proud to claim her, as soon as I am advised that this will is valid; and that I shall learn to-morrow.”
In spite of pride, or by its aid, my foolish eyes were full of tears, and I gave him a look of gratitude which reminded him of my father, as he said in so many words.
“Oh, I hope it is valid! How I hope it is!” I exclaimed, turning round to the Major, who smiled rather grimly, and said he hoped so too.
“But surely,” he continued, “as we are all here, we should not neglect the opportunity of inspecting the other contents of this box. To me it appears that we are bound to do so; that it is our plain duty to ascertain—Why, there might even be a later will. Erema, my dear, you must be most anxious to get to the bottom of it.”
So I was, but desired even more that his curiosity should be foiled. “We must leave that to Mr. Shovelin,” I said.
“Then for the present we will seal it down again,” the banker answered, quietly; “we can see that there is no other will, and a later one would scarcely be put under this. The other little packets, whatever they may be, are objects of curiosity, perhaps, rather than of importance. They will keep till we have more leisure.”
“We have taken up a great deal of your time, Sir, I am sure,” said the Major, finding that he could take no more. “We ought to be, and we are, most grateful.”
“Well,” the banker answered, as we began to move, “such things do not happen every day. But there is no friend like an old friend, Erema, as I mean to call you now. I was to have been your godfather; but I fear that you never have been baptized.”
“What!” cried the Major, staring at us both. “Is such a thing possible in a Christian land? Oh, how I have neglected my duty to the Church! Come back with me to Bruntsea, and my son shall do it. The church there is under my orders, I should hope; and we will have a dinner party afterward. What a horrible neglect of duty!”
“But how could I help it?” I exclaimed, with some terror at Major Hockin's bristling hair. “I can not remember—I am sure I can not say. It may have been done in France, or somewhere, if there was no time in England. At any rate, my father is not to be blamed.”
“Papistical baptism is worse than none,” the Major said, impressively. “Never mind, my dear, we will make that all right. You shall not be a savage always. We will take the opportunity to change your name. Erema is popish and outlandish; one scarcely knows how to pronounce it. You shall have a good English Christian name—Jemima, Jane, or Sophy. Trust me to know a good name. Trust me.”
“Jemima!” I cried. “Oh, Mr. Shovelin, save me from ever being called Jemima! Rather would I never be baptized at all.”
“I am no judge of names,” he answered, smiling, as he shook hands with us; “but, unless I am a very bad judge of faces, you will be called just what you please.”
“And I please to be called what my father called me. It may be unlucky, as a gentleman told me, who did not know how to pronounce it. However, it will do very well for me. You wish to see me, then, to-morrow, Mr. Shovelin?”
“If you please; but later in the day, when I am more at leisure. I do not run away very early. Come at half past four to this door, and knock. I hear every sound at this door in my room; and the place will be growing quiet then.”
He showed us out into a narrow alley through a heavy door sheathed with iron, and soon we recovered the fair light of day, and the brawl and roar of a London street.
“Now where shall we go?” the Major asked, as soon as he had found a cab again; for he was very polite in that way. “You kept early hours with your 'uncle Sam,' as you call Colonel Gundry, a slow-witted man, but most amusing when he likes, as slow-witted men very often are. Now will you come and dine with me? I can generally dine, as you, with virtuous indignation, found out at Southampton. But we are better friends now, Miss Heathen.”
“Yes, I have more than I can ever thank you for,” I answered, very gravely, for I never could become jocose to order, and sadness still was uppermost. “I will go where you like. I am quite at your orders, because Betsy Bowen is busy now. She will not have done her work till six o'clock.”
“Well done!” he cried. “Bravo, Young America! Frankness is the finest of all good manners. And what a lot of clumsy deception it saves! Then let us go and dine. I will imitate your truthfulness. It was two words for myself, and one for you. The air of London always makes me hungry after too much country air. It is wrong altogether, but I can not help it. And going along, I smell hungry smells coming out of deep holes with a plate at the top. Hungry I mean to a man who has known what absolute starvation is—when a man would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had taken his own nip any where. When I see the young fellows at the clubs pick this, and poke that, and push away the other, may I be d——d—my dear, I beg your pardon. Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped Cockle,' at the bottom of St. Ventricle Lane, you know.”
This place seemed, from what the Major said, to have earned repute for something special, something esteemed by the very clever people, and only to be found in true virtue here. And he told me that luxury and self-indulgence were the greatest sins of the present age, and how he admired a man who came here to protest against Epicureans, by dining (liquors not included) for the sum of three and sixpence.
All this, no doubt, was wise and right; but I could not attend to it properly now, and he might take me where he would, and have all the talking to himself, according to his practice. And I might not even have been able to say what this temple of bones and cockles was like, except for a little thing which happened there. The room, at the head of a twisting staircase, was low and dark, and furnished almost like a farmhouse kitchen. It had no carpet, nor even a mat, but a floor of black timber, and a ceiling colored blue, with stars and comets, and a full moon near the fire-place. On either side of the room stood narrow tables endwise to the walls, inclosed with high-backed seats like settles, forming thus a double set of little stalls or boxes, with scarcely space enough between for waiters, more urgent than New York firemen, to push their steaming and breathless way.
“Square or round, miss?” said one of them to me as soon as the Major had set me on a bench, and before my mind had time to rally toward criticism of the knives and forks, which deprecated any such ordeal; and he cleverly whipped a stand for something dirty, over something still dirtier, on the cloth.
“I don't understand what you mean,” I replied to his highly zealous aspect, while the Major sat smiling dryly at my ignorance, which vexed me. “I have never received such a question before. Major Hockin, will you kindly answer him?”
“Square,” said the Major; “square for both.” And the waiter, with a glance of pity at me, hurried off to carry out his order.
“Erema, your mind is all up in the sky,” my companion began to remonstrate. “You ought to know better after all your travels.”
“Then the sky should not fall and confuse me so,” I said, pointing to the Milky Way, not more than a yard above me; “but do tell me what he meant, if you can. Is it about the formation of the soup?”
“Hush, my dear. Soup is high treason here until night, when they make it of the leavings. His honest desire was to know whether you would have a grilled bone of mutton, which is naturally round, you know, or of beef, which, by the same law of nature, seems always to be square, you know.”
“Oh, I see,” I replied, with some confusion, not at his osteology, but at the gaze of a pair of living and lively eyes fastened upon me. A gentleman, waiting for his bill, had risen in the next low box, and stood calmly (as if he had done all his duty to himself) gazing over the wooden back at me, who thus sat facing him. And Major Hockin, following my glance, stood up and turned round to see to it.
“What! Cousin Montague! Bless my heart, who could have dreamed of lighting on you here? Come in, my dear follow; there is plenty of room. Let me introduce you to my new ward, Miss Erema Castlewood. Miss Castlewood, this is Sir Montague Hockin, the son of my lamented first cousin Sir Rufus, of whom you have heard so much. Well, to be sure! I have not seen you for an age. My dear fellow, now how are you?”
“Miss Castlewood, please not to move; I sit any where. Major, I am most delighted to see you. Over and over again I have been at the point of starting for Bruntsea Island—it is an island now, isn't it? My father would never believe that it was till I proved it from the number of rabbits that came up. However, not a desolate island now, if it contains you and all your energies, and Miss Castlewood, as well as Mrs. Hockin.”
“It is not an island, and it never shall be,” the Major cried, knocking a blue plate over, and spilling the salt inauspiciously. “It never was an island, and it never shall be. My intention is to reclaim it altogether. Oh, here come the squares. Well done! well done! I quite forget the proper thing to have to drink. Are the cockles in the pan, Mr. Waiter? Quite right, then; ten minutes is the proper time; but they know that better than I do. I am very sorry, Montague, that you have dined.”
“Surely you would not call this a dinner; I take my true luncheon afterward. But lately my appetite has been so bad that it must be fed up at short intervals. You can understand that, perhaps, Miss Castlewood. It makes the confectioners' fortunes, you know. The ladies once came only twice to feed, but now they come three times, I am assured by a young man who knows all about it. And cherry brandy is the mildest form of tipple.”
“Shocking scandal! abominable talk!” cried the Major, who took every thing at its word. “I have heard all that sort of stuff ever since I was as high as this table. Waiter, show me this gentleman's bill. Oh well, oh well! you have not done so very badly. Two squares and a round, with a jug of Steinberg, and a pint of British stout with your Stilton. If this is your ante-lunch, what will you do when you come to your real luncheon? But I must not talk now; you may have it as you please.”
“The truth of it is, Miss Castlewood,” said the young man, while I looked with some curiosity at my frizzling bone, with the cover just whisked off, and drops of its juice (like the rays of a lustre) shaking with soft inner wealth—“the truth of it is just this, and no more: we fix our minds and our thoughts, and all the rest of our higher intelligence, a great deal too much upon our mere food.”
“No doubt we do,” I was obliged to answer. “It is very sad to think of, as soon as one has dined. But does that reflection occur, as it should, at the proper time to be useful—I mean when we are hungry?”
“I fear not; I fear that it is rather praeterite than practical.”
“No big words now, my dear fellow,” cried the Major. “You have had your turn; let us have ours. But, Erema, you are eating nothing. Take a knife and fork, Montague, and help her. The beauty of these things consists entirely, absolutely, essentially, I may say, in their having the smoke rushing out of them. A gush of steam like this should follow every turn of the knife. But there! I am spoiling every bit by talking so.”
“Is that any fault of mine?” asked Sir Montague, in a tone which made me look at him. The voice was not harsh, nor rough, nor unpleasant, yet it gave me the idea that it could be all three, and worse than all three, upon occasion. So I looked at him, which I had refrained from doing, to see whether his face confirmed that idea. To the best of my perception, it did not. Sir Montague Hockin was rather good-looking, so far as form and color go, having regular features, and clear blue eyes, very beautiful teeth, and a golden beard. His appearance was grave, but not morose, as if he were always examining things and people without condemning them. It was evident that he expected to take the upper hand in general, to play the first fiddle, to hold the top saw, to “be helped to all the stuffing of the pumpkin,” as dear Uncle Sam was fond of saying. Of moderate stature, almost of middle age, and dressed nicely, without any gewgaws, which look so common upon a gentleman's front, he was likely to please more people than he displeased at first on-sight.
The Major was now in the flush of goodwill, having found his dinner genial; and being a good man, he yielded to a little sympathetic anger with those who had done less justice to themselves. And in this state of mind he begged us to take note of one thing—that his ward should be christened in Bruntsea Church, as sure as all the bells were his, according to their inscriptions, no later than next Thursday week, that being the day for a good sirloin; and if Sir Montague failed to come to see how they could manage things under proper administration, he might be sure of one thing, if no more—that Major Hockin would never speak to him again.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A CHECK
So many things now began to open upon me, to do and to think of, that I scarcely knew which to begin with. I used to be told how much wiser it was not to interfere with any thing—to let by-gones be by-gones, and consider my own self only. But this advice never came home to my case, and it always seemed an unworthy thing even to be listening to it. And now I saw reason to be glad for thanking people who advised me, and letting them go on to advise themselves. For if I had listened to Major Hockin, or even Uncle Sam for that part, where must I have been now? Why, simply knowing no more than as a child I knew, and feeling miserable about it. Whereas I had now at least something to go upon, and enough for a long time to occupy my mind. The difficulty was to know what to do first, and what to resolve to leave undone, or at least to put off for the present. One of my special desires had been to discover that man, that Mr. Goad, who had frightened me so about two years back, and was said to be lost in the snow-drifts. But nobody like him had ever been found, to the sorrow of the neighborhood; and Sylvester himself had been disappointed, not even to know what to do with his clothes.
His card, however, before he went off, had been left to the care of Uncle Sam for security of the 15,000 dollars; and on it was printed, with a glazing and much flourish, “Vypan, Goad, and Terryer: Private Inquiry Office, Little England Polygon, W.C.” Uncle Sam, with a grunt and a rise of his foot, had sent this low card flying to the fire, after I had kissed him so for all his truth and loveliness; but I had caught it and made him give it to me, as was only natural. And having this now, I had been quite prepared to go and present it at its mean address, and ask what they wanted me for in America, and what they would like to do with me now, taking care to have either the Major close at hand, or else a policeman well recommended.
But now I determined to wait a little while (if Betsy Bowen's opinion should be at all the same as mine was), and to ask Mr. Shovelin what he thought about it, before doing any thing that might arouse a set of ideas quite opposite to mine, and so cause trouble afterward. And being unable to think any better for the time than to wait and be talked to, I got Major Hockin to take me back again to the right number in European Square.
Here I found Mrs. Strouss (born Betsy Bowen) ready and eager to hear a great deal more than I myself had heard that day. On the other hand, I had many questions, arising from things said to me, to which I required clear answers; and it never would do for her to suppose that because she had known me come into this world, she must govern the whole of my course therein. But it cost many words and a great deal of demeanor to teach her that, good and faithful as she was, I could not be always under her. Yet I promised to take her advice whenever it agreed with my own opinions.
This pleased her, and she promised to offer it always, knowing how well it would be received, and she told all her lodgers that they might ring and ring, for she did not mean to answer any of their bells; but if they wanted any thing, they must go and fetch it. Being Germans, who are the most docile of men in England, whatever they may be at home, they made no complaint, but retired to their pipes in a pleasant condition of surprise at London habits.
Mrs. Strouss, being from her earliest years of a thrifty and reputable turn of mind, had managed, in a large yet honest way, to put by many things which must prove useful in the long-run, if kept long enough. And I did hear—most careful as I am to pay no attention to petty rumors—that the first thing that moved the heart of Herr Strouss, and called forth his finest feelings, was a winding-up chair, which came out to make legs, with a pocket for tobacco, and a flat place for a glass.
This was certainly a paltry thought; and to think of such low things grieved me. And now, when I looked at Mr. Strouss himself, having heard of none of these things yet, I felt that my nurse might not have done her best, yet might have done worse, when she married him. For he seemed to have taken a liking toward me, and an interest in my affairs, which redounded to his credit, if he would not be too inquisitive. And now I gladly allowed him to be present, and to rest in the chair which had captivated him, although last night I could scarcely have borne to have heard in his presence what I had to hear. To-night there was nothing distressful to be said, compared, at least, with last night's tale; whereas there were several questions to be put, in some of which (while scouting altogether Uncle Sam's low estimate) two females might, with advantage perhaps, obtain an opinion from the stronger sex.
And now, as soon as I had told my two friends as well as I could what had happened at the bank (with which they were pleased, as I had been), those questions arose, and were, I believe, chiefly to the following purport—setting aside the main puzzle of all.
Why did my father say, on that dreadful morning, that if his father was dead, he himself had killed or murdered him? Betsy believed, when she came to think, that he had even used the worse word of these two.
How could the fatal shot have been discharged from his pistol—as clearly it had been—a pistol, moreover, which, by his own account, as Betsy now remembered, he had left in his quarters near Chichester?
What was that horrible disease which had carried off all my poor little brothers and sisters, and frightened kind neighbors and servants away? Betsy said it was called “Differeria,” as differing so much from all other complaints. I had never yet heard of this, but discovered, without asking further than of Mr. Strouss, that she meant that urgent mandate for a levy of small angels which is called on earth “diphtheria.”
Who had directed those private inquirers, Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, to send to the far West a member of their firm to get legal proof of my dear father's death, and to bring me back, if possible? The present Lord Castlewood never would have done so, according to what Mr. Shovelin said; it was far more likely that (but for weak health) he would have come forth himself to seek me, upon any probable tidings. At once a religious and chivalrous man, he would never employ mean agency. And while thinking of that, another thought occurred—What had induced that low man Goad to give Uncle Sam a date wrong altogether for the crime which began all our misery? He had put it at ten, now twelve, years back, and dated it in November, whereas it had happened in September month, six years and two months before the date he gave. This question was out of all answer to me, and also to Mrs. Strouss herself; but Herr Strouss, being of a legal turn, believed that the law was to blame for it. He thought that proceedings might be bound to begin, under the Extradition Act, within ten years of the date of the crime; or there might be some other stipulation compelling Mr. Goad to add one to all his falsehoods; and not knowing any thing about it, both of us thought it very likely.
Again, what could have been that last pledge which passed between my father and mother, when they said “good-by” to one another, and perhaps knew that it was forever, so far as this bodily world is concerned? Was it any thing about a poor little sleeping and whimpering creature like myself, who could not yet make any difference to any living being except the mother? Or was it concerning far more important things, justice, clear honor, good-will, and duty, such as in the crush of time come upward with high natures? And if so, was it not a promise from my mother, knowing every thing, to say nothing, even at the quivering moment of lying beneath the point of death?
This was a new idea for Betsy, who had concluded from the very first that the pledge must be on my father's part—to wit, that he had vowed not to surrender, or hurt himself in any way, for the sake of his dear wife. And to my suggestion she could only say that she never had seen it in that light; but the landings were so narrow and the walls so soft that, with all her duty staring in her face, neither she, nor the best servant ever in an apron, could be held responsible to repeat their very words. And her husband said that this was good—very good—so good as ever could be; and what was to show now from the mouth of any one, after fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, the years?
After this I had no other word to say, being still too young to contradict people duly married and of one accord. No other word, I mean, upon that point; though still I had to ask, upon matters more immediate, what was the next thing for me, perhaps, to do. And first of all it was settled among us that for me to present myself at the head-quarters of Vypau, Goad, and Terryer would be a very clumsy and stupid proceeding, and perhaps even dangerous. Of course they would not reveal to me the author of those kind inquiries about myself, which perhaps had cost the firm a very valuable life, the life of Mr. Goad himself. And while I should learn less than nothing from them, they would most easily extract from me, or at any rate find out afterward, where I was living, and what I was doing, and how I could most quietly be met and baffled, and perhaps even made away with, so as to save all further trouble.
Neither was that the only point upon which I resolved to do nothing. Herr Strouss was a very simple-minded man, yet full of true sagacity, and he warmly advised, in his very worst English, that none but my few trusty friends should be told of my visit to this country.
“Why for make to know your enemies?” he asked, with one finger on his forehead, which was his mode of indicating caution. “Enemies find out vere soon, too soon, soon enough. Begin to plot—no, no, young lady begin first. Vilhelmina, your man say the right. Is it good, or is it bad?”
It appeared to us both to be good, so far as might be judged for the present; and therefore I made up my mind to abstain from calling even on my father's agent, unless Mr. Shovelin should think it needful. In that and other matters I would act by his advice; and so with better spirits than I long had owned, at finding so much kindness, and with good hopes of the morrow, I went to the snug little bedroom which my good nurse had provided.
Alas! What was my little grief on the morrow, compared to the deep and abiding loss of many by a good man's death? When I went to the door at which I had been told to knock, it was long before I got an answer. And even when somebody came at last, so far from being my guardian, it was only a poor old clerk, who said, “Hush, miss!” and then prayed that the will of the Lord might be done. “Couldn't you see the half-shutters up?” he continued, rather roughly. “'Tis a bad job for many a poor man to-day. And it seems no more than yesterday I was carrying him about!”
“Do you mean Mr. Shovelin?” I asked. “Is he poorly? Has any thing happened? I can wait, or come again.”
“The Lord has taken him to the mansions of the just, from his private address at Sydenham Hill. A burning and a shining light! May we like him be found watching in that day, with our lamps trimmed and our loins girded!”
For the moment I was too surprised to speak, and the kind old man led me into the passage, seeing how pale and faint I was. He belonged, like his master, and a great part of their business, to a simple religious persuasion, or faith, which now is very seldom heard of.