The explanations, apologies, and not overwise conversation that ensued need not be indicated here. It would seem, however, that Miss Mary had already established some acquaintance with this ex-drunkard. Enough that he was soon accepted as one of the party; that the children, with that quick intelligence which Providence gives the helpless, recognized a friend, and played with his blond beard and long silken mustache, and took other libertiesas the helpless are apt to do. And when he had built a fire against a tree, and had shown them other mysteries of woodcraft, their admiration knew no bounds. At the close of two such foolish, idle, happy hours he found himself lying at the feet of the schoolmistress, gazing dreamily in her face, as she sat upon the sloping hillside weaving wreaths of laurel and syringa, in very much the same attitude as he had lain when first they met. Nor was the similitude greatly forced. The weakness of an easy, sensuous nature that had found a dreamy exaltation in liquor, it is to be feared was now finding an equal intoxication in love.
I think that Sandy was dimly conscious of this himself. I know that he longed to be doing somethingslaying a grizzly, scalping a savage, or sacrificing himself in some way for the sake of this sallow-faced, gray-eyed schoolmistress. As I should like to present him in a heroic attitude, I stay my hand with great difficulty at this moment, being only withheld from introducing such an episode by a strong conviction that it does not usually occur at such times. And I trust that my fairest reader, who remembers that, in a real crisis, it is always some uninteresting stranger or unromantic policeman, and not Adolphus, who rescues, will forgive the omission.
So they sat there, undisturbedthe woodpeckers chattering overhead and the voices of the children coming pleasantly from the hollow below. What they said matters little. What they thoughtwhich might have been interestingdid not transpire. The woodpeckers only learned how Miss Mary was an orphan; how she left her uncles house, to come to California, for the sake of health and independence; how Sandy was an orphan, too; how he came to California for excitement; how he had lived a wild life, and how he was trying to reform; and other details, which, from a woodpeckers viewpoint, undoubtedly must have seemed stupid, and a waste of time. But even in such trifles was the afternoon spent; and when the children were again gathered, and Sandy, with a delicacy which the schoolmistress well understood, took leave of them quietly at the outskirts of the settlement, it had seemed the shortest day of her weary life.
As the long, dry summer withered to its roots, the school term of Red Gulchto use a local euphuismdried up also. In another day Miss Mary would be free; and for a season, at least, Red Gulch would know her no more. She was seated alone in the schoolhouse, her cheek resting on her hand, her eyes half-closed in one of those daydreams in which Miss MaryI fear to the danger of school disciplinewas lately in the habit of indulging. Her lap was full of mosses, ferns, and other woodland memories. She was so preoccupied with these and her own thoughts that a gentle tapping at the door passed unheard, or translated itself into the remembrance of far-off woodpeckers. When at last it asserted itself more distinctly, she started up with a flushed cheek and opened the door. On the threshold stood a woman the self-assertion and audacity of whose dress were in singular contrast to her timid, irresolute bearing.
Miss Mary recognized at a glance the dubious mother of her anonymous pupil. Perhaps she was disappointed, perhaps she was only fastidious; but as she coldly invited her to enter, she half-unconsciously settled her white cuffs and collar, and gathered closer her own chaste skirts. It was, perhaps, for this reason that the embarrassed stranger, after a moments hesitation, left her gorgeous parasol open and sticking in the dust beside the door, and then sat down at the farther end of a long bench. Her voice was husky as she began:
I heerd tell that you were goin down to the Bay tomorrow, and I couldnt let you go until I came to thank you for your kindness to my Tommy.
Tommy, Miss Mary said, was a good boy, and deserved more than the poor attention she could give him.
Thank you, miss; thank ye! cried the stranger, brightening even through the color which Red Gulch knew facetiously as her war paint, and striving, in her embarrassment, to drag the long bench nearer the schoolmistress. I thank you, miss, for that! and if I am his mother, there aint a sweeter, dearer, better boy lives than him. And if I aint much as says it, thar aint a sweeter, dearer, angeler teacher lives than hes got.
Miss Mary, sitting primly behind her desk, with a ruler over her shoulder, opened her gray eyes widely at this, but said nothing.
It aint for you to be complimented by the like of me, I know, she went on, hurriedly. It aint for me to be comin here, in broad day, to do it, either; but I come to ask a favornot for me, missnot for me, but for the darling boy.
Encouraged by a look in the young schoolmistresss eye, and putting her lilac-gloved hands together, the fingers downward, between her knees, she went on, in a low voice:
You see, miss, theres no one the boy has any claim on but me, and I aint the proper person to bring him up. I thought some, last year, of sending him away to Frisco to school, but when they talked of bringing a schoolmaam here, I waited till I saw you, and then I knew it was all right, and I could keep my boy a little longer. And O, miss, he loves you so much; and if you could hear him talk about you, in his pretty way, and if he could ask you what I ask you now, you couldnt refuse him.
It is natural, she went on, rapidly, in a voice that trembled strangely between pride and humilityits natural that he should take to you, miss, for his father, when I first knew him, was a gentlemanand the boy must forget me, sooner or laterand so I aint goin to cry about that. For I come to ask you to take my TommyGod bless him for the bestest, sweetest boy that livestototake him with you.
She had risen and caught the young girls hand in her own, and had fallen on her knees beside her.
Ive money plenty, and its all yours and his. Put him in some good school, where you can go and see him, and help him tototo forget his mother. Do with him what you like. The worst you can do will be kindness to what he will learn with me. Only take him out of this wicked life, this cruel place, this home of shame and sorrow. You will; I know you willwont you? You willyou must not, you cannot say no! You will make him as pure, as gentle as yourself; and when he has grown up, you will tell him his fathers namethe name that hasnt passed my lips for yearsthe name of Alexander Morton, whom they call here Sandy! Miss Mary!do not take your hand away! Miss Mary, speak to me! You will take my boy? Do not put your face from me. I know it ought not to look on such as me. Miss Mary!my God, be merciful!she is leaving me!
Miss Mary had risen and, in the gathering twilight, had felt her way to the open window. She stood there, leaning against the casement, her eyes fixed on the last rosy tints that were fading from the western sky. There was still some of its light on her pure young forehead, on her white collar, on her clasped white hands, but all fading slowly away. The suppliant had dragged herself, still on her knees, beside her.
I know it takes time to consider. I will wait here all night; but I cannot go until you speak. Do not deny me now. You will!I see it in your sweet facesuch a face as I have seen in my dreams. I see it in your eyes, Miss Mary!you will take my boy!
Miss Mary had risen and, in the gathering twilight, had felt her way to the open window. She stood there, leaning against the casement, her eyes fixed on the last rosy tints that were fading from the western sky. There was still some of its light on her pure young forehead, on her white collar, on her clasped white hands, but all fading slowly away. The suppliant had dragged herself, still on her knees, beside her.
I know it takes time to consider. I will wait here all night; but I cannot go until you speak. Do not deny me now. You will!I see it in your sweet facesuch a face as I have seen in my dreams. I see it in your eyes, Miss Mary!you will take my boy!
The last red beam crept higher, suffused Miss Marys eyes with something of its glory, flickered, and faded, and went out. The sun had set on Red Gulch. In the twilight and silence Miss Marys voice sounded pleasantly.
I will take the boy. Send him to me tonight.
The happy mother raised the hem of Miss Marys skirts to her lips. She would have buried her hot face in its virgin folds, but she dared not. She rose to her feet.
Doesthis manknow of your intention? asked Miss Mary, suddenly.
No, nor cares. He has never even seen the child to know it.
Go to him at oncetonightnow! Tell him what you have done. Tell him I have taken his child, and tell himhe must never seeseethe child again. Wherever it may be, he must not come; wherever I may take it, he must not follow! There, go now, pleaseIm weary, andhave much yet to do!
They walked together to the door. On the threshold the woman turned.
Good night.
She would have fallen at Miss Marys feet. But at the same moment the young girl reached out her arms, caught the sinful woman to her own pure breast for one brief moment, and then closed and locked the door.
It was with a sudden sense of great responsibility that Profane Bill took the reins of the Slumgullion Stage the next morning, for the schoolmistress was one of his passengers. As he entered the highroad, in obedience to a pleasant voice from the inside, he suddenly reined up his horses and respectfully waited as Tommy hopped out at the command of Miss Mary. Not that bush, Tommythe next.
Tommy whipped out his new pocketknife, and, cutting a branch from a tall azalea bush, returned with it to Miss Mary.
All right now?
All right.
And the stage door closed on the Idyl of Red Gulch.
BROWN OF CALAVERAS
A subdued tone of conversation, and the absence of cigar smoke and boot heels at the windows of the Wingdam stagecoach, made it evident that one of the inside passengers was a woman. A disposition on the part of loungers at the stations to congregate before the window, and some concern in regard to the appearance of coats, hats, and collars, further indicated that she was lovely. All of which Mr. Jack Hamlin, on the box seat, noted with the smile of cynical philosophy. Not that he depreciated the sex, but that he recognized therein a deceitful element, the pursuit of which sometimes drew mankind away from the equally uncertain blandishments of pokerof which it may be remarked that Mr. Hamlin was a professional exponent.
So that when he placed his narrow boot on the wheel and leaped down, he did not even glance at the window from which a green veil was fluttering, but lounged up and down with that listless and grave indifference of his class, which was, perhaps, the next thing to good breeding. With his closely buttoned figure and self-contained air he was a marked contrast to the other passengers, with their feverish restlessness and boisterous emotion; and even Bill Masters, a graduate of Harvard, with his slovenly dress, his overflowing vitality, his intense appreciation of lawlessness and barbarism, and his mouth filled with crackers and cheese, I fear cut but an unromantic figure beside this lonely calculator of chances, with his pale Greek face and Homeric gravity.
The driver called All aboard! and Mr. Hamlin returned to the coach. His foot was upon the wheel, and his face raised to the level of the open window, when, at the same moment, what appeared to him to be the finest eyes in the world suddenly met his. He quietly dropped down again, addressed a few words to one of the inside passengers, effected an exchange of seats, and as quietly took his place inside. Mr. Hamlin never allowed his philosophy to interfere with decisive and prompt action.
I fear that this irruption of Jack cast some restraint upon the other passengersparticularly those who were making themselves most agreeable to the lady. One of them leaned forward, and apparently conveyed to her information regarding Mr. Hamlins profession in a single epithet. Whether Mr. Hamlin heard it, or whether he recognized in the informant a distinguished jurist from whom, but a few evenings before, he had won several thousand dollars, I cannot say. His colorless face betrayed no sign; his black eyes, quietly observant, glanced indifferently past the legal gentleman, and rested on the much more pleasing features of his neighbor. An Indian stoicismsaid to be an inheritance from his maternal ancestorstood him in good service, until the rolling wheels rattled upon the river gravel at Scotts Ferry, and the stage drew up at the International Hotel for dinner. The legal gentleman and a member of Congress leaped out, and stood ready to assist the descending goddess, while Colonel Starbottle, of Siskiyou, took charge of her parasol and shawl. In this multiplicity of attention there was a momentary confusion and delay. Jack Hamlin quietly opened the OPPOSITE door of the coach, took the ladys handwith that decision and positiveness which a hesitating and undecided sex know how to admireand in an instant had dexterously and gracefully swung her to the ground, and again lifted her to the platform. An audible chuckle on the box, I fear, came from that other cynic, Yuba Bill, the driver. Look keerfully arter that baggage, Kernel, said the expressman, with affected concern, as he looked after Colonel Starbottle, gloomily bringing up the rear of the triumphant procession to the waiting-room.
Mr. Hamlin did not stay for dinner. His horse was already saddled, and awaiting him. He dashed over the ford, up the gravelly hill, and out into the dusty perspective of the Wingdam road, like one leaving pleasant fancy behind him. The inmates of dusty cabins by the roadside shaded their eyes with their hands and looked after him, recognizing the man by his horse, and speculating what was up with Comanche Jack. Yet much of this interest centered in the horse, in a community where the time made by French Petes mare in his run from the Sheriff of Calaveras eclipsed all concern in the ultimate fate of that worthy.
The sweating flanks of his gray at length recalled him to himself. He checked his speed, and, turning into a by-road, sometimes used as a cutoff, trotted leisurely along, the reins hanging listlessly from his fingers. As he rode on, the character of the landscape changed and became more pastoral. Openings in groves of pine and sycamore disclosed some rude attempts at cultivationa flowering vine trailed over the porch of one cabin, and a woman rocked her cradled babe under the roses of another. A little farther on Mr. Hamlin came upon some barelegged children wading in the willowy creek, and so wrought upon them with a badinage peculiar to himself that they were emboldened to climb up his horses legs and over his saddle, until he was fain to develop an exaggerated ferocity of demeanor, and to escape, leaving behind some kisses and coin. And then, advancing deeper into the woods, where all signs of habitation failed, he began to singuplifting a tenor so singularly sweet, and shaded by a pathos so subduing and tender, that I wot the robins and linnets stopped to listen. Mr. Hamlins voice was not cultivated; the subject of his song was some sentimental lunacy borrowed from the Negro minstrels; but there thrilled through all some occult quality of tone and expression that was unspeakably touching. Indeed, it was a wonderful sight to see this sentimental blackleg, with a pack of cards in his pocket and a revolver at his back, sending his voice before him through the dim woods with a plaint about his Nellys grave in a way that overflowed the eyes of the listener. A sparrow hawk, fresh from his sixth victim, possibly recognizing in Mr. Hamlin a kindred spirit, stared at him in surprise, and was fain to confess the superiority of man. With a superior predatory capacity, HE couldnt sing.