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“I reckoned,” she began, “that unless you war for forgettin’ everythin’ in these yer goings on, ye’d be passin’ through here to tend to your stock. I’ve got a word to say to ye, Mr. Rylands. When I first kem over here to help, I got word from the folks around that your wife afore you married her was just one o’ them bally dancers. Well, that was YOUR lookout, not mine! Jane Mackinnon ain’t the kind to take everybody’s sayin’ as gospil, but she kalkilates to treat folks ez she finds ‘em. When she finds ‘em lyin’ and deceivin’; when she finds em purtendin’ one thing and doin’ another; when she finds ‘em makin’ fools tumble to ‘em; playing soots on their own husbands, and turnin’ an honest house into a music-hall and a fandango shop, she kicks! You hear me! Jane Mackinnon kicks!”
“What do you mean?” said Mr. Rylands sternly.
“I mean,” said Miss Mackinnon, striking her hips with the back of her hands smartly, and accenting each word that dropped like a bullet from her mouth with an additional blow,—“I—mean—that—your—wife—had one—of—her—old—hangers-on—from—‘Frisco—here—in—this very—kitchen—all—the—arternoon; there! I mean that whiles she was waitin’ here for you, she was canoodlin’ and cryin’ over old times with him! I saw her myself through the winder. That’s what I mean, Mr. Joshua Rylands.”
“It’s false! She had some poor stranger here with a lame horse. She told me so herself.”
Jane Mackinnon laughed shrilly.
“Did she tell you that the poor stranger was young and pretty-faced, with black moustarches? that his store clothes must have cost a fortin, saying nothing of his gold-lined, broadcloth sarrapper? Did she say that his horse was so lame that when I went to get another he wouldn’t WAIT for it? Did she tell you WHO he was?”
“No, she did not know,” said Rylands sternly, but with a whitening face.
“Well, I’ll tell you! The gambler, the shooter!—the man whose name is black enough to stain any woman he knows. Jim recognized him like a shot; he sez, the moment he clapped eyes on him at the door, ‘Dod blasted, if it ain’t Jack Hamlin!’”
Little as Mr. Rylands knew of the world, he had heard that name. But it was not THAT he was thinking of. He was thinking of the camp-fire in the wood, the handsome figure before it, the tethered horse. He was thinking of the lighted sitting-room, the fire, his wife’s bare shoulders, her slippers, stockings, and the dance. He saw it all,—a lightning-flash to his dull imagination. The room seemed to expand and then grow smaller, the figure of Jane to sway backwards and forwards before him. He murmured the name of God with lips that were voiceless, caught at the kitchen table to steady himself, held it till he felt his arms grow rigid, and then recovered himself,—white, cold, and sane.
“Speak a word of this to HER,” he said deliberately, “enter her room while I’m gone, even leave the kitchen before I come back, and I’ll throw you into the road. Tell that hired man, if he dares to breathe it to a soul I’ll strangle him.”
The unlooked-for rage of this quiet, God-fearing man, and dupe, as she believed, was terrible, but convincing. She shrank back into the corner as he coolly drew on his boots and waterproof, and without another word left the house.
He knew what he was going to do as well as if it had been ordained for him. He knew he would find the young man in the wood; for whatever were the truth of the other stories, he and the visitor were identical; he had seen him with his own eyes. He would confront him face to face and know all; and until then, he could not see his wife again. He walked on rapidly, but without feverishness or mental confusion. He saw his duty plainly,—if Ellen had “backslidden,” he must give her another trial. These were his articles of faith. He should not put her away; but she should nevermore be wife to him. It was HE who had tempted her, it was true; perhaps God would forgive her for that reason, but HE could never love her again.
The fury of the storm had somewhat abated as he reached the wood. The fire was still there, but no longer a leaping flame. A dull glow in the darkness of the forest aisles was all that indicated its position. Rylands at once plunged in that direction; he was near enough to see the red embers when he heard a sharp click, and a voice called:—
“Hold up!”
Mr. Hamlin was a light sleeper. The crackle of underbrush had been enough to disturb him. The voice was his; the click was the cocking of his revolver.
Rylands was no coward, but halted diplomatically.
“Now, then,” said Mr. Hamlin’s voice, “a little more this way, IN THE LIGHT, if you please!”
Rylands moved as directed, and saw Mr. Hamlin lying before the fire, resting easily on one hand, with his revolver in the other.
“Thank you!” said Jack. “Excuse my precautions, but it is night, and this is, for the present, my bedroom.”
“My name is Rylands; you called at my house this afternoon and saw my wife,” said Rylands slowly.
“I did,” said Hamlin. “It was mighty kind of you to return my call so soon, but I didn’t expect it.”
“I reckon not. But I know who you are, and that you are an old associate of hers, in the days of her sin and unregeneration. I want you to answer me, before God and man, what was your purpose in coming there to-day?”
“Look here! I don’t think it’s necessary to drag in strangers to hear my answer,” said Jack, lying down again, “but I came to borrow a horse.”
“Is that the truth?”
Jack got upon his feet very solemnly, put on his hat, drew down his waistcoat, and approached Mr. Rylands with his hands in his pockets.
“Mr. Rylands,” he said, with great suavity of manner, “this is the second time today that I have had the honor of having my word doubted by your family. Your wife was good enough to question my assertion that I didn’t know that she was living here, but that was a woman’s vanity. You have no such excuse. There is my horse yonder, lame, as you may see. I didn’t lame him for the sake of seeing your wife nor you.”
There was that in Mr. Hamlin’s audacity and perfect self-possession which, even while it irritated, never suggested deceit. He was too reckless of consequence to lie. Mr. Rylands was staggered and half convinced. Nevertheless, he hesitated.
“Dare you tell me everything that happened between my wife and you?”
“Dare you listen?” said Mr. Hamlin quietly.
Mr. Rylands turned a little white. After a moment he said:—
“Yes.”
“Good!” said Mr. Hamlin. “I like your grit, though I don’t mind telling you it’s the ONLY thing I like about you. Sit down. Well, I haven’t seen Nell Montgomery for three years until I met her as your wife, at your house. She was surprised as I was, and frightened as I wasn’t. She spent the whole interview in telling me the history of her marriage and her life with you, and nothing more. I cannot say that it was remarkably entertaining, or that she was as amusing as your wife as she was as Nell Montgomery, the variety actress. When she had finished, I came away.”
Mr. Rylands, who had seated himself, made a movement as if to rise. But Mr. Hamlin laid his hand on his knee.
“I asked you if you dared to listen. I have something myself to say of that interview. I found your wife wearing the old dresses that other men had given her, and she said she wore them because she thought it pleased you. I found that you, who are questioning my calling upon her, had already got the worst of her old chums to visit her without asking her consent; I found that instead of being the first one to lie for her and hide her, you were the first one to tell anybody her history, just because you thought it was to the glory of God generally, and of Joshua Rylands in particular.”
“A man’s motives are his own,” stammered Rylands.
“Sorry you didn’t see it when you questioned mine just now,” said Jack coolly.
“Then she complained to you?” said Rylands hesitatingly.
“I didn’t say that,” said Jack shortly.
“But you found her unhappy?”
“Damnably.”
“And you advised her”—said Rylands tentatively.
“I advised her to chuck you and try to get a better husband.” He paused, and then added, with a disgusted laugh, “but she didn’t tumble to it, for a d–d silly reason.”
“What reason?” said Rylands hurriedly.
“Said she LOVED you,” returned Jack, kicking a brand back into the fire. Mr. Rylands’s white cheeks flamed out suddenly like the brand. Seeing which, Jack turned upon him deliberately.
“Mr. Joshua Rylands, I’ve seen many fools in my time. I’ve seen men holding four aces backed down because they thought they KNEW the other man had a royal flush! I’ve seen a man sell his claim for a wild-cat share, with the gold lying a foot below him in the ground he walked on. I’ve seen a dead shot shoot wild because he THOUGHT he saw something in the other man’s eye. I’ve seen a heap of God-forsaken fools, but I never saw one before who claimed God as a pal. You’ve got a wife a d–d sight truer to you for what you call her ‘sin,’ than you’ve ever been to her, with all your d–d salvation! And as you couldn’t make her otherwise, though you’ve tried to hard enough, it seems to me that for square downright chuckle-headedness, you can take the cake! Good-night! Now, run away and play! You’re making me tired.”
“One moment,” said Mr. Rylands awkwardly and hurriedly. “I may have wronged you; I was mistaken. Won’t you come back with me and accept my—our—hospitality?”
“Not much,” said Jack. “I left your house because I thought it better for you and her that no one should know of my being there.”
“But you were already recognized,” said Mr. Rylands. “It was Jane who lied about you, and your return with me will confute her slanders.”
“Who?” asked Jack.
“Jane, our hired girl.”
Mr. Hamlin uttered an indescribable laugh.
“That’s just as well! You simply tell Jane you SAW me; that I was greatly shocked at what she said, but that I forgive her. I don’t think she’ll say any more.”
Strange to add, Mr. Hamlin’s surmise was correct. Mr. Rylands found Jane still in the kitchen alone, terrified, remorseful, yet ever after silent on the subject. Stranger still, the hired man became equally uncommunicative. Mrs. Rylands, attributing her husband’s absence only to care of the stock, had gone to bed in a feverish condition, and Mr. Rylands did not deem it prudent to tell her of his interview. The next day she sent for the doctor, and it was deemed necessary for her to keep her bed for a few days. Her husband was singularly attentive and considerate during that time, and it was probable that Mrs. Rylands seized that opportunity to tell him the secret she spoke of the night before. Whatever it was,—for it was not generally known for a few months later,—it seemed to draw them closer together, imparted a protecting dignity to Joshua Rylands, which took the place of his former selfish austerity, gave them a future to talk of confidentially, hopefully, and sometimes foolishly, which took the place of their more foolish past, and when the roll of calico came from the cross roads, it contained also a quantity of fine linen, laces, small caps, and other trifles, somewhat in contrast to the more homely materials ordered.
And when three months were past, the sitting-room was often lit up and made cheerful, particularly on that supreme occasion when, with a great deal of enthusiasm, all the women of the countryside flocked to see Mrs. Rylands and her first baby. And a more considerate and devoted couple than the father and mother they had never known.
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE
In the early days of the Californian immigration, on the extremest point of the sandy peninsula, where the bay of San Francisco debouches into the Pacific, there stood a semaphore telegraph. Tossing its black arms against the sky,—with its back to the Golden Gate and that vast expanse of sea whose nearest shore was Japan,—it signified to another semaphore further inland the “rigs” of incoming vessels, by certain uncouth signs, which were again passed on to Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, where they reappeared on a third semaphore, and read to the initiated “schooner,” “brig” “ship,” or “steamer.” But all homesick San Francisco had learned the last sign, and on certain days of the month every eye was turned to welcome those gaunt arms widely extended at right angles, which meant “sidewheel steamer” (the only steamer which carried the mails) and “letters from home.” In the joyful reception accorded to that herald of glad tidings, very few thought of the lonely watcher on the sand dunes who dispatched them, or even knew of that desolate Station.
For desolate it was beyond description. The Presidio, with its voiceless, dismounted cannon and empty embrasures hidden in a hollow, and the Mission Dolores, with its crumbling walls and belfry tower lost in another, made the ultima thule of all San Francisco wandering. The Cliff house and Fort Point did not then exist; from Black Point the curving line of shore of “Yerba Buena”—or San Francisco—showed only a stretch of glittering wind-swept sand dunes, interspersed with straggling gullies of half-buried black “scrub oak.” The long six months’ summer sun fiercely beat upon it from the cloudless sky above; the long six months’ trade winds fiercely beat upon it from the west; the monotonous roll-call of the long Pacific surges regularly beat upon it from the sea. Almost impossible to face by day through sliding sands and buffeting winds, at night it was impracticable through the dense sea-fog that stole softly through the Golden Gate at sunset. Thence, until morning, sea and shore were a trackless waste, bounded only by the warning thunders of the unseen sea. The station itself, a rudely built cabin, with two windows,—one furnished with a telescope,—looked like a heap of driftwood, or a stranded wreck left by the retiring sea; the semaphore—the only object for leagues—lifted above the undulating dunes, took upon itself various shapes, more or less gloomy, according to the hour or weather,—a blasted tree, the masts and clinging spars of a beached ship, a dismantled gallows; or, with the background of a golden sunset across the Gate, and its arms extended at right angles, to a more hopeful fancy it might have seemed the missionary Cross, which the enthusiast Portala lifted on that heathen shore a hundred years before.
Not that Dick Jarman—the solitary station keeper—ever indulged this fancy. An escaped convict from one of her Britannic Majesty’s penal colonies, a “stowaway” in the hold of an Australian ship, he had landed penniless in San Francisco, fearful of contact with his more honest countrymen already there, and liable to detection at any moment. Luckily for him, the English immigration consisted mainly of gold-seekers en route to Sacramento and the southern mines. He was prudent enough to resist the temptation to follow them, and accepted the post of semaphore keeper,—the first work offered him,—which the meanest immigrant, filled with dreams of gold, would have scorned. His employers asked him no questions, and demanded no references; his post could be scarcely deemed one of trust,—there was no property for him to abscond with but the telescope; he was removed from temptation and evil company in his lonely waste; his duties were as mechanical as the instrument he worked, and interruption of them would be instantly known at San Francisco. For this he would receive his board and lodging and seventy-five dollars a month,—a sum to be ridiculed in those “flush days,” but which seemed to the broken-spirited and half-famished stowaway a princely independence.
And then there was rest and security! He was free from that torturing anxiety and fear of detection which had haunted him night and day for three months. The ceaseless vigilance and watchful dread he had known since his escape, he could lay aside now. The rude cabin on the sand dune was to him as the long-sought cave to some hunted animal. It seemed impossible that any one would seek him there. He was spared alike the contact of his enemies or the shame of recognizing even a friendly face, until by each he would be forgotten. From his coign of vantage on that desolate waste, and with the aid of his telescope, no stranger could approach within two or three miles of his cabin without undergoing his scrutiny. And at the worst, if he was pursued here, before him was the trackless shore and the boundless sea!
And at times there was a certain satisfaction in watching, unseen and in perfect security, the decks of passing ships. With the aid of his glass he could mingle again with the world from which he was debarred, and gloomily wonder who among those passengers knew their solitary watcher, or had heard of his deeds; it might have made him gloomier had he known that in those eager faces turned towards the golden haven there was little thought of anything but themselves. He tried to read in faces on board the few outgoing ships the record of their success with a strange envy. They were returning home! HOME! For sometimes—but seldom—he thought of his own home and his past. It was a miserable past of forgery and embezzlement that had culminated a career of youthful dissipation and self-indulgence, and shut him out, forever, from the staid old English cathedral town where he was born. He knew that his relations believed and wished him dead. He thought of this past with little pleasure, but with little remorse. Like most of his stamp, he believed it was ill-luck, chance, somebody else’s fault, but never his own responsible action. He would not repent; he would be wiser only. And he would not be retaken—alive!
Two or three months passed in this monotonous duty, in which he partly recovered his strength and his nerves. He lost his furtive, restless, watchful look; the bracing sea air and the burning sun put into his face the healthy tan and the uplifted frankness of a sailor. His eyes grew keener from long scanning of the horizon; he knew where to look for sails, from the creeping coastwise schooner to the far-rounding merchantman from Cape Horn. He knew the faint line of haze that indicated the steamer long before her masts and funnels became visible. He saw no soul except the solitary boatman of the little “plunger,” who landed his weekly provisions at a small cove hard by. The boatman thought his secretiveness and reticence only the surliness of his nation, and cared little for a man who never asked for the news, and to whom he brought no letters. The long nights which wrapped the cabin in sea-fog, and at first seemed to heighten the exile’s sense of security, by degrees, however, became monotonous, and incited an odd restlessness, which he was wont to oppose by whiskey,—allowed as a part of his stores,—which, while it dulled his sensibilities, he, however, never permitted to interfere with his mechanical duties.
He had been there five months, and the hills on the opposite shore between Tamalpais were already beginning to show their russet yellow sides. One bright morning he was watching the little fleet of Italian fishing-boats hovering in the bay. This was always a picturesque spectacle, perhaps the only one that relieved the general monotony of his outlook. The quaint lateen sails of dull red, or yellow, showing against the sparkling waters, and the red caps or handkerchiefs of the fishermen, might have attracted even a more abstracted man. Suddenly one of the larger boats tacked, and made directly for the little cove where his weekly plunger used to land. In an instant he was alert and suspicious. But a close examination of the boat through his glass satisfied him that it contained, in addition to the crew, only two or three women, apparently the family of the fishermen. As it ran up on the beach and the entire party disembarked he could see it was merely a careless, peaceable invasion, and he thought no more about it. The strangers wandered about the sands, gesticulating and laughing; they brought a pot ashore, built a fire, and cooked a homely meal. He could see that from time to time the semaphore—evidently a novelty to them—had attracted their attention; and having occasion to signal the arrival of a bark, the working of the uncouth arms of the instrument drew the children in half-frightened curiosity towards it, although the others held aloof, as if fearful of trespassing upon some work of the government, no doubt secretly guarded by the police. A few mornings later he was surprised to see upon the beach, near the same locality, a small heap of lumber which had evidently been landed in the early morning fog. The next day an old tent appeared on the spot, and the men, evidently fishermen, began the erection of a rude cabin beside it. Jarman had been long enough there to know that it was government land, and that these manifestly humble “squatters” upon it would not be interfered with for some time to come. He began to be uneasy again; it was true they were fully half a mile from him, and they were foreigners; but might not their reckless invasion of the law attract others, in this lawless country, to do the same? It ought to be stopped. For once Richard Jarman sided with legal authority.
But when the cabin was completed, it was evident from what he saw of its rude structure that it was only a temporary shelter for the fisherman’s family and the stores, and refitting of the fishing-boat, more convenient to them than the San Francisco wharves. The beach was utilized for the mending of nets and sails, and thus became half picturesque. In spite of the keen northwestern trades, the cloudless, sunshiny mornings tempted these southerners back to their native al fresco existence; they not only basked in the sun, but many of their household duties, and even the mysteries of their toilet, were performed in the open air. They did not seem to care to penetrate into the desolate region behind them; their half-amphibious habit kept them near the water’s edge, and Richard Jarman, after taking his limited walks for the first few mornings in another direction, found it no longer necessary to avoid the locality, and even forgot their propinquity.
But one morning, as the fog was clearing away and the sparkle of the distant sea was beginning to show from his window, he rose from his belated breakfast to fetch water from the “breaker” outside, which had to be replenished weekly from Sancelito, as there was no spring in his vicinity. As he opened the door, he was inexpressibly startled by the figure of a young woman standing in front of it, who, however, half fearfully, half laughingly withdrew before him. But his own manifest disturbance apparently gave her courage.
“I jess was looking at that thing,” she said bashfully, pointing to the semaphore.
He was still more astonished, for, looking at her dark eyes and olive complexion, he had expected her to speak Italian or broken English. And, possibly because for a long time he had seen and known little of women, he was quite struck with her good looks. He hesitated, stammered, and then said:—
“Won’t you come in?”
She drew back still farther and made a rapid gesture of negation with her head, her hand, and even her whole lithe figure. Then she said, with a decided American intonation:—
“No, sir.”
“Why not?” said Jarman mechanically.
The girl sidled up against the cabin, keeping her eyes fixed on Jarman with a certain youthful shrewdness.
“Oh, you know!” she said.
“I really do not. Tell me why.”
She drew herself up against the wall a little proudly, though still youthfully, with her hands behind her.
“I ain’t that kind of girl,” she said simply.
The blood rushed to Jarman’s checks. Dissipated and abandoned as his life had been, small respecter of women as he was, he was shocked and shamed. Knowing too, as he did, how absorbed he was in other things, he was indignant, because not guilty.
“Do as you please, then,” he said shortly, and reentered the cabin. But the next moment he saw his error in betraying an irritation that was open to misconstruction. He came out again, scarcely looking at the girl, who was lounging away.
“Do you want me to explain to you how the thing works?” he said indifferently. “I can’t show you unless a ship comes in.”
The girl’s eyes brightened softly as she turned to him.
“Do tell me,” she said, with an anticipatory smile and flash of white teeth. “Won’t you?”
She certainly was very pretty and simple, in spite of her late speech. Jarman briefly explained to her the movements of the semaphore arms and their different significance. She listened with her capped head a little on one side like an attentive bird, and her arms unconsciously imitating the signs. Certainly, for all that she SPOKE like an American, her gesticulation was Italian.