by Bret Harte
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
The first intimation given of the eccentricity of the testator was, Ithink, in the spring of 1854. He was at that time in possession of aconsiderable property, heavily mortgaged to one friend, and a wife ofsome attraction, on whose affections another friend held an encumberinglien. One day it was found that he had secretly dug, or caused to bedug, a deep trap before the front-door of his dwelling, into which a fewfriends, in the course of the evening, casually and familiarly dropped.This circumstance, slight in itself, seemed to point to the existence ofa certain humor in the man, which might eventually get into literature,although his wife's lover--a man of quick discernment, whose leg wasbroken by the fall--took other views. It was some weeks later, that,while dining with certain other friends of his wife, he excusedhimself from the table to quietly re-appear at the front-window with athree-quarter inch hydraulic pipe, and a stream of water projected atthe assembled company. An attempt was made to take public cognizance ofthis; but a majority of the citizens of Red Dog, who were not at dinner,decided that a man had a right to choose his own methods of divertinghis company. Nevertheless, there were some hints of his insanity; hiswife recalled other acts clearly attributable to dementia; the crippledlover argued from his own experience that the integrity of her limbscould only be secured by leaving her husband's house; and the mortgagee,fearing a further damage to his property, foreclosed. But here the causeof all this anxiety took matters into his own hands, and disappeared.
When we next heard from him, he had, in some mysterious way, beenrelieved alike of his wife and property, and was living aloneat Rockville fifty miles away, and editing a newspaper. But thatoriginality he had displayed when dealing with the problems of his ownprivate life, when applied to politics in the columns of "The RockvilleVanguard" was singularly unsuccessful. An amusing exaggeration,purporting to be an exact account of the manner in which the opposingcandidate had murdered his Chinese laundryman, was, I regret tosay, answered only by assault and battery. A gratuitous and purelyimaginative description of a great religious revival in Calaveras, inwhich the sheriff of the county--a notoriously profane sceptic--wasalleged to have been the chief exhorter, resulted only in the withdrawalof the county advertising from the paper. In the midst of this practicalconfusion he suddenly died. It was then discovered, as a crowningproof of his absurdity, that he had left a will, bequeathing his entireeffects to a freckle-faced maid-servant at the Rockville Hotel. But thatabsurdity became serious when it was also discovered that among theseeffects were a thousand shares in the Rising Sun Mining Company, which aday or two after his demise, and while people were still laughing athis grotesque benefaction, suddenly sprang into opulence and celebrity.Three millions of dollars was roughly estimated as the value of theestate thus wantonly sacrificed. For it is only fair to state, as ajust tribute to the enterprise and energy of that young and thrivingsettlement, that there was not probably a single citizen who did notfeel himself better able to control the deceased humorist's property.Some had expressed a doubt of their ability to support a family; othershad felt perhaps too keenly the deep responsibility resting upon themwhen chosen from the panel as jurors, and had evaded their publicduties; a few had declined office and a low salary: but no one shrankfrom the possibility of having been called upon to assume the functionsof Peggy Moffat, the heiress.
The will was contested,--first by the widow, who it now appeared hadnever been legally divorced from the deceased; next by four of hiscousins, who awoke, only too late, to a consciousness of his moraland pecuniary worth. But the humble legatee--a singularly plain,unpretending, uneducated Western girl--exhibited a dogged pertinacityin claiming her rights. She rejected all compromises. A rough sense ofjustice in the community, while doubting her ability to take care of thewhole fortune, suggested that she ought to be content with three hundredthousand dollars. "She's bound to throw even THAT away on some dernedskunk of a man, natoorally; but three millions is too much to give achap for makin' her onhappy. It's offerin' a temptation to cussedness."The only opposing voice to this counsel came from the sardonic lips ofMr. Jack Hamlin. "Suppose," suggested that gentleman, turning abruptlyon the speaker,--"suppose, when you won twenty thousand dollars of melast Friday night--suppose that, instead of handing you over the moneyas I did--suppose I'd got up on my hind-legs, and said, 'Look yer, BillWethersbee, you're a d----d fool. If I give ye that twenty thousand,you'll throw it away in the first skin-game in 'Frisco, and hand it overto the first short-card sharp you'll meet. There's a thousand,--enoughfor you to fling away,--take it and get!' Suppose what I'd said to youwas the frozen truth, and you know'd it, would that have been the squarething to play on you?" But here Wethersbee quickly pointed out theinefficiency of the comparison by stating that HE had won the moneyfairly with a STAKE. "And how do you know," demanded Hamlin savagely,bending his black eyes on the astounded casuist,--"how do you know thatthe gal hezn't put down a stake?" The man stammered an unintelligiblereply. The gambler laid his white hand on Wethersbee's shoulder. "Lookyer, old man," he said, "every gal stakes her WHOLE pile,--you can betyour life on that,--whatever's her little game. If she took to keerdsinstead of her feelings, if she'd put up 'chips' instead o' body andsoul, she'd bust every bank 'twixt this and 'Frisco! You hear me?"
Somewhat of this idea was conveyed, I fear not quite as sentimentally,to Peggy Moffat herself. The best legal wisdom of San Francisco,retained by the widow and relatives, took occasion, in a privateinterview with Peggy, to point out that she stood in the quasi-criminalattitude of having unlawfully practised upon the affections of an insaneelderly gentleman, with a view of getting possession of his property,and suggested to her that no vestige of her moral character would remainafter the trial, if she persisted in forcing her claims to that issue.It is said that Peggy, on hearing this, stopped washing the plate shehad in her hands, and, twisting the towel around her fingers, fixed hersmall pale blue eyes at the lawyer.
"And ez that the kind o' chirpin these critters keep up?"
"I regret to say, my dear young lady," responded the lawyer, "that theworld is censorious. I must add," he continued, with engaging frankness,"that we professional lawyers are apt to study the opinion of the world,and that such will be the theory of--our side."
"Then," said Peggy stoutly, "ez I allow I've got to go into court todefend my character, I might as well pack in them three millions too."
There is hearsay evidence that Peg added to this speech a wish anddesire to "bust the crust" of her traducers, and, remarking that "thatwas the kind of hairpin" she was, closed the conversation with anunfortunate accident to the plate, that left a severe contusion on thelegal brow of her companion. But this story, popular in the bar-roomsand gulches, lacked confirmation in higher circles. Better authenticatedwas the legend related of an interview with her own lawyer. Thatgentleman had pointed out to her the advantage of being able to showsome reasonable cause for the singular generosity of the testator.
"Although," he continued, "the law does not go back of the will forreason or cause for its provisions, it would be a strong point with thejudge and jury--particularly if the theory of insanity were set up--forus to show that the act was logical and natural. Of course you have--Ispeak confidently, Miss Moffat--certain ideas of your own why the lateMr. Byways was so singularly generous to you."
"No, I haven't," said Peg decidedly.
"Think again. Had he not expressed to you--you understand that this isconfidential between us, although I protest, my dear young lady, thatI see no reason why it should not be made public--had he not givenutterance to sentiments of a nature consistent with some futurematrimonial relations?" But here Miss Peg's large mouth, which had beenslowly relaxing over her irregular teeth, stopped him.
"If you mean he wanted to marry me--No!"
"I see. But were there any conditions--of course you know the law takesno cognizance of any not expressed in the will; but still, for the sakeof mere corroboration of the bequest--do you know of any conditions onwhich he gav
e you the property?"
"You mean did he want anything in return?"
"Exactly, my dear young lady."
Peg's face on one side turned a deep magenta color, on the other alighter cherry, while her nose was purple, and her forehead an Indianred. To add to the effect of this awkward and discomposing dramaticexhibition of embarrassment, she began to wipe her hands on her dress,and sat silent.
"I understand," said the lawyer hastily. "No matter--the conditions WEREfulfilled."
"No!" said Peg amazedly. "How could they be until he was dead?"
It was the lawyer's turn to color and grow embarrassed.
"He DID say something, and make some conditions," continued Peg, with acertain firmness through her awkwardness; "but that's nobody's businessbut mine and his'n. And it's no call o' yours or theirs."
"But, my dear Miss Moffat, if these very conditions were proofs of hisright mind, you surely would not object to make them known, if only toenable you to put yourself in a condition to carry them out."
"But," said Peg cunningly, "s'pose you and the Court didn't think 'emsatisfactory? S'pose you thought 'em QUEER? Eh?"
With this helpless limitation on the part of the defence, the case cameto trial. Everybody remembers it,--how for six weeks it was the dailyfood of Calaveras County; how for six weeks the intellectual and moraland spiritual competency of Mr. James Byways to dispose of his propertywas discussed with learned and formal obscurity in the court, and withunlettered and independent prejudice by camp-fires and in bar-rooms. Atthe end of that time, when it was logically established that at leastnine-tenths of the population of Calaveras were harmless lunatics, andeverybody else's reason seemed to totter on its throne, an exhaustedjury succumbed one day to the presence of Peg in the court-room. It wasnot a prepossessing presence at any time; but the excitement, and aninjudicious attempt to ornament herself, brought her defects into aglaring relief that was almost unreal. Every freckle on her facestood out and asserted itself singly; her pale blue eyes, that gave noindication of her force of character, were weak and wandering, orstared blankly at the judge; her over-sized head, broad at the base,terminating in the scantiest possible light-colored braid in the middleof her narrow shoulders, was as hard and uninteresting as the woodenspheres that topped the railing against which she sat.
The jury, who for six weeks had had her described to them by theplaintiffs as an arch, wily enchantress, who had sapped the failingreason of Jim Byways, revolted to a man. There was something soappallingly gratuitous in her plainness, that it was felt that threemillions was scarcely a compensation for it. "Ef that money was give toher, she earned it SURE, boys: it wasn't no softness of the old man,"said the foreman. When the jury retired, it was felt that she hadcleared her character: when they re-entered the room with their verdict,it was known that she had been awarded three millions damages for itsdefamation.
She got the money. But those who had confidently expected to seeher squander it were disappointed: on the contrary, it was presentlywhispered that she was exceedingly penurious. That admirable woman, Mrs.Stiver of Red Dog, who accompanied her to San Francisco to assist her inmaking purchases, was loud in her indignation. "She cares more for twobits than I do for five dollars. She wouldn't buy anything at the 'Cityof Paris,' because it was 'too expensive,' and at last rigged herselfout, a perfect guy, at some cheap slop-shops in Market Street. And afterall the care Jane and me took of her, giving up our time and experienceto her, she never so much as made Jane a single present." Popularopinion, which regarded Mrs. Stiver's attention as purely speculative,was not shocked at this unprofitable denouement; but when Peg refused togive anything to clear the mortgage off the new Presbyterian Church, andeven declined to take shares in the Union Ditch, considered by manyas an equally sacred and safe investment, she began to lose favor.Nevertheless, she seemed to be as regardless of public opinion as shehad been before the trial; took a small house, in which she lived withan old woman who had once been a fellow-servant, on apparently terms ofperfect equality, and looked after her money. I wish I could say thatshe did this discreetly; but the fact is, she blundered. The same doggedpersistency she had displayed in claiming her rights was visible inher unsuccessful ventures. She sunk two hundred thousand dollars ina worn-out shaft originally projected by the deceased testator; sheprolonged the miserable existence of "The Rockville Vanguard" long afterit had ceased to interest even its enemies; she kept the doors ofthe Rockville Hotel open when its custom had departed; she lost theco-operation and favor of a fellow-capitalist through a triflingmisunderstanding in which she was derelict and impenitent; she had threelawsuits on her hands that could have been settled for a trifle. I notethese defects to show that she was by no means a heroine. I quote heraffair with Jack Folinsbee to show she was scarcely the average woman.
That handsome, graceless vagabond had struck the outskirts of Red Dogin a cyclone of dissipation which left him a stranded but still ratherinteresting wreck in a ruinous cabin not far from Peg Moffat's virginbower. Pale, crippled from excesses, with a voice quite tremulous fromsympathetic emotion more or less developed by stimulants, he lingeredlanguidly, with much time on his hands, and only a few neighbors. Inthis fascinating kind of general deshabille of morals, dress, and theemotions, he appeared before Peg Moffat. More than that, he occasionallylimped with her through the settlement. The critical eye of Red Dog tookin the singular pair,--Jack, voluble, suffering, apparently overcome byremorse, conscience, vituperation, and disease; and Peg, open-mouthed,high-colored, awkward, yet delighted; and the critical eye of Red Dog,seeing this, winked meaningly at Rockville. No one knew what passedbetween them; but all observed that one summer day Jack drove down themain street of Red Dog in an open buggy, with the heiress of that townbeside him. Jack, albeit a trifle shaky, held the reins with somethingof his old dash; and Mistress Peggy, in an enormous bonnet withpearl-colored ribbons a shade darker than her hair, holding in hershort, pink-gloved fingers a bouquet of yellow roses, absolutely glowedcrimson in distressful gratification over the dash-board. So these twofared on, out of the busy settlement, into the woods, against the rosysunset. Possibly it was not a pretty picture: nevertheless, as the dimaisles of the solemn pines opened to receive them, miners leaned upontheir spades, and mechanics stopped in their toil to look after them.The critical eye of Red Dog, perhaps from the sun, perhaps from thefact that it had itself once been young and dissipated, took on a kindlymoisture as it gazed.
The moon was high when they returned. Those who had waited tocongratulate Jack on this near prospect of a favorable change in hisfortunes were chagrined to find, that, having seen the lady safe home,he had himself departed from Red Dog. Nothing was to be gained from Peg,who, on the next day and ensuing days, kept the even tenor of her way,sunk a thousand or two more in unsuccessful speculation, and made nochange in her habits of personal economy. Weeks passed without anyapparent sequel to this romantic idyl. Nothing was known definitelyuntil Jack, a month later, turned up in Sacramento, with a billiard-cuein his hand, and a heart overcharged with indignant emotion. "I don'tmind saying to you, gentlemen, in confidence," said Jack to a circle ofsympathizing players,--"I don't mind telling you regarding this thing,that I was as soft on that freckled-faced, red-eyed, tallow-haired gal,as if she'd been--a--a--an actress. And I don't mind saying, gentlemen,that, as far as I understand women, she was just as soft on me. Youkin laugh; but it's so. One day I took her out buggy-riding,--in style,too,--and out on the road I offered to do the square thing, just as ifshe'd been a lady,--offered to marry her then and there. And what didshe do?" said Jack with a hysterical laugh. "Why, blank it all! OFFEREDME TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS A WEEK ALLOWANCE--PAY TO BE STOPPED WHEN I WASN'TAT HOME!" The roar of laughter that greeted this frank confession wasbroken by a quiet voice asking, "And what did YOU say?"--"Say?" screamedJack, "I just told her to go to ---- with her money."--"They say,"continued the quiet voice, "that you asked her for the loan of twohundred and fifty dollars to get you to Sacramento--and that you gotit."--"Who says
so roared Jack. Show me the blank liar." There was adead silence. Then the possessor of the quiet voice, Mr. Jack Hamlin,languidly reached under the table, took the chalk, and, rubbing the endof his billiard-cue, began with gentle gravity: "It was an old friend ofmine in Sacramento, a man with a wooden leg, a game eye, three fingerson his right hand, and a consumptive cough. Being unable, naturally,to back himself, he leaves things to me. So, for the sake of argument,"continued Hamlin, suddenly laying down his cue, and fixing his wickedblack eyes on the speaker, "say it's ME!"
I am afraid that this story, whether truthful or not, did not tendto increase Peg's popularity in a community where recklessness andgenerosity condoned for the absence of all the other virtues; and it ispossible, also, that Red Dog was no more free from prejudice than othermore civilized but equally disappointed matchmakers. Likewise, duringthe following year, she made several more foolish ventures, and lostheavily. In fact, a feverish desire to increase her store at almost anyrisk seemed to possess her. At last it was announced that she intendedto reopen the infelix Rockville Hotel, and keep it herself.
Wild as this scheme appeared in theory, when put into practicaloperation there seemed to be some chance of success. Much, doubtless,was owing to her practical knowledge of hotel-keeping, but more toher rigid economy and untiring industry. The mistress of millions,she cooked, washed, waited on table, made the beds, and labored likea common menial. Visitors were attracted by this novel spectacle. Theincome of the house increased as their respect for the hostess lessened.No anecdote of her avarice was too extravagant for current belief. Itwas even alleged that she had been known to carry the luggage of gueststo their rooms, that she might anticipate the usual porter's gratuity.She denied herself the ordinary necessaries of life. She was poorlyclad, she was ill-fed--but the hotel was making money.
A few hinted of insanity; others shook their heads, and said a curse wasentailed on the property. It was believed, also, from her appearance,that she could not long survive this tax on her energies, and alreadythere was discussion as to the probable final disposition of herproperty.
It was the particular fortune of Mr. Jack Hamlin to be able to set theworld right on this and other questions regarding her.
A stormy December evening had set in when he chanced to be a guest ofthe Rockville Hotel. He had, during the past week, been engaged in theprosecution of his noble profession at Red Dog, and had, in the graphiclanguage of a coadjutor, "cleared out the town, except his fare in thepockets of the stage-driver." "The Red Dog Standard" had bewailed hisdeparture in playful obituary verse, beginning, "Dearest Johnny, thouhast left us," wherein the rhymes "bereft us" and "deplore" carrieda vague allusion to "a thousand dollars more." A quiet contentmentnaturally suffused his personality, and he was more than usually lazyand deliberate in his speech. At midnight, when he was about to retire,he was a little surprised, however, by a tap on his door, followed bythe presence of Mistress Peg Moffat, heiress, and landlady of Rockvillehotel.
Mr. Hamlin, despite his previous defence of Peg, had no liking for her.His fastidious taste rejected her uncomeliness; his habits of thoughtand life were all antagonistic to what he had heard of her niggardlinessand greed. As she stood there, in a dirty calico wrapper, still redolentwith the day's cuisine, crimson with embarrassment and the recent heatof the kitchen range, she certainly was not an alluring apparition.Happily for the lateness of the hour, her loneliness, and the infelixreputation of the man before her, she was at least a safe one. And Ifear the very consciousness of this scarcely relieved her embarrassment.
"I wanted to say a few words to ye alone, Mr. Hamlin," she began, takingan unoffered seat on the end of his portmanteau, "or I shouldn't hevintruded. But it's the only time I can ketch you, or you me; for I'mdown in the kitchen from sunup till now."
She stopped awkwardly, as if to listen to the wind, which was rattlingthe windows, and spreading a film of rain against the opaque darknesswithout. Then, smoothing her wrapper over her knees, she remarked, as ifopening a desultory conversation, "Thar's a power of rain outside."
Mr. Hamlin's only response to this meteorological observation was ayawn, and a preliminary tug at his coat as he began to remove it.
"I thought ye couldn't mind doin' me a favor," continued Peg, with ahard, awkward laugh, "partik'ly seein' ez folks allowed you'd sorter bina friend o' mine, and hed stood up for me at times when you hedn't anypartikler call to do it. I hevn't" she continued, looking down on herlap, and following with her finger and thumb a seam of her gown,--"Ihevn't so many friends ez slings a kind word for me these times thatI disremember them." Her under lip quivered a little here; and, aftervainly hunting for a forgotten handkerchief, she finally lifted the hemof her gown, wiped her snub nose upon it, but left the tears still inher eyes as she raised them to the man, Mr. Hamlin, who had by this timedivested himself of his coat, stopped unbuttoning his waistcoat, andlooked at her.
"Like ez not thar'll be high water on the North Fork, ef this rain keepson," said Peg, as if apologetically, looking toward the window.
The other rain having ceased, Mr. Hamlin began to unbutton his waistcoatagain.
"I wanted to ask ye a favor about Mr.--about--Jack Folinsbee," began Pegagain hurriedly. "He's ailin' agin, and is mighty low. And he's losin'a heap o' money here and thar, and mostly to YOU. You cleaned him out oftwo thousand dollars last night--all he had."
"Well?" said the gambler coldly.
"Well, I thought ez you woz a friend o' mine, I'd ask ye to let up alittle on him," said Peg, with an affected laugh. "You kin do it. Don'tlet him play with ye."
"Mistress Margaret Moffat," said Jack, with lazy deliberation, takingoff his watch, and beginning to wind it up, "ef you're that much stuckafter Jack Folinsbee, YOU kin keep him off of me much easier than I kin.You're a rich woman. Give him enough money to break my bank, or breakhimself for good and all; but don't keep him forlin' round me in hopesto make a raise. It don't pay, Mistress Moffat--it don't pay!"
A finer nature than Peg's would have misunderstood or resented thegambler's slang, and the miserable truths that underlaid it. But shecomprehended him instantly, and sat hopelessly silent.
"Ef you'll take my advice," continued Jack, placing his watch and chainunder his pillow, and quietly unloosing his cravat, "you'll quit thisyer forlin', marry that chap, and hand over to him the money and themoney-makin' that's killin' you. He'll get rid of it soon enough. Idon't say this because I expect to git it; for, when he's got thatmuch of a raise, he'll make a break for 'Frisco, and lose it to somefirst-class sport THERE. I don't say, neither, that you mayn't be inluck enough to reform him. I don't say, neither--and it's a derned sightmore likely!--that you mayn't be luckier yet, and he'll up and die aforehe gits rid of your money. But I do say you'll make him happy NOW; and,ez I reckon you're about ez badly stuck after that chap ez I ever sawany woman, you won't be hurtin' your own feelin's either."
The blood left Peg's face as she looked up. "But that's WHY I can't givehim the money--and he won't marry me without it."
Mr. Hamlin's hand dropped from the last button of his waistcoat."Can't--give--him--the--money?" he repeated slowly.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because--because I LOVE him."
Mr. Hamlin rebuttoned his waistcoat, and sat down patiently on the bed.Peg arose, and awkwardly drew the portmanteau a little nearer to him.
"When Jim Byways left me this yer property," she began, lookingcautiously around, "he left it to me on CONDITIONS; not conditions ezwaz in his WRITTEN will, but conditions ez waz SPOKEN. A promise I madehim in this very room, Mr. Hamlin,--this very room, and on that very bedyou're sittin' on, in which he died."
Like most gamblers, Mr. Hamlin was superstitious. He rose hastily fromthe bed, and took a chair beside the window. The wind shook it as if thediscontented spirit of Mr. Byways were without, re-enforcing his lastinjunction.
"I don't know if you remember him," said Peg feverishly, "he was a manez hed suffered. All that he loved--wife, famm
erly, friends--had goneback on him. He tried to make light of it afore folks; but with me,being a poor gal, he let himself out. I never told anybody this. I don'tknow why he told ME; I don't know," continued Peg, with a sniffle, "whyhe wanted to make me unhappy too. But he made me promise, that, if heleft me his fortune, I'd NEVER, NEVER--so help me God!--never share itwith any man or woman that I LOVED; I didn't think it would be hard tokeep that promise then, Mr. Hamlin; for I was very poor, and hedn't afriend nor a living bein' that was kind to me, but HIM."
"But you've as good as broken your promise already," said Hamlin."You've given Jack money, as I know."
"Only what I made myself. Listen to me, Mr. Hamlin. When Jack proposedto me, I offered him about what I kalkilated I could earn myself. Whenhe went away, and was sick and in trouble, I came here and took thishotel. I knew that by hard work I could make it pay. Don't laugh at me,please. I DID work hard, and DID make it pay--without takin' one cent ofthe fortin'. And all I made, workin' by night and day, I gave to him. Idid, Mr. Hamlin. I ain't so hard to him as you think, though I might bekinder, I know."
Mr. Hamlin rose, deliberately resumed his coat, watch, hat, andovercoat. When he was completely dressed again, he turned to Peg. "Doyou mean to say that you've been givin' all the money you made here tothis A 1 first-class cherubim?"
"Yes; but he didn't know where I got it. O Mr. Hamlin! he didn't knowthat."
"Do I understand you, that he's bin buckin agin Faro with the money thatyou raised on hash? And YOU makin' the hash?"
"But he didn't know that, he wouldn't hev took it if I'd told him."
"No, he'd hev died fust!" said Mr. Hamlin gravely. "Why, he's thatsensitive--is Jack Folinsbee--that it nearly kills him to take moneyeven of ME. But where does this angel reside when he isn't fightin' thetiger, and is, so to speak, visible to the naked eye?"
"He--he--stops here," said Peg, with an awkward blush.
"I see. Might I ask the number of his room--or should I be a--disturbinghim in his meditations?" continued Jack Hamlin, with grave politeness.
"Oh! then you'll promise? And you'll talk to him, and make HIM promise?"
"Of course," said Hamlin quietly.
"And you'll remember he's sick--very sick? His room's No. 44, at the endof the hall. Perhaps I'd better go with you?"
"I'll find it."
"And you won't be too hard on him?"
"I'll be a father to him," said Hamlin demurely, as he opened the doorand stepped into the hall. But he hesitated a moment, and then turned,and gravely held out his hand. Peg took it timidly. He did not seemquite in earnest; and his black eyes, vainly questioned, indicatednothing. But he shook her hand warmly, and the next moment was gone.
He found the room with no difficulty. A faint cough from within, anda querulous protest, answered his knock. Mr. Hamlin entered withoutfurther ceremony. A sickening smell of drugs, a palpable flavor of staledissipation, and the wasted figure of Jack Folinsbee, half-dressed,extended upon the bed, greeted him. Mr. Hamlin was for an instantstartled. There were hollow circles round the sick man's eyes; therewas palsy in his trembling limbs; there was dissolution in his feverishbreath.
"What's up?" he asked huskily and nervously.
"I am, and I want YOU to get up too."
"I can't, Jack. I'm regularly done up." He reached his shaking handtowards a glass half-filled with suspicious, pungent-smelling liquid;but Mr. Hamlin stayed it.
"Do you want to get back that two thousand dollars you lost?"
"Yes."
"Well, get up, and marry that woman down stairs."
Folinsbee laughed half hysterically, half sardonically.
"She won't give it to me."
"No; but I will."
"YOU?"
"Yes."
Folinsbee, with an attempt at a reckless laugh, rose, trembling and withdifficulty, to his swollen feet. Hamlin eyed him narrowly, and then badehim lie down again. "To-morrow will do," he said, "and then--"
"If I don't--"
"If you don't," responded Hamlin, "why, I'll just wade in and CUT YOUOUT!"
But on the morrow Mr. Hamlin was spared that possible act of disloyalty;for, in the night, the already hesitating spirit of Mr. Jack Folinsbeetook flight on the wings of the south-east storm. When or how ithappened, nobody knew. Whether this last excitement and the nearprospect of matrimony, or whether an overdose of anodyne, had hastenedhis end, was never known. I only know, that, when they came to awakenhim the next morning, the best that was left of him--a face stillbeautiful and boy-like--looked up coldly at the tearful eyes of PegMoffat. "It serves me right, it's a judgment," she said in a low whisperto Jack Hamlin; "for God knew that I'd broken my word, and willed all myproperty to him."
She did not long survive him. Whether Mr. Hamlin ever clothed withaction the suggestion indicated in his speech to the lamented Jack thatnight, is not of record. He was always her friend, and on her demisebecame her executor. But the bulk of her property was left to a distantrelation of handsome Jack Folinsbee, and so passed out of the control ofRed Dog forever.