The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales

by Bret Harte

barrels, and a light blueline issued from out the dark green bushes, round the point, anddisappeared. And then it suddenly occurred to her what she had beendoing! This, then, was her first step towards that fancy she had solately conceived, quarrelled over with her brother, and lay awake lastnight to place anew, in spite of all opposition! This was herbrilliant idea of dazzling and subduing Logport and the Fort! Had shegrown silly, or what had happened? Could she have dreamed of thecoming of this whipper-snapper, with his insufferable airs, after thatbeggarly deserter? I am afraid that for a few moments the miserablefugitive had as small a place in Maggie's sympathy as the redoubtablewhipper-snapper himself. And now the cherished dream of triumph andconquest was over! What a "looney" she had been! Instead of invitinghim in, and outdoing him in "company manners," and "fooling" him aboutthe deserter, and then blazing upon him afterwards at Logport in theglory of her first spent wealth and finery, she had driven him away!

  And now "he'll go and tell--tell the Fort girls of his hairbreadthescape from the claws of the Kingfisher's daughter!"

  The thought brought a few bitter tears to her eyes, but she wiped themaway. The thought brought also the terrible conviction that Jim wasright, that there could be nothing but open antagonism between them andthe traducers of their parents, as she herself had instinctively shown!But she presently wiped that conviction away also, as she had her tears.

  Half an hour later she was attracted by the appearance from the windowsof certain straggling blue spots on the upland that seemed movingdiagonally towards the Marsh. She did not know that it was Calvert'ssecond "detail" joining him, but believed for a moment that he had notyet departed, and was strangely relieved. Still later the frequentdisturbed cries of coot, heron, and marsh-hen, recognizing the presenceof unusual invaders of their solitude, distracted her yet more, andforced her at last with increasing color and an uneasy sense of shynessto steal out to the gallery for a swift furtive survey of the Marsh.But an utterly unexpected sight met her eyes, and kept her motionless.

  The birds were rising everywhere and drifting away with querulousperturbation before a small but augmented blue detachment that wasmoving with monotonous regularity towards the point of bushes where shehad seen the young officer previously disappear. In their midst,between two soldiers with fixed bayonets, marched the man whom even atthat distance she instantly recognized as the deserter of the precedingnight, in the very clothes she had given him. To complete herconsternation, a little to the right marched the young officer also,but accompanied by, and apparently on the most amicable terms with,Jim--her own brother!

  To forget all else and dart down the steps, flying towards the point ofbushes, scarcely knowing why or what she was doing, was to Maggie theimpulse and work of a moment. When she had reached it the party werenot twenty paces away. But here a shyness and hesitation again seizedher, and she shrank back in the bushes with an instinctive cry to herbrother inarticulate upon her lips. They came nearer, they wereopposite to her; her brother Jim keeping step with the invader, andeven conversing with him with an animation she had seldom seen upon hisface--they passed! She had been unnoticed except by one. The rovingeye of the deserter had detected her handsome face among the leaves,slightly turned towards it, and poured out his whole soul in a singleswift wink of eloquent but indescribable confidence.

  When they had quite gone, she crept back to the house, a littlereassured, but still tremulous. When her brother returned atnightfall, he found her brooding over the fire, in the same attitude ason the previous night.

  "I reckon ye might hev seen me go by with the sodgers," he said,seating himself beside her, a little awkwardly, and with an unusualassumption of carelessness.

  Maggie, without looking up, was languidly surprised. He had been withthe soldiers--and where?

  "About two hours ago I met this yer Leftenant Calvert," he went on withincreasing awkwardness, "and--oh, I say, Mag--he said he saw you, andhoped he hadn't troubled ye, and--and--ye saw him, didn't ye?"

  Maggie, with all the red of the fire concentrated in her cheek as shegazed at the flame, believed carelessly "that she had seen a shrimp inuniform asking questions."

  "Oh, he ain't a bit stuck up," said Jim quickly, "that's what I likeabout him. He's ez nat'ral ez you be, and tuck my arm, walkin' around,careless-like, laffen at what he was doin', ez ef it was a game, and hewasn't sole commander of forty men. He's only a year or two older thanme--and--and"--he stopped and looked uneasily at Maggie.

  "So ye've bin craw-fishin' agin?" said Maggie, in her deepest and mostscornful contralto.

  "Who's craw-fishin'?" he retorted, angrily.

  "What's this backen out o' what you said yesterday? What's all thistrucklin' to the Fort now?"

  "What? Well now, look yer," said Jim, rising suddenly, withreproachful indignation, "darned if I don't jest tell ye everythin'. Ipromised HIM I wouldn't. He allowed it would frighten ye."

  "FRIGHTEN ME!" repeated Maggie contemptuously, nevertheless with hercheek paling again. "Frighten me--with what?"

  "Well, since yer so cantankerous, look yer. We've been robbed!"

  "Robbed?" echoed Maggie, facing him.

  "Yes, robbed by that same deserter. Robbed of a suit of my clothes,and my whiskey-flask, and the darned skunk had 'em on. And if it hadn'tbin for that Leftenant Calvert, and my givin' him permission to hunthim over the Marsh, we wouldn't have caught him."

  "Robbed?" repeated Maggie again, vaguely.

  "Yes, robbed! Last night, afore we came home. He must hev got in yerwhile we was comin' from the boat."

  "Did, did that Leftenant say so?" stammered Maggie.

  "Say it, of course he did! and so do I," continued Jim, impatiently."Why, there were my very clothes on his back, and he daren't deny it.And if you'd hearkened to me jest now, instead of flyin' off intantrums, you'd see that THAT'S jest how we got him, and how me and theLeftenant joined hands in it. I didn't give him permission to huntdeserters, but THIEVES. I didn't help him to ketch the man thatdeserted from HIM, but the skunk that took MY clothes. For when theLeftenant found the man's old uniform in the bush, he nat'rallykalkilated he must hev got some other duds near by in some underhandway. Don't you see? eh? Why, look, Mag. Darned if you ain't skeeredafter all! Who'd hev thought it? There now--sit down, dear. Why,you're white ez a gull."

  He had his arm round her as she sank back in the chair again with aforced smile.

  "There now," he said with fraternal superiority, "don't mind it, Mag,any more. Why, it's all over now. You bet he won't trouble us agin,for the Leftenant sez that now he's found out to be a thief, they'lljest turn him over to the police, and he's sure o' getten six months'state prison fer stealin' and burglarin' in our house. But"--hestopped suddenly and looked at his sister's contracted face; "look yer,Mag, you're sick, that's what's the matter. Take suthin'"--

  "I'm better now," she said with an effort; "it's only a kind o' blindchill I must hev got on the Marsh last night. What's that?"

  She had risen, and grasping her brother's arm tightly had turnedquickly to the window. The casement had suddenly rattled.

  "It's only the wind gettin' up. It looked like a sou'wester when Icame in. Lot o' scud flyin'. But YOU take some quinine, Mag. Don'tYOU go now and get down sick like Maw."

  Perhaps it was this well-meant but infelicitous reference that broughta moisture to her dark eyes, and caused her lips to momentarily quiver.But it gave way to a quick determined setting of her whole face as sheturned it once more to the fire, and said, slowly:

  "I reckon I'll sleep it off, if I go to bed now. What time does thetide fall."

  "About three, unless this yer wind piles it up on the Marsh afore then.Why?"

  "I was only wonderin' if the boat wus safe," said Maggie, rising.

  "You'd better hoist yourself outside some quinine, instead o' talkenabout those things," said Jim, who preferred to discharge his fraternalresponsibility by active medication. "You aren't fit to read tonight."

  "Go
od night, Jim," she said suddenly, stopping before him.

  "Good night, Mag." He kissed her with protecting and amiabletoleration, generously referring her hot hands and feverish lips tothat vague mystery of feminine complaint which man admits withoutindorsing.

  They separated. Jim, under the stimulus of the late supposed robbery,ostentatiously fastening the doors and windows with assuring comments,calculated to