by Bret Harte
less merciful to Tappington, and hewere now a convicted felon, I should change neither my feelings nor myintentions to his sister."
"And you would still marry her?" said Carstone sternly; "YOU, anemployee of the bank, would set the example of allying yourself withone who had robbed it?"
"I--am afraid I would, sir," said Herbert slowly.
"Even if it were a question of your remaining here?" said Carstonegrimly.
Poor Herbert already saw himself dismissed and again taking up hisweary quest for employment; but, nevertheless, he answered stoutly:
"Yes, sir."
"And nothing will prevent you marrying Miss Brooks?"
"Nothing--save my inability to support her."
"Then," said Mr. Carstone, with a peculiar light in his eyes, "it onlyremains for the bank to mark its opinion of your conduct by INCREASINGYOUR SALARY TO ENABLE YOU TO DO SO! Shake hands, Mr. Bly," he said,laughing. "I think you'll do to tie to--and I believe the young ladywill be of the same opinion. But not a word to either her or hermother in regard to what you have heard. And now I may tell yousomething more. I am not without hope of Tappington's future,nor--d--n it!--without some excuse for his fault, sir. He wasartificially brought up. When my old friend died, Mrs. Brooks, still ahandsome woman, like all her sex wouldn't rest until she had anotherdevotion, and wrapped herself and her children up in the Church.Theology may be all right for grown people, but it's apt to makechildren artificial; and Tappington was pious before he was fairlygood. He drew on a religious credit before he had a moral capitalbehind it. He was brought up with no knowledge of the world, and whenhe went into it--it captured him. I don't say there are not saintsborn into the world occasionally; but for every one you'll find a lotof promiscuous human nature. My old friend Josh Brooks had a heap ofit, and it wouldn't be strange if some was left in his children, andburst through their straight-lacing in a queer way. That's all!Good-morning, Mr. Bly. Forget what I've told you for six months, andthen I shouldn't wonder if Tappington was on hand to give his sisteraway."
. . . . . . .
Mr. Carstone's prophecy was but half realized. At the end of sixmonths Herbert Bly's discretion and devotion were duly rewarded byCherry's hand. But Tappington did NOT give her away. That saintlyprodigal passed his period of probation with exemplary rectitude, but,either from a dread of old temptation, or some unexplained reason, hepreferred to remain in Portland, and his fastidious nest on TelegraphHill knew him no more. The key of the little door on the side streetpassed, naturally, into the keeping of Mrs. Bly.
Whether the secret of Tappington's double life was ever revealed to thetwo women is not known to the chronicler. Mrs. Bly is reported to havesaid that the climate of Oregon was more suited to her brother'sdelicate constitution than the damp fogs of San Francisco, and that histastes were always opposed to the mere frivolity of metropolitansociety. The only possible reason for supposing that the mother mayhave become cognizant of her son's youthful errors was in theoccasional visits to the house of the handsome George Dornton, who, inthe social revolution that followed the brief reign of the VigilanceCommittee, characteristically returned as a dashing stockbroker, andthe fact that Mrs. Brooks seemed to have discarded her ascetic shawlforever. But as all this was contemporaneous with the absurd rumor,that owing to the loneliness induced by the marriage of her daughtershe contemplated a similar change in her own condition, it is deemedunworthy the serious consideration of this veracious chronicle.
CAPTAIN JIM'S FRIEND.
I.
Hardly one of us, I think, really believed in the auriferousprobabilities of Eureka Gulch. Following a little stream, we had oneday drifted into it, very much as we imagined the river gold might havedone in remoter ages, with the difference that WE remained there, whilethe river gold to all appearances had not. At first it was tacitlyagreed to ignore this fact, and we made the most of the charminglocality, with its rare watercourse that lost itself in tangled depthsof manzanita and alder, its laurel-choked pass, its flower-strewnhillside, and its summit crested with rocking pines.
"You see," said the optimistic Rowley, "water's the main thing afterall. If we happen to strike river gold, thar's the stream for washingit; if we happen to drop into quartz--and that thar rock looks mightylikely--thar ain't a more natural-born site for a mill than that rightbank, with water enough to run fifty stamps. That hillside is anoriginal dump for your tailings, and a ready found inclined road foryour trucks, fresh from the hands of Providence; and that road we'rekalkilatin' to build to the turnpike will run just easy along thatridge."
Later, when we were forced to accept the fact that finding gold wasreally the primary object of a gold-mining company, we still remainedthere, excusing our youthful laziness and incertitude by brilliant andeffective sarcasms upon the unremunerative attractions of the gulch.Nevertheless, when Captain Jim, returning one day from the nearestsettlement and post-office, twenty miles away, burst upon us with"Well, the hull thing'll be settled now, boys; Lacy Bassett is comingdown yer to look round," we felt considerably relieved.
And yet, perhaps, we had as little reason for it as we had forremaining there. There was no warrant for any belief in the specialdivining power of the unknown Lacy Bassett, except Captain Jim'sextravagant faith in his general superiority, and even that had alwaysbeen a source of amused skepticism to the camp. We were alreadyimpatiently familiar with the opinions of this unseen oracle; he wasalways impending in Captain Jim's speech as a fragrant memory or anunquestioned authority. When Captain Jim began, "Ez Lacy was one daytellin' me," or, "Ez Lacy Bassett allows," or more formally, whenstrangers were present, "Ez a partickler friend o' mine, LacyBassett--maybe ez you know him--sez," the youthful and lighter membersof the Eureka Mining Company glanced at each other in furtiveenjoyment. Nevertheless no one looked more eagerly forward to thearrival of this apocryphal sage than these indolent skeptics. It wasat least an excitement; they were equally ready to accept hiscondemnation of the locality or his justification of their originalselection.
He came. He was received by the Eureka Mining Company lying on theirbacks on the grassy site of the prospective quartz mill, not far fromthe equally hypothetical "slide" to the gulch. He came by the futurestage road--at present a thickset jungle of scrub-oaks and ferns. Hewas accompanied by Captain Jim, who had gone to meet him on the trail,and for a few moments all critical inspection of himself was withheldby the extraordinary effect he seemed to have upon the faculties of hisintroducer.
Anything like the absolute prepossession of Captain Jim by thisstranger we had never imagined. He approached us running a littleahead of his guest, and now and then returning assuringly to his sidewith the expression of a devoted Newfoundland dog, which in fluffinesshe generally resembled. And now, even after the introduction was over,when he made a point of standing aside in an affectation ofcarelessness, with his hands in his pockets, the simulation was soapparent, and his consciousness and absorption in his friend soobvious, that it was a relief to us to recall him into the conversation.
As to our own first impressions of the stranger, they were probablycorrect. We all disliked him; we thought him conceited,self-opinionated, selfish, and untrustworthy. But later, reflectingthat this was possibly the result of Captain Jim's over-praise, andfinding none of these qualities as yet offensively opposed to our ownselfishness and conceit, we were induced, like many others, to forgetour first impressions. We could easily correct him if he attempted toimpose upon US, as he evidently had upon Captain Jim. Believing, afterthe fashion of most humanity, that there was something about USparticularly awe-inspiring and edifying to vice or weakness of anykind, we good-humoredly yielded to the cheap fascination of this showy,self-saturated, over-dressed, and underbred stranger. Even the epithetof "blower" as applied to him by Rowley had its mitigations; in thatTrajan community a bully was not necessarily a coward, nor floriddemonstration always a weakness.
His condemnation of the gulch was sweeping
, original, and striking. Helaughed to scorn our half-hearted theory of a gold deposit in the bedand bars of our favorite stream. We were not to look for auriferousalluvium in the bed of any present existing stream, but in the "cement"or dried-up bed of the original prehistoric rivers that formerly ranparallel with the present bed, and which--he demonstrated with the stemof Pickney's pipe in the red dust--could be found by sinking shafts atright angles with the stream. The theory was to us, at that time,novel and attractive. It was true that the scientific explanation,although full and gratuitous, sounded vague and incoherent. It wastrue that the geological terms were not always correct, and theirpronunciation defective, but we accepted such extraordinary