It may have been an hour, but it seemed an age, ere the sound of the horn, in Firm's strong blast, released me from my hiding-place. I had heard no report of fire-arms, nor perceived any sign of conflict; and certainly the house was not on fire, or else I must have seen the smoke. For being still in great alarm, I had kept a very sharp lookout.
Ephraim Gundry came to meet me, which was very kind of him. He carried his bugle in his belt, that he might sound again for me, if needful. But I was already running toward the house, having made up my mind to be resolute. Nevertheless, I was highly pleased to have his company, and hear what had been done.
“Please to let me help you,” he said, with a smile. “Why, miss, you are trembling dreadfully. I assure you there is no cause for that.”
“But you might have been killed, and Uncle Sam, and Martin, and every body. Oh, those men did look so horrible!”
“Yes, they always do till you come to know them. But bigger cowards were never born. If they can take people by surprise, and shoot them without any danger, it is a splendid treat to them. But if any one like grandfather meets them face to face in the daylight, their respect for law and life returns. It is not the first visit they have paid us. Grandfather kept his temper well. It was lucky for them that he did.”
Remembering that the Rovers must have numbered nearly three to one, even if all our men were stanch, I thought it lucky for ourselves that there had been no outbreak. But Firm seemed rather sorry that they had departed so easily. And knowing that he never bragged, I began to share his confidence.
“They must be shot, sooner or later,” he said, “unless, indeed, they should be hanged. Their manner of going on is out of date in these days of settlement. It was all very well ten years ago. But now we are a civilized State, and the hand of law is over us. I think we were wrong to let them go. But of course I yield to the governor. And I think he was afraid for your sake. And to tell the truth, I may have been the same.”
Here he gave my arm a little squeeze, which appeared to me quite out of place; therefore I withdrew and hurried on. Before he could catch me I entered the door, and found the Sawyer sitting calmly with his own long pipe once more, and watching Suan cooking.
“They rogues have had all the best of our victuals,” he said, as soon as he had kissed me. “Respectable visitors is my delight, and welcome to all of the larder; but at my time of life it goes agin the grain to lease out my dinner to galley-rakers. Suan, you are burning the fat again.”
Suan Isco, being an excellent cook (although of quiet temper), never paid heed to criticism, but lifted her elbow and went on. Mr. Gundry knew that it was wise to offer no further meddling, although it is well to keep them up to their work by a little grumbling. But when I came to see what broken bits were left for Suan to deal with, I only wondered that he was not cross.
“Thank God for a better meal than I deserve,” he said, when they all had finished. “Suan, you are a treasure, as I tell you every day a'most. Now if they have left us a bottle of wine, let us have it up. We be all in the dumps. But that will never do, my lad.”
He patted Firm on the shoulder, as if he were the younger man of the two, and his grandson went down to the wreck of the cellar; while I, who had tried to wait upon them in an eager, clumsy way, perceived that something was gone amiss, something more serious and lasting than the mischief made by the robber troop. Was it that his long ride had failed, and not a friend could be found to help him?
When Martin and the rest were gone, after a single glass of wine, and Ephraim had made excuse of something to be seen to, the Sawyer leaned back in his chair, and his cheerful face was troubled. I filled his pipe and lit it for him, and waited for him to speak, well knowing his simple and outspoken heart. But he looked at me and thanked me kindly, and seemed to be turning some grief in his mind.
“It ain't for the money,” he said at last, talking more to himself than to me; “the money might 'a been all very well and useful in a sort of way. But the feelin'—the feelin' is the thing I look at, and it ought to have been more hearty. Security! Charge on my land, indeed! And I can run away, but my land must stop behind! What security did I ask of them? 'Tis enough a'most to make a rogue of me.”
“Nothing could ever do that, Uncle Sam,” I exclaimed, as I came and sat close to him, while he looked at me bravely, and began to smile.
“Why, what was little missy thinking of?” he asked. “How solid she looks! Why, I never see the like!”
“Then you ought to have seen it, Uncle Sam. You ought to have seen it fifty times, with every body who loves you. And who can help loving you, Uncle Sam?”
“Well, they say that I charged too much for lumber, a-cuttin' on the cross, and the backstroke work. And it may 'a been so, when I took agin a man. But to bring up all that, with the mill strown down, is a cowardly thing, to my thinking. And to make no count of the beadin' I threw in, whenever it were a straightforrard job, and the turpsy knots, and the clogging of the teeth—'tis a bad bit to swallow, when the mill is strown.”
“But the mill shall not be strown, Uncle Sam. The mill shall be built again. And I will find the money.”
Mr. Gundry stared at me and shook his head. He could not bear to tell me how poor I was, while I thought myself almost made of money. “Five thousand dollars you have got put by for me,” I continued, with great importance. “Five thousand dollars from the sale and the insurance fund. And five thousand dollars must be five-and-twenty thousand francs. Uncle Sam, you shall have every farthing of it. And if that won't build the mill again, I have got my mother's diamonds.”
“Five thousand dollars!” cried the Sawyer, in amazement, opening his great gray eyes at me. And then he remembered the tale which he had told, to make me seem independent. “Oh yes, to be sure, my dear; now I recollect. To be sure—to be sure—your own five thousand dollars. But never will I touch one cent of your nice little fortune; no, not to save my life. After all, I am not so gone in years but what I can build the mill again myself. The Lord hath spared my hands and eyes, and gifted me still with machinery. And Firm is a very handy lad, and can carry out a job pretty fairly, with better brains to stand over him, although it has not pleased the Lord to gift him with sense of machinery, like me. But that is all for the best, no doubt. If Ephraim had too much of brains, he might have contradicted me. And that I could never abide, God knows, from any green young jackanapes.”
“Oh, Uncle Sam, let me tell you something—something very important!”
“No, my dear, nothing more just now. It has done me good to have a little talk, and scared the blue somethings out of me. But just go and ask whatever is become of Firm. He was riled with them greasers. It was all I could do to keep the boy out of a difficulty with them. And if they camp any where nigh, it is like enough he may go hankerin' after them. The grand march of intellect hathn't managed yet to march old heads upon young shoulders. And Firm might happen to go outside the law.”
The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though mild of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from tales of Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol of him. And now, when she could not say where he was, but only was sure that he must be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great medicine man which she had hung about him), it seemed to me, according to what I was used to, that in these regions human life was held a great deal too lightly.
It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is the duty of a fellow-creature. He was a very good young man, and in his way good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite, and a very good carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly always listened. But of course he was not to be compared as yet to his grandfather, the true Sawyer.
When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm, and the impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found Mr. Gundry in a genial mood. He never made himself uneasy about any trifles. He always had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways of Providence, and having lost his only son Elijah, he was sure that he never could lose Firm. He had taken his glass of hot whiskey and water, which always made him temperate; and if he felt any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on them now from a high point of view.
“I may 'a said a little too much, my dear, about the badness of mankind,” he observed, with his pipe lying comfortably on his breast; “all sayings of that sort is apt to go too far. I ought to have made more allowance for the times, which gets into a ticklish state, when a old man is put about with them. Never you pay no heed whatever to any harsh words I may have used. All that is a very bad thing for young folk.”
“But if they treated you badly, Uncle Sam, how can you think that they treated you well?”
He took some time to consider this, because he was true in all his thoughts; and then he turned off to something else.
“Why, the smashing of the mill may have been a mercy, although in disguise to the present time of sight. It will send up the price of scantlings, and we was getting on too fast with them. By the time we have built up the mill again we shall have more orders than we know how to do with. When I come to reckon of it, to me it appears to be the reasonable thing to feel a lump of grief for the old mill, and then to set to and build a stronger one. Yes, that must be about the right thing to do. And we'll have all the neighbors in when we lay foundations.”
“But what will be the good of it, Uncle Sam, when the new mill may at any time be washed away again?”
“Never, at any time,” he answered, very firmly, gazing through the door as if he saw the vain endeavor. “That little game can easily be stopped, for about fifty dollars, by opening down the bank toward the old track of the river. The biggest waterspout that ever came down from the mountains could never come anigh the mill, but go right down the valley. It hath been in my mind to do it often, and now that I see the need, I will. Firm and I will begin tomorrow.”
“But where is all the money to come from, Uncle Sam? You said that all your friends had refused to help you.”
“Never mind, my dear. I will help myself. It won't be the first time, perhaps, in my life.”
“But supposing that I could help you, just some little? Supposing that I had found the biggest lump of gold ever found in all California?”
Mr. Gundry ought to have looked surprised, and I was amazed that he did not; but he took it as quietly as if I had told him that I had just picked up a brass button of his; and I thought that he doubted my knowledge, very likely, even as to what gold was.
“It is gold, Uncle Sam, every bit of it gold—here is a piece of it; just look—and as large, I am sure, as this table. And it may be as deep as this room, for all that one can judge to the contrary. Why, it stopped the big pile from coming to the top, when even you went down the river.”
“Well, now, that explains a thing or two,” said the Sawyer, smiling peacefully, and beginning to think of another pipe, if preparation meant any thing. “Two things have puzzled me about that stump, and, indeed, I might say three things. Why did he take such a time to drive? and why would he never stand up like a man? and why wouldn't he go away when he ought to?”
“Because he had the best of all reasons, Uncle Sam. He was anchored on his gold, as I have read in French, and he had a good right to be crooked about it, and no power could get him away from it.”
“Hush, my dear, hush! It is not at all good for young people to let their minds run on so. But this gold looks very good indeed. Are you sure that it is a fair sample, and that there is any more of it?”
“How can you be so dreadfully provoking, Uncle Sam, when I tell you that I saw it with my own eyes? And there must be at least half a ton of it.”
“Well, half a hundred-weight will be enough for me. And you shall have all the rest, my dear—that is, if you will spare me a bit, Miss Remy. It all belongs to you by discovery, according to the diggers' law. And your eyes are so bright about it, miss, that the whole of your heart must be running upon it.”
“Then you think me as bad as the rest of the world! How I wish that I had never seen it! It was only for you that I cared about it—for you, for you; and I will never touch a scrap of it.”
Mr. Gundry had only been trying me, perhaps. But I did not see it in that light, and burst into a flood of childish tears, that he should misunderstand me so. Gold had its usual end, in grief. Uncle Sam rose up to soothe me and to beg my pardon, and to say that perhaps he was harsh because of the treatment he had received from his friends. He took me in his arms and kissed me; but before I could leave off sobbing, the crack of a rifle rang through the house, and Suan Isco, with a wail, rushed out.
The darkness of young summer night was falling on earth and tree and stream. Every thing looked of a different form and color from those of an hour ago, and the rich bloom of shadow mixed with color, and cast by snowy mountains, which have stored the purple adieu of the sun, was filling the air with delicious calm. The Sawyer ran out with his shirt sleeves shining, so that any sneaking foe might shoot him; but, with the instinct of a settler, he had caught up his rifle. I stood beneath a carob-tree, which had been planted near the porch, and flung fantastic tassels down, like the ear-rings of a negress. And not having sense enough to do good, I was only able to be frightened.
Listening intently, I heard the sound of skirring steps on the other side of and some way down the river; and the peculiar tread, even thus far off, was plainly Suan Isco's. And then in the stillness a weary and heavy foot went toiling after it. Before I could follow, which I longed to do, to learn at once the worst of it, I saw the figure of a man much nearer, and even within twenty yards of me, gliding along without any sound. Faint as the light was, I felt sure that it was not one of our own men, and the barrel of a long gun upon his shoulder made a black line among silver leaves. I longed to run forth and stop him, but my courage was not prompt enough, and I shamefully shrank away behind the trunk of the carob-tree. Like a sleuth, compact, and calm-hearted villain, he went along without any breath of sound, stealing his escape with skill, till a white bower-tent made a background for him, and he leaped up and fell flat without a groan. The crack of a rifle came later than his leap, and a curl of white smoke shone against a black rock, and the Sawyer, in the distance, cried, “Well, now!” as he generally did when satisfied.
So scared was I that I caught hold of a cluster of pods to steady me; and then, without any more fear for myself, I ran to see whether it was possible to help. But the poor man lay beyond earthly help; he was too dead to palpitate. His life must have left him in the air, and he could not even have felt his fall.
In violent terror, I burst into tears, and lifted his heavy head, and strove to force his hot hands open, and did I know not what, without thinking, laboring only to recall his life.
“Are you grieving for the skulk who has shot my Firm?” said a stern voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr. Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam. I tried to speak to him, but was too frightened. The wrath of blood was in his face, and all his kind desires were gone.
“Yes, like a girl, you are sorry for a man who has stained this earth, till his only atonement is to stain it with his blood. Captain Pedro, there you lie, shot, like a coward, through the back. I wish you were alive to taste my boots. Murderer of men and filthy ravisher of women, miscreant of God, how can I keep from trampling on you?”
It never had been in my dream that a good man could so entirely forget himself. I wanted to think that it must be somebody else, and not our Uncle Sam. But he looked toward the west, as all men do when their spirits are full of death, and the wan light showed that his chin was triple.
Whether it may have been right or wrong, I made all haste to get away. The face of the dead man was quite a pleasant thing, compared with the face of the old man living. He may not have meant it, and I hope he never did, but beyond all controversy he looked barbarous for the moment.
As I slipped away, to know the worst, there I saw him standing still, longing to kick the vile man's corpse, but quieted by the great awe of death. If the man had stirred, or breathed, or even moaned, the living man would have lost all reverence in his fury. But the power of the other world was greater than even revenge could trample on. He let it lie there, and he stooped his head, and went away quite softly.
My little foolish heart was bitterly visited by a thing like this. The Sawyer, though not of great human rank, was gifted with the largest human nature that I had ever met with. And though it was impossible as yet to think, a hollow depression, as at the loss of some great ideal, came over me.
Returning wretchedly to the house, I met Suan Isco and two men bringing the body of poor Firm. His head and both his arms hung down, and they wanted somebody to lift them; and this I ran to do, although they called out to me not to meddle. The body was carried in, and laid upon three chairs, with a pillow at the head; and then a light was struck, and a candle brought by somebody or other. And Suan Isco sat upon the floor, and set up a miserable Indian dirge.
“Stow away that,” cried Martin of the mill, for he was one of those two men; “wait till the lad is dead, and then pipe up to your liking. I felt him try to kick while we carried him along. He come forth on a arrand of that sort, and he seem to 'a been disappointed. A very fine young chap I call him, for to try to do it still, howsomever his mind might be wandering. Missy, keep his head up.”
I did as I was told, and watched poor Firm as if my own life hung upon any sign of life in him. When I look back at these things, I think that fright and grief and pity must have turned an excitable girl almost into a real woman. But I had no sense of such things then.
“I tell you he ain't dead,” cried Martin; “no more dead than I be. He feels the young gal's hand below him, and I see him try to turn up his eyes. He has taken a very bad knock, no doubt, and trouble about his breathing. I seed a fellow scalped once, and shot through the heart; but he came all round in about six months, and protected his head with a document. Firm, now, don't you be a fool. I have had worse things in my family.”
Ephraim Gundry seemed to know that some one was upbraiding him. At any rate, his white lips trembled with a weak desire to breathe, and a little shadow of life appeared to flicker in his open eyes. And on my sleeve, beneath his back, some hot bright blood came trickling.
“Keep him to that,” said Martin, with some carpenter sort of surgery; “less fear of the life when the blood begins to run. Don't move him, missy; never mind your arm. It will be the saving of him.”
I was not strong enough to hold him up, but Suan ran to help me; and they told me afterward that I fell faint, and no doubt it must have been so. But when the rest were gone, and had taken poor Firm to his straw mattress, the cold night air must have flowed into the room, and that, perhaps, revived me. I went to the bottom of the stairs and listened, and then stole up to the landing, and heard Suan Isco, who had taken the command, speaking cheerfully in her worst English. Then I hoped for the best, and, without any knowledge, wandered forth into the open air.
Walking quite as in a dream this time (which I had vainly striven to do when seeking for my nugget), I came to the bank of the gleaming river, and saw the water just in time to stop from stepping into it. Careless about this and every other thing for the moment, I threw myself on the sod, and listened to the mournful melody of night. Sundry unknown creatures, which by day keep timid silence, were sending timid sounds into the darkness, holding quiet converse with themselves, or it, or one another. And the silvery murmur of the wavelets soothed the twinkling sleep of leaves.
I also, being worn and weary, and having a frock which improved with washing, and was spoiled already by nursing Firm, was well content to throw myself into a niche of river-bank and let all things flow past me. But before any thing had found time to flow far, or the lullaby of night had lulled me, there came to me a sadder sound than plaintive Nature can produce without her Master's aid, the saddest sound in all creation—a strong man's wail.
Child as I was—and, perhaps, all the more for that reason as knowing so little of mankind—I might have been more frightened, but I could not have been a bit more shocked, by the roaring of a lion. For I knew in a moment whose voice it was, and that made it pierce me tenfold. It was Uncle Sam, lamenting to himself, and to his God alone, the loss of his last hope on earth. He could not dream that any other than his Maker (and his Maker's works, if ever they have any sympathy) listened to the wild outpourings of an aged but still very natural heart, which had always been proud of controlling itself. I could see his great frame through a willow-tree, with the sere grass and withered reeds around, and the faint gleam of fugitive water beyond. He was kneeling toward his shattered mill, having rolled his shirt sleeves back to pray, and his white locks shone in the starlight; then, after trying several times, he managed to pray a little. First (perhaps partly from habit), he said the prayer of Our Lord pretty firmly, and then he went on to his own special case, with a doubting whether he should mention it. But as he went on he gathered courage, or received it from above, and was able to say what he wanted.
“Almighty Father of the living and the dead, I have lived long, and shall soon be dead, and my days have been full of trouble. But I never had such trouble as this here before, and I don't think I ever shall get over it. I have sinned every day of my life, and not thought of Thee, but of victuals, and money, and stuff; and nobody knows, but myself and Thou, all the little bad things inside of me. I cared a deal more to be respectable and get on with my business than to be prepared for kingdom come. And I have just been proud about the shooting of a villain, who might 'a gone free and repented. There is nobody left to me in my old age. Thou hast taken all of them. Wife, and son, and mill, and grandson, and my brother who robbed me—the whole of it may have been for my good, but I have got no good out of it. Show me the way for a little time, O Lord, to make the best of it; and teach me to bear it like a man, and not break down at this time of life. Thou knowest what is right. Please to do it. Amen.”
In the present state of controversies most profoundly religious, the Lord alone can decide (though thousands of men would hurry to pronounce) for or against the orthodoxy of the ancient Sawyer's prayer. But if sound doctrine can be established by success (as it always is), Uncle Sam's theology must have been unusually sound; for it pleased a gracious Power to know what he wanted, and to grant it.
Brave as Mr. Gundry was, and much-enduring and resigned, the latter years of his life on earth must have dragged on very heavily, with abstract resignation only, and none of his blood to care for him. Being so obstinate a man, he might have never admitted this, but proved against every one's voice, except his own, his special blessedness. But this must have been a trial to him, and happily he was spared from it.
For although Firm had been very badly shot, and kept us for weeks in anxiety about him, his strong young constitution and well-nourished frame got over it. A truly good and learned doctor came from Sacramento, and we hung upon his words, and found that there he left us hanging. And this was the wisest thing perhaps that he could do, because in America medical men are not absurdly expected, as they are in England, to do any good, but are valued chiefly upon their power of predicting what they can not help. And this man of science perceived that he might do harm to himself and his family by predicting amiss, whereas he could do no good to his patient by predicting rightly. And so he foretold both good and evil, to meet the intentions of Providence.
He had not been sent for in vain, however; and to give him his due, he saved Ephraim's life, for he drew from the wound a large bullet, which, if left, must have poisoned all his circulation, although it was made of pure silver. The Sawyer wished to keep this silver bullet as a token, but the doctor said that it belonged to him according to miners' law; and so it came to a moderate argument. Each was a thoroughly stubborn man, according to the bent of all good men, and reasoning increased their unreason. But the doctor won—as indeed he deserved, for the extraction had been delicate—because, when reason had been exhausted, he just said this:
“Colonel Gundry, let us have no more words. The true owner is your grandson. I will put it back where I took it from.”
Upon this, the Sawyer being tickled, as men very often are in sad moments, took the doctor by the hand, and gave him the bullet heartily. And the medical man had a loop made to it, and wore it upon his watch chain. And he told the story so often (saying that another man perhaps might have got it out, but no other man could have kept it), that among a great race who judge by facts it doubled his practice immediately.
The leader of the robbers, known far and wide as “Captain Pedro,” was buried where he fell; and the whole so raised Uncle Sam's reputation that his house was never attacked again; and if any bad characters were forced by circumstances to come near him, they never asked for any thing stronger than ginger-beer or lemonade, and departed very promptly. For as soon as Ephraim Gundry could give account of his disaster, it was clear that Don Pedro owed his fate to a bottle of the Sawyer's whiskey. Firm had only intended to give him a lesson for misbehavior, being fired by his grandfather's words about swinging me on the saddle. This idea had justly appeared to him to demand a protest; to deliver which he at once set forth with a valuable cowhide whip. Coming thus to the Rovers' camp, and finding their captain sitting in the shade to digest his dinner, Firm laid hold of him by the neck, and gave way to feelings of severity. Don Pedro regretted his misconduct, and being lifted up for the moment above his ordinary view, perceived that he might have done better, and shaped the pattern of his tongue to it. Firm, hearing this, had good hopes of him; yet knowing how volatile repentance is, he strove to form a well-marked track for it. And when the captain ceased to receive cowhide, he must have had it long enough to miss it.
Now this might have ended honorably and amicably for all concerned, if the captain had known when he was well off. Unluckily he had purloined a bottle of Mr. Gundry's whiskey, and he drew the cork now to rub his stripes, and the smell of it moved him to try it inside. And before very long his ideas of honor, which he had sense enough to drop when sober, began to come into his eyes again, and to stir him up to mischief. Hence it was that he followed Firm, who was riding home well satisfied, and appeased his honor by shooting in cold blood, and justice by being shot anyhow.
It was beautiful, through all this trying time, to watch Uncle Sam's proceedings: he appeared so delightfully calm and almost careless whenever he was looked at. And then he was ashamed of himself perpetually, if any one went on with it. Nobody tried to observe him, of course, or remark upon any of his doings, and for this he would become so grateful that he would long to tell all his thoughts, and then stop. This must have been a great worry to him, seeing how open his manner was; and whenever he wanted to hide any thing, he informed us of that intention. So that we exhorted Firm every day to come round and restore us to our usual state. This was the poor fellow's special desire; and often he was angry with himself, and made himself worse again by declaring that he must be a milksop to lie there so long. Whereas, it was much more near the truth that few other men, even in the Western States, would ever have got over such a wound. I am not learned enough to say exactly where the damage was, but the doctor called it, I think, the sternum, and pronounced that “a building-up process” was required, and must take a long time, if it ever could be done.
It was done at last, thanks to Suan Isco, who scarcely ever left him by day or night, and treated him skillfully with healing herbs. But he, without meaning it, vexed her often by calling for me—a mere ignorant child. Suan was dreadfully jealous of this, and perhaps I was proud of that sentiment of hers, and tried to justify it, instead of laboring to remove it, as would have been the more proper course. And Firm most ungratefully said that my hand was lighter than poor Suan's, and every thing I did was better done, according to him, which was shameful on his part, and as untrue as any thing could be. However, we yielded to him in all things while he was so delicate; and it often made us poor weak things cry to be the masters of a tall strong man.
Firm Gundry received that shot in May, about ten days before the twelvemonth was completed from my father's death. The brightness of summer and beauty of autumn went by without his feeling them, and while his system was working hard to fortify itself by walling up, as the learned man had called it. There had been some difficulties in this process, caused partly, perhaps, by our too lavish supply of the raw material; and before Firm's gap in his “sternum” was stopped, the mountains were coming down upon us, as we always used to say when the snow-line stooped. In some seasons this is a sharp time of hurry, broken with storms, and capricious, while men have to slur in the driving weather tasks that should have been matured long since. But in other years the long descent into the depth of winter is taken not with a jump like that, but gently and softly and windingly, with a great many glimpses back at the summer, and a good deal of leaning on the arm of the sun.
And so it was this time. The autumn and the winter for a fortnight stood looking quietly at each other. They had quite agreed to share the hours, to suit the arrangements of the sun. The nights were starry and fresh and brisk, without any touch of tartness; and the days were sunny and soft and gentle, without any sense of languor. It was a lovely scene—blue shadows gliding among golden light.
The Sawyer came forth, and cried, “What a shame! This makes me feel quite young again. And yet I have done not a stroke of work. No excuse; make no excuse. I can do that pretty well for myself. Praise God for all His mercies. I might do worse, perhaps, than have a pipe.”
Then Firm came out to surprise him, and to please us all with the sight of himself. He steadied his steps with one great white hand upon his grandfather's Sunday staff, and his clear blue eyes were trembling with a sense of gratitude and a fear of tears. And I stepped behind a red strawberry-tree, for my sense of respect for him almost made me sob.
Then Jowler thought it high time to appear upon the scene, and convince us that he was not a dead dog yet. He had known tribulation, as his master had, and had found it a difficult thing to keep from the shadowy hunting ground of dogs who have lived a conscientious life. I had wondered at first what his reason could have been for not coming forward, according to his custom, to meet that troop of robbers. But his reason, alas! was too cogent to himself, though nobody else in that dreadful time could pay any attention to him. The Rovers, well knowing poor Jowler's repute, and declining the fair mode of testing it, had sent in advance a very crafty scout, a half-bred Indian, who knew as much about dogs as they could ever hope to know about themselves. This rogue approached faithful Jowler—so we were told long afterward—not in an upright way, but as if he had been a brother quadruped. And he took advantage of the dog's unfeigned surprise and interest to accost him with a piece of kidney containing a powerful poison. According to all sound analogy, this should have stopped the dear fellow's earthly tracks; but his spirit was such that he simply went away to nurse himself up in retirement. Neither man nor dog can tell what agonies he suffered; and doubtless his tortures of mind about duty unperformed were the worst of all. These things are out of human knowledge in its present unsympathetic state. Enough that poor Jowler came home at last, with his ribs all up and his tail very low.
Like friends who have come together again, almost from the jaws of death, we sat in the sunny noon, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The trees above us looked proud and cheerful, laying aside the mere frippery of leaves with a good grace and contented arms, and a surety of having quite enough next spring. Much of the fruity wealth of autumn still was clustering in our sight, heavily fetching the arched bough down to lessen the fall, when fall they must. And against the golden leaves of maple behind the unpretending roof a special wreath of blue shone like a climbing Ipomaea. But coming to examine this, one found it to be nothing more nor less than the smoke of the kitchen chimney, busy with a quiet roasting job.
This shows how clear the air was; but a thousand times as much could never tell how clear our spirits were. Nobody made any “demonstration,” or cut any frolicsome capers, or even said any thing exuberant. The steadfast brooding breed of England, which despises antics, was present in us all, and strengthened by a soil whose native growth is peril, chance, and marvel. And so we nodded at one another, and I ran over and courtesied to Uncle Sam, and he took me to him.
“You have been a dear good child,” he said, as he rose, and looked over my head at Firm. “My own granddarter, if such there had been, could not have done more to comfort me, nor half so much, for aught I know. There is no picking and choosing among the females, as God gives them. But he has given you for a blessing and saving to my old age, my dearie.”
“Oh, Uncle Sam, now the nugget!” I cried, desiring like a child to escape deep feeling, and fearing any strong words from Firm. “You have promised me ever so long that I should be the first to show Firm the nugget.”
“And so you shall, my dear, and Firm shall see it before he is an hour older, and Jowler shall come down to show us where it is.”
Firm, who had little faith in the nugget, but took it for a dream of mine, and had proved conclusively from his pillow that it could not exist in earnest, now with a gentle, satirical smile declared his anxiety to see it; and I led him along by his better arm, faster, perhaps, than he ought to have walked.
In a very few minutes we were at the place, and I ran eagerly to point it; but behold, where the nugget had been, there was nothing except the white bed of the river! The blue water flowed very softly on its way, without a gleam of gold to corrupt it.
“Oh, nobody will ever believe me again!” I exclaimed, in the saddest of sad dismay. “I dreamed about it first, but it never can have been a dream throughout. You know that I told you about it, Uncle Sam, even when you were very busy, and that shows that it never could have been a dream.”
“You told me about it, I remember now,” Mr. Gundry answered, dryly; “but it does not follow that there was such a thing. My dear, you may have imagined it; because it was the proper time for it to come, when my good friends had no money to lend. Your heart was so good that it got into your brain, and you must not be vexed, my dear child; it has done you good to dream of it.”
“I said so all along,” Firm observed. “Miss Rema felt that it ought to be, and so she believed that it must be, there. She is always so warm and trustful.”
“Is that all you are good for?” I cried, with no gratitude for his compliment. “As sure as I stand here, I saw a great bowlder of gold, and so did Jowler, and I gave you the piece that he brought up. Did you take them all in a dream, Uncle Sam? Come, can you get over that?”
I assure you that for the moment I knew not whether I stood upon my feet or head, until I perceived an extraordinary grin on the Sawyer's ample countenance; but Firm was not in the secret yet, for he gazed at me with compassion, and Uncle Sam looked at us both as if he were balancing our abilities.
“Send your dog in, missy,” at last he said. “He is more your dog than mine, I believe, and he obeys you like a Christian. Let him go and find it if he can.”
At a sign from me, the great dog dashed in, and scratched with all four feet at once, and made the valley echo with the ring of mighty barkings; and in less than two minutes there shone the nugget, as yellow and as big as ever.
“Ha! ha! I never saw a finer thing,” shouted Uncle Sam, like a school-boy. “I were too many for you, missy dear; but the old dog wollops the whole of us. I just shot a barrow-load of gravel on your nugget, to keep it all snug till Firm should come round; and if the boy had never come round, there the gold might have waited the will of the Almighty. It is a big spot, anyhow.”
It certainly was not a little spot, though they all seemed to make so light of it—which vexed me, because I had found it, and was as proud as if I had made it. Not by any means that the Sawyer was half as careless as he seemed to be; he put on much of this for my sake, having very lofty principles, especially concerning the duty of the young. Young people were never to have small ideas, so far as he could help it, particularly upon such matters as Mammon, or the world, or fashion; and not so very seldom he was obliged to catch himself up in his talking, when he chanced to be going on and forgetting that I, who required a higher vein of thought for my youth, was taking his words downright; and I think that all this had a great deal to do with his treating all that gold in such an exemplary manner; for if it had really mattered nothing, what made him go in the dark and shoot a great barrow-load of gravel over it?
The sanity of a man is mainly tested among his neighbors and kindred by the amount of consideration which he has consistently given to cash. If money has been the chief object of his life, and he for its sake has spared nobody, no sooner is he known to be successful than admiration overpowers all the ill-will he has caused. He is shrewd, sagacious, long-headed, and great; he has earned his success, and few men grudge, while many seek to get a slice of it; but he, as a general rule, declines any premature distribution, and for this custody of his wealth he is admired all the more by those who have no hope of sharing it.
As soon as ever it was known that Uncle Sam had lodged at his banker's a tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, friends from every side poured in, all in hot haste, to lend him their last farthing. The Sawyer was pleased with their kindness, but thought that his second-best whiskey met the merits of the case. And he was more particular than usual with his words; for, according to an old saying of the diggers, a big nugget always has children, and, being too heavy to go very far, it is likely to keep all its little ones at home. Many people, therefore, were longing to seek for the frogs of this great toad; for so in their slang the miners called them, with a love of preternatural history. But Mr. Gundry allowed no search for the frogs, or even the tadpoles, of his patriarchal nugget. And much as he hated the idea of sowing the seeds of avarice in any one, he showed himself most consistent now in avoiding that imputation; for not only did he refuse to show the bed of his great treasure, after he had secured it, but he fenced the whole of it in, and tarred the fence, and put loopholes in it; and then he established Jowler where he could neither be shot nor poisoned, and kept a man with a double-barreled rifle in the ruin of the mill, handy to shoot, but not easy to be shot; and this was a resolute man, being Martin himself, who had now no business. Of course Martin grumbled; but the worse his temper was, the better for his duty, as seems to be the case with a great many men; and if any one had come to console him in his grumbling, never would he have gone away again.
It would have been reckless of me to pretend to say what any body ought to do; from the first to the last I left every thing to those who knew so much better; at the same time I felt that it might have done no harm if I had been more consulted, though I never dreamed of saying so, because the great gold had been found by me, and although I cared for it scarcely more than for the tag of a boot-lace, nobody seemed to me able to enter into it quite as I did; and as soon as Firm's danger and pain grew less, I began to get rather impatient, but Uncle Sam was not to be hurried.
Before ever he hoisted that rock of gold, he had made up his mind for me to be there, and he even put the business off, because I would not come one night, for I had a superstitious fear on account of its being my father's birthday. Uncle Sam had forgotten the date, and begged my pardon for proposing it; but he said that we must not put it off later than the following night, because the moonlight would be failing, and we durst not have any kind of lamp, and before the next moon the hard weather might begin. All this was before the liberal offers of his friends, of which I have spoken first, although they happened to come after it.
While the Sawyer had been keeping the treasure perdu, to abide the issue of his grandson's illness, he had taken good care both to watch it and to form some opinion of its shape and size; for, knowing the pile which I had described, he could not help finding it easily enough; and indeed the great fear was that others might find it, and come in great force to rob him; but nothing of that sort had happened, partly because he held his tongue rigidly, and partly, perhaps, because of the simple precaution which he had taken.
Now, however, it was needful to impart the secret to one man at least; for Firm, though recovering, was still so weak that it might have killed him to go into the water, or even to exert himself at all; and strong as Uncle Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-tackle, he alone could never bring that piece of bullion to bank; so, after much consideration, he resolved to tell Martin of the mill, as being the most trusty man about the place, as well as the most surly; but he did not tell him until every thing was ready, and then he took him straightway to the place.
Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan Isco, who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to keep watch, or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an ordinary man. The night was sultry, and the fire-flies (though dull in the radiance of the moon) darted, like soft little shooting-stars, across the still face of shadow, and the flood of the light of the moon was at its height, submerging every thing.
While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of attracting any wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the Sawyer rising from a hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin the foreman, and we soon saw that due preparation had been made, for they took from under some drift-wood (which had prevented us from observing it) a small movable crane, and fixed it on a platform of planks which they set up in the river-bed.
“Palefaces eat gold,” Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to satisfy herself. “Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of one other's ears. Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now.”
“Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan,” I answered; “as if it were possible to have enough!”
“For my part,” said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the evening, “I wish it had never been found at all. As sure as I stand here, mischief will come of it. It will break up our household. I hope it will turn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the face, as those big nuggets do, ninety-nine out of a hundred. I have had no faith in it all along.”
“Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose,” I answered, rather pettishly, for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about my nugget. “Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have had great faith in it.”
“Can't say, can't say,” was all Firm's reply; and he fell into the silent vein again.
“Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!” cried the Sawyer, who was splashing for his life in the water. “I've tackled 'un now. Just tighten up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like. You can't lift 'un! Lord bless 'ee, not you. It 'll take all I know to do that, I guess; and Firm ain't to lay no hand to it. Don't you be in such a doggoned hurry. Hold hard, can't you?”
For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught hold of a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the Sawyer swung himself up to bank, and in half a minute all was orderly. He showed us exactly where to throw our weight, and he used his own to such good effect that, after some creaking and groaning, the long horn of the crane rose steadily, and a mass of dripping sparkles shone in the moonlight over the water.
“Hurrah! what a whale! How the tough ash bends!” cried Uncle Sam, panting like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself. “Martin, lay your chest to it. We'll grass him in two seconds. Californy never saw a sight like this, I reckon.”
There was plenty of room for us all to stand round the monster and admire it. In shape it was just like a fat toad, squatting with his shoulders up and panting. Even a rough resemblance to the head and the haunches might be discovered, and a few spots of quartz shone here and there on the glistening and bossy surface. Some of us began to feel and handle it with vast admiration; but Firm, with his heavy boots, made a vicious kick at it, and a few bright scales, like sparks, flew off.
“Why, what ails the lad?” cried the Sawyer, in some wrath; “what harm hath the stone ever done to him? To my mind, this here lump is a proof of the whole creation of the world, and who hath lived long enough to gainsay? Here this lump hath lain, without changing color, since creation's day; here it is, as big and heavy as when the Lord laid hand to it. What good to argue agin such facts? Supposin' the world come out o' nothing, with nobody to fetch it, or to say a word of orders, how ever could it 'a managed to get a lump of gold like this in it? They clever fellers is too clever. Let 'em put all their heads together, and turn out a nugget, and I'll believe them.”
Uncle Sam's reasoning was too deep for any but himself to follow. He was not long in perceiving this, though we were content to admire his words without asking him to explain them; so he only said, “Well, well,” and began to try with both hands if he could heft this lump. He stirred it, and moved it, and raised it a little, as the glisten of the light upon its roundings showed; but lift it fairly from the ground he could not, however he might bow his sturdy legs and bend his mighty back to it; and, strange to say, he was pleased for once to acknowledge his own discomfiture.
“Five hundred and a half I used to lift to the height of my knee-cap easily; I may 'a fallen off now a hundred-weight with years, and strings in my back, and rheumatics; but this here little toad is a clear hundredweight out and beyond my heftage. If there's a pound here, there's not an ounce under six hundred-weight, I'll lay a thousand dollars. Miss Rema, give a name to him. All the thundering nuggets has thundering names.”
“Then this shall be called 'Uncle Sam,'” I answered, “because he is the largest and the best of all.”
“It shall stand, miss,” cried Martin, who was in great spirits, and seemed to have bettered himself forever. “You could not have given it a finer name, miss, if you had considered for a century. Uncle Sam is the name of our glorious race, from the kindness of our natur'. Every body's uncle we are now, in vartue of superior knowledge, and freedom, and giving of general advice, and stickin' to all the world, or all the good of it. Darned if old Sam aren't the front of creation!”
“Well, well,” said the Sawyer, “let us call it 'Uncle Sam,' if the dear young lady likes it; it would be bad luck to change the name; but, for all that, we must look uncommon sharp, or some of our glorious race will come and steal it afore we unbutton our eyes.”
“Pooh!” cried Martin; but he knew very well that his master's words were common-sense; and we left him on guard with a double-barreled gun, and Jowler to keep watch with him. And the next day he told us that he had spent the night in such a frame of mind from continual thought that when our pet cow came to drink at daybreak, it was but the blowing of her breath that saved her from taking a bullet between her soft tame eyes.
Now it could not in any kind of way hold good that such things should continue; and the Sawyer, though loath to lose sight of the nugget, perceived that he must not sacrifice all the morals of the neighborhood to it, and he barely had time to dispatch it on its road at the bottom of a load of lumber, with Martin to drive, and Jowler to sit up, and Firm to ride behind, when a troop of mixed robbers came riding across, with a four-wheel cart and two sturdy mules—enough to drag off every thing. They had clearly heard of the golden toad, and desired to know more of him; but Uncle Sam, with his usual blandness, met these men at the gate of his yard, and upon the top rail, to ease his arm, he rested a rifle of heavy metal, with seven revolving chambers. The robbers found out that they had lost their way, and Mr. Gundry answered that so they had, and the sooner they found it in another direction, the better it would be for them. They thought that he had all his men inside, and they were mighty civil, though we had only two negroes to help us, and Suan Isco, with a great gun cocked. But their curiosity was such that they could not help asking about the gold; and, sooner than shoot them, Uncle Sam replied that, upon his honor, the nugget was gone. And the fame of his word was so well known that these fellows (none of whom could tell the truth, even at confession) believed him on the spot, and begged his pardon for trespassing on his premises. They hoped that he would not say a word to the Vigilance Committee, who hanged a poor fellow for losing his road; and he told them that if they made off at once, nobody should pursue them; and so they rode off very happily.