served us right! I've got to saythat Saunders and me made a bet that for all her airs she wasn't nobetter than she might be, and we went there drunk to try her--and thatwe got left, with two shots into us like hounds as we were! That'sso!--wasn't it, Saunders?"
"With two shots inter us like hounds ez we were," repeated Saunders withdeliberate precision.
"And I've got to say suthin' more, gen'lemen," continued Shuttleworth,now entirely removing his coat and vest, and apparently shaking himselffree from any extraneous trammels. "I've got to say this--I've got tosay that thar ain't a man in Buckeye, from Dirty Dick over yon to themayor of this town, ez hasn't tried the same thing on and got left--gotleft, without shootin' maybe, more's the pity, but got left all thesame! And I've got to say," lifting his voice, "THAT EF THAT'S WHAT YOUCALL DISORDERLINESS IN HER--if that's what yo'r turnin' this woman outo' town for--why"--
He stopped, absolutely breathless and gasping. For there was a momentaryshock of surprise and shame, and then he was overborne by peal afterpeal of inextinguishable laughter. But it was the laughter thatprecipitated doubt, enlightened justice, cleared confusion, and--savedthem!
In vain a few struggled to remind them that the question of the OTHERsaloons was still unaffected. It was lost in the motion enthusiasticallyput and carried that the Committee should instantly accompany Saundersand Shuttleworth to Jovita's saloon to make an apology in theirpresence. Five minutes later they halted hilariously before its door.But it was closed, dark, and silent!
Their sudden onset and alarm brought Sanchicha to the half-opened door."Ah, yes! the Senorita? Bueno! She had just left for Fiddletown withthe Senor Parks, the honorable mayor. They had been married only a fewmoments before by the Reverend Mr. McCorkle!"
THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA.
PART I.
It was bitterly cold. When night fell over Lakeville, Wisconsin, thesunset, which had flickered rather than glowed in the western sky, tookupon itself a still more boreal tremulousness, until at last it seemedto fade away in cold blue shivers to the zenith. Nothing else stirred;in the crisp still air the evening smoke of chimneys rose threadlikeand vanished. The stars were early, pale, and pitiless; when the latermoonlight fell, it appeared only to whiten the stiffened earth likesnow, except where it made a dull, pewter-like film over the threefrozen lakes which encompassed the town.
The site of the town itself was rarely beautiful, and its pioneersand founders had carried out the suggestions they had found there withloving taste and intelligence.
Themselves old voyageurs, trappers, and traders, they still loved Naturetoo well to exclude her from the restful homes they had achieved afteryears of toiling face to face with her. So a strip of primeval forest onthe one side, and rolling level prairie on the other, still came up tothe base of the hill, whereon they had built certain solid houses, whicha second generation had beautified and improved with modern taste,but which still retained their old honesty of foundation and wholesomerustic space. These yet stood among the old trees, military squares,and broad sloping avenues of the town. Seen from the railway by day, theregularity of streets and blocks was hidden by environing trees; thereremained only a picturesque lifting of rustic gardens, brown roofs,gables, spires, and cupolas above the mirroring lake: seen from therailway this bitter night, the invisible terraces and streets were nowpricked out by symmetrical lines and curves of sparkling lights, whichglittered through the leafless boughs and seemed to encircle the hilllike a diadem.
Central in the chiefest square, and yet preserving its old lordlyisolation in a wooded garden, the homestead of Enoch Lane stood with allits modern additions and improvements. Already these included not onlythe latest phases of decoration, but various treasures brought by thesecond generation from Europe, which they were wont to visit, but fromwhich they always contentedly returned to their little provincial town.Whether there was some instinctive yearning, like the stirred sap ofgreat forests, in their wholesome pioneer blood, or whether there wassome occult fascination in the pretty town-crested hill itself, it wasstill certain that the richest inhabitants always preferred to live inLakeville. Even the young, who left it to seek their fortune elsewhere,came back to enjoy their success under the sylvan vaults of this vastancestral roof. And that was why, this 22d of December, 1870, the wholehousehold of Gabriel Lane was awaiting the arrival from California ofhis brother, Sylvester Lane, at the old homestead which he had lefttwenty years ago.
"And you don't know how he looks?" said Kitty Lane to her father.
"I do, perfectly; rather chubby, with blue eyes, curly hair, fair skin,and blushes when you speak to him."
"Papa!"
"Eh?--Oh, well, he USED to. You see that was twenty-five years ago, whenhe left here for boarding-school. He ran away from there, as I told you;went to sea, and finally brought up at San Francisco."
"And you haven't had any picture, or photograph of him, since?"
"No--that is--I say!--you haven't, any of you, got a picture ofSylvester, have you?" he turned in a vague parenthetical appeal to thecompany of relatives and friends collected in the drawing-room afterdinner.
"Cousin Jane has; she knows all about him!"
But it appeared that Cousin Jane had only heard Susan Marckland saythat Edward Bingham had told her that he was in California when"Uncle Sylvester" had been nearly hanged by a Vigilance Committee forprotecting a horse thief or a gambler, or some such person. This wasfelt to be ineffective as a personal description.
"He's sure to wear a big beard; they all do when they first come back,"said Amos Gunn, with metropolitan oraculousness.
"He has a big curling mustache, long silken hair, and broad shoulders,"said Marie du Page.
There was such piquant conviction in the manner of the speaker, who wasalso a very pretty girl, that they all turned towards her, and Kittyquickly said,--
"But YOU'VE never seen him?"
"No--but--" She stopped, and, lifting one shoulder, threw her spiritedhead sideways, in a pretty deprecatory way, with elevated eyebrows andan expression intended to show the otherwise untranslatable character ofher impression. But it showed quite as pleasantly the other fact, thatshe was the daughter of a foreigner, an old French military explorer,and that she had retained even in Anglo-Saxon Lakeville some of theGallic animation.
"Well, how many of you girls are going with me to meet him at thestation?" said Gabriel, dismissing with masculine promptness the lesserquestion. "It's time to be off."
"I'd like to go," said Kitty, "and so would Cousin Jane; but really,papa, you see if YOU don't know him, and WE don't either, and you've gotto satisfy yourself that it's the right man, and then introduce YOURSELFand then us--and all this on the platform before everybody--it makes itrather embarrassing for us. And then, as he's your younger brother andwe're supposed to be his affectionate nieces, you know, it would makeHIM feel SO ridiculous!"
"And if he were to KISS you," said Marie tragically, "and then turn outnot to be him!"
"So," continued Kitty, "you'd better take Cousin John, who was more inUncle Sylvester's time, to represent the Past of the family, and perhapsMr. Gunn"--
"To represent the future, I suppose?" interrupted Gabriel in a wickedwhisper.
"To represent a name that most men of the world in New York andSan Francisco know," went on Kitty, without a blush. "It would makerecognition and introduction easier. And take an extra fur with you,dear--not for HIM but for yourself. I suppose he's lived so much in theopen air as to laugh at our coddling."
"I don't know about that," said her father thoughtfully; "the lasttelegram I have from him, en route, says he's half frozen, and wants aclose carriage sent to the station."
"Of course," said Marie impatiently, "you forget the poor creature comesfrom burning canyons and hot golden sands and perpetual sunshine."
"Very well; but come along, Marie, and see how I've prepared his room,"and as her father left the drawing-room Kitty carried off her oldschoolfellow upstairs.
The room selected for the coming
Sylvester had been one of the elaborateguest-chambers, but was now stripped of its more luxurious furniture andarranged with picturesque yet rural extravagance. A few rare buffalo,bear, and panther skins were disposed over the bare floor, and evendisplayed gracefully over some elaborately rustic chairs. Thehandsome French bedstead had been displaced for a small wrought-ironascetic-looking couch covered with a gorgeously striped Mexican blanket.The fireplace had been dismantled of its steel grate, and the hearthextended so as to allow a pile of symmetrically heaped moss-coveredhickory logs to take its place. The walls were covered with trophiesof the