Stepsons of Light

  V

  "Never pray for rain on a rising barometer." --_Naval Regulations._

  "Married men always make the worst husbands." --_The Critic on the Hearth._

  "Although, contrary to his custom, he had a lady on his knee, he instructed the young prince in his royal duties." --ANATOLE FRANCE.

  Lyn Dyer lived with Uncle Dan in a little crowded house. Across theway stood a big lonesome house; there Edith Harkey lived with DaddyPete.

  Pete Harkey was a gentle, quiet and rather melancholy old man; DanFenderson was a fat, jolly and noisy youth of fifty. In relating othercircumstances within the knowledge of the Border it would have been inno degree improper to have put the emphasis on the names of thosetwo gentlemen. But this is "another story"; it is fitting that theyoungsters take precedence; Lyn Dyer and Uncle Dan, Edith and herfather.

  Lyn Dyer--Carolyn, Lyn--had known no mother but Aunt Peg. The crowdingof the little house was well performed by Lyn's three young cousins,Danjunior, Tomtom and Peggy. The big house had been lonesome for tenyears now. Edith's sisters and her one brother were all her seniors,all married, and all living within eye flight; two at Hillsboro, ascant twenty-five miles beyond the river--but the big house was notless lonesome for that.

  The little crowded house and the big lonesome house were half waybetween Garfield post office and Derry. Both homes were in SierraCounty, but they were barely across the boundary; the county line madethe southern limit of each farm. This was no chance but a choosing,and that a pointed one; having to do with that other story of thosetwo old men.

  In Dona Ana County taxes were high and life was cheap. Since theCivil War, Dona Ana had been bedeviled by the rule of professionalpoliticians. Sierra--aside from Lake Valley and Hillsboro--had verylittle ruling and needed less; commonly enough there was only oneticket for county officers, and that was picked by a volunteercommittee from both parties. Sierra was an American county, and tookpride that she had kept free from feuds and had no bandits within herborders. Not that Mexicans were such evildoers. But where there wasan overwhelming Mexican vote there was a large purchasable vote;which meant that purchasers took office. Unjust administrationfollowed--oppression, lawsuits and lawlessness, revenge, bloodshed,feuds, anarchy. Result: More expense, more taxes, more bribing, morebribers, more oppression to recoup the cost of officeholding. _Caveatpre-emptor_--let the homesteader beware!

  That unhappy time is now past and done with.

  "Lyn! Lyn! Edith! Do come here and see what Adam Forbes has broughtin," grumbled Uncle Dan. "Another cowboy, and you just got rid of TomBourbonia. It does beat all!"

  Mr. Fenderson, uttering the above complaint, stood on his porch in thelight from his open door and struck hands with two men there; afterwhich he slapped them violently on the back.

  "Come in!" cried Lyn from the doorway. Her eyes were shining. Shedropped a curtsy. "'Come in, come in--ye shall fare most kind!'"

  "Don't you believe Uncle Dan," said Edith. "We tried every way to makeTommy stay over--didn't we, Lyn?"

  The story is not able to give an exact record of the next minutes. Ofthe five young people--for Mr. Hobby Lull was there, as prophesied--ofthe five young people, five were talking at once; and Uncle Dan, abovethem all, boomed directions to Danjunior as to the horses of hisvisitors.

  "Daniel! Stop that noise!" said Aunt Peg severely. "You boys come onin the house. Mr. Charlie, I'm glad to see you."

  "Now, here!" protested Forbes. "Isn't anybody going to be glad to seeme?"

  "But, Adam, we can see you any time," explained Edith. "While Mr.See--"

  "Her eyes went twinkle, twinkle, but her nose went 'Sniff! Sniff!'"said Adam dolefully. "Excuse me if I seem to interrupt."

  "But Mr. See--"

  "Charlie," said See.

  "But Charlie makes himself a stranger. We haven't seen you for sixmonths, Mr. See."

  "Charlie," said Mr. See again. "Six months and eight days."

  Mr. Hobby Lull sighed dreamily. "Dear me! It doesn't seem over twoweeks!"

  A mesquite fire crackled in the friendly room. The night air bore nochill; it was the meaning of that fire to be cheerful; the wide oldfireplace was the heart of the house. Adam Forbes spread his fingersto the blaze and sighed luxuriously.

  "Charlie, when you build your house you want a fireplace like this inevery room. Hob, who's going to sell Charlie a farm?"

  "What's the matter with yours?"

  Adam appeared a little disconcerted at this suggestion. "That ideahadn't struck me, exactly," he confessed. "But it may come to thatyet. Lots of things may happen. I might find my placer gold, say.Didn't know I was fixing to find a gold mine, did you? Well, I am.I wanted Charlie to go snooks with me, but he hasn't got time. Me,I've been projectin' and pirootin' over the pinnacles after that goldfor a year now, and I've just about got it tracked to its lair.To-morrow--"

  "Oh, gold!" said Lyn disdainfully, and wrinkled her nose.

  "_Ain't I told you a hundred times-- Baby! Ain't I told you a hundred times, There ain't no money in the placer mines? Baby!_"

  "Lyn! Wherever do you pick up such deplorable songs?" said Aunt Peg,highly scandalized. "But she's right, Adam. The best gold is like thatin the old fable--buried under your apple trees. You dig therefaithfully and you will need no placer mines."

  White Edith turned to Charlie See.

  "If you really intend to buy a farm here you ought to be getting aboutit. You might wait too long, Mr. See."

  "Charlie. Exactly what do you mean by that remark, my fair-hairedchild?"

  "Here! This has gone far enough!" declared Hob. "We men have got tostand together--or else pull stakes and go where the women cease fromtroubling and the weary are at rest. Don't you let her threats get yourattled, Charlie See. We'll protect you."

  "Silly! I meant, of course, that the Mexicans are not selling theirlands cheaply now, as they used to do."

  "Not so you could notice it," said Uncle Dan. "Those that wanted tosell, they've sold and gone, just about all of them. What few are leftare the solid ones. Not half-bad neighbors either. Pretty good sort.They're apt to stick."

  "Not long," said Hobby rather sadly. "They'll go, and we'll go too,most of us. The big dam will be built, some time or other; we'll beoffered some real money. We'll grab it and drift. Strangers will takecomfort where we've grubbed out stumps. We are the scene shifters. Theplay will take place later. 'Sall right; I hope the actors get a hand.But I hate to think of strangers living--well, in this old house. Say,we've had some happy times here."

  "Won't you please hush?" said Adam. "Why so doleful? There's morehappy times in stock. This bunch don't have to move away. Why, when Iget my gold mine in action we can all live happy ever after.To-morrow--"

  "Hobby is right," said Aunt Peg. "Pick your words as you please,bad luck or improvidence on the one side, thrift or greed on theother--yes, and as many more words of praise or blame as you carefor; and the fact remains that the people who care for other thingsmore than they do for money are slowly crowded out by the people whocare more for money than for anything else."

  "Uncle Dan, is that why you grasping Scotchmen have crowded out theIrish round these parts?" inquired Charlie. "McClintock, MacCleod,Simpson, Forbes, Campbell, Monroe, Fenderson, Stewart, Buchanan--why,say, there's a raft of you here; and across the river it is worse."

  "You touch there on a very singular thing, Mr. Charlie. Not that wecrowded out the Irish. There were only a few families, and most ofthem are here yet. They happened to come first, and named thesettlements--that's all. But for the Scotch--you find more goodScots' names to the hundred, once you strike the hills, than you willfind to the thousand on the plain country. Love of the hills is in theblood of them; they followed the Rocky Mountains down from Canada."

  "But, Uncle Dan," said Hobby, "how did so many of them happen to be inCanada?"

&nb
sp; "Scotland was a poor country and a cold country, England was rich andwarm, Canada was cold and hard. The English had no call to Canada, theHudson Bay Company captained their outflung posts with Scotchmen; theeasier that the Hanoverian kings, as a matter of policy, harried theJacobite clans by fair means and foul. You were speaking of acrossthe river. That is another curious matter. The California Company,now--ruling a dozen dukedoms--California lends the name of it andsupplied the money; but the heads that first dreamed it were four longScottish heads. And their brand is the John Cross. Any stranger cowmanwould read that brand as J Half Circle Cross. But we call it JohnCross. And why, sirs?"

  "I'm sure I don't know," said Hobby. "It was always the John Cross andit never entered my head to ask why."

  "Look you there, now!" Uncle Dan held out an open palm and traced onit with a stubby and triumphant finger. "Their fathers had served JohnCompany, the Hudson Bay Company! And there you are linked back withtwo hundred years! 'John Company has a long arm,' they said; 'JohnCompany lost a good man there!' How the name began is beyond my sureknowing; but it is in my mind that it goes back farther still, to theEast India Company, to Clive and to Madras. Lyn, you are the bookman,I'll get you to look it up some of these--Lyn! Lyn! Charlie See! Theyoung devils! Now wouldn't that jar you?"

  "A fool and his honey are soon started," observed Adam.

  "We're out here, Uncle Dan; all nice and comfy. There's a moon. Anditty-bitsy stars," answered a soothing voice--Charlie See's--from theporch. "Oodles of stars. How I wonder what they are. G'wan, UncleDan--tell us about the East India Company now."

  Hobby Lull rose tragically and bestowed a withering glance upon UncleDan. "You old fat fallacy with an undistributed middle--see whatyou've done now! You and your John Company! Go to bed! Forbes, youbrought this man See. You go home!"

  "Overlook it this one time," urged Forbes. "Don't send us away--thegirls are going to sing. Forgive us all both, and I'll get rid of Seeto-morrow."

  "Be sure you do, then. Lyn! Come here to me."

  "Don't shoot, colonel, I'll come down," said Lyn.

  Her small face was downcast and demure. Charlie See came tiptoe afterher and sidled furtively to the fire.

  "Sing, then," commanded Hobby. He brought the guitars and gave one toeach girl.

  The coals glowed on the hearth; side by side, the fair head and thebrown bent at the task of tuning. That laughing circle was scatteredlong ago and it was written that never again should all those friendlyfaces gather by any hearthfire--never again. It has happened so many,many times; even to you and to me, so many, many times! But we learnnothing; we are still bitter, and hard, and unkind--with kindness socheap and so priceless--as if there was no such thing as loss orchange or death.

  And because of some hours of your own, it is hoped you will not smileat the songs of that lost happy hour. They were old-fashioned songs;indeed, it is feared they might almost be called Victorian. Theirbourgeois simplicity carried no suggestive double meaning.

  "When other lips and other hearts"--that was what they sang, brown Lynand white Edith. Kirkconnel Lea they sang, and Jeanie Morrison, andRosamond:

  _Rose o' the world, what man would wed When he might dream of your face instead?_

  Folly? Perhaps. Perhaps, too, in a world where we can but love andwhere we must lose, it may be no unwisdom if only love and loss seemworth the singing.

  The swift hour passed. The last song, even as the first, was poignantwith the happy sadness of youth:

  _When my heart is sad and troubled, Then my quivering lips shall say,_ "_Oh! by and by you will forget me, By and by when far away!_"

  Good-bys were said at last; Forbes and See put foot to stirrup androde jingling into the white moonlight; the others stood silent on theporch and watched them go. A hundred yards down the road, Adam Forbesdrew rein. A guitar throbbed low behind them.

  "Hark," he said.

  Edith Harkey stood in the shaft of golden light from the doorway; shebore herself like the Winged Victory; her voice thrilled across thequiet of the moonlit night:

  "_Never the nightingale, Oh, my dear! Never again the lark Thou wilt hear; Though dusk and the morning still_

  "_Tap at thy window-sill, Though ever love call and call Thou wilt not hear at all, My dear, my dear!_"

  The sad notes melted into the sweet pagan heartbreak of the enchantednight. They turned to go.

  "A fine girl," said Adam Forbes. "The only girl! To-morrow--"

  He fell silent; again in his heart that parting cadence knelled withkeen and intolerable sorrow. The roots of his hair prickled, antscrawled on his spine. So tingles the pulsing blood, perhaps, when aman is fey, when the kisses of his mouth are numbered.

  Edith went home to the big lonely house, but Lyn Dyer and Hobby Lulllingered by the low fire. Mr. Lull assumed a dignified pose before thefireplace, feet well apart and his hands clasped behind his back. Heregarded Miss Dyer with a twinkling eye.

  "Have you anything to say to the court before sentence is pronounced?"he inquired with lofty judicial calm.

  Miss Dyer avoided his glance. She stood drooping before him; shelooked to one side at the floor; she looked to the other side at thefloor. The toe of her little shoe poked and twisted at a knot in thefloor.

  "Extenuating circumstances?" she suggested hopefully.

  "Name them to the court."

  "The--the moon, I guess." The inquisitive shoe traced crosses andcircles upon the knot in the flooring. "And Charlie See," she addeddesperately. "Charlie has such eloquent eyes, Hobby--don't you think?"

  She raised her little curly head for a tentative peep at the court;her own eyes were shining with mischief. The court unclasped itshands.

  "I ought to shake you," declared Hobby. But he did not shake her atall.

  "You're the only young man in Garfield who wears his faceclean-shaven," remarked Lyn reflectively, a little later. "Charliewould look much better without a mustache, I think."

  He pushed her away and tipped up her chin with a gentle hand so thathe could look into her eyes. "Little brown lady with curly eyes andlaughing hair--are you quite fair to Charlie See?"

  "No," said Lyn contritely, "I'm not. I suppose we ought to tell him."

  "We ought to tell everybody. So far as I am concerned, I would enjoybeing a sandwich man placarded in big letters: 'Property of Miss LynDyer.'"

  "Why, Hobbiest--I thought it was rather nice that we had such a greatbig secret all our own. But you're right--I see that now. I shouldhave met him at the door, I suppose, and said, 'You are merely wastingyour time, Mr. See. I will never desert my Wilkins!' Only that mighthave been a little awkward, in a way, because, you see, 'Nobody askedyou to,' he said--or might have said."

  "He never told you, then?"

  "Not a word."

  "But you knew?"

  "Yes," said Lyn. "I knew." She twisted a button on his coat and spokewith a little wistful catch in her voice. "I do like him, Hobby--Ican't help it. Only so much." She indicated how much on the nail of asmall finger. "Just a little teeny bit. But that little bit is--"

  "Strictly plutonic?"

  "Yes," she said in a small meek voice. "How did you know? He makes melike him, Hobbiest. It--it scares me sometimes."

  "Pretty cool, I'll say, for a girl that has only been engaged a week,if you should happen to ask me."

  "Oh, but that's not the same thing--not the same thing at all! Youcouldn't keep me from liking you, not if you tried ever so hard. Thatis all settled. But Charlie makes me like him. You see, he is such areal people; I feel like the Griffin did about the Minor Canyon: 'Hewas brave and good and honest, and I think I should have relishedhim.'"

  Hobby held her at arm's length and regarded her quizzically. "Soyoung, and yet so tender?"

  "'So young, my lord, and true.'"

  "Well," said Hobby resignedly, "I suppose we'll have to quarrel, ofcourse. They all do. But I don't know how to go about it. What do Isay next?"
>
  "I might as well tell you the worst, angelest pieface. You oughtto know what a shocking horrid little creature your brown girlreally is. You won't ever tell--honest-to-goodness,cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die?"

  "Never."

  "Say it, then."

  "Honest-to-goodness, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die."

  She buried her face on his breast. "I dreamed about him last night,Hobby. Wasn't that queer? I hadn't thought of him before formonths--weeks, anyhow."

  "A week, maybe?" suggested Hobby.

  "Oh, more than that! Two weeks, at the very least. I--I hate to tellyou," she whispered. "I--I dreamed I liked him almost as much as I doyou!"

  "Why, you brazen little bigamist!"

  "Yes, I am--I mean, ain't I?" she assented complacently, for his armsbelied his words. "But that's not the worst, Hobbiest--that's notnearly the dreadfulest. When I woke up I--I wrote some--some versesabout my dream. Are you awfully angry? We'll burn them together afteryou read them."

  "Woman, produce those verses! I will take charge of them as 'ExhibitA.'"

  "And then you'll beat me, please?"

  "Oh, no," said Hobby magnanimously. "That's nothing! Pish, tush! Why,Linoleum, I feel that way about lots of girls. Molly Sullivan, now--"

  "Hobby!"

  "I always like to dream of Molly. One of the best companions to takealong in a dream--"

  "Only-est! Please don't!"

  "Well, then," said Hobby, "I won't--on one condition. It is to bedistinctly understood under no circumstances are you ever to call meCharlie. I won't stand for it. Dig up your accursed doggerel!"

  This is what Hobby Lull read aloud, with exaggerated fervor, while Lynhuddled by the dying fire and hid her burning face in her hands:

  _Last night I kissed you as you slept, For all night long I dreamed of you; Lower and low the hearth fire crept, The embers glowed and dimmed; we two Heard the wind rave at bolt and door With all the world shut out and fast, Doubted, hoped, questioned, feared no more, And all we sought was ours at last._

  _I do not love you, dear. I never loved you, Grudged what I gave, a wayward tenderness; Yet in my dream I wooed you with white arms And lingering soft caress. Now for all years to come I must remember, When fires burn dim and low, This false dear dream of mine, that stolen hour-- Your face of long ago._

  _I shall awaken in some midnight lonely, I shall remember you as one apart, How for one hour of dream I loved you only And held you in my heart. And you, through all the years since first you met me Still let my memory gleam; Oh, my old lover! Do not quite forget me! I loved you--in my dream!_

  Hobby cleared his throat impressively, tapped his table with thepaper, and assumed measured judicial accents.

  "This incriminating document proves--hah--hum--"

  "To the satisfaction of the court," prompted Lyn in a muffled voice.

  "To the satisfaction of the court--I thank you! To the very greatsatisfaction of the court, this document, together with the barefacedmanner in which you have brought this evidence to the cognizance ofthis court--it proves, little Lady Lyn, that you are compact all ofloyalty and clean honor--and the sentence of this court is,Imprisonment for life!"

  He held out his arms, and the culprit crept gladly to prison.