Produced by Donald Lainson
THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S
By Bret Harte
CONTENTS
THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S
JOHNNYBOY
YOUNG ROBIN GRAY
THE SHERIFF OF SISKYOU
A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA
CHU CHU
MY FIRST BOOK
THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S
CHAPTER I.
Where the North Fork of the Stanislaus River begins to lose its youthfulgrace, vigor, and agility, and broadens more maturely into the plain,there is a little promontory which at certain high stages of water lieslike a small island in the stream. To the strongly-marked heroics ofSierran landscape it contrasts a singular, pastoral calm. White andgray mosses from the overhanging rocks and feathery alders trail theirfilaments in its slow current, and between the woodland openings thereare glimpses of vivid velvet sward, even at times when the wild oats and"wire-grasses" of the plains are already yellowing. The placid river,unstained at this point by mining sluices or mill drift, runs clearunder its contemplative shadows. Originally the camping-ground of aDigger Chief, it passed from his tenancy with the American rifle bulletthat terminated his career. The pioneer who thus succeeded to itsattractive calm gave way in turn to a well-directed shot from therevolver of a quartz-prospector, equally impressed with the charm ofits restful tranquillity. How long he might have enjoyed its riparianseclusion is not known. A sudden rise of the river one March nightquietly removed him, together with the overhanging post oak beneathwhich he was profoundly but unconsciously meditating. The demijohn ofwhiskey was picked up further down. But no other suggestion of thesesuccessive evictions was ever visible in the reposeful serenity of thespot.
It was later occupied, and a cabin built upon the spot, by one AlexanderMcGee, better known as "the Bell-ringer of Angel's." This euphonioustitle, which might have suggested a consistently peaceful occupation,however, referred to his accuracy of aim at a mechanical target, wherethe piercing of the bull's eye was celebrated by the stroke of a bell.It is probable that this singular proficiency kept his investment ofthat gentle seclusion unchallenged. At all events it was uninvaded. Heshared it only with the birds. Perhaps some suggestion of nest buildingmay have been in his mind, for one pleasant spring morning he broughthither a wife. It was his OWN; and in this way he may be said to haveintroduced that morality which is supposed to be the accompaniment andreflection of pastoral life. Mrs. McGee's red petticoat was sometimesseen through the trees--a cheerful bit of color. Mrs. McGee's redcheeks, plump little figure, beribboned hat and brown, still-girlishbraids were often seen at sunset on the river bank, in company withher husband, who seemed to be pleased with the discreet and distantadmiration that followed them. Strolling under the bland shadows of thecotton-woods, by the fading gold of the river, he doubtless felt thatpeace which the mere world cannot give, and which fades not away beforethe clear, accurate eye of the perfect marksman.
Their nearest neighbors were the two brothers Wayne, who took upa claim, and built themselves a cabin on the river bank near thepromontory. Quiet, simple men, suspected somewhat of psalm-singing, andundue retirement on Sundays, they attracted but little attention. Butwhen, through some original conception or painstaking deliberation, theyturned the current of the river so as to restrict the overflow betweenthe promontory and the river bank, disclosing an auriferous "bar" ofinconceivable richness, and establishing their theory that it was reallythe former channel of the river, choked and diverted though ages ofalluvial drift, they may be said to have changed, also, the fortunesof the little settlement. Popular feeling and the new prosperity whichdawned upon the miners recognized the two brothers by giving the name ofWayne's Bar to the infant settlement and its post-office. The peacefulpromontory, although made easier of access, still preserved its calmseclusion, and pretty Mrs. McGee could contemplate through the leaves ofher bower the work going on at its base, herself unseen. Nevertheless,this Arcadian retreat was being slowly and surely invested; more thanthat, the character of its surroundings was altered, and the complexionof the river had changed. The Wayne engines on the point above hadturned the drift and debris into the current that now thickened and ranyellow around the wooded shore. The fringes of this Eden were alreadytainted with the color of gold.
It is doubtful, however, if Mrs. McGee was much affected by thissentimental reflection, and her husband, in a manner, lent himself tothe desecration of his exclusive domain by accepting a claim alongthe shore--tendered by the conscientious Waynes in compensation forrestricting the approach to the promontory--and thus participated inthe fortunes of the Bar. Mrs. McGee amused herself by watching fromher eyrie, with a presumably childish interest, the operations ofthe red-shirted brothers on the Bar; her husband, however, alwaysaccompanying her when she crossed the Bar to the bank. Some two or threeother women--wives of miners--had joined the camp, but it was evidentthat McGee was as little inclined to intrust his wife to theircompanionship as to that of their husbands. An opinion obtained thatMcGee, being an old resident, with alleged high connections in Angel's,was inclined to be aristocratic and exclusive.
Meantime, the two brothers who had founded the fortunes of the Bar wereaccorded an equally high position, with an equal amount of reserve.Their ways were decidedly not those of the other miners, and were asefficacious in keeping them from familiar advances as the reputation ofMr. McGee was in isolating his wife. Madison Wayne, the elder, wastall, well-knit and spare, reticent in speech and slow in deduction;his brother, Arthur, was of rounder outline, but smaller and of a moredelicate and perhaps a more impressible nature. It was believed by somethat it was within the range of possibility that Arthur would yet beseen "taking his cocktail like a white man," or "dropping his scads"at draw poker. At present, however, they seemed content to spend theirevenings in their own cabin, and their Sundays at a grim Presbyteriantabernacle in the next town, to which they walked ten miles, where, itwas currently believed, "hell fire was ladled out free," and "infantsdamned for nothing." When they did not go to meeting it was alsobelieved that the minister came to them, until it was ascertained thatthe sound of sacred recitation overheard in their cabin was simplyMadison Wayne reading the Bible to his younger brother. McGee is saidto have stopped on one of these occasions--unaccompanied by hiswife--before their cabin, moving away afterwards with more than hisusual placid contentment.
It was about eleven o'clock one morning, and Madison Wayne was at workalone on the Bar. Clad in a dark gray jersey and white duck trousersrolled up over high india-rubber boots, he looked not unlike a peacefulfisherman digging stakes for his nets, as he labored in the ooze andgravel of the still half-reclaimed river bed. He was far out on the Bar,within a stone's throw of the promontory. Suddenly his quick ear caughtan unfamiliar cry and splash. Looking up hastily, he saw Mrs. McGee'sred petticoat in the water under the singularly agitated boughs of anoverhanging tree. Madison Wayne ran to the bank, threw off his heavyboots, and sprang into the stream. A few strokes brought him to Mrs.McGee's petticoat, which, as he had wisely surmised, contained Mrs.McGee, who was still clinging to a branch of the tree. Grasping herwaist with one hand and the branch with the other, he obtained afoothold on the bank, and dragged her ashore. A moment later they bothstood erect and dripping at the foot of the tree.
"Well?" said the lady.
Wayne glanced around their seclusion with his habitual caution, slightlyknit his brows perplexedly, and said: "You fell in?"
"I didn't do nothin' of the sort. I JUMPED in."
Wayne again looked around him, as if expecting her companion, andsqueezed the water out of his
thick hair. "Jumped in?" he repeatedslowly. "What for?"
"To make you come over here, Mad Wayne," she said, with a quick laugh,putting her arms akimbo.
They stood looking at each other, dripping like two river gods. Likethem, also, Wayne had apparently ignored the fact that his trousers wererolled up above his bare knees, and Mrs. McGee that her red petticoatclung closely to her rather pretty figure. But he quickly recoveredhimself. "You had better go in and change your clothes," he said, withgrave concern. "You'll take cold."
She only shook herself disdainfully. "I'm all right," she said; "butYOU, Mad Wayne, what do you mean by not speaking to me--not knowing me?You can't say that I've changed like that." She passed her hand down herlong dripping braids as if to press the water from them, and yet with ahalf-coquettish suggestion in the act.
Something struggled up into the man's face which was not there before.There was a new light in his grave eyes. "You look the same," he saidslowly; "but you are married--you have a husband."
"You think that changes a girl?" she said, with a laugh "That's whereall you men slip up! You're afraid of his rifle--THAT'S the change thatbothers you, Mad."
"You know I care little for carnal weapons," he said quietly. She DIDknow it; but it is the privilege of the sex to invent its facts and thento graciously abandon them as if they were only arguments. "Then why doyou keep off from me? Why do you look the other way when I pass?" shesaid quickly.
"Because you are married," he said slowly.
She again shook the water from her like a Newfoundland dog. "That's it.You're mad because I got married. You're mad because I wouldn't marryyou and your church over on the cross roads, and sing hymns with you andbecome SISTER Wayne. You wanted me to give up dancing and buggy ridin'Sundays--and you're just mad because I didn't. Yes, mad--just mean, babymad, Mr. Maddy Wayne, for all your CHRISTIAN resignation! That's what'sthe matter with you." Yet she looked very pretty and piquant in hersmall spitefulness, which was still so general and superficial thatshe seemed to shake it out of her wet petticoats in a vicious flap thatdisclosed her neat ankles.
"You preferred McGee to me," he said grimly. "I didn't blame you."
"Who said I PREFERRED him?" she retorted quickly. "Much you know!"Then, with swift feminine abandonment of her position, she added, with alittle laugh, "It's all the same whether you're guarded with a rifle ora Church Presbytery, only"--
"Only what?" said Madison earnestly.
"There's men who'd risk being SHOT for a girl, that couldn't standpsalm-singin' palaver."
The quick expression of pain that passed over his hard, dark face seemedonly to heighten her pretty mischievousness. But he simply glanced againaround the solitude, passed his hand over his wet sleeve, and said, "Imust go now; your husband wouldn't like me being here."
"He's workin' in the claim,--the claim YOU gave him," said Mrs. McGee,with cheerful malice. "Wonder what he'd say if he knew it was given tohim by the man who used to spark his wife only two years ago? How doesthat suit your Christian conscience, Mad?"
"I should have told him, had I not believed that everything was overbetween us, or that it was possible that you and me should ever meetagain," he returned, in a tone so measured that the girl seemed to hearthe ring of the conventicle in it.
"Should you, BROTHER Wayne?" she said, imitating him. "Well, let me tellyou that you are the one man on the Bar that Sandy has taken a fancyto."
Madison's sallow cheek colored a little, but he did not speak.
"Well!" continued Mrs. McGee impatiently. "I don't believe he'd objectto your comin' here to see me--if you cared."
"But I wouldn't care to come, unless he first knew that I had been onceengaged to you," said Madison gravely.
"Perhaps he might not think as much of that as you do," retorted thewoman pertly. "Every one isn't as straitlaced as you, and every girl hashad one or two engagements. But do as you like--stay at home if you wantto, and sing psalms and read the Scriptures to that younger brother ofyours! All the same, I'm thinkin' he'd rather be out with the boys."
"My brother is God-fearing and conscientious," said Madison quickly."You do not know him. You have never seen him."
"No," said Mrs. McGee shortly. She then gave a little shiver (that was,however, half simulated) in her wet garments, and added: "ONE saint wasenough for me; I couldn't stand the whole church, Mad."
"You are catching cold," he said quickly, his whole face brighteningwith a sudden tenderness that seemed to transfigure the dark features."I am keeping you here when you should be changing your clothes. Go, Ibeg you, at once."
She stood still provokingly, with an affectation of wiping her arms andshoulders and sopping her wet dress with clusters of moss.
"Go, please do--Safie, please!"
"Ah!"--she drew a quick, triumphant breath. "Then you'll come again tosee me, Mad?"
"Yes," he said slowly, and even more gravely than before.
"But you must let me show you the way out--round under thosetrees--where no one can see you come." She held out her hand.
"I'll go the way I came," he said quietly, swinging himself silentlyfrom the nearest bough into the stream. And before she could utter aprotest he was striking out as silently, hand over hand, across thecurrent.