Condensed Novels - Bret Harte (best books to read in your 20s TXT) 📗

horses attached to a carriage in which a lady and gentleman were seated. Calmly awaiting the termination of the accident, with high-bred courtesy Lothaw forbore to interfere until the carriage was overturned, the occupants thrown out, and the runaways secured by the servants, when he advanced and offered the lady the exclusive use of his Oxford stables.

Turning upon him a face whose perfect Hellenic details he remembered, she slowly dragged a gentleman from under the wheels into the light and presented him with ladylike dignity as her husband, Major-General Camperdown, an American.

“Ah,” said Lothaw, carelessly, “I believe I have some land there. If I mistake not, my agent, Mr. Putney Giles, lately purchased the State of—Illinois—I think you call it.”

“Exactly. As a former resident of the city of Chicago, let me introduce myself as your tenant.”

Lothaw bowed graciously to the gentleman, who, except that he seemed better dressed than most Englishmen, showed no other signs of inferiority and plebeian extraction.

“We have met before,” said Lothaw to the lady as she leaned on his arm, while they visited his stables, the University, and other places of interest in Oxford. “Pray tell me, what is this new religion of yours?”

“It is Woman Suffrage, Free Love, Mutual Affinity, and Communism. Embrace it and me.”

Lothaw did not know exactly what to do. She however soothed and sustained his agitated frame and sealed with an embrace his speechless form. The General approached and coughed slightly with gentlemanly tact.

“My husband will be too happy to talk with you further on this subject,” she said with quiet dignity, as she regained the General’s side. Come with us to Oneida. Brook Farm is a thing of the past.”

 

CHAPTER VI.

 

As Lothaw drove toward his country-seat, “The Mural Enclosure,” he observed a crowd, apparently of the working class, gathered around a singular-looking man in the picturesque garb of an Ethiopian serenader. “What does he say?” inquired Lothaw of his driver.

The man touched his hat respectfully and said, “My Mary Ann.”

“‘My Mary Ann!’” Lothaw’s heart beat rapidly. Who was this mysterious foreigner? He had heard from Lady Coriander of a certain Popish plot; but could he connect Mr. Camperdown with it?

The spectacle of two hundred men at arms who advanced to meet him at the gates of The Mural Enclosure drove all else from the still youthful and impressible mind of Lothaw. Immediately behind them, on the steps of the baronial halls, were ranged his retainers, led by the chief cook and bottle-washer, and head crumb-remover. On either side were two companies of laundry-maids, preceded by the chief crimper and fluter, supporting a long Ancestral Line, on which depended the family linen, and under which the youthful lord of the manor passed into the halls of his fathers. Twenty-four scullions carried the massive gold and silver plate of the family on their shoulders, and deposited it at the feet of their master. The spoons were then solemnly counted by the steward, and the perfect ceremony ended.

Lothaw sighed. He sought out the gorgeously gilded “Taj,” or sacred mausoleum erected to his grandfather in the second story front room, and wept over the man he did not know. He wandered alone in his magnificent park, and then, throwing himself on a grassy bank, pondered on the Great First Cause, and the necessity of religion. “I will send Mary Ann a handsome present,” said Lothaw, thoughtfully.

 

CHAPTER VII.

 

“Each of these pearls, my Lord, is worth fifty thousand guineas,” said Mr. Amethyst, the fashionable jeweler, as he lightly lifted a large shovelful from a convenient bin behind his counter.

“Indeed,” said Lothaw, carelessly, “I should prefer to see some expensive ones.

“Some number sixes, I suppose,” said Mr. Amethyst, taking a couple from the apex of a small pyramid that lay piled on the shelf. “These are about the size of the Duchess of Billingsgate’s, but they are in finer condition. The fact is, her Grace permits her two children, the Marquis of Smithfield and the Duke of St. Giles,— two sweet pretty boys, my Lord,—to use them as marbles in their games. Pearls require some attention, and I go down there regularly twice a week to clean them. Perhaps your Lordship would like some ropes of pearls?”

“About half a cable’s length,” said Lothaw, shortly, “and send them to my lodgings.”

Mr. Amethyst became thoughtful. “I am afraid I have not the exact number—that is—excuse me one moment. I will run over to the Tower and borrow a few from the crown jewels.” And before Lothaw could prevent him, he seized his hat and left Lothaw alone.

His position certainly was embarrassing. He could not move without stepping on costly gems which had rolled from the counter; the rarest diamonds lay scattered on the shelves; untold fortunes in priceless emeralds lay within his grasp. Although such was the aristocratic purity of his blood and the strength of his religious convictions that he probably would not have pocketed a single diamond, still he could not help thinking that he might he accused of taking some. “You can search me, if you like,” he said when Mr. Amethyst returned; “but I assure you, upon the honor of a gentleman, that I have taken nothing.”

“Enough, my Lord,” said Mr. Amethyst, with a low bow; “we never search the aristocracy.”

 

CHAPTER VIII.

 

As Lothaw left Mr. Amethyst’s, he ran against General Camperdown. “How is Mary Ann?” he asked hurriedly.

“I regret to state that she is dying,” said the general, with a grave voice, as he removed his cigar from his lips, and lifted his hat to Lothaw.

“Dying!” said Lothaw, incredulously.

“Alas, too true!” replied the General. “The engagements of a long lecturing season, exposure in travelling by railway during the winter, and the imperfect nourishment afforded by the refreshments along the road, have told on her delicate frame. But she wants to see you before she dies. Here is the key of my lodging. I will finish my cigar out here.”

Lothaw hardly recognized those wasted Hellenic outlines as he entered the dimly lighted room of the dying woman. She was already a classic ruin,—as wrecked and yet as perfect as the Parthenon. He grasped her hand silently.

“Open-air speaking twice a week, and saleratus bread in the rural districts, have brought me to this,” she said feebly; “but it is well. The cause progresses. The tyrant man succumbs.”

Lothaw could only press her hand.

“Promise me one thing. Don’t—whatever you do—become a Catholic.”

“Why?”

“The Church does not recognize divorce. And now embrace me. I would prefer at this supreme moment to introduce myself to the next world through the medium of the best society in this. Good by. When I am dead, be good enough to inform my husband of the fact.”

 

CHAPTER IX.

 

Lothaw spent the next six months on an Aryan island, in an Aryan climate, and with an Aryan race.

“This is an Aryan landscape,” said his host, “and that is a Mary Ann statue.” It was, in fact, a full-length figure in marble of Mrs. General Camperdown!

“If you please, I should like to become a Pagan,” said Lothaw, one day, after listening to an impassioned discourse on Greek art from the lips of his host.

But that night, on consulting a well-known spiritual medium, Lothaw received a message from the late Mrs. General Camperdown, advising him to return to England. Two days later he presented himself at Plusham.

“The young ladies are in the garden,” said the Duchess. “Don’t you want to go and pick a rose?” she added with a gracious smile, and the nearest approach to a wink that was consistent with her patrician bearing and aquiline nose.

Lothaw went and presently returned with the blushing Coriander upon his arm.

“Bless you, my children,” said the Duchess. Then, turning to Lothaw, she said: “You have simply fulfilled and accepted your inevitable destiny. It was morally impossible for you to marry out of this family. For the present, the Church of England is safe.”

 

MUCK-A-MUCK.

A MODERN INDIAN NOVEL.

AFTER COOPER.

 

CHAPTER I.

 

It was toward the close of a bright October day. The last rays of the setting sun were reflected from one of those sylvan lakes peculiar to the Sierras of California. On the right the curling smoke of an Indian village rose between the columns of the lofty pines, while to the left the log cottage of Judge Tompkins, embowered in buckeyes, completed the enchanting picture.

Although the exterior of the cottage was humble and unpretentious, and in keeping with the wildness of the landscape, its interior gave evidence of the cultivation and refinement of its inmates. An aquarium, containing goldfishes, stood on a marble centre-table at one end of the apartment, while a magnificent grand piano occupied the other. The floor was covered with a yielding tapestry carpet, and the walls were adorned with paintings from the pencils of Van Dyke, Rubens, Tintoretto, Michael Angelo, and the productions of the more modern Turner, Kensett, Church, and Bierstadt. Although Judge Tompkins had chosen the frontiers of civilization as his home, it was impossible for him to entirely forego the habits and tastes of his former life. He was seated in a luxurious arm-chair, writing at a mahogany ecritoire, while his daughter, a lovely young girl of seventeen summers, plied her crochet-needle on an ottoman beside him. A bright fire of pine logs flickered and flamed on the ample hearth.

Genevra Octavia Tompkins was Judge Tompkins’s only child. Her mother had long since died on the Plains. Reared in affluence, no pains had been spared with the daughter’s education. She was a graduate of one of the principal seminaries, and spoke French with a perfect Benicia accent. Peerlessly beautiful, she was dressed in a white moire antique robe trimmed with tulle. That simple rosebud with which most heroines exclusively decorate their hair, was all she wore in her raven locks.

The Judge was the first to break the silence.

“Genevra, the logs which compose yonder fire seem to have been incautiously chosen. The sibilation produced by the sap, which exudes copiously therefrom, is not conducive to composition.”

“True, father, but I thought it would be preferable to the constant crepitation which is apt to attend the combustion of more seasoned ligneous fragments.”

The Judge looked admiringly at the intellectual features of the graceful girl, and half forgot the slight annoyances of the green wood in the musical accents of his daughter. He was smoothing her hair tenderly, when the shadow of a tall figure, which suddenly darkened the doorway, caused him to look up.

 

CHAPTER II.

 

It needed but a glance at the new-comer to detect at once the form and features of the haughty aborigine,—the untaught and untrammelled son of the forest. Over one shoulder a blanket, negligently but gracefully thrown, disclosed a bare and powerful breast, decorated with a quantity of three-cent postage-stamps which he had despoiled from an Overland Mail stage a few weeks previous. A cast-off beaver of Judge Tompkins’s, adorned by a simple feather, covered his erect head, from beneath which his straight locks descended. His right hand hung lightly by his side, while his left was engaged in holding on a pair of pantaloons, which the lawless grace and freedom of his lower limbs evidently could not brook.

“Why,” said the Indian, in a low sweet tone,—“why does the Pale Face still follow the track of the Red Man? Why does he pursue him, even as O-kee-chow, the wild-cat, chases Ka-ka, the skunk? Why are the feet of Sorrel-top, the white chief, among the acorns of Muck-a-muck, the mountain forest? Why,” he repeated, quietly but firmly abstracting a silver spoon from the table,—“why do you seek to drive him from the wigwams of his fathers? His brothers are already gone to