Overland Tales Part 28

I fell in with the captain at Salt Lake, where I was stopping on my way home from the States; and as he's a mighty clever fellow, I thought I'd go all the way with him. Sorry you detained us, gentlemen--we both had urgent business in San Francisco."

He went his way in peace, though the real sinner--the thieving cattle-agent--had never been in as much danger of coming to harm at the hands of these men as was this inoffensive person.

The captain saw no more of him till a day or two after his return to San Francisco. Entering the store of his friend Taylor, to tell him of his safe return, he was surprised to see the stranger, Mr. Henry Fitzpatrick, in the counting-room. The senior partner greeted him with:

"Well, well, captain, so you brought Harry home with a pair of handcuffs on, after all! Allow me to introduce my partner, Mr. Henry Fitzpatrick McDonald."

"Happy to meet you again, captain. It _was_ fun, wasn't it, though? But I didn't think it was necessary to give those inquisitive chaps at Sacramento the benefit of my full name. I did not want them to say, in case I should ever run for office, that 'McDonald had been led through the country with a pair of handcuffs on.'"

_HER NAME WAS SYLVIA._

"San Mateo! Stages for Pescadero and Half-Moon Bay!" shouted the conductor, and a dozen or two of pa.s.sengers left the uncomfortably crowded car.

Some of them entered the handsome equipages in waiting, to carry them to luxurious country residences; a few sought their cottage in the suburbs on foot; others, armed with satchels, shawls, and field-gla.s.ses, clambered into and on the stage. Among these, a young lady--whose glossy braids and brilliant eyes were not altogether hidden by a light veil--stood irresolute, when the polite agent addressed her, "Have a seat outside, Miss--with the driver? Very gentlemanly person, Miss; ladies mostly like to ride with him." Her indecision was abruptly ended by the gloved hand of the driver, reaching down without more ado and drawing her up, with the agent's a.s.sistance, gently, but irresistibly, out of the crowd and confusion below.

For the first five miles the young girl saw nothing and knew nothing of what was on or in the stage; her eyes were feasting on the scenery, new to her, and fascinating in its beauty of park-like forest-strips and flower-grown dells, where tiny brooks were overhung by tangled brush and the fresh foliage of maple-tree and laurel-wood. The suns.h.i.+ne of a whole San Francisco year seemed concentrated in the bright May morning; and the breeze stirred just enough to turn to the sunlight, now the glossy green side of the leaves on the live oaks, then the dull, grayish side--a coquetry of nature making artistic effects.

At Crystal Springs our friend suddenly became aware that she had thrown aside her veil, and a deep blush covered her features when she saw a wonderfully white hand reaching up with a cl.u.s.ter of roses, evidently meant for her acceptance. The rustling of the trees, the sound of water splas.h.i.+ng, the sight of birds, coming in flocks to drink at the fountain, had so held her senses captive, that she did not even know how long they had been stopping at this place; but the bunch of roses, and the deep blue eyes looking up into hers, recalled her to reality. Had she not looked into these eyes before? Had not the stage-driver just such a long, tawny moustache? And was this he, offering the flowers with all the courtliness and easy self-possession of the gentleman? All these thoughts flashed through her brain in a second, and she shrank, momentarily, from what seemed a piece of presumption on the part of the man. But a glance at the sad eyes, and the barely perceptible play of sarcasm around the firm-closed lips, induced her to bend forward and accept the offering, with a grace peculiarly her own.

Not a word was exchanged after he had remounted his seat; but since her veil was dropped she noticed that there were others on the outside of the stage beside herself. There was a female with a brown _barege_ veil, and a big lunch-basket on the seat back of her, who had been most intent on studying how the young lady could possibly have fastened on those heavy braids, that they looked so natural; whereas hers were always coming apart, and showing the jute inside. And there were the two tourists--English people probably. They had never disturbed her yet by a word of conversation. Then her thoughts travelled to the inside of the stage, and her eyes rested uneasily for a moment on her neighbor, the driver. Had she only dreamed of the white, well-shaped hand? Large, heavy gloves were on his fingers, and covered the wrist with a stiff gauntlet. Just as stiff was the brim of the light-colored hat; and it was so provokingly put on that nothing was visible from under it but the end of the long moustache.

But she was soon lost in thought again, and in contemplation of the placid blue ocean, that suddenly shone out beyond the low hills, away off to the right.

"Das Meer erglanzte weit hinaus--"

She turned with a start, to see whether she had dreamed this too, or whether a voice at her elbow had really hummed it--and was just in time to see the driver gather up the lines of the six horses closer, while he strove hard to banish the guilty color from his face.

A stage-driver, who offered her roses with the air of a cavalier of the _ancien regime_, and sang s.n.a.t.c.hes of German music. It made her more thoughtful than ever; and when they reached Spanishtown, and had taken dinner, she had decided on what course to pursue. The driver was on hand to a.s.sist her back to her lofty perch, but she said, with perfect _sang-froid_:

"I think I should prefer to ride inside for the rest of the way; the sun is too hot outside."

Perhaps she had feared to see an expression of wounded feeling on the bronzed face, but it was rather a quizzical look that shot from his eyes as he answered:

"No sun after this; fog from here out--depend upon it."

Her face relaxed. "I don't know that I want to be enveloped in a fog-cloud, either;" but she placed her foot on the wheel, and, without another word, she was a.s.sisted back to her old seat. The ice was broken, and the fog that soon rolled in on them did more to thaw it away between them than the suns.h.i.+ne of the morning had been able to do.

After awhile she told him that she was on her way to visit an uncle and aunt, who had taken up their residence at Pescadero, and that she meant to make them many a visit, as she was fond of them, and they petted her to her heart's content. And she liked the country, too. Then he told her of the pebbles to be found on the beach near Pescadero, and of the attractions of the sea-moss, at a point more distant; and he hoped that he might always have the pleasure of carrying her through the country, whenever she came this way.

"Uncle shall surely let you know when I am coming back, so that I may come with you," she said; "but what is your name?--so that he can find you out."

"Jim!" he replied, grimly, pulling his hat far down over his eyes, apparently indifferent as to the impression his abbreviated appellation might make on her. Then, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice, he asked, "And yours?"

"Stella," she answered simply; and they both laughed, and she fastened the roses in her hair before they came to the end of their journey, which had on the whole pa.s.sed off so pleasantly.

So pleasantly that Stella reverted to it when in Aunt Sarah's comfortable sitting-room, where Uncle Herbert was allowed to smoke his after-dinner cigar.

"I should like to go back with the same driver; his name is Jim. Do you know him, uncle?" she continued, with the most innocent face, in which a sharper eye than Uncle Herbert's would nevertheless have detected a somewhat heightened color.

"They have nicknamed him 'The Duke,'" he replied, knocking the ashes off his cigar with a thoughtful look, "and they say he is quite a character.

Proud and unapproachable, but the best driver on the road, and, so long as no one interferes or asks questions about himself, perfectly obliging, and courteous in his manners."

After the usual round of dissipations, consisting of a sea-bath for the more venturesome, a visit to the pebble-beach, a more extended tour to gather sea-moss, Stella was ready to return to San Francisco. To both aunt and uncle she imparted her design of soon revisiting Pescadero, for the purpose of exploring the distant hills, with their dark forests, where the redwood was said to reach a circ.u.mference of sixteen feet, which the wise little lady would not believe till her own eyes had proved it. The old couple were without children, and nothing could be more welcome than the niece's prospective visits.

Stella thought she could see a sudden light flash over the gloomy face with the sunburnt moustache when she came out of the waiting-room to mount the stage, for she naturally wished to view in the light of the morning sun the scenery on which the evening shadows had lain when she came. Not that she saw much of it, after all; the fog prevented her from seeing what her veil did not shut out. But the sun breaking through the fog suddenly and driving it back, the sky became clear, her companion said, "heaven smiled once more;" and while he spoke he was careful to manipulate the veil she had dropped, in such a manner that it found its way into his coat-pocket, from where, he was determined, it was not to be unearthed till the steeples of San Mateo should come into sight.

He listened with such an air of interest to Stella's recital of all she had seen, that it did not strike her till after a long while that she had really sustained conversation altogether on her side; and when she grew quite still after this, he made no effort to draw her on or speak himself. But when they approached the long, steep bridge across the Toanitas, and rolled along close by the sea, where the waves dashed against the crags with angry roar, through which there wept and moaned a bitter grief and sighed a forlorn hope of peace to come, he pushed his hat back with an impatient motion, and, gazing moodily into the waters, he muttered:

"Bleib Du in Deinen Meerestiefen Wahnsinniger Traum."

"Do you really read Heine in the original?" she asked, quickly.

"And only a stage-driver," he returned, with the old sarcasm, seeing that she hesitated. "Yes; I read Heine in German--or did. I read nothing now. I drive stage."

There was painful silence; an apology would have made matters worse; but seeing the grieved expression on her face, he continued, in his gentlest voice, "You say you are coming this way again in the course of the season--coming with me--in my stage? You wonder how I came to be stage-driver; when we are better acquainted, and you think it worth while to remind me of my promise, I will tell you my story."

"And forgive me now?" she asked, extending her hand. The glove came off his right hand, and the fingers that clasped hers were not less white and soft, but strong they looked--strong as iron. "Thanks," she said; and he felt, somehow, that she wanted her veil just then, and he pretended to discover it, by chance, on the seat.

In the course of the season she came again--more than once--coming always when she knew she would meet his stage at the San Mateo depot.

One bright day in October, when, after the drought of the long summer, the earth had been refreshed by generous autumn showers, Stella again sat beside him, high up, on the driver's seat. The same azure was in the sky, the same deep blue on the waters; it was all as it had been the day she first saw the tangled wildwood by the brook, the spreading live-oak by the roadside--only, the foliage on the brush had changed its colors to deep-red and yellow.

"You once said," began Stella, timidly--for she had learned that his temper was very uneven--"that if I reminded you of your promise when we were better acquainted, you would tell me your story."

He turned and looked steadily into her faltering eyes a moment, then drew his hat down over his brows, and commenced, without further preliminaries:

"Her name was Sylvia--and her eyes were as deep as a well; so deep that I don't think I ever quite fathomed them. When my mother died, she said we were both young, and we must not be married until at least a year had pa.s.sed over my mother's grave. I was touched with the sympathy she displayed on this sorrowful occasion; so was my father. I was his only son, and would undoubtedly fall heir to his wealth--great wealth--after his death. I had grown up as rich men's only sons generally grow up; had visited schools, colleges, universities; was called good-looking, a clever fellow generally, the best driver of a four-in-hand, the best shot--in short, a great catch for any girl to make. Sylvia told me so herself often. But, after all, I was only the son, you see, and my father might live for twenty years longer, and if Sylvia married me, she married only a prospect--whereas, if she married my father, she was the wife of a wealthy man at once. I had not been brought up to business habits, as Sylvia pointed out, and if my father ever became displeased with me--of which he showed strong symptoms about this time--I should be thrown on the world with a wife as helpless as myself, and as poor. For Sylvia, though brought up among aristocratic relatives, was as poor as a church mouse. What need to make many words? She married my father before the year was out, and I left home secretly on the morning of their wedding-day, with never a cent of the riches which had bought my best-beloved to be my father's bride--never a dollar of all the wealth I had been taught to look upon as my own.

"For years I read in every Eastern paper that happened to fall into my hands the promises of reward to any who might bring tidings of me--dead or alive--to my father; but I never could tell: Was it his own heart that urged him to this long continued search, or was it she that felt some slight compunction at having driven the son from the father's house? There are officious people everywhere--greedy people--who will do anything for money. One of these soul-sellers, worming himself into my confidence when sick and broken from unaccustomed labor, strung together what might have pa.s.sed with others for the ravings of a delirious patient, and wrote my father of my whereabouts and occupation. Before I had recovered, my father was with me, urging me with much kindness, I must say, to go with him, if not to his home, at least to the city, where he proposed to set me up in business for myself, in case I was too independent to live under his roof.

"His wife's health, delicate since her marriage, had been so much benefited by the climate of California that she advocated their remaining here, and he intended to settle in San Francisco. I thanked him for all his kindness--I did, indeed; he is a weak old man, but he had been an over-indulgent father to me in my boyhood, and why should I harbor an unkind feeling against him? But I would not go with him. He said I was taking a cruel revenge on him. That is not so, however--or do you too blame me for being a stage-driver?" He bent down toward her quickly and raised her face with his hand. There were tears in her eyes, and his arm stole around her as gently as though he had forgotten about the six horses he was guiding with his other hand.

Don't be shocked, reader; there was no one on the outside of the stage but these two. And supposing even that he had pressed her head to his breast and kissed her forehead; no one saw it, or made remarks about it, except the sea waves, and they seemed rippling all over with good nature and laughter, and rejoicings at the new light in the man's eyes, and the tears and the smiles in the woman's.

For a long while neither spoke; but when the stage halted he lifted her down so tenderly, and she looked up into his face so confidingly, that words seemed unnecessary between them. Then he went his way, and Stella knew that she must not expect to see him again till she should be ready to return to the city; for neither Uncle Herbert nor any one else in the place had ever succeeded in enticing him to visit their homes.

But when he a.s.sisted Stella into her usual place on the morning of her departure for San Francisco, his eyes told her that his thoughts had been with her all the days since relating to her "his story." He had not encouraged any one else to ride on the outside; and once clear of the town, he touched Stella's hand with his lips, drew it through his arm and pressed it, very much, I am afraid, as any ordinary lover might have done. But when the fog rolled away, he sent out his clear baritone to greet the sun-kissed ocean, and the burden of his song was once more:

"Das Meer erglanzte weit hinaus!"

And the hat was not drawn down over his face when she turned to him, and his eyes were like the ocean, dark-blue, and a sunny light laughing in them.

"It is my farewell to the sea," he said, gayly. "I am never coming back again. I am going to San Francisco, turn 'gentleman,' put on 'store clothes,' and enter the ranks of respectable business men."

She laughed as he straightened himself and put on a severely sober face, and he relaxed and urged his horses on with a smart cut of the whip, as though he could not enter the state of a "respectable business man" soon enough. When they came to Crystal Springs he brought a bunch of red roses once more, and held them up to her with a roguish smile on his no longer gloomy face. She took them with a little blush at the remembrance of his first attempt at gallantry; and when he sat beside her again, he fastened them with his own hands in her s.h.i.+ning braids. They were as merry as children out for a holiday; and only when they drove up to the depot at San Mateo did the old gloom come back into his face as he lifted her from her elevated position.