Tales of Trail and Town by Bret Harte (ebook offline reader TXT) 📖

“Please go on now,” said Peter, with affected unconcern, yet with a feeling of uneasiness creeping over him.

“It was only this,” said Jenny, seating herself with her elbow on the desk and her chin in a cup-like hollow of her hand, “did you ever think that in the interests of these poor Indians, you know, purely for the sake of your belief in them, and just to show that you were above vulgar prejudices,—did you ever think you could marry one of them?”

Two thoughts flashed quickly on Peter’s mind,—first, that Lady Elfrida had repeated something of their conversation to his sister; secondly, that some one had told her of Little Daybreak. Each was equally disturbing. But he recovered himself quickly and said, “I might if I thought it was required. But even a sacrifice is not always an example.”

“Then you think it would be a sacrifice?” she said, slowly raising her dark eyes to his.

“If I did something against received opinion, against precedent, and for aught I know against even the prejudices of those I wish to serve, however lofty my intention was and however great the benefit to them in the end, it would still be a sacrifice in the present.” He saw his own miserable logic and affected didactics, but he went on lightly, “But why do you ask such a question? You haven’t any one in your mind for me, have you?”

She had risen thoughtfully and was moving towards the door. Suddenly she turned with a quick, odd vivacity: “Perhaps I had. Oh, Peter, there was such a lovely little squaw I saw the last time I was at Oak Bottom! She was no darker than I am, but so beautiful. Even in her little cotton gown and blanket, with only a string of beads around her throat, she was as pretty as any one here. And I dare say she could be educated and appear as well as any white woman. I should so like to have you see her. I would have tried to bring her to the fort, but the braves are very jealous of their wives or daughters seeing white men, you know, and I was afraid of the colonel.”

She had spoken volubly and with a strange excitement, but even at the moment her face changed again, and as she left the office, with a quick laugh and parting gesture, there were tears in her eyes.

Accustomed to her moods and caprices, Peter thought little of the intrusion, relieved as he was of his first fears. She had come to him from loneliness and curiosity, and, perhaps, he thought with a sad smile, from a little sisterly jealousy of the young girl who had evinced such an interest in him, and had known him before. He took up his pen and continued the interrupted paragraph of his report.

“I am satisfied that much of the mischievous and extravagant prejudice against the half breed and all alliances of the white and red races springs from the ignorance of the frontiersman and his hasty generalization of facts. There is no doubt that an intermixture of blood brings out purely superficial contrasts the more strongly, and that against the civilizing habits and even costumes of the half breed, certain Indian defects appear the more strongly as in the case of the color line of the quadroon and octoroon, but it must not be forgotten that these are only the contrasts of specific improvement, and the inference that the borrowed defects of a half breed exceed the original defects of the full-blooded aborigine is utterly illogical.” He stopped suddenly and laid down his pen with a heightened color; the bugle had blown, the guard was turning out to receive the commandant and his returning party, among whom was Friddy.

… …

Through the illusions of depression and distance the “sink” of Butternut Creek seemed only an incrustation of blackish moss on the dull gray plain. It was not until one approached within half a mile of it that it resolved itself into a copse of butternut-trees sunken below the distant levels. Here once, in geological story, the waters of Butternut Creek, despairing of ever crossing the leagues of arid waste before them, had suddenly disappeared in the providential interposition of an area of looser soil, and so given up the effort and the ghost forever, their grave being marked by the butternut copse, chance-sown by bird or beast in the saturated ground. In Indian legend the “sink” commemorated the equally providential escape of a great tribe who, surrounded by enemies, appealed to the Great Spirit for protection, and was promptly conveyed by subterraneous passages to the banks of the Great River a hundred miles away. Its outer edges were already invaded by the dust of the plain, but within them ran cool recesses, a few openings, and the ashes of some long-forgotten camp-fires. To-day its sombre shadows were relieved by bright colored dresses, the jackets of the drivers of a large sutler’s wagon, whose white canvas head marked the entrance of the copse, and all the paraphernalia of a picnic. It was a party gotten up by the foreign guests to the ladies of the fort, prepared and arranged by the active Lady Elfrida, assisted by the only gentleman of the party, Peter Atherly, who, from his acquaintance with the locality, was allowed to accompany them. The other gentlemen, who with a large party of officers and soldiers were shooting in the vicinity, were sufficiently near for protection. They would rejoin the ladies later.

“It does not seem in the least as if we were miles away from any town or habitation,” said Lady Runnybroke, complacently seating herself on a stump, “and I shouldn’t be surprised to see a church tower through those trees. It’s very like the hazel copse at Longworth, you know. Not at all what I expected.”

“For the matter of that neither are the Indians,” said the Hon. Evelyn Rayne. “Did you ever see such grotesque creatures in their cast-off boots and trousers? They’re no better than gypsies. I wonder what Mr. Atherly can find in them.”

“And he a rich man, too,—they say he’s got a mine in California worth a million,—to take up a craze like this,” added the lively Mrs. Captain Joyce, “that’s what gets me! You know,” she went on confidentially, “that cranks and reformers are always poor—it’s quite natural; but I don’t see what he, a rich man, expects to make by his reforms, I’m sure.”

“He’ll get over it in time,” said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, “they all do. At least he expects to get the reforms he wants in a year, and then he’s coming over to England again.”

“Indeed, how very nice,” responded Lady Runnybroke quickly. “Did he say so?”

“No. But Friddy says he is.”

The two officers’ wives glanced at each other. Lady Runnybroke put up her eyeglass in default of ostrich feathers, and said didactically, “I’m sure Mr. Atherly is very much in earnest, and sincerely devoted to his work. And in a man of his wealth and position here it’s most estimable. My dear,” she said, getting up and moving towards Mrs. Lascelles, “we were just saying how good and unselfish your brother was in his work for these poor people.”

But Jenny Lascelles must have been in one of those abstracted moods which so troubled her husband, for she seemed to be staring straight before her into the recesses of the wood. In her there was a certain resemblance to the attitude of a listening animal.

“I wish Mr. Atherly was a little more unselfish to US poor people,” said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, “for he and Friddy have been nearly an hour looking for a place to spread our luncheon baskets. I wish they’d leave the future of the brown races to look after itself and look a little more after us. I’m famished.”

“I fancy they find it difficult to select a clear space for so large a party as we will be when the gentlemen come in,” returned Lady Runnybroke, glancing in the direction of Jenny’s abstracted eyes.

“I suppose you must feel like chicken and salad, too, Lady Runnybroke,” suggested Mrs. Captain Joyce.

“I don’t think I quite know HOW chicken and salad feel, dear,” said Lady Runnybroke with a puzzled air, “but if that’s one of your husband’s delightful American stories, do tell us. I never CAN get Runnybroke to tell me any, although he roars over them all. And I dare say he gets them all wrong. But look, here comes our luncheon.”

Peter and Lady Elfrida were advancing towards them. The scrutiny of a dozen pairs of eyes—wondering, mischievous, critical, impertinent, or resentful—would have been a trying ordeal to any errant couple; but there was little if any change in Peter’s grave and gentle demeanor, albeit his dark eyes were shining with a peculiar light, and Lady Elfrida had only the animation, color, and slight excitability that became the responsible leader of the little party. They neither apologized or alluded to their delay. They had selected a spot on the other side of the copse, and the baskets could be sent around by the wagon; they had seen a slight haze on the plain towards the east which betokened the vicinity of the rest of the party, and they were about to propose that as the gentlemen were so near they had better postpone the picnic until they came up. Lady Runnybroke smiled affably; the only thing she had noticed was that Lady Elfrida in joining them had gone directly to the side of the abstracted Jenny, and placed her arm around her waist. At which Lady Runnybroke airily joined them.

The surmises of Peter and Friddy appeared to be correct. The transfer of the provisions and the party to the other side was barely concluded before they could see the gentlemen coming; they were riding a little more rapidly than when they had set out, and were arriving fully three hours before their time. They burst upon the ladies a little boisterously but gayly; they had had a glorious time, but little sport; they had hurried back to join the ladies so as to be able to return with them betimes. They were ravenously hungry; they wanted to fall to at once. Only the officers’ wives noticed that the two files of troopers DID NOT DISMOUNT, but filed slowly before the entrance to the woods. Lady Elfrida as hostess was prettily distressed by it, but was told by Captain Joyce that it was “against rules,” and that she could “feed” them at the fort. The officers’ wives put a few questions in whispers, and were promptly frowned down. Nevertheless, the luncheon was a successful festivity: the gentlemen were loud in the praises of their gracious hostess; the delicacies she had provided by express from distant stations, and much that was distinctly English and despoiled from her own stores, were gratefully appreciated by the officers of a remote frontier garrison. Lady Elfrida’s health was toasted by the gallant colonel in a speech that was the soul of chivalry. Lord Runnybroke responded, perhaps without the American abandon, but with the steady conscientiousness of an hereditary legislator, but the M. P. summed up a slightly exaggerated but well meaning episode by pointing out that it was on occasions like this that the two nations showed their common ancestry by standing side by side. Only one thing troubled the rosy, excited, but still clear-headed Friddy; the plates were whisked away like magic after each delicacy, by the military servants, and vanished; the tables were in the same mysterious way cleared as rapidly as they were set, and any attempt to recall a dish was met by the declaration that it was already packed away in the wagon. As they at last rose from the