By Shore and Sedge by Bret Harte (first e reader txt) đ
- Author: Bret Harte
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The immediate effect of my intrusion was limited solely to the nursemaid. Swooping suddenly upon Sarah Walkerâs too evident deshabille, she made two or three attempts to pluck her into propriety; but the child, recognizing the cause as well as the effect, looked askance at me and only stiffened herself the more. âSarah Walker, Iâm shocked.â
âIt ainât HIS room anyway,â said Sarah, eying me malevolently. âWhatâs he doing here?â
There was so much truth in this that I involuntarily drew back abashed. The nursemaid ejaculated âSarah!â and lifted her eyes in hopeless protest.
âAnd he neednât come seeing YOU,â continued Sarah, lazily rubbing the back of her head against the chair; âmy papa donât allow it. He warned you âbout the other gentleman, you know.â
âSarah Walker!â
I felt it was necessary to say something. âDonât you want to come with me and look at the sea?â I said with utter feebleness of invention. To my surprise, instead of actively assaulting me Sarah Walker got up, shook her hair over her shoulders, and took my hand.
âWith your hair in that state?â almost screamed the domestic. But Sarah Walker had already pulled me into the hall. What particularly offensive form of opposition to authority was implied in this prompt assent to my proposal I could only darkly guess. For myself I knew I must appear to her a weak impostor. What would there possibly be in the sea to interest Sarah Walker? For the moment I prayed for a water-spout, a shipwreck, a whale, or any marine miracle to astound her and redeem my character. I walked guiltily down the hall, holding her hand bashfully in mine. I noticed that her breast began to heave convulsively; if she cried I knew I should mingle my tears with hers. We reached the veranda in gloomy silence. As I expected, the sea lay before us glittering in the sunâvacant, staring, flat, and hopelessly and unquestionably uninteresting.
âI knew it all along,â said Sarah Walker, turning down the corners of her mouth; âthere never was anything to see. I know why you got me to come here. You want to tell me if Iâm a good girl youâll take me to sail some day. You want to say if Iâm bad the sea will swallow me up. Thatâs all you want, you horrid thing, you!â
âHush!â I said, pointing to the corner of the veranda.
A desperate idea of escape had just seized me. Bolt upright in the recess of a window sat a nursemaid who had succumbed to sleep equally with her helpless charge in the perambulator beside her. I instantly recognized the infantâa popular organism known as âBaby Bucklyââthe prodigy of the Greyport Hotel, the pet of its enthusiastic womanhood. Fat and featureless, pink and pincushiony, it was borrowed by gushing maidenhood, exchanged by idiotic maternity, and had grown unctuous and tumefacient under the kisses and embraces of half the hotel. Even in its present repose it looked moist and shiny from indiscriminate and promiscuous osculation.
âLetâs borrow Baby Buckly,â I said recklessly.
Sarah Walker at once stopped crying. I donât know how she did it, but the cessation was instantaneous, as if she had turned off a tap somewhere.
âAnd put it in Mr. Petersâ bed!â I continued.
Peters being notoriously a grim bachelor, the bare suggestion bristled with outrage. Sarah Walkerâs eyes sparkled.
âYou donât mean it!âgo âway!ââshe said with affected coyness.
âBut I do! Come.â
We extracted it noiselessly togetherâthat is, Sarah Walker did, with deft womanlinessâcarried it darkly along the hall to No. 27, and deposited it in Petersâ bed, where it lay like a freshly opened oyster. We then returned hand in hand to my room, where we looked out of the window on the sea. It was observable that there was no lack of interest in Sarah Walker now.
Before five minutes had elapsed some one breathlessly passed the open door while we were still engaged in marine observation. This was followed by return footsteps and a succession of swiftly rustling garments, until the majority of the women in our wing had apparently passed our room, and we saw an irregular stream of nursemaids and mothers converging towards the hotel out of the grateful shadow of arbors, trees, and marquees. In fact we were still engaged in observation when Sarah Walkerâs nurse came to fetch her away, and to inform her that âby rightsâ Baby Bucklyâs nurse and Mr. Peters should both be made to leave the hotel that very night. Sarah Walker permitted herself to be led off with dry but expressive eyes. That evening she did not cry, but, on being taken into the usual custody for disturbance, was found to be purple with suppressed laughter.
This was the beginning of my intimacy with Sarah Walker. But while it was evident that whatever influence I obtained over her was due to my being particeps criminis, I think it was accepted that a regular abduction of infants might become in time monotonous if not dangerous. So she was satisfied with the knowledge that I could not now, without the most glaring hypocrisy, obtrude a moral superiority upon her. I do not think she would have turned state evidence and accused me, but I was by no means assured of her disinterested regard. She contented herself, for a few days afterwards, with meeting me privately and mysteriously communicating unctuous reminiscences of our joint crime, without suggesting a repetition. Her intimacy with me did not seem to interfere with her general relations to her own species in the other children in the hotel. Perhaps I should have said before that her popularity with them was by no means prejudiced by her infelix reputation. But while she was secretly admired by all, she had few professed followers and no regular associates. Whether the few whom she selected for that baleful preeminence were either torn from her by horrified guardians, or came to grief through her dangerous counsels, or whether she really did not care for them, I could not say. Their elevation was brief, their retirement unregretted. It was however permitted me, through felicitous circumstances, to become acquainted with the probable explanation of her unsociability.
The very hot weather culminated one afternoon in a dead faint of earth and sea and sky. An Alpine cloudland of snow that had mocked the upturned eyes of Greyport for hours, began to darken under the folding shadow of a black and velvety wing. The atmosphere seemed to thicken as the gloom increased; the lazy dust, thrown up by hurrying feet that sought a refuge, hung almost motionless in the air. Suddenly it was blown to the four quarters in one fierce gust that as quickly dispersed the loungers drooping in shade and cover. For a few seconds the long avenue was lost in flying clouds of dust, and then was left bare of life or motion. Raindrops in huge stars and rosettes appeared noiselessly and magically upon the sidewalksâgouts of moisture apparently dropped from mid-air. And then the ominous hush returned.
A mile away along the rocks, I turned for shelter into a cavernous passage of the overhanging cliff, where I could still watch the coming storm upon the sea. A murmur of voices presently attracted my attention. I then observed that the passage ended in a kind of open grotto, where I could dimly discern the little figures of several children, who, separated from their nurses in the sudden onset of the storm, had taken refuge there. As the gloom deepened they became silent again, until the stillness was broken by a familiar voice. There was no mistaking it.âIt was Sarah Walkerâs. But it was not lifted in lamentation, it was raised only as if resuming a suspended narrative.
âHer name,â said Sarah Walker gloomily, âwas Kribbles. She was the only childâofâof orphaned parentage, and fair to see, but she was bad, and God did not love her. And one day she was separated from her nurse on a desert island like to this. And then came a hidgeous thunderstorm. And a great big thunderbolt came galumping after her. And it ketehed her and rolled all over herâso! and then it came back and ketched her and rolled her overâso! And when they came to pick her up there was not so much as THAT left of her. All burnt up!â
âWasnât there just a little bit of her shoe?â suggested a cautious auditor.
âNot a bit,â said Sarah Walker firmly. All the other children echoed âNot a bit,â indignantly, in evident gratification at the completeness of Kribblesâ catastrophe. At this moment the surrounding darkness was suddenly filled with a burst of blue celestial fire; the heavy inky sea beyond, the black-edged mourning horizon, the gleaming sands, each nook and corner of the dripping cave, with the frightened faces of the huddled group of children, started into vivid life for an instant, and then fell back with a deafening crash into the darkness.
There was a slight sound of whimpering. Sarah Walker apparently pounced upon the culprit, for it ceased.
âSniffling âtracts âlectricity,â she said sententiously.
âBut you thaid it wath Dod!â lisped a casuist of seven.
âItâs all the same,â said Sarah sharply, âand soâs asking questions.â
This obscure statement was however apparently understood, for the casuist lapsed into silent security. âLots of things âtracts it,â continued Sarah Walker. âGold and silver, and metals and knives and rings.â
âAnd pennies?â
âAnd pennies most of all! Kribbles was that vain, she used to wear jewelry and fly in the face of Providence.â
âBut you thaidââ
âWill you?âThere! you hear that?â There was another blinding flash and bounding roll of thunder along the shore. âI wonder you didnât ketch it. You wouldâonly Iâm here.â
All was quiet again, but from certain indications it was evident that a collection of those dangerous articles that had proved fatal to the unhappy Kribbles was being taken up. I could hear the clink of coins and jingle of ornaments. That Sarah herself was the custodian was presently shown. âBut wonât the lightning come to you now?â asked a timid voice.
âNo,â said Sarah, promptly, ââcause I ainât afraid! Look!â
A frightened protest from the children here ensued, but the next instant she appeared at the entrance of the grotto and ran down the rocks towards the sea. Skipping from bowlder to bowlder she reached the furthest projection of the ledge, now partly submerged by the rising surf, and then turned half triumphantly, half defiantly, towards the grotto. The weird phosphorescence of the storm lit up the resolute little figure standing there, gorgeously bedecked with the chains, rings, and shiny trinkets of her companions. With a tiny hand raised in mock defiance of the elements, she seemed to lean confidingly against the panting breast of
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