The Bell-Ringer of Angel's, and Other Stories. Bret Harte
penalty and punishment, material and spiritual, was not conducive to light and amusing conversation. Their talk was mainly a gloomy chronicle of life at the Bar, which was in itself half an indictment. To-night, Mr. McGee spoke of the advent of Mr. Jack Hamlin, and together they deplored the diversion of the hard-earned gains and valuable time of the Bar through the efforts of that ingenious gentleman. “Not,” added McGee cautiously, “but what he can shoot straight enough, and I’ve heard tell that he don’t LIE. That mout and it moutn’t be good for your brother who goes around with him considerable, there’s different ways of lookin’ at that; you understand what I mean? You follow me?” For all that, the conversation seemed to languish this evening, partly through some abstraction on the part of Wayne and partly some hesitation in McGee, who appeared to have a greater fear than usual of not expressing himself plainly. It was quite dark in the cabin when at last, detaching himself from his usual lounging place, the door-post, he walked to the window and leaned, more shadowy than ever, over Wayne’s chair. “I want to tell you suthin’,” he said slowly, “that I don’t want you to misunderstand—you follow me? and that ain’t no ways carpin’ or criticisin’ nor reflectin’ on YOU—you understand what I mean? Ever sens you and me had that talk here about you and Safie, and ever sens I got the hang of your ways and your style o’ thinkin’, I’ve been as sure of you and her as if I’d been myself trottin’ round with you and a revolver. And I’m as sure of you now—you sabe what I mean? you understand? You’ve done me and her a heap o’ good; she’s almost another woman sens you took hold of her, and ef you ever want me to stand up and ‘testify,’ as you call it, in church, Sandy McGee is ready. What I’m tryin’ to say to ye is this. Tho’ I understand you and your work and your ways—there’s other folks ez moutn’t—you follow? You understand what I mean? And it’s just that I’m coming to. Now las’ night, when you and Safie was meanderin’ along the lower path by the water, and I kem across you”—
“But,” interrupted Madison quickly, “you’re mistaken. I wasn’t”—
“Hol’ on,” said McGee, quietly; “I know you got out o’ the way without you seein’ me or me you, because you didn’t know it was me, don’t you see? don’t you follow? and that’s just it! It mout have bin some one from the Bar as seed you instead o’ ME. See? That’s why you lit out before I could recognize you, and that’s why poor Safie was so mighty flustered at first and was for runnin’ away until she kem to herself agin. When, of course, she laughed, and agreed you must have mistook me.”
“But,” gasped Madison quickly, “I WASN’T THERE AT ALL LAST NIGHT.”
“What?”
The two men had risen simultaneously and were facing each other. McGee, with a good-natured, half-critical expression, laid his hand on Wayne’s shoulder and slightly turned him towards the window, that he might see his face. It seemed to him white and dazed.
“You—wasn’t there—last night?” he repeated, with a slow tolerance.
Scarcely a moment elapsed, but the agony of an hour may have thrilled through Wayne’s consciousness before he spoke. Then all the blood of his body rushed to his face with his first lie as he stammered, “No! Yes! Of course. I have made a mistake—it WAS I.”
“I see—you thought I was riled?” said McGee quietly.
“No; I was thinking it was NIGHT BEFORE LAST! Of course it was last night. I must be getting silly.” He essayed a laugh—rare at any time with him—and so forced now that it affected McGee more than his embarrassment. He looked at Wayne thoughtfully, and then said slowly: “I reckon I did come upon you a little too sudden last night, but, you see, I was thinkin’ of suthin’ else and disremembered you might be there. But I wasn’t mad—no! no! and I only spoke about it now that you might be more keerful before folks. You follow me? You understand what I mean?”
He turned and walked to the door, when he halted. “You follow me, don’t you? It ain’t no cussedness o’ mine, or want o’ trustin’, don’t you see? Mebbe I oughtened have spoken. I oughter remembered that times this sort o’ thing must be rather rough on you and her. You follow me? You understand what I mean? Good-night.”
He walked slowly down the path towards the river. Had Madison Wayne been watching him, he would have noticed that his head was bent and his step less free. But Madison Wayne was at that moment sitting rigidly in his chair, nursing, with all the gloomy concentration of a monastic nature, a single terrible suspicion.
CHAPTER IV
Howbeit the sun shone cheerfully over the Bar the next morning and the next; the breath of life and activity was in the air; the settlement never had been more prosperous, and the yield from the opened placers on the drained river-bed that week was enormous. The Brothers Wayne were said to be “rolling in gold.” It was thought to be consistent with Madison Wayne’s nature that there was no trace of good fortune in his face or manner—rather that he had become more nervous, restless, and gloomy. This was attributed to the joylessness of avarice as contrasted with the spendthrift gayety of the more liberal Arthur, and he was feared and RESPECTED as a miser. His long, solitary walks around the promontory, his incessant watchfulness, his reticence when questioned, were all recognized as the indications of a man whose soul was absorbed in money-getting. The reverence they failed to yield to his religious isolation they were willing to freely accord to his financial abstraction. But Mr. McGee was not so deceived. Overtaking him one day under the fringe of willows, he characteristically chided him with absenting himself from Mrs. McGee and her house since their last interview.
“I reckon you did not harbor malice in your Christianity,” he said; “but it looks mighty like ez if ye was throwing off on Safie and me on account of what I said.”
In vain Madison gloomily and almost sternly protested.
McGee looked him all over with his clear measuring eye, and for some minutes was singularly silent. At last he said slowly: “I’ve been thinkin’ suthin’ o’ goin’ down to ‘Frisco, and I’d be a heap easier in my mind ef you’d promise to look arter Safie now and then.”
“You surely are not going to leave her here ALONE?” said Wayne roughly.
“Why not?”
For an instant Wayne hesitated. Then he burst out. “For a hundred reasons! If she ever wanted your protection, before, she surely does now. Do you suppose the Bar is any less heathen or more regenerated than it was when you thought it necessary to guard her with your revolver? Man! It is a hundred times worse than then! The new claims have filled it with spying adventurers—with wolves like Hamlin and his friends—idolaters who would set up Baal and Ashteroth here—and fill your tents with the curses of Sodom!”
Perhaps it was owing to the Scriptural phrasing, perhaps it was from some unusual authority of the man’s manner, but a look of approving relief and admiration came into McGee’s clear eyes.
“And YOU’RE just the man to tackle ‘em,” he said, clapping his hand on Wayne’s shoulder. “That’s your gait—keep it up! But,” he added, in a lower voice, “me and my revolver are played out.” There was a strangeness in the tone that arrested Wayne’s attention. “Yes,” continued McGee, stroking his beard slowly, “men like me has their day, and revolvers has theirs; the world turns round and the Bar fills up, and this yer river changes its course—and it’s all in the day’s work. You understand what I mean—you follow me? And if anything should happen to me—not that it’s like to; but it’s in the way o’ men—I want you to look arter Safie. It ain’t every woman ez has two men, ez like and unlike, to guard her. You follow me—you understand what I mean, don’t you?” With these words he parted somewhat abruptly from Wayne, turning into the steep path to the promontory crest and leaving his companion lost in gloomy abstraction. The next day Alexander McGee had departed on a business trip to San Francisco.
In his present frame of mind, with his new responsibility and the carrying out of a plan which he had vaguely conceived might remove the terrible idea that had taken possession of him, Madison Wayne was even relieved when his brother also announced his intention of going to Angel’s for a few days.
For