A LONELY RIDE
by Bret Harte
As I stepped into the Slumgullion stage I saw that it was a dark
night, a lonely road, and that I was the only passenger. Let me
assure the reader that I have no ulterior design in making this
assertion. A long course of light reading has forewarned me what
every experienced intelligence must confidently look for from
such a statement. The storyteller who willfully tempts Fate by
such obvious beginnings; who is to the expectant reader in danger
of being robbed or half-murdered, or frightened by an escaped
lunatic, or introduced to his lady-love for the first time,
deserves to be detected. I am relieved to say that none of these
things occurred to me. The road from Wingdam to Slumgullion knew
no other banditti than the regularly licensed hotelkeepers;
lunatics had not yet reached such depth of imbecility as to ride
of their own free-will in Californian stages; and my Laura,
amiable and long-suffering as she always is, could not, I fear,
have borne up against these depressing circumstances long enough
to have made the slightest impression on me.
I stood with my shawl and carpetbag in hand, gazing doubtingly
on the vehicle. Even in the darkness the red dust of Wingdam was
visible on its roof and sides, and the red slime of Slumgullion
clung tenaciously to its wheels. I opened the door; the stage
creaked easily, and in the gloomy abyss the swaying straps
beckoned me, like ghostly hands, to come in now, and have my
sufferings out at once.
I must not omit to mention the occurrence of a circumstance
which struck me as appalling and mysterious. A lounger on the
steps of the hotel, whom I had reason to suppose was not in any
way connected with the stage company, gravely descended, and,
walking toward the conveyance, tried the handle of the door,
opened it, expectorated in the carriage, and returned to the
hotel with a serious demeanor. Hardly had he resumed his position,
when another individual, equally disinterested, impassively
walked down the steps, proceeded to the back of the stage,
lifted it, expectorated carefully on the axle, and returned
slowly and pensively to the hotel. A third spectator wearily
disengaged himself from one of the Ionic columns of the portico
and walked to the box, remained for a moment in serious and
expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then returned to
his column. There was something so weird in this baptism that
I grew quite nervous.
Perhaps I was out of spirits. A number of infinitesimal
annoyances, winding up with the resolute persistency of the
clerk at the stage-office to enter my name misspelt on the
way-bill, had not predisposed me to cheerfulness. The
inmates of the Eureka House, from a social viewpoint, were
not attractive. There was the prevailing opinion--so common
to many honest people--that a serious style of deportment
and conduct toward a stranger indicates high gentility and
elevated station. Obeying this principle, all hilarity ceased
on my entrance to supper, and general remark merged into the
safer and uncompromising chronicle of several bad cases of
diphtheria, then epidemic at Wingdam. When I left the
dining-room, with an odd feeling that I had been supping
exclusively on mustard and tea-leaves, I stopped a moment
at the parlor door. A piano, harmoniously related to the
dinner-bell, tinkled responsive to a diffident and uncertain
touch. On the white wall the shadow of an old and sharp
profile was bending over several symmetrical and shadowy
curls. "I sez to Mariar, Mariar, sez I, 'Praise to the
face is open disgrace.'" I heard no more. Dreading some
susceptibility to sincere expression on the subject of
female loveliness, I walked away, checking the compliment
that otherwise might have risen unbidden to my lips, and
have brought shame and sorrow to the household.
It was with the memory of these experiences resting heavily
upon me that I stood hesitatingly before the stage door. The
driver, about to mount, was for a moment illuminated by the
open door of the hotel. He had the wearied look which was
the distinguishing expression of Wingdam. Satisfied that I
was properly way-billed and receipted for, he took no further
notice of me. I looked longingly at the box-seat, but he did
not respond to the appeal. I flung my carpetbag into the chasm,
dived recklessly after it, and--before I was fairly seated--with
a great sigh, a creaking of unwilling springs, complaining bolts,
and harshly expostulating axle, we moved away. Rather the hotel
door slipped behind, the sound of the piano sank to rest, and
the night and its shadows moved solemnly upon us.
To say it was dark expressed but faintly the pitchy obscurity
that encompassed the vehicle. The roadside trees were scarcely
distinguishable as deeper masses of shadow; I knew them only
by the peculiar sodden odor that from time to time sluggishly
flowed in at the open window as we rolled by. We proceeded
slowly; so leisurely that, leaning from the carriage, I more
than once detected the fragrant sigh of some astonished cow,
whose ruminating repose upon the highway we had ruthlessly
disturbed. But in the darkness our progress, more the guidance
of some mysterious instinct than any apparent volition of our
own, gave an indefinable charm of security to our journey, that
a moment's hesitation or indecision on the part of the driver
would have destroyed.
I had indulged a hope that in the empty vehicle I might obtain
that rest so often denied me in its crowded condition. It was
a weak delusion. When I stretched out my limbs it was only to
find that the ordinary conveniences for making several people
distinctly uncomfortable were distributed throughout my
individual frame. At last, resting my arms on the straps, by
dint of much gymnastic effort I became sufficiently composed
to be aware of a more refined species of torture. The springs
of the stage, rising and falling regularly, produced a rhythmical
beat, which began to painfully absorb my attention. Slowly this
thumping merged into a senseless echo of the mysterious female
of the hotel parlor, and shaped itself into this awful and
benumbing axiom--"Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace.
Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace." Inequalities of the road
only quickened its utterance or drawled it to an exasperating
length.
It was of no use to seriously consider the statement. It was of
no use to except to it indignantly. It was of no use to recall
the many instances where praise to the face had redounded to
the everlasting honor of praiser and bepraised; of no use to
dwell sentimentally on modest genius and courage lifted up and
strengthened by open commendation; of no use to except to the
mysterious female,--to picture her as rearing a thin-blooded
generation on selfish and mechanically-repeated axioms,--all this
failed to counteract the monotonous repetition of this sentence.
There was nothing to do but to give in, and I was about to accept
it weakly, as we too often treat other illusions of darkness and
necessity, for the time being, when I became aware of some other
annoyance that had been forcing itself upon me for the last few
moments. How quiet the driver was!
Was there any driver? Had I any reason to suppose that he was
not lying, gagged and bound on the roadside, and the highwayman
with blackened face, who did the thing so quietly, driving me--whither?
The thing is perfectly feasible. And what is this fancy now
being jolted out of me? A story? It's of no use to keep it
back, particularly in this abysmal vehicle, and here it comes:
I am a Marquis--a French Marquis; French, because the peerage is
not so well known, and the country is better adapted to romantic
incident--a Marquis, because the democratic reader delights in
the nobility. My name is something ligny. I am coming from Paris
to my country seat at St. Germain. It is a dark night, and I fall
asleep and tell my honest coachman, Andre, not to disturb me,
and dream of an angel. The carriage at last stops at the chateau.
It is so dark that when I alight, I do not recognize the face of
the footman who holds the carriage door. But what of that?--peste!
I am heavy with sleep. The same obscurity also hides the old
familiar indecencies of the statues on the terrace; but there is
a door, and it opens and shuts behind me smartly. Then I find
myself in a trap, in the presence of the brigand who has quietly
gagged poor Andre and conducted the carriage thither. There is
nothing for me to do, as a gallant French Marquis, but to say,
"Parbleu!" draw my rapier, and die valorously! I am found, a week
or two after, outside a deserted cabaret near the barrier, with
a hole through my ruffled linen, and my pockets stripped. No; on
second thoughts, I am rescued,--rescued by the angel I have been
dreaming of, who is the assumed daughter of the brigand, but the
real daughter of an intimate friend.
Looking from the window again, in the vain hope of distinguishing
the driver, I found my eyes were growing accustomed to the
darkness. I could see the distant horizon, defined by India-inky
woods, relieving a lighter sky. A few stars, widely spaced in this
picture, glimmered sadly. I noticed again the infinite depth of
patient sorrow in their serene faces; and I hope that the vandal
who first applied the flippant "twinkle" to them may not be driven
melancholy-mad by their reproachful eyes. I noticed again the
mystic charm of space that imparts a sense of individual solitude
to each integer of the densest constellation, involving the
smallest star with immeasurable loneliness. Something of this
calm and solitude crept over me, and I dozed in my gloomy cavern.
When I awoke the full moon was rising. Seen from my window, it
had an indescribably unreal and theatrical effect. It was the
full moon of Norma--that remarkable celestial phenomenon which
rises so palpably to a hushed audience and a sublime andante
chorus, until the Casta Diva is sung--the "inconstant moon"
that then and thereafter remains fixed in the heavens as though
it were a part of the solar system inaugurated by Joshua. Again
the white-robed Druids filed past me, again I saw that improbable
mistletoe cut from that impossible oak, and again cold chills
ran down my back with the first strain of the recitative. The
thumping springs essayed to beat time, and the private-box-like
obscurity of the vehicle lent a cheap enchantment to the view.
But it was a vast improvement upon my past experience, and I
hugged the fond delusion.
My fears for the driver were dissipated with the rising moon.
A familiar sound had assured me of his presence in the full
possession of at least one of his most important functions.
Frequent and full expectoration convinced me that his lips
were as yet not sealed by the gag of highwaymen, and soothed
my anxious ear. With this load lifted from my mind, and assisted
by the mild presence of Diana, who left, as when she visited
Endymion, much of her splendor outside my cavern,--I looked
around the empty vehicle. On the forward seat lay a woman's
hairpin. I picked it up with an interest that, however, soon
abated. There was no scent of the roses to cling to it still,
not even of hair oil. No bend or twist in its rigid angles
betrayed any trait of its wearer's character. I tried to think
that it might have been "Mariar's." I tried to imagine that,
confining the symmetrical curls of that girl, it might have
heard the soft compliments whispered in her ears, which provoked
the wrath of the aged female. But in vain. It was reticent and
unswerving in its upright fidelity, and at last slipped listlessly
through my fingers.
I had dozed repeatedly,--waked on the threshold of oblivion by
contact with some of the angles of the coach, and feeling that
I was unconsciously assuming, in imitation of a humble insect
of my childish recollection, that spherical shape which could
best resist those impressions, when I perceived that the moon,
riding high in the heavens, had begun to separate the formless
masses of the shadowy landscape. Trees isolated, in clumps and
assemblages, changed places before my window. The sharp outlines
of the distant hills came back, as in daylight, but little softened
in the dry, cold, dewless air of a California summer night. I was
wondering how late it was, and thinking that if the horses of the
night travelled as slowly as the team before us, Faustus might have
been spared his agonizing prayer, when a sudden spasm of activity
attacked my driver. A succession of whip-snappings, like a pack of
Chinese crackers, broke from the box before me. The stage leaped
forward, and when I could pick myself from under the seat, a long
white building had in some mysterious way rolled before my window.
It must be Slumgullion! As I descended from the stage I addressed
the driver:
"I thought you changed horses on the road?"
"So we did. Two hours ago."
"That's odd. I didn't notice it."
"Must have been asleep, sir. Hope you had a pleasant nap.
Bully place for a nice quiet snooze--empty stage, sir!"
~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~
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