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Chapter IV.

Some weeks — a whole month — passed; matters gradually becoming worse and more complicated, when suddenly the storm-cloud burst. A simple thing brought it about.

There was “a dance” at the “General Store.” A circumstance, sufficient in that quiet community to incite the whole population to deeds of “derring-do,” had occurred. The occasion was this: The proprietor of the establishment known by the above designation—who was a dealer in all kinds of wares, from mousetraps to muslins, and from sugar to shovels, and was also, not altogether unjustly, accredited with supplying ardent liquors, under the rose—had enlarged his mind and his premises to the extent of building a new store, constructed of real weather-boards, primarily of Baltic construction, and “packed,” at great expense, from the township at the foot of the ranges. To celebrate the event he invited all his friends and customers (synonymous terms, by the way) to assist in a “Grand Opening Ball.” And, nothing loath, they came, and came punctually to the time, thereby setting a good example to their betters in the social scale, who delight, in ball-room or church, to come late, and so attract attention — a very different thing from respect, my friends.

They were there in great force—the men and women of the Terraces. Not attired in faultless evening costume, but yet in their best, which, as often, as not, consisted of blue shirts and moleskin continuations for the gentlemen, and cotton gowns for the page 26 ladies. Of little concern was this to them. Had their mortal frames been encased in broadcloth and silk, it would not have altered their natures, nor increased their enjoyment one whit. Some of the women brought their babies with them, but there was always a kind friend to hold them when their mothers participated in the dance; and some of the men brought their pipes, but they politely laid them aside when they led out their partners.

There was music too, and very good of its kind. Two violins, a clarionet, and a cornet had been mustered for the occasion; and the performers were much more skilful and efficient than my town-dwelling readers may suppose. It was considered proper and decorous by the Master of the Ceremonies to open the “Ball” with a quadrille; but round dances, you may be sure, were the order of the night. The “mazy waltz” was the favourite,—

“But horn pipes, jigs, strathepeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels,”

and one and all footed it merrily, and, truth to tell, somewhat tumultuously, only pausing occasionally for the gentlemen to assist the ladies to refreshments after the most approved mode.

Handsome George was there, in his best “warpaint,” gaily flirting with maids and matrons, but chiefly paying his attentions to Mary Austin, who waltzed, and jigged, and reeled with him to his heart's content. Never had she looked more lovely than now, when whirling around in a gauzy texture, of some name unknown to me, she lent the innocent enthusiasm of her young life to the ephemeral mirth of an evening, long to be remembered. She was the belle, and George was the beau of the ball. And Dusky Jim was there, moody and silent, sitting in corners, and dancing not at all. And Bess Humphreys was there, not dancing, but refusing, indeed, all invitations to join in the active festivities of the night. Once George approached her, and, serenely smiling, said, “May I have the pleasure of the next dance with you, Miss Humphreys?”

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Her eyebrows vibrated, and her nostrils dilated, as she looked steadily at him, “curving a contumelious lip” with a look which should have “Gorgonised him, to borrow the poet-laureate's phrase.

“No, I cannot; thou knows I cannot; thou knows why I cannot. But, George; keep thee away from that wench of Austin's. I cannot abide to see thee with her so much.”

“Don't be foolish, Bess.”—That was all his reply; and then he left her again to seek the more congenial society of Mary Austin: and the Promethean vulture went on with his work.

“On with the dance.” Jim grew moodier still, and Bess more miserable. Both followed the motions of the dancers with their eyes,—Jim with utter despair depicted in his—Bess with wrath gleaming from hers.

Presently there was a lull in the festivities, and George went forth. Jim followed him.

Jim's demeanour had not been unobserved. “I think there's something up between those fellows,” said one onlooker.

“I'm certain sure there is,” said another.

“What's the matter?” asked a third.

“Oh, Dusky Jim was always a sulky brute!” exclaimed a fourth. And thus the comments went on. Only one voice pleaded for poor Jim.

“I am quite sure it is not Trevanna's fault it anything is amiss.”

It was the voice of Mary Austin.

The night was calm and still, as the day had been; but heavy clouds obscured the sky and hid the stars from view. The river rushed and roared in the gorge below, with a sullen murmur, rising and falling, as the current of air created by its own motion varied. The sounds of revelry had temporarily ceased, though yet the merry laughter echoed from within the store. “George” cried Jim Trevanna, and his voice was that of plaintive entreaty—

“What the deuce do you want?” exclaimed George, page 28 turning fiercely upon him. “Why do you dog my footsteps in this way?”

“Perhaps because I am a dog, and want to warn you. You must not carry on as you are doing with Miss Mary. You must not, and you shall not, George, and I tell you so.”

“You tell me so! Do you, now? This is too good, Jim. Are you in love with her yourself? Do you think for a moment such a pretty girl as that would ever care for a fellow like you? You had better go home and put your stupid head under the blankets.”

Jim made no answer. He could not endure his pain and speak; so he turned on his heel and walked away, followed by a mocking laugh from George, who sauntered slowly towards the “Scotchman” rock.

“Poor little Mary,” soliloquised Jim, “she is so good and so innocent; and he cares nothing for her except as a toy, to be played with, and broken and thrown away. The Lord help her. It seems I can't do anything, and he—he will do with her as he has done with the other. Why can't Ned see it, I wonder?”

His soul filled with miserable fancies and forebodings of evil, he groped his way feebly along for a hundred yards or more. Then he turned, thinking to go back to the Store. As he did so he saw that which shocked and almost stunned him. A woman—her drapery proclaimed her sex—came quickly from the rear of the store; and as she flitted athwart the open space in front, the lights from the windows disclosed that she wore a white hood. One moment—less—she was thus revealed to him; then she passed into the darkness, pursuing the direction previously taken by George.

Apparently it was an assignation at which he had, unwillingly and unwittingly, “assisted.”

Jim Trevanna fell on his face, upon the earth. “Oh, Lord! that it should ever come to this!” he cried in his agony, “I did think there was one good woman page 29 left on the earth since my mother died; and now I don't and never shall again. Oh, good Lord! that she—she—that child, that I thought so good—that she should ever come to this. Heaven have mercy on her! I can never bear to look on her face any more!”

After a while he picked himself up, and blindly, tearfully stumbled, rather than walked towards his hut. The dark, cloud-encumbered night was so much in consonance with his feelings, that he instinctively hailed it as in some sort a relief to his misery; to which for a brief space he felt almost reconciled; as men—aye, and women also—do oft-times force themselves to be reconciled to the inevitable. Then again it pressed upon him with irresistible force.

“George!” (he was apostrophising his absent mate) “George! I have loved you as a brother, but by the God above us, if you deceive that girl, I'll kill you —I will—I'll kill you!”

The latter words he uttered in a loud tone, raising his clenched fists as he did so. He did not see—he was too stupified by his passion of love and misery to see or hear two men, who just then passed him in the darkness.

Said one of them, “Did you hear that? Who is it?”

Said the other, “Why that's Dusky Jim. Guess he's been liquoring up too much.”

“Just so,” said the first speaker; “That's always the way with that sort of fellow; 'tis either a drunk or a drought.”

And they went gaily on, and joined in the dance at the Store,——wherefore not? Wherefore should they halt, or stay their enjoyment merely because a brother was perishing for want of a sympathetic word? There was no reason why they should; nevertheless, had they done so, and remained with Jim for a few minutes much wretchedness might possibly have been spared to some of those whose story I am telling.

Jim sat down on a projecting boulder-stone, and buried his face in his hands. Presently he got up, and page 30 paced to and fro; then he sat down again. He derived no comfort from these changes of position; but mere motion was a necessity to him. The strains of the dance music rose and fell on the night air; and the symphonious tread of the dancers' feet came cheerily on the ear, but he heeded not. He could think of nothing but Mary, his beloved one—for in this, his hour of agony, the truth would not be denied, nor put aside— he could think, I say, only of her—could picture nothing to himself, but his secretly worshipped “White Hood,” and Handsome George. What need to speculate on the quips and cranks, and turns that the poor fellow's fancies took during those wretched moments; moments which seemed lengthened out to hours of agony, such as the Procrustean bed could never have inflicted.

How long this agony was protracted he never knew. All at once there rang out on the still air the sharp crack of a pistol shot.

Now a shot, more or less, was not an unusual occurence in those days; most of the miners kept guns or pistols for the protection of their houses and their tail-races, both of which were liable to be invaded occasionally by the members of that promiscuous class who do not much care to live by “honest labour.” Occasionally the weapons were discharged for the purpose of cleaning them; therefore none of the revellers took notice of this particular shot. As for Jim Trevanna, the only effect it had was to rouse him sufficiently to induce him to get up from the boulder, and go on to his hut.

Without undressing, he threw himself on his bed. He offered up no prayer; be besought no blessing. All he said was—“Poor little Mary!—And I love you so!”

When man or woman is in earnest, few and scant are the words they utter. Effusiveness is but the outcome of falsehood and hyprocrisy. What can equal the intensity of that little phrase—“I love you?” Only one verb and two pronouns, my friends; but can the poetic wealth of Homer or Virgil surpass it?

Jim loved Mary with that love which alone is true, page 31 being neither sensuous nor sensual;—a love that few women and still fewer men ever experience;—a love which once conceived is insusceptible of change or decay, and which never comes twice in a life-time to any. And therewithal he was jealous, with that fierce jealously which deems even the impress of another's lips on the loved one's hand an outrage and a sacrilege.

And now White Hood was with Handsome George, the man whom weak women petted and admired, and brothers and lovers shunned, and husbands regarded with holy hatred. Had he not cause for his jealousy?

He could not rest; sleep would not visit him. He rose from the bed and went forth.

Still from the dance-room came faintly the sounds of harp and violin, of clarionet and cornet, and still the many twinkling feet kept concord. He looked around. The clouds had parted, and through the rifts appeared the Southern Cross, and belted Orion shone triumpphantly. The melancholy wekas were calling to each other on the river bank, and the early village cocks were hailing the coming dawn with lusty rivalry. Moved by what impulse he knew not, he went back to the Store. But when he approached the door he could not enter. The sweet sounds of the music were discordant to him in his then mood. All things were displeasing. He seemed hateful to himself. Why was I ever born?” he muttered. “And born so badly. Surely they might have done better.”

By “they” he meant his immediate progenitors, on whose shoulders he was wont to lay the blame of his physical shortcomings. Parents have much to answer for to their children; a fact which the world has not yet fully realist, as it will some day, when the breeding of human beings comes to be considered as of equal importance with the breeding of cattle. The principle of natural selection does not always include the selection of the fittest.

Jim wandered to and fro—to and fro, with devious and uncertain steps, not heeding whither he went. As page 32 the daylight increased, paling the “ineffectual fires” of the lamps, the dancers began to emerge from the Store, and wend their way homeward. As they passed, many spoke to him, and gave him, “Good morning;” but he answered them not at all. Troubled by tumultuous thoughts he kept on his way “muttering his wayward fancies to himself.” A sudden gust of air blew off his hat, and sportively whirled it away in the direction of the “Scotchman.” He followed it listlessly, and turning a jutting corner of the rocks, perceived a man lying face downwards on the ground.—“Happy devil!” —he cried.——“Blest if I don't think I'll get tight myself.”

He thought it was one of the revellers, who had been drinking “not wisely, but too well,” and was sleeping off the effects of his debauch. But when he approached more near, he saw to his great horror that it was George Gifford, lying in a pool of blood; and his horror was intensified when he observed the white hood, tightly clenched in George's hand.

“Oh my good Lord!” he cried. “What does this mean? Surely—surely he must have wronged her wickedly, before that sweet, innocent girl could have done such a thing as this.”

His first impulse was to disengage the hood from George's hand and secrete it in his bosom. As he did so some drops of blood fell on his clothing, but he never noticed them. His only thought was how to screen Mary.

Then he turned the body over, and felt for the beating of the heart. Yes, it was still beating, though very faintly. “Thank God!” he whispered.

As he was still bending over it, some men came by.

“Hullo! what's up, mate?”—they asked in a breath.

“I don't know. I think George has been shot,” he answered.

“Shot? yes; I should say so,” cried one. “And here's the pistol”—(it was lying near the body with one chamber discharged.) “Why, it's Gifford's own page 33 revolver. I've seen it many a time, and here's his initials—‘G. G.’—on the butt.”

“And here's your hat Jim,” said another, handing it to him. “And man alive, there's blood on your shirt.”

Jim looked, and saw a great red stain on the bosom of the white shirt, which he had donned in honour of the ball. But he said nought. Was not the white hood resting on his heart?