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Page 10
"Yes, as you say, society is becoming very mixed and frivolous
everywhere, and you'd scarcely know San Francisco now. So
delighted, however, to have made your acquaintance, and regret my
business prevents my waiting to see your good husband. So odd that
I should have known your Aunt Jemima! But, as you say, the world
is very small, after all. I shall tell the deacon how well you are
looking,--in spite of the kitchen smoke in your eyes. Good-by! A
thousand thanks for your hospitality."
And Jack, bowing profoundly to the ground, backed out upon Jane,
the hired man, and the expressman, treading, I grieve to say, with
some deliberation upon the toes of the two latter, in order,
possibly, that in their momentary pain and discomposure they might
not scan too closely the face of this ingenious gentleman, as he
melted into the night and the storm.
Jane entered, with a slight toss of her head.
"Here's your expressman,--ef you're wantin' him NOW."
Mrs. Rylands was too preoccupied to notice her handmaiden's
significant emphasis, as she indicated a fresh-looking, bashful
young fellow, whose confusion was evidently heightened by the
unexpected egress of Mr. Hamlin, and the point-blank presence of
the handsome Mrs. Rylands.
"Oh, certainly," said Mrs. Rylands quickly. "So kind of him to
oblige us. Give him the order, Jane, please."
She turned to escape from the kitchen and these new intruders, when
her eye fell upon the coin left by Mr. Hamlin. "The gentleman
wished you to take that for your trouble, Jane," she said hastily,
pointing to it, and passed out.
Jane cast a withering look after her retreating skirts, and picking
the coin from the table, turned to the hired man. "Run to the
stable after that dandified young feller, Dick, and hand that back
to him. Ye kin say that Jane Mackinnon don't run arrants fur
money, nor play gooseberry to other folks fur fun."
PART II
Mr. Joshua Rylands had, according to the vocabulary of his class,
"found grace" at the age of sixteen, while still in the spiritual
state of "original sin" and the political one of Missouri. He had
not indeed found it by persistent youthful seeking or spiritual
insight, but somewhat violently and turbulently at a camp-meeting.
A village boy, naturally gentle and impressible, with an original
character,--limited, however, in education and experience,--he had,
after his first rustic debauch with some vulgar companions, fallen
upon the camp-meeting in reckless audacity; and instead of being
handed over to the district constable, was taken in and placed upon
"the anxious bench," "rastled with," and exhorted by a strong
revivalist preacher, "convicted of sin," and--converted! It is
doubtful if the shame of a public arrest and legal punishment would
have impressed his youthful spirit as much as did this spiritual
examination and trial, in which he himself became accuser.
Howbeit, its effect, though punitive, was also exemplary. He at
once cast off his evil companions; remaining faithful to his
conversion, in spite of their later "backslidings." When, after
the Western fashion, the time came for him to forsake his father's
farm and seek a new "quarter section" on some more remote frontier,
he carried into that secluded, lonely, half-monkish celibacy of
pioneer life--which has been the foundation of so much strong
Western character--more than the usual religious feeling. At once
industrious and adventurous, he lived by "the Word," as he called
it, and Nature as he knew it,--tempted by none of the vices or
sentiments of civilization. When he finally joined the Californian
emigration, it was not as a gold-seeker, but as a discoverer of new
agricultural fields; if the hardship was as great and the rewards
fewer, he nevertheless knew that he retained his safer isolation
and independence of spirit. Vice and civilization were to him
synonymous terms; it was the natural condition of the worldly and
unregenerate. Such was the man who chanced to meet "Nell
Montgomery, the Pearl of the Variety Stage," on the Sacramento
boat, in one of his forced visits to civilization. Without knowing
her in her profession, her frank exposition of herself did not
startle him; he recognized it, accepted it, and strove to convert
it. And as long as this daughter of Folly forsook her evil ways
for him, it was a triumph in which there was no shame, and might be
proclaimed from the housetop. When his neighbors thought
differently, and avoided them, he saw no inconsistency in bringing
his wife's old friends to divert her: she might in time convert
THEM. He had no more fear of her returning to their ways than he
had of himself "backsliding." Narrow as was his creed, he had none
of the harshness nor pessimism of the bigot. With the keenest
self-scrutiny, his credulity regarding others was touching.
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