LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2047, 15 September 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A MO3TE FLAT PASTORAL. HOW OID MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. Ev Beet Haute. ( Concluded.) ‘Gimme some whiskey,’ ha said presently, ‘ and dry up. Yon onghter treat anyway. Them fellows oughter treated last n'ght. By hookey I’d made ’em—only I fell sick.’ York placed the liquor and a tin cup on the table beside him, and going to the door turned his back upon his guest and looked out on the night, Although it was clear moonlight the familiar prospect never to him seemed so dreary. The dead waste of the broad Wingdam highway never seemed so monotonous —so like the days that he had passed and were to come to him—so like the old man in its suggestion of going sometime and never getting there. He turned,, and going up to Plunkett put his hand upon his shotl ler and said—

‘ 1 wont you to answer one question fairly and squarely— The liquor seemed to have warmed the torpid blood in the old man’s veins and softened his acerbity, for the face he turned up to York was mellowed in its rugged outline and more thoughtful in its expression, as he said—‘Go on, my boy.’ * Have you a wife and—daughter 2’ ‘Before God I have!’ The two men were silent for a moment; both gazing at the fire. Then Plunkett began rubbing his knees slowly. ‘ The wife, it it comes to that, ain’t much,’ he began cautiously, ‘ being a little on the shoulder, you know, and wantin’, so to speak, a liberal California education—which makes, you know, a bad combination. It’s always been my opinion that there ain’t any worse. Why, she’s as ready with her tongue as Abner Dean is with his revolver only with the difference she shoots from principle, ae she calls it, and Ihe consequence is she’s always layin’ for you. It’s the effete East, my boy, that’s ruinin’ her —it’s them ideas she gets in New York and Boston that’s made her and me what we are. I don’t mind her havin’ ’em if she didn’t shoot. But havin’ that that propensity, them principles oughtn’t to be lying round loose no more’n firearms.’

‘But your daughter ?’ said Yo^k. The old man’s hands went up to his eyes here, and tbeu both hands and head dropped forward on the table.

* Don’t eay anything ’bout her, my boy j don’t ask me now— ’

With one hand concealing his eyrs ha fumbled about with the other in his pockets for his handkerchief but vainly. Perhaps it was owing to this fact that he repressed his tears, for when he removed his hand from his eyes they were quite dry. Then he found bis voice.

‘ She’s a beautiful girl, beautiful—though I say it, and yon shall sea her, my boy, yon shall see her, sure. I’ve got things abont fixed now. I shall huve my plan for reducin’ ores perfected tn a day or two, and I’ve got proposals from all the smeltin’ works hero.’ Here he hastily produced a bundle of papers that foil upon the floor. ‘ and I’m going to send for ’em. I’ve got th s papers here as will give me 10,000 dols clear in the next month,’ he added, as he strove to collect the valuable documents again. I’ll have ’em here by Christmas, if I live, and you shall eat your Christmas dinner with me, York, my boy,—you shall, sure,’ With his tongue now fairly loosened by liquor and the suggestive vaatness of his prospects, he rambled on more or less incoherently, elaborating and amplifying his plans—occasionally even speaking ot them as already accomplished—until the moon rode high in the heavens, fand York [led him again to his conch. Here he lay for some time muttering to himself, nntil at last he sank into a heavy sleep. When York had satisfied himself of the fact he gently took down the picture and frame, and, going to hearth, tossed them on the dying embers, and sat down to see them burn.

The fir cones leaped instantly into flames ; then the features that had entranced .San Francisco audiences nightly flashed up and pa-aed away- as such things are apt to pass —and even the cynical smile on York’s lips faded too. And then there came a supplemental and unexpected flash as the embers fell together, and by its light York saw a paper upon the floor. It was one that had fallen from the old man’s pocket. As he picked it up listlessly a photograph slipped from its folds. It was the portrait of a young girl, and on its reverse was written, in a scrawling hand, “ Melinda to Father.” It was at beat a cheap picture, but ah me 1 I fear even the deft graciousness of the highest art could not have softened tho rigid angularities of that youthful figure, its self-complacent vulgarity, Its cheap finery, its expressionless ill-favor. York did not look at the second time. He turned to the letter for relief.

It was misspelled, it was unparctuated, it was almost illegible, it was fretful in tone and selfish in sentiment. It was not, I fear, even original in the story I 'of its woes. It was the harsh recital of poverty, of suapicion, of mean makeshifts and compromises, of low pains and lower longings, of sorrows that were degrading, of a grief that was pitiable. Vet it was sincere in a certain kind of vague yearning for the presence of the degraded man to whom it was written—an affection that was more like a confused instinct than a sentiment.

York folded it again carefully and placed it beneath the old man’s pillow. Then he returned to h'a seat by the fire. A smile that had been playing upon his face, deepening the curves behind his moustache and gradually over-running his clear brown eyes, presently faded away. It was last to go from his eyes, and it left there—oddly enough to thore who did not know him—a tear.

He sat there for a long time, leaning forward, his bead upon hia hands. The wind that had been striving with the canvas roof all at once lifted its edges, and a moonbeam slipped suddenly in, and lay for a moment like a shining blade upon hia shoulder. And, knighted by its touch, straightway plain Henry York arose—sustained, high-pur-posed, and self-reliant.

The rains had come at last. There was already a visible greenness on the slopes of Heavytree Hill, and tho long white track of tho Wingdam road was lost in out’ying pools and ponds a hundred reds from Monte Flat The spent watercourses, whose white bones had been sinuously trailed over the flat, like the vertebra) of some forgotten saurian, were full again ; tho dry bones moved once more in the valley, and there was joy in the ditches, and a pardonable extravagance in the columns of the ‘‘Monte Flat Monitor.” “ Never before in the history of the country has the yield been so satisfactory. Onr contemporary of the ‘Hillside beacon,* who yesterday facetiously alluded to the fact (?) that onr beat citizens were leaving town, in ‘dng-onts,’ on account of the flood, will be glad to hear that cur distinguished followtownsman. Mr Henry York, now on a visit to his relatives in the East, lately took with him, in hia ‘dug-out,’ tho modest sum of 50 OOOdols., thereanlt of one week’s clean-up. Wo can imagine,” continued that sprightly journal, “that no such misfortune is likely to overtake Hillside this season. And yet we believe the ‘ Beacon ’ man wants a railroad.” A few journals broke out into poetry. 1 ho operator at Simpson’s Crossing telegraphed to the Sacramento ‘ Universe ’ : “All day the low clouds have sho k their garnered fullness down. ” A SanvFraucisco journal lapsed into noble vereo, thinly disguised as editorial prose:—“Rejoice, tho gentle rain has come, the bright and pearly rain, which scatters blessings on the hills and sifts them o’er the plain. Rejoice, &o.” Indeed, there was only 1 one to whom therein had not brought blessing, and that was Plunkett. In some mysterious and darksome way, it bad interfered with the perfection of his new method cf reducing ores, and thrown the advent of that invention back another season. It had brought him down to an habitual seat in the bar-room, where, to heedless and inattentive ears, ho sat and discoursed of the East and hia family. No one disturbed him. Indeed, it was rumored that some funds had been lodged with the landlord by a person or persona unknown, whereby his few wants were provided for, Hia mania—for that was the charitable construction which Monte Flat put upon his conduct —was indulged, even to the extent of Monte Flat’s accepting hia invitation to dine with hia family on Christmas Day—an invitation extended frankly to everyone with whem the old msn drunk or

talked. But one day, to everybody’s astonishment, he burst into tho bar-room, holding an open letter in hla hand. It read as follows :

* Be ready to meet your family at the new cottage on Heavytree Hill on Christmas Day. Invite what friends you choose. Henby York.’

The letter was handed round in silence. The old man, with a look alternating between hope and fear, gazed in the faces of the group. The doctor looked up significantly alter a pause, ‘ It's a forgery, evidently,’ he said in a low voics; ‘he’s cunning enough to conceive it —they always are—hat you’ll find he’ll fail in executing it. Watch his face! Old man.’ he said suddenly, in a loud, peremptory tone, ‘ this is a trick—a forgery —and you know it. Answer me squarely, and loo lr me in the eye. Isn’t it so ?’ Tho eyes of Plunkett stared a moms and then dropped weakly. Then, with a feebler smile, he said—‘You’re too many for me, boys The Doc’s right. The little game’s up. You can take the old man’s hat.’

And so, tottering, trembling, and chuckling, he dropped ioto silence and his accustomed seat. But the next day he seemed to have forgotten this episode, and talked as glibly as ever of the approaching festivity. And so the days and weeks passed until Christmas —a bright clear day, warmed wita south winds, and joyous with the resurrection of springing grasses—broke upon Monte Flat, And then there was a sudden commotion in the hotel bar room, and Abner Dean stood beside the old man’s chair, and shook him out of a slumber to his feet.

‘Bouse np, old man ; York is here, with your wife and daughter at the cottage on Heavytree. Come, old man. Here, boys, give him a lift.’ And in another moment a dezen strong and willing hands had raised the old man, and bore him in triumph to the street, up the steep grade of Heavytree Hill, and deposited him, struggling and confused, iu the porch of a little cottage. At the same instant two women rushed forward, but were restrained by a gesture from Henry York. Tho old man was struggling to his feet. With an effort, at last he stood erect, trembling, his eyes fixed, a gray pallor on his cheek, and a deep resonance in his voice.

* It’s all a trick and a lie ! They ain’t no flesh and blood or kin o’ mine. It ain’t _my wife nor child. My daughter’s a beautiful girl—a beautiful girl—d’ye hear ? She’a_ in New York with her mother, and I’m going to fetch her here. I said I’d go home, and I’ve been home—d'ye hear me? —I’ve been home! It’s a mean trick you’re playin’ on the old man. Let me go—d’ye hear ? Keep them women off me! Let me go I I'm going—l’m going home!’ His hands were thrown up convulsively in the air, and, half turning round, ho fell sideways on the porch, and so to the ground. They picked him up hurriedly ; but too late. He had gone homo.